28 Replies to “The US Electric Grid”

  1. I’m not so sure I believe that Generation Capacity chart. Wind power seems awfully high. And Nuclear seems awfully low.

      1. plus the effects of winter, snow on panels , extreme low angle sun , clouds. and wind generators dont work in still air or cold . thats why the feds are keen to put them on reserves and up north in Canaduh

      2. One question –

        Is wind and solar the usually quoted “nameplate figure” or adjusted for “capacity factor”?

        IIRC that is about 30% of nameplate for wind and 20% for solar

        1. It’s ALWAYS the nameplate rating only. Specifically the maximum power output possible. This nameplate rating has relatively little to do with actual power production. For wind, it’s about 15% at nearly all locations (the best location in Canada is the Gaspe peninsula in Quebec with typical annual capacity factors of 20%).

          For Solar on a 24 hour daily basis, it’s about 5%. Solar reduces dramatically the further north from the equator, by about 80% on an overcast day, and obviously nothing at night. Given diurnal variation, the maximum average daily capacity factor is 50%. And it only gets worse from there.

          2. rd, wrong. Nameplate capacity is achieved by baseload electrical generating stations: coal, nuclear and occasionally gas. Some hydro works on baseload capacity basis as well and runs at or close to 100%. It is not mythological.

    2. You can find electricity generation as well as capacity. For 2022, generation was:

      43% natural gas
      20% renewable
      17% coal
      9% hydro
      8% nuclear
      2% petroleum
      ——————-
      Of the 20% renewable most of it is wind (over 75% from the eye ball).

      https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php

      One thing that is not clear to me is the “problem” with natural gas which was described as “just in time”. In Texas it failed to arrive for some reason. Why haven’t we had that problem in Canada where it’s much colder?

      1. Well the issue isn’t necessarily what the power source was but what provided the BASE power when it was really needed. It sure as hell wasn’t the ‘unreliables’ like wind and solar. My understanding is ERCOT made the mistake of shutting down power to many nat gas facilities

        1. The transition from gas-powered oil-field infrastructure to electrically-powered infrastructure (because it’s greener) has proven suicidal. Infrastructure that will not operate not only doesn’t produce, it doesn’t pollute.
          Likewise your Ring doorbell will record you freezing to death in the Green Home of the Future.

      2. Steve, I don’t trust the EIA ratings for one second. They are producing propaganda to support the political narrative artificially to make so-called renewables look good.

        1. I’m with you. It would be interesting, however, to look just at Texas. Maybe they’re more honest?

          1. There are two significant problems with Texas. The first is that it isolated itself to a large degree from other utilities and electrical exchanges outside the Ercot area. The second and more serious is that it heavily overbuilt on wind generation without ensuring an adequate backup generation particularly in the event of weather-related outages.

            They certainly have to be more honest about things like wind now and weather related events because twice in recent years the Texas grid nearly collapsed. So in that sense, I agree with you.

      4. Two words: Methanol Drip.

        The reason we can keep it all going, up here in Canada, is that we have (had?) the experience to do so, it’s usu cold in the winter in Canada, so we have developed ways to keep stuff going.

        It’s not generally as cold in Teaxas as it is in Canada, so they lack the infrastructure, techniques, etc., to deal with it.
        Solution, send some Canadians down to show them how it works.. (Funny thing is, it was a company in Texas that figured out the methanol drip and ways to keep cold water bearing wells open, I guess they never figured they would need it, so why “put a block heater in a texas car”? Irony certainly, Hubris, maybe..)

        I like the story of the airline captain that was coming into a Canadian airport that was being overwhelmed with incoming flights, the pilot asked for clearance and was told to hold. when asked what the problem was, ATC responded they were swamped. To which the pilot replied, “Well we could just get one guy to come up from JFK ATC and the rest of you could go home!” That flight remained in a holding pattern as long as possible, due to that comment.

        It comes down to knowledge and experience sharing, which this new “Information age” was supposed to provide just such a function. Gues everyone is too busy watching porn?!

    3. That’s nameplate capacity, the unreliables don’t produce their nameplate capacity most of the time, versus nuclear that produces it about 98%

  2. A summer hail storm with golf ball size hail should completely destroy most solar panels I think.

      1. You can click on each “fuel” type individually, there are LOTS of small(ish) farms putting out power, pretty well all in southern Ontario, they either all get wind, or not at all. Today was apparently windy.

      2. steve h, those wind figures are entirely believable. What Davis is linking is a live grid watch. This shows generating hour by hour, as Ontario happens to be in a high wind regime across the province TODAY. This has little or nothing to do with actual performance over the course of a year.

  4. a great deal of engineering involved n’est-pas?
    so much so requiring precision at gigantic scale.
    and cant switch it off to add stuff, because there’s too much dependency.
    what to do? let the engineers tell us how they will.
    back abd forth since at least the first niagara falls generator.

    leaving it up to the experts who deliver and the robber barons to make sure they take over control so we pay aplenty for the engineers machines.
    and politicians and economists and and

    something new in the mix now.
    the advocates. who really got started in the opposition to nukes.
    not the bombs although others did, lm referring of course to darlington and bruce et al.

    the advocates and activists are deep into the process now.
    ‘n fact we’se up here in Canaduh have one of them calling the friggin shots now.
    aaaaaand l betcha he dont even know how to make a 3 phase motor go in the other direction. but he’s diktating thing affecting e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e in the natio… er, POST nation.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation