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Minimizing The Impact Of EVs On The Grid | Earth Wise

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Two current trends are the increasing reliance on renewable sources in the electric grid and the increasing use of electric vehicles.  According to some projections, these trends could lead to the need for costly new power plants to meet peak loads in the evening when cars are plugged in to charge.  Overproduction of power from solar farms during the daytime would require expanded energy storage capacity so as not to waste all that generating capacity.

A new study by MIT researchers has found that it is possible to mitigate or eliminate these problems without the need for advanced technological systems and complex infrastructure.  The key elements of the strategy are the strategic placement of charging stations and the practice of delaying the onset of home charging.

Better availability of charging stations at workplaces could help to soak up peak power being produced at midday from solar power installations.  In general, placing of charging stations in strategic ways, rather than letting them spring up just anywhere, could make a big difference.

Delaying home charging to times when there is less electricity demand could be accomplished with the use of a simple app that would estimate the time to begin the charging cycle so that it finishes charging just before the car is needed the next day.  Since different people have different schedules and needs, by delaying the onset of charging appropriately, not everyone will be charging at the same time, and therefore the peak in demand would be smoothed out.

There are substantial government funds earmarked for charging infrastructure and creating that infrastructure in suitably strategic ways could make a big difference in supporting EV adoption and supporting the power grid.

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Minimizing electric vehicles’ impact on the grid

Photo, posted July 2, 2020, courtesy of Ivan Radic via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Community Solar On The Rise | Earth Wise

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Community solar is a way for people who can’t put solar on their own roofs to still take advantage of its benefits.  Whether they can’t afford to install their own panels, have too much shade on their roof, or don’t even own a home, community solar is another way to participate in green energy.

Community solar – also called “shared solar” or “solar gardens” – is a kind of development in which consumers can subscribe to a large solar installation in their area and receive credits on their monthly utility bills for their share of the solar electricity produced.

The large majority of community solar installations are in six states:  Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York.  After substantial growth in community solar in 2022, New York now is the national leader, thanks to initiatives by the state government and the nonprofit sector.  Some programs focus on giving low-income households access to solar.  As of last fall, New York had over 728 community solar projects online.

One should understand that electrons are indistinguishable.  The power generated by a community solar installation is not piped directly to subscribers’ homes.  It just goes into the grid.  Subscribers get credit for their share of the power, but that is essentially a matter of bookkeeping, not physics.

The federal government now has $7 billion that can be used for community solar as part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund within the Inflation Reduction Act enacted last August.  The EPA plans to award up to 60 grants to assist projects deploying residential and community solar.  Research firm Wood Mackenzie forecasts the community solar market will double by 2027.

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Community Solar Is About to Get a Surge in Federal Funding. So What Is Community Solar?

Photo, posted November 18, 2008, courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Floating Solar | Earth Wise

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The largest floating solar array in Europe, 12,000 panels sitting on top of the Alqueva Reservoir in Portugal – will come online in July.  Installing floating solar arrays, which are sometimes called “floatovoltaics”, produce renewable energy while shielding significant expanses of water from the sun’s heat.  These dual benefits have led to floatovoltaic projects in multiple countries around the world.

The city of Cohoes, in New York’s Albany County, has proposed an 8,000-panel floating solar array on the city reservoir.  Federal funding of $3 million for the project was obtained by local Congressman Paul Tonko and, in May, utility National Grid donated $750,000 towards the project.  Engineering work will shortly be underway on the 3.2 megawatt grid of solar panels.

The city of Cohoes pumps its drinking water supplies from the Mohawk River into the 10-acre, manmade reservoir.  The surface of the water is the largest undeveloped open space in the city.  Such reservoirs constitute prime sites for solar arrays since the space cannot be used for other purposes.  In addition, covering the water’s surface with the solar panels greatly reduces evaporation and helps to inhibit the growth of algae.

There are currently only 14 floating solar arrays in the U.S. and all of those are privately owned.  The Cohoes municipal array will be the first of its kind.  There are nearly 500 reservoirs in New York State and 24,000 nationwide that could be sites for floating arrays.   Drought-stricken Western reservoirs like Lake Mead and Lake Powell could be ideal locations of solar arrays.  Those reservoirs lose huge amounts of water to evaporation.  There are estimates that floating arrays could provide as much as 10% of the nation’s electrical needs.

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National Grid gives Cohoes $750,000 for floating solar array project

Photo, posted August 25, 2010, courtesy of Martin Abegglen via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Record Renewable Use In California | Earth Wise

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California, the most populous state, is the second largest electricity user.  Only Texas, the second most populous state, uses more energy, in part because it consumes large amounts in refining fossil fuels. Overall, California uses about 8% of the electricity generated in the U.S.

Thus, it was a significant milestone when briefly, on April 3, a record 97.6% of the energy on California’s statewide grid came from renewable energy resources.  (The previous record of 96.4% was set just a few days earlier).

Renewable energy’s share of the power typically peaks in the spring when mild temperatures keep demand relatively low and higher sun angles drive greater solar energy production.

On April 8, a record peak solar power production was set at 13,628 megawatts just after noon.  On March 4, the state set an all-time wind generation record of 6,265 megawatts. 

California now has over 15,000 MW of grid-connected solar power and 8,000 MW of wind.  Another 600 MW of solar and 200 MW of wind are coming online by June.  The state also has about 2,700 MW of energy storage online and that will climb to 4,000 MW by June.

In 2020, 34.5% of the state’s retail electricity sales came from wind and solar sources.  Adding in hydropower and nuclear power, nearly 60% of the state’s electricity came from non-fossil fuel.  Despite the effects of drought on hydropower generation and the impact of the pandemic on the pace of renewable energy projects, California continues its dramatic transition to sustainable energy.

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Solar and wind notched records as renewables met California’s energy demand

Photo, posted September 20, 2016, courtesy of Tom Brewster Photography / BLM via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Offshore Wind Ramping Up In The Northeast | Earth Wise

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There is a growing number of large offshore wind projects in the pipeline in the Northeast.  The large Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts began construction in November.  Contracts for the Empire Wind and Beacon Wind projects in New York were finalized in January.

The first offshore wind project to begin construction in New York broke ground in February.  South Fork Wind, a 132-megawatt project located about 19 miles southeast of Block Island, Rhode Island, is expected to come online in 2023.

New York’s goal is to develop 9 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035 and the state is investing $500 million to set up manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure for offshore wind.  Major facilities will be built in the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal and in the Port of Albany.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts recently announced that the site of the last coal-fired power plant in that state will become the home of its first offshore wind manufacturing facility.

The Brayton Point power plant in Somerset was shut down in 2017 after more than 50 years of operation.  The site, located on Mount Hope Bay near Providence, Rhode Island, will host a $200 million facility for the manufacturing of undersea transmission lines used to connect the grid to offshore wind turbines.  The first of these will be the Vineyard Wind’s Commonwealth Wind project, which will generate 1.2 gigawatts of electricity.

Both New York and Massachusetts are investing in the opportunities afforded by the soon-to-be booming offshore wind industry.  With numerous windfarms planned up and down the Atlantic coast, manufacturing, maintenance, and support infrastructure will be big business for the two states.

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Work starts on New York’s first offshore wind project

Former Coal Power Site in Massachusetts to Become Offshore Wind Plant

Photo, posted May 13, 2011, courtesy of SSE via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Upgrading The U.S. Power Grid | Earth Wise

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The Department of Energy has launched the Building a Better Grid Initiative to accelerate the development of new power transmission lines.  The initiative aims to upgrade the nation’s grid, connect more Americans to clean electricity, and reliably move clean electricity to where it is needed most. The initiative is a part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill that was signed into law in November.

Under the initiative, DOE will identify critical national transmission needs and support the buildout of long-distance, high-voltage transmission facilities as well as support transmission planning, financing mechanisms, transmission-related research and development, and efforts on energy justice.

DOE will deploy more than $20 billion in federal financing that includes more than $10 billion in grants to states, Tribes, and utilities to enhance grid resilience and prevent power outages.  It will also coordinate with other agencies to streamline permitting for transmission infrastructure. 

Seventy percent of the US grid’s transmission lines and power transformers are over 25 years old.  There is also insufficient transmission capacity, especially for transmission that facilitates transfer of power across regions.  The current grid is vulnerable to harsh weather and needs improved reliability.

Providing more transmission capacity in areas where it doesn’t exist today is essential for the integration of more large-scale renewable generation sources into the grid.  The national goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035 is not just about decarbonizing the generation sources.  A substantial upgrade to the transmission infrastructure is necessary and the Building a Better Grid Initiative is a major step in the right direction.

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The big upgrade to the US power grid is kicking off

Photo, posted February 2, 2020, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Avoiding Blackouts With Renewable Energy | Earth Wise

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There are some people who worry that an electric grid heavily dependent upon intermittent sources like solar and wind power may be more susceptible to blackouts.  According to a new study by Stanford University, these fears are misplaced.

The study, published in the journal Renewable Energy, found that an energy system running on wind, water, and solar, when combined with energy storage, avoids blackouts, and lowers energy requirements and consumer costs.  In addition, implementing such a system would create millions of jobs, improve people’s health, and reduce land requirements.

The study focused on the stability in all U.S. grid regions as well as individual states based on the requirement that all electricity is provided by clean and renewable sources. No fossil fuel use, bioenergy, blue hydrogen, or even nuclear power were included in the modeling.  Critics of such a shift in the energy system point to grid blackouts during extreme weather events in California in 2020 and Texas in 2021 as evidence that renewable sources can’t be trusted.  But in both cases, renewable energy was not found to be any more vulnerable than other sources.

The study looked at the costs of the transition – which would be substantial – but found that it would pay for itself fairly quickly based on energy cost savings alone.

A significant finding of the study was that long-duration batteries were neither necessary nor helpful for grid stability.  That stability could be obtained by linking together currently available short-duration batteries.  Interconnecting larger and larger geographic regions would make the power system smoother and more reliable.  Overall, intelligent management of the electric grid can result in a reliable and clean power system.

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Stanford researchers point the way to avoiding blackouts with clean, renewable energy

Photo, posted October 17, 2016, courtesy of B Sarangi via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Big Year For European Solar Power | Earth Wise

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The installed solar capacity in the European Union grew by 34% in 2021.  This means that Europe is on pace to quadruple its solar energy generation by 2030.

During 2021, the 27 countries of the European Union installed 25.9 gigawatts of new solar capacity, compared with 19.3 gigawatts in 2020.  This was the biggest year yet for solar growth, beating out the previous record of 21.4 gigawatts set in 2011.  A gigawatt of solar electricity is enough to power about 300,000 homes, so the 2021 installations can produce enough electricity for about 8 million households.  The European Union is home to about 450 million people.

SolarPower Europe, an industry trade organization, projects that solar energy capacity in the EU will increase from the current 165 gigawatts to 328 gigawatts in 2025 and as much as 672 gigawatts by 2030.

The EU has the goal of generating 45% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, which is an important milestone in achieving climate neutrality by 2050. 

Challenges still facing the EU include obstacles to permitting, electricity grid bottlenecks, and assurance of solar panel supplies.  Much of Europe’s supply of solar panels comes from China.  The EU wants to boost its own production of solar panels to 20 gigawatts per year by 2025.

The US currently has about 113 GW of installed solar capacity and is projected to install about 300 gigawatts of new capacity over the next 10 years.

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For the European Union, 2021 Was a Banner Year for Solar Power

Photo, posted May 3, 2007, courtesy of Bernd Sieker via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Better Batteries For The Grid | Earth Wise

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As more and more solar and wind power is added to the electric grid, the need for ways to store the energy produced increases.  Using batteries for this purpose is increasingly popular, mostly driven by the improving economics of the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles as well as consumer electronics.

There are other battery technologies besides lithium ion that are not suitable for use in automobiles and cell phones but have potential advantages for the grid.  One such technology is molten sodium batteries.  These batteries have high energy density, a high efficiency of charge and discharge, and a long cycle life.  They are fabricated with inexpensive materials and they are especially suitable for large-scale grid energy storage because their economics improves with increasing size.

A drawback of molten sodium batteries is that they operate at 520-660 degrees Fahrenheit, which adds cost and complexity.  Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have designed a new class of molten sodium batteries that operates at a much cooler 230 degrees Fahrenheit instead.

The battery chemistry that works at 550 degrees doesn’t work at 230 degrees. The Sandia group developed something they call a catholyte, which is a liquid mixture of two salts, in this case sodium iodide and gallium chloride.  (Gallium chloride is rather costly, so the researchers hope to replace it in a future version of the battery).

By lowering the operating temperature, there are multiple cost savings including the use of less expensive materials, the requirement for less insulation, and the use of thinner wire.

This work is the first demonstration of long-term, stable cycling of a low-temperature molten-sodium battery.  The hope is to have a battery technology that requires fewer cells, fewer connections between cells, and an overall lower cost to store electricity for the grid.

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Sandia designs better batteries for grid-scale energy storage

Photo, posted March 14, 2021, courtesy of Michael Mueller via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Green Light For Commercial-Scale Offshore Wind | Earth Wise

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The Biden administration has given final approval to a project it hopes will usher in a new era of wind energy in the United States.  The greenlight was announced by the Department of the Interior on May 11.

The Vineyard Wind project intends to install up to 84 huge wind turbines about 12 nautical miles off the cost of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.  In total, Vineyard Wind could generate 800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 400,000 homes.  The construction project will create about 3,600 jobs.  The $2.8 billion project is a joint venture of the energy firms Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.

The idea of a wind farm off the Massachusetts coast was conceived 20 years ago but ran into repeated setbacks, delays, and well-funded opposition from waterfront property owners concerned about what will ultimately be the barely discernable sight of tiny blips on the distant horizon.  The Trump administration moved to cancel the permitting process for Vineyard Wind, but the Biden administration revived the project in March as part of its greater efforts to tackle climate change.

Electricity generated by Vineyard Wind will travel via cables buried six feet below the ocean floor to Cape Cod, where they will connect to a substation and feed into the New England grid.  The project is expected to begin delivering wind-powered electricity in 2023.

The Biden administration says that it intends to fast-track permits for other wind projects off the Atlantic Coast and that it will offer $3 billion in federal loan guarantees for offshore wind projects and invest in upgrades to ports across the United States to support wind turbine construction.

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Biden Administration Approves Nation’s First Major Offshore Wind Farm

Photo, posted February 8, 2007, courtesy of mmatsuura via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Deep Learning And Dirty Air | Earth Wise

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Poor air quality is a major global problem.  According to the World Health Organization, exposure to air pollution is linked to the premature deaths of an estimated seven million people every year.  In fact, 9 out of 10 people breathe air that contains more pollutants than what the WHO considers safe.  Air pollution is the fourth largest threat to human health, trailing only high blood pressure, dietary risks, and smoking.

But predicting pollution levels at a given place and time remains challenging.  According to a new study recently published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, scientists are turning to deep learning to improve air quality estimates. 

According to researchers, satellite observations and ground observations both measure air pollution, but both have major limitations.  For example, satellites may collect data at the same time and at the same location each day, but they miss how emissions may vary throughout the day.  Ground-based observations from weather stations do continuously collect data, but they only do so in a limited number of locations.    

As a result, scientists have turned to deep learning – a type of machine learning – to analyze the relationship between satellite and ground-based observations of nitrogen dioxide around Los Angeles.  Nitrogen dioxide is associated with emissions from traffic and power plants.  The researchers were able to rely on the learned relationship to take daily satellite observations and create hourly estimates of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide levels in approximately three mile grids.     

According to the research team, this study could be repeated for other greenhouse gases, and applied to different cities and regions – or even whole continents. 

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Scientists turn to deep learning to improve air quality forecasts

Air Pollution

Photo, posted November 4, 2019, courtesy of Ninara via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

How Green Are Electric Cars? | Earth Wise

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Environmental groups, governments, and automakers are all promoting electric vehicles as an important technology to combat climate change.  For example, GM plans to stop selling gas-powered cars by 2035 and Volvo intends to be all-electric by 2030.

There are still those who question how green electric vehicles actually are.  All products and technologies do have their environmental impacts.  In general, today’s electric cars produce significantly fewer planet-warming emissions than gas-powered cars, but there are factors that affect the results for specific vehicles.

The biggest issue is the source of electricity used to charge up the cars.  In places where coal still provides a substantial fraction of electric generation, electric cars don’t fare as well.  But coal’s contributions to the grid are declining rapidly and even cleaner fossil fuels like natural gas are gradually being replaced by green generation from wind and solar power.  If the grid was entirely carbon-free, then there would be no emissions associated with operating the vehicle.

MIT has created an interactive online tool that incorporates a comprehensive set of factors contributing to the emissions associated with cars:  what it takes to manufacture the cars, how much gasoline conventional cars burn, and where the electricity to charge electric vehicles comes from.

The tool provides information like the average amount of carbon dioxide emitted for every mile driven over a car’s lifetime. 

Results will vary with location and various other vehicle factors, but in the great majority of cases, electric cars are much greener than gasoline cars, and as the grid becomes greener, the cars will become greener as well.

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CarbonCounter 2021

How Green Are Electric Vehicles?

Photo, posted January 29, 2020, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Upstate Energy Storage | Earth Wise

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In August, the New York Power Authority announced the start of construction on one of the largest battery energy storage projects in the nation.  Located in Franklin County at the very top of New York State, the project will comprise 20 MW of lithium ion battery storage that will help the state meet its peak power needs by absorbing excess generation that can be discharged later when the grid demands it.

The Northern New York region gets more than 80% of its electricity supply from renewable sources, including the St. Lawrence hydropower project and more than 650 MW of wind generation.  Having the ability to store some of this renewable energy for later delivery will help to eliminate transmission constraints that can prevent energy from being delivered to consumers.

The battery storage facility is one of two such large systems in the state.  The other one is a 20 MW battery storage system developed by Key Capture Energy in Stillwater in Saratoga County.  That project, which was funded by NYSERDA under the state’s Bulk Storage incentive program, is connected to the wholesale transmission network and is a revenue source for Key Capture, an independent utility-scale battery storage developer based in Albany.

The new storage project’s location is an ideal opportunity to spotlight the value of energy storage given the proximity of the hydropower project and extensive wind resources.  Being able to store renewable energy will improve transmission of the state’s electric power to downstate markets as well as help meet the state’s goals for reducing its carbon footprint and increasing its reliance upon renewable energy.

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Construction begins on NYPA’s second large-scale storage project

Photo courtesy of ceedub13, CC BY 2.0.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

100% Renewables Does Not Necessarily Mean Carbon-Free

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Hundreds of companies around the world have committed to use 100% renewable energy in order to fight climate change.  But a new study from Stanford University points out that 100% renewable energy does not necessarily mean 100% carbon-free energy.

The problem is that the carbon content of electricity can vary a lot over the course of a day in many locations.  Using yearly averages can overstate the carbon reductions associated with a particular power source, in some cases by significant amounts.

Suppose a California company purchases or generates enough solar power to match 100% or more of their electricity use over the course of the year.  In reality, it may generate far more electricity than it uses during the afternoon and sell the excess.  Then, at nighttime, it purchases power from the grid, which would be far more carbon-intensive if it involves the burning of fossil fuels.

But in Britain, for example, the situation is very different.  With a high reliance on wind power, grid carbon intensity is actually lower at night.  So very different consumption patterns over the course of a day would be less carbon-intensive.

If sufficient energy storage capacity can be implemented into the grid as well as suitable long-range transmission, these time-based fluctuations in the electricity supply could be ironed out.  Until such time, electricity consumers need to evaluate the environmental benefits of their renewable strategies on an hourly basis rather than using averages.  And the best strategies are entirely dependent upon the characteristics of the specific grid they interact with.  The need for this kind of analysis will only grow as renewable generation expands.  Transparent, precise and meaningful carbon accounting is necessary.

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100% renewables doesn’t equal zero-carbon energy, and the difference is growing

Photo, posted January 29, 2013, courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Energy Vault

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A potentially transformative utility-scale energy storage technology has won a 2019 “World Changing Idea” award from Fast Company magazine.  Known as the Energy Vault, the technology seeks to be the successor to the granddaddy of grid energy storage:  pumped hydro.

Shifting water between higher and lower reservoirs is still basis of the vast majority of global grid storage capacity.  But it is limited both by its unique location needs and by environmental regulations.

A start-up company also called Energy Vault and based in both Switzerland and Southern California has come up with an extremely creative grid storage concept.  The technology consists of a six-armed crane that stacks huge concrete blocks using a currently available source of cheap and abundant grid electricity, and then drops them down to generate electricity when needed.

The system is said to operate at about 90% efficiency and can deliver long-duration storage at half the prevailing price on the market today.

A full-scale Energy Vault plant, called an Evie, would look like a 35-story crane with six arms, surrounded by thousands of manmade concrete blocks, weighing nearly 40 tons each.  When charging, the plant will stack the blocks around itself higher and higher in a Babel-like tower.  To discharge, the cranes drop the blocks down, generating power from the speedy descent.  This configuration can deliver 4 megawatts of power and store about 35 megawatt-hours of energy.

There isn’t even a factory needed.  The company would deliver a crane from a manufacturer.  The crane will then assemble the blocks onsite using recycled concrete.  Operation is then fully automated.  The system is expected to run for 30 or 40 years.

So far there is only a one-seventh scale demo unit in Switzerland.  But this is a very intriguing idea.

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Energy Vault Wins World Changing Idea Award 2019 from Fast Company for Transformative Utility-Scale Energy Storage Technology

Photo courtesy of Energy Vault.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Utility-Scale Solar On The Rise

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According to research from Goldman Sachs, utility-scale solar power capacity is expected to grow by double digits globally over the next two years.  The growth will be driven by expanding use of the technology in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and China.

Solar power is the world’s fastest growing source of electricity generation and is slowly taking market share from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas.  The transition is being driven by a combination of continuously lower prices for solar power and the impact of policies aimed at reducing emissions.

Utility-scale solar is defined as installations designed solely to feed electricity into the grid, in contrast to smaller-scale residential or commercial building units.  There are now solar farms larger than half a gigawatt in generating capacity.  According to the Goldman report, global utility-scale solar installations will reach 108 gigawatts in 2019, up 12% over the previous year, and will then grow another 10% to 119 gigawatts in 2020.

When residential and other smaller installations are included, most analysts expect global solar power capacity to soon hit 600 gigawatts.  To put this in perspective, the global capacity only reached 100 gigawatts in 2012 and was actually less than 10 gigawatts in 2007.

Even more dramatic than the growth of solar installations is the reduction in solar cost, and the two are obviously closely related.  Solar panel costs have dropped from around $70 per watt of electricity generated in 1980 to 36 cents per watt currently in the United States.  When favorable policies both from governments and related to corporate sustainability targets are added to the mix, the booming growth in solar power is easy to understand.

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Large-scale solar power set for double-digit growth: Goldman Sachs

Photo, posted March 7, 2019, courtesy of Hedgerow Inc via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Lots Of Renewable Energy In Germany

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As the contributions to the electrical grid from renewable sources continue to rise, people have expressed concerns about what might happen as sources like wind and solar energy become dominant.  Not many years ago, there was a common concern that if wind and solar contributed more than about a quarter of the energy mix, the grid might become unstable or unreliable.  Theoretical models looked at this situation but there hadn’t been much real-world data to look at.

One place where there is now real-world data on a large scale is Germany.  Germany has been aggressively deploying both wind and solar energy for years as part of a national initiative called the Energiewende or energy transition.  Germany recently increased its renewable energy goal from 55% to 65% by the year 2030.   The increased share of renewables takes into account the decommissioning of aging nuclear and coal power plants.

A demonstration of the feasibility of such a goal occurred in the first week of March when renewable sources actually supplied nearly 65% of Germany’s electricity.  Wind power alone provided nearly half of the country’s power.  As a result, fossil fuel plants ran at a minimum output and nuclear facilities were shut down at night.

Germany has a very large domestic coal industry and indeed lignite coal generated an average of 24% of the country’s power last year.   However, recently that share was down to just 12%.  During that first week of March, solar power contributed more than 5% of Germany’s electricity, biomass 7.6%, and hydropower 3.5%.

While the week with 65% renewable set a record, the ongoing trend is very positive as well.  In 2018, renewable energy generated an average of more than 40% of Germany’s electricity.

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Renewables Generated a Record 65 Percent of Germany’s Electricity Last Week

Photo, posted April 28, 2012, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

More Renewables Without Storage In Texas

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Texas has a Texas-sized appetite for electricity and relies most heavily on natural gas, coal and nuclear power to get it.  But in recent times, wind power has grown tremendously in the Lone Star State and it has already leapfrogged past nuclear power.  Coal could be the next domino to fall.

In the past few years, solar power has become competitive with wind in terms of price.  Texas is a large, coastal state in the sunny southwestern U.S. and has significant solar resources.  As a result, the amount of solar power in Texas is now growing rapidly.

In order for a combination of solar and wind power to address the bulk of electricity demand in Texas, there needs to be a way to provide reliability that these intermittent sources don’t necessarily provide.  Energy storage is a solution that ultimately is likely to be part of most electricity grids, but currently it is still expensive on a utility scale.

A new study from Rice University looked at the complementarity of solar and wind power in Texas.  Complementarity refers to balancing the output of solar and wind systems.  The peak performance of wind and solar occurs at very different times in different regions of the state.  The study suggests that the right mix of solar and wind systems in the right parts of Texas could provide a continuously reliable energy system.  On both a yearly and daily basis, wind and solar power resources in Texas complement each other in terms of peak performance.  It is a matter of locating the solar power and wind farms in the right places.

With the Texas solar industry really starting to boom, there is a real opportunity to integrate far more renewable energy into the Texas grid.

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More Renewables with Less Energy Storage: Texas Shows How

Photo, posted June 8, 2018, courtesy of Laura Lee Dooley via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Support For A Green New Deal

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Shortly after the November election, activists held a sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office calling for a Green New Deal – a plan to transform the U.S. energy economy in order to mitigate the effects of climate change as well as address various issues of economic justice.   While a number of Congress people have pledged to back the creation of a select committee to develop such a plan, it remains a political football and it remains to be seen whether anything will come of the idea.

There appears to be much less reticence on the part of voters, at least according to a survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication at the end of November.  The survey gave a brief explanation of the Green New Deal and asked respondents “How much do you support or oppose this idea?”

The result was that 81% of registered voters either “strongly” or “somewhat” supported it.  Support was stronger among Democrats at 92%, but a majority of Republicans were also in favor.  Some 57% of self-identified conservative Republicans even thought it was a good idea.

The Green New Deal would accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.  The goal would be to generate 100% of the nation’s electricity from renewable sources within the next 10 years; upgrade the nation’s energy grid, buildings, and transportation infrastructure; increase energy efficiency; invest in green technology research and development; and provide training for jobs in the new green economy.

Even though most Americans have strong support for the ideas of the Green New Deal, it is quite uncertain whether such an initiative could become a reality, given that very influential special interest groups – notably the fossil fuel industry – will be fighting it tooth and nail.

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81% of Voters Support a Green New Deal, Survey Finds

Photo, posted March 19, 2012, courtesy of Kate Ausburn via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Water-Based Battery

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The transition from fossil fuel-based power plants to clean, renewable energy sources is accelerating as both wind and solar power get cheaper and increasingly become cost-competitive with traditional power sources.   The biggest stumbling block both energy sources face is that they cannot always supply power on demand but require the sun to shine and the wind to blow.

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WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)