Author: rogercaiazza

On August 29, 2021 I posted an article, CLCPA Electric System Targets, that discussed the politics behind the 2030 electric system target that requires a minimum of seventy percent of the state wide electric generation to be provided by renewable energy systems.  I argued that because the definition of renewable energy systems excludes nuclear and renewable natural gas (e.g., methane capture from landfills, farm manure digesters, and other organic sources) that meeting that target was impossible.  However, I did not provide evidence for that claim.  This article documents why I believe it is impossible.

I have written extensively on implementation of the CLCPA because I believe the solutions proposed will adversely affect reliability and affordability, will have worse impacts on the environment than the purported effects of climate change, and cannot measurably affect global warming when implemented.   The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

The previous article completely documents the target and relevant definitions but here is the simple version.  § 66-p, 1 (b) states that (b) “renewable energy systems” means systems that “generate electricity or thermal energy through use of the following technologies: solar thermal, photovoltaics, on land and offshore wind, hydroelectric, geothermal electric, geothermal ground source heat, tidal energy, wave energy, ocean thermal, and fuel cells which do not utilize a fossil fuel resource in the process of generating electricity”.  The target is defined in § 66-p, 2 (a) as “a minimum of seventy percent of the state wide electric generation secured by jurisdictional load serving entities to meet the electrical energy requirements of all end-use customers in New York state in two thousand thirty shall be generated by renewable energy systems”.

Future Electric System Projections

I looked at feasibility of the 2030 target earlier but I had the mistaken impression that nuclear was included as part of the 70% allowable energy sources.  The premise of my impossibility argument is that the current renewable energy sources distribution from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) Patterns and Trends – New York State Energy Profiles: 2003-2017 report is so small that it is unreasonable to expect that it can be raised to 70% in ten years even if nuclear is included.  Table 1 combines data from the NYSERDA patterns and trends document and the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) Gold Book for the last three years.  In 2020 the CLCPA renewable energy sources contributed only 24% of the electrical energy system generation (Table 1).  This article will look at a couple of refined projections made for the future electric system under the CLCPA.

The first study is the Initial Report on the New York Power Grid Study as described in Appendix E: Zero-Emissions Electric Grid in New York by 2040 Study (“Zero-Emissions Study”).  It is not surprising that this analysis prepared in part by New York Department of Public Service and NYSERDA staff claimed that “there are feasible pathways to meeting the CLCPA targets” because state policy takes it as a given that CLCPA targets are only a matter of political will.  However, upon closer examination using alternate reasonable alternate assumptions the target is unlikely to be achieved.

Table 2 compares the assumptions in the initial scenario of the Zero-Emissions Study with alternative assumptions.  The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) Gold Book includes estimates of future load in Table I-1b: Summary of NYCA Baseline Annual Energy Forecasts – GWh.  In this table the baseline annual energy forecast is 145,960 GWh but that includes a reduction of behind the meter solar PV 8,013 GWh.  Because the Zero-Emissions Study includes estimates for this parameter it should be added to the annual forecast to make the 2030 expected load 153,973 GWh.  That makes the renewable energy resources percentage of the total smaller.  The Table 2 alternative assumes the same capacity for distributed behind the meter solar, utility-scale solar, and onshore wind but bases the capacity factors on observed data rather than the “NREL Wind Toolkit and National Solar Radiance database”.  Land-based wind capacity factors averaged 25% over the last five years.  Assuming that all the additional wind capacity developed between now and 2030 meets the NREL 34.6% capacity factor and that all the existing wind capacity continues to operate at 25% the more appropriate combined New York capacity factor should be 31.5% thus reducing the expected energy produced.  The latest Gold Book includes data that indicates that grid solar in New York has a capacity factor of 17.6%.  With respect to grid solar in Table 2 that raises the energy produced.  However, the Zero-Emissions Study assumes that distributed solar will have the same capacity factor as utility-scale solar and that is not supportable.  The NYSERDA New York Solar Study lists different capacity factors for three different classes of distributed solar – all lower than the utility-scale value.  For the alternative I conservatively used the highest value of the three.  As a result of all these alternative assumptions the alternate renewable energy resources percentage is 67.1%.

The second analysis was done by Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc. (E3) for NYSERDA in the spring of 2020.  E3 described their analysis in Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in New York State – Final Report [PDF]. E3 used their RESOLVE model to model the electric sector:

Our modeling approach also incorporates detailed electricity sector representation using E3’s RESOLVE model. RESOLVE is used to develop least-cost electricity generation portfolios that achieve New York’s policy goals, including 100% zero-emission electricity, while maintaining reliability.

When the report was released, I analyzed the approach and concluded that: “While their models give the veneer of respectability to the projections, the reality is that the inherent over-simplifications of their models under-estimates the difficulties of the transition in New York and gives a false sense of security to their assurances that implementation will succeed”.  Of particular concern relative to the electric system feasibility is how they handled renewable resource availability.  In the following slide they point out that firm capacity is needed to meet a multi-day period of low wind and solar output in the winter.  In my analysis I argued that actual short-term meteorological data must be used to correctly characterize the renewable resource availability for New York in general and in areas downwind of the Great Lakes in particular. This is because the lakes create meso-scale features, most notably lake-effect snow and clouds, that can affect solar resources many miles from the lake shore.  At the time I asked E3 how they calculated renewable resource availability but they never responded.  The key point is that the ultimate estimate of the electric system generating resources necessary to ensure reliable electricity availability at all times must be able to handle this worst-case situation.  It is not clear to me that the projections in their decarbonization pathway address this in their estimates of resources needed.

I extracted the data in Table 3 from their Supplementary Workbook [XLS] dated October 10, 2020.  I estimate that this analysis projects that renewable energy resources will only total 67.6% instead of 70%.  Even so I think their estimate is high.  My biggest concern is that there are no firm, zero-emissions resources listed for 2030 and I think some will be needed to meet the worst-case period they highlight as a concern.  There also are consistency issues relative to the other estimates.  E3 handled imports differently.  That is good because it does give a renewable energy resource estimate for imported hydropower but it causes the total imports to become negative.  I don’t know how battery storage should be handled relative to the CLCPA definitions so I just lumped it into the renewable energy resources category. 

In addition to the problem that both studies did not prove that their renewable energy resources solution adequately addressed the critical reliability problem of a multi-day period of low wind and solar, both studies presume that the projections for future renewable energy resources can be built on a schedule that ensures that they are available in 2030.  The Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act is supposed to expedite renewable energy development but that does not preclude the possibility of litigation on specific projects or other holdups in the permitting process. In the case of offshore wind, I believe that delays are inevitable because the infrastructure to support building the turbines has to be developed first and those developments are also subject to permitting and construction delays.  Finally, there is a real possibility that the availability of the critical minerals and metals needed for these renewable technologies could slow implementation and increase costs. 

Conclusion

In general, the feasibility approach in the analyses described here is to simply estimate future load and then calculate the energy resources necessary to match that load.  There are multiple issues with these analyses.  First, and foremost, the emphasis appears to be on annual comparisons but the critical reliability issue is a multi-day period in the winter when wind and solar resource availability is low but the load requirements for universal electrified heating and transportation are high and must be met to ensure the safety and health of New York residents.  It is not clear that any of the projections adequately addressed this requirement.  In addition, I don’t think that the projections included the necessary resources needed to provide ancillary transmission grid services as I described in a post on one of the studies.  Finally, I am sure that the studies did not incorporate the resources needed to maintain New York State Reliability Council requirements.  Therefore, these projections under-estimate the resources needed to provide reliable electricity.

The Zero-Emissions Study and the E3 decarbonization pathways analysis both can claim that their approaches achieve the goal that the electric system use 70% renewable energy resources in 2030.  Based on this analysis I think their assumptions about renewable resource availability are overly optimistic.  The practical reality is that time constraints on permitting, procurement, construction and development of supporting infrastructure will most likely delay implementation of the ambitious proposed resource development.  Further compounding the viability of the proposed resources are the New York State Reliability Council requirements and the need for ancillary grid transmission services.  When all these factors are considered, I believe that it will be impossible to meet the 2030 target without endangering reliability.

On July 18, 2019 former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which establishes targets for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing renewable electricity production, and improving energy efficiency.  I have been posting articles about the feasibility of the CLCPA targets and got the following comment in response to my post CLCPA Feasibility Relative to NYSERDA Patterns and Trends: “Please provide a cross reference to the fact that CLCPA includes nuclear power as acceptable form of renewable energy”.  This post provides a more complete discussion than my reply.

I have written extensively on implementation of the CLCPA because I believe the solutions proposed will adversely affect reliability and affordability, will have worse impacts on the environment than the purported effects of climate change, and cannot measurably affect global warming when implemented.   The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

When I started researching this comment request, I was confident that the legislation actually listed nuclear as a renewable energy system.  However, when I researched it, I found out I was wrong.  Subsequently I discussed this with colleagues who are more attuned to New York policy and legislative considerations than I am.  As is usual with any aspect of the CLCPA whenever you start to dig into the details there are complicating nuances.

Climate Change Regulations

There are three implementing regulations for the CLCPA legislation that became effective on January 1, 2020.  Article 75 – Climate Change was added to the New York Environmental Conservation Law. 

§ 66-p. Establishment of a renewable energy program was added to the New York Public Service law.  Finally, § 54-1523. Climate adaptation and mitigation projects was added to the Environmental Protection Act.

For the purposes of this article the relevant regulation is § 66-p. “Establishment of a renewable energy program”.  The pertinent amended language reads:

§ 66-p. Establishment of a renewable energy program.

1. As used in this section:

(a) “jurisdictional load serving entity” means any entity subject to the jurisdiction of the commission that secures energy to serve the electrical energy requirements of end-use customers in New York state;

(b) “renewable energy systems” means systems that generate electricity or thermal energy through use of the following technologies: solar thermal, photovoltaics, on land and offshore wind, hydroelectric, geothermal electric, geothermal ground source heat, tidal energy, wave energy, ocean thermal, and fuel cells which do not utilize a fossil fuel resource in the process of generating electricity.

2. No later than June thirtieth, two thousand twenty-one, the commission shall establish a program to require that:

(a) a minimum of seventy percent of the state wide electric generation secured by jurisdictional load serving entities to meet the electrical energy requirements of all end-use customers in New York state in two thousand thirty shall be generated by renewable energy systems; and

(b) that by the year two thousand forty (collectively, the “targets”) the statewide electrical demand system will be zero emissions. In establishing such program, the commission shall consider and where applicable formulate the program to address impacts of the program on safe and adequate electric service in the state under reasonably foreseeable conditions. The commission may, in designing the program, modify the obligations of jurisdictional load serving entities and/or the targets upon consideration of the factors described in this subdivision.

The renewable energy systems definition clearly excludes nuclear.  My colleagues all agreed that was a deliberate choice.  It also excludes renewable natural gas that is to say methane from landfills and other organic sources.  That also was a deliberate design choice by the “anti-natural gas in any form” zealots who drafted the regulation.

The first electric system target in the public service law mandates 70% renewable energy by 2030.  Clearly the intent was that 70% of the electric energy has to come from the defined renewable energy systems.  Note that the 2040 100% Carbon-free Electricity target is for a different set of energy sources.  Also note that there is a lifeline such that the Public Service Commission can modify the obligations to meet the target if there are issues with “safe and adequate electric service”.

Discussion

 In my conversation with colleagues who are more conversant about environmental policy in New York, I explained that my work suggests that meeting the 2030 target is impossible with 70% solar thermal, photovoltaics, on land and offshore wind, hydroelectric, geothermal electric, geothermal ground source heat, tidal energy, wave energy, ocean thermal, and fuel cells which do not utilize a fossil fuel resource in the process of generating electricity resources. A forthcoming post will delve into the numbers but for the moment trust that assessment.

The first policy question that comes up is the rationale behind the overly ambitious 2030 target.  Ultimately the decision on that target was made by a few key individuals with former Governor Cuomo at the top.  The first possibility is that the authors didn’t understand the magnitude of the effort needed and inadvertently chose an impossible target for the decision makers.  Given the rhetoric that meeting the “climate change challenge is only a matter of political will” it is possible that they actually believe it.  The second possibility is that political optics were the primary rationale despite recognition that the targets were overly ambitious. Given that we are talking about targets that are nine years away, cynics might wonder if this was the case with the presumption that the decision makers would be out of office by then or that the voters would have forgotten who passed the legislation.

The second policy question is what happens when it becomes obvious that the targets cannot be met.  This question arises on several time frames for the 2030 target.  The first time it comes up is in in the current planning phase.  Preliminary modeling of all advisory panel recommendations to the Climate Action Council which includes all sectors of the economy indicates the collective recommendations fail to meet the near- and long-term emission reduction targets.  The integration analysis presumably has to increase the emission reduction strategies until the plan meets the targets and that comes out later this year.  There is a requirement for an on-going assessment of the status of emissions reductions relative to the targets so the question can come up once the strategies are implemented.  Finally, in 2031 we will know for sure whether the 70% target was achieved.

What happens when it does become obvious that the target cannot be met? The 2040 target includes the language that the PSC may “modify the obligations of jurisdictional load serving entities and/or the targets” but it is not clear to me that allows changes for the 2030 target.  The politicians who put the state in this bind could argue that these are just goals but the environmental advocates and renewable energy grifters have already started flatly stating that this is the law and that it must be enforced.  While there are certainly legal constraints on litigation for this, there seem to be many lawyers willing to push the envelope on legal standing when it comes to suing deep pocket fossil fuel companies for alleged impacts of climate change.  As a result, I suspect that failure to meet the targets will result in litigation.

There is another aspect of this that is relevant.  The CLCPA did not incorporate any funding mechanism and it is wildly optimistic to think that the targets can be met without additional funding.  The last legislative session considered the Climate and Community Investment Act (CCIA) that was intended to fund many aspects of the CLCPA.  Once the costs and direct consumer impacts in the CCIA were estimated by some observers (there is yet to be an estimate of costs by the state agencies) there was a groundswell of disapproval, many legislators backed off support, and the legislation did not pass.  Every indication is that next legislative session this bill or something similar will be back.  The environmental community and environmental justice activists are going to be pushing for passage but will have to overcome the obvious problem of costs.

Conclusion

As I will show in a future post, there is no way that New York can expect to meet the 2030 target for 70% of the electric system energy requirements powered by the defined renewable energy systems of the CLCPA.  In my original assessments of feasibility, I had the mistakenly believed that nuclear power could be used to help meet the 2030 target because that was the only way the state could come close but it turns out I was wrong.  Nuclear is an acceptable source for the 2040 zero emissions electric system but cannot be used for the 2030 goal.  It is a sign of the times that there are activists that want to shut down the upstate nuclear units as well and that will make the 2040 target more difficult. This post clarifies the definitions and addresses possible reasons why the legislation was drafted to make that distinction.  I don’t believe there is any rationale for this that puts the authors of the legislation or the politicians that approved the law in a good light: they either knew and didn’t care or didn’t bother to check feasibility.

I am not sure whether there will be consequences for this particular aspect of the abominable CLCPA.  As the implementation requirements are defined and impossibility of meeting this target becomes evident, I don’t see how this can continue to be a blind spot for New Yorkers.  Hopefully the public will catch on soon that the costs for this virtue-signaling action will be significant and that New York’s contribution to global warming is so small that anything we do cannot have a measurable effect on the alleged warming from GHG emissions.  If that does not end the nonsensical implementation, maybe when the legal requirements to mandate use of electric vehicles or ban the use of natural gas for home heating, cooking and hot-water will initiate protests.  Unfortunately, many in industry agree with me that it might take a catastrophic blackout with impacts comparable to the Texas blackout in February 2021 to finally motivate voters to demand the repeal of the CLCPA.

Note: When this was written and posted the recording was not available. The Session recording was posted on August 30, 2021

On July 18, 2019 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which establishes targets for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing renewable electricity production, and improving energy efficiency. Over the last year Advisory Panels to the Climate Action Council have developed and submitted recommendations for consideration in the Scoping Plan to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions economy-wide.   On August 2, 2021, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) held a Reliability Planning Speaker Session to describe New York’s reliability issues to the advisory panels and Climate Action Council.  If reliability is a key condition for CLCPA implementation then the briefing summarized here should have been held a year earlier.

I have written extensively on implementation of the CLCPA because I believe the solutions proposed will adversely affect reliability and affordability, will have worse impacts on the environment than the purported effects of climate change, and cannot measurably affect global warming when implemented.   I briefly summarized the schedule and implementation: CLCPA Summary Implementation Requirements.  My posts describing and commenting on the strategies are available here. I have described the law in general, evaluated its feasibility, estimated costs, described supporting regulations,  summarized some of the meetings and complained that its advocates constantly confuse weather and climate in other articles.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

There is a long history of blackouts in New York State in general and New York City in particular that is a primary driver of reliability concerns in the state.  After a blackout in July 2019 AMNY published a brief history of blackouts in New York City.  In 1959 and 1961 surges in electrical use caused blackouts and “The outage spurred changes to better protect the city’s power grid from future blackouts”.  The 1965 blackout was the first regional blackout and was caused by a transmission problem in Ontario causing a wave of disruptions in the transmission system.  Over 30 million people and 80,000 square miles in Ontario, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont were left without power for up to 13 hours.   There was another blackout in 1977 that was limited to New York City directly related to the fact that most of the City is on islands and is a load pocket.  It was caused by storms cutting off transmission into the City and in-City generation was unable to replace the load without disruptions.  Without sufficient local power, protective devices turn off overloaded lines and transformers to prevent physical damage to the equipment and this led to the outages.  As a result of this blackout, reliability constraints were strengthened to ensure that when storms threaten transmission into the City that sufficient in-City generation is available to prevent a re-occurrence.  In 2003 there was another regional blackout caused by a computer software problem.  Grid operators identified the cause and then developed procedures to prevent it from happening again.  In 2012 tropical storm Sandy caused massive blackouts exacerbated by flood protection weaknesses.  Since then, there have been investments to strengthen the infrastructure to prevent a reoccurrence.  Reliability planning is a constant concern for the electrical system professionals who operate the system and are responsible for keeping the lights on.

The members of the Climate Action Council and the advisory panels who are charged with providing recommendations to meet the CLCPA targets were chosen because of their political connections not their energy system expertise.  During the development of the advisory panel recommendations, it was obvious that reliability was only receiving token consideration and that many of the panel and council members did not understand the issues and requirements for a reliable energy system.  As a result, I was one of many commenters who suggested that a briefing on the topic of electric system reliability would be appropriate.  Obviously, this presentation should have been held early in the process but later is better than never. 

Note:  At one point I found the August 2, 2021 speaker session presentation on a NY website but it not available at this time nor is the recording of the presentation available.  My downloaded copy of the presentation is available here.  I recommend reading the session presentation as it gives a good overview of reliability issues facing New York in the transition to net-zero.

The session included presentations from six organizations with varying levels of reliability background, experience, and responsibilities:

• New York State Reliability Council – Mayer Sasson, Steve Whitley, & Roger Clayton
• New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) – Zach Smith
• Utility Consultation Group – Margaret Janzen (National Grid) and Ryan Hawthorne (Central Hudson)
• New York State Department of Public Service – Tammy Mitchell
• Vote Solar – Stephan Roundtree
• New York Department of State Utility Intervention Unit – Erin Hogan

I will address each organization and their comments below.

Reliability Council

The New York State Reliability Council (NYSRC) is a Federal Energy Regulatory Council (FERC) approved entity responsible for “the promulgation of reliability standards for New York, which are mandatory requirements for the New York Independent System Operator”.   The presentation explains that one of the primary concerns of the NYSRC is the Installed Reserve Margin (IRM) which is the “minimum installed capacity margin above the estimated peak load to meet the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC) requirement that the probability of shedding load is not greater than one day in ten years”.   In order to determine that value the NYSRC conducts a “complex probabilistic analysis of generation and transmission resources, and demand response”.  Their presentation went on to describe in the following slide all the responsibilities of the operators who keep the system operating reliably.

The presentation explained that as the percentage of renewable resources increases operating the system must change and the planning for those changes must evolve.  It summed up this section as follows: “Limited fuel diversity and over dependence on energy limited resources is a risk to reliability”.

In the last section of the NYSRC presentation results from some planning work already done were presented.  Using an example of solar resource impact on resource adequacy it was shown that the “addition of 26,000 MW of new solar generation raises the reserve requirement to ≈22,000 MW & allows the retirement of only 4,000 MW of current resources” (my emphasis added).  The presentation went on to show that the addition of all the projected renewable energy resources needed to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in 2040 results in a reserve requirement of ≈50,000 MW in order to meet the CLCPA 2040 goals and the NYSRC Resource Adequacy IRM Reliability Criterion.  The current reserve requirement is around 6,000 MW.  It is important for readers to realize that this means that 50 GW of renewable capacity have to be developed in addition to the 12 GW of onshore wind, 10 GW of offshore wind, 17 GW of utility-scale solar, 6 GW of behind the meter solar, and 15 GW of energy storage projected in the NYS DPS/NYSERDA “Initial Report on the New York Power Grid Study” annual installed capacity supply mix for 2040 because that study did not address the IRM requirement.

The takeaway message of the NYSRC to the Climate Action Council was:

With the intermittency of renewables and the electrification of the economy, substantial clean energy and dispatchable resources, some with yet to be developed technology, over and above the capacity of all existing fossil resources that will be replaced, will be required to maintain reliability in the transition to meeting CLCPA requirements.

New York Independent System Operator

The NYISO Frequently Asked Questions webpage explains how the organization originated. After the Northeast Blackout of 1965, New York’s seven investor-owned utility companies established a predecessor organization, the New York Power Pool (NYPP), to address the reliability problems exposed by the blackout.  In the 1990s New York’s electric system was de-regulated and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recommended the formation of independent entities to manage energy transmission and the NYISO was established to replace the NYPP.  Because the change to the wholesale electricity market is the reason for their existence, the NYISO unquestioningly supports market driven responses to any problem.

The NYISO manages the electric system.  They have to balance the instantaneous supply of electricity between the generators and customers across the state in the de-regulated electricity market.   They manage the supply of power and maintain the frequency across the state and with their connections to other operating systems.  In addition, the NYISO has to plan for future changes to the system.  At this time the biggest factor for change is the CLCPA. 

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the NYISO is not as independent as it should be.  In a recent post I explained how the Cuomo Administration has co-opted the NYISO to the point that their recommendations are couched in terms that do not adequately convey the enormity of the technical issues associated with this transition.  Moreover, their faith in market solutions de-values the risks of developing those solutions in the face of the fact this has never been done before.

In this light it is not surprising that the NYISO presentation emphasized their recent Power Trends 2021: New York’s Clean Energy Grid of the Future report that describes current and emerging trends transforming the grid and electricity markets.  The report describes how hourly demand patterns fluctuate diurnally and seasonally today.  It goes on to explain that the CLCPA de-carbonization efforts will change the magnitude and demand plans in the future, most notably the peak load will occur in the winter instead of the summer.  One NYISO analysis projected future winter energy production by resource type.

The important reliability finding of the NYISO work is that the worst-case future resource concern will be a winter-time wind lull.  During those periods solar resources are low because days are short and the sun is at a low angle, and wind resources can be less than 25% of the wind capacity for seven days at a time.  Consequently, there is a need for a large quantity of installed dispatchable energy resources needed for a small number of hours.  They must be able to come on line quickly and be flexible enough to meet rapid and steep ramping needs. The report does not come out and emphasize the important point that there is no current utility-scale resource that meets those criteria.

Utility Consultation Group

This is “A consortium of New York’s gas and electric utilities, focused on providing expertise and perspective to the Climate Action Council and its advisory panels”.  Given that most of these utilities are dependent upon rate case decisions made by representative hand picked by the Cuomo Administration there is an obvious reluctance to take a strong contrary position.  Given that Cuomo has threatened to revoke a utility operating license over a disagreement in gas supply, I have no doubt that there is real concern that a difference of a fraction of percentage point in any rate case  increases could easily make a difference in the stock price colors any statements by this organization.

The consortium fully supports the CLCPA goals even while noting that “customers will continue to value reliability, resiliency, and safety of the energy system during and after decarbonization”.  There is the hint that technology development is necessary which may make this a bit difficult and a plea that cost effective solution are necessary.  Finally, there is the obligatory shout out that environmental and economic justice need to be considered.

The presentation claims that the “Transition to a clean energy future is feasible, but must be orderly, responsible and cost effective”.  Heaven forbid that they suggest the transition is anything but feasible but where in the world is there proof that it is possible much less responsible and cost effective?  Given their situation they cannot say this is unlikely to work but it is disappointing that they did not respond with more concern about the potential difficulties.

New York State Department of Public Service (DPS)

DPS has oversight of utility reliability planning.  This covers traditional transmission & distribution investment planning and the utilities’ obligation to “reliably serve forecasted customer loads”.  There is a nuance to this that is not universally understood.  This process is used to ensure adequate transmission and distribution capability to serve customers but the production of the electricity itself is not included.  Instead, the wholesale market overseen by the NYISO provides the power.  Note that the power producers have no similar obligation to generate electricity.  The market is supposed to provide that incentive.  I believe there is a common misconception that somehow if things don’t work out that the generators are covered by some sort of obligation to serve but that is not true in the same sense as the T&D utilities.

The presentation explained that DPS constantly evaluates on a real time and forward-looking basis electric system reliability based on a multitude of factors and impacts including customer demands, planned and unplanned outages, weather, regulatory requirements, interconnection requests, and state policy.  It was noted that staff works with utilities on these matters but that the PSC has regulatory authority and responsibility to ensure reliability is maintained.  The presentation does not explicit make the distinction between T&D reliability planning and planning for generation.  Instead, it was explained that DPS staff participates actively in the NYISO planning process, NYSRC committees, and the NPCC board who do have the generation responsibilities.

In response to the CLCPA and Accelerated Renewable Growth Act, the Public Service Commission (PSC) issued orders directing the Utilities to undertake a study and to propose a planning and investment framework for local transmission and distribution investments driven by CLCPA.  The Utilities filed the study and their proposals for CLCPA investment criteria on November 2, 2020.  At the same time, the PSC and NYSERDA undertook two other studies.  One identified “possible grid interconnection points and offshore transmission configurations and assessed onshore bulk transmission needs to reliably integrate 9,000 MW of offshore wind generation”.  The second study identified “bulk transmission upgrades potentially necessary to support the State’s path to a 100% decarbonization of the electricity sector by 2040”.  The Power Grid Study filed on January 19, 2021 combines all three studies.

The presentation implicitly suggests that this work addresses all the problems.  It is important to note that their summary of reliability considerations makes many of the same points addressed in the NYSRC and NYISO as shown in the following slide.

Vote Solar

The purpose of this reliability presentation was to present the concerns of the organizations and professionals who are responsible for maintaining electric reliability.  In a blatant example of the political machinations that underly the CLCPA and implementation of the law, Stephan Roundtree, Jr., Northeast Director of Vote Solar  presented his take on reliability.  Mr. Roundtree holds a B.A. in History from Boston College, a J.D. from Northeastern School of Law, and a Master’s in Environmental Policy from Vermont Law School.  My point is that in addition to the fact that he is a crony capitalist representing an organization dependent upon the largesse of subsidies from laws like this, he has no apparent relevant utility-scale power system experience. 

Unfortunately, not only does he have no experience he is a member of the Power Generation Advisory Panel.  As such his presentation mirrors the reliability mis-understandings of many of the members of that panel.  Those mis-understandings are precisely the reason that many asked for this presentation.  In my opinion the reliability presentation is a year late in its attempt to provide the background information necessary for the panel to adequately do their job.  A reliability presentation should have been given to the Council and the Power Generation panel at the start of the process.  Admittedly it is not clear that the political appointees would have tried to understand the reliability difficulties described by those responsible organizations and people responsible for keeping the lights on.  As far as I can tell their politically valuable vested interests preclude listening to inconvenient facts much less trying to reconcile them with their pre-conceived notions.

Roundtree’s first slide lays down the gauntlet: “Not a question of whether we can or should shift the grid to be 100% renewable and maintain reliability; it’s the law”.  As someone with no reliability responsibilities that is easy for him to say.  Sadly, because the virtue-signaling politicians that wrote the law did not include a feasibility requirement before implementation of the “best in the nation” emission reduction targets it is the law.  However, if the scoping plan honestly describes the technical difficulties and costs, I cannot see how they can describe implementation of the law as feasible or affordable.  The big question is then what?

Roundtree describes three key takeaways: 

1. Reliability is paramount, particularly for vulnerable communities in climate crisis;
2. Integrating renewables into the grid while maintaining reliability is possible, and in fact cost effective;
3. Aggressive adoption of a renewables-based grid is arguably the only lawful path to decarb and equity mandates

He accepts that reliability is “paramount” as the first takeaway.   He notes that “Lack of electricity service during extreme weather events impacts disadvantaged community members first and worst” and that “Interruption of electricity, combined with lack of wealth & resources, can lead to deepening poverty, housing insecurity, illness, and death”.  I agree with what he says.  However, I am sure he does not understand that the greatest threat to electric system reliability is ill-considered implementation of renewable resources in the manner he proposes.

In his introduction the second takeaway states that “Integrating renewables into the grid while maintaining reliability is possible, and in fact cost effective”.  In the presentation the second takeaway morphed into “Repowering or perpetuating fossil generation is not necessary for reliability”.  That was a majority position of the Power Generation panel but there was a minority opinion arguing that it is too soon to say whether that is possible.  As proof of the feasibility of a renewable power grid he argues that “Centralized fossil-based grids are proving to be unreliable in our changing climate and cannot withstand increasingly frequent extreme weather events” and cites the Texas energy debacle last February.  I don’t believe the 2021 Texas energy debacle was caused by renewable resources but it does foreshadow the difficulty replacing them when the wind isn’t blowing at night.  The lesson to be learned is that Texas energy policy prioritized and subsidized unreliable energy sources (wind and solar) at the expense of reliable ones (natural gas, coal and nuclear) for decades but did not incorporate market mechanisms to ensure that the system could operate under market conditions that had occurred in the past. 

He goes on to say that “modernizing the grid by adding demand flexibility, efficiency, and distributed energy resources including rooftop solar and storage but also EVs and microgrids is the solution we need to meet reliability needs of tomorrow” and that “renewables pair cost effectively with local grid modernizing infrastructure like storage and microgrid tech don’t have to pay the huge external cost of fossil”.  These claims are articles of faith amongst environmental advocates perpetuated by the grifters selling renewable solutions. 

The proof offered is a Rocky Mountain Institute analysis.  I reviewed their work and found that they selectively choose how they want to treat resources.  There are hopeful assumptions for distributed resources and battery energy storage that have no track record in utility-scale applications (hundreds of MW of capacity).  There is no consideration of life-cycle resources needed for all the batteries, solar panels and wind turbines. Finally, while the treatment of the technological components necessary to provide the resources are overly optimistic in my opinion, their treatment of costs is much worse.  Both current costs and expected cost expectations in the future are more aspirational than rational.  Roundtree also cites an advocate analysis that is contradicted by the NYISO analyses. Frankly I believe that Roundtree’s experience and background are ill-suited for him to realize that his cited proof is anything but evidence that his approach can work to keep the lights in New York City on during the worst conditions.

In the introduction his final takeaway was another veiled threat that “aggressive adoption of a renewables-based grid is arguably the only lawful path”.  This also morphed into “Local generation & storage promotes equity” in the presentation.  Again, his claims are articles of faith.  “Fossil pollution causes vast public health challenges which largely aren’t included in reliability vs transition discussion” is always highlighted as a religious tract but the fact that air pollution reductions from fossil pollution have led to large improvements in air quality while the purported health impacts haven’t also improve sis never addressed.  The true believers also claim that “Building renewables, batteries, and microgrids in high load disadvantaged communities results in improved public health and better preparedness / functionality during grid stresses and shocks”.  The first claim that green energy leads to better public health ignores the environmental and health impacts of the mining of rare earth minerals used in batteries and wind turbines.  The proposed solution will not eliminate environmental and health impacts it will just move them and, arguably, make them worse elsewhere.   The claim that renewables and batteries will improve functionality during grid stresses is unproven on the utility-scale.  The final rationale for this takeaway states that: “Prioritizing state investment in disadvantaged community local grid infrastructure is a pathway to meet CLCPA investment equity mandate” is probably true but should not be a prime reliability concern.

New York Department of State Utility Intervention Unit

The Division of Consumer Protection’s Utility Intervention Unit (UIU) is supposed to act on behalf of the ratepayer.  They represent “the interests of New York consumers before federal, state and local administrative and regulatory agencies engaged in the regulation of energy, water and telecommunication services”.  According to their about webpage:

The UIU participates in the deliberations of the Public Service Commission (PSC), the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), as well as utility and energy-related interagency working groups, task forces and committees. The UIU analyzes filings, submits testimony and briefs, engages in settlement discussions and participates in evidentiary hearings in PSC and FERC regulatory proceedings and participates in NYISO governance.

Their presentation starts off with an interesting quote by Peter Fox Penner, Institute for Sustainable Energy: “In a nutshell our challenge is to steer clear of the technical and institutional pathway that together yield poor service, expensive power, or a failure to decarbonize quickly.”  I agree that is the key challenge but question whether all of these goals are possible.  Of course, that it is possible to have affordable, reliable and emissions-free electricity is the fundamental basis of the CLCPA so no state agency can question the orthodoxy of it.  Nonetheless including this quote suggests that the agency representing consumer interests is aware of the problem.

The presentation goes on to show three graphic representations: the electric system of the past, the present, and what is supposed to happen in the future.  Then there is a slide that makes the important point that the one constant in all three cases is that load and generation must balance. Then considerations of changes in load over time are discussed.  In 2021 the question is “how are the decisions now going to impact prices in the future and adoption of electrification?”.  In 2025 the status must be evaluated to see if programs have reached their targets and where they stand.  In 2030 we have to ask if we reached the renewable goal.   In 2035 the question is “Are there any new technologies or improvements to existing technologies?”   In 2040, the question is whether the electric system has weaned itself off fossil fuels.  There are strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats every step of the way.  In their conclusion the importance of planning was stressed.  I suspect that the UIU is as uncomfortable as I am that the CLCPA does not include a feasibility mandate.

Conclusion

The warning in most of the presentations was similar: it will not be enough to depend on today’s technology to develop a reliable electric system with net-zero emissions.  The NYSRC notes that “substantial clean energy and dispatchable resources, some with yet to be developed technology, over and above the capacity of all existing fossil resources that will be replaced” needs to be developed.  The NYISO explicitly points out that a “large quantity of installed dispatchable energy resources is needed in a small number of hours” that “must be able to come on line quickly, and be flexible enough to meet rapid, steep ramping needs” but only implicitly points out that these are magical resources that do not exist yet for utility-scale needs.  The utility consultation group explains that “technology development and diversity of clean resources are essential for long term success” but provide no details of the enormity of that task.  Even the DPS makes the point that “evaluating and implementing advanced technologies to enhance the capability of the existing and future transmission and distribution system” is necessary for future reliability.  The Utility Intervention Unit does not provide a comparable warning but does stress the importance of planning and the need to address new technologies.   None of these organizations was in a position to state the obvious that relying on as yet unproven technology to transition the electric system on the schedule of the CLCPA is a serious threat to reliability.

As further proof that the CLCPA is at its root simply political showmanship and virtue signaling, the technical session on reliability allowed an organization with a vested interest in today’s inadequate renewable technology to be included.  Giving Vote Solar a chance to present the message that “integrating renewables into the grid while maintaining reliability is possible, and in fact cost effective” proves that the whole thing is politically motivated because the presenter had neither the background or experience to understand the dangers and the requirements to maintain reliability.  Moreover, the speaker has no relevant responsibility but the organizations and professionals who are responsible for keeping the lights on all made the point that as the need for sufficient levels of new clean energy resources increases during the grid transformation “some of these resources rely on technologies that do not currently exist for utility scale application.” 

Finally, note that problems with a similar transition are already being noted elsewhere.  In August 2020, California grid operators had to impose rolling electric blackouts to maintain grid reliability standards.  The basic problem was that power demand peaks as people turn on their air conditioning in the late afternoon just as the solar power supplies cut off as the sun goes down.  So little power was available the California grid operator had to reduce load to prevent an uncontrolled, much wider scale blackout in the event of a problem at an operating power plant.  The scale of that problem pales compared to the scale of the situation when the CLCPA requirements to electrify heating and transportation increase winter load and the elimination of fossil generation increases the dependency upon wind and solar electricity generation.  In the winter at New York’s latitude the days are short and the solar panels could be covered by snow.  When there is a prolonged cold snap accompanied by light winds both renewable resources will be unavailable and the only question is for how long.  With respect to reliability, planning for this worst-case availability scenario has to develop a system that can prevent a future New York blackout that could result in people freezing to death in the dark unable to flee. 

The ultimate question is whether the Climate Action Council will address the issues raised by the professionals or cater to the naïve dreams of the politically chosen members of the Power Generation Advisory Panel. Absent changes to the law itself I fear New York consumers will be lab rats for a politically motivated virtue signaling empty gesture that is going to cost enormous sums of money, and, in the event of a major blackout, cause much more harm than good.

Post Script: This text was drafted before Governor Cuomo resigned over sexual harassment allegations.  In my opinion his actions towards his accusers were the worst kind of bullying.  They are also symptomatic of his Administration’s micro-managing treatment of any dissent from any individual or organization in the state.  I am sure that there are many technical professionals in the staff of many state agencies involved in the CLCPA implementation that know that you cannot have an affordable, reliable, and emissions-free electric system but have no way to speak out with those reservations lest they jeopardize their careers.  They same can be said of organizations trying to provide value for their shareholders.  Hopefully, the new administration will at least consider the reliability risks brought up by the NYSRC, NYISO, Utility Consultation Group, DPS and Utility Intervention Unit.

This article was published at Watts Up With That.

According to their website, the “Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA) is the leading US coalition of state energy organizations working together to advance the rapid expansion of clean energy technologies and bring the benefits of clean energy to all”.  On August 5, 2021, they released “Energy Storage Policy Best Practices from New England: Ten Lessons from Six States” that “explores energy storage policy best practices and lessons learned from the New England states.”  This post gives an overview of the report.

The report “aims to inform state policymakers and regulators seeking to expand energy storage markets”.  I will address the following ten recommendations that “each state should consider as it charts its own course”:

1. Identify benefits of energy storage that are not priced or monetizable in existing markets; recognize and accommodate the multi-use nature of energy storage resources.
2. Establish a monetary value for each storage benefit and use those values when calculating cost effectiveness and setting incentive rates. Estimated value is better than no value at all.
3. Create incentives to support storage operations that further state policy goals. Incentivize storage use, not just storage deployment.
4. Set ambitious clean energy and/or emissions reduction goals and explicitly include energy storage as an eligible technology. Define how storage is expected to be deployed and operated to help meet the goals.
5. Incorporate energy storage into existing clean energy and efficiency programs.
6. Incorporate equity considerations into energy storage program design from the start, not as an afterthought.  This should include significant incentive adders for qualifying participants.
7. Support a wide variety of storage ownership, application, and business models.
8. Anticipate and proactively address needed regulatory changes.
9. Replicate and improve on successful programs implemented in other states.
10. Fund demonstration projects when needed, but do not rely on grants alone to build a market.

After Superstorm Sandy struck New York City the importance of resilient power became evident to the green energy policy makers and the idea that battery storage could help was broached.  The report states that their efforts began “with the idea that advanced battery storage—especially when combined with rooftop solar and other energy resources—could provide clean, resilient backup power, allowing critical facilities such as emergency shelters and health clinics to ride through future grid outages.”   A frequently used example of the viability of distributed systems is a hospital in Princeton, NJ that remained on-line despite widespread grid outages due to Sandy.  Unfortunately, proponents of these distributed energy approach who cite this as proof of the viability of the concept don’t mention that the hospital had a natural gas fired backup system.  The presumption that coupling battery storage with renewable resources will work as well is untested in practice.

The report goes on to note that energy storage can be used to provide other energy services: “demand management, frequency regulation, grid infrastructure investment deferral, renewables integration, and load shifting.”  The report claims that: “As the list of possible storage applications expanded, state storage policy would need to become more sophisticated, and state utility commissions would need to review many regulations that had been written prior to the widespread availability of advanced battery storage, which now needed to be revised to accommodate this new technology”.  The ten recommendations address these points.

The first recommendation is to “Identify benefits of energy storage that are not priced or monetizable in existing markets and recognize and accommodate the multi-use nature of energy storage resources”.  The example benefit given is behind-the-meter (BTM) resilient power that is the ability to support critical facilities and infrastructure during an electric grid outage.  As proof they note that that is “widely recognized as having value—otherwise, there would not be a thriving market for backup generators.”  The claim is that “Battery storage, when properly configured, can provide resilient power, and this is one of the storage applications that customers value most highly.”  Therefore, they recommend that the states figure out some way to monetize this benefit.  However, in my case while I chose to install a generator because resilient power is important to me, I wanted the system to be able to handle the multi-day outages I have experienced due to a wind storm and an ice storm.  In both cases there is no way I could have installed enough rooftop solar and storage to provide power throughout those days-long outages.  Resilient power needs are for the worst case, not just most of the times the power goes out.  The worst case is a long duration extreme hot or cold weather situation and energy storage is a poor choice for those scenarios.

In this recommendation, the report states that “Advanced energy storage can provide a wide variety of energy services, and storage owners frequently need to “stack” multiple services (each representing a revenue stream or cost savings opportunity) in order to make storage investments economic.”  It includes a highlighted section that discusses a “multi-use” resource.  While it recognizes that the different services are “not necessarily” available at the same time, it goes on in Table 1 to list the ratepayer individual savings for six beneficial services then sums for the total.  Clearly, this is not appropriate.

The second recommendation is to “Establish a monetary value for each storage benefit and use those values when calculating cost effectiveness and setting incentive rates. Estimated value is better than no value at all”.  The paper lists values for seven non-energy benefits of distributed storage in Massachusetts.

The first claimed benefit is Avoided Power Outages – “Battery storage helps avoid outages, and all of the costs that come with outages for families, businesses, generation and distribution companies”.  I agree that outages have costs for families and businesses and battery storage that can reduce or eliminate them clearly has value.  However, the only way I can think that outages would affect generation companies is if there is a power plant outage and energy storage is used during the outage but the existing system has enough spare capacity to handle that concern.  I cannot think how energy storage would reduce costs for a distribution company.

The second value is Higher Property Values – “Installing battery storage in buildings increases property values for storage measure participants by: 1. Increasing leasable space; 2. Increasing thermal comfort; 3. increasing marketability of leasable space, and 4. reducing energy costs”.  My understanding is that energy storage systems need space so it is unclear how they would increase leasable space.  The other three benefits also seem to be stretch the concept of “value”.

Next is Avoided Fines – “Increasing battery storage will result in fewer power outages and fewer

potential fines for utilities”.  I have no clue how energy storage can provide this benefit.  Utilities get fined when they don’t plan for enough resiliency in their system to prevent extreme weather impacts on their transmission and distribution systems.  Energy storage cannot prevent power outages caused by damages to the wires.

The fourth value is Avoided Collections and Terminations – “More battery storage reduces the need for costly new power plants, thereby lowering ratepayer bills, and making it easier for ratepayers to consistently pay their bills on time. This reduces the need for utilities to initiate collections and terminations.”  The ability of battery storage to reduce the need for new power plants is an article of faith amongst the advocates of this technology.  However, the claims are long on rhetoric and short on quantitative analysis.  If an old power plant has to be replaced it would take one heck of a lot of energy storage to provide the output of any natural gas fired turbine.   Until I see their numbers then I will continue to believe that the costs of sufficient energy storage coupled with renewable resources would be far more than the costs of a new turbine.

The fifth value is Avoided Safety-Related Emergency Calls – “Increasing battery storage results in fewer power outages, which reduces the risk of emergencies and the need for utilities to make safety-related emergency calls”.  In theory if a customer has a need for uninterrupted power a personal battery storage system could reduce emergency calls.  However, you are back to the issue of energy storage capacity versus outage time.  If I have the need for uninterrupted power, I want it available for long durations.  In order to provide that with energy storage I have to purchase so much capacity for such a rare event that it cannot be cost effective relative to a generator.

The sixth value in the document is Job Creation – “More battery storage benefits society at large by creating jobs in manufacturing, research and development, engineering, and installation”.  I have my doubts about this claim but don’t want to do the research necessary to refute this.

The last value in this recommendation is Less Land Used for Power Plants – “More battery storage reduces the need for peaker plants, which are more land-intensive than storage installations—benefiting society by allowing more land to be used for other purposes.”  This is only true at the facility itself.  However, the grand plan is to combine energy storage with power generated from wind and solar power.  Ignoring the vast land use requirements for enough coupled energy storage and diffuse renewable generation is an egregious oversight as shown in the following picture from the report.

The third recommendation is to “Create incentives to support storage operations that further state policy goals. Incentivize storage use, not just storage deployment.”  The report states that because

“clean energy incentives generally support broader policy goals such as energy sector decarbonization, electrification, sustainability, modernization, efficiency, resilience, and reliability” that the “energy storage incentive program should not be about ‘storage for storage’s sake,’ but should be designed to support specific policy goals”.  The report notes that battery storage can “provide several different services depending on how it is used” so it suggests that “a state energy storage program must actively link the use of battery systems to applications that support specific policy objectives. However, it does not recognize that battery systems that support one policy objective cannot necessarily support all other policy objectives.  For example, batteries used for energy storage when intermittent renewables are not available need to be kept charged at their maximum capacity but batteries for frequency regulation and to smooth intermittent fluctuations in supply are kept at an intermediate capacity so that they supply power and draw power as needed.  Consequently, I believe the report underestimates the amount of energy storage needed.

Furthermore, there is another example of the disconnect between energy storage by itself and energy storage coupled with renewable energy to solve intermittency.  Figure 4A, Misaligned Financial Signals claims that a California energy storage program to reduce emissions was set up incorrectly because “battery owners frequently discharged their batteries during low emissions periods, rather than charging when emissions were low and discharging when they were high”.  Honestly, I don’t think the author understands emissions control programs or diurnal peak loads.  Time of day emissions matters for conventional air pollution but does not matter for GHG emissions because GHG contribute only to a global long-term alleged problem.  Diurnally, California renewable energy primarily comes from solar which peaks during the middle of the day.  Figure 4A shows the batteries being charged during the day and then discharging later in the day causing the emissions to go to zero.  Diurnal peak loads are usually in the late afternoon so even though there are emissions in the middle of the day the program eliminated emissions during the peak period – it worked precisely as it was supposed to if the goal of the program is to reduce nitrogen oxides for ozone attainment.  The “solution” shown in Figure 4B is simply switching the charging source to wind because if it is charging in the night, it certainly is not coming from solar. 

The fourth recommendation is “Set ambitious clean energy and/or emissions reduction goals and explicitly include energy storage as an eligible technology. Define how storage is expected to be deployed and operated to help meet the goals.”  Regulators take ambitious goals as an article of faith believing that somehow the goals can be met because previous air pollution control programs have always met their goals.  The concept that feasibility should be considered is not an element of many regulators and no politician’s thought process.

The next recommendation is “Incorporate energy storage into existing clean energy and efficiency programs.”  I think this is pretty obvious so no comment.

The sixth recommendation is “Incorporate equity considerations into energy storage program design from the start, not as an afterthought.  This should include significant incentive adders for qualifying participants.”  The rationale for this is:

Low-income and underserved communities spend proportionally more of their income on energy costs than other segments of the population. They are also more likely to suffer from energy related environmental and health burdens; and they are hit hardest by natural disasters and the accompanying grid outages and have fewer resources with which to recover. In short, they are most in need of the cost savings, resilience, and health benefits energy storage can offer.

This is another example of limited thinking.  While I do not dispute the underserved communities are disproportionally impacted by environmental impacts and extreme weather events the presumption that cost savings will accrue from clean energy are not supported by the experience of any jurisdiction that has tried it.  Furthermore, if society not only subsidizes clean energy but also attempts to provide it to those who cannot afford existing energy then it only increases the costs to everyone else.  Most importantly, those who may be just able to afford energy bills now but will not be able to afford them in future net-zero energy systems will be impacted by this recommendation.

The recommendation listed in the introduction as “Anticipate and proactively address needed regulatory changes” apparently morphed into the seventh recommendation in the report “Pay attention to regulatory friction points” during the documentation preparation process.  The point of the recommendation is that there may be unintended consequences when new energy storage policies are adopted.  The analogy used is regulatory whack-a-mole where the states will have to “spend several years fixing problems one at a time as they pop up” after they implement a new rule.  In my opinion this should be addressed as part of the feasibility study that most advocates don’t think is necessary.  However, the presumption that all the problems associated with converting an energy system using dispatchable energy sources that has taken decades to evolve to one utterly dependent upon intermittent energy sources in a decade or two can be anticipated is wishful thinking.  Anyone in a net-zero jurisdiction will be a guinea pig for this experiment.

The eighth recommendation is “Support a wide variety of storage ownership, application, and business models”.  The rationale is that energy storage can “integrate renewables and make regional grids more efficient, reduce transmission congestion, defer distribution grid investments, make variable generators dispatchable”. It is also claimed that it can “flatten demand peaks, balance microgrids, make critical infrastructure resilient, and provide ancillary services”.  Not noted is that these applications are mostly theory and, especially in a de-regulated market, developing business models that work for both society and the grifters selling energy storage as the solution to anything and everything will be a challenge.

The ninth recommendation is “Replicate and improve on successful programs implemented in other states”.  Obviously, there is no sense reinventing the wheel so this makes sense.  However, “success” has to be defined well because it can be in the eye of the beholder.

The last recommendation is to “Fund demonstration projects when needed, but do not rely on grants alone to build a market”.  As I read this document, I became more and more convinced that the author had limited electric energy system experience.  He claims that “there is little need to demonstrate another utility-scale lithium-ion battery providing peak demand reduction and frequency regulation services when numerous such projects already exist in the region”.  The report is illustrated with pictures and descriptions of five energy storage facilities with the largest having an 8 MWh duration and totaling 22.4 MWh.  The average daily load in New England is 260,120 MWh so those facilities are inconsequential.  I don’t think there is any question that in these micro grid applications that batteries can provide peak demand reduction and frequency regulation services.  I question whether the author understands that the issue is a matter of scale and it is not at all clear that peak demand reduction and frequency regulation is feasible when non-dispatchable resource penetration is significant.  Ultimately it is obvious that ratepayers cannot provide grants for all the energy storage projects needed to try to support the utility grid. 

Conclusion

The report concludes that “With falling battery prices, increasing adoption of state clean energy and decarbonization goals, and forward-looking utilities (and ratepayers), many states have a strong foundation for success”. The report is supposed to offer “some suggestions to policymakers for building on that foundation”.

I am unconvinced that this report provides any value.  The report was not proofed well because wording of the ten recommendations in each chapter do not match the description of the ten recommendations in the introductory text.  I was prompted to write this article by the following quote from the introduction: “In Vermont, for example, Green Mountain Power’s residential battery program has placed battery systems in more than 3,000 homes; the utility dispatches this aggregated, distributed energy storage resource to reduce peak demand, saving ratepayers millions of dollars.”   The report notes that the “Stafford Hill solar farm includes 7,700 solar panels capable of producing 2.5 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power 2,000 homes. Therefore 3,000 homes are powered by 3.75 MW.  I would love to see the math that produces millions of dollars of savings from shaving peaks by 3.75 MW.  I just don’t think this is credible and indicates a lack of knowledge about electric systems by the author.

I believe there is a fundamental oversight not mentioning that stacking energy storage applications is problematic.  A single energy storage system cannot supply all the different resources suggested (e.g., by summing the benefits of each resource in Table 1) in this report.  There is another fundamental issue with the report because it considers energy storage by itself.  Batteries are supposed to solve non-dispatchable renewable energy issues.  Claiming that energy storage improves resilience when the coupled energy input is fragile and intermittent is at best a stretch.  Finally note that there was very little in the way of caveats and cautions with respect to this unproven, at utility scale and using renewables, technology.  As a result, policy makers will not get a full appreciation of the challenge of this transition.