Thread by @cleantechsonia

THREAD (1/16)

What Will It Take to Clean Up the Electric Grid?
It's a huge undertaking to slow climate change, but we've done big things before.

The latest from me and @JustinHGillis in the @nytimes: nytimes.com/2019/12/16/opi…

(2/16) #energytwitter is out there sharpening pencils to check our math as we speak. So here's some help.

We used the Energy Policy Simulator (us.energypolicy.solutions) to look at a scenario that hits ~90% clean by 2030. "Net zero" by 2030 could include offsets for the last ~10%

(3/16) "Clean" is defined as anything that produces electricity without emitting GHGs.

In practice, hitting ~90% means all coal would retire, some existing gas would hang around to be used for flexibility, while hydro, nuclear, and other renewables would generate the rest.

(4/16) @EIAgov numbers from the most recent year available at the time of writing (August 2018 - July 2019) show the U.S. got 38% of its electricity from clean sources in the past year.

That means we'd have to build enough clean power plants to go from 38% to ~90% in ten years.

(5/16) The EPS runs a least-cost optimization to build a power system that meets the 90% clean constraint by 2030, and checks for enough grid flexibility (in the form of transmission, demand response, batteries, or flexible natural gas) to balance variable solar and wind.

(6/16) Given these constraints and observed technology costs, this means keeping our existing nuclear + hydro, and some existing gas (NOT building new gas), and building a lot more wind and solar. Specifically, we're looking at about 70-95 gigawatts of wind and solar annually.

(7/16) Side comment to note that we used the "federal-analysis" branch of our open-source EPS (github.com/Energy-Innovat…) for this. This version lifts constraints on renewables deployment rates, which we normally keep in place in the absence of clear federal policy.

(8/16) We have a LOT of latent flexibility in the grid system. @TheBrattleGroup says using the 200 GW of potential demand response would save $15 billion, @BloombergNEF reports an 87% price drop for batteries since 2010, and @DrChrisClack has shown the flex value of transmission.

(9/16) As for flexibility from existing gas, this chart shows we are only running our existing gas combined cycles about half the time as it is. Trick is to use these existing plants for flexibility rather than energy. And not to build any more.

(10/16) 2012 saw the most wind additions in the US: 13 GW. 2016 holds the US solar record: 15 GW. Needed build in our 90% by 2030 scenario is about 2.5-3.4x the combined maximum historical US build rates for wind and solar.

2.5-3.4x is serious increase, but achievable.

(11/16) China has built 35 GW of wind in one year and 50 GW of solar in one year. Matching this rate would put us right in the range for meeting 90% by 2030 in the US.

Of course, China has 4x the people and a grid 1.5 times the size of ours in terms of power gen capacity.

(12/16) We estimated the number of wind turbines via the average wind turbine size from @ENERGY (energy.gov/eere/articles/…) and the number of "large solar power plants" via the average solar project size from @EIAgov data (eia.gov/electricity/da…).

(13/16) Sharp readers will also wonder about the impact of electric cars and buildings. If we pursue efficiency at the same time, we could support half of all cars and building components sold in 2030 being electric with just a 25% increase in annual RE build in 2030.

(14/16)

CLEAN ELECTRICITY IS THE LINCHPIN FOR A CLEAN ECONOMY.

Clean electrons can displace gasoline burned in cars, gas burned in buildings, and some of the fuel burned at factories.

Opportunities abound for cleaning up our electricity grid cheaply. Now is the time.

(15/16) As with any analysis, you could pick different criteria and make different assumptions and you'd get somewhat different numbers. Sure. But these numbers are undoubtedly in the ballpark.

(16/16) We need more study on cost and reliability, no doubt. Stay tuned for exciting new research to be released next year to help us look more deeply at these questions.

Until then…don't forget to keep your ambitions high for how quickly the US can decarbonize. /FIN