Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Sep 8

The lips were great too!

1 3

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Aug 20

Such a great film! Classic. Prescient.

4

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 24

If only we had something that could transfer power between regions...? Although the map is looking pretty red everywhere - maybe ERCOT could be exporting?

🔌💡

2 1 7

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 24

Gonna be a long hot night on the east coast. @gridstatus.io

Check out the prices in NYISO - almost $1,500/MWh.

1 1 3

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 24

Totally! It was a good point you made.

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 24

China just surpasses 1 TW of solar - installed nearly 100 GW just last *month*

🔌💡

@jmijin.bsky.social War is evil.

2 2 7

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 24

We want to make that happen here too. See the recent ESIG paper.

1 2

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 23

@gridstatus.io - great shot of the heat wave driving up prices across the Eastern Interconnect. But Texas? Doing just fine thanks to solar, wind and storage - prices are muted even at 6:00 Central.

🔌💡

Also, war sucks.

4 5 22

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 23

Yes, but they need a storage buffer. So you can easily upgrade a BESS system (battery) to GFM with just a software update, but wind/solar plant would need a bit of hardware (short term storage).

1 3

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 23

Yeah, that's not a good translation.

1 1

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 23

Jeff means IEEE 2800, not 1547

1

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 18

Check out the ERCOT Large Load queue. F*ing wild. 156GW on an 80 GW system, more than *doubled* since December. 20 GW under study (pretty firm!).

1

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 18

6/ Conclusion? Don't jump to them! This was not an inertia problem, but a voltage regulation problem.

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 18

5/ The recommendations for Spain to reduce the risk of future blackouts? (1) increase battery storage, (2) increase interconnections to France. Spain will also allow inverter based resources to provide voltage control, not just synchronous machines.

1

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 18

4/ In addition, some generation plants disconnected before they should have - e.g. they tripped offline when they could have “ridden through” the voltage disturbance.

1

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 18

3/The system operator had not provisioned enough plants with voltage control capabilities, and some thermal plants did not provide voltage response - in fact, they responded improperly and increased voltage.

1

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 18

2/ “Lack of inertia” had nothing to do with the problem, just as suspected. The issue was voltage regulation, there were earlier voltage oscillations that the system operator dampened, which further increased voltage. This over voltage then caused several plants to trip, which led to the collapse.

1

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 18

The Spanish authorities circulated a report yesterday that brings some conclusion to the Spanish blackout story. Turns out it was a voltage problem, not a frequency problem.

urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...

💡🔌

🧵

Se presenta el informe del Comité de análisis de la crisis eléctrica del 28 de abril

urldefense.com

2

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 18

💯

2

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 17

Now that we know the Spanish grid instability was a voltage control issue, will Bjorn Lomborg retract his terrible OpEd in the WSJ where he blamed solar and wind and a lack of inertia?

I doubt it.

🔌💡

www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...

Opinion | The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout

Madrid knew solar and wind power were unreliable but pressed ahead anyway.

www.wsj.com

5 20 69

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 17

Pretty sure it’s chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind, 3GW in Wyoming being developed by Phil Anchutz. Partially on BLM land.

1 1 2

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 17

This has to be a carve out for the Anchutz wind project?

1 1 1

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 17

Storage. Nice. Looks like Rs acknowledge we need capacity and storage is the fast option. That’s a silver lining here.

1 3

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 16

Here's Adam Keech, VP at PJM, stating that inter-regional transmission won't help PJM "because other regions don't have excess capacity" - has he not hear of coincident peak?

This is from the FERC conference on Resource Adequacy last week.

1 1 3

Ric O'Connell @ricoconnell.bsky.social · Jun 9

Here's a great visual from EIA on Natural Gas prices in the short term. Check out the upper bound!

1