Essay by Eric Worrall
According to “Energy Innovation” and Telos Energy, California can improve grid stability and hit green energy targets by shutting down most remaining fossil fuel capacity, and fully committing to a green energy grid.
California Can Reliably Hit 85% Clean Energy By 2030 Without Risking Outages – En Route To A 100% Clean Grid
Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology Contributor
We Are A Nonpartisan Climate Policy Think Tank Helping Policymakers Make Informed Energy Policy Choices And Accelerate Clean Energy By Supporting The Policies That Most Effectively Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
Eric Gimon Contributor Senior Fellow
Power crises during California’s August 2020 heat waves raised questions about how reliable the state’s grid will be on the road to its target of 100% clean energy by 2045.
But new research provides clear answers: California can reliably achieve an 85% clean electricity grid by 2030 with a diverse mix of renewables and batteries, flexible demand, trade with neighboring states, and some existing power plants—under multiple build-out assumptions and possible future conditions. It turns out a cleaner grid is a more reliable grid.
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The technical report provides a novel methodology to help policymakers rapidly evaluate many future resource portfolios and assumptions to secure a future clean energy grid. By including scenarios and sensitivities that examine reliability using details like hourly wind and solar data matched to hourly demand data for eight possible years across the Western U.S., modelers can compare benefits of different resource portfolios relatively quickly and at low cost.
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An equitable clean electricity transition depends upon investing in, and creating markets for economically viable clean energy portfolios that help retire natural gas units harming California’s most pollution-burdened communities. A just transition for impacted communities also includes increasing community resiliency, building clean resources with job and economic benefits, and using local consultation in selecting new investments.
The technical study’s multiple scenarios found that the state’s grid would be reliable even after retiring 11.5 gigawatts (GW), or about one third of California’s existing gas capacity. Though beyond the scope of the technical study, the companion policy report recommends prioritizing retiring gas plants located near or in disadvantaged communities no later than 2030, while zeroing out the state’s reliance on gas as soon as possible. Some agencies including the CPUC, have made some progress with inclusivity and environmental justice, but stalled efforts to retire gas show there’s more work yet to do.
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Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2022/05/11/california-can-reliably-hit-85-clean-energy-by-2030-without-risking-outages–en-route-to-a-100-clean-grid/
The full report is available here – and – big surprise – it contains a bunch of weasel words.
“… There is a continued need for gas generation or economic imports to serve load from the summer through to winter. …”.
… While the study suggests a 85% clean electricity target can be reliable, further work should explore the impacts of transmission congestion through nodal analysis, and the impacts of inverter based resources on grid stability. …
What can I say. California seems utterly determined to be the next pauper state.
We’ve all read histories of the fall of the Roman Empire, Imperial China, or other great powers, and marvelled at the foolish decisions which led to collapse, but one thing which isn’t always clear from just reading the books is the momentum behind such foolishness, the depth, the sheer dogged determination of large groups of people to act against their own national interest. It is not just the leaders of failing states who make bad decisions, it is their entire support network, a juggernaut of arrogance and delusion, which leads to the ultimate downfall.
I think it is worth continuing to try. Sometimes nations on the brink make the right decisions, and pull back from disaster. Sometimes the emperor realises he has no clothes.
But anyone with an ounce of engineering talent can see where California’s ruinous policies could lead, the human tragedy in the making, how close California and other green states are to losing all the security and comfort their parents and grandparents worked their butts off to provide.
Greenies have taken a page from the Vietnam War general who said, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
To wit: “We have to destroy the electric grid in order to save it.”
It was a reporter that said that, not a general.
This California report was written by a bunch of clueless morons with zero knowledge of basic physics. Turning off Diabolo Canyon is grid suicide. I am afraid what is going to take is a terrible heat event to get their so-called minds right, and it may be this summer.
Eric is right, this is a Roman death spiral. Hopefully some of the contagion will be limited by the November election. Hopefully.
Could we get an opinion from a group that understands electrical generation and distribution rather than a bunch of “climate policy think tankers”?
No they are a non-think partisan group of climate nitwits with not an ounce of physics to trouble their severely limited neurons
What’s a realistic worst case for the good people of California if the destruction goes to plan? Week-long blackouts? Crippling prices?
What sort of time would it take once somebody sensible sought to restore some sanity before their grid could be called reliable again?
As I understand it, their grid is on its knees now, but the destruction continues, so I imagine it’s going to take longer and longer to restore it.
It’s going to take more than flicking on some breakers at the border to get the power back on, isn’t it? Are we talking years, decades?
Too bad these policy consultants don’t get paid based on how their advice and predictions pan out. The policy people tell the political people exactly what they want to hear. Then they cash their checks and skip town. Good luck to the average working schmuck in California stuck with high tax bills, high prices for everything and sitting in the dark without power.
Hell, California can hit 100% renewable energy by 2030 if they put their minds to it. Meaning they don’t ‘mind’ power rationing, power outages, sky high prices, and sitting in the dark. Such a small price to pay for the peace of mind that comes from knowing that their sacrifice makes not a bit of difference to the climate on a global scale.
“trade with other States” – that’s the one thing that keeps their grid from total collapse.
Time to “recycle” the transmission lines from Palo Verde, say I.
“… flexible demand …”. Guess what that means.
3 things…
1 – their economy will crash so they don’t need much energy
2 – I have a bridge for sale in AZ
3 – I hold an exclusive patent on a perpetual motion machine…
The bridge and machine are for sale…
I have to wonder if any of the Califailia government have realized that their power needs are going to be an order of magnitude higher by 2030 due to the need for desalination plants.
Energy Innovation and Telos Energy:”California can Hit 85% Renewable Energy by 2030″
Jen Psaki “there are no crack pipes in the free government smoke kit”
Said one democrat to another democrat in their secret pod group.
A lie will circle the world three times before the truth can be known.
The rate at which people are fleeing democrat California they may only need a dozen solar cells to power the state in 2030.
Did this TELOS group actually get paid for this report?
As long as they can suck hydro out of the Northwest and Nuclear out of AZ, they will be fine.
“An equitable clean electricity transition depends upon investing in, and creating markets for, economically viable clean energy portfolios that help retire natural gas units harming California’s most pollution-burdened communities. A just transition for impacted communities…”
**************
Every time I see the words “equitable” and “just” being used in a discussion about a transition to wind and solar energy, an alarm bell goes off in my head telling me that I am reading a piece with the holy gospel of Marxism lying just under the surface. It’s not that I don’t want a more equitable and just society. I do, and everybody else should too.
It just that it has been said for some time now that, after the collapse of the USSR, Marxists have been using environmentalism and the CAGW scare narratives as a pretext or smokescreen in an attempt to impose their ideology on free market Western societies. If this is indeed the case, they have been being pretty persistent about it. The fall of the Soviet Union was over 30 years ago.
Blending Marxism in with the CAGW and renewable energy narratives is quite sneaky and underhanded if nothing else. Any threat to either narrative probably triggers an automatic defense mechanism in them. I guess this is why they call environmentalists watermelons (green on the outside and red on the inside).
“Workers of the world unite!”
“Every time I see the words “equitable” and “just” being used in a discussion about a transition to wind and solar energy, an alarm bell goes off in my head telling me that I am reading a piece with the holy gospel of Marxism lying just under the surface.”
Me, too. It is dividing people into groups and then pitting the groups against each other. This is how they think they can gain political power. Divide and conquer.
Lets run it as a proper test. Disconnect California from all other electricity grids. And then we can see what happens with over-generation when no one needs power and not much when everyone want power, its nighttime and the wind isn’t blowing. Even better, require them to mine all their own battery materials instead of using what is the effective slavery of children in the Congo or the Uighers in China mining cobalt and other necessary minerals for batteries.
Given Lithium prices are up 500% in the last few years the impact on prices of using batteries as storage is going to be shocking.
Pumped hydro is the best energy store. And when it rains, you get energy for free.
Plus you dont need to mine half the planet….
“Given Lithium prices are up 500% in the last few years”
I think the increased prices for everything involved in “renewable” energy is going to make it even more difficult for the alarmists to implement their “renewable” energy plans. They are fighting a losing battle that is deteriorating by the day, and don’t seem to realize it yet.
And the Leftist politicians won’t allow the proposed large pumped storage Eagle Crest project that would use abandoned mines and existing transmission.
The spiral of decline continues in the woke focused areas of the world.
Californification will become a much used description in the future, of those places who have adopted energy shortage as a policy and hence economic suicide as a known outcome.
The think tank report is long on word salad and short on engineering reality.
It is of course very possible to be 85% ‘green energy’ supply. that is easy. The tough bit is holing onto your customers or in California’s case residents.
As the complexity of unreliable energy impact ever more people, they will simply move out, they will find somewhere better. It is what humans do when conditions become too complicated or painful to comfortably carry on.
I would be intrigues to know. How often the energy supply via the interstate grids, goes from California to one of its neighbours, rather than from a neighbour state into California?
That simple observation will highlight how well California is doing. It will inform us very clearly how well its push for sustainable in state ‘Green energy’ supply is performing.
The truth will out and people will be increasingly voting with their feet.
Not just how often but when for each. What is the inflow/outflow to/from CA at 12pm Pacific time?
In the springtime especially, CA has excess solar that they have to dump into Mexico and Arizona for which they have to pay them to take it.
They’re well on their way, but for other reasons: if CA keeps losing industry at the current pace, then the whole State will only have small consumers of energy. With less industry, there’s also less jobs, which means people leave the State in droves = less consumers of energy. Both of these factors contribute to increase the possibility that renewables can fill more of the gap. But is this a “desirable scenario” for California?
and so it can.
Hahaha!
I could delete your comment and it wouldn’t make any difference……..
Yep and sit around the fire singing kumbaya 🙂
The following completely “off topic” article caught my eye a couple of days ago, so at the risk of having the WUWT moderators come down on me like a ton of bricks …
From “Vulture Central”, about IBM’s autonomous “Mayflower” ship :
URL = https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/11/mayflower_autonomous_ship/
Now, at the risk of invoking “the wrath of the mods”, what was the subject of this article again ?
Griff, I was an electric power system engineer and ultimately progressed to CEO/GM of an electric utility. I tell you it can’t. But I expect you will listen to PPE ( and English Lit.) graduates when it comes to electric power issues. Adherence to Leftist ideology leads to very negative results. Read some history and listen to real economic and technological experts instead of relying on dogma enforcers.
” California can Hit 85% Renewable Energy by 2030 ”
Good luck, Californians!… Just keep going to that church and pray for it!…
Let’s see what those Californians do in this next election. I hear even liberal Californians are grumbling about the poor condition of their government. Maybe they will make some changes. Californians do elect Republicans on occasion.
Not real ones.
As the author Eric has noted, trade with neighbouring states mean fossil fuels to the rescue when Cali renewables invariably fail. Whoever from Telos Energy wrote this report is attempting to take people for fools.
Because they’ve learned that is not so hard to do
So they admit that renewables are useless for at least half the year. Someone needs to tell them renewables are useless all year round.
California could have 100% renewable energy today, they just wouldn’t be able to keep the power on for all customers all the time. Rolling blackouts and restricted usage would be daily. What they really need are a few more nuclear power stations along the coast that provide stable baseload during the day and run reverse osmosis water desalination units with spare capacity during the peak solar and at night. The Biden administration could facilitate this by allowing civilian companies to recycle fuel rods. Neither of these two things will happen before California’s grid collapses several times and people throw the watermelons out.
“The technical report provides a novel methodology“
They misspelled “making shit up”
I took a (very) brief look at the full report. Essential details are scattered through several sections and I would have to dig through to pick out exactly how much new capacity of what type they plan to build. But given the new Biden Administration obstacles to permitting of anything it’s dubious they could get significant new capacity built by 2030. Unless PG&E reverses itself on Diablo Canyon nuclear (those licenses expire in 2024 and 2025 and PG&E withdrew their extension application in 2018), a fairly reliable 1.6 TWh every month goes away.
I also see the common error of specifying new battery capacity in GW instead of GWh (they plan to add 15GW of new battery storage to achieve a total capacity of 19GW — who knows what that really means).
Assumptions about increasing imports from other states need to be backed up by verifying that extra capacity exists and is available for purchase, which may not be the case if those other states also have renewable energy targets.
“I also see the common error of specifying new battery capacity in GW instead of GWh (they plan to add 15GW of new battery storage to achieve a total capacity of 19GW — who knows what that really means).”
Fuzzy thinking like this doesn’t inspire much confidence in this thinktank’s conclusions. They can’t even get the fundamentals correct.
Much of the “economy” energy sold to CA relies on excess hydro and wind. Not things one might rely on during summer peaks.