Yes, right after nappy time...
Posted on 03/10/2023 4:42:33 AM PST by george76
PJM Interconnection sounds the latest alarm that fossil-fuel plants are shutting down without adequate replacement power. The political class yawns.
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The warnings keep coming that the force-fed energy transition to renewable fuels is destabilizing the U.S. electric grid, but is anyone in government paying attention?
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The PJM report forecasts power supply and demand through 2030 across the 13 eastern states in its territory covering 65 million people. ... Fossil-fuel power plants are retiring much faster than renewable sources are getting developed, which could lead to energy “imbalances.” That’s a delicate way of saying that you can expect shortages and blackouts.
PJM typically generates a surplus of power owing to its large fossil-fuel fleet, which it exports to neighboring grids in the Midwest and Northeast. When wind power plunged in the Midwest and central states late last week, PJM helped fill the gap between supply and demand and kept the lights on.
That’s why it’s especially worrisome that PJM is predicting a large decline in its power reserves as coal and natural-gas plants retire. The report forecasts that 40,000 megawatts (MW) of power generation—enough to light up 30 million households—are at risk of retiring by 2030, representing about 21% of PJM’s current generation capacity.
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Most projected power-plant retirements are “policy-driven,”
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ESG (environmental, social and governance) commitments are driving coal plants to close
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There’s another problem: Demand for electric power will increase amid the growth in data centers and the government’s push for the electrification of vehicles, heating and everything else
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The left’s green-energy transition is incompatible with a growing economy and improving living standards. Renewables don’t provide reliable power 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and the progressive campaign to shut down coal and gas plants that do will invariably result in outages.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I saw the map. Thanks
bkmk
Wait until we start to send all of our bench stock of electrical components, transformers, turbines, etc. to Ukraine to rebuild what’s left of that country power grid.
In other words, if government is successful at making everybody drive EV's it's liable to be more of a power drain per car than everybody running an electric water heater twice as often.
506kWh -- amount used for charging EV last month
1,776kWh -- total power consumption in my home (including charging the EV)
594kWh -- total I pulled from the grid last month
1,182kWh -- total my solar system supplied to me for free (preventing me from having to pull that much from the grid) (not too shabby for February billing cycle of an all-electric two-story home)
Most people who get an EV don't do solar, and almost never do it as much as I have. So expect the first 2 numbers to be big impacts on utility power demand after multiplying by however many switch to EV's. Also expect the Dims to keep making things worse to make free American citizens beg for energy. I suggest to anyone who loves freedom and it's possible to make most of your own energy, that you begin the analysis needed on what you can do to meet your energy consumption habits and which ways you can alter your energy consumption habits without lowering your lifestyle.
In our case we "altered our habits" by converting our natural gas appliances to electric and when it was time to replace my wife's car anyway we replaced it with an EV. The end result is we keep our house the temps we want and drive as much as we want, but the difference now is we're almost 100% dependent on the one energy source type (electricity) that we can bring in most of what we need for ourselves (through solar and battery storage). I replaced most of my future variable costs (only God knows how much power and natural gas and gasoline will cost in the future) with fixed costs of a HELOC loan payment I took out to pay for most of this project. Bonus points on doing it when it was easy to get a low fixed rate interest rate. Now the only energy we buy is the 20% of so of power we need not supplied by solar (averaged through the year, less than 20% in the spring, summer, and fall, more in the winter), plus gasoline for the ICE pickup we drive every now and then for pickup chores, plus either power or gas for driving on trips (depending on which car we take), plus random small bits of energy here and there like swapping out the propane tank for the gas grill or filling up a gasoline can for the lawn mower.
I live along the Ohio River. Five years ago there were six coal fired plants within 50 miles of me. Today there are two. The fourth closed in August. The other three have already been demolished so there’s no going back. No solar farms or windmills around here to replace them. The feds are building the narrative of climate/energy emergency in order to run another Covid type scam. The goal, finish off the middle class and complete the transition to totalitarianism.
There is no such a thing as a fossil fuel
Your numbers seem a bit optimistic and I have to wonder where you live?
A person living in the northern states will not achieve the required energy needs using only electracy from solar alone. Solar panels at best rating are based on peak solar hours and the winter, even in the best of times, gets no where near what’s needed. Add in a projected storm / overcast days and you have people dying from the need for energy just to keep warm and eat!
The so-called “renewable” power sources, wind and/or solar, cannot, BY DESIGN, possibly keep up with the rate of retirement of of the hydrocarbon fuel power plants or the aging uranium-fueled Light Water Reactor power plants.
This is leading inevitably to the wholesale adoption of Very Small Nuclear Reactor power plants, which are already developed, and can be ramped up relatively quickly, as they are of modular design, the components can be delivered by rail transport or even trucked in on semi trailers to the site, and the site prepared in short while, in close proximity to the point where the power is to be consumed.
These Very Small Nuclear Reactors have been under development for several decades now, and overcome most of the objections previously raised against the use of nuclear power.
This is the bridge to the future, if the intention is to rescue the economy is in any way serious. Of course, total collapse of the economy is also the way to destroy capitalism forever, and that may be the real objective.
In which case there shall be no viable future to which a bridge may be built.
Biden’s Secret War on Our Energy EXPOSED |
Run time 48 min 9 sec
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oPji6Vmn0gU
bkmk
We already have rolling blackouts in California - and alerts telling us NOT to plug in EVs or large appliances when the power grid is overloaded, as it is during our many summer heat waves.
Yet the Gov of the state...
“Gavin Newsom Bans Sale Of Gas-Powered Cars In State By 2035”
We’re supposed to all supposed to drive EVs by 2035 - yet there are no plans to upgrade, update and expand the electrical grid.
Reminds me of that old joke:
What did socialists use before candles?
Electricity.
My experience with solar is very limited.
I have it on my truck camper. Works great in the summer, but in the winter months not so well.
I have to turn on my DCtoDC charger to bring batteries back.
Also the system cost money. The electricity it produces is not really free.
So, time to buy generators, everyone!!!
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But they need to be power by some type fuel be it solar, oil,
natural gas, coal, wood, water dams, etc. etc. The gov’t will
still regulated the usage in some manner. jmo
A couple of weeks ago Glenn Beck had a UTAH state rep talking about this in his state as well and has begun to introduce legislation to put the brakes on these changes in his state. However, the Biden administration is promising a lot of money for power companies to shut down their coal-fired plants and replace with solar/wind power with a net loss of generated power.
Sorry, I can’t remember the exact time of the airing as I was driving to Florida.
Yes, right after nappy time...
It is obvious electric vehicles are doomed NEVER to replace our gasoline and diesel vehicles. With already declining grid capacity, it will be impossible to recharge such vehicles on a massive scale.
More than ever, the rush to outlaw internal combustion engines is an obvious assault on our ownership of personal vehicles. Electric vehicles will be outlawed as impractical to recharge at a scale of millions of consumers.
Cars equal liberty and it is being stolen from us RIGHT NOW.
We are walking into a trap set purposefully by the tyrants who know electric vehicles are a ruse to impose their tyranny.
Not concerned. People will get real testy when they don’t have their electricity.
I live near Birmingham, AL. I have 20.8kW of solar panels, 92kWh of battery storage, and inverters that to combined 18kW continuous AC power from DC (either solar or batteries or both).
In Phase I of the project it was 10.2kW of solar panels, 18kWh of storage, and one inverter (9kW continuous conversion). That was installed in May 2021. I routinely exported the report from my inverter (which provides telemetry in 5-minute candles), imported it into a TSQL database, and wrote SQL queries to study the results. Every month when I get my power bill I enter into a small SQL table the meter reading date, the kWh pulled from the grid, and the total bill amount. The SQL views and queries automatically join with the table from my inverter telemetry to tell me the total power consumed during that billing period, subtract from that the power pulled from the grid (according to my power bill, which is always about 3% more than my inverter says I pulled from the grid) and derive the power saved. (power used - power pulled from grid = power saved). I predicted it would provide 50% to 60% of all the power I need (while still depending on natural gas and not having an EV).
Half a year later, by October 2021 my total used to that time was 7,719 kwh, total bought from grid was 2,612, for a total saved of 66%. So I implemented Phase Ia and converted my two natural gas appliances to electric. I replaced my old A/C unit and natural gas furnace with a variable speed heat pump with heat strips for the few times in the winter it gets too cold hear for the heat pump. I replaced my natural gas water heater with a hybrid water heater (an electric water heater with a built-in heat pump). I ducted the air intake into the water heater to bring in air from the usually warm attic air. The cold air output from the water heater is ducted either back to the attic (during the cool 4 months we try to keep the house warm) or into the closet the water heater is in (which now has a small air receiver to take that cool air into the central HVAC and use it to help cool the house so the central air heat pump doesn't have to work as hard cooling the house). I basically flip two duct levers twice per year as the seasons change from cold to hot or back to cold.
Then I sat and waited to see what it was going to be like with my first all-electric winter. In the 6 months from December through May the numbers were bought from grid = 4,337kWh, used = 8.963kWh, percent saved = 51.6%. For the overall year on the 1-year anniversary of installing solar it was total bought from grid = 6,046kWh, total used = 17,418kWh, percent saved = 65%.
So I implemented Phase II, which is what I originally wanted but wasn't willing to go all in without doing a Phase I proof of concept. In June 2022 I bought a 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 since it was time to replace my wife's old used crossover anyway. I also added to the solar system to make it the full total stated above. And when installing the EVSE (EV charger) I opted for a plug-in version. I had two 240V NEMA 14-50 outlets installed (like dryer outlets) that work identically but are powered differently. One outlet is powered constantly like all other circuits in the house. The other outlet is powered intermittently by a feature my inverters refer to as "Smart Load". Basically, I have a separate electrical panel that's powered only when my home solar batteries are charged at least so much. After experimenting over the winter it looks like it's best to set the smart load feature to enable when my home solar batteries are charged (referred to as SOC for "strength of charge") at least 70%, then disable when the SOC drops to 50%. This means when we come home with the EV we have two outlets to choose from to charge it.
Here's how we work the EV charging. My wife wants 120 miles of charge left to handle whatever random chores she has to do the next day (not counting the days we know we'll be doing a lot of driving). So if we come home in the EV with at least 120 miles of charge left, we plug it into the intermittent outlet. This may or may not give us some charge that day, depending on if solar is good. Or it may give us some charge for a while until the charging shuts off when the home batteries SOC drops to 50%. Or it may charge to the full recommended for normal charging the EV when not going on a trip (80% for our EV). Another note, since my wife is retired and I'm quasi-retired and working from home, the EV is sometimes still plugged in for a while the next morning. When the sun comes out and charges the home solar batteries to 70%, the smart load feature makes the EV resume charging. All of that happens automatically without us having to watch the weather or watch the telemetry from the solar system and walk out to the garage to plug or unplug the EV. Also, those enable/disable points are configurable.
But on the days we either come home with low charge in the EV, or have a trip planned the next day, we plug it into the continuous powered outlet (which is tied to the normal electrical panel, not the smart load panel). We do that knowing it may result in pulling some power from the grid (adding to our power bill), but on those days we need the charge regardless of cost.
End result, most of our EV charging is on free power. When our EV is charged to 80% it gets 230 miles with our normal local driving. Given that my wife wants it to have at least 120 miles of charge, that's 110 miles of lee-way between "topping it off" (at 80%) to the point where we have to plug it into constant power. In that 110 miles, with us driving it on average 30 to 40 miles per day, that's 3 to 4 days worth of driving that we can usually hold off on charging it from the grid hoping to get a charge from the intermittent outlet (which means free solar power). It doesn't always work out to charging the EV like that. But that's how it's usually charged. Imagine how your gas fill up habits would be if your local gas station every now and then put out a sign saying "free gas today". That's exactly what our EV charging habits are like.
Beginning with the purchase of the EV, I have a few new data fields I collect each month when I get a power bill: odometer reading on the EV and the cheapest cost of gas per gallon at nearby gas stations. I also track every time we charge the EV away from home. From those data points I derive miles driven that month, how much gas would have cost to drive those miles if we drove those miles in either the ICE pickup or another used ICE crossover for my wife (getting 15 mpg since we refused to buy a new car until the day we decided to get an EV), if 5,000 miles would have surpassed (saving on oil change), and also costs of having an EV (total cost charging). Looking ahead I also project saving money by not having to replace an old used ICE car with another old used ICE car every 7 years (our average during our marriage), but also the cost of having to replace the EV's battery on the 10th year. For all of these cost and savings projections in the future I assume a 3% inflation rate.
Looking at the system as a whole, it required a bit of project engineering to make the system work better than the sum of its parts. For instance, the hybrid water heater is good on its own, but its better when it's integrated with the HVAC in a way that the HVAC utilizes the free cool air coming from the water heater. Plus all of these appliances were decided on with the understanding that my total pull from the system would rarely exceed the 18kW of my inverters (which would mean pulling the excess from the grid). Back to the water heater. It'd probably consume less power per day to have tankless water heater, but they demand about 12kW during the brief period they run. That would leave only 6kW of inverter capacity to run the rest of the house without pulling from the grid. With my hybrid water heater drawing only 300 to 350 watts, it's hardly a factor in my inverter capacity. The same with having a variable speed heat pump for the home instead of dual-stage heat pump. My variable seed heat pump runs continuously through the day, usually drawing little power (except on extreme hot or cold days) to use little inverter capacity. And because it's running continuously that means whenever we take a shower and make the water heater run for a couple of hours, the cold air byproduct of the water heater is always going to be absorbed into our living quarters (because the variable speed heat pump and air handler is always running and pulling in air from the air intakes). A dual speed heat pump wouldn't run continuously and may miss out on taking advantage of the cold air byproduct of the water heater. Last but not least I chose an EV that not only gets good miles/kWh for us tall people (a crossover EV is a must with us being in our 50's, hoping to drive it 20 years into our 70's without having to crawl in and out of a short clown car like many EV's are). It also charges fairly efficiently at low charge (5.6kWh). A lot of EV's have a large loss of conversion up to 10% when converting AC to DC power while charging that slow. I needed an EV with a built-in charge controller that has low loss of power when charging slowly (in my case about 7%) so I can make the EV usually demand no more than 6kW from my inverters (charging slow leaves 12kW in inverter capacity for the rest of the house). That's more of that system-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts project engineering to get better overall throughput from the entire project.
See my comment 38 to skwor. This is how it works for me. I’m sure it’s not like that for everyone in every climate (or for that matter everyone’s energy consumption needs).
Ahh ok, ya “Birmingham, AL” that is a lot different from trying to make an entirely solar managed house working in Erie Pa.
Also different from say a family of 4 in Erie Pa where the bread winner commutes an hour.
It can be done but what you demonstrate is it is a very specific and light demand scenario. People have always been able to “go off the grid” so to speak in such a manner, hardly makes it practical for the average person.
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