Category: New York State Energy

In early September 2021 I wrote an article, “Reliability Challenges in Meeting New York’s Climate Act Requirements”, that described a presentation made by the New York State Reliability Council (NYSRC) to the New York Climate Action Council.  In this post I describe a recent paper that analyzes synoptic-scale extreme reductions in wind and solar power energy resources that I think raises an important reliability question: when New York relies on fragile intermittent wind and solar energy resources is the current New York reliability goal to prevent a loss of load event due to resource adequacy of no more than once per ten years still appropriate.

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

In my reliability challenge article, I explained that there is consensus that the future worst-case situation in New York will be a multi-day winter time wind lull when both wind and solar availabilities are low.  Coupled with increased electricity load in order to reduce emissions from transportation and heating, any analysis of future renewable energy resources that adequately addresses the worst-case renewable energy resource availability shows the required amounts of wind, solar and energy storage will have to be enormous.  Importantly, the NYSRC analysis indicates that in order to ensure reliability the installed reserve margin will have to be increase substantially above current levels to satisfy anticipated load and the intermittent nature of wind and solar resources.  The NYSRC presentation concludes that the state of New York appears to be headed down a transition path which will require reliance on technologies that do not currently exist in less than ten years.

Wind and Solar Droughts

Dr. Patrick Brown’s blog post describes his recent paper co-authored with David J. Farnham and Ken Caldeira entitled “Meteorology and climatology of historical weekly wind and solar power resource droughts over western North America in ERA5” (Brown et al., 2021).  His post explains that as wind and solar become more indispensable for providing electricity it is important that we understand the intensity, frequency, and duration of droughts of their availability.  In Brown et al., 2021 they use a meteorological database that covers 71 years from 1950 to 2020.  They compared estimated weekly solar and wind availability against cooling and heating degree days as a proxy for electrical load over that entire period. 

The following plot of the weekly values is of special interest.  The plot explanation states:

All weekly values from 1950 to 2020 (average over the western North America domain, Fig. 1) for power supplied by wind and solar resources (x and y axes respectively) and a proxy for power demanded via cooling degree days (color of dots). The mean seasonal cycle in wind and solar power is shown by the black loop (52 black dots for each week of the year). Drought weeks are indicated with black edge colors with wind droughts represented as circles, solar droughts represented as squares and compound wind and solar droughts represented as diamonds.

Of particular concern is the lower left quadrant which represents weeks where both wind and solar resources are lower than the annual mean of long-term availability.  Note that this quadrant is “mostly astronomical autumn. The mean wind & solar power given a wind + solar drought label shows that during a drought you can only expect around 40% of the solar resource and 65% of the wind resource.

There is an animation showing the degree to which there is persistence in time.  In the video each week is sequentially plotted since 1979 over a plot of the seasonal cycle.  As you watch the video keep in mind that you are watching the seasonal progression of plots.  While the majority of weeks with both wind and solar droughts are in autumn there are periods at the start of each year that appear to me to be among the most intense.  That is consistent with New York analyses that define the ultimate problem

that must be resolved to ensure reliability: firm capacity is needed to meet a multi-day period of low solar and wind resource availability during the winter. 

In their presentation to the Power Generation Advisory Panel on September 16, 2020 E3 included a slide titled Electricity Supply – Firm Capacity that states: “The need for dispatchable resources is most pronounced during winter periods of high demand for electrified heating and transportation and lower wind and solar output”.  The slide goes on to say: “As the share of intermittent resources like wind and solar grows substantially, some studies suggest that complementing with firm, zero emission resources, such as bioenergy, synthesized fuels such as hydrogen, hydropower, carbon capture and sequestration, and nuclear generation could provide a number of benefits.  Of particular interest is the graph of electric load and renewable generation because it shows that this problem may extend over multiple days.

Brown et al., 2021 is a promising approach for evaluating the long-term frequency of wind and solar droughts.  However, there are some limitations.  Obviously, the work has to be done for a New York centric domain.  In addition, because previous New York analyses by Energy + Environmental Economics  and The Analysis Group both identified problems on a multi-day basis it would be more appropriate to evaluate New York’s droughts on a daily basis. I strongly recommend that New York sponsor this analysis to determine the frequency and duration of renewable resource droughts. 

Because wind and solar are naturally intermittent the amount of energy storage needed to balance output must be determined.  The Brown et al., 2021 technique can also be used to identify periods that should be evaluated in more detail to determine the intensity of the droughts so that energy storage requirements can be determined.  This is important not only for grid planning but also for distributed energy resources (DER).  In theory DER can “generate smaller amounts of clean electricity closer to end-users, to increase energy efficiency, reduce carbon pollution, improve grid resiliency, and potentially curtail the need for costly transmission investments”.  However, unless they incorporate sufficient energy storage these resources won’t work when the system is stressed the most, so they may not be the panacea that advocates claim.

Reliability Planning

New York’s electric system is de-regulated so reliability planning is provided by the New York Independent System Operator, various state agencies and the NYSRC.  The NYSRC presentation describes the NYSRC and the Installed Reserve Margin (IRM) parameter.  The IRM is defined as 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”.   Load shedding occurs when the demand for electricity exceeds supply and grid operators have to turn power off for groups of customers in order to prevent the whole system from collapsing. 

To this point, reliability planning has been primarily focused on an electric system powered by conventional dispatchable generating resources. In that context resource obtainability is not particularly concerned with long-term availability of the resource because the resources are not intermittent.  That changes when the system becomes dependent upon wind and solar because there are short-term and long-term availability concerns.  It is in this context that the results from Brown et al., 2021 climatology becomes important and raises the question whether planning based on a ten-year metric is still appropriate in the future.  Using this approach, we can determine the frequency and duration of the expected worst case over ten years consistent with current IRM planning.  However, because we can consider a longer period, we can also consider the frequency and duration of droughts over the whole 70 years and get expected worst cases over other time periods.  If there is a marked difference over say the 30-year time period, it may be appropriate to expand the IRM planning period in order to prevent the probability of shedding load due to more severe drought.

Black Swan Events

To this point in this article, I have only addressed normal weather variability effects. During the preparation of this post, I came to believe that there is another reliability concern related to renewable resource adequacy that has to be addressed.  What happens to the electric system when unprecedented extreme weather cripples the relatively fragile renewable generating and transmission system?  These statistical outliers are described as a “black swan event”.

A Black Swan event is an event in human history that was unprecedented and unexpected at the point in time it occurred. However, after evaluating the surrounding context, domain experts (and in some cases even laymen) can usually conclude: “it was bound to happen”. Even though some parameters may differ (such as the event’s time, location, or specific type), it is likely that similar incidences have had similar effects in the past.

In this context the conclusion that “it was bound to happen” has to be discussed.  At an Our Energy Policy (OEP) panel discussion on New York State’s emerging offshore wind market, someone asked an off-shore wind industry expert whether wind turbines in New York would be able to withstand a Category 5 storm.  Clint Plummer the head of market strategies and new projects for Ørsted, the world’s largest owner, developer, and operator of offshore wind responded: “wind turbines are designed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane, and they have built into their permit applications an insurance fund that can pay for repairs in cases of catastrophic loss from a storm more severe”. He said “a Category 5 hurricane has a return period in excess of 100 years, while the design life of a wind farm is 30-35 years, so wind turbines are not designed to withstand a Category 5 storm because they are not expected to experience one”. “Anything less than that up to a certain speed is just a really good day for producing a lot of wind power,” he said.

In the October 1, 2021 Climate Action Council meeting presentation Carl Mas described the initial results of the integration analysis that will be used to develop the plan to implement changes to New York’s energy system to meet the CLCPA targets.  Four scenarios have been developed with different renewable resource, load reduction and sequestration strategies.  The new findings indicate that 20 GW of offshore wind resources will be necessary.  Assuming that New York builds the latest generation offshore wind turbine, e.g. the GE Haliade-X 12 MW turbine, that equates to over 1,600 turbines with 220 m or 722 foot rotors. 

However, hurricanes likely exceeding the threshold described by Ørsted expert Plummer have occurred in the area New York plans to build its offshore wind facilities.  In 1635 the “Great Colonial” Hurricane hit New York and New England and the “Great Storm of 1693” devastated Long Island. There were other hurricanes that made landfall in the Tri-State area – 1788 (left the Battery in ruins), 1821, 1893 (the second hurricane that year, different from the one that hit Halifax, Nova Scotia), 1944 (“Great Atlantic” hurricane), 1954 (Carol), and 1991 (Bob). The 1938 “Long Island Express” made landfall in Long Island as a Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 125 mph and wind gusts up to 150 mph bringing waves surging to 35 feet.  Given that part of the rationale for the CLCPA is that extreme weather events such as hurricanes are becoming more frequent and severe there should be no question that a contingency plan is necessary for the time that a hurricane inevitably affects, if not destroys, the New York offshore wind resource.  Moreover, should that not be a part of the reliability planning process?

Unfortunately, that is not the only extreme weather event that can have extreme consequences on a more fragile wind and solar electricity network.  I am particularly worried about ice storms.  On a local level it is not clear how the public will be able to survive a multi-day power outage caused by an ice storm when the CLCPA mandates electric heat and electric vehicles but the bigger reliability concern is that fact that ice storms can take out transmission lines.  For example, consider, the January 1998 North American ice storm:

The North American Ice Storm of 1998 (also known as Great Ice Storm of 1998) was a massive combination of five smaller successive ice storms in January 1998 that struck a relatively narrow swath of land from eastern Ontario to southern Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada, and bordering areas from northern New York to central Maine in the United States. It caused massive damage to trees and electrical infrastructure all over the area, leading to widespread long-term power outages. Millions were left in the dark for periods varying from days to several weeks, and in some instances, months. It led to 34 fatalities, a shutdown of activities in large cities like Montreal and Ottawa, and an unprecedented effort in reconstruction of the power grid. The ice storm led to the largest deployment of Canadian military personnel since the Korean War, with over 16,000 Canadian Forces personnel deployed, 12,000 in Quebec and 4,000 in Ontario at the height of the crisis.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently announced “two major green energy infrastructure projects to power New York City with wind, solar and hydropower projects from upstate New York and Canada”.  The press release claims that the combined project will deliver 18 million megawatt-hours of upstate and Canadian renewable energy per year.  Clean Power New York plans on over 20 wind and solar generation projects – all located in New York State – and a new 174-mile, underground transmission line. Champlain Hudson Power Express is a 338-mile underground power line from Quebec hydroelectric facilities to New York City.  The problem is that not all the associated infrastructure in these projects is underground and immune from ice storms.

Conclusion

The requirements for New York reliability planning will have to change for a future grid that relies on intermittent and diffuse wind and solar.  Current planning for the electric system is based on decades-long experience with a system powered primarily by sources that are dispatchable and includes sources that have on-site storage.  The potential for lack of source availability over days, weeks, and even months is not a serious concern today because the New York system has been diverse, redundant, and resilient to the vagaries of weather.

The CLCPA requirement for a zero-emissions electric system that relies on wind and solar energy resources changes the reliability planning requirements.  Previous analysis has highlighted the need to address multi-day wind lulls in the winter as a particular problem.  Brown et al., 2021 have developed a technique that can be used to determine the climatological frequency and duration of those periods of low wind and solar resource availability that clearly should be included in New York reliability planning.  Their analysis technique can also be used to identify the worst-case periods of wind and solar droughts so that more detailed resource availability analyses can estimate how much energy storage is needed not only for the electric grid but also the distributed energy resources proposed for the CLCPA.  This analysis is needed to prevent the kind of Texas February 2021 disaster from happening in New York.

The existing New York system has evolved over years of trial-and-error experience to the point where it is relatively resilient to extreme weather events.  While there have been exceptions, the possibility of widespread, weeks-long outages is extremely low.  However, because wind and solar resources are more fragile to wind and ice crippling damage than existing generating sources, the likelihood of the conditions that cause that level of damage should be determined.  Brown et al., 2021 can determine the occurrence of events over a 71-year period.  If, for example, their analysis suggests that the return period of a crippling event is one in thirty years, then should New York reliability planning incorporate a longer time horizon for its planning?

At this time, the off-shore wind strategy calls for 20 GW of development.  The ramifications of a Category 4 or greater hurricane destroying or significantly damaging those facilities should be at least be considered.  Repairing them will take months if not years and the ramifications if insufficient resources are available are immense. If nothing else the statements claiming that the future wind and solar dependent electric system will be more resilient should be toned down.

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.  The Ney York Independent System Operator (NYISO) is the “organization responsible for managing New York’s electric grid and its competitive wholesale electric marketplace”.  This post addresses the relationship between the CLCPA and NYISO.

I have written extensively on implementation of the CLCPA closely because its implementation affects my future as a New Yorker.  I briefly summarized the schedule and implementation CLCPA Summary Implementation Requirements.  I have described the law in general, described the enabling strategies, 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

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 the New York Power Pool (NYPP) to address the reliability problems exposed by the blackout.  The NYPP “balanced electricity supply and demand, maintained transmission voltage, monitored system contingencies, managed operating reserves, and dispatched generation”. 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. “At the same time, the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) established retail electric competition to allow customers to choose their electric supplier. The PSC supported the formation of competitive wholesale markets as the basis of retail choice, and approved restructuring plans by which utilities divested most of their power plants to competitive generation companies.”  In 1999, the NYISO was established to replace the NYPP.

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 market electricity is supplied by multiple types of agreements between the suppliers and the NYISO.  Some of the power is contracted by purchase power agreement contracts, some by day-ahead auctions, and the rest by real-time auctions that cover any additional power needed.  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. 

There are a few other relevant aspects in the NYISO description:

The NYISO is a not-for-profit, independent company unaffiliated with any state or federal agency or energy company. The NYISO is led by an independent Board of Directors. The NYISO’s federally-approved tariffs contain strict requirements for our Board of Directors and all employees to have no financial relationship with any of the companies that participate in our wholesale energy markets. The NYISO is dedicated to transparency in how we operate, the information we provide, and our role as an impartial system operator, planner, and broker of New York’s wholesale electricity markets.

The NYISO is accountable to both federal and state regulatory bodies and maintains compliance with nearly 1,000 reliability requirements. The NYISO’s independent Board of Directors collaborates with our stakeholders via a robust shared-governance process that facilitates input from interested stakeholders. The establishment of the NYISO created a system of shared governance that provides all market participants — from utility companies to electric generators — a voice in the operation and evolution of the marketplace.

Under the NYISO’s transparent, inclusive process, representatives from market participants have voting power to exercise responsibilities such as preparing the NYISO’s annual budget, reviewing and recommending candidates for Board vacancies, developing and adopting technical guidelines for operation of the bulk power system, and market design and system planning. NYISO stakeholders share responsibility with the NYISO Board to approve proposed changes to the NYISO’s governing documents, including its federally approved tariffs.

The NYISO’s description of their process and the very name suggest that they are independent of New York politics but that is not the case with the current administration.  In the following I will explain why I think that the NYISO is pulling its punches vis-à-vis the feasibility of the CLCPA.

NYISO and the Cuomo Administration

I am not an admirer of Governor Cuomo because my impression is that his administration has always been about his best interests.  Whenever any organization has disagreed with Cuomo’s energy agenda the response has been bluster and threats.  For example, when National Grid’s plan for natural gas supply in New York City contradicted Cuomo’s agenda, he threatened to revoke the operating license for National Grid if they did not comply with his plans.  Another example, is NRG Energy’s Dunkirk power plant which was deemed uneconomic and scheduled for closure.  For some political reason, Cuomo announced an agreement to repower the plant with natural gas.  In a de-regulated market making a grant to one facility to continue operations is sure to upset competitors and a lawsuit was filed.  In addition, certain rules have to be followed that include fee requirements and NRG decided to not pursue re-powering.  Cuomo’s response was to seek a PSC probe of the business decision.

This overt insistence on toeing the administration’s political agenda extends to all the agencies under his thumb.   The Department of Public Service (DPS) and Public Service Commission are supposed to be independent however this is not the case.  In the summer of 2019 a group of retired Department of Public Service employees submitted a letter that stated “Until the current administration, Governors have generally respected the plain language of the Public Service Law (PSL), which … safeguards the mission of the DPS to serve not political interests but the public interest.” The letter signed by fifteen retired department workers states: “Governor Andrew Cuomo, however, has not done so.”

Unfortunately, the NYISO is not immune to the Governor’s tactics. In a filing to the Public Service Commission, the NYISO noted that in order to meet Cuomo’s Clean Energy Standard, a predecessor regulation to the CLCPA, New York would have to install over 1,000 new miles of bulk transmission lines at great cost and effort which exposed one of the short-comings of the Governor’s clean energy agenda.  In response, Cuomo’s energy czar, Richard Kauffman, accused NYISO Director Brad Jones and his NYISO report as “misleading, incomplete, and grossly inaccurate…revealing an alarming lack of developed analysis into the imperative to address climate change…” Kauffman’s letter accused Jones of protecting fossil fuel generators and said that he was “dismayed by [Jones’] public comments.  

In this political climate it is not surprising that rather than standing up to the bully, the “independent” NYISO caved, Jones left, and was replaced by Rich Dewey.  Now the NYISO reports carefully word every document so as to not invoke the wrath of Cuomo’s bullies. 

NYISO Raison D’être

There is another aspect of the NYISO’s operations that colors their responses.  It is not surprising that the NYISO completely endorses the idea that wholesale electricity markets have the ability to solve any problems because that is the reason for their existence.  Unfortunately, I think some of their faith in market mechanisms is unwarranted.

I am not an expert on market design but I fear we are heading towards an energy crisis.  In a regulated market the Public Service Commission (PSC) tells the vertically integrated electric utilities to meet a specific mandate, the utilities develop a response, the PSC oversees their responses relative to reliability and affordability, and the necessary infrastructure gets built.  In New York’s de-regulated market, planners at the NYISO and various state agencies do the planning and then the NYISO and PSC develop “innovative market rules necessary to meet the objectives of the CLCPA” that they hope will engender market participants to build the necessary infrastructure. 

There are tremendous technological challenges converting from the current electric system to one dependent upon renewable energy sources and I am convinced that the only way unexpected kinks will be worked out is by trial and error.  The Texas electricity market design did not work well in February and I have no reason to expect that some new wrinkle introduced by relying on intermittent and diffuse renewable energy will only be resolved after the problem occurs. Robert Bradley recently explanation of what happened during the big freeze relative to the Texas electricity market and the difference between managed markets like New York’s wholesale electricity market and a “free market” supports my concern.

In addition, the problem may occur because the NYISO identifies a problem that the politicians who are running New York energy policy decide to ignore.  Of course, when it occurs the blame will be place on the NYISO.  In this regard Donn Dears book “The Looming Energy Crisis” provides a detailed description of potential problems that are a challenge to overcome and might require imposition of politically unpopular policies.  In the current political environment these issues are more likely than not.

Finally, I want to give an example where the market did not produce the obvious environmental solution.  New York State energy and environmental policy is more about optics than facts.  Nowhere is this more apparent than the recent spate of opinion pieces, reports, and even policy proposals related to peaking power plants.  In brief there are old simple cycle turbines in New York City that were built to provide reliable power during peak load periods.  However, there are old, inefficient and much dirtier than today’s technology.  In my opinion the continued operation of the old simple cycle turbines in New York City is the result of New York’s de-regulated market place.  I am absolutely sure that in a regulated environment the responsible utility would have made a case to the Department of Public Service that replacement with cleaner, more efficient generation was needed, the Department would have agreed,  and, after it was approved, the utility would have been guaranteed a reasonable return on their investment so the turbines would have been replaced.  However, in the de-regulated market there wasn’t a strong enough financial incentive to replace the old units.  Before I retired in 2010, I worked on two separate permit applications for new, efficient, and cleaner replacement power for one set of the old combustion turbines.  In both instances the permits were approved but the replacements were never built, apparently because the company decided that the business case was not strong enough to warrant the investment.  The fact is that sometimes the market signals are too weak to provide the desired result.

Conclusion

The point of this post is to document the importance of the NYISO but to also point out that their policies and recommendations are necessarily colored by their belief that markets are a viable solution to the challenges of the CLCPA energy transition and by the political climate of New York.  The NYISO has done a good job analyzing the challenges of the energy transition.  Unfortunately, many members of the CLCPA advisory panels and the Climate Action Council don’t understand, don’t want to understand, or choose to ignore the warnings in those analyses.  In my opinion, there are enough technical challenges in the transition that maintaining reliability will be a problem but the added challenge of designing some market mechanism to get the market to provide the resources necessary all but assures that reliability will become an issue. 

Finally, I sympathize with the NYISO position.  All their work not only has to fully explain the problems they identify but the wording has to pass a political optics text.  This means that all their reports have to toe the existential threat of climate change narrative without any suggestion that the potential risks to reliability, affordability, and environmental impacts of the proposed solutions far out-weigh the alleged impacts of climate change.  It is similar to the symbiotic relationship between the Egyptian plover and crocodile.  NYISO is performing a service to the state but you never know if the Cuomo crocodile is going to snap.

On March 14, 2021 the Syracuse Post Standard published a commentary “To keep the lights on, take these lessons from Texas” by Dr. David Murphy, an associate professor of environmental studies at St. Lawrence University.  Unfortunately, most of what he said is incorrect and what he proposed will guarantee that New York’s lights will go out.

Unsaid in the commentary is that much of what Dr. Murphy proposed is being incorporated into the implementation plans for the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).  I have summarized the schedule, implementation components, and provide links to the legislation itself at CLCPA Summary Implementation Requirements.  I have written extensively in long posts on implementation of the CLCPA because I believe that it will negatively affect reliability, affordability and the environment.  I have described the law in general, evaluated its feasibility, estimated costs, described supporting regulations, listed the scoping plan strategies, summarized some of the meetings and complained that its advocates constantly confuse weather and climate.  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.

Dr. Murphy has a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Master of Science in Environmental Science, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY and Bachelor of Arts in Biology, The College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA.  He has authored a textbook Renewable Energy in the 21^st Century and according to his webpage at St. Lawrence University, he “has also published widely in the popular press.”  Note in particular that “has been featured on a number of episodes of the podcast The Energy Transition Show with Chris Nelder, a popular podcast in energy technology and climate change activist circles.”  Based on this I characterize Dr. Murphy as a professional climate change activist whose career depends on the narrative that climate change is an existential threat.

To keep the lights on, we should take these lessons from Texas

In the following section I will provide my italicized and indented comments on his commentary.  For a detailed overview of the Texas deep freeze I recommend this article by Weather Blogger Chris Martz.  He explains that Arctic cold weather events have occur regularly, the weather conditions associated with these events always include high pressures with very light winds so wind resources will always stop working, and that “to blame weather events that have occurred many times before on man-made climate change is absurd”.

 The tragedy in Texas is viewed by many as another glimpse of our uncertain future, and that brings up the question of whether it is possible to be prepared for scenarios we can’t even imagine in the new, climate-changing world.

In climate change activist circles any unusual weather is due to climate change.  Martz points out that cold waves are an expression of natural atmospheric variability and result in record cold temperature.  This was a record-breaking event.  He goes on to point out that the earth is warming and that the “frequency of cold waves, the number of record low temperatures, and the percent of land area observing unusually cold temperatures have all declined over the last century”.  Nonetheless, the important point is that similar cold snaps occurred in 2011, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1983, 1963, and 1961 and electrical outages occurred in some of those cold snaps.  The real question is whether Texas adequately planned for the past, not whether we can plan for an uncertain future.

The storm wreaked havoc on almost all major power-producing technologies. A nuclear generator supplying electricity to 1 million homes tripped off-line due to the cold weather impacting a pump system. Natural gas supplies for heating homes froze up. And wind turbines froze in place. The more climate changes, the harder it will be to predict, and outages like the one in Texas are all but guaranteed. The Biden administration must develop a resilient power grid where outages impact fewer people for less time. To build a resilient grid, we should focus on redundancy and decentralization.

This was not a climate change problem.  Instead, it was poor planning for a variety of reasons and, in my opinion, something similar is not likely in New York because the New York electric market has different rules and priorities.  However, given that New York’s CLCPA mandates a transition to zero-emissions electric sources the question becomes is this more likely in the future?  I agree with Dr. Murphy when he says we should focus on redundancy to prevent something similar in the future but disagree what counts as valuable redundancy.  I see no value in de-centralization.

Redundancy means that if there is a failure in one part of the system, another can perform that same task, avoiding a large-scale outage or an outage altogether. Slightly more than half of Texas’ electric grid relies on one fuel source — natural gas —and another quarter relies on wind.

Compared to Texas New York currently has a more redundant electric system because there are more options for generating electricity and used to be much more redundant.  In 2019, New York electricity was generated 38% by natural gas, 23% by hydro, 33% by nuclear, 3% by wind and solar and 2% by other sources.  In 2001, New York electricity was generated 16% by coal, 27% by natural gas, 11% by oil, 16% by hydro, 28% by nuclear, 0% by wind and solar and 2% by other sources.  One key aspect of redundancy is the ability to store fuel on-site which is a feature of coal, oil, hydro and nuclear.  All three fuels are used much less than in 2001.  It is also important to be able to transport the fuel different ways which is another feature of coal and oil that has disappeared.  Based on these trends New York electric generation is becoming less redundant and thus more likely to have blackouts.

Microgrids, small grids within a larger system, are another form of redundancy. Microgrids can operate in “island mode” — if the larger grid is collapsing, the microgrid shuts communication and operates alone, keeping lights on. Alaska —with expansive land and isolated populations — has a number of microgrids. The Longhorn State has few.  Decentralizing power production systems also is important. When one reactor at the South Texas Nuclear Power Station went offline due to the cold temperature, power to supply 1 million homes went off-line. This makes entire cities, not just small towns, vulnerable.  We need many microgrids using many energy sources, both large and small — and by small I mean as small as rooftop solar panels and battery storage systems.

 De-centralized microgrids powered by wind and solar are a climate activist talking point but I don’t believe they stand up to scrutiny.  While it is true that a microgrid can operate without being connected to the grid the question is whether the factors that caused the grid to collapse also affect the microgrid.  In the case of extreme weather events, damage to microgrids powered by wind and solar is also likely. 

 The bigger problem is whether a microgrid can provide necessary power when and for as long as it is needed. Murphy neglects to point out that the Alaskan micro-grids are powered by fossil fuels that can be stored on-site.  His vision is for micro-grids powered by wind and solar.  Martz points out that energy demand is highest during both periods of extreme cold and extreme heat and that such weather conditions are associated with high pressure and very light wind speeds, which means, wind turbines will stop working.  Coupled with the fact that New York solar radiation is reduced by day length, cloudy conditions, and snow cover, I am very leery that sufficient renewable energy resources are available to meet the demands of winter peak load.

 In order to meet New York’s climate law goals heating and transportation will have to be electrified.  As a result, even more electricity will be needed.  Because renewable energy is intermittent, energy storage is required. This is a particular problem because demand varies and when the demand is highest it is also needed most.  Murphy’s rooftop solar panels and battery storage system approach may work most of the time but in order to provide reliability during the coldest periods the amount of energy storage needed for one or two days a year may be uneconomic.  This is precisely what happened in Texas.  Ratepayers enjoyed low rates because the electric market did not incorporate a mechanism for generators to pay for measures that would ensure they could provide power during intense cold snaps.  When the record-breaking cold weather occurred, the system could not provide the necessary energy at any cost so the system broke down.

All this requires a paradigm shift in thinking. For the past century, we have built grids that take what energy guru Amory Lovins calls the “hard energy path.” This means building big, centralized generators that produce massive amounts of electricity in a one-way grid system to deliver power to customers.  We need a 21st century version of Lovins’ “soft energy path” that focuses on energy conservation, solar and wind power. These technologies, in contrast to huge nuclear generators, are smaller and more flexible. And, since many more will be needed and spread across the country, they will be much less prone to massive outages like that in Texas.

Climate activists love to disparage the current electrical system with its centralized generating stations but the fact is that they provide affordable and reliable electricity.  There are inherent economies of scale that enable large power plants to provide power for millions cheaply and efficiently.  Moreover, different types of fuels at these power plants truly provide a redundant and flexible power system that can provide reliable electricity when needed.  In contrast wind and solar power which are utterly dependent upon the vagaries of weather cannot be called flexible and certainly are not dependable without additional energy storage and grid support services that markedly increase the cost.  The claim that wind and solar are less prone to massive outages is absurd given that every night with calm winds causes an outage of both of these generating resources. Furthermore, he point out that “many more will be needed and spread across the country” means that wind turbines and solar panels will sprawl across New York with significant  impacts to birds and bats.

The Biden plan calls for a modern grid system, but details are unclear. The Green Act of 2020 introduced in the House doesn’t address grids. If we want to avoid crises, the plan must include redundancy and decentralization. We must encourage more people to produce their own energy.  Investing in local production and ownership of energy systems makes energy systems more resilient and creates jobs.

One climate alarmist cherished belief is that because the wind is always blowing somewhere the solution to local wind calms is a transmission system that can move the power from those locations to calm locations.  There are problems however. 

 The fundamental issue for keeping the lights on is that wind is intermittent.  I found that in New York in 2018 there were 1,982 MW of onshore wind energy nameplate capacity that generated 3,985 GWh of electrical energy for a state-wide annual capacity factor of 24.5%.  The problem is that I also found that over a sixteen-month period there were 25 hours when none of the 24 wind facilities in the state produced any power, that 36% of the time less than 200 MW per hour was produced and that half the time hourly wind output was less than 324 MW.  The worst case is a long duration period with light winds. I found 12 periods when less than 100 MW of the state’s total wind capacity of 1,982 MW was available for 24 hours, 5 periods for 36 hours, and one period of 58 hours. Evaluation of wind energy on continental scales in Australia shows that large high pressure systems can cause light winds over continental scales.  The grid solution to intermittency is fatally flawed.

 New York’s worst case wind energy deficit was 58 hours long when wind output was less than 100MW meaning that in order to replace the total onshore wind capacity 1,800 MW has to be generated elsewhere and transmitted to New York.  In order to be absolutely positive that amount of power is available, dedicated renewable resources someplace where the winds are guaranteed to not also be calm are required.  In other words, both the wind turbines and the transmission capacity necessary cannot be used for anything else.  I expect that would be uneconomic.   Alternatively, energy storage could be developed but the problem is there is no long-duration energy storage technology currently available that can be deployed in the necessary quantities.

 It is not clear to me how wind and solar resources can be considered redundant.  Putting all our energy production into two limited types of intermittent resources seems anything but redundant and given their susceptibility to weather impacts it certainly is not a resilient option..

Clean energy jobs account for roughly 40% of energy sector jobs in the U.S., and according to a Brookings Institution report, they are also better paying than most jobs across the country.

While I am not sure that I reviewed the Brookings Institution report referenced, I suspect that the Brookings report Advancing Inclusion through Clean Energy Jobs has the same biases are present in all their work.  I believe the appropriate jobs metric limits clean energy jobs to those that would not exist in the absence of clean energy initiatives.  However, the Brookings definition of clean energy jobs encompasses jobs that go well beyond the work necessary for a clean energy economy.  For example, in the environmental management sector they include hazardous materials removal workers, refuse and recyclable material collectors, and septic tank servicers and sewer pipe cleaners.  Consequently, they are taking credit for “clean energy” jobs that would exist anyway which makes the claim that 40% of the jobs in the energy sector are in clean energy exaggerated.

By encouraging individuals and local communities to produce their own energy, we will also increase energy democracy, so that not just the downtown, wealthy areas remain with power while the poorer neighborhoods experience outages, such as what happened in Texas. We can’t predict the future, and outages will continue to occur, we can only hope to minimize their impact, and focusing on a resilient future is the only path to do so.

The presumption that individuals have the desire and means to produce their own energy is a great theory but in practice I suspect most people have a greater desire for affordable and reliable electricity. Until it is demonstrated that investing in the capability to provide reliable power as proposed when I need it is cheaper than current costs, I suspect that I am not the only skeptic of the economics of this approach.  As to viability my roof line runs north-south so I do not have the optimal setup for solar panels and I live in the cloud and snow belt downwind of Lake Ontario so solar is not dependable in the winter.

 Energy democracy is a slogan long on emotion but short on content.  I don’t understand what is meant by energy democracy or the basis of the argument so I cannot respond.

 The Texas lesson should be that they did not develop an electric market that rewarded development of infrastructure to withstand cold temperatures that have been observed in the past.  My concern is that while community energy approach may work most of the time there will be times, likely when the power is needed the most, that it won’t work.  Any resources diverted to this aspirational, feel-good approach reduce what is available to a solution that provides power all the time. 

 The other Texas warning should be the pitfalls of an over-dependence upon wind energy.  The coldest air of the winter and the highest demand occurs when cold air moves in behind a cold front.  This Arctic air is associated with a cold core high pressure system pushing the front.  Those high pressure systems have very little wind.  Martz nailed it when he said “When it comes to a life and death situation, what would you do? Use fossil fuels to keep warm and survive, or freeze yourself to death once wind power fails in order to save the planet?”

Conclusion

Dr. Murphy concludes that “We can’t predict the future, and outages will continue to occur, we can only hope to minimize their impact, and focusing on a resilient future is the only path to do so.”  The real cause of the Texas energy debacle was to fail to address obvious impacts associated with observed cold weather outbreaks in the winter.  Our first priority should be to plan for the future based on what has happened in the past because if we cannot do that then there is no way we can plan for future changes.

His recommendation is to build a resilient grid which focuses on redundancy and decentralization.  A redundant electric system exceeds what is normally needed and necessary for as wide a range of conditions as possible.  It is unclear how solar energy that is only available half the time, is reduced when it is cloudy, and can go to zero when panels are covered with snow can be considered redundant.  His suggested approach relies on energy conservation, solar and wind power and that might work most of the time.  Unfortunately, an electric system that fails to provide power when it is needed most is a recipe for catastrophe, just like Texas.

Energy conservation is a no regrets approach but it is naïve to expect that energy loads won’t continue to peak and grow when the weather is very cold or very hot, especially when New York’s CLCPA mandates heating electrification.  When the electric system transitions to solar and wind power, the critical weather period will be a multi-day wind lull in the winter because both wind and solar energy availability is very low.   In order to provide power during those periods for Murphy’s de-centralized large energy sources and rooftop solar panels, the energy storage systems necessary for them to be independent of the centralized system will have to be large.  I expect that installing large batteries for short periods of the year will be uneconomic.  Advocates for this approach have to prove otherwise.

Like it or not New York is rushing ahead to incorporate the themes in Dr. Murphy’s commentary in the implementation plans for the CLCPA.  It cannot be over-emphasized that these concepts have not been implemented anywhere on the scale necessary to transition the New York electric grid.  Moreover, initial attempts in other jurisdictions have shown that costs have gone up and reliability has gone down.  The real lessons of the Texas energy debacle should be caution is needed, that reliance on intermittent resources is risky, and that failure will have catastrophic impacts.

I recently wrote that the energy debacle that occurred in Texas is unlikely in New York today because of market and system differences but if the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) is implemented incorrectly something similar is inevitable.  Last fall the Analysis Group completed their Climate Change Impact and Resilience Study (“Resilience Study”) for the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO).    The study evaluated different resource scenarios that meet the 2040 CLCPA zero-emissions mandate for various weather and load scenarios.  The findings do not portend well for New York’s energy future and raise important questions for New York’s planning.  In this first post discussing the Resilience Study findings relative to the Texas Energy Debacle I will compare New York’s future reliability problem relative to the Texas weather that caused their problems.  This is a long detailed post but will provide background for future posts on other aspects of this issue.

I have written extensively on implementation of the CLCPA closely because its implementation affects my future as a New Yorker.  I have described the law in general, evaluated its feasibility, estimated costs, described supporting regulations, listed the scoping plan strategies, summarized some of the meetings and complained that its advocates constantly confuse weather and climate.  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.

Texas Energy Debacle

In brief, the ultimate cause of the blackouts and resulting problems in Texas was due to poor planning.  The weather in Texas during the storm was extreme but not unprecedented.  Similar cold snaps occurred in 2011, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1983, 1963, and 1961 and there were electrical outages in 2011.   Because there is no apparent trend in low daily maximum temperatures (see Tony Heller’s graph), climate change is not a factor.  This was a weather event.

Clearly the Texas electricity market failed to provide adequate resiliency for these conditions.  I agree with Becky Klein, former commissioner and chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas who writes that the questions that need to be considered now are:

• • • Are we prepared to pay more for electricity and water to ensure higher levels of reliability?
    • And if so, how much more?
    • How can we be better prepared for “outlier” events, regardless of their probability?
    • Would it make sense to require state-wide scenario planning that includes coordinated drills that test both our operational and communication capabilities across multiple entities?

As New York transitions its electric system to one dependent upon renewables all of these questions need to be addressed.  Fortunately, the NYISO Climate Change Impact and Resilience Study lays the foundation to start to address those questions in New York.

Ultimate Problem

I have described what I believe is the ultimate problem previously.  Both E3 in their presentation to the Power Generation Advisory Panel on September 16 and the Analysis Group  in their September 10, 2020  presentation to NYISO explained that in order to meet the CLCPA emissions reduction goals that a resource category that provides firm, dispatchable and zero-emissions generation is needed.  E3 gives examples such as “such as bioenergy, synthesized fuels such as hydrogen, hydropower, carbon capture and sequestration, and nuclear generation” but the Analysis Group avoids being specific.  The  International Energy Agency (IEA) recently published “Special Report on Clean Energy Innovation” that classified the technology readiness level of the technologies that could possibly be both dispatchable without GHG emissions.  The bottom line is that none of the E3 examples of firm, dispatchable and zero-emissions technologies are close to being ready for adoption except nuclear and hydro which I believe are unlikely to provide any meaningful support for New York.

Climate Change Impact and Resilience Study

According to the report:

“In 2020, NYISO contracted with Analysis Group (AG) to complete this Climate Change Phase II Study (“Phase II Study”). The Phase II Study is designed to review the potential impacts on power system reliability of the (1) the electricity demand projections for 2040 developed in the preceding Climate Change Phase I Study, and (2) potential impacts on system load and resource availability associated with the impact of climate change on the power system in New York (“climate disruptions”).The climate disruptions considered include items that could potentially occur or intensify with a changing climate and that affect power system reliability, such as more frequent and severe storms, extended extreme temperature events (e.g., heat waves and cold snaps), and other meteorological events (e.g., wind lulls, droughts, and ice storms).”

As the Texas experience shows, it is necessary to address potential impacts of extreme weather on power system reliability.  However, in my opinion, there is a significant weakness in the Analysis Group’s team because it does not include a meteorologist.  If one was on the team this language probably would have been modified to make the point that natural variability in weather events such as extended extreme temperature events (e.g., heat waves and cold snaps), and other meteorological events (e.g., wind lulls, droughts, and ice storms) currently is much larger than any climate change induced variations.  As a result, I refer to this report as the Resilience Study rather than the Climate Study.  The report continually refers to climate disruptions which in reality are actually extreme weather events but that does not detract from the value of the analysis itself.

I refer you to the report for a detailed description of the Analysis Group modeling approach summarized in their Figure ES-1.  As input they used two long-term hourly zonal-level load forecasts that reflect state policy goals and climate effects developed by ITRON.  The Analysis Group energy balance model analyzed two load scenarios: a reference case and the CLCPA case that includes the expected increases in load due to heating and transportation electrification.  Four sets of generating system resources were considered.  The Resilience Study estimated what they thought would be needed to meet the load requirements and they also include the NYISO Grid in Transition estimates.  A reference scenario and an expected resource scenario for both were evaluated.  They considered weather disruptions including heat waves, cold snaps, wind lulls, wind storm disruptions, ice storms, and droughts.  The result was a set of 72 analyses projecting the amount of each type of energy resource needed and the potential for resource inadequacy for a 30-day evaluation period.

Last October, soon after the Climate Change Phase II study came out, I prepared a post evaluating whether it adequately addressed the weather disruptions.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it does.  The evaluation period was too short and importantly they did not evaluate extreme wind and solar availability over the same periods.  I also believe that monitoring data from a network with more spatial resolution must be done to adequately represent the effect of lake-effect clouds and precipitation.  Nonetheless the analysis represents a good start addressing the problem of extreme weather.

NY LOLE planning

According to the 2020 NYISO Reliability Needs Assessment: “The New York system is deemed to have sufficient resources if the probability of an unplanned disconnection of firm load (loss of load expectation, or “LOLE”) is equal to or less than the standard of once in every 10 years or 0.1 events per year.”  The reliability planning process starts with the Reliability Needs Assessment (RNA) followed by the Comprehensive Reliability Plan.  I will only discuss the RNA here.  It evaluates “the reliability of the New York bulk electric grid through 2030, considering forecasts of peak power demand, planned upgrades to the transmission system, and changes to the generation mix over the next ten years.”  A base case “includes projected impacts driven by limitations on generator emissions”.  Different scenarios “include an in-depth look at certain policy goals from the CLCPA” and “reliability risks associated with the cumulative impact of environmental laws and regulations”.

The RNA document explains that:

“Resource adequacy is the ability of the electric system to supply the aggregate electrical demand and energy requirements of the customers at all times, taking into account scheduled and reasonably expected unscheduled outages of system elements. Resource adequacy considers the transmission systems, generation resources, and other capacity resources, such as demand response. The NYISO performs resource adequacy assessments on a probabilistic basis to capture the random natures of system element outages. If a system has sufficient transmission and generation, the probability of an unplanned disconnection of firm load is equal to or less than the system’s standard, which is expressed as a loss of load expectation (LOLE).  The New York State bulk power system is planned to meet an LOLE that, at any given point in time, is less than or equal to an involuntary firm load disconnection that is not more frequent than once in every 10 years, or 0.1 events per year. This requirement forms the basis of New York’s Installed Reserve Margin (IRM) requirement and is analyzed on a statewide basis.”

“If Reliability Needs are identified, various amounts and locations of compensatory MW required for the NYCA to satisfy those needs are determined to translate the criteria violations to understandable quantities. Compensatory MW amounts are determined by adding generic capacity resources to NYISO zones to effectively satisfy the needs. The compensatory MW amounts and locations are based on a review of binding transmission constraints and zonal LOLE determinations in an iterative process to determine various combinations that will result in reliability criteria being met. These additions are used to estimate the amount of resources generally needed to satisfy Reliability Needs. The compensatory MW additions are not intended to represent specific proposed solutions. Resource needs could potentially be met by other combinations of resources in other areas including generation, transmission and demand response measures.”

The relevant question after the Texas energy debacle is whether this planning process adequately protects New Yorkers from a similar blackout.

Climate Change Impact and Resilience Study Loss of Load Occurrences

The Resilience Study includes a generic resource intended to “identify the attributes of any additional resources that may be needed to avoid or reduce Loss of Load Occurrences (LOLO).  This is similar to the NYISO Loss of Load Event but does not imply a specific frequency of occurrence like the LOLO.  The Analysis Group labels these resources as dispatchable and emissions‐free resources (“DE Resources”).  They “cover any circumstances where the resource sets are insufficient to meet identified demand, and to evaluate what attributes such a resource must have to help meet reliability needs”.  These are the resources described in the Ultimate Problem section above.

The Resilience Study identified LOLO periods in 26 of the 72 scenarios evaluated.  Overall, there were 414 hours with a loss of load identified totaling 331,065 MWh.  Fourteen periods were associated with extreme weather events such as hurricanes, wind storms or icing while the other twelve were associated with a scarcity of renewable wind and hydro resources.  Note that there was no specific scenario for a solar energy lull analogous to the wind energy lulls evaluated.

The extreme weather events are outliers.  Over the 14 periods, 323 hours totaling 258,504 MWh were identified as having loss of load.  Recall that Becky Klein wrote that one of the questions that need to be considered now is “How can we be better prepared for “outlier” events, regardless of their probability?”  The key question is probability of occurrence for these events and a logical first step would be to determine how often these events happen.  It is also important to determine what could be done to reduce impacts.  Recall that the NYISO RNA process determines the various amounts and locations of compensatory MW required to reduce the probability of these events.  It is not clear to me that any amount of additional resources could mitigate these impacts.  Preparation for the outliers would probably focus on hardening infrastructure which is beyond the scope of this article.

On the other hand, the scarce renewable energy resources scenarios can be addressed by specifying compensatory MW requirements.  For the twelve periods identified there were 91 hours totaling 72,561 MWh.  Nine of the periods were associated with periods of calm winds and three with droughts.  I agree with E3 who has highlighted the critical period of concern to be a multi-day winter period of light winds.

For example, consider scenario 13 which considers CLCPA conditions during a state-wide wind lull in the winter with the set of resources chosen to handle the CLCPA target of zero emissions.   Over the 30 day analysis period the Resilience Study estimates that 9,043,988 MWh will be generated by 35,200 MW of land-based wind, 5,288,985 MWH will be generated by 21,063 MW of offshore wind, 503,859 MWh will be generated by 10,878 MW of behind-the-meter solar, 1,951,742 MWh will be generated by 39,262 MW of utility-scale grid solar, 2,027,789 MWh will be generated by 4,486 MW of hydro pondage and run of the river hydro, 2,422,224 MWh will be generated by 4,364 MW of nuclear, 2,023,200 MWh will be imported, 98,672 MWh will be generated by 1,170 MW of pumped storage, 800,462 MWh will be provided by 15,600 MW of battery energy storage over 189 hours, demand response will displace 3,412 MW and 566,429 MWh over 276 hours, and the 32,317 MW of the DE resource will generate 3,653,404 MWh over 278 hours.  Over the 30 days 28,380754 MWh will be generated but even these resources will be unable to prevent LOLO totaling 13 hours and 14,404 MWh.

I believe it would be more appropriate for future analyses to consider shorter time periods in greater detail.  In this case consider the seven-day period from hour 192 to hour 360.  This is the critical period where the most DE resources are required and when the hours with load loss occurred.  I think that the uncolored area under the load curve around hour 264 represents the load loss period.  Note that battery storage was used up early in the critical period.  In order to fully replace all the DE resources MWh would take an extraordinary amount of additional energy storage.  Clearly the big problem is a lack of land-based and offshore wind.  In the winter, solar is just not going to be able to cover the loss of wind across the state.  Furthermore, it is not clear to me that the solar energy output reflects snow cover impacts.  It appears that no amount of over-building of wind and solar coupled with battery energy storage is going to be able to solve this renewable resource problem.

The Resilience Study analysis reinforces the fact that the multi-day winter wind lull is a critical period for reliability. In my comments on the resource adequacy hearing and elsewhere I have argued that actual short-term meteorological data from the NYS Mesonet system 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 type of evaluation is necessary to completely characterize the resource availability during the multi-day winter wind lull.  I believe that using those data in conjunction with a meteorological evaluation of the weather systems that cause these conditions could also develop a frequency of occurrence distribution that could be used to extend the Loss of Load Occurrence estimates to Loss of Load Expectation projections.

Independent System Operator – New England (ISO-NE) recently had an analysis done, Analysis of Stochastic Dataset for ISO-NE, that purports to provide frequency of occurrence information.  I am not comfortable that they have actually done what they thought they did.  In their analysis they used a statistical re-sampling technique that I am not sure adequately considers serial correlation and the relationships between wind and solar resource availability.  In their February 20, 2020 presentation to the ISO-NE Planning Advisory Committee, Wind and Power Time Series Modeling of ISO-NE Wind Plants, Methodology and Analysis of Results, they describe a wind mapping system that generates high-resolution mesoscale wind maps.  The report notes that “wind generation is very likely to be high during the peak load hour” and goes on to say that “this appears to be due to passing cold fronts associated with strong low-pressure systems that drive wind speeds across New England”.  In the February 2020 presentation there is a table with wind turbine power curve basics that shows a cutoff speed for low wind speeds and high wind speeds.  I am very sure that the Analysis Group cutoffs were different than the ones used in this study because there is a difference in wind output for wind storms.  While another good start I believe that this analysis also comes up short adequately characterizing the lowest renewable energy resource availability period.

Conclusion

The Analysis Group writes: “The variability of meteorological conditions that govern the output from wind and solar resources presents a fundamental challenge to relying on those resources to meet electricity demand.”  I agree completely.

In Texas there were seven cold snaps similar to the one that caused the outages in the last 60 years so the frequency of occurrence is 8 divided by 60 or 0.13 events per year.  New York’s LOLE standard is 0.1 events per year so the NYISO planning process is supposed to address this kind of event.  The relevant question for New York is how often do we expect a multi-day winter wind lull.  My answer to that is every year but the intensity varies.  For example, from 2/14/21:2300 until 2/15/21:1600 there were 15 of 17 hours when the wind output was less than 10% of the nameplate capacity and all of New York’s on-shore wind turbines produced a total of 765 MWh for a capacity factor of 2.6%.  This period wasn’t as intense as the Resilience Study conditions and I did not determine the duration of the wind lull but it was just a random choice.  We won’t know how often and how intense these periods are until an analysis specifically designed to evaluate New York’s renewable resource potential is completed using fine-resolution meteorological monitoring data.

As to whether New York’s reliability planning process adequately protects New Yorkers I must reserve judgement.  NYISO has the responsibility for this protection but can only guess at what the CLCPA process will propose as its resource mix.  Until that time, they cannot do the evaluation work necessary to determine future reliability so it is unfair to pass judgement.  I will note however that the Analysis Group and NYISO have identified serious challenges that must be overcome to make a reliable system that meets the CLCPA mandates.

In my opinion, those challenges will prove to be impossible to meet without a marked degradation of reliability.  Future posts will explain why I believe that to be the case.