Power Grid Crisis: 10,000 MW Shortfall by 2030?!
With interconnection queues are clogged, little new transmission being built, and enormous increases in load growth in some areas of the country, ensuring resource adequacy and managing grid reliability become a growing problem.
PJM is one grid operator facing this challenge, and has recently warned that in a few years it may not have the dispatchable capacity needed to keep the lights on, warning of a shortfall of as much as 10,000 MW of capacity by the 2030/31 year. PJM filed its Reliability Resource Initiative with the FERC last fall. This approach creates a one-time cut to the head of the line fast track review of up to 50 shovel-ready generation or storage assets that meet eligibility scoring criteria related to viability, reliability, and availability. On February 11, the FERC approved this approach, finding it “just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory.” Any approved assets will be required to participate in capacity markets for at least a decade.
FERC also approved PJM’s proposal to increase and accelerate access to the transmission system by changing its Surplus Interconnection Service rules, allowing generators to more quickly access existing approved interconnection if they do not exceed the rated capacity of that interconnection point. It also makes it specifically easier for storage resources, allowing for surplus interconnection service “from resources seeking to receive electric energy from the grid and store it for later injection to the grid.”
So, for example, if a 100 MW gas peaker had access to an interconnection, a battery or solar and batteries could be added to that same delivery point a long as no more than 100 MW was ever delivered from the combined assets. That’s good, as it improves efficiency of existing assets. But it doesn’t get us what we really need, which is a lot more transmission.
There is now a precedent here which is not a good one for developers of renewables in other areas governed by grid operators – many of which are also facing capacity shortfalls and reliability issues. So, look for potentially more of these types of activities to come.
The CTO of BYD’s battery business stated that his company has already produced its first solid-state cells on a pilot production line last year, with “mass demonstration” of solid-state batteries around 2027. Large-scale introduction of solid-state batteries might only take place after 2030.
Siemens Gamesa has confirmed investment of over $200m to expand its offshore wind blade manufacturing facility in northern France, to be completed by 2026. The expansion will focus on manufacture of 115-metre-long blades for its 14MW turbines.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have developed a reactor that pulls carbon dioxide directly from the air and converts it into sustainable fuel, using sunlight as the power source. The solar-powered flow reactor, uses specialised filters to capture CO2 at night, and When the sun comes out, the sunlight heats up the captured CO2. A semiconductor powder absorbs the ultraviolet radiation, initiating a chemical reaction to converts the captured CO2 into solar syngas.