Are you getting ready for the holidays yet? It seems like every year, stores start rolling out decorations a little sooner. Personally, I like to get through Thanksgiving first. But in planning for critical infrastructure like reliable electric service, it’s important to make preparations well in advance.
South Carolina Can Weather the Storm
Unfortunately, Christmas Eve 2022 was not as merry as it should have been for millions of Americans. The festive occasion was marred by avoidable blackouts brought about by frigid temperatures and an overreliance on fossil fuels for generating electricity. From December 23-26, the bomb cyclone dubbed Winter Storm Elliott swept across Eastern states and drove simultaneous unplanned power plant outages comprising an unprecedented 13% of installed generating capacity. Nearly 100,000 customers in South Carolina were left without power. We don’t have to let that happen again.
The outages were primarily at fossil-fueled power plants that were not sufficiently winterized or experienced disruptions in pipeline gas supplies. South Carolina generates about a quarter of its electricity from gas-fired power plants, and if the utilities get their way, that number could go up by a lot. While the utilities have made some progress in upgrading certain plants to withstand colder temperatures, that won’t solve the problem of unreliable fuel supplies.
While the nation’s electric grid has organizations dedicated to ensuring reliability – namely the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) – the vast network of fracked gas pipelines connecting wellheads to power plants do not have similar entities to ensure reliable fuel supplies. No matter how resilient the electric grid may be, if we remain reliant on gas-fired generation, the lights will go out when fuel supplies are cut off. Gas is burned straight from the pipelines, and it would be cost-prohibitive to store enough gas on-site to keep large power plants running for very long.
The Reliability of Clean Energy Sources
Low-cost sources of renewable energy, like solar and wind, are significantly more reliable. During Winter Storm Elliott, solar panels were generating at essentially full capacity in the Southeast and actually benefitted from enhanced efficiency thanks to the cold temperatures. The blackouts would have been more widespread and prolonged without solar, and if the planned offshore wind projects in Virginia and North Carolina had been completed, we could have avoided the blackouts altogether. Although renewable energy sources are inherently intermittent, they are predictable and reliable, and solar, wind, and battery storage can work together synergistically. Wind generation tends to peak at night, when solar generation drops off and electricity demand is at its lowest.
Utility-scale batteries offer a cost-effective solution that provides reliable power at times of high demand (e.g., winter mornings and late summer afternoons) and takes advantage of excess generation at times of low demand (e.g., nighttime and mid-day when a lot of solar power is available). In addition to facilitating the integration of more renewable energy onto the grid, batteries can be used for daily price arbitrage since the cost of power is higher during hours of peak demand. New battery designs allow grid operators to utilize them for longer durations, and prices are plummeting. Because they can be turned on and off more rapidly than other resources, batteries also provide valuable benefits to the grid through ancillary services, like frequency balancing and voltage regulation. Utility-scale battery storage is already being rolled out on a massive scale in states with more renewable energy, like Texas.
Additionally, solar and battery capacity can be installed quickly and incrementally as needed, while reducing transmission line losses by placing them near communities with growing demand for electricity. Utilities in South Carolina are starting to use batteries to improve reliability in communities served by long distribution feeder lines with elevated risk of being knocked offline due to weather events and fallen trees. Combining batteries with solar also enables the creation of clean energy microgrids that could continue providing power when there are disruptions on the broader electric grid.
Batteries can also be a valuable distributed energy resource in homes and businesses, particularly when paired with rooftop solar. In North Carolina, Duke Energy recently launched a program to compensate customers for installing their own batteries, which can provide backup power and help support grid reliability.iv South Carolina utilities should follow suit.
The utilities are claiming we need billions of dollars’ worth of new gas-fired power plants and pipelines to keep the lights on. However, we should learn from our recent experience with unreliable fossil fuels and prioritize renewable energy and batteries if we want to avoid another Christmas blackout.
Stay tuned for part two, in which we will discuss climate impacts and new federal greenhouse gas policies, as they relate to planning for reliable and affordable clean energy in South Carolina.