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I've learned a lot about the natural gas system during the ERCOT crisis and am appreciative of industry folks shedding sharing their expertise. Those same folks don't always have an equivalent understanding of power system planning and the disconnect is causing misunderstanding.
In the same way gas folks would no doubt appreciate technical expertise and nuance from others when commenting on their field, they owe the same humility and respect for power system experts. Power and gas are different systems with their own complexities and constraints.
A case study: for ERCOT system planning, gas outages are orders of magnitude more important than anything from RE. This winter, ERCOT was banking on ~56GW of gas, 14GW of coal and 5GW of nuclear (~75GW of thermal at a 100% CF), and ~4.4GW of wind+solar (CF adjusted). 82GW all-in.
During normal winter conditions, ERCOT expected peak demand ~58GW, 8.6GW of outages, ~7GW of RE, 73GW of total capacity and comfy if slim, 16GW of reserve capacity.
Under extreme conditions, demand ~67GW, 14GW of resource outages, ~2GW of RE, 68.6GW total and 1.4GW reserves.
Under extreme conditions, demand ~67GW, 14GW of resource outages, ~2GW of RE, 68.6GW total and 1.4GW reserves.
What they're getting is 75+GW demand, 30GW of outages, 0-4.5GW of RE, 53GW total and a *20+GW* shortfall.
So, huge peak, unreal outages, catastrophic shortfall. What matters for system planning and design is the expectation -- and that's where gas has massively fallen flat.
So, huge peak, unreal outages, catastrophic shortfall. What matters for system planning and design is the expectation -- and that's where gas has massively fallen flat.
I understand the RE contribution is spinnable (4.5GW of 30GW installed to meet 75GW load), but when it was only planned for 2GW, that's critical context. When thermal was planned for 65GW and came in at 50GW, while demand shot up to 75GW -- boom there's your problem.
I encourage my upstream friends to listen with respect to experts in this space: grid modelers ( @JesseJenkins, @joshdr83), economists ( @knowledgeprob), engineers ( @jacob_mays, @cody_a_hill), lawyers ( @EnergyLawJeff)...so many more. Lots of rigorous and nuanced thinking here.
With climate change, extreme weather events *including extreme cold events* will become less predictable and possibly more intense. Forecasting, system planning, market operation and resource preparedness will only get harder. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/climate-change-colder-winters-global-warming-polar-vortex
This thread from industry practitioner @DrewSmithee is great on planning margins and the concepts are critical for anyone to understand to appreciate grid operation. Highly recommended. https://twitter.com/DrewSmithee/status/1296308191572242432
But most importantly, power market design and function is a super fun space to work and I implore people to embrace the nuance and not ignore a particular problem because it doesn't suit their tribal talking point. https://twitter.com/benserrurier/status/1361680843027087370
There's lots of work to do coming out of the TX and CA experiences to prepare our power markets and grids to meet interrelated challenges, and I look forward to working on solutions and not devolving to bad faith culture wars.
And sorry for the long thread, I hate it also.
And sorry for the long thread, I hate it also.
