4 ms·

It is more likely to be contracted.

idiotsecant 3y ago
We're adding capacity to the grid literally every day, both at the transmission and distribution level. It's not going to 'contract'
Someone1234 3y ago
There's reason to think otherwise: Natural Gas is being replaced and is due to see price increases. It will likely be replaced by electricity (namely Heat-Pump HVAC systems, and induction cook tops). In some states some developments aren't even hooked to the gas network, and the homes standards are such that electrification is the default. You have to measure electricity demand over years, not months, because seasonal changes and or weather can really corrupt your data.
nlewycky 3y ago
The grid is going to explode. Let's start with California. Because they're a large economy, a large population centre and a famously leading on environmental issues, they tend to run into scaling and environmental problems first. Do you remember news about the California grid straining under the heat wave in 2022? The governor sent text messages to every Californian asking them to minimise their power usage? Power consumption across the state* reached 52GW. Every April, by the rules of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, each state receives submissions of new projects that people want to build and connect to the grid. Each of these is called a "Cluster". In April 2021, cluster 14 included a proposed 110GW of new power generation. This was so many submissions that the state couldn't even finish their legally mandated analysis of all of the proposed projects in time for the new submissions for April 2022, so they pushed Cluster 15 back to 2023 (approved by FERC). It's past April 2023 and Cluster 15 projects proposed 354GW worth of power. If we take that CA can produce 50GW now, and add clusters 14 and 15, that's a little over 10× our current maximum power generation. You could argue that maybe some of these projects won't get built, that always happens in every cluster, but the number of withdrawn applications is a smaller percentage than usual. Estimates are that EVs will require us to double our current power generation. The glut in new power construction is not a California-specific phenomenon. https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/ferc-proposes-interconnection-reforms-address-queue-backlogs https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/ferc-proposes-intercon... * technically across the California Independent State Operator, https://caiso.com https://caiso.com , which is about 80% of California and also includes a tiny bit of Nevada for geographical reasons.

We're adding capacity to the grid literally every day, both at the transmission and distribution level. It's not going to 'contract'

Someone1234 3y ago

There's reason to think otherwise: Natural Gas is being replaced and is due to see price increases. It will likely be replaced by electricity (namely Heat-Pump HVAC systems, and induction cook tops). In some states some developments aren't even hooked to the gas network, and the homes standards are such that electrification is the default. You have to measure electricity demand over years, not months, because seasonal changes and or weather can really corrupt your data.

nlewycky 3y ago

The grid is going to explode. Let's start with California. Because they're a large economy, a large population centre and a famously leading on environmental issues, they tend to run into scaling and environmental problems first. Do you remember news about the California grid straining under the heat wave in 2022? The governor sent text messages to every Californian asking them to minimise their power usage? Power consumption across the state* reached 52GW. Every April, by the rules of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, each state receives submissions of new projects that people want to build and connect to the grid. Each of these is called a "Cluster". In April 2021, cluster 14 included a proposed 110GW of new power generation. This was so many submissions that the state couldn't even finish their legally mandated analysis of all of the proposed projects in time for the new submissions for April 2022, so they pushed Cluster 15 back to 2023 (approved by FERC). It's past April 2023 and Cluster 15 projects proposed 354GW worth of power. If we take that CA can produce 50GW now, and add clusters 14 and 15, that's a little over 10× our current maximum power generation. You could argue that maybe some of these projects won't get built, that always happens in every cluster, but the number of withdrawn applications is a smaller percentage than usual. Estimates are that EVs will require us to double our current power generation. The glut in new power construction is not a California-specific phenomenon. https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/ferc-proposes-interconnection-reforms-address-queue-backlogs https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/ferc-proposes-intercon... * technically across the California Independent State Operator, https://caiso.com https://caiso.com , which is about 80% of California and also includes a tiny bit of Nevada for geographical reasons.