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EU plans ‘massive’ increase in green energy to help end reliance on Russia
The EU plans a “massive” increase in solar and wind power, and a short-term boost for coal, to end its reliance on Russian oil and gas as fast as possible. In a plan outlined on Wednesday, the European Commission said the EU needed to find an extra €210bn (£178bn) over the next five years to pay for phasing out Russian fossil fuels and speeding up the switch to green energy.
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Wind Energy
How Europe’s energy plan affects U.S. gas, offshore wind
On the heels of the European Union’s massive plan to diverge from Russian fuel reliance, several of its member countries yesterday also committed to a tenfold increase in offshore wind energy in the North Sea by midcentury. It’s a goal that overshadows President Joe Biden’s more modest attempt to support offshore wind, but both Europe and the United States face many of the same hurdles, experts say. [ read more … ]
Ind. experiment highlights wind siting challenge
The billow comes from the 575-foot-tall smokestack at Duke Energy Corp.’s Cayuga Generating Station along the Wabash River — a mark of the coal that has powered Indiana for decades. This area is primed to sport new symbols of homegrown energy, in the form of wind turbines. But officials in Vermillion County effectively outlawed wind energy last year, squashing overtures from renewable energy developer Apex Clean Energy Inc. The county is hardly alone. [ read more … ]
Grid
Grid monitor warns of U.S. blackouts in ‘sobering report’
The central and upper Midwest, Texas and Southern California face an increased risk of power outages this summer from extreme heat, wildfires and extended drought, the nation’s grid monitor warned yesterday. In a dire new assessment, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. described regions of the country pushed closer than ever toward energy emergencies by a combination of climate change impacts and a transition from traditional fossil fuel generators to carbon-free renewable power.
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Predicting the Future of Texas’s Grid Is a Texas-Sized Challenge
A little more than a year after a paralyzing winter freeze, the Texas power market just experienced the stress of extreme heat. Last week, power prices in Houston briefly jumped above $5,000 per megawatt-hour as high temperatures coincided with a number of generators being offline for maintenance. Yet a few days earlier, power prices in west Texas had been negative $883 dollars per megawatt-hour, because at the time wind generation was abundant and demand was low. [ read more … ]
Sweltering summer heat in Texas to swell into eastern U.S.
If you feel as though it has jumped straight to summer, you’re not imagining things. A major episode of sweltering heat, which has already toasted Texas, is about to swallow much of the central and eastern Lower 48. Temperatures in the mid-90s will surge as far north as the Canadian border by Saturday, running 25 degrees or more above average. Amarillo, Tex., reached 101 degrees on Tuesday, breaking a record that has stood for nearly a century. In Dallas, the past 11 days have hovered at or above 90 degrees, the earliest such streak on record. [ read more … ]
PJM
PJM sees need for thermal power plants to protect against blackout risks amid rising electrification
Combining about 33 GW of electrification load with a 70% carbon-free generating fleet sharply shifts the risks of blackouts to the winter from the summer, reinforcing the need for enough fossil-fueled and nuclear power plants to meet demand, the PJM Interconnection said in a report Tuesday. The analysis shows an increasing need for resources that can quickly provide power as wind and solar taper during the afternoon while electricity use climbs, PJM said in the report, Energy Transition in PJM: Emerging Characteristics of a Decarbonizing Grid. The ramp in 2035 could be as high as 73 GW on some winter days, and natural gas- and coal-fired generation provided about half the ramping capacity under the modeling conducted by PJM, according to the report. [ read more … ]
Congress
Clean energy tax package shows signs of life
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said yesterday she was “pretty bullish” on a $325 billion clean energy tax credit package that is the heart of Democrats’ reconciliation push. The comments came amid other signs of life on Capitol Hill for a potential deal on climate and energy. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.