Cybersecurity
- Congress passes legislation that will help American businesses respond to and administer cyber incidents: 30% likelihood
- CISA will continue to lead the effort to thwart cyber-crime by advancing effective methods that businesses can easily deploy: 90% likelihood • CISA will provide the cybersecurity baseline control guidance needed to protect critical infrastructure: 90% likelihood
- Government agencies will begin pilot implementations by the end of Summer 2022 to comply with Executive Order 14028: 70% likelihood
- NIST will continue to provide the practical guidance needed to implement Executive Order 14028 supply chain risk management across government, which CISA will use to direct cybersecurity policies: 100% likelihood
- More impactful ransomware and cyber incursion events will occur across key segments of critical infrastructure, including the electric grid, in 2022: 100% likelihood
- An effective solution to stop ransomware will be implemented across the American economy and society: likelihood 0%
- Hackers will stop using ransomware in their cyber-attacks: 0% likelihood
Climate Change
- Extreme weather events will continue to increase in intensity: 75% likelihood
- Extreme weather events will become more frequent through the remainder of this decade: 70% likelihood
- States will continue to promote decarbonization initiatives but will not meet their stated emission reduction targets: 90% likelihood
Energy Markets
- There will be more hours with negative energy prices in real-time wholesale energy markets as renewable generating supply increases: 85% likelihood
- Capacity payments will plummet as more resources participate in the wholesale capacity markets as a result of FERC Order 2222 and enhancements to MOPR rules: 80% likelihood
- Fossil fuel fired generators will struggle to make profits: 75% likelihood
- State and Federal regulators will reach a consensus on a just and reasonable capacity market design that satisfies State Energy Goals: 2% likelihood
- There will be no carbon tax applied to electricity in order to incentive electrification of transportation and HVAC applications: 65% likelihood
Grid Reliability and Resilience
- A national standard and framework for essential grid services will emerge in 2022: 90% likelihood
- Flexible resources that can respond quickly to operator dispatch instructions will be in greater demand in order to maintain grid reliability: 90% likelihood
- Demand Response resources will continue to provide essential grid services needed for reliability: 100% likelihood
- Much needed transmission capacity will be approved and construction will begin, at levels required to meet decarbonization goals set by States: 1% likelihood
- Small scale, safe nuclear powered generating solutions will become viable as a technology, but public perceptions of nuclear energy will remain skeptical, preventing broad adoption: 80% likelihood
- A total blackout will take down the entire US Grid: 0% likelihood
- A partial blackout will occur somewhere on the US Grid that will impact at least 500,000 customers: 70% likelihood
- A partial blackout will occur somewhere on the US Grid that will impact at least 3,000,000 customers: 2% likelihood