Delusion vs. Reality

There was much giddiness in California on Saturday as, for the first time ever, the state was running on 100% renewable electricity!  But Californians barely had time to pop the champagne and pour a glass because 15 minutes later the 100% renewable electricity came to an end when supply could not keep up with demand.

Even Californians don't want their electricity to only work for 15 minutes on a random Saturday afternoon, when solar generation is at its peak, so what was there to celebrate?  The random occurrence is NOT an indicator that California's 100% renewable energy goal has (or ever will be) achieved.  It's nothing but a delusional news nugget because renewable generators cannot be counted on to meet capacity at any one point in time.  When they do, it's random, not planned.  But what about batteries, you ask?  Not mature enough to supply reliable power for long periods of time.  But what about transmission lines that import renewables from other states?  How seriously self-absorbed can you be?  No, people in other states do not want to live with the impacts of renewable generators and transmission lines so that California can meet its impossible goals.  That's never going to happen.  Besides, those folks are heading at breakneck speed towards their own generation shortage.  There won't be anything to share.

Are we being pushed into a renewable energy delusion that is going to end in electricity being a "sometime" luxury?  The more renewables the government subsidizes, the more reliable baseload power is economically forced out of market.  The people in charge refuse to recognize this reality and keep driving their renewable train down the track towards disaster.

Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) warned last week that is unlikely to have enough capacity to get the Midwest through the summer months without emergency declarations and rolling blackouts.  Similar to weather alerts, that's a warning, not a watch.  It's going to happen.

Over the past decade, the Midwest has been covered with industrial wind installations, and now industrial solar installations are getting into the game.  As these "low-cost" subsidized power sources enter the market, older fossil fuel generators cannot compete and they are closing in record numbers.  But what happens when vast percentages of the power supply are unreliable, intermittent renewables?

The RTO said all summer months will require emergency resources to meet peak load conditions. Using a probable peak load forecast, MISO said it has 116 GW of firm resources to cover a 116-GW peak in June, an insufficient 119 GW to tackle a 124-GW peak in July and another 119 GW that will be no match for August’s 121-GW peak forecast.

The RTO said it could be in even worse shape if it encounters higher-than-normal temperatures coupled with a high level of generation outages. The grid operator said it’s possible it will find itself depleting all emergency resources and still coming up a few gigawatts short over all three months. In a worst-case scenario, MISO could have a little less than 114 GW in firm capacity and a daunting 131-GW demand during the July peak. In that case, it would be about 5 GW short after all firm and emergency resources are factored in.

And what happens when there's not enough supply?

MISO last week warned that even a normal amount of demand and generation outages will likely send it into emergency procedures this summer.
The RTO also didn’t rule out summertime load shedding during combinations of high demand and high generation outages.

"Load shedding" is just engineer talk for rolling blackouts, where power is shut off to certain areas for a period of time, and when that power is restored, the blackout rolls into a different area where power is shut off for a similar period.  The rolling blackouts continue until sufficient power is restored to meet demand.  "Generation outage" means electric generators fail to operate, whether they are broken or out of fuel.  When it's really hot, land based wind is likely to die down.  This causes the turbines to stop generating.  They often fail when they're needed most... on a hot summer afternoon.

The grid operator said it will probably rely on a combination of emergency resources and non-firm energy imports from neighbors to maintain system reliability in June, July and August.

Well, aren't you a little California there, relying on imports from neighboring regions to keep your lights on because the generation you have in your own region is unreliable and insufficient to meet your expected load?  But what if PJM also experiences summer capacity shortages, as it also has experienced a run on subsidized industrial solar installations that is causing its own baseload generators to retire.  That's when the power gets shut off on a really hot day (or night, when solar isn't producing anything).  The generation shortages are spreading as fast as renewables.... and it's no coincidence.

At what point are the politically-driven policy wonks going to wake up and realize we're not at the point yet where we can be reliably powered by wind and solar, and not likely to get there by spending all our energy dollars on more wind and solar and transmission lines for import/export between regions?  It's an equation that only works on paper.

More misery to come.  Stock up on candles and hand fans.