Texas grid operators and regulators are warning of the possibility of blackouts this summer. They say that there is not enough dispatchable generation to cover periods when renewables like solar and wind are not performing. A dispatchable generator can generate electricity when needed. An intermittent renewable generator only generates power when nature provides the fuel.
Lake said this summer, the riskiest hours on the hottest days could be closer to the 9 p.m. timeframe when solar power goes away with the sunset.
"It's still hot at 9 p.m. The sun sets faster than the atmosphere cools, and our solar generation is all gone. So at that point in the day, we will be relying on wind generation,” he said. "If the wind does not pick up, we will have to rely on our on-demand, dispatchable generators. And the data is showing us that on our hottest days under a certain set of circumstances, we may not have enough on-demand, dispatchable generation to cover the gap between when the sun sets -- and we lose the solar -- and when our wind generation picks up.”
So if there's not enough wind on those hottest days, outages are possible after sunset.
But it's not just Texas. The Southwest Power Pool, that operates the grid in the southwestern plains has also issued an alert for next week.
SPP has issued a resource advisory for its 14-state balancing authority area in the Eastern Interconnection next week, effective Monday at 10 a.m. CT through 8 p.m. Tuesday, because of an expected shortfall from wind resources and generating units offline on maintenance outages.
The difference is a forecast that projects wind energy to be significantly lower during the advisory period.
And it's not just ERCOT and SPP. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) is warning that there could be problems this summer.
"Relatively low wind volatility but low production levels can stress some of our operations conditions as we do have a lot more wind in our system than we have had in the past," Kuzman said. MISO's summer wind forecasts tend to be off by 800-1,200 MW, and there is usually a falloff of wind output in August, he said.
And it's not just ERCOT and SPP and MISO, PJM Interconnection, the grid operator for Mid-Atlantic states recently issued its own warning.
Power supplies in the US PJM Interconnection could get dangerously tight this summer if there is high demand and high outages -- a situation that would require the grid operator to rely on demand response to maintain reliability, Mike Bryson, senior vice president of operations at PJM, said May 4.
When PJM looked at the combination of unexpectedly high demand and high outages, it saw "for the first time that we would be below operating reserves for the summer," Bryson told a meeting of the Illinois Commerce Commission.
It's no longer a fluke or a coincidence. It's reality, and it's spreading. Environmental groups say "don't blame wind and solar, blame increasingly bad weather." And of course, that increasingly bad weather, they claim, is a direct result of "climate change" and "climate change" is caused by reliable baseload power generators, like coal and gas. So, if we turn off all the fossil fuels, will the weather change enough to provide 24/7 dependable wind and solar power? Absolutely not. This is a ridiculous contention.
Here's a good article on how and why this resource inadequacy is spreading like the plague.
Here's a good article on how and why this resource inadequacy is spreading like the plague.
“What other states do has a great effect on the grid. For example, any of the [PJM] states that say they’re going to go completely green or clean or whatever you want to call it — they say they’re not going to use any more fossil fuel. Well, that means they’re going to rely on someone else to provide power for them in those times when these clean and green energy projects don’t work. They’re intermittent; they depend on the time of day. The example I use is: Where does the power come from for a solar array at three o’clock in the morning?”
PJM is the last fossil-fuel generating hold out, and in the face of its own looming reliability problems, it can no longer be the powerhouse of the eastern interconnection.
Are these the solutions the clean energy peddlars and our bloated, woke government see? They'll be the first to scream when the lights go out.
Are these the solutions the clean energy peddlars and our bloated, woke government see? They'll be the first to scream when the lights go out.
“There are two solutions: There will be certain times when you operate your appliances or charge your car or whatever, or there will be rolling blackouts. Neither of those sound like very good options to me.”
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