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load management

Aug 28
Love44

Modern Electric Rates from the Slide Rule Era

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week, we looked at Total Resource Cost (TRC) tests that were developed decades ago to put a high value on avoided source energy costs. That was right for the time, but not today. I demonstrated that energy costs, mostly dominated by natural gas, are near historic lows, while zero-energy-cost renewables supply more electricity than coal-fired generation. Of course, renewable sources have zero source-energy consumption. Yet, utility commissioners are laser-focused on keeping electricity prices in check and maintaining the reliability of the electric grid. Electric Rate Basics Like the TRC, most utility rates (tariffs) are stuck in the 1970s. I…
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Aug 14
Love41

Unheard of – Two Factors Exacerbated Elliot Power Shortages

By Energy Rant No Comments
The Energy Rant features content you will not find anywhere else, and this week we have blazing examples featuring two unpublished (go ahead and look) contributions to the grid crisis of Christmas weekend 2022 and winter storm Elliot. A few weeks ago, Utility Dive reported that gas-fired generation represented 70% of the PJM unplanned outages during Elliot. That represented about a quarter of PJM’s capacity. The days of interest include Friday, December 23, and December 24. Here were the generation mixes for those days. Hmmm. What didn’t fail? Coal and Nuclear. Why? Because they each come with months of fuel…
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Jun 14
Love33
Image shows graphic of a portfolio and text "Reorganize Portfolios and Redirect Incentives for 10X Impacts."

Reorganize Portfolios and Redirect Incentives for 10X Impacts

By Energy Rant No Comments
A couple weeks ago, I quickly read this article, Cracking the Code - Aligned Incentives, on EnergyCentral.com. It concerns incentives for high-performance employees, but my read was about incentives for efficiency programs. It applies to that too.  Myopic Focus I wrote about short-term focus many times, including last week – if your lips are chapped, stop licking them – short-term gain for longer-term pain. Efficiency portfolio administrators, typically utilities, want long-lived measures, deep energy savings, and instant savings. The demand for instant savings is like harvesting the carrots at day 30 rather than at day 70 maturity. SEM Myopathy As…
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Jan 17
Love12

Decarb Warriors

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week I read a statement from a retail energy provider. It said, “100% green rates, always.” It doesn’t work that way. An aggregation of power sources, including renewable, nuclear, coal, and natural gas, are supplying the grid at any given time. The little electrons aren’t tagged by source and routed to any given customer(s). Second, even if that were impossible, er, I mean, possible, it’s shoving more hydrocarbon electricity onto someone else. In this way, it’s the same as the net zero con. Cheap but Unreliable Generating renewable power is easy and inexpensive, but as described in the net-zero…
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Dec 13
Love6

Demand Management for Good

By Energy Rant No Comments
The last few posts featured an overview and complete report card on load management to get beyond net zero to real zero, a term I discovered last week. As promised, I will describe some permanent peak load reduction opportunities this week. Like many efficiency solutions, blocking and tackling approaches are the most effective. Peak Load Reduction – New Construction I’m going to stick with some big hitters. A person could write forever on this topic. Home Envelope Single-family homes must be super-insulated to minimize heating loads in cool/cold climates. The cartoon below provides a nice example of super-insulated versus code…
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Dec 06
Love6

A Ten-Dimensional Demand Response Examination

By Energy Rant No Comments
This is the third installment of this series in demand response (DR) and load management. In the first post, Curing Net Zero described why net zero is not the answer: everyone over-generates with solar or wind simultaneously, and later, everyone needs power from something else simultaneously. The second post, Demand Response Primer, gave an overview of families and specific types of load management. This time we’re looking at my scorecard of these DR resources. Here is my report card, including critical factors for each DR resource, followed by discussions of what it means. What does this poppycock mean, Jeff? Peak…
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Apr 12
Love1

Utility Relationships and Hookup Puns

By Energy Rant No Comments
I attended Peak Load Management Alliance’s 45th Conference in Baltimore last week, where I captured a quote that went something like this: the difference between energy efficiency and demand response is that demand response is a relationship between utility and customer. In contrast, efficiency is a transaction or two followed by the customer and utility parting ways. I thought, hmm, so it’s like renting an apartment versus a hotel for a night or two – or a long-term relationship where two people actually know each other’s names versus a hookup. Ok. Hookups Most of us reading this cannot relate to…
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Oct 27
Love0

Timing is Everything

By The Big Why of Evaluation No Comments
Last month’s post discussed the need for proper accounting of energy sources to accurately quantify carbon emissions. With that as a background, we can now dive into the importance of the timing of energy use and savings. The carbon content of electricity is both temporal and locational – some areas and time periods have cleaner electricity than others due to the generation mix in that place at that time. One kilowatt of electricity is not equal to another – we need to consider how and when it was produced and used. Setting the Stage Our field of energy efficiency has historically focused…
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Apr 21
Love0
avoided costs

Answer: Avoided Cost – What’s the Question?

By Energy Rant No Comments
“Can I ask a question?” My response to that, in good company, is, “You just did. Would you like another chance?” Now that, my friends, is a paradox. As you ought to know, I’m preparing a mind-blowing three-hour course on decarbonization for AESP’s Spring Training. One conclusion: 100% decarb is going to take decades and it will be expensive and disruptive. A lot of progress has been made, but it has been easy for reasons I will explain next following this chart, which shows how decarb cost will soar as the percent reduction increases. Average CO2 emissions per kWh produced…
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Apr 14
Love0
US Energy Consumption

Combined Heat and Power – a Serious Decarb Weapon

By Energy Rant No Comments
A few weeks ago, we reviewed electricity storage technologies, barriers, and issues. One storage technology is the lowly lead-acid battery, which forms the backbone of uninterruptible power supplies for data centers. They are inexpensive with readily available materials, are 100% recyclable, and therefore, they get no attention. Why? Elon Musk, the ultimate hype provocateur. What happened to the PowerWall, by the way? Disruption of rational thought? A web search of “annual Powerwall sales” results in nothing but distantly tangential content. Similarly, the utility industry, our industry, other companies, and people chase the flashy objects (squirrel!) to obtain decarbonization targets. Flash…
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