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𝙏𝙚𝙭𝙖𝙨 𝙂𝙧𝙞𝙙 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮: 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙚 𝙔𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙋𝙤𝙨𝙩-𝘽𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙤𝙪𝙩, 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙨 𝙍𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙣 Three years after the catastrophic blackouts during #WinterStormUri, Texas' electricity grid has shown resilience against major winter storms, Elliott in December 2022 and Heather in January, without experiencing widespread blackouts. These events tested the grid changes implemented post-Uri, including enhanced oversight of power plant weatherization and a diversified energy mix, suggesting improvements in grid reliability. However, concerns persist regarding the grid's ability to withstand more severe storms and the heavy reliance on natural gas for black-start capabilities, crucial for grid recovery post-blackout. Despite improvements, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) faces challenges in ensuring grid reliability amidst growing demand, the need for more dispatchable generation, and the integration of renewables. Experts emphasize the importance of diversifying energy sources and enhancing coordination between the electric and gas sectors to bolster grid resilience. Additionally, the role of battery storage as both an energy source during peak demand and a potential black-start resource highlights the evolving strategies to safeguard Texas' grid against future crises. https://lnkd.in/gwrV8Shk

Last week's unprecedented heat caused New England's grid operator to declare a Level 1 emergency and electricity prices briefly jumped to almost $2,000 per megawatt-hour — ten times the usual day-ahead cost! https://lnkd.in/ezw2enwS To ensure reliability, utilities must proactively embrace new hourly demand flexibility, including energy efficiency, demand response, and other behind-the-meter solutions. This proven strategy can be rolled out quickly and cost-effectively through a performance-based approach. Performance-based markets that pay for hourly savings incentivize innovation and often find peak savings in unexpected places. This was the basis of California's highly successful market access program, created in response to the heat storm that caused rolling blackouts in the summer of 2020. The key is accurate, consistent, and transparent measurement to provide a price signal that allows these solutions to work together as comprehensive virtual power plants. Learn more about this approach here: https://lnkd.in/eky3htyY #demandflexibility #gridsolutions

Texas says it’s ready for the cold this time. Solar and wind have expanded since the winter of 2021, adding capacity. Transmission lines have increased. Plants are required to maintain fuel reserves. But the biggest impact will come from natural gas. Steps have been taken to assure that the natural gas plants remain online. When the cold weather arrives, we will find if these steps were enough.  #ANDnotOR https://lnkd.in/euPsyt8M

Grid Assurance was pleased to work with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in their recent report to Congress titled Large Power Transformer Resilience. The DOE spent considerable time with Grid Assurance to more fully understand our operations and value proposition for the electric utility industry. We look forward to future meetings and collaboration with the DOE as the industry tackles how to restore the nation’s transmission grid when a catastrophic event occurs – whether that’s a physical attack, a cyber-attack, or like the most recent events involving extreme weather. #gridresilience https://lnkd.in/efPe5TXB

Last Tuesday’s wild weather in Victoria, highlighted the vulnerability of the electricity system to extreme weather such as storms or bushfires. No doubt there will be investigations launched around the causes of the outages, system limitations and the emergency response performance. I hope that rather than descend into energy culture wars, as The Guardian’s article cautions against, we focus on: -         Specific weaknesses (such as tower transmission wind loading limitations) that can be addressed by asset replacements. -         How the type of outages and level of risk is likely to change with network reconfiguration (new interconnectors and REZs), extreme weather event frequencies and new generation and storage mixes -         How different networks can coordinate and work together better to deal with large scale outages and emergency response situations -         What level of reliability and resilience as energy users we are willing to accept for a given cost (because it’s uneconomic to build a zero-risk network). https://lnkd.in/dNJa6XxN

The isolation of the Texas power grid began in 1935 when Congress passed the Public Utility Holding Company Act, which targeted energy monopolies to bring down consumer costs as power companies isolated themselves from other states to avoid federal regulation and maintain monopolies, enabled by state size and abundant natural resources. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) was later formed in 1970 to manage the state’s electric grid and the wholesale energy market. Today, ERCOT is regulated by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and is responsible for meeting about 90% of the state’s energy demands. The flaws of ERCOT were put on full display in February 2021 when a perfect storm of disastrous conditions emerged: just as the cold caused energy demands to spike, natural gas production and power plants were buckling, knocked out by weather conditions that energy providers and weather forecasting services had underestimated. Over 4.5 million homes lost power, and at least 200 people died from conditions caused by the storm. The Texas grid remains isolated from the two national electricity networks. The Eastern Interconnection and the Western Interconnection cover the rest of the U.S., and stronger links to these two power-sharing networks might have provided more sufficient safeguards and backup energy sources as the cold swept across the state. In reaction to this article, ERCOT quoted its response to the proposed Connect the Grid Act, stating “When looking at proposals to add additional connections from ERCOT to neighboring grids, many factors need to be considered including transmission costs, reliability and economic impacts, and market-design implications.” U.S. Representative Greg Casar (D-Austin) recently filed the “Connect the Grid Act,” which would require ERCOT to become interconnected with neighboring power networks and subject the agency to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission oversight. However, significant Republican opposition on the grounds that the measure would bring Texas’ state-managed grid into a federal system struggling with its own issues signals that it is highly unlikely to pass, meaning interconnection is still a long time coming. #electricgrid #ercot #powerblackouts #connectthegridact #ferc #regionalinterconnectivity #regionalcooperation #nationalelectricitynetwork #energytransition #worldgameworkshop

What is the importance of Demand Response in modern, electricity dependent societies? ⚡This article, written by Shelley Robbins, reports some conclusions on a real extreme weather scenario (Winter Storm Elliott 23-26 of December, wind gusts of more than 120km/h). This storm presented some challenges to the energy system in several US states, due to unexpected grid faults, power plant failures, gas pipeline issues, and internal control problems that threatened widespread blackouts. 🌐 To tackle this event, PJM Interconnection successfully relied on 10,000 megawatts of customer contracted load reduction. Neighbor grid operators, with almost no #demandresponse available, had to impose load shedding, directly impacting customers. 💡 The existence of a demand response energy market creates value for the society, even with extreme weather scenarios, while its absence perpetuate social and economical impact on multiple scenarios.

Alberta experienced extreme cold weather from January 9th to 15th, 2024, and, as the cold front approached, I thought it would be interesting to take periodic data snapshots to understand how the power supply mix evolved during this period using data and screen shots from the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) data dashboard. This article tells the story and summarizes my observations. https://lnkd.in/gDiDDC94

‘Unprecedented Surge’ in U.S. Power Demand Requires Transmission Overhaul, Says FERC Chair https://ift.tt/Rh7aWyJ FERC acted to revamp the entire U.S. transmission grid to prepare for extreme climate threats and face the challenge of growing power demand – including for natural gas-fired generation – via a rulemaking that outlines how to plan and pay for facilities. Still to come are the legal battles. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday issued Order No. 1920, which it said marked the first time in more than a decade that it had addressed regional transmission policy (No. RM21-17-000). The “1920” recognizes the year that Congress passed the Federal Power Act, which created the precursor agency to FERC. “Our country is facing an unprecedented surge in demand for affordable electricity, while confronting extreme weather threats to the reliability of our grid and trying to stay one step ahead of the massive technological changes we are seeing in our society,” FERC Chairman Willie Phillips said.  [Inside the Political Firestorm: NGI sits down with Neil Chatterjee, a former FERC chairman and commissioner, to discuss the impacts of President Biden’s LNG pause on authorizing new liquefied natural gas export projects in the U.S. Tune into NGI’s Hub & Flow podcast now.] “Our nation needs a new foundation to get badly needed new transmission planned, paid for and built. With this new rule, that starts today.” FERC, acting as a minimum three-member quorum, was split in its decision. Phillips and fellow Democrat Allison Clements voted in favor, while Republican Mark Christie dissented.  How Much Natural Gas Demand? Natural gas consumption is expected to sharply expand with the build-out of data centers used for artificial intelligence (AI).  “We are at a transformational moment for the electric grid, with phenomenal load growth from a domestic manufacturing boom, unprecedented construction of data centers fueling an AI revolution, and ever-expanding electrification,” Phillips said. “At the same time, the resource mix is at an inflection point, with aging infrastructure, economics, and state policies leading resources to retire.  “On top of all of this, extreme weather events have become the norm, and the electric grid is routinely being pushed to the brink,” the chairman said. “Yet in the face of these challenges, high-voltage power line construction has declined to a record low in 2022.”  NGI’s Patrick Rau, director of Strategy and Research, said how much natural gas consumption may grow is uncertain. However, many experts are forecasting demand to rise sharply. “A year or two ago, the consensus seemed to be that natural gas demand for U.S. electric generation would be flattish through the end of the decade, if not down in the low single percentage digits,” Rau said.  “Not everyone” thought consumption would be flat, “but that was the consensus. Now, there is seemingly no one who doesn’t agree that the growth in dat...

NERC recently said it has concerns about sufficient gas supplies to address extreme winter weather. Two years ago we witnessed extended cold weather, causing gas shortages and massive price increases that landed at the foot of customers. I wrote an analysis then pointing towards distributed energy resources as a protection against volatile fossil fuel prices -- it's even more true today. With about half of New England's electricity being generated by gas, winter shortages spell disaster even more for ISO-NE than the Northwest. While it's encouraging to see more emphasis on gas-electric coordination, more needs to be done to protect customers from even higher energy bills. Namely, quick and wide deployment of DERs. https://lnkd.in/eVN4BA8R