{"id":292793,"date":"2023-12-27T18:43:17","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T17:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=292793"},"modified":"2023-12-27T18:43:19","modified_gmt":"2023-12-27T17:43:19","slug":"nerc-ducks-extreme-cold-grid-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=292793","title":{"rendered":"NERC ducks extreme cold grid threats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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UNITED STATES – AUGUST 15: Manhattan skyline is dark as the sun comes up on the morning after a massive power failure caused the largest power outage in the nation’s history, affecting 50 million people in parts of seven states and Canada. (Photo by Mike Albans\/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By David Wojick<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has released its \u201c2023 Long-Term Reliability Assessment\u201d, a 10-year-ahead look at threats to grid reliability. Not surprisingly, they see a lot of growing threats around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, they ignore the greatest threat of all, which is blackouts caused by extreme, deadly cold weather. They also have ridiculously low projections for renewables, which will crowd out reliable generation. The looming, destructive \u201cenergy transition\u201d is not considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NERC starts off well enough, recognizing the dual threats of renewables and extreme cold in general terms in the Executive Summary. Then, their detailed analysis ignores both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Executive Summary says this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis assessment provides clear evidence of growing resource adequacy concerns over the next 10 years. Capacity deficits are projected in areas where future generator retirements are expected before enough replacement resources are in service to meet rising demand forecasts. Energy risks are projected in areas where the future resource mix could fail to deliver the necessary supply of electricity under energy-constrained conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor example, subfreezing temperatures can create energy-limiting conditions by disrupting the natural gas fuel supplies to generators, leading to fuel-related derates or outages and potentially insufficient electricity supply. Furthermore, disruptions in electricity supplies can further exacerbate the availability of natural gas, which is dependent on the delivery of this electrical energy. Periods of low wind are another example of potentially energy-constrained conditions if the resource mix is not sufficiently balanced with dispatchable resources to prevent electricity shortfalls. While the outlook is improving for some assessment areas where resource additions and delayed generator retirements are alleviating previously identified near-term supply shortfalls, a growing number of areas in North American face resource capacity or energy risks over this assessment period.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That cold weather can cripple the gas-fired power system was discovered in the Texas blackout disaster and seen again in the nearly catastrophic conditions in PJM around Christmas 2022. PJM has levied fines of over a billion dollars on their gas power system for failure to meet firm contracts during the Christmas fiasco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But NERC should be thinking of subzero temperatures, not subfreezing. Incredibly, their analysis fails to do this properly because they use average low temperatures, not the likely extremes that they should be planning for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This deliberate oversight is well hidden. In a brief list of \u201cassumptions\u201d up front, we find just this easily missed partial sentence: \u201cPeak demand is based on average peak weather conditions\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing more is said until we get to Page 126, where we find this single sentence: \u201cProjected total internal demand is based on normal weather (50\/50 distribution).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is then marked by Footnote 59, which in tiny print says: \u201cEssentially, this means that there is a 50% probability that actual peak demand will be higher and a 50% probability that actual peak demand will be lower than the value provided for a given season\/year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there is a 50-50 chance that it will be colder each year, then it is virtually certain that it will be colder in the next ten. This is just like the probability of getting heads in ten coin tosses. In fact, it is likely to be colder than average roughly half the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, given the way weather works, it is likely to be a lot colder than average, like 20 degrees colder, or brutally cold, as they say. So, NERC is quietly and systematically ignoring the threat of killing cold. Over 200 people were killed in the Texas blackouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting back to the Executive Summary quote, it is amusing that a period of low wind is called an \u201cenergy-constrained condition\u201d. I guess every night is an energy-constrained condition for solar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a techno-nonsensical way of saying renewables are unreliable. And the so-called \u201cenergy transition policy\u201d is calling for extremely rapid growth in renewables, which is certain to make the grid unreliable, or should I say energy-constrained?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is, therefore, shocking to see almost no renewables growth in NERC\u2019s ten year projections. This effectively hides what is actually extreme risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a painfully simple example. For PJM, NERC projects that nameplate wind generating capacity will increase from 1,963 MW in 2024 to a mere 2,601 MW in 2033. This is a trivial ten-year increase of 638 MW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virginia\u2019s 2,600 MW offshore wind project due to come online in 2025 alone dwarfs that estimate. But Virginia\u2019s official ten-year offshore wind target is a whopping 10,000 MW. New Jersey\u2019s is even bigger at 11,000 MW, while Maryland and Delaware have smaller but still big targets. There is similar little growth nonsense for solar where Virginia is swamped by 780 square miles of proposed projects and growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, NERC\u2019s ten-year projection of almost no growth in renewables is ridiculous. So is their deliberately ignoring the extremely cold weather that is certain to occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, NERC\u2019s long-term reliability assessment hides the risks it claims to elucidate. These risks are deadly and they must be faced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The post\u00a0NERC ducks extreme cold grid threats<\/a>\u00a0appeared first on\u00a0CFACT<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By David Wojick The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has released its \u201c2023 Long-Term Reliability Assessment\u201d, a 10-year-ahead look at threats to grid reliability. Not surprisingly, they see a lot of growing threats around the country. Unfortunately, they ignore the greatest threat of all, which is blackouts caused by extreme, deadly cold weather. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":292796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has released its \u201c2023 Long-Term Reliability Assessment\u201d, a 10-year-ahead look at threats to grid reliability. Not surprisingly, they see a lot of growing threats around the country.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818279,691825724,691825721,691819094,691825723,691825722],"class_list":{"0":"post-292793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-blackouts","9":"tag-extreme-cold","10":"tag-north-american-electric-reliability-corporation-nerc","11":"tag-renewable-green-energy","12":"tag-subzero-temperatures","13":"tag-texas-blackout-disaster","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0o-NEW-YORK-BLACKOUT-2003-facebook.jpg?fit=1536%2C1028&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1eat","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":236388,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=236388","url_meta":{"origin":292793,"position":0},"title":"FERC considers constraining renewables","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"27\/12\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The looming threat of numerous blackouts is their fault.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-853.png?fit=1200%2C516&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-853.png?fit=1200%2C516&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-853.png?fit=1200%2C516&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-853.png?fit=1200%2C516&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-853.png?fit=1200%2C516&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":231831,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=231831","url_meta":{"origin":292793,"position":1},"title":"Save America\u2019s grid!","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"30\/11\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The electric grid is sick and getting sicker.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/0blackouti.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/0blackouti.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/0blackouti.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/0blackouti.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/0blackouti.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":202581,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=202581","url_meta":{"origin":292793,"position":2},"title":"Silence of the power engineers? 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