It seems New York state has been decommissioning power plants (nuclear and fossil fuel) faster than they have been adding renewable sources. Somehow this just sort of slipped through the cracks.
From the 2024 NYISO Power Trends report: Power Trends Key Messages Generator deactivations are outpacing new supply additions. Together, these forces are narrowing reliability margins across New York…
…threatening reliability and resilience to the grid…
…projected to become a winter- peaking system in the 2030s, primarily driven by electrification of space heating and transportation…
Such new supply [of dispatchable emmissions-free resources] is not yet available on a commercial scale.
Western Balkans see boom in solar energy but grids unprepared https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/western-balkans-see-boom-solar-energy-grids-unprepared-2023-04-20/ Western Balkan nations are seeing a boom in solar energy investment, which could help ease a power crisis that had threatened a shift away from coal, but industry officials say transmission systems are not prepared for new energy feeds. North Macedonia’s Economy Minister Kreshnik Bekteshi said investors have started to invest “quite furiously” in solar plants and that his country, which is a power importer, has become a regional hub for renewable energy sources.
New Yorkers should not to convert to electric heat until the politicians show that they have a credible plan to provide the necessary electricity.
The state’s climate law, passed in 2019, mandates that New York obtain 70% of its electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2030, which would significantly help curb the state’s climate-warming emissions. However, New York will likely have generated only enough renewable energy to meet around 45% of its electricity needs by the end of the decade…
The report outlines a path to rapidly increase renewable energy generation to bring the state back on track, largely by deploying large-scale renewable projects. But it indicates it would still likely take years to get new projects off the ground…
State law provides the commission [Public Service Commission] with the authority to “temporarily suspend or modify” its targets under certain circumstances.
Or maybe just the opposite. NYers should convert as quickly as possible to electric to spur their politicians into approving new sources of generation quicker. One reason why power plants take so long to construct is that there are multiple opportunities for graft and grift over the 10 year process. But if the voters are brownouted periodically, those politicians will be in fear for their jobs and move quicker.
Or the electricity providers to NYC buy more expensive electricity to sell into NYC. Of course, they jack up the electric rates to the public. I will leave it up to the reader to consider how high those increases will be. Distribution? That is a NYC problem. If the supply is available, but can not be delivered due to capacity problems in NYC, innovation shall occur. What that innovation will be is not yet known.
Wow. Were you one of those ‘runs with scissors’ kids? As an example, New York is depending on offshore wind to do most of the heavy lifting to replace older sources that are being shut down (including nuclear). Most here don’t need to be reminded of the massive problems of late for offshore wind.
And there other issues in the way. Peakers are peaking power plants, also known as peaker plants, that generally run when there is a high demand — known as peak demand — for electricity. New York State has environmental regulations that will limit the use of peaker plants to reduce ozone levels. These are to be phased in between 2023-35. Fewer peakers put the electricity grid at risk during heat waves.
Their Figure 17 shows the diminishing reliability margins (page 37). Looking at 95 degree heatwaves, New York City will have razor-thin margins beginning in 2025 before going negative a couple of years later. In the past 10 years New York City has gotten up to 100° three times.
Looking ahead to 2040, the policy for an emissions-free electricity supply will require the development of new technologies. Substantial zero-emission despatchable resources will be required to fully replace fossil generation. Long-duration, dispatchable and emission-free resources will be necessary to maintain reliability and meet the objectives of the CLCPA. Resources with this combination of attributes are not commercially available at this time but will be critical to future grid reliability.
Unfortunately, it all boils down to politics. Politicians will only do the right thing when it comes down to potentially losing power, otherwise they will only do the things that keep them in power, even if those things affect the people negatively. NYers have chosen their politicians roughly the same way for many decades, so, if NYers “suffer” enough such that there is finally a threat to the existing order of politicians, the things might change. And it’s not a “party” issue in NY, both major parties abuse the voters similarly … as long as they can retain power.
These are all good examples of bad decisions by NY politicians that negatively affect NYers, but that positively affect the politicians (either helping their re-election, providing assorted graft and grift, favors for folks who help them, etc.) Things like serving 30 years in the NY legislature in some capacity, supporting the decision to rely so much on wind, getting those massive wind contracts signed … then retiring and becoming a principal of a consulting company …that gets hefty contracts from the wind companies (this is an example of completely legal graft).
It is also another case of having unrealistic goals drive policy. Reality is a b!tch, and unfortunately I think New York is going to have a painful learning experience.
And to top off the sundae, we read about how AI infrastructure is going to lead to massive increases in electricity demand…
Well, they may have to choose - either get the big data centers or supply their people with sufficient and reliable electricity. And it’s always obvious which they will choose - they will always choose the option that ensures they will remain in power, and the option that gives them cushy jobs to fall into after leaving politics.
The issue here is that I’m not sure how the grid actually works. Let’s say there’s a few very hot days in the northeast (or anywhere), and the demand creeps up in the afternoon and is about to exceed supply. Is there an instantaneous bidding process going on? And the lowest bidder, or the lowest two bidders, have to use brownouts or regional blackouts, until the demand drops? If that is the case, the “richest” state gets the power (and that means NY gets the power). Or can other states simply refuse to send “their” power to NY if they need it at the moment? And in reality, it isn’t from “other states”, it’s mostly from Canada. So maybe the question is if Canada needs that electricity at the time, can they simply refuse to send it south? I don’t think this is a real issue though because Canada seems to produce way more electricity than it needs, pretty much at all times.
In the end, NY might not have to decide between large data centers and the people, they may just instead decide to pay Canada more when necessary. And “spending more” has almost never threatened a politician with loss of power, and always provides new opportunities for post-politics jobs. So it works out well for them.
As I understand it, power companies make their excess power available for bids. If it’s hot all over the region (or cold once people switch to electrical heating) then little gets put on the market and that is at a high price. This results in basically being dependent upon local resources, trying to reduce demand and eventually brownouts or rolling blackouts.
The state’s climate law, passed in 2019, mandates that New York obtain 70% of its electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2030, which would significantly help curb the state’s climate-warming emissions.
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There is no way for New York to get 70% of its electricity from renewables by 2030. Last year, non-hydro renewables (including small scale solar) represented just 10% of New York’s generation mix. If we include hydro, then the total renewables were about 32% in 2023. If we look at the rate of growth of renewables, there is no way, no how, they can get to 70% by the end of this decade. For instance, back in 2018, the total renewables, including hydro, was 28% of the total. That is a 4% growth, in 5 years.
Not only that, New York’s fossil fuel consumption for electricity generation has gone way up. In 2018, New York generated 50,810 GWh from natural gas. In 2023, that increased to 59,514 GWh from nat gas. Power generation from all fossil fuels increased about 13% from 2018 through 2023.
The state government, headed by a certain unnamed governor, forced the early retirement of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in 2021. At the time, they claimed that renewables were going to replace Indian Point. In reality, it is natural gas burners (and imports, to a certain extent) that largely now generate the baseload power once provided by Indian Point.
