Skip to main content
search
Tag

regional transmission organizations

Sep 27
Love3

Nuclear Power over White Rabbits for a Reliable, Affordable, Zero-Carbon Future

By Energy Rant No Comments
I update my electrification slides for the Wisconsin Public Utilities Institute’s Utility Basics course every year with the latest technologies, sales data, and energy, commodity, and equipment/vehicle prices. Year over year, electricity prices at my home have increased 15%, for now, based on fuel alone. That is minuscule compared to what is proposed in the Northeast. EnergyCentral.com linked to a Patch article that said Eversource Massachusetts is filing for a 38% hike on top of a 22% jump last winter. National Grid is filing for an unprecedented (in my world) “increase from last winter's 14.82 cents per kilowatt-hour rate to…
Read More
Jun 14
Love2

Energy Inflation and Resetting the Dislocated Shoulder

By Energy Rant No Comments
As of last week, year-to-date energy prices are up 58% for NYMEX crude oil, 91% for NYMEX gasoline, and only 39% for retail gasoline. Retail prices seem to have a long way to climb as the high NYMEX prices make their way to the local gasoline pump. This week we look at how inflation is hitting our industry of efficiency and electrification and what might lie ahead. Let’s start with one-year price changes for a basket of commodities and roll forward with that. Diesel Fuel is Food Diesel fuel is used to transport seed, chemicals, fertilizers, and equipment to the…
Read More
May 24
Love2

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…
Read More
Mar 22
Love1

P4P’s Incompatibility with DEI

By Energy Rant No Comments
When I first heard the term “value proposition” years ago, I thought, what the heck does this obtuse phrase mean? In this context, value is a measure of desirability, and proposition means proposal. Google tells us that value proposition is “an innovation, service, or feature intended to make a company or product attractive to customers.” Oh, you mean selling point: “a feature of a product for sale that makes it attractive to customers.” Wikipedia adds another term, “In marketing, the unique selling proposition, also called the unique selling point or the unique value proposition in the business model canvas, is…
Read More
Nov 04
Love0
RTO and ISO Map

Good, Perfect, and Real Carbon Targets – Part 3

By Energy Rant No Comments
In this week's Energy Rant, we're covering part three of good, perfect, and real carbon targets.In Part I of this series, we examined how various storage technologies work, their pluses, and minuses. In Part II, we put numbers to generation and storage technologies, including maximum power, duration of discharge (for storage), cost per megawatt and megawatt-hour to build and operate, and a slew of other great stuff. In Part III, we will size up the numbers from Part II to actual grid demand. The objective is to provide scale to see what we would need to pair high percentages of…
Read More
May 01
Love0
Wind Production Tax Credit

Capacity Market v Energy Market – What’s the Diff?

By Energy Rant 3 Comments
We are taking a break from exergy this week, and we are going to examine what is happening in distorted electricity markets around the country. This will be somewhat of a sequel to Regulating Deregulation and Wind's Other Big Subsidy. Too much of a good thing, or as they say, unintended consequences, is pushing the grid in some places toward instability. By the way, I scoff at the term “unintended consequences.” There are only two types of consequences: intended and ignorant ones.Utility Dive notes that Texas (Electricity Reliability Council of Texas – ERCOT) and the Southwest Power Pool are the…
Read More

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

Subscribe for Expert Insights
Close Menu