Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

@w1ts3nd555.bsky.social

530 followers 1.8K following 1.2K posts

Architect, urbanist, gardener, ecology enthusiast, building scientist — interested in sustainability at all scales of the built and natural environment. Pro-democracy and pro-rule-of-law. Views are my own. Blog: https://w1tsend.wordpress.com/

w1tsend.wordpress.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 19h

… political support, that is.

Important to explain VPPs to the public in ways they’ll understand and care about.

I’ve started pointing to graphs of generation vs demand and observing that energy storage, intelligently applied, can shave off the area of the peaks and apply it to the valleys.

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 19h

We need finance/incentives innovation + a groundswell of political support to push it through.

Probable scenario: energy transition stalls, but VPPs nevertheless take hold because utilities can’t build out fast enough to keep pace with data center load demand.

Lean into rising bills for support.

1 1

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 19h

A major obstacle is less a technical one than a political and incentives one:

Investor-owned utilities have little incentive to explore VPPs because the only way regulators allow them to grow profit is to build out more infrastructure. This biases them against distributed energy and VPP/DERs.

1 3

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

… and scheduling smart water heaters to “bank” energy at opportune times.

Also incentivizing those with batteries and solar to sell power during peak demand times. “Buy low, sell high.” These are called Distributed Energy Resources (DER).

Your devices can make/save you money while you sleep/work.

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

This might be the time for municipal utilities to shine. Fewer perverse incentives.

Ann Arbor, MI comes to mind.

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

It was incentive enough to get me to finally commit to rooftop solar.

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

FERC Order 2222 was a great start, if we’d only keep it up. I fear its new leaders may reverse course.

www.ferc.gov/ferc-order-n...

FERC Order No. 2222 Explainer: Facilitating Participation in Electricity Markets by Distributed Energy Resources[i]

[i] Disclaimer: To facilitate understanding and discussion, this document simplifies and summarizes Order No. 2222, issued on September 17, 2020, in Docket No. RM18-9-000, https://www.ferc.gov/sites/d...

www.ferc.gov

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

“Virtual power plants” are one of the cheapest, most equitable ways to make the grid more efficient, making costly infrastructure buildout less necessary.

Kevin J. CREATURE @kevinjkircher.com · 24d

11) At the high end of the grid reinforcement cost estimate range, VPPs could reduce grid buildout costs by *$340 billion*. That's our estimate of the "money on the table" for deploying VPPs: The achievable societal value of avoiding poles-and-wires upgrades at the distribution level.

3 16

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

This aligns with what I’ve seen elsewhere. VPPs are a clear, low-cost means of getting better use of infrastructure we already have.

Need to work on IOUs’ perverse incentive to ignore efficiency and instead build out more infrastructure (because that is how they grow profit).

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

Ah. Answered here (no):

bsky.app/profile/kevi...

Kevin J. CREATURE @kevinjkircher.com · 24d

12) Notably, we left for future work a range of other demand-side strategies: Home batteries, appliance-integrated batteries, thermal storage, vehicle-to-home discharging, and solar panels, to name a few. We'd like to work on some or all of these in follow-up work.

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

Does the strategic demand-side management include appliances with batteries? (Haven’t read it yet, obvs.)

1 1

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

Milk paint, lime wash, clay, mineral paint. Each with pros and cons.

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

Them and the frog.

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

Whoa. Some of this is due to more built infrastructure constructed in harm’s way during this period, but you know it’s bad when insurers say climate change is a now problem and it’s changing the standard of care.

Graph showing global insurance claims due to extreme weather rising over the past 50 years.

Reposted by GN

Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 1d

Three key points:
1) The admin has been planning mass firings to begin in October since February
2) The work necessary to carry out mass firings is illegal during a shutdown, violating the Antideficiency Act, which carries a criminal penalty
3) This harms America, ridding us of talent and expertise

Russ Vought v @russvought
The RIFs have begun.
12:27 PM • 10/10/25 • 15K Views

230 2.4K 6.2K

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

“Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended – with words, with courage and with determination.”

www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace...

Nobel Peace Prize 2025

The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 was awarded to Maria Corina Machado "for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transi...

www.nobelprize.org

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

I question the wisdom of focusing solely on Trump as author and agent of it all, rather than pointing out obvious misdeeds of his more-vulnerable enablers.

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

So incredibly, willfully stupid.

It would’ve had the equivalent output of 3 Hoover dams.

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 2d

Picture how big the Hoover Dam is. An absolute unit. The Hoover Dam has a power capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW).

The solar farm that the Admin just cancelled could have produces 6.2 GW of power. That's more than 3 Hoover Dams.

jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · 2d

SCOOP: The Bureau of Land Management says the largest solar project in Nevada — the Esmeralda 7 mega-farm — has been canceled

The news was quietly dropped via a sudden website update with no public word from any of the companies involved or a statement from the agency

@heatmap.news

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

Uhh, what?

Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 1d

👇👇

Reposted by GN

Jon Walker @jonwalkerpdx.bsky.social · 2d

Again this is how Portland looks right now

6 20 85

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

Haha - they’re multiplying!

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 1d

PORTLAND: “The frogs are multiplying”

(#NotAWarZone Noem Matter what Kristi says)

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

Never forget.

Their lives should matter as much as his, yours, or mine.

Nash Is Here for It @nashishereforit.bsky.social · 1d

It’s hard to award the Nobel Peace Prize to a guy that maybe brokered a temporary peace deal after he ordered 500 tons of nutrient rich biscuits destroyed instead of saving the lives of desperate, starving babies.

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

I hope all the attention doesn’t make her a target.

GN @w1ts3nd555.bsky.social · 1d

Their impulse to double down reminds me a bit of J Edgar Hoover.

‘Control is the only security’ seems to be the philosophy.