The Trump administration is floating the idea of using backup generators to add power to the electricity grid, in a bid to lower Americans’ utility bills.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright asserted on Tuesday that the country’s backup generators could contribute roughly 35 gigawatts of electricity, or enough to power tens of millions of homes. Such generators — which are often on site at big facilities like data centers, factories and hospitals — typically use diesel, natural gas and other fossil fuels such as propane.
“We have 35 gigawatts of backup generators that are sitting there today, and you can’t turn them on. That’s just nuts. Emissions rules or whatever … people, come on,” Wright said at the North American Gas Forum, organized by Energy Dialogues and held in Washington. “If we just turn those generators on for a few hours a year, we’ve expanded the capacity of our grid by 35 gigawatts. That’s massive.”
DOE did not respond to a request for comment and the data behind Wright’s estimate.
