Tom Doornik’s Post

US grid goes from low battery to power surge! Over 20GW of grid storage added, with 5GW installed just this year🔋 https://lnkd.in/eSxj26Gv From the article: "Faced with worsening climate-driven disasters and an electricity grid increasingly supplied by intermittent renewables, the US is rapidly installing huge batteries that are already starting to help prevent power blackouts.....Battery storage equivalent to the output of 20 nuclear reactors has been bolted on to America’s electric grids in barely four years, with the EIA predicting this capacity could double again to 40GW by 2025 if further planned expansions occur." 🌏 The disruption of our conventional energy systems by a solar, wind and battery powered grid is inevitable, physically possible and economically affordable anywhere on Earth. ⚡️Overbuilding solar, wind and battery energy capacity reduces battery storage requirements and provide superabundant electricity year round. 🚀This disruption will lead to superabundant, near-zero marginal cost energy for all. Read more about the disruption of energy: https://lnkd.in/d5Mnecs

After reading Ryan McEntush's insightful article on the challenges confronting the electric grid, we aim to underscore the key points discussed therein. Ryan McEntush's article "Decentralizing the Electric Grid" emphasizes the urgent need to decentralize the electric grid due to the escalating demand for electricity and the limitations of current infrastructure. ✂ Urgent Need for Decentralization: Escalating demand for electricity and limitations of current infrastructure highlight the necessity to decentralize the electric grid. 📦 Transition to Distributed Networks: Simplifying generation, transmission, and consumption processes involves moving away from large centralized power plants to distributed networks utilizing solar, batteries, and advanced nuclear reactors. 🔋 Challenges Ahead: Grid connection issues, supply chain hurdles, and rising delivery costs pose significant challenges to the transition, leading to higher prices for consumers. 💴 Complexity of Grid Operations: Grid stability relies on careful management of electricity demand and supply, with the growth of intermittent power sources and electrification posing serious challenges. 📥 Importance of Energy Storage: Energy storage is crucial to stabilizing power supply, requiring the development of a "smart grid" that integrates distributed energy assets effectively. ⚠ Balancing Centralized and Decentralized Systems: Achieving a balance between centralized and decentralized systems is essential, with decentralized grids expected to challenge traditional electricity monopolies and drive regulatory and market reforms. ⛎ Collaborative Effort Required: Building a decentralized grid demands collaboration among entrepreneurs, engineers, policymakers, and stakeholders to ensure reliable, affordable, and clean power for society's evolving needs. In conclusion, the future of the electric grid lies in embracing new technology and free-market principles to address the energy challenges effectively. This transformative undertaking requires collaboration among entrepreneurs, engineers, policymakers, and stakeholders to build a decentralized grid that meets the evolving needs of society. At BioEsol, we're proud to be part of the solution with our cutting-edge Energy as a Service platform. By leveraging AI-powered battery technology, we're empowering businesses to transition to renewable energy seamlessly. Let's work together to shape the future of the electric grid! 💡 #RenewableEnergy #Decentralization #SmartGrid #BioEsol #EnergyInnovation https://lnkd.in/eEfb-sfp

Gas-fired Generation - "Combined, the advantages gas has enjoyed in power look to be eroding. Solar penetration is providing a tailwind to BESS to serve short-duration peaking hours. Nuclear appears more attractive to the consumers (big tech) driving load growth. All while the regulatory and environmental headwinds get tougher for gas. Still, even if it is the end of its dominance, it is not the end of gas generation📝6. Our work sees capacity continuing to grow, albeit with declining capacity factors, and a growing emphasis on providing reliability as the generation mix evolves. That is a very different world than the one we have come from." https://lnkd.in/g8cCAD58

🌍🌱 European Power Generation Greener Than Ever! 🌱🌍 In the first half of 2024, Europe has achieved a remarkable milestone with over 50% of its electricity coming from renewable sources, complemented by a stable 24% from nuclear power. This surge in clean energy is a testament to the continent's accelerated decarbonization efforts, positioning it at the forefront of the global energy transition. However, with electricity demand declining due to economic factors, there's a pressing need for policies to boost demand and sustain investments in green energy. #powergeneration #news #electricity #greenenergy #power #decarbonisation #sustainableenergy #renewconsultancy Read more: 

Battery storage becomes biggest source of supply in evening peak in California, the world’s fifth biggest economy and one of the world’s biggest grids. Pretty amazing that stationary storage overtook gas, hydro, nuclear and renewables as the biggest source of supply for a period of about two hours in the evening peak. About another 1.9 GW of battery storage capacity is in the process of commissioning, and the CEC estimates that the stage needs about 52 GW of battery storage to meet its 2045 goal of getting all of its power from carbon-free sources. The macro trend is unstoppable and critical metals will be essential to achieve the energy transition goals globally. #SouthStar #Graphite #Brazil #Alabama #CriticalMetals https://lnkd.in/ePsZVTga

The year 2050 wet dreams of solar and wind advocates are nothing less than delusional. The diagram below by Mother Jones (https://lnkd.in/gFVFSK_D) shows visually how the roadmap to net zero using intermittent renewables is a fantasy. No one has solved the problem of the massive land requirements, or the need for a backup grid to keep the lights on. But even if those problems are eventually solved, in the best scenario, it would take solar and wind 140 years to clean the American power grid. A group of Princeton University academics released a report in 2020 that estimated that, to reach net zero targets, the U.S. will need to increase its transmission capacity by 3.2 times its existing infrastructure by 2050. A more optimistic analysis by the pro-renewables National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) suggested that the U.S. could reach 90% renewable electricity with only a twofold increase in its existing 240,000 miles of high-voltage power lines. Based on data from The C Three Group | Yes Energy, which tracks the growth of energy infrastructure, the U.S. high-voltage transmission system grew by about 1,700 miles per year between 2008 and 2021. At this rate, it would take about 44 years to achieve the 2035 goals and about 140 years to reach the NREL requirements for 2050 under the optimistic scenario. The additional land taken by the new power lines required by solar and wind would be larger than the state of Pennsylvania. Wind and solar have already exploited the easy opportunities where they did not need new power lines. The renewables industry is now facing the reality that future deployments will not be as fast and economical as before. This challenges the assumption that wind and solar can reduce emissions faster than other clean technologies such as nuclear that do not depend on the slow, costly, and environmentally disruptive construction of long new power lines. Just replace coal plants with plug-in nuclear reactors, no need for additional power lines.

Significance of Inertia in Power Grids Inertia within power systems represents the stored energy in large rotating generators and select industrial motors, enabling them to maintain rotation. This stored energy becomes crucial in instances of a major power plant failure, as it temporarily compensates for the lost power output from the affected generator. This transient response, typically lasting a few seconds, allows the mechanical systems governing most power plants to detect and react to the failure effectively. The significance of grid inertia lies in its historical abundance from traditional fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydropower generators, which was often overlooked in grid planning and operations. However, as the grid transitions towards higher penetrations of inverter-based resources such as wind, solar photovoltaics (PV), and battery storage—resources that lack inherent inertia—questions arise regarding the necessity of inertia and its role in the future grid. Traditionally, synchronous generators have been the primary source of grid capacity, providing kinetic energy in the form of inertia. This stored kinetic energy affords the grid the time required to respond to frequency deviations resulting from contingencies and other imbalances. Such response time is crucial due to the reliance on mechanical devices, which may take several seconds to react to frequency changes. The shift towards inverter-based resources presents a twofold impact: a reduction in available inertia and a faster response capability. While these resources diminish the inertia available, they can also react more swiftly than conventional generators, thereby mitigating the need for extensive inertia. Consequently, this shift challenges the conventional approach to providing frequency response. Furthermore, the integration of electronic-based frequency response from inverter-based resources and rapid response from loads offers viable alternatives to the combination of inertia and mechanical frequency response. These solutions demonstrate that reduced inertia does not inherently impede the increased deployment of wind and solar energy. The historical reliance on inertia predominantly stems from the traditional use of synchronous generators, highlighting the need for paradigm shifts in grid planning and operation strategies.

California hit a record last week as battery storage became the biggest power provider in the state. Batteries beat out renewables, nuclear, natural gas, and other sources two evenings in the past week. It's the latest example of growing battery capacity in US power grids. Batteries briefly became the biggest source of power in California twice in the past week.

Excited to share this new announcement today that Google, Microsoft, and Nucor Corporation will be working together to accelerate the deployment of advanced clean electricity technologies, including advanced nuclear, next-gen geothermal, long-duration storage, clean hydrogen, and others. https://lnkd.in/eUUYwBG7 https://lnkd.in/e77UKzuu Kudos to the teams across all three companies who worked to develop this initiative, and in particular my colleague Michelle Chang who led the charge on the Google side. We wrote about the importance of advanced clean electricity technologies (firm, dispatchable technologies and advanced energy storage systems) in a paper last year: https://lnkd.in/eUR3iiU4 With this effort we're working to advance a scalable model for aggregated procurement that can help accelerate the commercialization of these technologies and lead to widespread deployment at scale. If you are a provider of one of these technologies, get in touch here: https://lnkd.in/eD-_riVk

Corporate purchases have transformed the energy markets: for example, in the US, the majority of new wind + solar built during the past decade was purchased directly by companies. But we can't get to 24/7 carbon-free grids just with intermittent renewables, so we're partnering with other large users to boost the development of emerging new clean energy technologies. More detail is in the post referenced below.