Posted on 05/22/2023 5:13:39 AM PDT by MtnClimber
As discussed here many, many times, the big problem with generating electricity from wind and solar sources is that they are intermittent. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t. And sometimes they don’t work for days on end. The times when both wind and sun fail at the same time for multiple days tend to be concentrated in the very coldest days of the winter. This poses a huge problem for central planners’ dreams of “net zero” electricity. Try to solve the problem with grid-scale batteries, and suddenly you’re talking wildly unaffordable costs in the trillions of dollars.
Not to worry. Recently everywhere talk has emerged of a new and seemingly easy solution to the problem of intermittency. Have you heard of it? It’s the “Virtual Power Plant.” I mean, today pretty much everything can be “virtual” if you want it to be. We have the “virtual” meeting, the “virtual” office, and the “virtual” school — even “virtual” reality. So why not a “virtual” power plant?
But, in the context of generating electricity, what does this business of “virtual” mean? Don’t you actually need to have something to produce the juice? A Manhattan Contrarian investigation now reveals that the Virtual Power Plant is exactly what you undoubtedly already suspect it to be: another new level of Orwellian doubletalk. “Virtual Power Plant” turns out to be another term for pointless enforced sacrifice in service to the climate cult.
If you have been paying attention, you probably have already noticed that this “Virtual Power Plant” thing is the latest talking point of the central planners. For those who have been paying less attention, let me provide a little sampling: here is the web page from the federal government’s Department of Energy (“Virtual power plants, generally considered a connected aggregation of distributed energy resource (DER) technologies, offer deeper integration of renewables and demand flexibility, which in turn offers more Americans cleaner and more affordable power”); a recent (2023) Report from the Rocky Mountain Institute (“Virtual Power Plants, Real Benefits: How aggregating distributed energy resources can benefit communities, society, and the grid”); a piece from Reuters, January 31, 2023 (“Explainer: What is a virtual power plant?”); a piece from Elektrek, September 2, 2022, informing us that none other than Tesla is in the middle of this new fad (“Tesla virtual power plant is rocketing up, reaches 50 MW”).
OK, then, this VPP thing has something to do with “a connected aggregation of distributed power resources.” What the heck does that mean?
Trying to get to the bottom of this, I come upon a piece from Utility Dive on May 5, and a Report from the Brattle Group with a May 2023 date. (You may recognize the Brattle Group as the people who put out the 2021 New York Power Grid Study that I criticized in this post on April 22.)
Both Utility Dive and the Brattle Group start out with excited descriptions of this VPP thing as some magical concoction to defeat the intermittency problem with almost no cost or sweat. From Utility Dive’s summary of the Brattle Group’s conclusions:
The net cost for a utility to provide resource adequacy from a virtual power plant is about 40% to 60% less than natural gas peaker plants and utility-scale batteries. Deploying 60 GW of VPPs “could meet future U.S. resource adequacy needs at $15-$35 billion less than the cost of the alternative options over the ensuing decade,” Brattle’s report said.
And it gets even more magical. From page 12 of the Brattle Group Report:
In fact, a VPP does not even need to generate power.
Wait a minute — what is a “power plant” that doesn’t generate any power? Let us in on the secret! We have to get that by working our way through a model set forth in the Report. In that model, the “Virtual Power Plant” derives its input (if you want to call it that) almost entirely from the following three things:
Smart Thermostats. A/C and electric heating are controlled to reduce usage during peak times. Customer comfort is managed through pre-cooling/heating. Smart Water Heating. Electric water heaters act as a grid-interactive thermal battery, providing daily load shifting and even real-time grid balancing. Home EV Managed Charging. EV charging is a large, flexible source of load that can be shifted overnight.
It’s “smart” thermostats, and “smart” water heaters, and “managed” EV charging. If I might, let me translate that into layman’s terms. On the coldest days of the winter, when the grid does not have enough power, first we will take the liberty of draining the power out of your EV battery. In the all EV utopia that we envision, you are now stuck at home. Then, we will remotely turn off your heat and hot water. Hey, it’s to save the planet!
In this vision, the convenience and comfort, let alone the physical safety, of the people are of no importance. No more the American dream, where you can improve your life by hard work. Now it’s to be forced sacrifice to satisfy the jealous gods of the pagan climate cult.
It’s one more front in the all-out war against your well-being now being waged by our government.
And all of this to appease the climate change cult. After this, maybe wrongthink can be found to cause climate change. How to get rid of that?
So in other words, let’s be Venezuela and have rolling blackouts.
This word shifting BS they came up with is masterful.
Extremely good propaganda .
That meme should be on billboards, t-shirts, social media everywhere.
Interesting problem for the "net zero" profit end game. If people use less of something, the only profitable alternative is to charge more for less. That's the game. Inflate, whether in words and vocabulary, or in money.
“Smart Thermostats. A/C and electric heating are controlled to reduce usage during peak times.”
Reduce usage during peak times, coupled with reducing usage during times of low (sometimes near-zero) generation.
This was the ONLY possibility and the writing has been on the wall for over a decade, at least for those who pay attention (after all, did anyone ever ask you if you wanted a ‘smart meter’?). Needless to say, BIG LIFESTYLE changes.
The smarter among us will learn how to hack into these systems (such as bypassing ‘smart’ thermostats), while the rest of the masses will learn how to live with some vague entity deciding when they are allowed to have power, and when they’re not.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth
To replace a 100MW coal plant with a 100MW solar farm is easy. But the 100MW solar farm only produces 100MW from 10am to 4pm. So, you really need 18 hours of energy storage or 1800MWs. This requires 4 100MW solar farms since 3 are just for charging the batteries.
Replacing 1 100MW Coal plant requires 4 100MW solar farms and 1800MW of energy storage.
If you want to have backup for rainy days replacing 1 100MW coal plant requires 4200MW of energy storage and 8 100MW solar farms.
Right. When winter comes out come the old fashion double bladed axes and down come every tree in the neighborhood. There isn’t a police force on the planet big enough to stop that. These people live in a fantasy world.
Here in Upstate, RG&E has provided gas and electric since the 50's....at least. Now a few folks got "bad" bills which have since been corrected. Some folks showed up at a Rochester meeting and said they want the government to take over. Ridiculous...wonder who's prodding them....
The day I have to put up with blackouts had better also contain news of each and every elite’s residence being cut off from power and the inhabitants being afraid to go outside.
Not even close to kidding.
There’s an old saying that says “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades”. I guess we can add vaccines and green power to when close is good enough. It’s what happens when the truth gets a makeover.
What is also needed is virtual grocery stores. Put them in blue cities — totally replacing all other sources of food, even take out restaurants.
Hungry? Login to the virtual food WWW site and they will tell you how to ignore hunger, yours and your children.
Solve the “excess” population problem in just days.
Oh, and just imagine how cheap the elites can snap up the now vacant food outlets and empty apartments. Gonna be loads cheaper than the burned out buildings created in 2020 by Antifa/BLM thugs.
So then a Virtual Powerplant is just a fancy name for rolling blackouts?
Or more precisely, rolling micro blackouts of individual devices in each home be they the electric water heater, electric heat pump, electric air conditioning, electric stove, or electric vehicle recharging.
And all of this to appease the climate change cult. After this, maybe wrongthink can be found to cause climate change. How to get rid of that?There are two ways for people to give up their religion:
Another reason the powers that be are working hard to enforce electric heating for everyone.
There is a myth that floats around the internet that goes something like this...the elites will own everything while US serfs will own nothing and be happy. We will eat bugs, they will eat beef. They will enjoy access to utilities and US serfs will happily sit in the dark and enjoy the cold/heat. The elites will be the only ones with motor vehicles, we will ride buses as we are moved forcibly into 15 minute city's. The elite will enjoy surfing, skiing and all sorts of privileges that we serfs will not.
Now the reality...the elites will be nothing but targets. They will voluntarily place themselves in the fields of fire, or they will have to remain holed up to avoid being part of the target rich environment. In short, they will own nothing and be happy to draw their next breath. The end.
Oh, so it is blackouts, load deferral and somehow harvesting heat from the water tanks of the world?
I get it now. More BS.
Traditionally, the elites did what they wished, and were not targeted by the majority of people. The USA is an historical anomaly. The founders built well, but checks and balances, the Bill of Rights, and Federalism have all been weakened.
The elites expect to rely on control of the information flow to program the population. They expect fleets of drones and robot warriors to protect them and enforce their proclamations.
The only way to “save the planet” is to destroy those who would “save” it. The only way their plan works is if they kill enough useless eaters.
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