Vibrant Clean Energy Profile picture
Jun 21, 2022 16 tweets 10 min read Read on X
🚨 #NewStudyAlert 🚨 #energytwitter

Today we release a new report: "Role of Electricity Produced by Advanced Nuclear Technologies in Decarbonizing the U.S Energy System". Below lies a thread (🧵🪡)
We deployed WIS:dom-P w/ augmentation to include: #endogenous learning, blended adv. #nuclear tech., yearly investment periods, @NREL #electrification, pilot projects, new #weather & load #datasets.
Two pathways were analyzed. First, "nominal", was where advanced nuclear had a lower first-of-a-kind (FOAK) cost & no delays due to permitting, labor, supply chains. The second pathway, "constrained", had a higher FOAK and there were delays in permitting, labor and supply chains.
The "nominal" scenario installs 51 GW adv. nuclear by 2035, while "constrained" only managed 12 GW. This gap extends to 277 GW by 2050. This cumulative installations impacts the capital costs for the next MW of installed capacity via the endogenous learning.
The "constrained" pathway must make up for the lack of adv. nuclear capacity; and does it with wind, solar, storage, and fossil fuels. In fact, the additional capacity required to replace the 277 GW of adv. nuclear is 1,300 GW (more than all the capacity on the grid today in US)
All that capacity costs consumers money to the tune of nearly $450 billion through 2050. This makes it harder for the other sectors in the economy to electrify and decarbonize.
The "nominal" scenario provides over 40% of its electricity via nuclear (advanced & legacy) while the "constrained" only manages 13%. The remaining generation gap is made up by variable resources and storage to balance them.
In addition, the fossil fuel back-up generation is increased in the "constrained" scenario by 50 GW. This could be replaced by storage or other generation capacity, but at a higher price. Note that the storage only needs 5 hours for the "nominal" and 8 hours for the "constrained"
The installation rate of generation technologies increases dramatically for the "constrained" pathway to replace adv. nuclear. This will require considerable supply chain expansion.
The advanced nuclear is sited at existing and then retired power plants that are suitable for conversion. These allow for easier access to critical components for interconnection to the grid.
The pathways both achieve 60% reductions in economy-wide emissions and 95% reduction in power grid emissions. These are accompanied with reductions in criteria pollutants that will increase health for local residents.
The siting within WIS:dom-P deploys generation, transmission, DERs, and storage in a trade-off between cost of generation and requirement to make profit. This co-optimization leads to cooperation and competition between sites and resources across the footprint.
To achieve this there will need to be a vast expansion in nuclear jobs as the deployments occur and these will replace the coal and natural gas jobs that are lost.
Credit to @NEI for funding the study. As always, we welcome constructive comments and feedback.
Finally, we are searching for new job postings. If you are interested please apply!

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More from @VibrantCE

Feb 23, 2022
🚨NEW STUDY ALERT🚨

Today we release a new #study for @votesolar that looks at #electrifying and #decarbonizing #Michigan's #economy by 2050. A thread 🧵!

vibrantcleanenergy.com/media/reports/
We computed 3 scenario pathways:
1) Duplicated three utilities IRPs
2) Clean economy by 2050 using utility generation
3) Clean economy by 2050 using both utility & distributed generation (via co-optimization)
Main results (1)
Lower costs for customers ($773 p/a for res. + comm. & $70K p/a for industrial) compared with IRP.
Read 15 tweets
May 28, 2021
We released a report yesterday w/ @350Montana & @GridLabEnergy on "Affordable & Reliable
Decarbonization Pathways for
Montana." Here is a short thread...
First, report is here: vibrantcleanenergy.com//wp-content/up…

Second, Exec summary is here: vibrantcleanenergy.com//wp-content/up…

Third, More can be found @350Montana: 350montana.org/2021/05/27/the…
We performed five scenarios for the MT #grid. Long-story-short, the MT grid can run #reliably without #coal or #naturalgas & become 100% #renewable by 2035. MT still needs import/exports w/ other regions; but exports far more than imports. Image shown is 2050.
Read 15 tweets
Feb 24, 2021
Here is a look at the #Texas Wind (avg over all state) for each month for last 175 years. It's the average capacity factor for each month. Our climate data suggests events like that of the last few weeks will occur ~4 more times before 2050.
Here is the same analysis for #solar across #Texas. Please note that these plots assume uniform installations across all of the state.
Here are the same plots, but weekly rather than monthly. More noisy, but we think useful!
Read 6 tweets
Dec 14, 2020
🚨⚡️FULL TECHNICAL REPORT RELEASED⚡️🚨

Today, we have released our full technical report on the "Why Local Solar and Storage Costs Less". Two weeks ago, we released the main findings: savings of $473 billion when co-optimizing distribution. This released provides more details!
The report, ES, summary presentation, and spreadsheet can all be found on our website: vibrantcleanenergy.com/media/reports/ #energytwitter #cleanelectricity
The full technical report shows that the cost savings comes from lower distribution spending and higher utilization of variable renewables. The additional costs of local solar and storage are much lower than the benefits unlocked. #energytwitter
Read 18 tweets
Dec 1, 2020
⚡️ NEW STUDY RELEASE (9:30 ET 12/1) ⚡️

Why Local Solar For All Costs Less:
A New Roadmap for the Lowest Cost Grid

A thread 🧵 - this study has been ~18 months in the making! @SolarAccess @Sunrun @TeamKivvit @LocalSolar4All @votesolar @DrChrisClack @achoukulkar @RabagoEnergy
We present four (of our 15) scenarios that show what DERs can do under BAU and a nationwide CES. We augmented our WIS:dom®-P modeling software during the course of the study to better represent the distribution grid. We did this using an interface (or event horizon)
Read 26 tweets
Oct 28, 2020
⚡️NEW STUDY RELEASE⚡️: Consumer, Employment, and Environmental Benefits of Electricity Transmission Expansion in the Eastern United States w/ @CleanEnergyGrid @gogginmichael @DrChrisClack. A short thread...
High-level: If the Eastern US aims for 95% GHG reduction by 2050 (65% by 2035) it could have 6 million new jobs, $100 billion reduced costs, and over 80% generation from wind and solar. How? This is enabled by new high-voltage transmission connecting everything together Interstate transmission buildout by 2050
Note that transmission and storage actually work together in a decarbonized grid because they provide complementary benefits. Storage provides temporal diversity and transmission provides geographic diversity. The sum of the two are greater than the parts.
Read 11 tweets

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