Renewable Energy Archives - Michaels Energy

Oct 22

Herding Chickens Through Modern Energyscapes

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

A recent study, Stacked Energyscapes, led by professors at Loyola Marymount University and Penn State University, caught my eye. The paper describes webs of complexities associated with transitions from fossil-fuel-powered economies to clean-energy economies. I burrowed into this paper as a glutton for third, fourth, and fifth-order (and beyond) downstream chain reactions and the universal picture. The Inflation Reduction Act was deployed in part to provide a 10% tax break bonus for clean energy development in communities that have been negatively impacted by decreases or closures of fossil fuel extraction. However, developers in many locations, such as the enormous Permian…

Aug 27

Love98

Electricity’s Decoupling From Fuel Costs

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

Two years after natural gas prices spiked, resulting in a jump in coal consumption for electricity (see Figure 1), natural gas prices have plunged to inflation-adjusted record lows. The Wall Street Journal reports drillers and producers are curtailing activity as storage bulges at the seams. Figure 1 United States Electricity Production by Source (eGRID) Figure 2 Natural Gas Futures Prices Price suppression is partly due to the recent mild winter and summer, which produced only a few early heat waves to stress the Southwest and West Coast grids. Electricity Prices Decoupling from Fuel Cost Electricity prices are rising because, as…

Aug 19

Love97

The Energy Transition Grind

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

Longtime Rant readers know I keep both feet on planet Earth, capturing all sides (typically two) and explaining, yes, but (fill in the blank). For the next case study, I was recently presented with a slide deck from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), The Cleantech Revolution, It's Exponential, Disruptive, and Now. There are many brilliant people at RMI. Amory Lovins, its cofounder, is one such brilliant revolutionary. Amory's famous home in the Rockies can grow bananas in winter. That's great, but is it scalable? It is 4,000 square feet and was completed in 1984 for $500,000, which would be over…

Jul 29

Love94

Electricity Rates and Reliability – Access and Policy

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

For 50 years ending in 2000, electrical loads in the United States expanded at an average of 5.1% per year. For the next 20 years, the growth was essentially zero. Projections for the coming five years are roughly 1% per year (compounded annual growth rate, CAGR). Although that is far from 5% CAGR, it is more than zero, and considering construction of everything from generation to transmission lines is on the decline, something must give. For example, transmission line construction fell from 4,000 miles per year in 2013 to less than 1,000 miles from 2016-2020 to a measly 55 miles…

Jul 19

Love93

Elephant On 3 Legged Stool with Money on his back surrounded by powerlines

Rising Price of Less-Reliable Electricity

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

“Americans used to spend little energy worrying about whether the lights would come on at the flick of a switch, or how much that electricity cost. For a growing number of people, those days are over.” Those are the first two sentences of an article published in The Wall Street Journal last week, Get Ready to Pay More for Less-Reliable Electricity. Other nuggets from the article: Customers of the largest 17 utilities in the country are bound to see electricity prices outpace the consumer price index through 2030. Over the ten years ending in 2022, outages increased by 20%. The…

Jun 10

Love86

A Twofer: Syncing Power Generation With Soaring Loads

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

One of many sources of information that fuel my brain to write this blog is the American Energy Society’s Energy Matters newsletter. The newsletter features many items I don’t find elsewhere, and impressively, they seem unbiased – it is what it is. Power Generation According to a linked New York Times article, 200 coal-fired power plants have closed in the last decade, with 200 remaining and 50 slated for shutdown in the next five years. They also linked to this informative, interactive map showing power generation from the Energy Information Administration. The black dots represent the remaining coal-fired power plants,…

Jun 04

Love84

A More Cost-Effective Energy Transition

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

A recent Realclearwire.com article noted that since 2021, the cumulative effect of persistent inflation has reduced Americans’ purchasing power by 19%. Since 2021, grocery prices have increased by 21%, gasoline prices have increased by 47%, shelter costs have increased by 20%, and electricity costs have increased by 30%. Wholesale prices rose at the fastest rate in April 2024 since April 2023, signaling persistent pressure on retail prices for months to come. When I read the data, I think of energy prices rolling through everything, adding to consumer prices across the board. For example, diesel fuel prices roll through the food…

Apr 23

Love78

Solar Wars

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

A year ago, I introduced the mantle curve to illustrate California's overgeneration of solar power and the resulting need for curtailment. In 2022, California's scoping study set a target for an additional 60 gigawatts (GW) or 60,000 megawatts (MW) of solar generation to be deployed by 2030. Below are the forecast curves from last year's post in May. The system was penetrating the overgeneration region, but the net load was above zero MW. Similar forecast loads from last week are provided below. We see the net load digs below zero MW, into the mantle. Granted, the first chart represents a week in May last year, while the second represents…

Dec 19

Love60

Load Flexibility vs Indeterminate Supply and Demand

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

Two weeks ago, I roasted the federal government’s solution to 24/7 renewable energy: buy renewable energy locally. That can work to some degree for locating new-build data centers, which are significant loads on the grid. Most other sectors and subsectors need access to ports, rail, supply chains, and people – i.e., cities and military bases. For the most part, they are not geographically positioned with local access to significant renewable energy generation and, therefore, need electron superhighways known as transmission lines to receive bulk power sources hundreds of miles away and in different time zones in many cases. Pole and…

Aug 01

Love40

What’s on the Minds of Utility Consumer Advocates

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

This week I’m focusing on the concerns expressed by members of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, NASUCA, which met in parallel with NARUC in Austin, TX, a week before last. The topics of concern include outage risk, high prices, and related energy poverty. Outage Risk In the short term, this year or next year, I can only repeat what the experts are saying. Jim Robb, President of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), said the bulk power system has seen steady improvement . At the same time, the risk is “terrifying” due to peak load growth…

Herding Chickens Through Modern Energyscapes

Electricity’s Decoupling From Fuel Costs

The Energy Transition Grind

Electricity Rates and Reliability – Access and Policy

Rising Price of Less-Reliable Electricity

A Twofer: Syncing Power Generation With Soaring Loads

A More Cost-Effective Energy Transition

Solar Wars

Load Flexibility vs Indeterminate Supply and Demand

What’s on the Minds of Utility Consumer Advocates

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