Will Renewables Break the Power Grid or Save It?
March 6th, 2024
Courtesy of Anthropocene, a look at how the carbon-free promise of solar and wind teeters on high voltage wires:
Adjusting for inflation, a barrel of oil today costs around the same as it did in the 1970s Oil Crisis. Solar photovoltaic modules over the same period now cost 500 times less—and prices are still falling, about 30% last year. So why can’t we kick the fossil fuel habit? One answer is the grid—in the U.S., 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines that span mountains, plains and rivers, and another five million miles of cables delivering electricity to our homes. That grid was designed for a few fossil fuel power plants that can be brought online at the flip of a switch. A low-carbon future looks very different—thousands of solar and wind farms flicking on and off as nature allows. Now the question is: Can we reinvent some of the biggest infrastructure humanity has ever built—before it breaks us?
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Today’s Grid Is Toast
1. The long line to build long lines. Solar farms are almost always much smaller than the fossil fuel power stations they replace, and spread out over a much wider area. According to energy consultancy Thunder Said, replacing a single typical coal plant requires about 100 solar plants—and thus 100 new grid connections. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reported last year that there were nearly 10,000 renewable projects, accounting for 1250 gigawatts of capacity, awaiting interconnection to grids in the US alone. And it’s getting worse. Projects now take around five years to break ground, compared to three years in 2015 and less than two in 2008.
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2. Slow out of the starting gate. To hit the White House’s goal of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035, up to 80% of electricity generation will have to come from wind and solar (up from just 17% last year). That would mean almost tripling transmission capacity in the US by adding up to 10,000 miles of high-capacity lines annually at a cost of up to $740 billion, according to a sobering analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. How are we doing? In 2022, the US built just 670 miles of transmission lines, of which precisely zero miles were high capacity.3. Square solar panels in round grid holes. Because wind and solar projects are naturally intermittent, they can cause instabilities in the grid and even blackouts if dropped into the grid without changes. To stabilize the system, utilities are often forced to spin up polluting gas power stations, buy power from neighboring regions, or invest in expensive energy storage. “The pace of growth is breaking us,” said the executive director of renewables origination at a Baltimore-based utility, Constellation Energy, earlier this month. And that’s on top of political hurdles. US Today estimates that 15% of counties in America have some impediment to new utility-scale wind and solar energy, ranging from onerous zoning restrictions to outright bans.
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A Few Smart Moves Could Untangle The Mess
1. Recycling and reconductoring. But there is a way to supercharge the grid without new transmission lines. Traditional high voltage power lines are composed of a structural steel core surrounded by conductive aluminum strands. “Reconductoring” involves replacing the steel core with a stronger, lighter carbon fiber composite, and using some of the weight savings to add extra aluminum. The result? Transmission lines that can double their capacity and halve their losses, without the time-sucking permitting paperwork of starting from scratch. Aluminum from the older lines can even be recycled in the newer cables. According to Emilia Chojkiewicz at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, reconductoring can meet over 80% of the long-distance transmission needs to meet almost all the clean energy goals by 2035—and bring substantial cost savings. Belgium and the Netherlands are already embarking on national reconductoring projects. |
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