The grid held through January’s Arctic blast with no significant disruptions to gas or electric systems

The federal review of last winter’s extreme cold reached a plain verdict: no significant disruptions in either the natural gas or electric systems. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation released that finding on September 10, 2026, after studying Winter Storms Fern and Gianna, the Arctic outbreaks that tested the bulk-power system earlier in the year.

The wording is the review’s own.

Winter Storm Fern and the January orders

Fern struck in late January. The Department of Energy’s own January 25, 2026 announcement of emergency orders for New England and Texas described the storm as bringing extreme cold and dangerous conditions across the country, and the department said the orders were meant to help grid operators manage demand and prevent blackouts. The orders covered ISO New England and ERCOT, with the Texas order running January 25 through 27. Operators in both regions faced extreme temperatures and storm impacts across the Northeast and Texas, which is the context in which the later review judged the system’s performance. A winter event judged months afterward, with the data gathered and the grid already past it, is the kind of finding that can be dated cleanly: Fern was a January 2026 storm, and the verdict is from September 10.

The FERC-NERC review treats Fern and Gianna together as the winter’s extreme cold events. The FERC announcement is titled “Bulk Power System Performed Well During Winter 2026 Arctic Weather,” and says the system demonstrated strong performance during the extreme cold earlier this year. According to the FERC release, the joint review was launched in March, after both storms had passed, and the findings were published in September.

Gas production, force majeure and generator outages

On the natural gas side, the FERC news release reports only moderate production declines and some limited, short-duration force majeure events. On the electric side, it reports no significant disruptions. Industrial Info Resources adds that the system weathered prolonged Arctic cold without manual load shedding, an improvement over earlier events, while generator outages remained substantial and were comparable to those seen in January 2025.

FERC Chairman Laura Swett said in the release that the findings demonstrate the criticality of FERC’s weather reviews, which she said both guide ongoing improvements and strengthen the bulk electric system’s resilience and reliability. NERC President and CEO Jim Robb said the winter showed that the steps industry has taken are making a difference, and that improved preparation and better coordination helped the Bulk-Power System perform well.

Preparation, standards and emergency orders

The release attributes the result to several factors: the application of insights from past cold weather events, generator commitments made in advance of the storms, strengthened preparedness and situational awareness, implementation of NERC’s cold weather reliability standards, and emergency orders from the Secretary of Energy that made additional resources available. T&D World lists the same five factors in its coverage of the review.

The emergency orders are the least routine of those. Under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, DOE can temporarily relax operating constraints so that plants can run harder or backup generation can be dispatched, and Industrial Info describes system operators as using a full toolbox of emergency declarations and those orders to hold margins together. That is a point in the system’s favor, and also a reminder that part of the margin was held together by extraordinary authority rather than ordinary operations. The review’s own list of remaining opportunities points the same way.

The release is accompanied by two documents, a presentation and a full report, both linked from FERC’s news page. Neither changes the one-line finding, but the report is where the storm-by-storm detail sits, including the gas production declines and the generator outage counts that the summary describes only in general terms. Readers looking for a specific utility’s or region’s experience would need to go to that report rather than rely on the summary, which speaks for the bulk-power system as a whole.

Gaps the regulators still list

The review does not declare the work finished. The release lists remaining opportunities in expanded natural gas infrastructure, closer coordination between the gas and electric industries, and better load forecasting. The American Public Power Association’s summary of the review repeats those same three areas and notes that the generator outage levels during Fern and Gianna were an improvement over earlier winter storms even as they matched January 2025.

The finding is therefore specific, and it is best stated in the words FERC and NERC chose. The two regulators say the bulk-power system avoided significant disruption in gas and electricity during these storms, and in the same document they say generator outages stayed high and gas-electric coordination remains a reliability concern. The report itself, linked from the FERC release page, is the place to check the storm-by-storm numbers.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.