The interconnect out of Texas is a big deal. Texas has some of the most ideal land for solar and wind development, but the isolation of their grid has always been a problem.
I am hopeful that Texas becomes a big exporter of power to Mexico and perhaps even Florida using an undersea HVDC cable (as Texas can then power Florida with solar later into the evening). Texas solar and wind potential is simply incredible compared to local load demands.
https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/economic-data/energy/2...
https://seia.org/state-solar-policy/texas-solar/
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ercot-solar-generation-texa...
What is HVDC?
High Voltage Direct Current
High voltage direct current
The opposite of HVAC /s
I sure hope they’re forced to winterize their infrastructure if they’re providing power elsewhere. The last thing we need is the next cold spell causing rolling blackouts in other states. ERCOT seems unable to force any of the necessary upgrades.
Climate, regulatory, culture in Texas has it adding more solar and wind to the grid faster than any other state.
Florida is slightly ahead in terms of solar growth[1].
(The close followers suggest it can't be too much a matter of state-level regulatory environment: New York is at 23% growth to Texas's 25%.)
[1]: https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/a-decade-of-u...
$1.5B sounds like a rounding error in terms of grid scale investment.. Is this significant?
One medium-sized startup. That's it.
That depends on how much a dollar is worth when they start the projects.
This is exciting, but I can't find many details about resilience and hardening for CMEs.
Carrington [1] class events keep me up at night.
Same here. Expansion is great and all, but if it all goes down due to a massive CME we’re all screwed. I’ve heard estimates of $500M to improve resiliency for solar events. Why isn’t funding going toward that?
Southline is roughly El Paso to Tucson.
Still no interconnect from the wind belt that starts in the Texas panhandle and goes north to Canada.[1]
[1] https://www.dallasfed.org/-/media/Images/research/energy11/w...
Every time I head anti-electrification arguments around EVs, heat pumps, etc. it's usually a complaint about grid capacity. I always shake my head, because building more power lines is relatively easy on the scale of climate tech we need to kick all carbon emissions.
Let's brainstorm how to decarbonize fertilizer, or concrete.
That being said I am really glad to see more grid buildup! Especially as more renewables hit the grid. While locally intermittent, on the scale of the entire country they're fairly reliable and predictable.
Indeed, it is an annoying argument that boils down to
"What will we do!? Current supply doesn't meet future demand!"
>That being said I am really glad to see more grid buildup! Especially as more renewables hit the grid. While locally intermittent, on the scale of the entire country they're fairly reliable and predictable.
Here's what's coming that makes people uncomfortable and they don't expect or understand:
Oversupply.
Seasonally, during good weather, during certain times of day, there's just going to be more electricity produced by solar/wind than anybody needs. You don't need to store it or use every bit of it, the grid is going to say no and because they're just solar panels, they are perfectly fine. Solar electricity is so cheap that it just doesn't matter. What customers will end up paying for is capacity instead of usage. Maybe there will be instantaneous pricing that will drop to zero-ish intermittently and consumers and industry will find ways of profiting from that.
But a whole lot of "problems" people complain about with solar are very much reduced if you just have "too many" solar panels. And they're cheap so who cares?
Like what would California do with way too much solar power? Boil water in the cheapest possible infrastructure for desalination, an enormous still. Very energy inefficient, but who cares if you just have the amps to spare?
There are a lot of industrial processes where energy efficiency is a problem and so simple processes are replaced by more efficient complex ones... but if you have free energy building out that simple infrastructure to only run when energy is cheap suddenly makes a lot more sense.
The "annoying" thing that the naysayers are pointing out is that we are not building enough power generation to support universally switching to electric vehicles. Unfortunately this "annoyance" happens to be true.
Also, California struggles to get new desalination plants through environmental approval. And most industrial processes need continuous power, not just power whenever the weather looks good.
Speaking to people in the industry I get a vibe that there’s permits and regulations that are severely bottlenecking new green energy deployments https://finance-commerce.com/2024/03/report-inefficient-perm...
Eh.
Solar installs are growing faster than electric car purchases. (roughly 30% YoY vs 20%)
People just make up statistics in their head supporting their position. Go look for the statistics for vehicle purchases and PV installs.
PV installs are outpacing anyone's previous estimation by a significant margin.
I’d think direct thermal solar would be cheaper for boiling water. Feed the steam to electric generators; the condensate is then your desalinated water.
You are missing the point. I’m talking about sinks for surplus electricity, and doing it cheaply with dead simple distillation setups. You’re talking about generating more electricity when it is needed least.
Isn’t something like Bitcoin mining a good candidate for an oversupply of energy?
Not particularly, the mining hardware depreciates fast, essentially being quite expensive to leave idle waiting for low energy prices, and the whole thing is kind of a gamble.
Did you forget /s at the end of that?
> because building more power lines is relatively easy on the scale of climate tech we need to kick all carbon emissions.
Then why have the rates changed so much recently? More importantly if EVs are going to be the thing then home solar should be the way it get the majority of it's power. Why even build the lines? Isn't that just a subsidy?
> Let's brainstorm how to decarbonize fertilizer, or concrete.
I don't think you can. I think you should worry more about how concrete and fertilizer get _distributed_. This is essentially the same dynamic as the home solar problem above.
> on the scale of the entire country they're fairly reliable and predictable.
That's due to the way the grid itself is structure not how any one power source performs. No source of power is particularly reliable and unexpected maintenance intervals always occur. Point here being, if you try to switch a grid that's based on a mix of sources, over to a grid that isn't, you're probably going to end up with a surprising result or two during that misguided process.
>> Let's brainstorm how to decarbonize fertilizer, or concrete.
> I don't think you can. I think you should worry more about how concrete and fertilizer get _distributed_. This is essentially the same dynamic as the home solar problem above.
Isn't the primary source of CO2 from fertilizer production a byproduct of producing hydrogen gas via steam methane reforming?
We can make hydrogen without starting from methane (namely: via electrolysis), but it's not economical in comparison, at this time. (Or clearly able to scale to quite the same degree, for that matter.) But I reject the claim that it's not possible (or, for that matter, that we don't know how to do it). The issue is that the negative externalities from CO2 emissions are not priced in such a way to render existing processes less cost-effective than carbon-free alternatives.
That said, I share some of your skepticism regarding how much we can conceivably decarbonize concrete production.
> home solar should be the way it get the majority of it's power
This would be a bad idea as it costs 3x more than utility scale PV.
Aren't those cost factors based upon the type of load curves we currently see? Isn't there some reason to suspect that the efficiency rating will drop if we experience much greater offsets between time of generation and time of demand with the types of peaks that EV charging might bring? Wouldn't it be nice to have all this without having to engage with the daunting prospect that is the "smart grid?"
And it still costs well below what my utility charges me. If the real cost of a thing is supposed to weigh into my incentives, I need to be able to buy it for that price.
Porque no los dos?
Home solar/battery would provide a level of independence for each home and would lessen the load on the grid for air conditioning alone (almost 20% of grid utilization).
More of both!
Even if you have rooftop solar, you still need a grid capable of supplying 100% the power because there are cloudy days and long sequences of cloudy days
Yes but EVs have batteries and people don't drive them to depletion every single day. I should have been more clear, I didn't mean the whole house, I meant the just the EVs specifically, for now. It would completely alleviate their impact on the grid as a consumer power source.
> Let's brainstorm how to decarbonize fertilize
Haber-Bosch process with green hydrogen...
the grid capacity that people refer to is distribution grid capacity. The wires running to your home have finite capacity and almost always, not enough for all people to use EVs and heat pumps.
I wonder what the impact of the connection to Texas is going to be.
Are generators inside and outside of Texas already synchronized?
The project mentioned here is a HVDC transmission system. It does not require synchronization. There are already other DC grid ties.
Is $1.5B a lot or a drop in the bucket?
Drop in the bucket.
Dept of Energy: https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-...
National Transmission Planning Study: https://www.energy.gov/gdo/national-transmission-planning-st...
Transmission Facilitation Program: https://www.energy.gov/gdo/transmission-facilitation-program
"The projects will enable nearly 1,000 miles of new electric transmission development and 7,100 megawatts of new capacity in Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
They include the Aroostook Renewable Project in Maine, the Cimarron Link in Oklahoma, Southern Spirit connecting the Texas grid for the first time to southeastern U.S. power markets and Southline in New Mexico.
The Energy Department's National Transmission Planning study released Thursday was meant to be a long-term planning tool.
It found that a substantial expansion of the transmission system throughout the entire contiguous United States would deliver the biggest grid benefits. That could also save the national electric system between $270 billion to $490 billion through 2050."
> Southern Spirit connecting the Texas grid for the first time to southeastern U.S. power markets
That doesn't make sense about "first time". Southern Spirit is a new HVDC transmission line (which is awesome and what we need, more please!). There are already Eastern DC grid ties. This would be a good bit bigger (not sure existing ties are even GWs) but I don't understand first. Could someone shed more light on that for me?
Definitely not the first, surprisingly hard to find clear data about the endpoints of the ties themselves but this random court document has a fairly clear diagram on page 3: https://www.nrg.com/assets/documents/energy-policy/ferc_work...
ERCOT also reports flows for the four existing DC ties: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/dctieflows
With that said the biggest tie is like half a GW, so my guess is that they used the term "power markets"" rather than "power grids" because the current links don't really function as a way to transfer bulk power between markets, even if the Texas grid is technically already connected outwards. Like in an emergency they can import a miniscule amount of power, but nobody's going to be seriously arb'ing power with the existing ties.
The Wikipedia article[3] is not entirely clear and has a shocking failure to cite sources, but it claims the the Texas grid connects to the Eastern grid in two place with DC lines, and has an AC connection that has only been activated once in the Houston area.
What I suspect this is referring to is connecting to the SERC[1] area. I can't find a good source, but I suspect the existing connections are to the MRO[2].
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SERC_Reliability_Corporation 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwest_Reliability_Organizati... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection#Ties
The existing active connections are to SPP. The one inactive AC tie is to MISO I believe (which is getting one of the new HVDC ties) and yes these new connections will be to SERC (MISO and SOCO).
That means these new ties will be directly supplying the local grids of about half of the southeastern market which is a first all things considered.
> There are already Eastern DC grid ties.
Strictly speaking there are only three ties into any NERC interconnection. Two of them are ties into SPP. The other is a single AC tie into SERC but it was only briefly activated after Hurricane Ike and hasn't been activated since.
This new project has ties being built directly to both MISO and SOCO which means the texas grid will be connected directly to two of the four main operators of SERC (the southeastern grid/power market).
Ah ok, so I take it the other "East" ties are to MRO and this will be the first to SERC. Thanks for that clarification.
I'm having so much trouble finding details of the existing DC ties. I'd love to know more.
> That doesn't make sense about "first time".
ERCOT (Texas grid) is famous for operating independently of neighboring grids to avoid federal regulation under FERC.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/congress-texas-should-rethi...
Failing to actually answer the question posed. And this wouldn't be an interconnection requiring that same kind of federal regulation so pretty irrelevant in the end too. And besides your point is already obvious from the above comments.
But I guess we'll just state random Texas facts now. Did you know the state flower is the Bluebonnet?
I think our energy policy the domestic kind is stuck in a centralized supply-centric policy, when home solar and storage offer a fundamental alternative.
Home solar combined with storage that can enable house to be temporarily or perhaps even permanently off-grid increases resiliency of communities tremendously during emergency situations, which are more common than you think they are.
In addition, by encouraging policies that will help drop the price of home solar closer to grid solar prices and storage costs, you may eliminate a lot of the need to upgrade the grid in order to provide home charging for EVs.
I don't deny the grid needs massive amounts of investment in order to enable it to adapt to new pricing, realities of solar and wind. But I dislike that the home aspect of power generation is essentially ignored at the federal policy level from department of energy.
Regions are all going to experience the same weather at the same time so long distance transmission saves you a vast investment in solar panels and local batteries at 99.9% uptime.
The huge advantage of local solar is intermittent power is useful even if it’s not that reliable. Being able to run a fridge/freezer 8 hours a day dramatically extends how long it takes food to spoil in the summer. Similarly there’s a huge difference in comfortable temperatures and what’s required to avoid your pipes freezing.
Obviously larger investments mean you’re more comfortable in a major disaster, but a mid sized solar install + backup generator + a grid connection is generally more cost effective.
Local-first generation wants big interconnection transmission grids (for moving excess peak generation to off-peak timezones), and the federal government is way better capitalized to support these kinds of projects. State or even sub-State policy is way better suited to manage the highly heterogeneous landscape of generating power at individual homes, both because the problem is smaller $ but also just has a lot of little regional wrinkles (what power mix is best for the location, what does existing land-use look like, etc). All IMO of course, also the Federal gov't has done a lot to support basic research for solar on a very general level, I think it's just a difference of what scope best suits which governing body.
> Southern Spirit connecting the Texas grid for the first time to southeastern U.S. power markets
How will this work?
Wires.
It is a High-voltage DC transmission line and the infrastructure to connect to it. It runs HVDC, so there's no grid synchronization needed. The grid will still be "isolated", as there are already DC ties.
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The Biden administration has spent many multiples more on climate / grid investments than on the Ukraine war
Would add that U.S. military spending as a fraction of GDP is close to post-WWII lows [1]. Relative to the economy funding it (and which it protects), we aren’t in the top 15 [2].
We spend a metric fuckton on our military. But it’s not crowding out other spending by necessity.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highe...
You can't expect the ignorant to understand that you can't feed outdated tanks and missile systems to the needy.
The same folks who wanted to defund NOAA and FEMA a month ago are now complaining that we're sending old military equipment to Ukraine instead of North Carolina because apparently multitasking is impossible. They're also the people who want to know why the Biden Administration hasn't been wasting everyone's time with photo ops at the scene, and also refuse to acknowledge that the aid rendered is the aid that the states have asked for.
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This investment in the electrical grid is a tiny fraction of the $1.2 trillion we are spending on infrastructure. Try harder.
