California’s Power Jam: Unreliable renewables are forcing the state to scramble for electricity
Wall Street Journal|The Editorial Board|July 12, 2021
FERC is saving California’s politicians from their green energy profligacy, and its ruling may cause power shortages across other Western states. Residents in other states may also have to pay more for power on the spot market. Utilities and their regulators in Nevada, Arizona, Oregon and New Mexico have protested California’s power grab. These states have also become more dependent on solar to meet their climate goals. Renewable energy poses a systemic risk to the grid that can’t be mitigated by merely building more transmission lines. If states like Arizona and Nevada were to import wind power from the Midwest, they’d still be vulnerable to the vagaries of weather.
FERC is saving California’s politicians from their green energy profligacy, and its ruling may cause power shortages across other Western states. Residents in other states may also have to pay more for power on the spot market. Utilities and their regulators in Nevada, Arizona, Oregon and New Mexico have protested California’s power grab. These states have also become more dependent on solar to meet their climate goals. Renewable energy poses a systemic risk to the grid that can’t be mitigated by merely building more transmission lines. If states like Arizona and Nevada were to import wind power from the Midwest, they’d still be vulnerable to the vagaries of weather.
President Biden wants to spend tens of billions of dollars on transmission lines to transport renewable electricity across states, which he says will improve grid reliability. His climate model of California is showing the limits and risks of this strategy.
California’s Independent System Operator (Caiso) on Friday and Saturday issued emergency alerts urging residents to conserve power during the evenings to avoid rolling blackouts. A wildfire in Oregon threatened transmission lines that import thousands of megawatts of hydropower that are needed when the sun starts to go down.
Progressives blamed Texas’s power outage in February on its limited ability to import power from other states after its wind turbines froze and not enough …
... more [truncated due to possible copyright]President Biden wants to spend tens of billions of dollars on transmission lines to transport renewable electricity across states, which he says will improve grid reliability. His climate model of California is showing the limits and risks of this strategy.
California’s Independent System Operator (Caiso) on Friday and Saturday issued emergency alerts urging residents to conserve power during the evenings to avoid rolling blackouts. A wildfire in Oregon threatened transmission lines that import thousands of megawatts of hydropower that are needed when the sun starts to go down.
Progressives blamed Texas’s power outage in February on its limited ability to import power from other states after its wind turbines froze and not enough natural gas plants could ramp up to compensate. But grids in neighboring states had little power to spare, which was the problem this weekend in California and will continue to be all summer.
The California Public Utilities Commission ordered Caiso last month to procure more power for evening hours this summer due to reduced hydropower generation and imports caused by drought. It’s not clear where Caiso plans to get the power since supply is expected to be tight across the Western U.S. for the same reasons.
Rest assured, Caiso has a back-up plan: Snatch energy headed elsewhere. Caiso manages interconnections between utilities and power providers across the Western U.S. For instance, Arizona utilities contract with hydropower plants in the Northwest for power that is transmitted through California.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) late last month approved a request by Caiso to prioritize electricity moving through California to meet its own demands during emergencies. This will allow Caiso to override utility contracts and expropriate power destined for other states.
“Our electric utilities did the right thing and planned ahead, securing pre-negotiated contracts with utilities in the Pacific Northwest to ensure that critical hydropower would be available to Arizonans when it would be needed the most,” Arizona Corporation Commission Chairwoman Lea Márquez Peterson recently noted. California didn’t.
FERC is saving California’s politicians from their green energy profligacy, and its ruling may cause power shortages across other Western states. Residents in other states may also have to pay more for power on the spot market. Utilities and their regulators in Nevada, Arizona, Oregon and New Mexico have protested California’s power grab.
These states have also become more dependent on solar to meet their climate goals. Renewable energy poses a systemic risk to the grid that can’t be mitigated by merely building more transmission lines. If states like Arizona and Nevada were to import wind power from the Midwest, they’d still be vulnerable to the vagaries of weather.
Climate irony alert: States are likely to lean on coal this summer as they scramble to keep the power on. Fossil fuels saved Californians this weekend as Gov. Gavin Newsom waived air quality regulations to allow gas-fired and diesel generators to run all out. “We recognize these are transitional days and months and years for the California grid,” Caiso CEO Elliot Mainzer said Friday.
California prides itself on being a climate policy test-kitchen, and the Biden Administration wants to do the same for Americans everywhere. Prepare to swelter and to pay more for the privilege.