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demand-side resources

Leveling the Skateboard Curve with a Demand Side Attack

By Energy Rant No Comments
NERC sounds alarm on solar tripping in sobering summer reliability report, May 19, 2022, UtilityDive.com. This seems like a timely sequel to last week’s Blistering Wind and Solar Energy post, in which I summarized the results of a renewables integration study performed by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator. The blisters represent pockets of excessive renewable energy generation and the “very different reliability risks than are experienced today,” as described in the MISO report. Electronics provide voltage and frequency control from solar panel generation. When the solar tiger grows from a cub that we had a few years ago into the…
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Xcel Energy Spending

The BQDM Rounding Error Solution

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week we took care of the seals, mountains, earthquakes, and crickets. This week we are advancing the discussion to cover the realities of demand-side management benefits. I know what it’s like to be short of time, all the time, so here is a super summary of last week’s post to bring you up to speed: Traditional efficiency programs, including 99% of those functioning today, get their savings by giving money to people in exchange for buying efficient widgets – like flipping sardines at clapping seals. Programs are designed around getting widgets installed and finding the next widget to fill…
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Modern Efficiency and the Disappearing Clapping Seals

By Energy Rant One Comment
A couple of weeks ago I was directed to an article in AESP’s magazine discussing ways to improve efficiency program cost-effectiveness.  Although it wasn’t about avoided-cost and benefit-cost tests, it provides good stuff for elaborating in this blog. “Cost effective” in the context of the article means lowering the cost per unit of energy or demand saved.  Certainly, this helps to improve benefit-cost ratios, for most of the convoluted tests, that must have been concocted by graduate students under the influence of mind-altering chemicals.  Boy, do I wish we could dial back forty years so we could simply compare the…
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