EGN NEWS DESK
For the previous 4 years, researchers on the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been monitoring a main risk to the U.S. clear power transition: the backups and bottlenecks in connecting proposed photo voltaic, wind, and battery tasks to the electrical energy grid.
LBNL’s workforce laid out their newest findings in a latest webinar. The overarching takeaway is that clear energy crops can provide sufficient near-term electrical energy to keep away from constructing new fossil-gas-fired energy crops or conserving coal crops open longer — however provided that one thing is finished in regards to the grid backlog.
U.S. utilities and the entities accountable for grid reliability are warning that rising demand for electrical energy from information facilities, factories, electrical automobiles, and decarbonizing buildings is predicted to outrun the tempo at which new clear power sources might be added to the grid. Already, many utilities are proposing to maintain coal crops open previous beforehand deliberate retirement dates and to construct new fossil-gas-fired energy crops supplying gigawatts (GW) of energy — though these plans threaten to place the nation’s carbon-cutting objectives out of attain.
At the identical time, the U.S. has an unlimited quantity of proposed carbon-free tasks ready to exchange these fossil-fueled mills. As of December 2023, almost 2,600 gigawatts’ price of proposed tasks, the overwhelming majority of them wind, photo voltaic, and battery storage, have been making their manner by way of the sequence of research and steps required to plug into the ability grid — about twice the quantity of era powering the complete current U.S. electrical grid.
The drawback? Grid operators and utilities can’t match all these tasks onto their current energy strains, and so they’re buried underneath the piles of paperwork required to determine easy methods to broaden the grid to accommodate them.
The scenario is just getting worse: The interconnection backlog on the finish of 2023 was “roughly eight instances the capability that was lively within the queues as of the tip of 2014,” mentioned Joseph Rand, an power coverage researcher at LBNL and co-author of the lab’s newest “Queued Up” report. But the tempo of transmission grid growth has slowed to about 1 p.c per yr over the identical interval of time.
Still, the quantity of fresh energy and batteries looking for to be constructed may, at the very least in concept, present loads of headroom for U.S. grids to satisfy the forecasted progress in demand. These 5 charts from LBNL’s newest report display that.
Meeting peak demand with out emissions
The chart on the left reveals simply how a lot photo voltaic, wind, battery, and “hybrid” capability — batteries mixed with renewable power, virtually all of it photo voltaic immediately — is ready to come back on-line. The chart on the suitable reveals how far these clear sources may go in assembly electrical energy wants, together with these summer season and winter peaks in demand that hold grid planners and operators awake at night time.
The grey bars on the chart on the suitable symbolize the whole quantity of era capability looking for to be interconnected in every area, which is usually far larger than the present era capability in every area, as marked by the black strains in every column.
Since wind and photo voltaic could not generate their full capability when grids want probably the most energy, LBNL’s chart additionally compares crucial metric for grid reliability: peak masses, or the utmost quantity of electrical energy demand in every area, which often spikes throughout sizzling summer season afternoons or chilly winter mornings. On that chart above, these regional peak masses are represented by yellow strains.
LBNL additionally ran what Rand known as “a tough back-of-the-envelope calculation to estimate the approximate peak load contribution of all of that lively capability within the queues,” proven because the purple strains on the chart. “Those purple strains exceed peak load in all areas, and so they truly exceed the put in capability in a number of areas as effectively,” he mentioned.
This doesn’t imply that areas can anticipate their peak grid calls for to be met by yet-to-be-built photo voltaic, wind, and battery capability within the close to time period. That’s as a result of it’s extremely unlikely that many of the capability in queues can be constructed.
In reality, solely 14 p.c of the era capability of all of the tasks that submitted interconnection requests from 2000 to 2018 had been constructed and introduced on-line by the tip of 2023. That completion price could or could not maintain regular in future years, but it surely does function a warning for utilities and grid operators planning to depend on still-unbuilt tasks to satisfy their peak load wants.
How a lot clear power may truly get constructed within the close to time period?
To get a higher sense of how a lot clear power and battery capability may be prepared to satisfy grid wants within the close to future, LBNL’s report examined the place tasks stood when it comes to timing and standing. Rand famous that just about half the tasks now in interconnection queues have proposed to come back on-line by the tip of 2026, including as much as almost 1,300 gigawatts of capability — an quantity equal to the complete current U.S. grid.
The most promising tasks are people who have already executed interconnection agreements — the important thing step that enables them to start development and begin paying for no matter grid upgrades have been assigned to them. About 12 p.c of the lively tasks LBNL studied have reached that time, including as much as 311 gigawatts of capability — and “these are the tasks I would say are more likely to really attain industrial operations within the comparatively close to time period,” Rand mentioned.
How the likeliest tasks may assist the grid
What may be the grid worth of the tasks which have handed by way of the interconnection gauntlet?
To reply that query, LBNL ran one other back-of-the-envelope calculation of these tasks’ peak load contributions and in contrast it with the five-year forecast of peak load progress and energy plant retirements for six of the nation’s grid operators, utilizing information from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit group that maintains requirements for grid reliability.
The outcomes point out that there’s vital potential for these close-to-the-finish-line tasks to satisfy a lot of the capability wants from peak load progress and energy plant retirements within the Midwestern and mid-Atlantic areas served by grid operators Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), PJM, and Southwest Power Pool (SPP). For grid operators in California, New England, and Texas, these tasks could even exceed these wants.
