By David Wojick
I am looking at a fat study titled “Benefits and Urgency of Planned Offshore Transmission: Reducing Costs and Barriers to Achieving U.S. Clean Energy Goals.” “. The term FERC appears a whopping 92 times. See https://www.brattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Brattle-OSW-Transmission-Report_Jan-24-2023.pdf
It is not surprising that the page 103 report is misnamed. It’s really about offshore wind power transmission, not offshore transmission. It is imperative that the current power system cannot handle all that offshore water coming ashore. FERC is in the spotlight because they are in charge of the grid. Technically it is the independent system operators or ISO, also mentioned many times, but they answer to FERC.
This research is welcome in its own right because it recognizes a deep-seated issue that has not been discussed much. The current power system is not set up to handle the massive new inflows that are convenient for offshore wind. As it is it cannot be done.
In fact, the term “grid” is a misnomer. It suggests that power can move freely in large numbers, which is false. The proper term is “Eastern Connection” and that is true. All major utilities are connected to neighboring utilities, but the amount of current allowed is quite limited. It is usually less than 20% of peak demand.
A little history is helpful here. Once upon a time – 1870-1970 – nearly every utility was responsible for generating its own energy. Then, in the 1970s, we built a huge fleet of huge coal-fired power plants (1) near coal mines, not cities, and (2) jointly owned. This led to a plethora of connections, followed by the rise of a relatively limited wholesale electricity market.
Now we are talking about building a huge fleet of offshore generators. According to the study, there are about 52,000 MW of generating capacity already in the US project “pipeline” and more in the future. The popular news regarding Biden’s 30,000 MW goal is severely underestimated. It was a stampede.
Given that 600 MW is a good sized power plant, this is a hell of a lot of juice. The current transmission system is not designed to handle this massive flow of energy, coming from a new direction, so it won’t be. Therefore, “urgent” is mentioned in the title of the report.
52,000 MW equates to $200 billion worth of new generation capacity, none of which is needed, so someone’s electricity bill is going up. One of the urgent things they want FERC to do is allocate costs. No surprises there.
The reason FERC is mentioned 92 times is because they want the electrical system to be rebuilt, physically and contractually, to handle this new, unnecessary and intermittent power generation chaos. Interestingly, FERC has a continuity rule that limits renewables, because they damage the grid. Watch my https://www.cfact.org/2022/12/27/ferc-considers-constraint-renewables/
What seems to have triggered this study was a report from the New England ISO that said it would have to upgrade or rebuild 4,500 miles of transmission lines to handle this new offshore flood. New England was very small when the ISO worked.
To my knowledge, no ISO organization in offshore wind researchers has approved the connection of any wild windwater. They and the FERC still face the stampede. I wonder if people who invest hundreds of billions of dollars know this. When everything is stable, they may not be allowed to hook into the net.
Of particular interest is the main sponsor of this study, the Natural Resources Defense Council or NRDC. They are or have been one of the largest environmental advocacy groups in the United States. Now they are “environmental industrialists” a living oxymoron. They want to rebuild the global power system in the name of protecting the environment. Surely this is mindless madness.
In any case, connecting all this unnecessary discontinuous wind generation to the grid is a huge problem that remains unresolved, even unresolved. Stay tuned to CFACT as this monster story unfolds.
Author
David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For the origin see http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html For more than 100 previous articles for CFACT see http://www.cfact.org/author/david-wojick-ph-d/
Available for confidential research and consultation.
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