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Is California not able to export electricity? The lowest I see in thee last week was 3.1GW of natural gas for CISO. Similar amount to the lowest gas usage last

Is California not able to export electricity? The lowest I see in thee last week was 3.1GW of natural gas for CISO. Similar amount to the lowest gas usage last June and July (2.7GW I think on June 19) https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/balancing_authority/CISO https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr...

shadowgovt 4y ago
IIUC it's complicated. Because the grid is, fundamentally, still storage-starved (though that's been improving in recent years), even with export the CA energy companies run into grid over-saturation problems on clear, sunny days. Eventually losses catch up with you pushing the power geographically far enough; they couldn't, for example, power the entire United States off of enough California solar. So I naively suspect the issue is either exporting just saturates the adjacent grids too or other power companies are loathe to crash their prices by letting their grids saturate and therefore use whatever restrictions are allowed against exporting to keep CA's surplus off their grids.
- iso1631 4y ago
  Except the data seems to show that California Independent System Operator (CISO) has not had a single hour where Gas hasn't produced at least 1GWh of electricity, even in the height of the day in the height of summer with the lowest demand, not even close Maybe there are local bottlenecks inside the CISO network, but that's a very separate problem.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    Interesting. That makes me wonder if the gas plants have to operate at some minimal output level because they can't go all the way into cold shutdown without risking grid integrity should something unexpected happen. Except that I was under the impression that gas-plants, in general, are bootstrappable plants and can kickstart themselves from a cold shutdown.
    - namibj 4y ago
      Not all are bootstrap-capable, and many do co-generation for district heating, which can power absorption heat pumps for cooling in the summer. Also a gas turbine core that's spinning can modulate power in seconds, unlike one that has to first be brought up to speed with external power (even if that's from batteries, or an on-site diesel (like AFAIK in the case of the black start capability of the downtown power plant in Wuppertal Barmen)).
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  Ultra high voltage lines can reach all the way to the east coast with 10% losses and supposedly about 10 cents per kWh for construction and maintenance. And that's AC, which HVDC might beat. So it seems to me like you could power the US off california solar if they had enough.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    That’s pretty incredible to think about. I didn’t think that was feasible.
    - iso1631 4y ago
      Brazil has two or three 1200 mile plus HVDC lines in operation The longest curently runing line is over 2500km, which from Los Angeles would cover the entirety of 17 states as well as cities like Vancouver, Calgary and even Winnipeg
      - cesarb 4y ago
        > Brazil has two or three 1200 mile plus HVDC lines in operation There are four: Xingu-Estreito and Xingu-Rio for the Belo Monte dam, and the two parallel Rio Madeira lines for the Santo Antônio and Jirau dams on the Madeira river. They all take large amounts of hydroelectric power from the sparsely populated North region to the densely populated Southeast region. (There are also the two parallel Itaipu HVDC lines, but they're shorter than 1200 miles.)
- iso1631 4y ago
  > even with export the CA energy companies run into grid over-saturation problems on clear, sunny days Which day, specifically, had zero natural gas generation?

shadowgovt 4y ago

IIUC it's complicated. Because the grid is, fundamentally, still storage-starved (though that's been improving in recent years), even with export the CA energy companies run into grid over-saturation problems on clear, sunny days. Eventually losses catch up with you pushing the power geographically far enough; they couldn't, for example, power the entire United States off of enough California solar. So I naively suspect the issue is either exporting just saturates the adjacent grids too or other power companies are loathe to crash their prices by letting their grids saturate and therefore use whatever restrictions are allowed against exporting to keep CA's surplus off their grids.

iso1631 4y ago
Except the data seems to show that California Independent System Operator (CISO) has not had a single hour where Gas hasn't produced at least 1GWh of electricity, even in the height of the day in the height of summer with the lowest demand, not even close Maybe there are local bottlenecks inside the CISO network, but that's a very separate problem.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Interesting. That makes me wonder if the gas plants have to operate at some minimal output level because they can't go all the way into cold shutdown without risking grid integrity should something unexpected happen. Except that I was under the impression that gas-plants, in general, are bootstrappable plants and can kickstart themselves from a cold shutdown.
  - namibj 4y ago
    Not all are bootstrap-capable, and many do co-generation for district heating, which can power absorption heat pumps for cooling in the summer. Also a gas turbine core that's spinning can modulate power in seconds, unlike one that has to first be brought up to speed with external power (even if that's from batteries, or an on-site diesel (like AFAIK in the case of the black start capability of the downtown power plant in Wuppertal Barmen)).
Dylan16807 4y ago
Ultra high voltage lines can reach all the way to the east coast with 10% losses and supposedly about 10 cents per kWh for construction and maintenance. And that's AC, which HVDC might beat. So it seems to me like you could power the US off california solar if they had enough.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  That’s pretty incredible to think about. I didn’t think that was feasible.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    Brazil has two or three 1200 mile plus HVDC lines in operation The longest curently runing line is over 2500km, which from Los Angeles would cover the entirety of 17 states as well as cities like Vancouver, Calgary and even Winnipeg
    - cesarb 4y ago
      > Brazil has two or three 1200 mile plus HVDC lines in operation There are four: Xingu-Estreito and Xingu-Rio for the Belo Monte dam, and the two parallel Rio Madeira lines for the Santo Antônio and Jirau dams on the Madeira river. They all take large amounts of hydroelectric power from the sparsely populated North region to the densely populated Southeast region. (There are also the two parallel Itaipu HVDC lines, but they're shorter than 1200 miles.)
iso1631 4y ago
> even with export the CA energy companies run into grid over-saturation problems on clear, sunny days Which day, specifically, had zero natural gas generation?