Conflicting political and market forces have created major uncertainty about what the next wave of generation project will look like in New England.

The North American grid made it through the winter storm of Jan. 24-26 — dubbed “Fern” by The Weather Channel — relatively unscathed, but the cold weather gripping much of the U.S. and Canada continues, and cold snaps in the future will still stress the interconnected power and natural gas systems.

After years of declining or stagnant power demand in New England, annual energy demand ticked up for the second straight year in 2025, potentially indicating the start of a broader upward trend.

Eversource Energy and National Grid introduced asset condition projects totaling about $110 million at the ISO-NE Planning Advisory Committee.

As extreme winter weather descended on the Eastern U.S. and Canada, Hydro-Québec suspended power exports to New England on the New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line because of reliability concerns in Québec.

The winter storm that moved through Texas and much of the Eastern Interconnection cut power to hundreds of thousands of people and stressed the bulk power system, but did not create major disruptions like other storms earlier this decade.

FERC partially granted a complaint by the New England Power Generators Association about the design of ISO-NE's Pay-for-Performance mechanism.

ISO-NE is reforming its approach to acquiring sufficient capacity, which has shaken things up considerably, writes columnist Peter Kelly-Detwiler.