David Kirtley

#unavoidableopportunity #climateresilience investment now. "Separately, the Department of Energy is trying to help utilities squeeze more capacity out of the existing grid. That includes “grid-enhancing technologies” such as sensors that allow energy companies to send more power through existing lines without overloading them and advanced controls that allow operators to ease congestion on the grid. It also includes replacing existing lines with advanced conductors, which can potentially double capacity along existing routes. The Energy Department is currently offering $3.9 billion in funding that could go toward these and other solutions."

2

1 Comment

PRESS! We’re now at the early majority (vs minority) stage of this global clean energy transformation. It will take time and the discoveries and innovations will keep coming at ever-accelerated rates - stay tuned! Solar accounted for 75% of electricity generation capacity added to the U.S. power grid early this year as installations of panels rose to a quarterly record, according to a report published by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association on Thursday. The country's solar industry saw 11.8 gigawatts of new capacity in the first three months of 2024 as electric utilities continued their rapid additions of the renewable power sources, the report said. U.S. solar has benefited from the increased availability of panels and from federal and state policies aimed at increasing the amount of clean energy on the electric grid to meet climate-driven emissions goals. "Not only has the global solar supply chain expanded, but module imports to the U.S. have also risen significantly over the last year," according to the report.

1

Global Energy Education's Global Energy Education TV (www.geetv.net) enabled me to do a 'smash-up commentary on two recent posts by EPRI's Michael Caravaggio and Stanford University's Mark Jacobson. Michael's post showed data pertaining to CO2/kWh from the Grid per CAISO for the past 5 yeas, while Mark's post is one of recent daily posts showing how far renewable energy has come in California, with Renewable Energy sources of electric power generation able to exceed midday Demand for electricity for a record number of days in a row, yet why that doesn't appear to have a significant impact on the CO2/kWh in the electricity coming from the Grid. The bottom line? As I've noted before, the Grid is a single machine, and the electricity dispatched by the Grid is comprised of ALL generating sources. Secondly, the net amount of electricity dispatched must equal the net amount of electricity put into the Grid instantaneously. The current Achilles heel to a zero CO2/kWh Grid? The need for a Carbon-free flexible generation technology that is not limited by geology, hydrology, or location limitations. Batteries with solar can play a significant role when considering reliability, and resiliency, as shown in Mr. Jacobson's charts. However, they are expensive, and may not be the ideal solution in other states with less solar insolation. Plus, there is the issue of Long Duration Storage, especially in those regions with long summer days and long winter nights. Your thoughts?

4

Canary Media: "How Texas became the hottest grid battery market in the country." Over the last 10 yrs, 'solar photovoltaics have ascended from a power industry sideshow to the biggest source of new generation in the U.S.' The technologies 'stunning success' created demand for energy storage to make solar power available when twilight predictably ensues. Previously states like California + Massachusetts had legislated climate policies aimed at jump-starting the commercial battery industry. "But this year, for the first time ever, the fastest-growing energy storage market appears to be Texas, a free-market-affirming red state that officially cares little about solving climate change." Some feel that the state's low-regulation + business-friendly dogma created the conditions to 'build batteries quickly and at scale, just like it previously incubated thriving wind and solar markets.' 2021 companies began inaugurating Texan battery plants,reaching 5.1 gigawatts [GW] of storage [comparable to 5 nukes] with another 6.4 GW scheduled for this yr. "This was pure wild west investment based on the growing need for fast-ramping and flexible generation in relatively short but predictable bursts to be the glue for the grid.” On the warm spring night of April 28, people were cranking up air conditioning, + "gas and coal plants were pumping out 40 gigawatts of power — but another 27 gigawatts of thermal plants were offline, undergoing maintenance ahead of the bustling summer season." To the resuce came 'enormous, digitally controlled batteries [red arrow on graph] across the Lone Star State [which] rapidly injected 2 gigawatts of power into ERCOT’s wires just before 8 p.m., staving off potential power shortfalls and lowering electricity costs for customers.' Then on May 8th a similar shortage loomed, + "batteries surged more than 3 gigawatts onto the wires, beating the April 28 record. Got it? First energy efficiency [including in transmission], then renewables, finally storage—these are the easiest, fastest, cheapest ways to re-engineer the grid.

1

FERC has approved interconnection reform - and this is *generally* good for the energy transition. That said the devil in in the details of how states and utilities implement these changes. Some improvements like penalties assessed against utilities for tardy studies, trying to clean out queue squatters, and expressly identifying certain technical flexibility into interconnection design are good. However, we have specifically seen "Cluster Studies" and higher financial security requirements stymie development and create very costly and endless loops of re-studies in many markets (utility and DG). Calling on American Clean Power Association (ACP) Solar Energy Industries Association and importantly state level advocacy and watch dog groups to closely watch and actively participate as the implementation of these changes occur at the state level PUCs and DPUs - ensuring proper accountability and fair play. https://lnkd.in/ewehaH52 NYSERDA New York Solar Energy Industries Association MID-ATLANTIC RENEWABLE ENERGY COALITION Renewable Energy Vermont American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) Smart Electric Power Alliance NECEC Cleantech Leaders Roundtable

44

2 Comments

Merchant vs hedge in battery storage... That's what I'll be discussing at the Solarmedia Battery Asset Management Summit November 12 in San Diego I'll be on a panel with my friend Joe Crespo, Sandeep Arora of REV Renewables, Erdal Kara, PhD of Vistra Corp., Li Xu of LXI Capital and Sebastian Blake of Octopus Energy talking about risks and rewards, and sharing my Plus Power perspective #energystorage #batterystorage #batteries https://lnkd.in/eQDiv_Ax

5

For anyone who will be at IEEE Power & Energy Society T&D Conference feel free to stop by our panel session on #EVs and #gridreliability. Will be an interesting cross-sector discussion including technology provider, independent system operator, and utility perspectives among others. E-mobility is driving the blending of Transmission and Distribution system planning, design, and operations. Particularly with the growing prevalence of distributed energy resources, IoT and grid-edge technologies, and virtual power plants (#VPPs).

15

"According to company filings with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC), the facility will be able to fully power the 285 MW facility for five days, running 24 hours per day. This means that the facility will have 34,200-megawatt hours (MWh) of storage capacity at a cost of $2,339 per MWh, which amounts to $2.34 per kilowatt hour (kWh). Battery cost data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Assumptions to the Annual Energy Outlook shows a cost of $1,316 per kilowatt of four-hour battery storage. Dividing this value by four gives us a cost of $329 per kWh of storage capacity, which translates into $329,000 per MWh." #climatemath

5

1 Comment

RMI’s VP3 just published profiles of 14 VPPs that are providing 1500 MW of capacity across the US with ~4M participants. They detail out the grid services, participation parameters, and operator dynamics to shed light on successful models that are ready to scale up. “How utilities and their customers are already benefitting from VPPs and insights for future implementation.” #VirtualPowerPlants

199

25 Comments

A colleague asked me based on the last 5 years of ERCOT wind and solar hourly output how many GW of wind + solar + MWh of storage would be needed to deliver a continuous 1GW of Carbon Free Energy for every hour in the period. That was a fun question. So I pulled hourly data from here for ERCOT https://lnkd.in/e9DcWKk to give me a database of Jan 1, 2019 to Feb 1, 2024 of hourly wind and solar generation. Then I pulled installed wind and solar data capacity from here for ERCOT: https://lnkd.in/gaxU2JAd I used the installed capacity of wind and solar to convert the actual generation through the period to hourly outputs as a percentage of the installed capacity at the time (I just linearly interpolated solar and wind installed capacity throughout the year from capacity for the end of the previous year to end of the current year based on the EIA installed capacity inventories). With those hourly percentages I set up a calculator to tell me if I installed 'x' GWs of solar or wind in ERCOT what I would get looking at every hour in the Jan 1, 2019 to Feb 1, 2024 dataset. I then setup a calculator to figure out a storage inventory based on a continuous need for 1GW of Carbon Free Energy (CFE) needed for every hour in the dataset. I did a number of runs with different installations of Wind (GW), Solar (GW), and Storage (MWh) to see if they could deliver 1GW of energy for every hour in the ~45,000 hour dataset. Below is a table of results.

99

55 Comments

#unavoidableopportunity #climateresilience investment now. "Batteries can also help California’s grid handle stresses from heat waves and wildfires, Mr. Phipps said. “It made some differences last summer,” he said. “We were able to meet high load days and wildfire days when we might lose some power lines.”" #climateresilience = #climate2point0

39

2 Comments

According to Fortescue's US chief a 1GW electrolyser needs 7GW of green energy supply to meet hourly matching requirements 🤔 “If I am building a gigawatt of electrolysers in Texas I may only need a gigawatt of energy at any time, but I have to buy seven times that to ensure that I have all the probabilities working, so I know I can match in that hour, which means the bulk of what I buy I don’t need,” I think Fortescue needs better energy project modelling tools (*cough* Gridcog) and a better understanding of how to contract PPAs. Oh and a reminder that Hyrdogen produced with coal and gas isn't especially green. https://lnkd.in/ge2x5Wdf

88

14 Comments

Read up on my latest #PowerPlaybook finances column below! National Grid Partners has been curating quite the project portfolio

2

🎥 On Thursday, May 9th, Project Canary is hosting a webinar featuring Insight M (formerly Kairos Aerospace) and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, moderated by GTI Energy – diving deep into how imperfections in measurement approaches impact annual emissions accounting.  As operators begin the path to measurement-informed inventories for initiatives like OGMP 2.0 and new regulations, understanding the tradeoffs of different measurement approaches is paramount to driving more accurate emissions accounting.  In this webinar we’ll discuss these tradeoffs + more, including:  → How measurement frequency and geographic coverage impact uncertainty  → How uncertainties are incorporated into measurement-informed emissions accounting  → How operators can use this information to craft measurement strategies for their assets    👉 REGISTER: https://lnkd.in/g9xAs-gJ   #projectcanary #webinar #colorado #emissions #methane #climatetech #climatetechnology #emissionsintelligence #cdphe

43

2 Comments

Aviation is really hard to decarbonize," said Samantha Gross, director of energy security and climate initiative at the The Brookings Institution. "You're never going to see a battery-powered 737 [plane] because batteries are heavy." (In current format/chemistry). See video in link below to see inside Joby Aviation. That’s why the industry is working on a number of green energy solutions like sustainable fuels for larger, long-distance aircraft. Meanwhile, electrifying small planes is in trials (See Air New Zealand recent announcements) and helicopters are on the horizon. #aviation #electricvehicles #VTOL https://lnkd.in/gHrsk8wu

6

2 Comments

In 2019 I wrote an article asking if natural gas was the new coal. An industry that got wiped out in the U.S. by economic competition. It was pretty clear this was coming for the natural gas industry. And now, it is here. "renewable energy by itself is already much cheaper than coal and gas-fired plants" "The combination of solar PV (photovoltaic) and batteries is today competitive with new coal plants in India," said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. "And just in the next few years, it will be cheaper than new coal in China and gas-fired power in the United States. Batteries are changing the game before our eyes." #energystorage is a game changer. And it is just getting started.

22

5 Comments

Positive news for the clean energy transition in the U.S.! Last week, The Federal Energy Regulatory Commision (FERC) passed one of the most significant regulatory reforms to U.S. electrical grid transmission in decades. This landmark ruling aims to support the development of a much needed long-term strategy for planning the U.S. electrical grid's transmission. Why is this important? Transmission and Interconnection remain major bottlenecks to the U.S. clean energy transition. Without a massive expansion and upgrade of the high-voltage transmission grid, the U.S. cannot reach our climate goals or meet our country’s clean energy needs. “As abundant new energy generation projects remain stalled due to a lack of grid capacity and increasing electrification spurs new demand for power, the US grid is facing a lag in transmission buildout. While regional grid operators have made some progress on updating their transmission planning processes to meet these challenges, many of them stand to benefit from a more robust and long-term planning approach.”  – RMI So what’s in FERC’s new transmission and cost allocation rule and what will it do? In short, FERC Order No.1920 aims to improve the regional transmission planning process by taking a more long-term planning approach and addressing the cost allocation for these projects (i.e. how it gets paid for and by who). ⌛ Long-Term Planning: Encourages Regional Transmission Operators (RTOs) to engage in a more proactive, forward-looking regional planning process on a five-year basis. Transmission providers must use a 20-year planning horizon for projected new resources (expanded from the prior 3 to 5-year timeline). 💱 Cost Allocation: Addresses the largest transmission planning hurdle (cost), by establishing a new framework and promoting a portfolio approach that distributes benefits and costs more fairly across different regions and stakeholders. It also provides clear guidelines for states to participate in the decision-making process. 📊 Holistic Approach to Benefits Evaluation: Requires RTOs to assess a more comprehensive set of benefits – not just the costs – in the transmission planning process. Order No.1920 outlines a minimum set of seven (7) Economic and Reliability benefits that must be assessed, including things like upgrading or replacing aging infrastructure, reducing energy losses, improving grid congestion, and mitigating extreme weather events. By mandating comprehensive FUTURE transmission planning, the ruling should facilitate (and hopefully expedite) the integration of innovative grid enhancing technologies and improve the interconnection of clean energy resources to the grid. Barring any major delays from legal disputes or appeals, the provisions of Order No. 1920 will go into effect in 2025. The long-term and forward-looking nature of these reforms should hopefully shape a more certain and expedited trajectory for the United States’ clean energy future for the coming decades.

16

1 Comment

Renewables now makeup ~30% of U.S. generating capacity, and if small scale solar was included renewable capacity should easily be 1/3 of total U.S. power capacity. How impressive and promising! https://lnkd.in/gNdR_x7P

8

REP. HUFFMAN ANNOUNCES $15 MILLION FOR CALIFORNIA FLOATING SOLAR ENERGY BUILD OUT: FUNDING PART OF $19 MILLION INVESTMENT FOR INNOVATIVE SOLAR ENERGY PROJECTS TO FURTHER BUILD RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND EXPAND CLEAN DOMESTIC ENERGY PRODUCTION Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representative Jared Huffman (CA-02) announced $19.5 million from President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda to install solar panels in irrigation canals as part of an initiative to study the water efficiency gains and amount of clean energy produced for future larger scale implementation. $15 million of this funding has been awarded to the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority for the Delta-Mendota Canal Floating Solar Project. The projects in California, Oregon and Utah are funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which makes available $25 million for the design, study and implementation of projects to cover Reclamation-related water conveyance facilities with solar panels. Representative Huffman crafted the provision in the IRA that made this funding possible. “This announcement is a significant milestone for our efforts to combat climate change and transition the country to clean, green energy. Deploying solar panels on our canal systems is a smart solution to our growing water and energy dilemmas – it harnesses clean energy technology to increase efficiency while reducing our carbon footprint and water loss from canal evaporation,” said Rep. Huffman. “Thanks to the visionary work of stakeholders, engineers, climate experts, and the many other partners I’ve worked with over the years on this, I was able to craft a provision to secure this funding which will make our vision a reality.” The projects announced include: The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, Delta-Mendota Canal Floating Solar Project (California), $15 million. The Authority, Reclamation and the University of California-Merced will collaborate through a public-private-academic partnership to assess the impacts of floating photovoltaic solar arrays on the Delta-Mendota Canal. The pilot intends to deploy potentially up to three floating solar technologies to assess the viability, costs, and benefits of floating solar over canal technologies on large conveyance facilities like the Delta Mendota Canal. The initiative will also validate floating photovoltaics design for moving water, identify and address issues related to maintaining a canal with panels on it, explore the power generation potential, and develop methods to quantify impacts on water quality. https://lnkd.in/gDQ3wmTZ

2