You may find my comments on Francis Menton's article on the Royal Society at WUWT useful in your research. It's important to dig into the papers in the supplementary annexes to understand what they have done. Basically, most of their assumptions are FES/CCC Hopium. All they have done is to temper that with long term MERRA 2 based weather reanalysis. Something I already did several years ago, with rather better other assumptions.
It is at least a start, because the need for storage and surplus curtailed generation in a long term framework had been completely ignored by all the previous FES and Carbon Budget work. But assuming that energy demand can be cut to less than a third of the 200mtoe/2400TWh that we used at our peak, and then have extensive demand rationing applied to get through difficult times while offshore wind averages a Betz limit busting 63% capacity factor and we find space for 150GW of solar and developing storage capacity equal to roughly half the total methane storage in Europe seems well into the realm of fairy tales to me.
As an intervenor advocating for nuclear power, we ( CGNP dot org ) recently learned about a new aggressively -promoted plan called "virtual power plants" to supplant nuclear power plants. The State of California is allowing intervenors slightly more than a week to read and comment on their latest 43-page report. https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M520/K484/520484417.PDF This report relies on significant input from a multinational consultancy, Guidehouse. I smell rotting fish. We will be raising cybersecurity concerns inherent in this plan. What's your view?
A quick glance through suggests that they are only considering peak hour supply, and ignoring the ancillary services provided by Diablo Canyon, including grid inertia and short circuit level protection., which happen 24x7. These actually increase in relative importance when demand is low and renewables supply is high, conditions that tend to drive other providers of ancillary services into shutdown, leaving DC taking the strain for trying to maintain grid stability. An unstable grid will endure more frequent blackouts.
The VPP concept is unproven at scale. National Grid have greatly exaggerated the outcomes of their DFS paying consumers to have power cuts initiative. In reality the savings were very small, and to a significant extent illusory, because consumers gamed the system by increasing usage during reference periods so that their apparent saving was greater than it really was. V2G requires a significant incentive to secure participation, and experience is not long enough for consumers to be able to gauge whether the incentive is sufficient compensation for battery degradation through extra cycling.
Nevertheless, National Grid are probably world leaders in testing the technologies used in VPPs so it is worth checking out their projects for bits that work and pitfalls they have still to handle.
Thank you for your constructive suggestions. While the report notes the California state legislation SB 846.....
• Requires the CEC to determine whether the state’s electricity forecasts for 2024–2030 “show potential for reliability deficiencies if Diablo Canyon Power Plant operations are not extended beyond 2025, and whether extending operations to at least 2030 is prudent to ensure reliability and consistency with the state’s emission reduction goals.”
... scant attention is paid to the 24-7 reliability deficiencies that would occur if DCPP were needlessly closed. I noted in one of my comments to this 2022 article https://energycentral.com/c/gn/us-renewables-expand-nukes-don%E2%80%99t that the economic cost to Californians of unreliable power during the 2000-2001 ENRON power crisis was between $200 - $400 billion USD. Consider for an 8-hour California-wide power outage, California's annual gross state product is $3.755 trillion. After calculating the hourly rate by dividing by 8,766 hours in a year, the result is multiplied by 8 hours, yielding $3.43 billion USD in lost productivity.
You have to fear for Oxford when they produce such low grade nonsense as this.
https://www.current-news.co.uk/oxford-britain-could-be-solely-powered-by-wind-and-solar/
Perhaps they should at least start by understanding what the Royal Society have done, for all its shortcomings.
Amongst the best on Substack. I love all your articles. Also watched you on Climate Debate.... get back on there if you can.
You may find my comments on Francis Menton's article on the Royal Society at WUWT useful in your research. It's important to dig into the papers in the supplementary annexes to understand what they have done. Basically, most of their assumptions are FES/CCC Hopium. All they have done is to temper that with long term MERRA 2 based weather reanalysis. Something I already did several years ago, with rather better other assumptions.
It is at least a start, because the need for storage and surplus curtailed generation in a long term framework had been completely ignored by all the previous FES and Carbon Budget work. But assuming that energy demand can be cut to less than a third of the 200mtoe/2400TWh that we used at our peak, and then have extensive demand rationing applied to get through difficult times while offshore wind averages a Betz limit busting 63% capacity factor and we find space for 150GW of solar and developing storage capacity equal to roughly half the total methane storage in Europe seems well into the realm of fairy tales to me.
Watch this space. Got an article coming out on the RS paper next week.
P.S. I cover your main points along with many, many others.
As an intervenor advocating for nuclear power, we ( CGNP dot org ) recently learned about a new aggressively -promoted plan called "virtual power plants" to supplant nuclear power plants. The State of California is allowing intervenors slightly more than a week to read and comment on their latest 43-page report. https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M520/K484/520484417.PDF This report relies on significant input from a multinational consultancy, Guidehouse. I smell rotting fish. We will be raising cybersecurity concerns inherent in this plan. What's your view?
A quick glance through suggests that they are only considering peak hour supply, and ignoring the ancillary services provided by Diablo Canyon, including grid inertia and short circuit level protection., which happen 24x7. These actually increase in relative importance when demand is low and renewables supply is high, conditions that tend to drive other providers of ancillary services into shutdown, leaving DC taking the strain for trying to maintain grid stability. An unstable grid will endure more frequent blackouts.
The VPP concept is unproven at scale. National Grid have greatly exaggerated the outcomes of their DFS paying consumers to have power cuts initiative. In reality the savings were very small, and to a significant extent illusory, because consumers gamed the system by increasing usage during reference periods so that their apparent saving was greater than it really was. V2G requires a significant incentive to secure participation, and experience is not long enough for consumers to be able to gauge whether the incentive is sufficient compensation for battery degradation through extra cycling.
Nevertheless, National Grid are probably world leaders in testing the technologies used in VPPs so it is worth checking out their projects for bits that work and pitfalls they have still to handle.
Thank you for your constructive suggestions. While the report notes the California state legislation SB 846.....
• Requires the CEC to determine whether the state’s electricity forecasts for 2024–2030 “show potential for reliability deficiencies if Diablo Canyon Power Plant operations are not extended beyond 2025, and whether extending operations to at least 2030 is prudent to ensure reliability and consistency with the state’s emission reduction goals.”
... scant attention is paid to the 24-7 reliability deficiencies that would occur if DCPP were needlessly closed. I noted in one of my comments to this 2022 article https://energycentral.com/c/gn/us-renewables-expand-nukes-don%E2%80%99t that the economic cost to Californians of unreliable power during the 2000-2001 ENRON power crisis was between $200 - $400 billion USD. Consider for an 8-hour California-wide power outage, California's annual gross state product is $3.755 trillion. After calculating the hourly rate by dividing by 8,766 hours in a year, the result is multiplied by 8 hours, yielding $3.43 billion USD in lost productivity.
Congratulations, well deserved and wishing you many, many more.