[HN Gopher] Two-thirds of North America at risk of energy shorta... ___________________________________________________________________ Two-thirds of North America at risk of energy shortages during extreme demand [pdf] Author : ubj Score : 69 points Date : 2023-05-27 18:48 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nerc.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nerc.com) | ronnier wrote: | Go off grid now while you can to get grandfathered in before they | make it illegal to go off grid. When the people with money go off | grid and stop paying in and the grid starts to collapse from lack | of funds... expect laws forcing you to pay back in regardless. | Just a baseless conspiracy theory :-) | pat2man wrote: | If you go off grid but still have a grid connection that you | can use any time you want, you should still pay in. All the | transition equipment is still needed. | | Full off grid should probably not have to pay anything. But if | something breaks you are on your own. | flagrant_taco wrote: | 100%, I'm in the process of taking a tiny house fully off | grid and part of that is planning my own backups. I'd never | expect the power company to help if/when I cancel my service | completely. | HyperSane wrote: | " I'm in the process of taking a tiny house fully off grid" | | Why? | Scoundreller wrote: | I'm in a multi-residential building, and like 50-75% of my | bill is what I have to pay whether I use anything or not. | | (Helps that it's well insulated and that hot water is | central. hvac is not, but due to good insulation, hardly gets | used except in summer) | HyperSane wrote: | I'm in the same boat. Since I like it cooler than my | neighbors do in the winter I almost never need to actually | use the heater. | HyperSane wrote: | It makes absolutely no financial sense to go "off grid". | crooked-v wrote: | The link doesn't mention it, but ERCOT (the Texas grid) is the | one most at risk here, because state law specifically forbids | linking it to other regional power grids so that the state can | avoid federal laws regulating utility companies. The other grids | are all connected to their neighbors, which can help compensate | for issues by transferring power between them. | MichaelBurge wrote: | Connecting to a larger system seems like it would reduce your | risk on average, but increase systemic risk. Perhaps a | coordinated terrorist attack would cause a power outage across | the entire country except Texas, making it more appealing? | coliveira wrote: | Following this logic they should disconnect each | municipality, so if one goes dow the rest can continue | operating... | rapjr9 wrote: | This is what microgrids are: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microgrid | | If solar on rooftops (with batteries or EV connections) | became really widespread in the US it may make some sense | to be able to isolate communities from the rest of the grid | to localize failures. Utilities would probably hate it but | it could be really resistant to disruption. | andrewnicolalde wrote: | If that were feasible and comparably efficient (which I | doubt), then yes, I imagine they ought to! | sacnoradhq wrote: | The option to connect to spare capacity and to sell power to | another market is more useful than not having it. The worst | case would be needing it but not having it. | | The risk of very high altitude "super EMP" nuclear attacks is | the most concerning. If Taiwan were attacked, it would stand | to reason that China would first create CONUS disasters | against infrastructure without a direct, kinetic military | attack. This would be most effectively deployed by EMP at | very high altitude while simultaneously sabotaging | infrastructure with hacking. | profile53 wrote: | The core problem with this argument is that if China were | to detonate a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere the US | will immediately retaliate with massive nuclear strikes in | which case the world would effectively end | sacnoradhq wrote: | I live in ATX, where the ice can knock out power for days to a | week. This winter, Austin Energy accomplished a Herculean but | Sisyphean task of reconnecting 130k customers in a few days. | | Municipal grid gear here isn't rated for the ice burden like | utilities in the north east. | anonymouskimmer wrote: | I'm just struck that no one ever writes "Atlasean" task, of | which general grid maintenance would be an example. | anonporridge wrote: | I'm curious why ERCOT has become so politicized. | | It seems to stem from the 2021 ice storm outage, but that | wasn't even close to the worst power outages seen in other | parts of the US that are part of larger interconnects, so I | don't see why it's special other than it's hip to hate on Texas | by coastal elites like us. | aaronbrethorst wrote: | Because the Texas state government has politicized it: | https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/03/texas-power-grid- | ope... | eightysixfour wrote: | Probably because they are literally overseen by political | entities and their leadership is partially selected by the | legislature. They are a political entity. | wilg wrote: | Well a lot of people were annoyed Texas tried to blame the | issue on renewable energy. Also people saw the private | management of the grid or whatever being arguably | attributable to the failures (outages, people freezing, | people being overcharged) as a case study for why Republican | strategies are less than ideal. Also, just everything is | politicized because it's easy to do so when you're constantly | on Twitter reacting to other people's reactions. | atkailash wrote: | [dead] | analog31 wrote: | Part of it is that the rest of the country is being told that | Texas (and Florida) are economic miracles, so their influence | could extend beyond their borders. | robocat wrote: | Except that ERCOT does have interconnections [I mean DC links - | interconnection has a different meaning in this context]... | | https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection#Ties | The Texas Interconnection is tied to the Eastern | Interconnection with two DC ties, and has a DC tie and a VFT to | non-NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) | systems in Mexico. There is one AC tie switch in Dayton, Texas | that has been used only once in its history (after Hurricane | Ike). On October 13, 2009, the Tres Amigas SuperStation was | announced to connect the Eastern, Western and Texas | Interconnections via eight 5 GW superconductor links. | woodrow wrote: | It's a matter of capacity. ERCOT only has 1220 MW of | interconnection capacity across 4 asynchronous links [1]. | Compare this to e.g. California ISO which seems to have about | 10,000-15,000 MW of synchronous interconnection capacity [2]. | Neither is adequate to fully support historic peak demand in | the system [3-4], but California has much more flexibility in | emergencies. | | [1] https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2020/07/30/ERCOT_DC_Tie_ | Ope... | | [2] http://www.caiso.com/Documents/ISOMaximumResourceAdequacy | Imp... | | [3] https://www.caiso.com/documents/californiaisopeakloadhist | ory... | | [4] https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2022/07/20/ERCOT%20Month | ly%... | theteapot wrote: | Link 1 is dead. This doc from May 2023 lists the 1220MW | figure for async links -- https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/ | 2023/05/05/SARA_Summer2023_.... | [deleted] | sb057 wrote: | Strictly speaking, 100% of any energy network faces shortages | during extreme demand. | mordae wrote: | Sounds nice. Rich ones will get panels and batteries, poor | ones... Well, the usual. | | It's a nice symptom of investments to the public infrastructure | lagging. | jillesvangurp wrote: | They'll get batteries and solar too eventually. Prices of these | things will come down over time. And grids will adapt to | incentivize people to have them as that is cheaper than | building a lot of new plants and infrastructure. Virtual plants | are much cheaper for them and can be used to balance the grid. | more_corn wrote: | If only there were a way for every home and business to generate | electricity locally as a sort of decentralized power grid, like | by putting some sort of low-carbon powerplant on their roof. | HyperSane wrote: | How did decentralization become such a religion? | rr808 wrote: | How is that going to help heat my house in my cold snowy | Winters? | londons_explore wrote: | And yet, me with my tiny gasoline generator has absolutely no | incentive to use it at times of peak demand. | | When any market gives no incentive for most participants to | resolve any supply/demand imbalance, then shortages are sure to | happen from time to time. | | Electricity isn't even a market where people can 'panic buy' like | toilet paper. | the_third_wave wrote: | > Electricity isn't even a market where people can 'panic buy' | like toilet paper. | | People can "panic buy" generators, and have been doing so for a | while. With solar panels on the roof for when the sun is | available and some alternative source like your generator | (cheap to buy, expensive to use) or batteries (expensive to | buy, cheap to use) for when it is not and power has failed you | can be mostly energy independent. | sacnoradhq wrote: | That happened in NorCal in 2019. There were no generators to | be had south of Chico, CA that summer. Had to go halfway to | Redding to a random Home Depot that didn't have a large | customer base. When you need a generator because PG&E decided | to have a PSPS for a week or 2 without warning, then you need | it immediately. It's not a panic purchase when it's an | emergency purchase of inelastic necessity, not hoarding of | 4000 rolls of toilet paper. | | Gasoline generators are a PITA. Most of them require frequent | oil changes. And floating neutral generators generally won't | work well with GFI circuits because they easily see an | imbalance in current across neutral and to the ground path. | If you want your generator to be safe and work with GFI, | you'll have to use a bonded one and ground it. | | Most residential solar sets in California lack battery backup | capacity and do not generate power in the absence of grid | power "for safety". This is because most homeowners are | uninformed consumers and don't know what options they need. | It's worth getting a subpanel, moving critical loads to them, | and having a 3-way ATS with solar-batteries-inverter, grid | tie, and an autostart natural gas generator. | isoprophlex wrote: | I have a dynamic pricing contract, prices are generally around | or slightly below fixed market rates, but when it's sunny or | windy I get power for free, or better. Got paid to charge my | car today. I like it, because it makes me more mindful of the | e-grid (also free power) | | So, it _is_ possible to have some force changing consumer | behavior. It all depends on sane legislation, allowing a system | like this to exist. | the_third_wave wrote: | We have a dynamic (hourly rates) contract as well and well | and we sometimes see negative electricity prices. This does | not mean electricity ends up being free since there is also | the transmission charge, energy tax, renewable energy | surcharge and value added tax on all of these to pay. Do you | _actually_ get paid to use power, i.e. do you not have to pay | any of the mentioned charges? | 0cf8612b2e1e wrote: | If they do get 100% free, this continually reraises a | question of mine: outside of crypto mining, is there | anything a consumer can do to capture benefit from free | electricity? Low efficiency synthesis of ethanol, hydrogen, | carbon capture, desalination, precious mineral enrichment | from seawater? With net metering rates tanking, I would | love to see some way to productively capture spare juice. | The duck curve is not going anywhere. | londons_explore wrote: | If in a cold climate, heat the earth under your house. | Then, that earth slowly gives its heat back to you over | the coming months (soil is quite a poor thermal | conductor, so the heat hangs around underground for a | really long time) | | Obscenely powerful heaters are rather cheap. Assuming | prices only go negative pretty rarely, you really want | 100 kilowatts or more of heaters under your house to get | as much free power as possible. | willglynn wrote: | Residential power here for single family homes -- the | type which could reasonably do what you suggest -- is | almost always single phase 120/240V. As an upper bound, | let's consider 400A service. (Most homes have services | smaller than 400A, and even 400A service is typically | delivered to a pair of smaller panels to keep conductor | and busbar sizes manageable.) Such heaters would be | considered continuous loads, reducing the 400A service to | 320A of current. Resistive heaters are a linear load, so | we can multiply 240V * 320A to get 76.8 kW at maximum. | | Hitting 76 kW is wildly impractical. Exceeding 100 kW is | nonsense. | Hextinium wrote: | Easiest is probably using your house as a thermal battery | and just temporarily dumping energy into cooling or | heating down to a set temp and then when allowing your | house to normalize when prices go up. | | Alternatively, charge your own batteries and load | balance. It's boring but effective. | | You could have your computer queued to run high energy | ops when free, queue training models, compiling, etc. | Which would generate a lot of heat, thus cranking the AC. | | I could see how this could easily 10x your power draw for | a few thousand dollars and work in the background. | dv_dt wrote: | It's possible, but in California for instance, I see large | utilities constantly placing blockages in the way via | regulatory capture of the PUC. | nonfamous wrote: | I had a similar contract when I lived in IL, and I also liked | it and it made me more conscious of my energy usage patterns. | | But there was always this niggling concern that the price | could spike to 200x like it did in Texas, without me being | able to react. Regulation to cap the peak rate would help | allay consumer fears, IMO, while still offering ample profit | potential to providers. | londons_explore wrote: | I want to see electricity meters configurable with a "max I | am happy to pay per day" setting. When that limit is near, | they beep/alert you. When you hit the cap, they turn off | the whole house. | | You could adjust the limit as you please, with a default of | perhaps $100 - but they spare you from million dollar | bills, even with uncapped dynamic pricing. | | If a reasonable number of these were deployed, the prices | would never spike super high, because there would always be | someone else willing to turn off their tumble dryer to save | 50 bucks. | bushbaba wrote: | There's circuit breakers with wifi connectivity that lets | you turn off load through an api. Could code this up or | use their apps for energy management. | | Consumer demand just isn't there for this type of product | yet | 0cf8612b2e1e wrote: | Even with a cap, it feels like it would just take one freak | occurrence (power plant/transformer/blizzard) meltdown to | erase any potential savings from subscribing to dynamic | pricing. | zdragnar wrote: | Nah, just switch over to a generator for your bare | essential needs and hunker down for a bit. | | You can't go into a dynamic environment and only plan for | upsides. | alar44 wrote: | [dead] | toomuchtodo wrote: | TLDR more batteries (to firm renewables), renewables (to | overproduce), and streamline ISO interconnect processes | | https://www.utilitydive.com/news/grid-interconnection-queue-... | | > The total capacity of energy projects in U.S. interconnection | queues grew 40% year-over-year in 2022, with more than 1,350 GW | of generation and 680 GW of storage waiting for approval to | connect, according to a new report from the Lawrence Berkeley | National Laboratory. | | https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/queued_up_2022_04-06... | | https://electrek.co/2023/04/19/tesla-reports-massive-increas... | 0cf8612b2e1e wrote: | From my quick skim of the site, it was unclear to me the timing | of the queue. Do projects sit in there for 90 days or three | years before approval? | | Once approved, the project still has to be built, correct? Is | there a resource that lists plants which are actively | expanding? That seems like a more useful short term metric to | understand new capacity, because items in the queue may never | be constructed. | Wohlf wrote: | It's both, a small project with grid capacity nearby can be | approved quickly but larger projects without nearby capacity | can take years to get resolved. | snarf21 wrote: | While listening to a recent NPR podcast about green energy, the | claimed that there were projects proposed for green energy that | in sum would be larger than todays complete US generation from | all sources. | | The main problems are around interconnect and upgrading | infrastructure. Lines and transformers are built to a certain | capacity and connecting all these new projects could cause | failures and blackouts. _BEFORE_ you can even get approved, | there has (historically) been a multi-year study required to | validate everything. They are now doing them in groups of | projects of 50 or more. However, then the estimates are for | what would be needed for ALL 50 projects which is clearly | overkill as they won 't all pan out. | | There is money in the Inflation Reduction Act to help upgrade | the infrastructure and expedite the process but it is a trickle | when we need more. The other approach is to just hook things up | and wait until something breaks. Then the supplier would have | to limit their capacity until they paid for increased carrying | capacity. All said, this seems to indicate that infrastructure | is the main bottleneck. | PopAlongKid wrote: | Contrary to this report, I've seen multiple predictions[0] that | due to a generous amount of hydro generation available after the | winter storms, California should have adequate supply this | summer. | | [0]https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/eia- | forecasts... | | "An abundance of hydro also means grid operators can be a bit | less reliant on electricity from out-of-state sources. "[1] | | [1]https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-01-18/california.. | . | MortimerDukePhD wrote: | [dead] | cronix wrote: | They don't really have anything to do with each other other | than both dealing with "power." Your report is talking about | total capacity/generation due to having average stock of hydro | and the linked report is talking about usage during "extreme | demand" periods. | | It doesn't matter how much generating capacity you have if you | can't transmit all of it to where it's needed when all AC's are | on full blast and everyone is charging their cars and everyone | is cooking on electric stoves, or need to totally cut it off to | large areas to prevent forest/wild fires during these extreme | demand periods, which is when it's hottest. Blackouts/brownouts | will still continue, and even be planned for, even with excess | hydro. Infrastructure/delivery goes way beyond just raw | generation. | jyu wrote: | Solar + battery wall is looking better and better. | throwbadubadu wrote: | For some it's the cause of all the troubles, for others a | solution; -\\_(tsu)_/- | jyu wrote: | The problem is unreliable access to power. The same solution | solves many problems: monies. | HyperSane wrote: | That is the most expensive source of electricity. | ok_dad wrote: | Don't get the Tesla power wall, it's more locked down than | anything else in the market. Get a system you control with an | API you can access, not proprietary crap. | | Like locked down OSes and hardware, locked down distributed | energy resources will be the next place where you'll lose your | access to your devices due to corporate greed. The data and API | access for DERs are like GOLD today. If you don't control them, | someone else will, and poorly. No company I've seen today is | competent enough to scale to what's going to be needed in the | future. They're all focused on cloud stuff, but at the scale | energy works at and the compute necessary to efficiently use | future energy systems, we're going to need to switch to a | distributed system on the edge, at the generation and load | sites. | | Edit: I'm in HN slow mode for some reason, likely that the | fascists aren't my fan today and have been flagging all my | comments, so here's my reply: | | Sorry, no, but I mostly deal with commercial products. I know | of the power wall only because my friend got them and they | kinda suck. Tesla sometimes fucks up control, too, draining the | battery for their own use to make money on their VPP. I suggest | asking directly to the sales people if you will have full, free | access to your telemetry in bulk to download and that you have | API access to the whole system. Those are the two most | important factors. | the_third_wave wrote: | Better still to use a hybrid inverter plus battery with an | open API which you do _not_ allow access to the 'net, | instead accessing the things through a proxy like OpenHAB or | HA. Isolate all your IoT equipment on a network which is | blocked from accessing the 'net and use proxy applications | for control and data visualisation. | | I'm using a Fronius Symo GEN24 in this way, I can access all | features through the API, it can not suddenly update itself | without my knowledge or consent. I do not have a battery | attached yet since these are too expensive still and I can | sell any excess power at market rates for the coming 5 years. | After that time I expect battery prices to have gone down so | I'll probably get a set of batteries which should enable us | to be mostly energy independent from spring to autumn. | | No third parties are involved in any way, no data is | exchanged with "the cloud". | | Edit: I'm also rate limited for some reason, a common | occurrence [1]. No idea whether this is related to flagging, | my UID being throttled by default or some other cause. It | does not seem to be related to downvoted posts since I have | been rate limited many times without any visible downvotes. | | [1] documented in my profile at | https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=the_third_wave | bqmjjx0kac wrote: | Do you have any recommendations? | sacnoradhq wrote: | I'm glad ERCOT added 4 GW of renewable generation capacity, but | that doesn't translate into regional or localized energy | reserves. Distributed energy storage relieves transmission grid | capacity. Without enough grid capacity, consumption can't be | fulfilled even with infinite generation capacity. The challenge | is in deploying safe and efficient distributed energy storage, | also realizing there are domestic terrorists who aren't above | shooting holes in transformer fins. | 99_00 wrote: | Instead of investing in nuclear we wasted decades investing in | solar and wind. | | Well, it wasn't a waste for the companies and countries who | profited and their lobbyists. | mschuster91 wrote: | Nuclear plants take 15-20 years to build in practice, cost | double, triple or more of initial estimates just for | construction, more billions for teardown, and even more for | storing all the waste. On top of that they're at real risk for | natural disasters (of which _no_ US state is secure - either it | 's hurricanes or earthquakes) and accidents due to | mismanagement and corner-cutting. And no one wants to live near | one either, which means a shitton more cost in construction | because you have to build them in the desert, or the project | gets boggled down for years by NIMBYs. | | In contrast, you can build a solar or wind plant in less than a | year. And the profits for these end up in the local community | where they stand instead of investment funds owning the nuclear | plant operators. | HyperSane wrote: | Nuclear has the distinct advantage of working at night and is | far more consistent than wind. | mordae wrote: | Extreme heat events tend to go hand in hand with great solar | yields. So actually building some solar power plants would be a | sensible thing to do. | | But that would probably need some involvement from public | sector and US public sector has been systematically dismantled | since Reagan at least. | | I am not saying it's not happening elsewhere, but I sure am | glad that it's not going to be me and my family who's gonna | eventually reclaim the public sector at the cost of watering | the democracy tree. | | Sorry for the irony. Have a nice day from EU. | melling wrote: | "So actually..." | | Just say we were wrong. "My bad" | | We completely missed our 1.5 goal and the batteries are still | coming. | melling wrote: | We'll hit 1.5C within a decade. | | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-world-will-li... | jimbob45 wrote: | What's wrong with solar and wind? | HyperSane wrote: | You can't have it as 100% of the supply because it is too | variable. | ibejoeb wrote: | Generally, at it is now, they're unreliable and | unpredictable, and we lack adequate storage capabilities to | mitigate those things. | | It's not unreasonable to look to shifting to those | technologies, but the course were on now of shutting down | controllable power plants first is hard to characterize as | anything but irresponsible. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-05-27 23:00 UTC)