Roger Caiazza
Advocates for the net-zero transition of the energy system frequently argue that existing wind, water, and solar technology can provide 100% of the energy needed. The legislation that created New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) relied on that presumption as rationale for its mandate for 100% zero-emissions electricity by 2040 and I believe that is a commen presumption in other energy transition initiatives. However, a session at the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Proceeding 15-E-0302 technical conference Zero Emissions by 2040 titled Gap Characterization shows that a new category of generating resources called Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) is necessary to keep the lights on during periods of extended low wind and solar resource availability. This post highlights the findings of this technical session.
Gap Characterization Session
The first session (video)
of the conference was titled Characterizing the Potential “Gap”. It addressed resource adequacy, transmission security, and grid stability arising from shuttering fossil fuel-fired resources and increased loads due to the Climate Act electrification strategies. It was moderated by Schuyler Matteson from DPS. There were four panelists and I have included links to the location in the video with their introductions:
- Deidre Altobell, Chief Transmission Planning Engineer Consolidated Edison. She represented the concerns of the New York City electric system provider. New York City has unique issues within the New York State electric power market that are a particular challenge for a transition to a system dependent upon renewables.
- Prof. C. Lindsay Anderson, Chair of Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering Cornell. Professor Anderson provided an independent check on the work of other electric system planning analysts because her group has modeled resources necessary for the New York electric system transition.
- Zach Smith, VP System Resource Planning, New York Independent System Operator (NYISO). NYISO is “responsible for operating wholesale power markets that trade electricity, capacity, transmission congestion contracts, and related products, in addition to administering auctions for the sale of capacity.” As part of those responsibilities NYISO has done extensive modeling resource projections of the net-zero transition.
- Kevin Steinberger, Director, Energy and Environmental Economics (E3). As part of the New York Climate Act transition plan an Integration Analysis was performed that included an assessment of the electric system net-zero transition resources. E3 provided the quantitative analysis for that effort.
Issues Identified
After the introductions the moderator asked a series of questions. This section lists the questions with a link to that location in the video. I highlight some of my concerns and points made by the panelists
The first questions was: “How do we know if there is a gap?” Professor Anderson described an analysis her group did. They made projections for expected loads and potential resources then used 22 years of hourly historical data to model the system. Without considering cost constraints they assessed system vulnerabilities to evaluate periods where there was insufficient generation to meet projected loads. Even with optimistic projections they found there will be periods during the coldest and hottest periods where there will be insufficient generation from wind, solar, and energy storage resources. Steinberger also responded that their modeling consistently showed the need for a new resource that is firm, dispatchable, and has no emissions that can power the system for days without significant recharge from wind and solar resources. He stressed the importance of considering actual historical meteorological conditions because renewable energy production is dependent on weather conditions.
Zachary Smith gave an overview summary presentation of the DEFR issue that was the focus of an earlier post of mine. In his first slide (shown below) he gave an overview of the generating resource outlook to make the point that a large amount of new generating resources needs to be developed. The estimates shown are from the 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook and represent two plausible load projections. He noted that there are “a lot of attributes that fossil fuel resources provide today that wind, solar, and energy storage simply cannot provide”. He also made the point that the DEFR replacements do not have to be a single technology but could be several technologies that in aggregate can replace the fossil generation.
The ultimate problem for reliability in an electric system that depends on wind and solar is illustrated in the following slide from Smith’s presentation. It highlights a 7-day wind lull when the wind, solar, and energy storage are insufficient to meet demand. The replacement resources must be able to ramp up quickly, stay online for a long period, and provide ancillary services to support the transmission system. The sum of the grey area under the curve during that period is the amount of energy (MWh) that must be provided by DEFR sources based on an analysis of historical weather data. If there are insufficient resources during a wind lull, then the load cannot be met. One final point, the analyses performed by all panelists show that adding more of each technology is not going to solve the gap problem. There is a limit to over-building as a solution because the wind lulls are rare
To meet this need for dispatchable resources Smith explained that dispatchable emission-free resources (DEFRs) must be developed and deployed throughout New York:
- As resources shift from fossil generators to zero emission resources, essential grid services, such as operating reserves, ramping, regulation, voltage support, and black start, must be available to provide New Yorkers with a reliable and predictable electric system that consumers require.
- DEFRs will be required to provide both energy and capacity over long durations, as well as the reliability attributes of retiring synchronous generation. The attributes do not need to be encapsulated in a singular technology, but in aggregate the system needs a sufficient collection of these services to be reliable.
The NYISO must toe the political correctness line, so Smith downplays the enormity of the challenge to bring DEFR online in the timeframe necessary to meet the arbitrary Climate Act schedule. I have no such restrictions so I will note that I think that anyone who thinks that this can be done on the schedule proposed is crazy. Smith lists the attributes needed by DEFR in his presentation. In the following I offer my comments on his list of attributes.
Smith’s first attribute for DEFR is that it must have “dependable fuel sources that are carbon free and allow these resources to be brought online when required”. Clearly intermittent wind and solar do not meet this fundamental requirement.
The second DEFR attribute is that it must be “non-energy limited and capable of providing energy for multiple hours and days regardless of weather, storage, or fuel constraints”. This is a particular concern of mine. Wind and solar resources correlate in time and space. In other words, when the wind is light at one wind farm in New York it is very likely that all the wind farms in the state are experiencing light winds. The seven-day wind lull example in the dispatchable resources needed figure illustrates the problem. If there are insufficient resources during that wind lull, then the load cannot be met. My concern is that we do not know what the worst case low renewable resource availability period is. Until there has been more analysis done then I believe that planning to prevent reliability issues is inadequate.
The NYISO operators balance generation with load constantly. Smith describes several attributes necessary for this requirement. DEFR must be able to “to follow instructions to increase or decrease output on a minute-to-minute basis”. There must be “flexibility to be dispatched through a wide operating range with a low minimum output”. Finally, DEFR must be “fast ramping to inject or reduce the energy based on changes to net load which may be driven by changes to load or intermittent generation output”.
In addition to the attributes needed when units are operating, there are startup attributes. DEFR must be “quick start to come online within 15 minutes” and capable of “multiple starts so resources can be brought online or switched off multiple times through the day as required based on changes to the generation profile and load”. Smith explains that a range or DEFR generation will likely be required. Not every DEFR must be capable of every attribute for matching load but sufficient amounts each attribute for the system requirement will be required.
In addition to the generating requirements that cannot be supplied by wind and solar, there are ancillary support services for the transmission system. Smith describes three transmission support DEFR attributes:
- Inertial Response and frequency control to maintain power system stability and arrest frequency decline post-fault;
- Dynamic Reactive Control to support grid voltage; and
- High Short Circuit Current contribution to ensure appropriate fault detection and clearance.
Smith’s presentation lists the attributes of twelve sample technologies in the following slide. This represents the NYISO opinion of the capability of different technologies to meet the attributes necessary to maintain a reliable system. In the future grid the insistence that all fossil fired units must be shut down means that numerous technologies that meet some of the necessary attributes will be required. The added complexity of these technologies does not increase resiliency because wind, solar, battery and demand response are all energy limited. In other words, their dependency on the vagaries of weather means the available energy is constrained and must be backed up. Ancillary support services will be a major consideration because wind, solar and battery do not provide those services. Just from this overview, it is clear that affordability and reliability will be challenges.
Attributes of Sample DEFR Technologies
The moderator asked for Altobell’s reaction relative to the situation in New York City. She noted that Con Ed agrees with NYISO analyses and that their work has shown similar results. She made the point that there is a minimum amount of generation that must be on-line in New York City to provide reactive support. She explained that the location of that generation is important. Importantly, she noted that we cannot let any more fossil retire until replacement services are provided.
Altobell also described some of the reliability standards that electric system operators are required to address. For example, the reliability standard N-1-1 addresses the loss of the two largest components on the system and the ability to recover from the loss of those two components. This criterion is considered on a daily and on a long-term basis. Currently the system relies on quick start units to get the system back to normal after the loss of large components but the peaking turbines that have historically been used for this are being retired which complicates compliance with the requirement.
In another example of a hidden cost of the net-zero transition Altobell explained that the New York City transmission system needs to be modified to eliminate load pockets. Historically Con Ed has relied on generating resources that were located to serve those load pockets. To replace those resources, the load pockets must be eliminated to open up the system. This is complicated by the fact that there isn’t much room available for infrastructure like substations.
I was interested in her comments on inverter-based resources relative to a dispatchable resources. She noted that 1,000 MW of offshore wind is equivalent to 100 MW of dispatchable resources in transmission security analyses. That means to replace the 2,000 MW of dispatchable Indian Point nuclear power that the State shut down a couple of years ago, 20,000 MW of offshore wind must be deployed. Note that the Climate Act mandates 9,000 MW of offshore wind which is far less than what is needed to simply replace Indian Point.
The next question from the moderator addressed the quantity of resources necessary to address the gap. Specifically, he asked can wind, solar, short-duration energy storage, and improvements to the transmission system eliminate the gap. Professor Anderson explained that her team’s work found that adding more of each technology is not going to solve the gap problem. It is not just that we need more, we need it in the right places.
The moderator reflected the consensus of the panelists when he noted the New York gaps cannot be solved using existing technology because of the physical characteristics of the grid and the location of load in the state. He followed up by asking Steinburg when the gap will show up, how quickly do we need to react, and what is the magnitude of the resources necessary to respond. Steinburg said the work his group did for the Integration Analysis showed that the timing of the gap problem depends on the rate of electrification and retirements of existing fossil resources. The problem will be worse in the winter once the load peak shifts to account for electric heating and electric vehicles. Smith noted that the NYISO expects that New York will be a winter peaking system in the ”early to mid- 2030’s”.
Schyler Matteson, the moderator, pointed out that before the DEFR resources can be deployed a long period of planning, permitting, construction, and inter-connection is required. He stated that this could be on the order of seven years. He followed up with a question to Smith about how planning for the system reserve margins and the local transmission security issues most prevalent in New York City will affect the process to develop DEFR to replace existing fossil. Smith emphasized the point that this is a challenge that will require extensive collaboration between agencies. In order to address the retirement issues NYISO has instituted a quarterly “short-term assessment of reliability” process. While this reactively addresses generator deactivation notices, NYISO is also trying to consider longer-term issues. In particular, the Department of Environmental Conservation has a rule promulgated to retire old peaking combustion turbines. In that process, NYISO requested a temporary delay for the retirement dates until reliability solutions could be deployed. Smith emphasized that a similar process needs to be incorporated as part of the Climate Act net-zero transition. Smith went on to point out that some of the DEFR required is not yet commercially available so there is even more lead time than required to simply deploy the resources. Altobell explained that there is another consideration – outage scheduling. The existing system still has to operate and the outages when changes can be made without threatening reliability are getting smaller and smaller.
The moderator gave his summary of the panel discussion and asked for comments. He said a gap “definitely exists”, that the gap is flexible based on the future load characteristics, the generation mix, load profiles, and transmission constraints. The gap will start to show up around 2035 and is definitely an issue by 2040. DEFR needs to be commercially available during the deployment planning period. Three different analyses showed that at least 20 to 30 GW of capacity is needed. Gaps of four maybe five days occur as much as every few years. Smith pointed out that future planning also must address extreme events and the need for resilience.
The session ended by discussing a question raised in the chat. The question raised was how do we characterize what the maximum DEFR need is? Smith replied that more analysis is needed. He mentioned that the New York State Reliability Council is charged with addressing this issue. It is necessary to define the worst-case conditions and then decide how to design the system to deal with it. Altobell supported his comments and pointed out that the Reliability Council has an Extreme Weather Working Group that is looking at gap characteristics. They are also addressing the reliability rules that will be needed when the projected amounts of inverter-based resources (wind, solar, and energy storage) are deployed.
Discussion
This technical conference session is a good description of one aspect of the electric system net-zero transition that is ignored by proponents. The experts all agree that new technology is needed and there are implementation issues. The analyses performed by all panelists show that adding more renewables is not going to solve the gap problem. There is a limit to over-building as a solution because wind lulls are rare. If the goal is to ensure adequate availability for the one in ten-year worst case low wind and solar availability period, then there will be resources that are only used once in ten years.
Designing a wind and solar dependent electric system has a major challenge unacknowledged by renewable advocates. The worst-case low availability period will be in the winter when days are short reducing solar availability and a massive high-pressure system lowers wind speeds over large areas. Proponents argue that the wind is always blowing somewhere but the enormity of the high-pressure systems means that the extraordinary amounts of over-building of both wind and solar but also transmission would be needed for rare events in the absence of DEFR. An overarching issue is that these periods are also accompanied by the coldest weather and thus the highest loads. If the system is dependent upon renewables and is designed for a one in ten-year worst case what happens when there is a one in fifteen-year worst case? The DEFR technologies must be flexible enough to handle any worst case or the energy available will not be adequate and the electric grid will not be able to supply the necessary electricity when society needs it the most.
There are two implementation issues. The first concern is that there are DEFR candidate technologies that are not commercially available. There is a long road between theory and lab prototype tests and having a technology available that can be deployed to maintain reliability. It is likely that many of the candidate technologies will fail this test. Secondly, even if the technologies are viable there are issues related to deployment time and costs. The Climate Act net-zero transition includes an ambitious schedule and there are affordability concerns. Neither issue can be addressed at this time, but the transition mandates do not reflect these uncertainties.
A more immediate New York concern is the push to retire existing fossil-fired resources as soon as possible. The simplest definition of DEFR is a fossil-fired peaking resource without any emissions. This panel discussion showed that the activist belief that wind, solar, and energy storage are resources that can just be plugged into the New York City electric system to replace peaking power plants is dangerous. Those existing facilities provide much more than electric energy and wind, solar, and energy storage don’t provide other necessary services. The session made the point that location matters and that there are spatial limitations in New York City that could very well preclude development of alternative technology even if it is viable because of different footprint requirements.
Conclusion
New York’s vocal proponents of the Climate Act believe that New York can “rapidly move away from fossil fuels and instead be fueled completely by the power of the wind, the sun, and hydro” and that “it could be done completely with technologies available”. The position that “it could be done completely with technologies available at that time” had an out-sized influence on the Climate Action Council decision to approve the Scoping Plan that guides the net-zero transition. After all, if there are no technological barriers then it is simply a matter of political will.
This session proves this belief is wrong. The work of Prof. C. Lindsay Anderson, Chair of Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering Cornell; Zach Smith, VP System Resource Planning, New York Independent System Operator; and Kevin Steinberger, Director, Energy and Environmental Economics all found that a new resource that has all the attributes of fossil-fired peaking units but without any emissions is needed. At some point, New York State is going to have to confront the fact that the naïve implementation plan based on rhetoric and not facts must be changed. Hopefully, the confrontation will occur before there is a catastrophic blackout.
Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. More details on the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act are available here and an inventory of over 400 articles about the Climate Act is also available. This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.
I disagree with your comment that you hope that reality will dawn before a catastrophic blackout. Climate catastrophism NEEDS a total black out of a major world city/state like New York or California to deliver the message of the stupidity of all this panic in the face of data that show it is an unnecessary panic.
I wish I could say that a catastrophic blackout will not be required to deliver the message but, unfortunately, I agree that will probably be what it will take. Sad that the first deaths directly attributable to climate change will more likely be because of mitigation policy not the effects of climate change. I should also note that the private opinion of most in industry is that a disaster will be the only way to stop the risky implementation.
Roger, nice and important work, as usual.
To be somewhat of a contrarian (and flippant) here, I think the idiots in charge are making alternative plans to blow up the grid (and everything else) long before the worst effects of net zero are scheduled to really kick in.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/blinken-says-ukraine-eventually-become-220445740.html
It seems like WWIII is in the offing.
But… it seems many in the power industry are happy to go along as long as they can profit from it. The power industry here in New England offers no resistance.
I think utilities are more focused on short-term rate case sucess than long term best interests of customers and the electric system.
In today’s chaotic energy policy environment, using asset churn as a means of increasing their profits is a predictable response by utility CEO’s to the current situation.
A Net Zero energy policy offers larger profits for those utilities which know how to play the game to their own advantage. Witness what is happening with Dominion in Virginia.
As long as the public service commissions are on board with Net Zero at the expense of energy reliability and affordability, the power utilities will not resist the tempation to use asset churn as their pathway to a higher bottom line.
‘Witness what is happening with Dominion in Virginia.’
At least Dominion owns unregulated generation, which means at some level they’re somewhat less crazy than many of their peers who have completely spun off these assets.
Correct! There is absolutely no upside for any regulated utility, particularly one that does not own generation assets, to buck the political mandates of its public utility commission. In fact, if net zero requires more wires to tie these ‘assets’ into the grid, so much the better.
Post says:”… the private opinion of most in industry…”.
That is one of the big problems in all of this. “Private opinions” rather than loud public opinions. Saying NO out loud to all of this.
I live in California, 5th generation in my family and my daughter is the 6th. I would be both horrified and elated to see a total statewide blackout from a renewable failure (though it would undoubtedly be blamed on reliable FF generation). Though for the Chaos and Anarchy that will ensue, I’d prefer New York demonstrates the fiasco.
That “New Resource” already exists
NuClean energy (Nuclear Power)
Firm
Dispatchable
No Emissions
Runs for 2 YEARS “without recharge” (refueling)
Never dependent on Wind or Solar
Whereabouts are you in Cali?
Santa Rosa since 1977
Good place to be, some distance from the real crazies. Much further north and you run into the dank smell of cannabis terpenes wafting through the air. I don’t mind stoners much.
But making nuclear ramp adequately might be the Achilles heel here. I know that TerraPower thinks they have an answer to this issue, but what they plan I see as a very resource intensive solution; that is, expensive.
See my response to oeman50 here. The newer SMR designs are technically better at load-following than are the earlier reactor designs now in service. The problem is that a reactor which is generating at something less than full power isn’t recovering its capital costs as fast as current market conditions will allow. In today’s market conditions, a load-following SMR reactor must receive a higher price for the electricty it generates while it is operating in load-following mode.
Prior to the forced introduction of highly subsidized W&S, nukes (and coal) could bid-in at base load price levels, but get paid a higher price for the energy they delivered during peak hours.
Nuclear plants in the US ultimately depend on the grid to supply offsite power for emergency cooling purposes. Each plant has relays that are tied to the grid and cause a reactor trip if the frequency and/or voltage are outside some rather narrow parameters. If a blackout occurs, the emergency diesel generators will start to supply the safety systems, but those are limited by fuel stored on-site and whatever can be delivered. The power from offsite must be reestablished to allow the reactor to restart.
These factors must be considered when relying on nuclear tied to a grid with major interruptible power sources.
The NuScale people say their SMR design, which is an evolutionary light water design, can be islanded from the grid for long periods of time, months if necessary. Their reactor module vessels use natural circulation for internal cooling and also sit in a pool of water that removes the heat of decay.
Which is why the emergency response zone for the NuScale SMR design extends only to the plant fence.
In addition, the NuScale people say their SMR doesn’t need offsite power for its own black restart, and that it can be used to assist in the black restart of an external power grid which has suffered a total blackout.
Given the response to the Texas St Valentines Day storm “Uri”, the greens will claim that windmills had absolutely nothing to do with the near system failure.
But then they’ll blame the catastrophic blackout on climate change and demand that we speed up the greening of the power supply. Logic and real science doesn’t work with the climate cultists. What would work would be if they stop hiding the costs in a way that the public doesn’t realize what their green electricity really costs.
The same conclusions could apply in many other locations worldwide. In Australia, wind lulls or “dunkelflautes” occur across the entire eastern network on average almost one every three days, with durations up to 48 hours. When these occur in periods of low solar energy, the amount of backup storage required is so large that it can neither be financed nor built. Australian wind CF is only 30% and solar even less at 16.26%, so neither of these energy sources can supply the required energy efficiently or cost-effectively.
This is absolutely a universal problem.
Same problem for UK. See analysis of weather fluctuation and consequent storage requirements by the Royal Society, here:
https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/low-carbon-energy-programme/large-scale-electricity-storage/
(see the link to the Report, on the upper right). The report was one of the first, is maybe the only one, to go back decades and document the existence of whole seasons of calm, and consider the implications for storage.
They concluded that for the UK the only feasible method, and its amazing they considered this feasible, was to excavate 900 storage caverns, seal them, then use them to store hydrogen which would power gas generation during the calms. Some of the storage would have to be for decades, because of the scale of the calm season phenomenon. It does not happen often, but once it does, you either have alternate supply or you have a whole season of partial and total blackouts.
Not that this has had the slightest effect on political decision making, which appears to be to carry on to the promised land of Net Zero, regardless. And it seems that in the UK, politicians really believe that 100GW or so of wind is going to support demand. Demand now peaks at a bit under 45GW, but in the brave new world of EVs and heat pumps it will rise to 100GW. No way.
The inevitable result of current energy policy in the UK will be national blackouts. Most likely in January or February, when there is no solar and one of the week long calms caused by a winter blocking high. But it could also come in one of the long calm summers that happen every few decades. The only question is whether the political class blinks first, and it shows no sign of doing so.
And generation capacity is no good without transmission capacity…
In the summer and early autumn of 2021 Europe experienced a long period of dry conditions and low wind speeds. April to September of that year was the least windy such period for most of the UK in 60 years. SSE saw a 32% drop in power output from its unreliables.
The IPCC meanwhile says average wind speeds in Europe will decline by up to 10% because of climate change.
Yet, doesn’t it seem, Roger, that highly detailed and lengthy analyses, 22 years of model run, followed by endless gabfests, followed by more modeling, are unneeded? If a person can show that the amount of storage needed to just get through any reasonable year is completely unaffordable, then that should be a sufficient demonstration that it is time to pull over on the highway to ‘h’, ‘e’ double toothpicks.
No one appears ready to admit this. There is too much deference to the views of people who have no clue what they are demanding. They have no clue that they have no clue.
The official state narrative is that the costs of inaction are more than the costs of action.. No acknowledgement that the costs are real and the benefits are imaginary. In the bigger picture there are hints that the politicians are increasingly aware that the costs are unaffordable. Hopefully the electorate will catch on enought to demand cost accounting.
Political face is the problem. When someone steps and acts like an adult admitting that the unacknowledged costs to support renweables are too much, the usual suspects will go ballistic with emotional arguments promoting the usual scare stories. I suspect the search is on for a scapegoat that can deflect blame.
No it isn’t. It is only the Western nations. The rest of the world are plunging ahead with ff and nuclear.
Quite frankly the efficiency and cost effectiveness of wind and solar decreases as their capacity increases. Then there’s that nagging equation of (100%W + 100%S = <50% capacity) so doubling your capacity is still incapable of providing all of your needs. And needs will only be increasing with costs doubling and redoubling
This is the sort of conversation that happens when people who know what they are talking about discuss future net zero mandates. As such we can be sure that it will be swept under the rug by the real decision-makers – who are either deluded idealists or committed revolutionaries who want a disaster so they can step in and save us (possibly both at the same time, such is the power of doublethink).
Even if they need to cause the disaster to insure it comes to pass
Everywhere in the world, the crusade for 100% wind & solar powered grid-scale electricity supply is a clown show.
Meanwhile: The region has nut cases like this to deal with.
“Green Party member U.S. Senate candidate for New Jersey Christina Amira Khalil went viral after posting a theory to social media that the earthquake that rocked New York and New Jersey on Friday was caused by climate change.”
This is an informative post by Roger C. (Thanks).
Can we suppose Christina will not read it and likely would not understand it if she tried? 🙂
C’mon John, everyone knows that earthquakes cluster around solar eclipses…
/sarc
So we’re going to have to deal with a Human-caused Earthquake narrative in the future.
There’s no evidence humans caused this earthquake.:) Just like there is no evidence that human-derived CO2 affects the Earth’s weather or climate.
Humans would be foolish to try to control earthquakes, and they would be equally foolish to try to control the Earth’s weather and climate by reducing CO2, although it appears that Christina thinks humans can control both earthquakes and the Earth’s weather and climate by reducing CO2.
Chrisitina has no idea what she is talking about. Pure ignorance coming out of Christina’s mouth. Don’t vote for Christina because she is not smart enough to represent you properly.
There’s a Vas DEFRense between renewables and reliables
The difference is “renewables”, windmills and ground-based solar, cannot power the world by themselves, whereas reliables can power the world by themselves.
Meetings like the one described in the article above would be much less stressful if they only had to deal with reliable electricity sources. Adding unreliable “renewables” and subtracting reliables from the grid and expecting a reliable electrical grid is an impossible task.
It takes a crisis for a government to change direction. I think that’s what is going to happen. The momentum for windmills and solar and cutting CO2 is too great for politicians to change course now. It will take a disaster that all can see to break this spell. And that kind of disaster is much closer now.
Very nice work Roger.
Language, language, language. We absolutely have to end the practice of allowing these monsters free reign of the language they use.
DEFR (dispatchable emissions-free resources) is unacceptable. They need to say every time exactly what they mean. If they are talking about a particular source of energy they need to name it. DEFR is absolutely meaningless and they know it. DEFR can mean different things to different people and also can refer to nothing, some magical process in someone’s imagination.
The same with inverter based resources. If they are talking about wind, solar and storage that is what they have to say.
The sooner we stop allowing them to hide behind meaningless and ambiguous language the sooner we can put this rats nest behind us.
You are doing good work Roger.
For Australia the AEMO dashboard includes the obligatory max %penetration of renewables for bragging rights. https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem
But also, it includes the minimum, ie how big the real gap actually is. Typically at the moment it is about 14%, so we need 7 times as much renewables/batteries as we currently have (or a more sensible system). Wow.
Just needs a few more tubes of “Electrical No More Gaps”
No amout of more solar and wind is enough. The wind does not always blow and the solar works 6-8 hrs. per day. Ten times more wind and solar still needs ff backup.
Very interesting. The first such expert estimate I’ve come across. I have thought from no more than back of envelope estimates that for the UK you would need between 500GW and 1,000GW to support their expected demand of 100GW+ (when they get through converting heating to heat pumps and transport to EVs). That, and you would still need plenty of storage.
Its very interesting to have the ratio confirmed by an expert after proper analysis.
This also sheds a bright light on Nick Stokes’ claims here that wind and solar are justified financially by the fact that they have no fuel cost. They may not have a fuel cost, but by the time you include the required overbuild and the required DFER capacity to make the system work, there is no way this is going to be financially feasible, fuel cost or not. Not to mention the maintenance costs of terawatts of capacity in the North Sea!
These estimates in various forms are all over the place FERC, NERC; and I’ve been trying to hammer the point with our Public Service Commission for over a year and you can occasionally find them in the Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs) of various utilities. For example, expected load carrying capacity (ELCC) measures for wind and solar without dispatchable backup are all in the range of 10%. The problem is 1) getting these results out more generally into the public domain, and 2) getting people to absorb the lesson that such estimates offer.
The third probhlem is that many people do not want to absorb any lessons that are contrary to their pre-conceived notions and, in many cases paychecks.
My numerous close relatives in New York State and in California are examples of people who have an incentive not to absorb any lessons that are contrary to their pre-conceived notions and, in many of their cases, their paychecks.
A combination of confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, and financial incentives keep these people tightly wedded to their Net Zero propaganda narrative.
They will not retreat from that narrative regardless of what future events might transpire, including power blackouts which kill hundreds if not thousands of their fellow New Yorkers and Californians.
Not to forget that a typical wind turbine has a life of 20 years at best ( probably less for offshore wind) whilst a coal plant can easily operate for 40 years or more and a nuclear plant for even longer.
And not one of them questioned the basic premise that windmills and solar are necessary, considerig there is no evidence that burning fossil fuels has any effect on the Earth’s weather or climate.
Why are they jumping through these hoops? It’s certainly not based on any science.
There is no evidence that CO2 is anything other than a benign gas, essential for life on Earth, and that means there is no evidence that humanity needs to change the way it gets its energy.
CO2-based fearmongering, and windmills and solar, are just a vehicle for governments to impose their radical, authoritarian ideology/will on the rest of us. They can’t prove that their efforts to curb CO2 are necessary, but they expect the rest of us to go along and jump through all these hoops right along with them, even as those hoops take more and more of our freedom awasy from us.
It’s time this CO2 fearmongering came to an end. If you can’t prove something is dangerous, then you shouldn’t claim it is dangerous, or take actions that make no sense, other than to all the petty dictators out there.
Radical Democrats want to control every aspect of our lives. It’s time to fight back and take back our personal freedoms from these authoritarians.
Fortunately, Biden is such a bad president that he is driving many who voted for him last time to decide to vote for Trump, or a third-party candidate.
What a disaster this man has been for the United States and the World! Without a doubt, the worst president evah!, although it appears he is just carrying out the Obama agenda, so Obama should be given his share of blame for our current very bad situation.
The radicals in the Democrat Party and in bureaucratic positions in Washington DC and in the judiciary are the problem.
The Radical Democrats have to go, if we want our country back.
Tom – in a world in which people seem to be so risk-averse that they’re afraid of their own shadows, “might be dangerous” is, for them, the same as “is dangerous”.
Therefore, the fact that CO2, in theory, has the ability to warm the atmosphere (though no-one’s ever proved to what extent it’s actually able to do this) is the equivalent of “it’s doing it in spades!”. Hence the scaremongering.
People seem to have lost their sense of proportion (and not just with respect to climate, as we’re all aware).
Even the 1.5C warming wouldn’t be noticeable without thermometers and probably welcome.
Outside of the tropics almost everyone has to live and work in heated buildings and use heated transportation during most of the year.
If the CO2 drops below 150 ppm photosynthesis in land plants stops and they die taking the land animals down with them
CO2 dropped to 180 ppm in the last glacial period that ended 11,700 years ago and has been declining in previous glacial periods.
The interglacial periods, like the Holocene that the Earth is currently in, last around 10,000 years so another glacial period may start at any time, the Grand Solar Minimum the sun has entered may be the trigger.
The land plants need all the CO2 they can get to keep from going extinct along with the land animals.
https://pioga.org/just-the-facts-more-co2-is-good-less-is-bad
The only energy source remotely usable as a “DEFR” is nuclear. We could just abandon wind and solar, build nukes, and save Trillions. Building both is ridiculous. Allowing NY to develop its natural gas, and using that without wind and solar would generate less CO2 than any other option.
I agree that the only way to meaningfully reduce emissions without destroying reliability is to go nuclear. I think the system should also include some natural gas for some of the attributes described.
The characterizations of nuclear as not being able to load follow are patently false. It can be done, if the plant and the fuel is designed to load follow. It is just an input to the design that current commercial nuclear plants are highly optimised for steady state operation. As some have already commented, this is because the income from the plant is optimised for steady state operation.
There are already a LOT of operating reactors that have no problem running power levels up and down, all day and all night, because they are designed for that sort of duty. They just happen to be floating around in the ocean, instead of making electricity on land.
That image at the top- presumably NYC- with wind turbines in the city. Makes me wonder- why aren’t there any wind turbines in the city? Most of the city doesn’t have skyscrapers. In large areas with mostly apartments and not so tall commercial buildings- there are plenty of locations a turbine could fit into- empty lots or condemned buildings that could be taken down. Or, just install the turbines over the buildings. If NYC and other cities want green energy- built turbines in the city and force every building owner to install solar on their roofs. I think I’ll suggest this to the mayor of Boston. I’m sure she’ll say- “better to destroy forests for solar farms and put extraordinarily expensive turbines at sea”.
There are large areas of the Hudson River and Long Island Sound where the water is shallow and ships cannot get to the windmills. NY just needs to build the windmills in these locations and see how much the people appreciate them.
Excellent review, Roger Caiazza. Keep up the good work.
In the table Attributes of Sample DEFR Technologies I note that the red “no” boxes for nuclear (i.e. conventional nuclear) are significant only in a statewide system that is already assumed to suffer the intermittency of wind and solar.
What if NY abandoned plans for wind and solar and batteries, and just switched our plans for future “emissions free” electricity to be based on conventional + small modular nuclear generation?
Problem solved.
You are being too logical David
This study from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands explores the value of nuclear power in future energy systems.
“We find that a nuclear power plant needs more subsidy (in euro/MWh) than onshore wind turbines but less than a solarPV installation and an offshore wind park. Hence where there is a large installed capacity of renewables investing in a nuclear plant is more efficient than further extending the renewable capacity”
“The conclusion for social abatement costs is similar……….the cost per ton of carbon emission reduction for nuclear are lowest in a scenario with high amounts of renewable capacity. Hence building a nuclear plant is a relatively efficient way of reducing carbon emissions”
University of Groningen CEER Policy Paper 12 ‘Economic Value of nuclear power in future energy systems’
https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/economic-value-of-nuclear-power-in-future-energy-systems-required.
Lunch – please return promptly
Sorry I was late getting back from lunch. Climate change is making it harder and harder to be on time.
If you have DEFR enough to meet worst case demand, why would you need wind or solar or battery?
You nailed it! Build the necessary nuclear and any need for wind, solar, and battery goes away. That cost should be considered when they talk about the costs of building nuclear.
The politically correct solution to widespread wind and solar failure will be to build more wind and solar. Every religion works this way. If sacrifice doesn’t work, increase the sacrifice.
Roger,
Excellent. Thank you.
This is a clear demonstration that the New York Scoping Plan is long on words, slim on scoping and devoid of planning.
“Hope is not a strategy.”
filling the gap with an acronym is a brilliant tactical move by the alarmists. Instead of saying net zero will not work they can say here’s how it works. Meanwhile the gap is huge.
But the required reliability design case is no wind, bitter cold nights so it is even bigger than shown.
see my https://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/research/avoiding-deadly-blackouts/
Yup, DEFR is needed. The only problem is, no such thing exists at grid scale.
NY ambitions will eventually collide with reality. Reality always wins.
“She noted that 1,000 MW of offshore wind is equivalent to 100 MW of dispatchable resources in transmission security analyses.”
The knowledge that wind/solar, not backed up by storage or dispatchable sources — let’s just cut to the chase and say “fossil-fuels” — are worth very little (10%) in terms of contributions to adequacy and reliability is spreading like mad. Even Little Ol’ Idaho Power Company states it explicitly in their IRP. In fact, IPCO is a bit ahead on the curve in this regard, and yet reading other pieces of their PR suggests they think they are immune to the shortcomings of wind/solar because they have so much hydropower.
Even as people become more aware of trouble ahead, they appear to find new reasons to ignore the warning signs — new reasons for optimism about energy utopia. Isn’t denial one of the steps on the way to coming to terms with disappointment? I forget, is it an early step or a late one?
Except is is not equivalent except in a useless averaging way. No wind is common during peak demand events like broiling days and brutally cold nights.
I was not saying it was, but to have the utilities finally admit to 10% is just about having them throw in the towel, isn’t it? Now, we just need to have this admission begin to affect their claims in the PSC hearings, and impact their planning. Big step, I admit.
Before they accept reality they will have to try the last option, which is briefly mentioned in the slides – demand management. AKA brownouts and rolling blackouts. This will be hugely impactful, and would be the final nail in the coffin. But there will be nothing left to come back to, so society will collapse into chaos. As intended.
And the Smart People will take over. As intended.
None of this planning for dispatchable electric power is needed if you are willing to sit in the dark and either sweat or freeze.
Gray Davis, the former Governor of California found out the hard way that most people are not willing to do that. Of course, that was 30 years ago and a large portion of those people are already dead. So it will now fall on the sensibilities of the woke generation to make up their own minds.
DEFR. Can you spell “unicorn?”
I hope the disastrous blackout occurs long before returning to sanity is a difficult road.