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Yes, I’m going to spend the entire week reviewing the results of the Resources for the Future Climate Insights 2024 Report and with good reason. Many might read the report and think “this is good” the vast majority of people are thinking “green.” However, that isn’t what I see at all. In fact, the more I dig into the results the worse I believe they are. ..
Energy Central…
The perfect storm of crises and policy directives have converged to create the energy storage moment. Between the drive to reduce carbon output to “net zero” over the coming decades and the commodity crisis created by the conflict in Ukraine (including its impact on the supply and price of oil and natural gas), the pressure to deploy renewable resources has never been greater.
The term “renewable resources” could include wood or falling water, but policymakers tend to equate “renewable” with wind or solar generation. While wind and solar both produce electricity without carbon emissions and with zero fuel cost, standing alone, they are considered intermittent resources. Put simply, when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, these resources do not produce electricity.
The bulk power system, which powers our nation and enables modern civilization, relies on a continuous current, or uninterrupted flow of electrons, to quite literally “keep the lights on.” For decades, this problem was met through the use of baseload resources such as coal, nuclear, or natural gas, which runs continuously for long periods of time, generating a constant flow of electrons.…
A control system that smooths out inter-area oscillations—a problem affecting power systems connected by relatively weak tie lines—has been successfully demonstrated by researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and Montana Tech University. The system that uses smart grid technology could allow utilities to push more power through transmission lines, possibly nixing the need for new transmission lines and help to stabilize the grid.
Electric power grids operate well below transmission capacity to avoid widespread outages due to inter-area oscillations, which occur when the standard frequency of 60 cycles per second increases on the utility side of the transmission line while the frequency on the customer side decreases, switching back and forth every second or two. “Most of the time these oscillations are well-behaved and not a problem—they are always there,” explained Sandia engineer David Schoenwald. “But at a moment when you are trying to push a large amount of power, like on a very hot day in the summer, these oscillations start to become less well behaved and can start to swing wildly.”…