Full Electric Blackout in Colorado in 2031?
Looking at the Spanish blackout - we're headed for the same.
It’ll likely be a couple of weeks before we have a detailed postmortem of the Spanish blackout. But while the initial cause is still unknown, what lead to it becoming a country wide blackout was almost certainly the lack of significant inertia on their grid.
We’re headed to the same problem when we close the Craig plant in 2029 and then Comanche in 2031. Here’s the systems providing the strong inertia in Colorado.1
We really have four plants that presently provide us with solid inertia, the first four on the list. At peak in the summer Colorado is generating a bit over 20GW of power. So the first four are 20% of the total power. That will force all of the wind & solar farms to follow their phase & frequency.
Now remove the three coal plants. We’re now at 2.5GW for the base inertia. And that assumes all three are running. Take St. Vrain or Cherokee off for maintenance or due to some emergency and we’re at 1.5GW.
Yes there are a lot of gas plants that also contribute to inertia, if things are running well. But they are followers of the grid. They have to be because if they don’t match the grid phase & frequency, they will shake themselves to death. The best thing to say about these other gas turbines is they’re unlikely to screw up the inertia.
The wind & solar farms use what’s called a follower convertor. That means they are constantly matching the grid. And they can shift instantly if the grid goes haywire. Now they won’t get too extreme, they disconnect first. But their ability to match instantly in follower mode means that once the issue starts, they compound it.
When should you worry?
We’re probably fine until 2031. Losing Craig means we don’t want any two of the three remaining big players offline at the same time. And preferably we have all three running non-stop.
The other worry is they take the big plants offline or dial them down when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining. That gives us great newspaper articles that we’re using renewables for 90% of our power. When you read those articles, be afraid, be very afraid.
And once Comanche is retired we’re playing Russian Roulette every second going forward. That means it’s no longer a question of if, it’s a question of when.
Yep, Spain proved you need large rotating machines to provide inertia to ride out system disturbances.
You guys need a couple of 1 GW nuclear plants to replace the coal plants.
We are very fortunate here in Arizona to have 3.9 GW of nuclear power at Palo Verde.
EXACTLY! This is so easy to understand, yet the geniuses pushing us down this road are clueless.
You need a big, inertia rich power source to set the frequency. It's like a band, with a lead instrument, a bass, that tells the rest of the band what to do. Each energy source is not created equally - some contribute the same # of GWhs but are vastly more important than others.
And, you have to get this right 24/7/365. That is 61,000 opportunities to screw up every year, and one slip, one unusual event, and the whole grid crashes. And if you really messed up, the grid could be down a week.
They are playing with fire, and it is statistically inevitable the whole thing crashes once you lose that inertia.