Check out Episode #110: 'Pursuing the Parallel Goals of Renewable Energy and Grid Reliability' of the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast.
Sonoma Clean Power (SCP) is the public power provider for Sonoma and Mendocino Counties in the northern part of California’s Bay Area. SCP’s Mission is to turn the tide on the climate crisis through bold ideas and practical programs for our customers. We provide cleaner electricity generated by more renewable and carbon-free energy sources to more than half a million people. SCP is also the only power provider in California offering 100% renewable, locally generated energy 24 hours per day, every day of the year. Electricity is an essential part of people’s lives today. Yet we’re suddenly dealing with serious reliability issues every year. If California truly plans to end its reliance on polluting fossil fuels and electrify homes across the state, grid reliability is a problem that must be tackled.
We need to work on winter reliability, now.
As we work toward shutting off natural gas power plants, the challenge of grid reliability remains at the forefront of people’s minds. Rightfully so, many in the industry are focused on summer evening reliability. As we saw this past summer, the grid was put to the test in California during a long stretch of sweltering temperatures. State-wide Flex Alerts were issued and widespread outages were narrowly avoided thanks to the combined efforts of ordinary people turning things off.
The good news is we know how to solve this problem.
We’re seeing more solar projects paired with battery storage. During last summer’s heat event, several thousand megawatts (MW) of battery storage was dispatched. A significant increase from the year before. SCP is part of that, actively contracting for more 4-hour and 8-hour battery storage to be able to meet the summer loads when the sun sets.
We’re not done yet. But given that the solution for improving reliability during summer is in the works, we need to think ahead to the challenge that isn’t making headlines: the shift to a winter peak load. In California, this will likely happen in just five to ten years.
No matter how many batteries we build, we won’t be able to fill them with solar power during the darkest winter weeks. We’re utterly reliant on natural gas power in the winter, and our summer solution isn’t going to help much with that problem.
To end our dependence on fossil fuels, SCP is leading a sizable effort to build new extremely water-efficient or even zero water geothermal power. Our Geothermal Opportunity Zone, or GeoZone, aims to build 500 to 600 MW of incremental local geothermal capacity, while sustaining the existing Geysers geothermal resource – already the largest in the world.
A complex component of geothermal is understanding how much water is required to produce the power, and a challenge along the West Coast has been years of prolonged droughts. The geothermal technologies under exploration prioritize water efficiency and minimize land disruption. Because of the time it takes to permit and build transmission, we’re spearheading the GeoZone now instead of waiting for the State to identify the need for baseload and winter clean power.
The development of enough renewable energy to power California won’t happen overnight, but progress toward more solar with battery storage combined with baseload geothermal and offshore wind has the potential to deliver the promise of a truly reliable, clean power grid.
Electric vehicles and the grid.
When looking at electricity load in relation to grid reliability, there’s a lot of conversation around electric vehicle (EV) charging and what more EVs could mean for the grid. How will the grid handle the demand of millions of electric vehicles in the next 10 years? What’s been continuously left out of the conversation is that when we use electricity is just as important as what sources we use to generate it.
At SCP, we’re shifting the dialogue to daytime and workplace charging instead of promoting charging at home. If everyone with an EV waited until after work to charge up, the increased demand during off-peak evening hours would radically increase reliance on fossil natural gas power and be a risk to winter reliability.
We’ve learned that it is vastly better for the grid - except during the very hottest weeks of the year - for EV charging to occur during the day when solar power is abundant. Additionally, a parking lot full of chargers with one single transformer could give a workplace the ability to cost-effectively ramp power up or down, or even completely shut off, during a Flex Alert.
Ending our reliance on fossil fuels worldwide is going to take hard conversations and the courage to move quickly with the knowledge and solutions we continue to discover. Thankfully, we know what we need to do. Now it’s up to all of us in this industry to act.