INFO YO 007

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." - Thomas A. Edison

Good day to you all and Happy Valentines Day, share the love if you appreciate these INFO YO’s.

Here we go:

A extremely hot topic going around the electricity world is the term ‘reliability’. If you read my stuff you should know that grids are there to provide ultimately two main objectives: (1) electricity that is reliable in that electricity is there when you need it and (2) to make that electricity affordable to consumers. Focusing on the reliability term, reliability is defined by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as : “is the provision of an adequate, secure, and stable flow of electricity as consumers may need it. In other words, when you flip the light switch, the lights turn on. The grid remains functional even during unanticipated but common system disturbances, such as loss of a source of energy generation from an energy provider or failure of some other system element. When something fails, the grid has to be able to isolate the problem and keep functioning.

Grid reliability is based on two key elements:

1. Reliable operation – A reliable power grid has the ability to withstand sudden electric system disturbances that can lead to blackouts.

2. Resource adequacy - Generally speaking, resource adequacy is the ability of the electric system to meet the energy needs of electricity consumers. This means having sufficient generation to meet projected electric demand.”

A friend shared a recent article with me of which the title was ‘America’s Electric Grid Is at Risk — And We Need Coal to Save It’. It goes on to say that NERC, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (say that 5 times fast), believes that the grid is unreliable and that we are in a ‘dangerous’ situation in the US. Although NERC has been sounding alarms for years, the retirement of electric generation that supports electric load that has that consistent demand for electricity is just terrible. We see time and time again when grids ‘hit the fan’ and when volatile periods happen, that coal and that natural gas come to the rescue because physics says when you burn something, that ‘energy exchange’ actually happens (burn wood, get heat or burn coal, get BTU that kind of concept). Unfortunately you cannot fully control what happens with renewables because that is controlled by the one who cannot be controlled whether we like that or not. I have mentioned this before, we all want ‘stuff’ to work. I do believe that all types of energy resources, natural and even artificial, need to have a place in the game. Whether one works better than the other, the humans will need to come to a consensus or eventually things will break. Let’s remember it was exactly 4 years ago to the day that Winter Storm Uri sent an entire shock wave through the energy industry financially and physically including folks passing on because of this traumatic event.

To continue in this line of thought, ERCOT released their updated CDR (Capacity Demand and Reserves) report as of yesterday. Take a look at this:

If you want to take this as ‘gospel’, you could. However the interconnection que in ERCOT states that there is roughly 389,318 MW’s on the most recent report (pretty much all wind, solar and batteries). I do have confidence that this situation will correct itself but it wont be by someone waving a magic wand. It will need the smart folks to get involved and make the changes that are necessary to give the grid affordable, and reliable.

I trust that you will have a nice long weekend and I wish you all the best.

Peace & Love,

Bass

p.s. the underlined words has the link there for reference.

*ALL views and opinions are my own. All data/research comprised can simply be looked up by any search engine