COLD WEATHER OPERATION IN NEW ENGLAND DECEMBER 24, 2017 TO  JANUARY 8, 2018-r

Closing Power Plants and Constraining Fuel Supplies

Various nuclear and coal plants had previously been politically shutdown, instead of being kept for standby purposes, as is done in other countries, such as Germany.

Natural gas supply to the NE area, and to NE gas and oil storage systems, had previously been politically constrained.

The Irrelevance of Wind and Solar During Stressful and Peak Conditions 

- Solar, 2400 MW nameplate, behind-the-meter (monitored by utilities), on distribution grids, maximal at midday, never exceeded 800 MW. Near-zero solar is guaranteed during late-afternoon/early-evening, when peak demand hours occurred. See page 48

- Solar, 83 MW nameplate, before-the-meter (monitored by ISO-NE), on the HV grid, maximal at midday, never exceeded 26 MW. Near-zero solar is guaranteed during late-afternoon/early-evening, when peak demand hours occurred. See page 49

- Wind, 1300 MW nameplate, randomly varied up and down between 1000 MW to 100 MW. The lows could occur at any time during late-afternoon/early-evening, when peak demand hours occurred. See page 50

The build-out of additional wind and solar capacity, MW, provides a minimal additional predictable, reliable source of electricity, especially during: 1) multi-day wind/solar lulls, and 2) peak demand hours of

late-afternoon/early-evening.

Hydro plants with very large reservoirs, such as in Quebec and Norway, and pumped-storage plants, with large upper reservoirs, plus lower reservoirs with pumps, useful service lives about 100 years, are the only economic ways to store large quantities of variable, intermittent, weather-dependent, wind and solar electricity.

Using grid-scale battery systems, useful service life about 15 years, would be at least 10 to 15 times more costly per kWh, delivered as AC. See URLs

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/grid-scale-battery-sys...

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital...

History Will Repeat Itself, Unless Sanity Prevails

A set of circumstances, similar to the above, is likely to happen more often, if the “leave-it-in-the-ground-recommendations” of RE folks, who likely never analyzed, never designed, and never operated any energy system, would actually be implemented.

NOTE: To rely on the weather to provide electricity is full of pitfalls as Europe, California and Texas, etc., have found out.

In 2022, there was plenty of hot weather and sunshine, but little wind and rainfall in Europe

As a result, there was much solar electricity, but little wind electricity, and curtailed hydro electricity

Nuclear electricity was also reduced, because those plants need adequate cooling water to function.

Comments on Below Image

The below image, prepared by Warren Van Wyck, shows the electricity loaded onto the NE HV grid, by source.

The white gap below "System Load" is net imports from nearby grids.

Nuclear, orange, is steady. The output step-down was due to a transmission line failure.

Fuel oil was a critical standby source, because natural gas had been diverted to building heating during low temperatures.

The normal use of fuel oil is minimal throughout the year, because it is much more expensive than natural gas.

NOTE: The solar installed capacity, MW, before-the-meter (monitored by ISO-NE, because it is connected to the NE HV grid) is a small percent of the solar installed capacity, MW, behind-the-meter, (rooftops, meadows, etc., (monitored by utilities, because it is connected to distribution grids)

The below image by Warren Van Wyck, shows only 3 energy sources, and the temperature, to clarify/highlight the role played by fuel oil and coal during the cold period of Dec 22, 2017 to Jan 12, 2018; that period included the Holidays of Christmas and New Year.

Comments on Below Image and Table

- The stored fuel oil supply, grey, was running very low starting Jan 8, and rapidly decreasing thereafter.

- Coal, black, decreased on Jan 11 and 12. Luckily, the temperatures, red line, were increasing during these days. A big sigh of relief by ISO-NE engineers, who likely knew just how close NE came to disastrous rolling blackouts, or worse.

- The transmission connection to the nuclear plant was repaired within a few days. The nuclear plant, orange, ramped up its output to restore its prior output. This nuclear increase partially reduced the need for coal, black. 

Fuel Oil Minimum Storage Capacity

Fuel oil used by power plants during the DECEMBER 24, 2017, TO JANUARY 8, 2018, cold period was = (1,303,415 MWh/0.50, average efficiency) x (3,412,000 Btu/MWh x 1 gallon/140,000 Btu, LHV = 63.532 million gallons  

The storage capacity should exceed maximum use by at least 20%, i.e., about 80 million gallons NEAR POWER PLANTS.
Maximum use likely occurs during longer cold periods.

It should be abundantly clear, the capacities of NE strategic oil and gas storage systems should be increased, to ensure reliable delivery of electricity service, including for future heat pumps and electric vehicles.

That electricity should be generated by highly efficient, oil/gas-fired, on-demand, CCGT plants, especially during likely combinations of events, that would stress the NE grid. 

Wind and solar would be totally unreliable during such stressed conditions.
Battery storage would be grossly too expensive during relatively rare stressed conditions.

New England

By the way, all of this, including rolling blackouts at ZUB-ZERO temperatures, and a lack of gas and oil for space heating, applies to New England, if:

1) New York State keeps obstructing new gas pipelines from Pennsylvania to New England; THIS SHOULD BE LEGALLY FORBIDDEN AS AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL INTERFERENCE OF INTER-STATE COMMERCE, and

2) The New England oil, gas and coal storage capacities near power plants are not increased by at least 100% to ensure RELIABLE ELECTRICAL SERVICE IN WINTER, WHICH WOULD BE ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT, IF UNCERTAIN, MOTHER-NATURE, WEATHER-DEPENDENT WIND AND SOLAR WERE FURTHER EXPANDED, AS THE US IS AIMING TO BLINDLY COPY THE DISASTROUS EUROPEAN SCENARIO

Table was prepared by Warren Van Wyck

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