4 ms·

Jigar Shah, quoted in the article, once said: > Load flexibility is the giant issue nobody is talking about.

7thaccount 3y ago
Interesting quote as it is the giant issue that practically everybody in the industry has been talking about since the beginning of the wholesale electricity markets. Economics 101 assumes some demand elasticity, but the wholesale markets are generally fully inelastic (maybe a tiny percentage point of that is elastic in many regions, while it's finally growing in others). These markets have to use administrative solutions to approximate the value to demand as they don't have a true aggregate demand curve built out of thousands of customers that are fully responsive to price. We're retiring our thermal fleet at a rapid pace and load curtailment will be the only option on a fully renewable grid once the renewables drop in output and the storage runs out. We are making strides in that direction. Maybe when he says "nobody" he's referring to the general public? I know this is an extremely common topic at the utility, ISO, FERC, academic, and so on level. As the comment points out, flexibility in demand allows for all kinds of neat tricks like pre-heating things when prices are cheap and supply is plentiful. The grid is so cool.
- mcbishop 3y ago
  "Thermal fleet" ...I like that term. I think Jigar was referring specifically to behind-the-meter flexible-load control. Yes, pre-heating (and pre-cooling) turns the building and the hot-water tank into thermal energy storage (with no occupant impact, if done right).
  - 7thaccount 3y ago
    Yep. We use it to generally mean coal and natural gas although I suppose anything that deals with steam falls into that category like oil and even nuke. The thermal is retiring crazy fast. NERC is very alarmed and there have been many Senate and FERC hearings on this lately. Once it's gone, it's not easy to get setup again. A lot of plant maintenance lives in the skills of the workers, so once they've relocated it can be difficult to restart. I agree with the goals of a transition, but it needs to be managed carefully and orderly so we don't drastically increase our amounts of blackouts. At the same time, we'll need to make greater strides with flexible loads of course.

Interesting quote as it is the giant issue that practically everybody in the industry has been talking about since the beginning of the wholesale electricity markets. Economics 101 assumes some demand elasticity, but the wholesale markets are generally fully inelastic (maybe a tiny percentage point of that is elastic in many regions, while it's finally growing in others). These markets have to use administrative solutions to approximate the value to demand as they don't have a true aggregate demand curve built out of thousands of customers that are fully responsive to price. We're retiring our thermal fleet at a rapid pace and load curtailment will be the only option on a fully renewable grid once the renewables drop in output and the storage runs out. We are making strides in that direction. Maybe when he says "nobody" he's referring to the general public? I know this is an extremely common topic at the utility, ISO, FERC, academic, and so on level. As the comment points out, flexibility in demand allows for all kinds of neat tricks like pre-heating things when prices are cheap and supply is plentiful. The grid is so cool.

mcbishop 3y ago
"Thermal fleet" ...I like that term. I think Jigar was referring specifically to behind-the-meter flexible-load control. Yes, pre-heating (and pre-cooling) turns the building and the hot-water tank into thermal energy storage (with no occupant impact, if done right).
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  Yep. We use it to generally mean coal and natural gas although I suppose anything that deals with steam falls into that category like oil and even nuke. The thermal is retiring crazy fast. NERC is very alarmed and there have been many Senate and FERC hearings on this lately. Once it's gone, it's not easy to get setup again. A lot of plant maintenance lives in the skills of the workers, so once they've relocated it can be difficult to restart. I agree with the goals of a transition, but it needs to be managed carefully and orderly so we don't drastically increase our amounts of blackouts. At the same time, we'll need to make greater strides with flexible loads of course.