Grid greening

[stoveliker]

I think his super capacitor thing and the lithium talk down is not very solid.
But the point he is making is that the 80% renewable (that's what I remember from the piece) by 2030 is not possible with current storage capabilities and growth path. It's only 5 years...
And storage for grid is NOT a solved problem. Storage in any good quantity is not a solved problem, see the r&d investment mentioned earlier..

IF the storage that we have now is both technically sufficient AND so at reasonable cost, we're good. But it's not. As evidenced by the roll out that lags behind what is needed for the stages to actually work, and by the fact that people who know better than two arguing physicists are doing r&d, starting companies, and investing.

Anything that's being prototyped now won't make a dent towards the goal at 2030.

 

[clancey]

I have been following this interesting thread but it is just too too complicated for me to try to keep up with but there are very interesting points of view. from my only point of view is that wind farms kill the birdies and those out in the ocean (I believe) helps beach our beautiful whales.There has to be a better way then having broken wind blades when a storm comes about. Talk about greening so sad. I hope they work on the storage capacity and come out with new technology but this will take some amount of time--maybe years to put in place because of our "debt crises"at the moment. Trillions of dollars is a very large debt and this does not make our country any stronger. clancey

 

[begreen]

Fact sheet on energy storage development:

U.S. Grid Energy Storage Factsheet

Electrical Energy Storage (EES) refers to the process of converting electrical energy into a stored form that can later be converted back into electrical energy when needed.1 Batteries are one of the most common forms of electrical energy storage, ubiquitous in most peoples' lives. The first...

css.umich.edu

As noted, storage is the area to watch. This is where growth is and will be the most evident. This white paper discusses these trends.

Elevating the role of energy storage on the electric grid

With the need for energy storage becoming important, the time is ripe for utilities to focus on storage solutions to meet their decarbonization goals.

www2.deloitte.com

 

[begreen]

I have been following this interesting thread but it is just too too complicated for me to try to keep up with but there are very interesting points of view. from my only point of view is that wind farms kill the birdies and those out in the ocean (I believe) helps beach our beautiful whales.There has to be a better way then having broken wind blades when a storm comes about. Talk about greening so sad. I hope they work on the storage capacity and come out with new technology but this will take some amount of time--maybe years to put in place because of our "debt crises"at the moment. Trillions of dollars is a very large debt and this does not make our country any stronger. clancey

These concerns are political talking points. It is true that birds die when they intersect with human-made structures. However, iIf the concern was genuine then the fact that buildings and cats kill millions more birds than windfarms would be starkly evident. Fossil fuel power also kills a lot more. Where is the comparison? The same goes for the whales. It's not backed up by fact.

"Those numbers are not insignificant, but they represent a tiny fraction of the birds killed annually in other ways, like flying into buildings or caught by prowling house cats, which past studies have estimated kill up to 988 million and 4 billion birds each year, respectively. Other studies have shown that many more birds—between 12 and 64 million each year—are killed in the U.S. by power lines, which connect wind and other types of energy facilities to people who use the electricity."

Do wind turbines kill birds?

Yes—but only a fraction as many as are killed by house cats, buildings, or even the fossil fuel operations that wind farms replace.

climate.mit.edu

 

[clancey]

Your making it political I am not---I love birdies and whales and right now I am enjoying the thread as much as I can understand it like I am trying to do at this moment..No politics here just a very large debt that our country is facing and this is not meant as politics---just plain facts. clancey

 

[begreen]

Your making it political I am not---I love birdies and whales and right now I am enjoying the thread as much as I can understand it like I am trying to do at this moment..No politics here just a very large debt that our country is facing and this is not meant as politics---just plain facts. clancey

The facts are that humans and their pets are hugely more responsible. Cats, buildings, and energy transmission kill millions more birds, but no one brought this up.

 

[clancey]

I think you need a pretty birdie picture,,,clancey

 

[woodgeek]

I think his super capacitor thing and the lithium talk down is not very solid.
But the point he is making is that the 80% renewable (that's what I remember from the piece) by 2030 is not possible with current storage capabilities and growth path. It's only 5 years...
And storage for grid is NOT a solved problem. Storage in any good quantity is not a solved problem, see the r&d investment mentioned earlier..

IF the storage that we have now is both technically sufficient AND so at reasonable cost, we're good. But it's not. As evidenced by the roll out that lags behind what is needed for the stages to actually work, and by the fact that people who know better than two arguing physicists are doing r&d, starting companies, and investing.

Anything that's being prototyped now won't make a dent towards the goal at 2030.

Google seems to think the goal is 70% renewables by 2030, and 100% 'carbon free' by 2040. (that is, the 100% 2040 goal includes contributions from legacy nukes).

Renewable Energy - NYSERDA

The future is clean electricity. Learn how NYSERDA is driving renewable energy development for a resilient, clean energy future.

www.nyserda.ny.gov

Also, it appears that NYS was 30% renewable (mostly hydro) in 2022. And 25% nukes.

So the effort is nominally to add roughly 40% solar and wind energy to the NYS grid in 8 years. (But only 40-25%=15% if the 2030 goalposts are moved to 'carbon free' rather than renewable, to match the 2040 goals).

Given growth in deployment and falling costs, most of that installation will be in the final few years.

So, the stated 40% goal would be large by 2030, but it would actually put the state within spitting distance of the 2040 goal (which requires 45% renewables + whatever nuke retirements happenn before then).

Reading this, it seems very likely that the goalposts will be moved., to 70% carbon free by 2030, and 100% carbon free by 2040. This will require 15-20% Solar and Wind additions by 2030, and 40-45% SWB by 2040.

The storage needs for this plan are modest before 2030, because adding 15-20% solar and wind requires little storage, especially if some of that is high CF offshore. Shipping in more hydro from out of state also drops the solar fraction needed.

You can cry foul if you want, but this is how public policy goals work, like the famous phasing out of incandescents. An ambitious goal is set, and if it is met, then great. If not, then move the goalposts. When CFL uptake lagged, the govt didn't make us all sit in the dark.

As it is, it seems that in 2022 NYS was already 55% carbon free electricity. A plan to increase that to 70% by 2030 ( a measly 15%) would not be sexy. So it was stated in this goofy way to increase renewables by a huge fraction. But the policy goal is to get to 100% carbon free by 2040. And that only requires 45% SWB be added in the next 16 years. This SWB adoption rate is conservative relative to RMI and Seba projections.

16 years is a long time. 16 years ago, there were no lithium powered EVs, nor grid batteries at all. And honestly, if the 2030 goals are met in 2034 and the 2040 goals in 2045... I would still call that a success.

All of the above, ofc ignores the effect of 'electrify everything', which will grow electrical demand and require a lot more SWB that 15% before 2030 and 45% by 2040. But I personally doubt that homeowners and industry will do much electrification before 2030, and its unclear how much by 2040. On the other hand, it also omits improvements to efficiency reducing demand.

 

[begreen]

Australia presents a can-do attitude. They're getting closer.

“Absolutely world leading:” Why Australia is leading the charge away from baseload power

AEMO boss Daniel Westerman on why the future of Australia’s grid lies in variable renewables, storage and dispatchable energy. Baseload power, he says, is a construct whose time has passed.

reneweconomy.com.au

 

[stoveliker]

Yes, although peak renewable is not that hard.
I believe the negative prices we've seen here suggest it may have been higher here... (than 100%?). They were proud to have a leak of 91.5%...

What bugs me is that we use only about 20-30% less energy during the night than during the day.
I.e. we use 70-80% of daylight usage during the dark.

Hourly electricity consumption varies throughout the day and across seasons - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov

This was in 2020.

The problem is then that we need 400 million kWh in storage to save renewables generated during the day, minus wind and hydro as that generates also at night (tho wind less) - for a 100% carbon free end station.

 

[EbS-P]

Sure. But greening the grid has stages...

In Stage 1, intermittent renewables displace fossil fuels, up to about 20% of energy produced, and do that without major changes to the grid, mostly by throttling gas generation (which has excess capacity in much of the US). Batteries are not required in this stage, and if you do build them they act like peakers and have minimal climate impact bc they actually store fossil generation for use later.

Fossils back up RE in this stage during nighttime and cloudy days. Also lots of things like coal get retired and replaced by gas here, so long as gas prices stay low (aided by demand reduction from solar).

In Stage 2, RE exceeds 20% of energy produced on the grid, and this means that RE generation exceeds demand during some days (like sunny weekends). This production must either be curtailed (which is low cost, but dents profits) or stored in a battery (ignoring things like pumped storage). Which of these two things you choose depends on the cost of power you are getting and the cost of batteries. Given the cosine curve of conventional solar, you can also install your solar east/west to flatten the production curve, but again at lower over production per installed Watt (as you know). Batteries that you DO install to overcome curtailment only need to store a fraction of the produced energy and sell it back during early evening high demand period (say 4 hours).

Ultimately, maxing out batteries in this scheme would allow production following demand from midmorning to early evening on sunny days, which would typically be more than 50% of total daily demand.

Fossils (mostly gas) still back up RE in this stage on cloudy days and during nightime after the 4 hour batteries are spent. Maybe 30%-50% of total demand depending on local solar resource. So RE covers 50-70% of energy.

In Stage 3, you need to build build BIGGER batteries and arrays to cover evening demand, and also partly cloudy days. Now you can get to 75-90% of energy depending on local solar resource and wind mix.

Chasing that last 10-25% of fossils off the grid (Stage 4) is hard. It will likely not happen in some regions for some time. Regions with hydro and legacy nukes can get to 100% carbon free electricity in Stage 2 or 3.

So, most places in the US are still in Stage 1. California and Hawaii and arguably Texas are in Stage 2. So that is where the batteries are at.

For decades, people argued that solar could never get over 1% of energy, too expensive. Then they argued that the grid would collapse if RE went over 5-10% of energy, too intermittent. Then they argued that over 10-15% curtailment would be necessary and further expansion would be impossible economically. Those arguments were based on the ideas that grid batteries would never work.

And yet here we are, in a world with grid batteries being deployed, but only where they make sense and then seemingly rather small (bc Stage 2). And that is what it looks like when RE energy production is >20% and <50%. And ofc those grid batteries have a learning curve, so they will get better and cheaper as more are built. So the fact that they are being fielded (rather than sitting on a bench in a lab) is really important. Watch this space.

Regarding the original post column, the author is arguing that the NYS goals (to reach into Stage 2 by 2030) are impossible, but assumes that grid batteries don't exist. This seems to me to be common thinking from about a decade ago, that Solar was nice and all, but would never exceed 20% of energy. Since the NYS goal is to exceed that, of course he thinks it impossible.

CA is the test case. High prices drove adoption of new technologies more quickly. Now net metering is basically over for new residential solar installations as I understand it. (I could be totally wrong). How have large commercial customers fared in this transition? ( Probably getting some really cheap power from 11-3 pm. )

I haven’t read and probably won’t look for any opinion pieces from CA business owners. But 10 years ago I bet we could fine one similar to the owner in the OP.

now I am Getting to understand my system better. A medium sized battery can easily be charged on excess solar and used to power the home past peak demand time during sunny days. Even without solar this could be deployed. Charge on grid when it’s cheap and discharge at highest prices of the day. Why can’t a commercial entity leverage batteries in this way? Because they are a rapidly deprecating asset that is hard to justify the upfront cost right now.

Is consumer PV and battery storage a solution? Seems like my utility thinks so for the short term. At best i’m powering one other home during sunny days and once 4 pm hits I’m just covering my self with the battery (if i choose to do so). So at best it’s one to one. Which means 50% of the homes will need solar + batt for100% green residential plus storage for cloudy days. Not realistic.

Are 2030 goals attainable? I’m pessimistic. But they will be attained by 2040 which is better than nothing.

Offshore wind industry and the governments need to get it in gear.

 

[stoveliker]

I think for 100% your neighbor also needs that battery after 4 pm? otherwise he'll depend on the grid (which has not much solar after 4 pm)
(All per percentages should be down by the amount of wind and hydro.)

 

[EbS-P]

I think for 100% your neighbor also needs that battery after 4 pm? otherwise he'll depend on the grid (which has not much solar after 4 pm)
(All per percentages should be down by the amount of wind and hydro.)

based on my battery usage of 50% and if you don’t do any laundry after 3pm I can go grid free until 8-9 pm. the AC is still cycling this time of year. Not going happen in the summer when the AC comes on at 2 and runs till 10 pm. That’s 15 kWh right there. And not going to happen in the winter. Some of that could be load shifted with a smart thermostat cooling and heating the house before peak demand.

I my point is I don’t see residential scale RE installs being a large percentage of the 2040 goals. I think it is a high cost convenience. Next big storm that hits here we should be self sufficient with some careful conservation.

 

[stoveliker]

Yes, but you said "which means 50% of homes needs solar and batteries". My point was it would need to be 100%.
Not realistic indeed.

 

[woodgeek]

Realistically neither homeowner rooftop solar nor batteries are a real solution. Neither have the economies of scale the utility solar and grid batteries achieve. This is why utility solar is now vastly outstripping homeowner in scale. It will be the same with batteries.

 

[stoveliker]

I agree.
The point is not generation. The point is *what do we do at night* to get to 95%+ carbon free.
See also the graphs on the page in post 35; we use a TON more power at night than I thought we did (as a country, not as residential only!).
That is a ton of storage that's needed.

Applied to the residential single user brought up by Evan's case, it means that every one needs a battery for their average nightly use. ("battery" used loosely here; some losses through conversion to chemical energy might be useful here rather than batteries only).

Or, better in my view, we need a lot more wind and hydro that are more (not perfectly) constant, and will also provide at night.

 

[woodgeek]

I agree.
The point is not generation. The point is *what do we do at night* to get to 95%+ carbon free.
See also the graphs on the page in post 35; we use a TON more power at night than I thought we did (as a country, not as residential only!).
That is a ton of storage that's needed.

Applied to the residential single user brought up by Evan's case, it means that every one needs a battery for their average nightly use. ("battery" used loosely here; some losses through conversion to chemical energy might be useful here rather than batteries only).

Or, better in my view, we need a lot more wind and hydro that are more (not perfectly) constant, and will also provide at night.

I use a lot at night bc my utility wants me to. They want to keep those legacy nukes spinning. They used to give me a discount to use kWh for winter heat... bc peak demand was in the summer and they needed to keep the nukes running.

In a future grid demand can shift. Right now most EV users and TOU folks shift loads to the evening.

Hydro can (in principle) be throttled down during the daytime and opened up at night.

 

[EbS-P]

I use a lot at night bc my utility wants me to. They want to keep those legacy nukes spinning. They used to give me a discount to use kWh for winter heat... bc peak demand was in the summer and they needed to keep the nukes running.

In a future grid demand can shift. Right now most EV users and TOU folks shift loads to the evening.

Hydro can (in principle) be throttled down during the daytime and opened up at night.

Pumped storage??? Probably not a realistic option. But it will keep making the news.

 

[ABMax24]

You need to somehow make friends with the French Canadians, admittedly this is almost impossible, but Hydro-Quebec has 37,000 MW of dispatchable hydro power. Just need a bunch of HVDC transmission lines to carry the energy back and forth.

 

[bogieb]

Yes, although peak renewable is not that hard.
I believe the negative prices we've seen here suggest it may have been higher here... (than 100%?). They were proud to have a leak of 91.5%...

What bugs me is that we use only about 20-30% less energy during the night than during the day.
I.e. we use 70-80% of daylight usage during the dark.

Hourly electricity consumption varies throughout the day and across seasons - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov

This was in 2020.

The problem is then that we need 400 million kWh in storage to save renewables generated during the day, minus wind and hydro as that generates also at night (tho wind less) - for a 100% carbon free end station.

Part of that is by design. A lot of utilities charge a fraction of daytime costs for people to load their electricity use at night (TOU).

At the extreme end of that is there are people who get free electricity at night - so they use batteries during the day, then recharge them thru the grid at night. Who wouldn't want to do that if it was an option?

 

[woodgeek]

Pumped storage??? Probably not a realistic option. But it will keep making the news.

Pumped storage is different from dispatching hydro.

Dispatching hydro on a diurnal cycle can affect wildlife and be a problem, but generally its pretty easy to do.

 

[Snagdaddy]

Increasing complexity associated with "green" power generation and storage systems indicates an increasing grid vulnerability. Power grid reliability should be the priority of governments. Clearly it isn't these days.

Looting governmental treasuries to pay for complex systems that will fail sooner and faster is what is happening.

Hydro has been effectively banned in the northeast, thanks to a handful of non-governmental organizations working with state and local governments on dam removals. One of their main tactics consists of condemning dams by governmental edict thereby forcing the owners of the dams to capitulate.

The powers that be will pass off their grid complexity profiteering schemes and foreign made green systems for as long as they can get away with it.

 

[woodgeek]

Increasing complexity associated with "green" power generation and storage systems indicates an increasing grid vulnerability. Power grid reliability should be the priority of governments. Clearly it isn't these days.

Looting governmental treasuries to pay for complex systems that will fail sooner and faster is what is happening.

Hydro has been effectively banned in the northeast, thanks to a handful of non-governmental organizations working with state and local governments on dam removals. One of their main tactics consists of condemning dams by governmental edict thereby forcing the owners of the dams to capitulate.

The powers that be will pass off their grid complexity profiteering schemes and foreign made green systems for as long as they can get away with it.

Opinions on this point differ. When the grid was originally built we didn't have computers or telecommunication other than telephones.

The grid nowadays has multiple points of communication and layers of feedback and control. Having grid batteries that can provide new energy inputs that come online in a fraction of a second would seem to me to be a plus for reliability.

Folks worried about the grid nowadays often worry that we will not have enough capacity on cloudy days, or during heavy winter load periods. Given that we have plenty of fossil plants still around (especially gas plants that can be ramped up and down rapidly), that does not see to be a major issue at this time.

Many utilities also have demand management programs, which can blunt peak demand by cycling peoples AC, pool heater, etc. Some folks see these programs as a 'weakness' or a sign of how desperate and terrible the grid has become... the utility has to text people to not charger their EVs!! But the reality is its just another new way that the grid can be stabilized and keep costs low (by reducing the need for excess capacity to run peak loads that occur a few hours a year).

These stats suggest that outages due to effects other than major storms have been about 2 hrs/year for the last decade.

U.S. electricity customers averaged five and one-half hours of power interruptions in 2022 - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov

 

[EbS-P]

Decentralized power generation along with rapid automation seem to have offset the increasing number of vulnerabilities. Could some bad happen sure. I still the biggest threat is a very large geomagnetic storm. I don’t see that risk as increasing or decreasing in frequency but the automation and self healing grid infrastructure could prevent some permanent damage.

 

[clancey]

ebs-p---What do you mean by a "automation and self healing grid infrastructure could prevent some permanent damage"...clancey