More Reasons to Pause Climate Act Implementation

I am very frustrated with the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net zero transition because the reality is that there are so many issues coming up with the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act that it is obvious that we need to pause implementation and figure out how best to proceed.  This article describes reasons to pause implementation.

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good because the energy density of wind and solar energy is too low and the resource intermittency too variable to ever support a reliable electric system relying on those resources. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Dennis Higgins on the Grid of the Future

Were it not for my overloaded schedule I would prepare a post devoted to this submittal by Dennis Higgins in the Grid of Future Case 24-E-0165 proceeding. Higgins describes five overarching issues that must be resolved for the Climate Act transition to be successful.  The following are selected quotes from his filing.

1. The North American Energy Reliability Corporation (NERC) lists five risks to the bulk power system. Risk #1 is a bad energy plan and risk #2 are changes made to the grid to implement a bad plan.  A ‘renewable’ based grid will need a whole new transmission structure – bigger than the current grid — which someone will have to pay for. It will need full-capacity dispatchable backup and expensive battery energy storage systems. Any wind, solar, and energy storage resources installed today will need replacement by 2050. New York may not be able to shutter significant fossil-fuel power plants but may, rather, be obliged to build more. California – two decades ahead of New York in pursuit of solar and wind — has extended the operations of three gas power plants until 2026 to maintain energy reliability and affordable rates.
2. Academic studies as well as empirical evidence do not support claims that wind and solar will prove economical or reliable. Recent studies suggest wind may raise surface temperatures offsetting any carbon-cutting advantage in the technology.
3. NERC warns that inverter based resources can undermine grid reliability. “Since 2016, NERC has analyzed numerous major events totaling more than 15,000 MW of unexpected generation reduction. These major events were not predicted through current planning processes. Furthermore, NERC studies were not able to replicate the system and resource behavior that occurred during the events, indicating systemic deficiencies in industry’s ability to accurately represent the performance of IBRs and study the effects of IBR on the bulk power system (BPS).”
4. Sweden, and others, do not see intermittent resources reducing costs or adding reliability.  Sweden provides a cautionary tale of what reliance on, and accommodations for, wind power can mean. In fact, over a megawatt of dispatchable generation is necessary for every megawatt of renewable added to the grid: “a 1% percent increase in the share of fast-reacting fossil generation capacity is associated with a 0.88% percent increase in renewable”
5. NYISO has repeatedly warned of reliability issues. “As traditional fossil-fueled generation deactivates in response to decarbonization goals and tighter emissions regulations, reliability margins on the grid are eroding. Further, the remaining fossil-fueled generation fleet, which provides many of the essential reliability services to the grid, is increasingly made up of aging resources, raising further concerns about grid reliability. Strong reliability margins enable the grid to meet peak demand, respond to sudden disturbances, and avoid outages. They also support the grid’s ability to respond to risks associated with extreme weather conditions. As these margins narrow, consumers face greater risk of outages if the resources needed for reliability are unavailable due to policy mandates or failures associated with aging equipment.

Higgins did a great job compiling these cautionary tales.  Anyone of these should be sufficient reason to pause Climate Act implementation.

Lessons from California

JohnS has compiled a comprehensive evaluation of the status of the net zero transition in California.  As he points out, if an electric system transition to one dependent upon solar and wind can work somewhere, then this is the ideal state: “The state’s abundant sunshine, clear skies, and deserts near major population centers create perfect conditions for solar power.”

Spoiler alert – it is not working.  At the current rate of emissions decline California will reach zero emissions in 145 years.  He concludes: “Without an immediate and abrupt policy shift, California is not on a path to achieving its 2045 emissions goal. It’s impossible to predict how close they will get; it all depends on how much economic pain they can endure and how many ecosystems they are willing to sacrifice.” 

He also describes a lesson for New York:

A key lesson for other regions is that solar power is a difficult path, even for a wealthy American state with sunny weather and deserts close to big cities. It will be even more difficult in other regions. For instance, New York State has a solar capacity factor of 19.5%, which means the cost of solar power there will be about 1.5 times higher than in California. And without deserts, finding locations for solar farms will be more difficult. Colder climates also have more severe heating needs. Tripling annual heating costs by switching to heat pumps will be more than a tough sell.

There is an enormous amount of relevant information in this article.  California’s transition is ahead of New York.  None of the lessons learned in California suggest the New York will be able to improve upon their efforts.  This just cannot end well.

Iberian Peninsula Blackout

Two recent posts at the Watt-Logic blog describe the blackout this spring on the Iberian peninsula  that affected Spain, Portugal, and France.  The first article looked at the physics of power grids and the general behavior of both synchronous generation (gas, hydro and nuclear) and inverter-based generation (wind, solar and batteries).   It includes a good description of some of the details of the electric system that no one who was involved with the development of the Climate Act law understood.  If they had any inkling of the complexity of the system they would not have been so quick to go for a zero-emissions electric system reliant on wind, solar, and storage.  More importantly it explains why the proposed changes are so risky.  The second post addressed what we know about the Iberian blackout. He explains that voltage control and reactive power limitations of the Spanish grid caused by over-reliance on wind and solar weakened the grid to the point where “single faulty solar inverter” caused the blackout.

This raises an important issue.  We are told that the zero-emissions future New York electric system will be more resilient.  Am I the only one who is worried that the Chinese ‘kill switches’ found in equipment at US solar firms could trigger a single solar inverter to cause a blackout?  The fact that a single inverter could cause a blackout is not a sign of a resilient system.

Lessons from Down Under

The New Zealand Energy website described how the effects of a drop off in wind production caused a “wild ride” in their electric network.  It concluded that more accurate weather forecasting is needed to prevent problems like this causing a reliability issue.  The author goes on to describe the technology needed to respond to a weather forecast warning that a drop off in production is coming:

More backup and more complex control systems are required. This is exactly what Joesph Tainter described as the diminishing returns on complexity in his book “The Collapse of Complex Societies”.

It is very easy for proponents to claim that there are solutions to the many identified problems.  They do not acknowledge the complexity challenge however.

A second article from the other side of the equator is out of Australia.  Rafe Champion explains that the issues described above have led to the situation where the jurisdictions still hell bent on a transition away from fossil fuels have not caught on to the reality that “We have already gone as far as we can go in that direction with existing storage technology. The combination of wind droughts and the lack of feasible grid-scale battery storage makes the green energy transition impossible.” He reiterates the themes of the articles described here and I must say i agree that the transition is impossible.

Conclusion
There will be an inevitable clash between reality and political aspirations. The reasons described here underline the importance of a pause to consider New York’s Climate Act implementation.