Thanks for reading The Electric Grandma! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. The grid most people know about. I give presentations about the grid. After the presentations, the questions often have nothing to do with my presentation. Instead, most questions are about the “Could” grid: “What do I think about the latest type of battery that was announced in the press?”
Hi Meredith! Consumer advocate groups used to be plentiful and quite effective in the power business. The California PUC even had a department of ratepayer advocates. That all changed when “THE CLIMATE” took over. The consumer lost out to the renewables fantasy and associated grifters. The division of ratepayer advocates became the division of public advocates and the mission was changed to cheerleading for renewables. As a result residential power in San Diego is $0.66 per kWh, and “under-collection” (people not paying their power bill) is over$2 billion.
I like the “could grid”. There is nothing new…all these dreams are recycled BS from the 70s.
I personally think the ratepayer advocates lost out when electricity was "deregulated" and the manipulated market was supposed to solve everything. Which was before the climate crisis was underway.
But basically, as usual, we totally agree. The consumer advocates of today are mostly about climate change, not about affordable reliable electricity.
People that are suspicious of the current electricity market design might find this article interesting.
Points out that the current market design is based on an experiment in New Zealand which has been a disaster. It is driving us into a situation where the prices are ever increasing and shortages are imminent.
The Energy Realists of Australia have been onto this for a few years and it is incredibly difficult to get any public attention despite the clear indication of major wind droughts available from the Australian energy Market Operator and the more accessible Aneroid Energy with continuous records of wind power generation back to 2010. https://anero.id/energy/wind-energy
We are at 5 minutes to midnight in many parts of the world where net zero policies have driven down the supply of reliable energy to the point where there is not enough to handle peak demands. Britain, Germany and South Australia are past that point and they survive on imports and the most extreme form of demand management - deindustrialization!
Thanks for this very informative information - as always you are a treasure and an inspiration - Consumers do not want to get involved - they just want to turn the lights on and if the bill is too high just complain. Most want someone else to do it for them!
We as consumers or grassroots activists are not stakeholders in the eyes of any of our agencies, governmental or otherwise! I have learned to NOT say I am grassroots.. or they just roll their eyes!
OK - consumers - here is your road map - now time to act!
This grid is your grid, you may only be a little part of it - but you are a part of it!
Everyone has limited time. I don't blame consumers for not wanting to get involved in the grid. But I think that we HAVE to get involved at this point, or we simply won't have a reliable grid.
Good work Meredith. The Could grid is a great descriptor for the grid that is supposed to simultaneously add 3-4x in demand due to electrification while shutting down base load fossil fuel generation. We already have shut down a number of nuclear reactors across the country. Indian Point in NY, VT Yankee in Vermont. The physics of how this will work is not clear. But the allure of clean energy and decarbonization for all has seduced many.
Thank you for this article, Meredith. If you have not already read Meredith Angwin's 2020 book Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid https://www.amazon.com/Shorting-Grid-Hidden-Fragility-Electric-ebook/dp/B08KZ51SDP/ you need to read it. In this book, she criticizes the opaque governance structures of RTOs and ISOs. I believe these structures serve to enrich economic elites (who designed the governance structures.)
I remember when I graduated from trade school for standby generators wanting to know more. I eventually got it but it took half my career. I ended up as the grid operations chief transmission operator for a small utility. It's not easy knowledge to find, and there are lots of classroom experts willing to tell you the wrong thing.
I am going to be the skunk at the party and say in New England especially, NOT everything that is screwed up about energy can be blamed on restructuring and deregulation. First and foremost, in New England you have six different states with their own political cultures(NH vs VT) and six different PSC’s. Before restructuring you also had a very large numeric number of nominally vertically integrated utilities across the region that were all relatively small by national standards. In Massachusetts there used to be Western Massachusetts Electric, NEES/Massachusetts Electric, Boston Edison, Cambridge Electric, Commonwealth Electric, Eastern Electric, and one other at least one other I forgot(Plus a very large number of municipal utilities). Even the biggest Boston Edison was "only" about ¼ the size of PECO(Philadelphia Electric), 1/5 the size of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago and 1/8 the size of PG&E all of which were considered among the “grand” vertically integrated American utilities of the 20th century. I think it is fair to say all of these companies might have offered bundled service but they were not vertically integrated in the way ComEd was. They were heavily dependent on each other for transmission and generation and frequently bickered amongst themselves about who was going to pay for and built what. The biggest exception to the system was Connecticut Light and Power(now Eversource) which was the dominant IOU in Connecticut and owned Western MA Electric as well. CL&P built several key assets in New England such as Northfield Mountain and Millstone Nuclear largely relying on it’s own rate base and not having to cost share with others. CL&P and WMECO under the Northeast Utilities holding company was probably the closest thing to a true vertically integrated utility in New England that was even in the ballpark of PECO, ComEd, and PG&E.
And I have a couple of more paragraphs to write but will have to do that later.
Hi Meredith! Consumer advocate groups used to be plentiful and quite effective in the power business. The California PUC even had a department of ratepayer advocates. That all changed when “THE CLIMATE” took over. The consumer lost out to the renewables fantasy and associated grifters. The division of ratepayer advocates became the division of public advocates and the mission was changed to cheerleading for renewables. As a result residential power in San Diego is $0.66 per kWh, and “under-collection” (people not paying their power bill) is over$2 billion.
I like the “could grid”. There is nothing new…all these dreams are recycled BS from the 70s.
Thank you, Lee!
I personally think the ratepayer advocates lost out when electricity was "deregulated" and the manipulated market was supposed to solve everything. Which was before the climate crisis was underway.
But basically, as usual, we totally agree. The consumer advocates of today are mostly about climate change, not about affordable reliable electricity.
My proposed rule for participant committee memberships: must support adding new fuel sources with a minimum capacity factor of 50 percent.
Everyone else is really just sabotaging rather than participating.
People that are suspicious of the current electricity market design might find this article interesting.
Points out that the current market design is based on an experiment in New Zealand which has been a disaster. It is driving us into a situation where the prices are ever increasing and shortages are imminent.
http://www.bryanleyland.co.nz/power-industry-stuff.html
The Energy Realists of Australia have been onto this for a few years and it is incredibly difficult to get any public attention despite the clear indication of major wind droughts available from the Australian energy Market Operator and the more accessible Aneroid Energy with continuous records of wind power generation back to 2010. https://anero.id/energy/wind-energy
We are at 5 minutes to midnight in many parts of the world where net zero policies have driven down the supply of reliable energy to the point where there is not enough to handle peak demands. Britain, Germany and South Australia are past that point and they survive on imports and the most extreme form of demand management - deindustrialization!
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2023/07/11/approaching-the-tipping-point/
Thanks for this very informative information - as always you are a treasure and an inspiration - Consumers do not want to get involved - they just want to turn the lights on and if the bill is too high just complain. Most want someone else to do it for them!
We as consumers or grassroots activists are not stakeholders in the eyes of any of our agencies, governmental or otherwise! I have learned to NOT say I am grassroots.. or they just roll their eyes!
OK - consumers - here is your road map - now time to act!
This grid is your grid, you may only be a little part of it - but you are a part of it!
Thank you!
Everyone has limited time. I don't blame consumers for not wanting to get involved in the grid. But I think that we HAVE to get involved at this point, or we simply won't have a reliable grid.
Good work Meredith. The Could grid is a great descriptor for the grid that is supposed to simultaneously add 3-4x in demand due to electrification while shutting down base load fossil fuel generation. We already have shut down a number of nuclear reactors across the country. Indian Point in NY, VT Yankee in Vermont. The physics of how this will work is not clear. But the allure of clean energy and decarbonization for all has seduced many.
Alas, physics will not be dissuaded and will ultimately win the battle
Meredith Angwin joins Substack as a consumer advocate leader.
Thank you for this article, Meredith. If you have not already read Meredith Angwin's 2020 book Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid https://www.amazon.com/Shorting-Grid-Hidden-Fragility-Electric-ebook/dp/B08KZ51SDP/ you need to read it. In this book, she criticizes the opaque governance structures of RTOs and ISOs. I believe these structures serve to enrich economic elites (who designed the governance structures.)
I remember when I graduated from trade school for standby generators wanting to know more. I eventually got it but it took half my career. I ended up as the grid operations chief transmission operator for a small utility. It's not easy knowledge to find, and there are lots of classroom experts willing to tell you the wrong thing.
I am going to be the skunk at the party and say in New England especially, NOT everything that is screwed up about energy can be blamed on restructuring and deregulation. First and foremost, in New England you have six different states with their own political cultures(NH vs VT) and six different PSC’s. Before restructuring you also had a very large numeric number of nominally vertically integrated utilities across the region that were all relatively small by national standards. In Massachusetts there used to be Western Massachusetts Electric, NEES/Massachusetts Electric, Boston Edison, Cambridge Electric, Commonwealth Electric, Eastern Electric, and one other at least one other I forgot(Plus a very large number of municipal utilities). Even the biggest Boston Edison was "only" about ¼ the size of PECO(Philadelphia Electric), 1/5 the size of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago and 1/8 the size of PG&E all of which were considered among the “grand” vertically integrated American utilities of the 20th century. I think it is fair to say all of these companies might have offered bundled service but they were not vertically integrated in the way ComEd was. They were heavily dependent on each other for transmission and generation and frequently bickered amongst themselves about who was going to pay for and built what. The biggest exception to the system was Connecticut Light and Power(now Eversource) which was the dominant IOU in Connecticut and owned Western MA Electric as well. CL&P built several key assets in New England such as Northfield Mountain and Millstone Nuclear largely relying on it’s own rate base and not having to cost share with others. CL&P and WMECO under the Northeast Utilities holding company was probably the closest thing to a true vertically integrated utility in New England that was even in the ballpark of PECO, ComEd, and PG&E.
And I have a couple of more paragraphs to write but will have to do that later.