Will Gorman
@wfgorman.bsky.social
700 followers 270 following 21 posts
clean tech and energy lifelong learner | bassoonist | research scientist at emp.lbl.gov studying #renewables #der #electricitystorage #transmission #interconnection
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wfgorman.bsky.social
💡 New Transmission Paper alert 💡
“Electric transmission value and its drivers in United States power markets” just went live in Nature Communications! Kudos especially to Julie Mulvaney Kemp for getting this work to the finish line.

doi.org/10.1038/s414...
wfgorman.bsky.social
And check out some of the earlier papers from this 3-year research effort below, also open-access:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
wfgorman.bsky.social
One of the key outcomes of peer review was to think more about how storage degradation might impact the calculus of the above findings. You'll have to download the full paper to find out! 🙂

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
wfgorman.bsky.social

💡 Allowing grid charging largely eliminates need to hold storage in reserve.
wfgorman.bsky.social
💡 Higher reserve levels may increase total customer value for customers with an exceptionally high value of lost load, living in areas with exceptionally frequent power interruptions
wfgorman.bsky.social

💡 Total customer value tends to be greatest when reserves are set as low as allowed
wfgorman.bsky.social
💡 Reliability value is (surprisingly) insensitive to storage reserve level under most conditions.

💡 Bill savings drop precipitously with higher storage reserves
wfgorman.bsky.social
This study evaluates a key operational tradeoff for homeowners: the more storage capacity held in reserve, the greater the customer’s ability to ride through power interruptions, but less capacity is then available to manage utility bills on a day-to-day basis. Key highlights:
wfgorman.bsky.social
🔌 New Journal Article Alert 🔌

Backup power or bill savings? How electricity tariffs impact residential solar-plus-storage usage in the United States

I'm happy to announce has recently been published, open-access, in Utilities Policy 👇

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
wfgorman.bsky.social
Lots of interesting findings in the paper, and still much more to do to in this area of work.

Check it out: doi.org/10.1038/s414...
wfgorman.bsky.social
In some cases, we found that it would be most valuable for electricity to flow only one direction. However, in many cases, especially for interregional lines, we found a more balanced situation where its valuable for electricity to flow different directions at different times.
wfgorman.bsky.social
We can identify factors that commonly occur during the hours in which Trans is highly valuable. “Unforeseen intraday variation,” which means there was either a sizeable error in a day-ahead forecast or an unexpected infrastructure outage, is particularly correlated with value!
wfgorman.bsky.social
We use recorded wholesale market prices to answer questions of where, when, and why additional TX would or would not have been valuable, and include new methods to estimate potential TX market values and compare these value estimate to independently published cost estimates.
wfgorman.bsky.social
💡 New Transmission Paper alert 💡
“Electric transmission value and its drivers in United States power markets” just went live in Nature Communications! Kudos especially to Julie Mulvaney Kemp for getting this work to the finish line.

doi.org/10.1038/s414...
wfgorman.bsky.social
For even more information, see our landmark research on the interconnection queues, in the report Queued Up. Find also recorded webinars, interactive data sets, and more, at https://buff.ly/3E9tY1q.

And as always, please reach out to our team if you have any questions!
wfgorman.bsky.social
A big factor is the cost of network upgrades, which are often billed to project developers to overcome transmission constraints. The wide range of interconnection costs across the country and by situation illustrates the uncertainty and lack of uniformity of the process.
wfgorman.bsky.social
Interconnection costs have risen over time. Projects withdrawn in recent years had costs 23% greater than the preceding 5 years and more than double those before 2014. Costs are much greater for withdrawn projects ($373/kW) than for those that completed iX studies ($73/kW)
wfgorman.bsky.social
Massive growth in interest to develop new generation technologies has led to the queue backlog. Since 2010 the queue has grown >5X and the process length has doubled.
wfgorman.bsky.social
This allows us to better understand the dynamics and what solutions may be available. See some of our key findings summarized below 👇👇
wfgorman.bsky.social
Our team at LBNL has been analyzing and assessing the massive backlog for grid interconnection for awhile now, collecting data on both the costs and the backlog but always analyzing them separately. In the new article we aim to combine all of our data into one analysis narrative!
wfgorman.bsky.social
⚡ 🔌ICYMI a new article has been published in Joule regarding interconnection hurdles ⚡ 🔌

Check out the article below 👇👇 “Grid connection barriers to renewable energy deployment in the United States."

https://buff.ly/3WuXOng
wfgorman.bsky.social
Great thread on what’s happening in the UK on queue reform, for those who might have been closely following our work at @berkeleylabemp.bsky.social on US issues but would like to hear some of the parallels across the globe!
stephenjarvis.bsky.social
At the airport and have managed to look through the UK government’s new plans for hitting their ambitious Clean Power 2030 targets. @carbonbrief.org have already put out a nice summary, so instead here’s a thread on one of the core issues in more detail – *fixing the grid connection queue*🔌💡(1/20) 🧵
Analysis: How the UK plans to reach clean power by 2030 - Carbon Brief
The UK government has set out an “action plan” for reaching its target of clean power by 2030
www.carbonbrief.org
Reposted by Will Gorman
Reposted by Will Gorman
berkeleylabemp.bsky.social
Follow our researchers on Bluesky!

Joe Rand: @josephrand.bsky.social
Will Gorman : @wfgorman.bsky.social
Lisa Schwartz : @lisacsoregon.bsky.social
Lin Jiang : @linenergy.bsky.social

For a full list of @berkeleylab.bsky.social experts, see this starter pack.

bsky.app/starter-pack...
Reposted by Will Gorman
dustinmulvaney.bsky.social
Southern California Edison Company
Electric Generating Stations and Major Transmission System in Central and Southern California.
🏜️💡🔌
Map of electricity system connections between Central Valley, Los Angeles basin, Mojave Desert, and Great Basin/Colorado River.
Reposted by Will Gorman
energyabe.bsky.social
The FERC complaint against PJM filed by consumer advocates is 🔥. Apropos of the FERC interconnection proceeding, Montalvo's affidavit notes:

"High prices cannot bring new generation into the market more quickly than it can be interconnected[.]"

Hard to argue!🔌💡
elibrary.ferc.gov/eLibrary/fil...