The vast majority of Americans support wind power. Just 4% have “strongly unfavorable” opinions of wind energy. One of the most commonly used arguments against wind energy is that wind turbines are too big, or use too many resources. Compared to what? A thread... Here is a modern scale 2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine: One of these turbines has an annual energy output of 7,200 megawatt hours (MWh).

There's been a meme running around showing solar carports. Usually, the "take" is we should be installing solar carports instead of using farmland for solar. Here's the thing: no one is stopping you from installing solar carports. So why don't we do it more often? A thread... First, parking lots are unusual things. They can be privately owned (a landlord), or publicly owned (city/school/etc.). Public owned lots/garages have to get budget line items through local/state appropriations. Private can go quicker, but still need permits, etc.

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners put out a statement on the new FERC Order 1920: they're big mad. Who is this group, why are they upset? Here's a brief thread... NARUC is a 501c4 nonprofit group that represents "the state public service commissions who regulate the utilities that provide essential services". PSC's are the state regulators for electric utilities. NARUC is the United Nations of state Public Service Commissions.

You've probably heard about Georgia Power's incredible load growth and their plans to add more gas power plants. Today, intervening parties, including SREA, filed testimony in the docket. Let's do a thread but start with some background... psc.ga.gov/search/facts-d…
Georgia Power files an IRP every three years, with the last filed in 2022. There the company was approved to add 2.1 GW of new renewables, 500 MW of batteries, and some coal retirement decisions were delayed until the '25 filing.

This new report from Grid Strategies, led by @Wilson_Energy, is shocking. Load growth projections are skyrocketing all across the country, and especially in the southeast. What's going on? A thread... gridstrategiesllc.com/wp-content/upl…




Increased new industrial load, data center growth, electrification, extreme weather events, and future growth (e.g., hydrogen) are leading the investments. AI is a hungry industry.

Did you miss the FERC/NERC update on the Winter Storm Elliott inquiry yesterday? Here's a brief summary...🧵 ferc.gov/news-events/ne… 70,000 megawatts (!) of generators were unavailable, with 5,000 megawatts of firm load shed (blackouts) in the southeast. It doesn't say here, but most of those generator failures were natural gas plants.

I can't overstate how big of a deal it is for Ford and GM to partner with Tesla on a standardized electric plug. For about a decade, we've been in a Beta Max vs VHS battle for EV chargers. Here's a 🧵 of history for folks just now tuning in... When Tesla started churning out Roadsters in 2008, there wasn't a standard plug that could handle the big loads of their little car. So they set out to invent the North American Charging Standard (NACS) for their next car, the Model S.

Georgia Power presented information to the Georgia PSC this morning on Winter Storm Elliott. Unlike TVA and Duke Energy, Southern Company didn't experience blackouts, so there's been little public discussion about their performance, here's a summary...🧵 GPC reported they're a vertically integrated monopoly, have coal, gas, nuclear, are connected to their neighbors, has a 26% winter reserve margin, and followed NERC standards. But the problem is...those things describe TVA/Duke, too & they had blackouts. What's different?

Like renewables? Nuclear? Coal? Gas? How do utilities make plans for those resources in the future? Let me tell you about INTEGRATED RESOURCE PLANS. IRP's are the super secret plans (not really) utilities use to sketch out the future. But why do we have them? Thread... IRP's have been around for a LONG time. Douglas Bauer and Joseph Eto wrote a paper in the 1980s about IRPs as a coastal (and Wisconsin!) thing.

While most of the focus of Winter Storm Elliott has been how MISO and PJM helped the south stave off worse blackouts, how'd the Southeastern Energy Exchange Market do? The monthly auditor report shows: SEEM wasn't helpful. Blackouts were 12/23, 12/24. SEEM was MIA those days. 🧵 The top part of the chart is the buyers. Bottom is the sellers. In SEEM, buyers and sellers must "match" on a voluntary basis. If you're selling power at a too high price, or buying at a too low price, the market doesn't swap. For 3 days there were zero sales. Three days. None.

Next up at @infocast_events #sere22 Utilities' Carbon-Free Goals and Their Plans for Renewable Procurement feat. Georgia Power Company, Entergy, TVA, Green Power EMC #energytwitter GPC: Our IRP is every three years with lots of intervenors. We have a lot of load growth. Scenario planning is at the heart of the IRP. We take into a range of carbon costs. We're closing coal by '35. Adding 3GW of renewables and batteries.

Here at @infocast_events #sere22 in Charlotte with regulators from AR, GA, MS, NC incl. @MPSCBrentBailey
@timechols (plz excuse my abbreviated summaries of their comments, these aren't verbatim) thread...
#energytwitter NC: HB 951 70% carbon neutrality by 2030, neutrality by 2050 is driving force. Duke will own 55% of resources. Significant public process, hearings, data over the past year. Duke will procure 1200 MW of solar next year.

"Simon, what's this all about alcohol, milk and electric transmission?" Sit back, I have a story to tell. And it's a doozie. #energytwitter As you may or may not know, electric utilities build large scale power lines called transmission lines. These aren't the lines you see in your neighborhood; they're big lines to carry big power over long distances. But...

Dispare and hopeless exist when folks aren't empowered. The constant singular focus on federal issues in the news cycle make "change" seem remote, unreachable. Folks, I have a great story to share. Five years ago, I helped save my city $120m. And like, 50 ppl know.

Thread... I'm a Leslie Knope nerd. I read long and complicated documents and can sift through the BS to figure out what's "really" going on. Well, my local electric company was conducting studies on what sort of new power plant they'd like to build.

Tom Fanning, CEO from Southern Company ($SO), is taking a victory lap in this morning's WSJ Opinion Section: "states that have suffered the most" are in RTO's like @MISO_energy and @SPPorg. Why this letter? Why now? A thread 1/14

wsj.com/articles/elect… A few years ago, $SO sold off Gulf Power to NextEra. $SO said it was for "strengthening our financial position", and now they're fighting RTO's? What's going on? 2/14

How do utilities plan for more renewables? Glad you asked. It's called an integrated resource plan, or IRP. IRP's are essentially complicated math problems, forecasting into the future, sometimes up to 20 years. I'll use Entergy Arkansas' latest IRP as an example. 1/ First, utilities will forecast the power needs for their territory (load forecast), and often will include some narrative "scenarios" - what if power needs are lower than expected (because of energy efficiency, perhaps)? 2/

Happy #ATBDay to all you #energytwitter nerds out there. Let's do a thread on how important the ATB and @NREL are. 1/16 The NREL Annual Technology Baseline, or ATB as the cool kids call it, is the only PUBLICLY accessible set of multiple generation tech FORECASTS for both PERFORMANCE and PRICING for GEOGRAPHICALLY SPECIFIC resources. It's also EDITABLE and TRANSPARENT. 2/16

This afternoon, @MISO_energy is hosting its final workshop on the Renewable Integration Impact Assessment report. Didn’t read the 217pg report? I’ve created this thread to prep you for the 1pm CT call. (here's the report: cdn.misoenergy.org/RIIA%20Summary…, and the report as a word cloud:) RIIA began in 2017 as a study to find “inflection points” for renewable penetration in MISO. These are the key questions RIIA set out to tackle: When does renewable integration get hard, and how do we fix it?

This past week has focused a lot on Texas' blackout and response to the polar vortex, Uri. There were also considerable problems in MISO South that are probably going to get ignored (except from MISO South customers, and regulators). So let's talk about it. Thread 1/8- During Polar Vortex '21, aka, Uri...
MISO was importing (-) a lot of power from PJM (MIDA) almost 10GW, and also exporting (+) a lot of power to SPP (CENT) to keep the lights on, almost 5GW. 2/8
eia.gov/beta/electrici…

What are kilowatts, megawatt hours, and giga...whats?

The US power system uses metric prefixes. The most basic unit of energy is the watt. 1,000 watts = 1 kilowatt (KW). 1,000 kW = 1 megawatt (MW). 1,000 MW = 1 gigawatt (GW). A kilowatt or megawatt indicates capacity or instant power demand/generation. A kilowatt hour or megawatt hour indicates power usage over time.

A microwave uses 1,000 watts of power.
If it runs for 1 hour, it consumes 1kWh of electricity.

A typical TX house uses 30kWh daily.

While debate rages over blackout causes (fossil fuels? market design?) few have pointed out transmission expansion planning failures. @aripescoe published this great paper (in January!) explaining why major utilities are hampering transmission planning. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… One aspect of RTO/ISO's is "transmission expansion planning". MISO's process is the MISO Transmission Expansion Plan MTEP. There are many *types* of transmission projects from small to big.