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– Fifteen Con Edison employees have won coveted industry awards for findings that will help energy companies maintain reliable service for customers and protect the environment. The employees earned Technology Transfer Awards from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a nonprofit that encourages innovation to make sure customers have clean, safe, reliable and affordable..
Energy Central…
The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) is warning that much of the central U.S.—a region that stretches from the Great Lakes into southern Texas—may face critical power deficiencies during extreme winter weather conditions over the next three months. Natural gas supply disruptions and low hydropower conditions could also imperil power reliability in New England and the West, it said.
In its Nov. 18–issued 2021–2022 Winter Reliability Assessment, the nation’s designated Electric Reliability Organization (ERO) urged generators across the U.S. to take proactive steps to prepare for an eventful winter and keep communications open with grid operators.
NERC also called on grid operators to prepare and implement cold weather operating plans, conduct drills, and poll generators for fuel and availability status. Load-serving entities should review critical loads to prevent disruptions, and regulators should support requested environmental waivers, it said.
The ERO’s dire report echoes its May-issued summer assessment, when it warned of “elevated risks” for energy emergencies in Texas, New England, in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) territory, and parts of the West.…
Stanton Energy Reliability Center is a unique hybrid power station that includes two GE LM6000 gas turbines, each integrated with a battery energy storage system. The station provides reliable and stable power generation needed by the California power grid.
California has long been a leader in the world’s transition toward renewable energy. In 2018, California established a landmark policy requiring that 100% of electric retail sales to customers in the state be supplied by renewable and zero-carbon energy resources by 2045. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has reported that renewable resources, including hydropower and small-scale (less than one MW) customer-sited solar photovoltaic systems, are already supplying more than half of California’s in-state electricity generation. In March this year, the California Energy Commission (CEC), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and California Air Resources Board (CARB) issued a joint agency report that found the state’s clean energy goals are indeed achievable, and in multiple ways.
Yet, the state has also felt the effects of power shortages in recent years.…
The post Texas’ Impending Reliability Issues With Wind Power appeared first on POWER Magazine.
COMMENTARY
Texas has the most wind capacity of any state, generating about 16% of its electricity from wind. In August, as temperatures rose above 100F and consumers increased their use of air conditioning, Texas’ grid operators struggled to meet the record demand for electricity.
Many of the wind turbines could not operate because the wind was stagnant, a common occurrence on very hot days. As a result, energy costs skyrocketed. In Houston, wholesale power prices spiked 49,000% (to $ 9,000 per megawatt-hour). The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) warned that reserve margins were so low that it might have to institute rolling blackouts, or controlled interruptions of power service. The independent system operator called for the construction of more gas-fired generating plants.
Mary J. Hutzler
Facing a second consecutive year of strain on its grid, ERCOT mandated all available power plants to run flat-out, called on factories to cut power consumption, and imported electricity from Mexico.…
When conversations around the power industry turn to computer hacking, more often than not experts say it’s not a question of if, but rather, how systems have been compromised.
William Doering, adjunct professor in the online Master’s in Business Administration program at Maryville University and a director with Guidehouse—a management consulting services provider—said he has participated in various discussions on how to cleanse infection and how to ensure reliability after the fact. Speaking on The POWER Podcast, Doering said the Stuxnet computer worm and the Ukraine power grid cyberattack in 2015 should provide more than enough evidence that systems are vulnerable.
“For us to think that something like that hasn’t happened yet [in the U.S.] is definitely on the riskier side of optimistic,” Doering said.
“I think the level of sophistication that state-level actors provide is in many cases astounding,” he said. But even more worrisome to Doering is the fact that state-level-actor tools, which are extremely sophisticated, complex, and devastating, have been released and are now in the hands of the broader masses.…
The accelerated retirement of coal-fired and nuclear generation by 2022 could adversely affect reliability in four regions, including in the east and over a swathe of the central U.S., the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) warned as it released findings from a “stress-test” scenario.
But the entity tasked with ensuring reliability and security of the North American bulk power system (BPS) also noted six of 10 assessment areas—which cover PJM, New England, MISO, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and the Western coast—would have enough generation capacity to maintain peak demand, even if they see high levels of generator retirements over the next five years.
The findings stem from NERC’s Dec. 18–released “Generation Retirement Scenario,” which the entity evaluated because, it said, the retirement of traditional baseload generators and their rapid replacement with natural gas–fired, wind, and solar generation “is changing the characteristics of the BPS and introducing new considerations for reliability planning.”
The so-called “stress-test” scenario essentially assumes that areas where coal and nuclear currently make up a large share of resource levels will see accelerated retirements so that by 2022, they will lose 30% of their coal capacity and 45% of their nuclear capacity.…