2023: Renewables? Yes. A Return to Reality? Yes, Please.

A second example is the aggressive build out of renewable energy with the concurrent shut down of nuclear or fossil-fueled baseload generation. One only needs to look to Germany to understand how serious a lack of real planning and engineering (as opposed to emotionally- or politically-driven planning) can be. Should the citizens of a first-world nation be foraging forests for firewood to keep their families warm in the wintertime? Well, no, but this is today’s reality in Germany. I think that California’s governor saw this, thought about his aspirations for a run at the White House in 2024, and quickly pivoted to praising nuclear energy (after years of dismissing it) and secured $1.1 billion in federal funding to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open for an additional five years.

It's Not All Bad News

So, while the industry continues to move deeper into the energy transition there are some bright spots that that show great promise and can help us move forward towards less reliance on fossil fuels.

First among these, I believe, is long duration storage, or LDS. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, the most common form of energy storage today, LDS can provide energy for up to 12 – 24 hours as opposed to up to four hours for lithium-ion-based storage; LDS performance does not degrade over time, and does not require any rare earth mining operations. Leading LDS solutions typically leverage “iron flow” technology, using readily available iron and water as its core resources. For grid-scale energy storage as part of a utility’s energy transition strategy, watch for LDS to grow in 2023 and beyond.

As second area of promise is the growth of microgrids, particularly for a utility’s commercial and industrial (C & I) customers. While the models for developing and operating microgrids still vary greatly, the promise here for C & I customers is that microgrids will provide added  flexibility, reliability, and resiliency for a number of different C & I energy needs. Combining different forms of generation (wind, solar, possibly even hydrogen) with energy storage in an integrated, intelligent configuration provides new possibilities. Consider intelligent charging for EV fleets, taking the strain off the grid while also enabling more flexible and resilient charging for fleets. Or how about intelligent scheduling of industrial processes that can take advantage of the availability of various energy resources via the microgrid? Microgrids will become an important piece of the emerging new energy model.

A third example is the use of gas in the energy mix. While this is controversial in some quarters, remember that the transition from coal to gas has been the key driver to the U.S. reducing its carbon footprint over the last decade. Gas in general needs to be part of the energy mix, but particularly in the C & I segment of the industry where some industrial processes require higher temperatures provided by gaseous fuels. Add to this the emergence of renewable natural gas (“RNG,” typically methane from different sources like landfills and farms) and reliably sourced gas (“RSG,” with certifiable clean production standards, such as reduced methane leakage), and the role of gas, especially gas produced responsibly in North America, becomes clear. Indeed, as one industry veteran recently said, “gas is not just a transition fuel; gas is a fuel in transition.”

A Suggestion for the Industry

While 100% renewable energy is a noble goal, and one that captures the attention of a lot of people, as an industry we need to ask ourselves if this is or should be the goal for the electric utility industry for the foreseeable future. I will join others in the industry in suggesting that a goal of 80 - 85% renewable energy is more in the range of an energy transition that is more realistic and affordable.

Most in the industry agree that the last 15 – 20% of moving away from fossil fuels to meet generation needs will be the most difficult and the most expensive phase of the energy transition. This also puts a utility’s customer base in peril during peaking events or other emergencies.

Of course, the wild card  in all of this is the recent nuclear fusion announcement from Lawrence Livermore Lab. While this holds great promise, it is years away from being commercially available, which is all the more reason to take a measured, realistic approach to the energy transition.

As I enter my 33rd year in the utility industry, the axiom that “there is never a dull moment” seems to be truer every day. Let’s all buckle in, do the math, and make the energy transition an operational reality for the benefit of all.