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.
…
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.
…
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.
…
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.
They will exploit every accounting trick in the book to fudge the numbers and claim they’ve succeeded. But it will be a complete fabrication.
Certainly feasible… if you don’t mind lots and black outs year round.
“ retire natural gas units harming California’s most pollution-burdened communities.”
I’ve visited every part of California and the only “pollution-burdened community” I’ve seen is the skid rows of LA and San Fran. The pollution is the by product of human suffering not human progress like generating power.
As other comments have pointed out, its not difficult to get to 85%, but anyone claiming this who doesn’t also explain how catastrophically expensive it will be is contributing to human suffering not human progress.
That really depends on how much bitcoin mining they do and how many fake social media accounts are grown there for over valuations.
Read this for a similar situation in the UK.
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/future-energy/future-energy-scenarios/fes-2021/system-flexibility
In short, they have no idea how to provide enough storage to make it work… but they are going on regardless.
In 1979 working for the Federal DOE and responsible for planning the operations of the Central Valley Project I was just one of many experts that warned the California Legislature, PUC and Energy Commission that their laws and policies would lead to system collapse within about 20 years. In 2000 the system collapsed as predicted.
Following 2000 the collapse, they were all warned by experts that the laws and polices enacted in response to the collapse would lead to another, different system collapse within about 20 years. The collapse is now obviously coming to pass in 2022 and beyond. FJB and FLeftist politicians.
85% intermittent, unreliable energy… throw another baby on the barbie, it’s over.
Possible maybe, at what price, how much cost are those batteries apiece, how many will be needed, is that including the increase in generation for all electric cars and houses. If surrounding states decide to go green
Who will they trade with. Sounds like a expensive proposition.
So… California has decided to de-industrialize? This is not new. In another 10 years or so they will finally be as bad off as average Mexico, and illegals immigrants won’t want to the move there anymore.
I don’t think California consumers will like “flexible demand”, i.e. we can turn off your electricity whenever we want. Or course there will be exceptions for “VIPs” like politicians and rich people that donate to the “correct” campaigns.
I think it’s time Congress considered revoking California statehood and relegating it to territory status until the residents elect sane, law-abiding, pro-American leaders who then turn the state around. California has literally become a failed state and it’s harming the rest of the country. Decades of incompetence and pandering to fools and criminals should have severe, unambiguous consequences.
The prophet Jonah went to Nineveh, the sprawling capital of the Assyrian Empire, and urged the people to repent of their selfish and misguided ways. He was very skeptical that they would listen, but amazingly, the people and even the king repented, wore sack cloth and ashes, and averted destruction at the hands of the Almighty.
Lots and lots of people can see the coming economic collapse in California, but it will be at the hands of Californians. I fear that they won’t come to their senses until millions have suffered great hardship, and even then I fear that many will refuse to renounce their “green gods.”
“Flexible Demand.”
Ha.
Your usage is only flexible if they can shut your power off.
Which of course, they can.
California can reliably achieve an 85% clean electricity grid by 2030 with a diverse mix of renewables and batteries, flexible demand,
That’s demand curtailment for you folks if voluntary conservation doesn’t pan out-
Texas grid operator calls for power conservation as temperatures, prices soar (msn.com)
It’s election year here in Australia and all political parties are calling for “net zero carbon emissions” and 100% renewables by 2030 all the while we export millions of tonnes of coal and gas. The stupidity continues.
And they deserve to hit it good and hard.
What, are they going to grow more trees? Nothing else is renewable.
I wonder what communities will suffer from the loss of jobs and tax base in order to satisfy these “Social Justice Warriors”?
Scanned the report and although they imply some cost analysis, I could not find any mention of how much this will cost Californians.