Winter Storms Fern, Gianna Tested The Us Power Grid. 2027…

The U.S. power grid weathered Winter Storms Fern and Gianna without a significant reliability failure, but federal regulators aren’t cheering and calling it a victory lap.

The 2026 Arctic cold period delivered a warning: The grid held, but extreme weather is getting harder to manage as demand rises and power and natural gas systems become increasingly intertwined.

A joint FERC-NERC review, released this month, found the Bulk-Power System performed well, with no significant disruptions to either system.

The system was stressed. It held. For reals.

In the past 15 years, the Lower 48 experienced several extreme cold weather events that challenged grid and gas operations, including Winter Storm Uri in 2021, Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, and Winter Storms Blair, Cora, Demi and Enzo in 2025.

Each event pushed generators, grid operators and gas suppliers toward earlier and closer coordination.

The review found generator outages during Fern and Gianna were comparable in magnitude to outages during last year’s Arctic events. Unplanned generator outages peaked at 68,169 MW on Jan. 26, roughly in line with the 71,022 MW peak during the January 2025 Arctic events, according to federal regulators’ findings. However, overall system performance improved compared with previous major winter storms.

Several changes helped keep the lights on:

• Generators committed resources earlier ahead of the storms.
• Operators had better situational awareness.
• NERC’s cold-weather reliability standards were in place.
• Utilities applied lessons learned from previous winter events.
• Emergency orders from the U.S. Department of Energy made additional resources available.

Inside the plant fence

More than 3,000 generators logged nearly 17,000 forced outages, derates or failures to start during the cold period, according to the review.

Results varied by region. Peak outages in the Eastern Interconnection fell to 49,701 MW, down from 57,396 MW in January 2025 and 90,500 MW during Elliott. In Texas, outages rose to 19,472 MW from 13,990 MW a year earlier, and ERCOT’s wind outages more than doubled to 12,896 MW.

Thermal units carried the peak. During Fern’s highest-demand hour, gas-fired generation ran 84 GW above a typical winter hour, coal ran 40 GW above, and fuel oil 14 GW above.

TVA offered the clearest return on winterization spending. After Elliott, it invested about $100 million in freeze protection and physical hardening. During the cold period, its cold-related unit outages lasted 45 minutes to four hours rather than days. The failures that did occur traced to instrumentation, valve skids and airline valve controls, which TVA has since added to its cold-weather critical component list. TVA also test-ran its dual-fuel units on backup fuel last fall.

NYISO inspected generator sites before winter to verify weatherization. A utility in the VACAR South footprint credited heat tracing and wind-blocking structures installed after Elliott.

The event’s length created its own problems. Fast-start oil units in New England ran far longer than designed, and some nearly exhausted their demineralized water and ammonia. ISO-NE helped arrange demineralized water trailers from as far away as Seattle, the report noted.

ERCOT and PJM units also deferred planned maintenance to stay online, which the review said raised the risk of forced outages.

Natural gas system bent but delivered

The natural gas system also held up.

Dry gas production fell as much as 14% nationally, less than during Uri or Elliott, and force majeure events were limited and brief. Storage withdrawals of 359 Bcf in the week ending Jan. 30 tied the weekly record.

But the report’s message isn’t “problem solved.”

Both the electric and natural gas systems were stretched across multiple days.

NERC President and CEO Jim Robb said multiple reliability challenges brought the system “close to the edge.”

The next round of grid homework is already clear:

• More natural gas infrastructure
• Better coordination between the gas and electric sectors.
• Improved load forecasting.

The winter ahead won’t necessarily bring another Fern or Gianna, but the grid will be serving more electricity demand regardless of the weather.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects electricity sales to reach a record 4,135 billion kilowatt-hours before the end of the year, up nearly 2% from 2025. Sales are also forecasted to climb another 2% to 4,211 billion kWh next year. Data center development and increased manufacturing activity are driving much of that growth.

Generation is headed higher, too.

EIA forecasts U.S. electricity generation will rise 2.2% to a record 4,368 billion kWh in 2026, ed by another 1.7% increase in 2027.

MORE:Analysis & Projections – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Natural gas is expected to remain the largest generation source, accounting for about 40% of U.S. generation in both years.

That makes winter fuel security an increasingly important piece of the reliability puzzle.
The good news heading into winter: EIA expects U.S. natural gas storage to reach nearly 3.97 trillion cubic feet by the end of October — about 5% above the five-year average.

Rising production in the Permian and Haynesville regions is helping drive those inventory gains. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says El Niño is strengthening, with greater than a 90% chance of a “very strong” event during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter of 2026-27.

The agency also puts the odds of an El Niño event between October and the end of the year reaching historic strength — exceeding previous events dating to 1950 — at 75%.

NOAA cautions that even an event of that magnitude does not guarantee specific weather impacts.

So the grid gets another winter exam. This time, there’s more demand sitting in the classroom.

FERC and NERC’s takeaway from 2026 is straightforward: Preparation works.

Their other takeaway may matter more for 2027: The grid can’t assume the next extreme-weather event will be as forgiving.

Originally published in Factor This Power Engineering.