It found that for every $1 invested, ratepayers would see more than $2.50 in benefits. In 2018, a team assembled by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) published the Interconnections Seam Study, a close analysis of the costs and benefits of stitching together America’s fragmented grid. It will save consumers moneyĬlack and his co-authors also found that weaving the regionally divided power system into a single national system would save consumers around $47.2 billion a year through increased efficiency and cheaper renewable energy. How is this possible? “This reduction in carbon emissions is achieved by moving away from a regionally divided electricity sector to a national system enabled by high-voltage direct-current transmission.” 3. And this can be accomplished “without an increase in the levelized cost of electricity.” The results, published in Nature Climate Change, show that, using only existing technologies and without any additional energy storage, US power sector emissions can be reduced by up to 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2030. In 2016, Chris Clack, Alexander MacDonald, and colleagues modeled the US energy system out to 2030 at a high degree of resolution. Energy storage, including batteries, can provide some of that flexibility, but not enough. A grid with lots of wind and solar power needs ways to smooth out the fluctuations and fill the gaps. Solar and wind energy are variable they come and go with the weather. The route of the proposed Grain Belt Express high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission line. It is expected to carry around 4 gigawatts of low-cost renewable energy (enough to power 1.6 million homes a year), unlock $7 billion worth of new renewable energy projects, and relieve congestion on both ends of the line. One example: The proposed 780-mile Grain Belt Express would carry solar and wind power from Kansas to Missouri and Illinois. The more each region can import and export electricity, the more it can balance its own fluctuations in supply and demand with its neighbors’ and maximize the use of renewable energy. The way to balance this out - to make sure that every region is producing as much renewable energy as possible and that the energy is put to good use - is to connect these regions with high-voltage transmission lines. Some regions (notably the Upper Midwest and Texas) will be producing substantially more than they consume, while others (notably in the West and Northeast) will consume much more than they produce. This map, from a report by energy consultancy ScottMadden, shows the estimated 2030 balance of power supply and demand for each region of the country. A report from the Wind Energy Association found that the 15 states between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River - Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana - account for 87 percent of the nation’s total wind energy potential and 56 percent of its utility-scale solar potential, but are only projected to account for 30 percent of the nation’s energy demand in 2050. The areas of the US with the most renewable energy potential are not necessarily the ones that need the most energy. It will unlock renewable energy potential Here’s why the US should, at long last, build a national grid. Rather than get into the policies and regulatory changes necessary to accomplish this goal - which are many, complex, and lamentably boring - I’m going to briefly cover the top five reasons why it’s a good idea. The initiative is a welcome development this idea of a national grid is overdue for some well-funded support. Earlier this week, an effort launched to finally address that: the Macro Grid Initiative, which “seeks to expand and upgrade the nation’s transmission network.” It is a collaborative project by the American Council on Renewable Energy, Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, the Advanced Power Alliance, and the Clean Grid Alliance. Power nerds have known for years that this is a barrier preventing all sorts of efficiencies. Our grid is instead split into three regions - the western interconnection, the eastern interconnection, and, uh, Texas - that largely operate independently and exchange very little power. The US does not actually have a national grid. Microgrids help support the growth of distributed energy, with power generation, storage, and management taking place on the customer side of the power meter.īut the other branch, and equally important, is bigger. “ Microgrids” are small grids that connect a college campus, a business, or even a house, allowing it to act as a semi-independent island within the larger grid. And as more and more of American life is electrified - transportation and buildings are already on their way - the electricity grid will face greater demands and will need to evolve to meet them.
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