The “greening of the grid” is well underway due to trends toward increased use of natural gas, more use of renewable power, and less use of coal-fired power.
Todd Williams, partner and fossil practice co-leader at ScottMadden, presented on Greening the Grid, a study of the trends and drivers impacting the United States electric grid and its movement towards renewable energy. The presentation examined the drivers moving the United States electric generation fleet increasingly towards renewables and future considerations to maintain the electric grid.
“We have already started down the path to a more greener electric grid. Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), the economics of building new generation, and customer preference are all key drivers moving the United States towards renewable energy,” said Mr. Williams. “It was a privilege to present at this conference. PennWell always puts together excellent conferences for professionals working in electric generation.”
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Agenda
- Greening has already been happening
- Three drivers for greening
- Lessons learned from Hawaii and Germany
- Three challenges posed by greening
- Conclusion
The Grid has Become Substantially Greener in a Short Time. . .
Total emissions have fallen dramatically since 1990, even while total electricity generation has increased.
And is Projected to Become Greener…
Going green is a combination of three trends: increased natural gas, increased renewables, and decreased coal.
Green Driver #1: Regulations and Mandates
State and federal mandates and regulations have driven early growth of renewable generation.
Green Driver #2: Economics
Renewable generation sources are becoming more economic, even without subsidies.
Green Driver #3: Consumer Preference
Given a choice, many electricity consumers simply prefer green generation. For example, the growth in C&I direct purchase of renewables.
Hawaii and Germany – Bellwethers for the rest of us?
A world apart but similar experiences
- Despite the high penetration of renewables in Hawaii, the system is not in collapse
- Even though grid management has increased in Germany, supply disruptions have only marginally increased and are not attributed to the energy policy turnaround and associated increase in decentralized power generation
Green Challenge A: Dispatchability
The duck curve is:
- Producing net loads lower than forecast
- Increasing ramps throughout the year
- Most severe on the weekends
- Occurring in multiple seasons, not just spring months
- Driven by utility-scale solar in California, not distributed resources
Green Challenge B: Consumer Choice
A little like peaceful atomic power and military atomic power, you really cannot have grid-scale green energy without distributed green energy.
Green Challenge C: A Darker Side of Green
If the greening of the grid means both utility-scale and distributed generation, then how much is our grid today like the telephone network in the late 1980s?
“Telephone networks, it was often said, had an intelligent core — the switches that ran everything — and “dumb” edges, meaning the handsets in nearly every home and business in the nation. The Internet, by contrast, would have a “dumb” core — all the network did was carry data — with intelligent -edges, meaning the individual computers controlled by users.”
Conclusion
- Generation will continue its path toward green
- Key signposts that signal the speed include:
- Capital cost reductions
- Price of natural gas
- Policy driven mandates and incentives
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