9 ms·

US Electricity Markets Aren't Designed to Handle 100% Clean Energy

55 points by howard941 7y ago

Dumblydorr 7y ago
100% clean energy is decades away, I'm not such a pessimist to presume we will have no grid improvements by then. Marketplaces themselves are already straining due to the cheapness of renewables at certain times. Batteries plus renewables will avoid some of this, but overbuilding capacity and demand response with EVs and industry should be another component. I also expect utilities to buy access to appliances and heating and cooling and dynamically control their customers' use.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  I really, really don't want the power company to control my thermostat. Big companies are invading my home and violating my agency enough as it is. If past behavior is any indication of future behavior, smart appliances are more likely to be snuck in like the phone-home misfeatures on smart TVs than they are to be a willing contract between the home owner and the power company.
  - brandmeyer 7y ago
    There is another approach that could also alleviate some of the pressure. Instead of keeping the consumer price fixed and allowing the utility to control your load, you can allow the consumer price to float. Most of these markets have a 24hr-ahead clearing price for energy. I think you aught to be able to expose retail consumers to fluctuations based on the day-ahead market to let people make their own choices for energy usage. Given that exposure, enough consumers will change their behavior to soften the variability in price. It might also make distributed energy storage Just Work (TM) if individual battery owners have a vector to profit from supporting the grid.
    - nerdponx 7y ago
      In the USA I thought the price already floated based on market rates. Yes, absolutely this is the way to go. It works well for gasoline, for instance.
      - brandmeyer 7y ago
        Retail consumer prices don't float in most markets. Some markets have time-of-use pricing for some part of the year, but even those have a fixed peak/off-peak rate that is fixed well in advance.
    - minikites 7y ago
      >I think you aught to be able to expose retail consumers to fluctuations based on the day-ahead market to let people make their own choices for energy usage. What prevents an electric company from significantly raising prices for a day to catch people off guard? I can't exactly switch electric companies to punish them.
      - benj111 7y ago
        The UK can manage to have competing power companies, so its clearly possible.
      - Hello71 7y ago
        what prevents them from significantly raising rates permanently?
        minikites 7y ago
        People would notice, protest, lobby government for regulation, the usual methods of expressing civil discontent. I'm talking about a situation where people don't notice until after the fact.
        brandmeyer 7y ago
        There are other futures markets that are bootstrapped off of the day-ahead market. Weeks/months out are used to schedule maintenance operations. Years out are used to schedule construction/decommissioning. So if the extended market prices are high enough, then this acts as a signal to add generation and/or distribution capacity. Likewise, if the extended market prices are low enough, this acts as a signal to retire capacity that has a higher operating cost/lower profit margins.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Nest partners with utilities to support demand shedding/load response [1]; you get a utility bill credit for allowing the utility to send Nest demand shedding signals when local power demand is high (which suspends your AC cooling cycle for 1-3 hours), but you can override the thermostat setting if you must (you just don't get the credit). Cheaper than firing up a single cycle gas peaker (super expensive, comparatively speaking to base load and renewables). You don't have to allow the utility to control your consumption automatically, but then you'll be exposed to the real time price of power (not a regulated average as occurred in the past because of dumb meters). [1] https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9244031?hl=en https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9244031?hl=en (Google Nest: Learn about Rush Hour Rewards)
    - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
      So then could I hook up a load to a Nest and have a regular, dumb thermostat control my house and get those credits without actually doing anything? That doesn't seem too hard to pull off.
      - grimjack00 7y ago
        Until the utility upgrades to the next version of demand response software, which notices that you were sent a control message, but your consumption didn't change, so you're no longer eligible for the credit.
    - briffle 7y ago
      I have this on my nest, and one interesting feature, is it turns down the AC to a lower temp a few hours before the 'energy rush hour' so that your house doesn't get as warm. IE, I have it at 72 deg, a 'energy rush hour' is declared, the nest automatically turns my thermostat to 70 deg an hour or two before, then to 75 deg during the rush hour.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    Then your electricity will probably be more expensive than that of the people who will utilize the night's cheaper rates and will get rebates for installing a device that will turn some devices down on unexpected peaks. If you still "really don't want the power company to control my thermostat" after seeing your potential savings, that is.
- ThomPete 7y ago
  It's centuries away. So much legacy technology and machinery, buildings, installations, infrastructure not to mention the fact that neither wind nor solar and not even hydro are anywhere close to being able to provide that it's only a few percentages of world energy usage and have upper limits. In my view the only real fundamental progress when it comes to energy, within sight (and it's still far away if ever) is Thorium and Fusion. Furthermore the externalities of things like wind and solar isn't calculated today and would make two things very clear. You can't have wind and solar without the backup of oil/nuclear/coal and they will never be able to provide us with enough energy to meet our needs to not talk about meeting our future needs (which will be many times higher than it is today) I am all for green energy but i share your pessimism.
  - headcanon 7y ago
    At current rate of adoption it may be centuries, but I'm willing to bet that by the end of this century (possibly earlier) there will be a great deal more public pressure to revamp the underlying infrastructure. We could do it in a few decades if we decided to spend the capital on it, its ultimately a question of political willpower. I do agree that fusion would be the ultimate form of power generation and would have the least impact on the current grid. But regardless, the future of energy generation is in diversity of sources.
    - ThomPete 7y ago
      There already is pressure today to do that. However, I am unconvinced it will actually get done on any significant scale unless there will be fundamental improvements with regards to energy sources. Otherwise, fossil fuels are simply going to be too valuable in no small part due to its multiple applications which none of the other types of energy provides. Otherwise, it will come down to economics. So I agree we will diversify but fossil fuels aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
      - headcanon 7y ago
        Honestly I don't even think it would be as complicated as all that. Its all down to what becomes more valuable. Here is a breakdown of energy generation in the US: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 63% of power generation comes from "fossil fuels", but half of that comes from natural gas. If we focus purely on carbon emissions and ignore implications of fracking, natural gas can be considered "clean". Also assuming all renewables are zero-emission, this means roughly 30% of our power generation has the potential for carbon emissions. By simply instituting a carbon tax, or even requiring coal plants to sequester emissions would make burning coal expensive enough that other forms of power will become cheaper, and thus the market would align appropriately. These are things being talked about right now, so its not unrealistic. The coal lobby won't like this of course and will continue to push us away from that, but I believe in 50 years when Miami and New Orleans have turned into Venice and the new generation of people won't be working in coal, American conservatives, as well as other nations, will stop complaining about the coal industry so much. All that has to happen is a few percentage points in a certain direction and the machinations will start to work.
awad 7y ago
Can someone much smarter than me opine on why nuclear is not lumped into the 100% clean energy category?
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Nuclear waste and parts from decommissioned reactors are not that big of a deal, but they are also not 100% clean.
  - nwah1 7y ago
    By that standard, the REEs required for solar definitely aren't 100% clean.
  - dasd99 7y ago
    >not that big of a deal also known as 'who cares, we won't be here'
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      Maybe more the opposite: in the long enough term radioactive materials are just ugly rocks. It's more the short term storage in the here and now that is the concern for most people, because they are understandably afraid of DNA damage and cancer.
  - twunde 7y ago
    Disposing of nuclear waste is actually a big deal in the US. Last I heard, nuclear waste is kept on-site or close by since the Yucca mountain storage facility was never built[1]. These storage facilities weren't built or meant for long-term storage and could potentially (likely?) have radiation leaks. edited to add links [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-does-the-us-do-with-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-does-the-us-... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/05/31/new-map-shows-expanse-of-u-s-nuclear-waste-sites/#31d72cf7c2cf https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/05/31/new-map-...
- heimatau 7y ago
Nasrudith 7y ago
The mention of demand side IoT power load as a service has me wondering about the theoretical abuse potential for insider trading or Enron style shenanigans. Ideally such attempts would result in losing money. It does bring to mind an oddly positive twist on the "you don't own it" of IoT. By signing up as part of a service cooperative of some sort getting a share of the generated income as compensation. Probably not a winning move and if done by could rightfully get FTC involved by mixing in investing - especially if it id being run by the manufacturer who has potentially clashing incentives.
theshadowknows 7y ago
I’m not sure why we pay for electricity in the first place. Reliable electricity, clean water. These things are fundamental to modern human existence. Why do we have to pay for them at all other than greed?
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Somebody has to pay for these things to be maintained?
- zacherates 7y ago
  You should bear the cost of whether you keep your A/C at 68° or 72°, whether you heat your house with baseboard heaters or central air, whether you insulate your house so it's easy to keep it at whatever temperature you care to, whether you live in a 4000sq detached house or a 500sq apartment, whether you run a modern refrigerator or something that fell off a truck in the 50s. Paying for your electricity helps align incentives so that you can make the trade-off of investing to lower usage vs. just buying the power you want at market rate... and bearing that cost means you have the freedom to make that trade-off rather than it being made for you.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Because it is morally reprehensible to have people work on the grid and maintain it without paying them due compensation for their work. That is called slavery. Without their labor, there would be no grid.
- chrisBob 7y ago
  I have two ways to look at this: 1) I lived in Iraq for a while, and they have free electricity. What happens there is that they have to implement rolling blackouts because when people do have electricity they turn on every appliance, light, tv, ... Having some kind of cost involved helps to limit this type of silly behavior. 2) At some point, someone is paying for electricity even if they don't send me a bill every month. Let's say the government funds free electricity for everyone. As someone who tries to conserve energy, my costs will go up while the guy next door keeps his 3k sq-ft house at 65 degrees all summer pays less than he does now. That does not seem like a good system.
exabrial 7y ago
I watched an interesting "Interesting Engineering" video on why utility scale batteries are a game changer. Right now, in my area, we have a Nuclear plant that handles the base load, but we tend to keep it at "not full capacity" most of the time, because nuclear is harder to ramp up/down in response to load. In the video, he shows how renewables can pick up the slack in many ways... but I was thinking, why not run our nuclear plants at something like 90% capacity all the time and store the excess energy in utility scale batteries? It seems like these devices could have a far greater impact than renewables could, and they can harness existing investments in nuclear. It's too bad we can't just pump water uphill into reservoirs from nuclear plants and dump that through turbines when needed. Such a setup is obviously a huge investment and you can't really build a reservoir next to every nuclear facility.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- notpeter 7y ago
  We have one in Western Massachusetts (Northfield Mountain) built nearly 50 years ago to pair with the Yankee nuclear power plant in Vermont. Peak run-rate is 1140 megawatts and the hilltop reservoir is ~12k acre feet. Peak spin up takes ~10mins and can run for ~8hrs if the upper lake is full. So capacity is just short of 10 gigawatt hours. My high school electronics class took a field trip there and I found the scale and design simplicity truly awe inspiring. https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2016/12/02/northfield-mountain-hydroelectric-station https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2016/12/02/northfield-mounta...
fallingfrog 7y ago
Wait, the markets? Don’t you mean the infrastructure? The financialized language in the article is very jarring. It’s like their readers can’t relate to base reality anymore and the only way to connect with them is these financial terms, the “demand side and supply side”, “smart energy resources”, “multi period optimization”, and so on. Almost like you’re trying to describe a Ford Focus to them and you have to describe it as a “on demand relocation capital unit as a service” or something.
woodandsteel 7y ago
People say that nuclear is superior to wind and solar, and the main reason it isn't booming in the US is governmental regulations. But since 2016 we have had a federal government that is anti-renewable and pro-nuclear, and still nuclear plants are being closed, not built.

55 points by howard941 7y ago

100% clean energy is decades away, I'm not such a pessimist to presume we will have no grid improvements by then. Marketplaces themselves are already straining due to the cheapness of renewables at certain times. Batteries plus renewables will avoid some of this, but overbuilding capacity and demand response with EVs and industry should be another component. I also expect utilities to buy access to appliances and heating and cooling and dynamically control their customers' use.

whatshisface 7y ago
I really, really don't want the power company to control my thermostat. Big companies are invading my home and violating my agency enough as it is. If past behavior is any indication of future behavior, smart appliances are more likely to be snuck in like the phone-home misfeatures on smart TVs than they are to be a willing contract between the home owner and the power company.
- brandmeyer 7y ago
  There is another approach that could also alleviate some of the pressure. Instead of keeping the consumer price fixed and allowing the utility to control your load, you can allow the consumer price to float. Most of these markets have a 24hr-ahead clearing price for energy. I think you aught to be able to expose retail consumers to fluctuations based on the day-ahead market to let people make their own choices for energy usage. Given that exposure, enough consumers will change their behavior to soften the variability in price. It might also make distributed energy storage Just Work (TM) if individual battery owners have a vector to profit from supporting the grid.
  - nerdponx 7y ago
    In the USA I thought the price already floated based on market rates. Yes, absolutely this is the way to go. It works well for gasoline, for instance.
    - brandmeyer 7y ago
      Retail consumer prices don't float in most markets. Some markets have time-of-use pricing for some part of the year, but even those have a fixed peak/off-peak rate that is fixed well in advance.
  - minikites 7y ago
    >I think you aught to be able to expose retail consumers to fluctuations based on the day-ahead market to let people make their own choices for energy usage. What prevents an electric company from significantly raising prices for a day to catch people off guard? I can't exactly switch electric companies to punish them.
    - benj111 7y ago
      The UK can manage to have competing power companies, so its clearly possible.
    - Hello71 7y ago
      what prevents them from significantly raising rates permanently?
      - minikites 7y ago
        People would notice, protest, lobby government for regulation, the usual methods of expressing civil discontent. I'm talking about a situation where people don't notice until after the fact.
      - brandmeyer 7y ago
        There are other futures markets that are bootstrapped off of the day-ahead market. Weeks/months out are used to schedule maintenance operations. Years out are used to schedule construction/decommissioning. So if the extended market prices are high enough, then this acts as a signal to add generation and/or distribution capacity. Likewise, if the extended market prices are low enough, this acts as a signal to retire capacity that has a higher operating cost/lower profit margins.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Nest partners with utilities to support demand shedding/load response [1]; you get a utility bill credit for allowing the utility to send Nest demand shedding signals when local power demand is high (which suspends your AC cooling cycle for 1-3 hours), but you can override the thermostat setting if you must (you just don't get the credit). Cheaper than firing up a single cycle gas peaker (super expensive, comparatively speaking to base load and renewables). You don't have to allow the utility to control your consumption automatically, but then you'll be exposed to the real time price of power (not a regulated average as occurred in the past because of dumb meters). [1] https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9244031?hl=en https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9244031?hl=en (Google Nest: Learn about Rush Hour Rewards)
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    So then could I hook up a load to a Nest and have a regular, dumb thermostat control my house and get those credits without actually doing anything? That doesn't seem too hard to pull off.
    - grimjack00 7y ago
      Until the utility upgrades to the next version of demand response software, which notices that you were sent a control message, but your consumption didn't change, so you're no longer eligible for the credit.
  - briffle 7y ago
    I have this on my nest, and one interesting feature, is it turns down the AC to a lower temp a few hours before the 'energy rush hour' so that your house doesn't get as warm. IE, I have it at 72 deg, a 'energy rush hour' is declared, the nest automatically turns my thermostat to 70 deg an hour or two before, then to 75 deg during the rush hour.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- solarkraft 7y ago
  Then your electricity will probably be more expensive than that of the people who will utilize the night's cheaper rates and will get rebates for installing a device that will turn some devices down on unexpected peaks. If you still "really don't want the power company to control my thermostat" after seeing your potential savings, that is.
ThomPete 7y ago
It's centuries away. So much legacy technology and machinery, buildings, installations, infrastructure not to mention the fact that neither wind nor solar and not even hydro are anywhere close to being able to provide that it's only a few percentages of world energy usage and have upper limits. In my view the only real fundamental progress when it comes to energy, within sight (and it's still far away if ever) is Thorium and Fusion. Furthermore the externalities of things like wind and solar isn't calculated today and would make two things very clear. You can't have wind and solar without the backup of oil/nuclear/coal and they will never be able to provide us with enough energy to meet our needs to not talk about meeting our future needs (which will be many times higher than it is today) I am all for green energy but i share your pessimism.
- headcanon 7y ago
  At current rate of adoption it may be centuries, but I'm willing to bet that by the end of this century (possibly earlier) there will be a great deal more public pressure to revamp the underlying infrastructure. We could do it in a few decades if we decided to spend the capital on it, its ultimately a question of political willpower. I do agree that fusion would be the ultimate form of power generation and would have the least impact on the current grid. But regardless, the future of energy generation is in diversity of sources.
  - ThomPete 7y ago
    There already is pressure today to do that. However, I am unconvinced it will actually get done on any significant scale unless there will be fundamental improvements with regards to energy sources. Otherwise, fossil fuels are simply going to be too valuable in no small part due to its multiple applications which none of the other types of energy provides. Otherwise, it will come down to economics. So I agree we will diversify but fossil fuels aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
    - headcanon 7y ago
      Honestly I don't even think it would be as complicated as all that. Its all down to what becomes more valuable. Here is a breakdown of energy generation in the US: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 63% of power generation comes from "fossil fuels", but half of that comes from natural gas. If we focus purely on carbon emissions and ignore implications of fracking, natural gas can be considered "clean". Also assuming all renewables are zero-emission, this means roughly 30% of our power generation has the potential for carbon emissions. By simply instituting a carbon tax, or even requiring coal plants to sequester emissions would make burning coal expensive enough that other forms of power will become cheaper, and thus the market would align appropriately. These are things being talked about right now, so its not unrealistic. The coal lobby won't like this of course and will continue to push us away from that, but I believe in 50 years when Miami and New Orleans have turned into Venice and the new generation of people won't be working in coal, American conservatives, as well as other nations, will stop complaining about the coal industry so much. All that has to happen is a few percentage points in a certain direction and the machinations will start to work.

awad 7y ago

Can someone much smarter than me opine on why nuclear is not lumped into the 100% clean energy category?

whatshisface 7y ago
Nuclear waste and parts from decommissioned reactors are not that big of a deal, but they are also not 100% clean.
- nwah1 7y ago
  By that standard, the REEs required for solar definitely aren't 100% clean.
- dasd99 7y ago
  >not that big of a deal also known as 'who cares, we won't be here'
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    Maybe more the opposite: in the long enough term radioactive materials are just ugly rocks. It's more the short term storage in the here and now that is the concern for most people, because they are understandably afraid of DNA damage and cancer.
- twunde 7y ago
  Disposing of nuclear waste is actually a big deal in the US. Last I heard, nuclear waste is kept on-site or close by since the Yucca mountain storage facility was never built[1]. These storage facilities weren't built or meant for long-term storage and could potentially (likely?) have radiation leaks. edited to add links [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-does-the-us-do-with-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-does-the-us-... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/05/31/new-map-shows-expanse-of-u-s-nuclear-waste-sites/#31d72cf7c2cf https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/05/31/new-map-...
heimatau 7y ago

Nasrudith 7y ago

The mention of demand side IoT power load as a service has me wondering about the theoretical abuse potential for insider trading or Enron style shenanigans. Ideally such attempts would result in losing money. It does bring to mind an oddly positive twist on the "you don't own it" of IoT. By signing up as part of a service cooperative of some sort getting a share of the generated income as compensation. Probably not a winning move and if done by could rightfully get FTC involved by mixing in investing - especially if it id being run by the manufacturer who has potentially clashing incentives.

theshadowknows 7y ago

I’m not sure why we pay for electricity in the first place. Reliable electricity, clean water. These things are fundamental to modern human existence. Why do we have to pay for them at all other than greed?

cameronbrown 7y ago
Somebody has to pay for these things to be maintained?
zacherates 7y ago
You should bear the cost of whether you keep your A/C at 68° or 72°, whether you heat your house with baseboard heaters or central air, whether you insulate your house so it's easy to keep it at whatever temperature you care to, whether you live in a 4000sq detached house or a 500sq apartment, whether you run a modern refrigerator or something that fell off a truck in the 50s. Paying for your electricity helps align incentives so that you can make the trade-off of investing to lower usage vs. just buying the power you want at market rate... and bearing that cost means you have the freedom to make that trade-off rather than it being made for you.
tathougies 7y ago
Because it is morally reprehensible to have people work on the grid and maintain it without paying them due compensation for their work. That is called slavery. Without their labor, there would be no grid.
chrisBob 7y ago
I have two ways to look at this: 1) I lived in Iraq for a while, and they have free electricity. What happens there is that they have to implement rolling blackouts because when people do have electricity they turn on every appliance, light, tv, ... Having some kind of cost involved helps to limit this type of silly behavior. 2) At some point, someone is paying for electricity even if they don't send me a bill every month. Let's say the government funds free electricity for everyone. As someone who tries to conserve energy, my costs will go up while the guy next door keeps his 3k sq-ft house at 65 degrees all summer pays less than he does now. That does not seem like a good system.

exabrial 7y ago

I watched an interesting "Interesting Engineering" video on why utility scale batteries are a game changer. Right now, in my area, we have a Nuclear plant that handles the base load, but we tend to keep it at "not full capacity" most of the time, because nuclear is harder to ramp up/down in response to load. In the video, he shows how renewables can pick up the slack in many ways... but I was thinking, why not run our nuclear plants at something like 90% capacity all the time and store the excess energy in utility scale batteries? It seems like these devices could have a far greater impact than renewables could, and they can harness existing investments in nuclear. It's too bad we can't just pump water uphill into reservoirs from nuclear plants and dump that through turbines when needed. Such a setup is obviously a huge investment and you can't really build a reservoir next to every nuclear facility.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
notpeter 7y ago
We have one in Western Massachusetts (Northfield Mountain) built nearly 50 years ago to pair with the Yankee nuclear power plant in Vermont. Peak run-rate is 1140 megawatts and the hilltop reservoir is ~12k acre feet. Peak spin up takes ~10mins and can run for ~8hrs if the upper lake is full. So capacity is just short of 10 gigawatt hours. My high school electronics class took a field trip there and I found the scale and design simplicity truly awe inspiring. https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2016/12/02/northfield-mountain-hydroelectric-station https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2016/12/02/northfield-mounta...

fallingfrog 7y ago

Wait, the markets? Don’t you mean the infrastructure? The financialized language in the article is very jarring. It’s like their readers can’t relate to base reality anymore and the only way to connect with them is these financial terms, the “demand side and supply side”, “smart energy resources”, “multi period optimization”, and so on. Almost like you’re trying to describe a Ford Focus to them and you have to describe it as a “on demand relocation capital unit as a service” or something.

woodandsteel 7y ago

People say that nuclear is superior to wind and solar, and the main reason it isn't booming in the US is governmental regulations. But since 2016 we have had a federal government that is anti-renewable and pro-nuclear, and still nuclear plants are being closed, not built.