the grid, Tag

Blackouts during heat waves are dangerous, but blaming such failures on climate change instead of on poorly managed energy policies and fragile grids dominated by weather-dependent renewables is a complete abdication of responsibility.

“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. The folks at the agency are professionals, they’re great to work with and they are committed to carrying out the mission of the agency and setting out on a path to achieve the ambitious...

The Columbia River Basin remains a vital artery for America’s energy and agricultural future. To gamble that away on the basis of activist pressure and incomplete science would be not just foolish, but dangerous. For once,...

Layman’s guide to system inertia from Kathryn Porter

Ultimately the problem is that New York has no comprehensive energy plan.  The Climate Act Scoping Plan is just a list of technologies that describe an electric system that is zero-emissions.  However, there is no feasibility...

Subsidizing new industry may be a social good, but it’s critical to recognize that market choice didn’t reduce overall costs—it only changed who benefited, reshaping how the pie was divided...

The problem that we had in Britain on the 8th of January was we nearly just ran out of electricity. We didn’t have enough available generation to meet demand. So, fundamentally, those are the two ways that you can have...

We need to be honest with ourselves... wind and solar alone can’t provide energy security. Not today. Maybe not ever without massive redesigns. We have leaned too hard on brittle inverter-based systems and we’ve treated...

Now, in the aftermath of this blackout that could have been much worse, Spain has significantly increased its reliance on natural gas-fired power plants to stabilize its electricity grid...

If NERC is assuming major solar and wind output to meet peak need, their findings are ridiculously unreliable. The combination of using wind and solar with merely average conditions makes this so-called reliability assessment...

LA-based climate campaigner Michael Mezzatesta, self-described economics and climate educator, has a new one for the climate debate: blackouts are good, bringing us together! He states:

Sounds like Texas is getting fed up with its electricity system being increasingly put at risk by wind and solar power. After years of papering over the cracks with half hearted proposals, it appears that the State Legislature...

“Could the reliability of the Iberian Peninsula grid be ensured by introducing new technical solutions? Technically, yes—but economically, the feasibility is more challenging.” ( – J.K. Nøland, below)

The French are finding out that combining nuclear power with unstable wind and sun is not a good idea and is a risk to the power grid. Spain recently had to learn a similar lesson in a most painful manner.

“The challenge with rising renewables: As power systems rely more on asynchronous generation, frequency changes can occur much faster, increasing the risk of grid instability.” (- Dave Edwards_