The U.S. power grid faces the risk of blackouts over the next 10 years because of rising peak power demand, generator retirements and questions about the reliability of renewables and natural gas delivery systems, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) said Wednesday (Dec. 13).

“Environmental regulations and energy policies that are overly rigid and lack provisions for electric grid reliability have the potential to influence generators to seek deactivation despite a projected resource adequacy or operating reliability risk” and could be “potentially jeopardizing the orderly transition of the resource mix,” NERC researchers said.

NERC cited the risks of renewable energy additions that are dependent on weather and whose inverters that connect to the...