3 ms·

I'm just going to put it out there that this is a great start and has some distance to go depending on its end point. Interesting concept (I have seen iteratio

I'm just going to put it out there that this is a great start and has some distance to go depending on its end point. Interesting concept (I have seen iterations of it in the past but maybe not at the whole global level). You'll notice that it strongly favors hydro electricity (for which you can only be blessed with rivers or not) or Nuclear. Things I take issue with: 1. How do you lump all of California under one value given there are 4 large utilities that have their own value but include LADWP and the balancing authority? 2. Since the visualization is by state but not the size of impact it also makes smaller inefficient areas look like they have as large an impact. I do appreciate the flow of electricity across states though. In the end I'm not sure the value prop - is this for policy planners? It's not high quality enough to be for energy trading or asset deployment. I had thought of doing something like this mapping out a couple years ago but couldn't figure out what the exercise was going to do in the end outside of some interesting visualization and then fairly complicated analysis of different energy systems. Either way good work for the people who've got the project to this point.

kergonath 5y ago
> Things I take issue with: 1. How do you lump all of California under one value given there are 4 large utilities that have their own value but include LADWP and the balancing authority? The issue is data acquisition. In regions where they have more granular input, you have a better resolution. > In the end I'm not sure the value prop - is this for policy planners? It’s for outreach and communication with the general public. It’s trivial to put a map on Facebook to show how well/poorly a given place is doing. It’s also interesting to have a quick look depending on the conditions, like the wind turbines output during a storm, or during a heat wave, or to see just how efficient PV production is under various conditions.
powerbroker 5y ago
The trick with the electric grid, is that you basically have network of leaky plumbing, with pipes of various sizes, with heterogenous congestions throughout. For example, the EIA estimates that the U.S. grids loose some 5% of energy in line losses between the generator(s) and the consumers. On top of that, that in states with high renewables, like Texas, you occasionally have grid congestion that causes wind turbines to curtail, or shut down, in order to balance the generation with the consumer's loads. A rough picture, seemingly updated every 5-15 minutes, of the broader 'nodes' in the U.S. grids can be seen at https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr... Drill down deep enough into the data, and you will unearth the recent tracking of renewables in each of those nodes.

kergonath 5y ago

> Things I take issue with: 1. How do you lump all of California under one value given there are 4 large utilities that have their own value but include LADWP and the balancing authority? The issue is data acquisition. In regions where they have more granular input, you have a better resolution. > In the end I'm not sure the value prop - is this for policy planners? It’s for outreach and communication with the general public. It’s trivial to put a map on Facebook to show how well/poorly a given place is doing. It’s also interesting to have a quick look depending on the conditions, like the wind turbines output during a storm, or during a heat wave, or to see just how efficient PV production is under various conditions.

powerbroker 5y ago

The trick with the electric grid, is that you basically have network of leaky plumbing, with pipes of various sizes, with heterogenous congestions throughout. For example, the EIA estimates that the U.S. grids loose some 5% of energy in line losses between the generator(s) and the consumers. On top of that, that in states with high renewables, like Texas, you occasionally have grid congestion that causes wind turbines to curtail, or shut down, in order to balance the generation with the consumer's loads. A rough picture, seemingly updated every 5-15 minutes, of the broader 'nodes' in the U.S. grids can be seen at https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr... Drill down deep enough into the data, and you will unearth the recent tracking of renewables in each of those nodes.