New blog alert 🚨🚨🚨: The Real Reason Coal Plants Have to Cycle.
TL/DR: the current rhetoric of renewables scapegoating is unjustified. Coal plants have to cycle but not b/c of renewables but b/c economics, they are now a load-following resource. 1/x
blog.ucsusa.org/joseph-daniel/…
TL/DR: the current rhetoric of renewables scapegoating is unjustified. Coal plants have to cycle but not b/c of renewables but b/c economics, they are now a load-following resource. 1/x
blog.ucsusa.org/joseph-daniel/…
This new blog was supported by great new data assembled by UCS associate analyst Ashtin Massie. It shows clearly that coal plants are cycling daily to follow load. 2/x 
This is, of course, a natural progression of my earlier blog outline the fact that coal is no longer baseload. 3/ blog.ucsusa.org/joseph-daniel/…
This isn't to say that coal cycling to integrate renewables will never be an "issue" but even when it does become one it isn't a "costly inefficiency" some suggested in this story by @cmorehouse10 but rather it helps save money. 4/ utilitydive.com/news/coal-plan…
The trend has gone from being "baseload" to load following and eventually we'll be able to turn them off. See this earlier analysis by @Emma_Spell. 5/
One NREL study found that the savings from cycling coal to integrate renewables were huge. For every $1 in ‘integration costs’ there would be $45-$200 of system benefits! seia.org/research-resou…
6/
6/
Trying to solve a problem before it gets out of hand is admirable but manufacturing a problem out of fear of the unknown, not so much. And that is what is being done, utilities make specious claims about integrating renewables as to not have to build renewables. 7/
We learn new ways to cost-effectively integrate wind and solar every year as adoption increases. Deployment of RE technologies has led to innovation which has led to more deployment and then more innovation. I’m skeptical that the virtuous cycle is suddenly going to stop. Fin.
