Our Electrical Grid: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

We’re not headed for major problems, we’re in them – Now!

The electrical grid is considered by many the most complex and amazing machine created by man (I would put lithograph machines as the other worthy of this label). It is amazing where, when it works, you need electrical power and it’s there.

The energy propagates at the speed of light and so it must constantly match the generated power with the power in use. At the bloody speed of light they have to keep it matched across the grid.

So for decades the grid demand and supply grew at a steady speed. The utilities were fat dumb and happy working at a measured pace to improve the system and lower the cost of electricity. Yes we probably overpaid a little between the incestuous relationship between state PUCs and the utilities, along with the lack of incentive to radically improve. But it all worked fine.

Then came issue #1. The federal government decided to do with power what had been done with airlines, telephone, etc. and open it up to the marketplace. Great idea in theory. Pretty bad in practice. Among other problems we had Enron and others gaming the new system to extract gigantic payments for what they made a more fragile system. These problems remain!

Now add to it first crypto and now AI with an insatiable demand for more power. And every estimate you’ve heard for the increased power needs of data centers – quadruple it. The estimates at present are for our initial baby steps with AI. As we get to the next generation of specialized AIs, and then General AI power needs are going to explode. What will people demand when Google says their AI can cure cancer – if given enough power?

The management of the grid is presently broken. Let’s hit come examples:

1. No one is presently responsible for the grid as a whole. RSOs and Utilities are responsible for their piece. But the whole bloody machine as a whole – no one. When it crashes everyone from FERC on down will point fingers at others. (With that said, the professionals running the grid are pulling off an almost impossible job at present. Full respect to them.)

2. Power generation is a marketplace. But Wind and Solar get so many credits and rebates, they can sell the power for free and still make a profit. So everyone else (coal, gas, nuclear, hydro, etc.), who all need to be paid for their power to stay in business, are competing with free.

3. Every solar and wind generation facility needs matching generation needs from a dependable plant (usually gas). But the solar & wind generators do not pay for that backup, they get a free ride.

4. Batteries, at least the technology of them for the next 10+ years do not solve the intermittent problem. They’re great for solar to provide the same that night. But when a solar field gets 2 feet of snow dumped on it for 2 weeks – those batteries got drained the first night. Same for overcast days, large storms, etc. And wind also has days where it is quiet.

5. Nuclear regulation is insane. They constantly increase the safety review & regulations. Nuclear had killed 0 people in this country. So how do you say make it safer than 0 deaths? There is no limit to what the NRC piles on.

6. NEPA & NIMBY slows down any improvements to a glacial pace. When we were facing WWII they built the pentagon in 1 year. Just 1. To get approval to run new high voltage (HVAC, HVDC) lines and then build them – 7 years. All the people screaming that we must address global warming forget to mention a caveat – but it must also not impact anything near them.

7. The list goes on. For those wanting to learn more I highly recommend: A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations, Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid, & The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future.

Add to that, a lot of the grid is old. Very very old.

We can barely afford the time, money and manpower to maintain the equipment from 1940.

Unless it’s a paid customer line, or we get a huge infusion of funds from the government I doubt I’ll see much of new or experimental technology implemented here. – reddit user

And

As other comments have stated, power companies generally don't do massive new projects with costs in the Billions unless they are getting Government money.

Hell, where I work, we have copper wire from the late 1800s in the air still. It's so soft when it comes down it coils up like rope. That level of investment into technology should answer your question. – reddit user

DOE is funding a lot of work to create a better grid. But to date… problems

The majority of utilities have utilized advanced conductors at least for limited projects. Many of the utilities seem to have done so for one-time applications, and at least two utilities have stated they will no longer install composite core conductors due to installation issues. – Idaho National Labs

On top of the grid issues, we’re building a lot of new power generation that is worthless and not building some that we desperately need. On the alter of green energy we’re building stuff that makes us feel good, but actually doesn’t help. I do think global warming is one of the most critical issues we face. We need to effectively address it.

Our Situation

The good news is twofold. First addressing all of this is straightforward. It will take significant political effort, but the technology we need exists today, with even better coming tomorrow.

Second, we are on the cusp of making electricity not only plentiful but so incredibly cheap that to most people it’s basically free. Your home electrical bill will be a flat fee for the use of the grid and then a small amount for your actual usage.

For the grid itself, we need to do four things, two of which we are doing. And this work on the grid will reduce the majority of potential brownouts & blackouts.

1. Rewrite the regulations for the grid, power auctions, guaranteed backup, etc. The present regulations are a mess and revising them is impossible. Lock all the relevant parties in a room and don’t let them out until they have created a new system that fits on 10 pages.

2. Eliminate NEPA for the grid. In addition create a straightforward permitting system that emphasizes speed of resolution and accepts the trade-off that transmission line placement is of great benefit to the environment.

3. Continue the DOE research into better cables, transformers, regulators, etc.

4. Upgrade the grid. The long distance HVAC & HVDC (the upgrades to HVDC are a game changer that is in process), the regional grids, and the local runs from the substations to homes, businesses, & factories.

For power generation it’s a bit more complex. And some of it will make people scream. But if we don’t do what makes sense we’ll have a more fragile grid, increased CO2 generation, and will pay more for this mess.

The first thing we need to do is price power in three tiers. The first tier is baseline power that is always on. This is the power we need at 2:00am (lowest usage). This is Coal (yuck), Nuclear, 2-phase gas (much better than coal for the environment), & Hydro (most). All power plants in this tier, if they meet the uptime requirements, are the only ones that can bid to provide baseline power.

The second tier is intermittent generators that match peaks. The primary one for this is solar – if it’s a hot day with high air conditioning usage, by definition solar in the area is going to be producing full power. While this tier is not baseline, it is dependable for specific peak usage. These sources get first bidding to provide peak power.

Batteries (I use this term loosely as it includes pumped hydro and other forms) should also be in this second tier. In normal usage they handle specific parts of the peak.

And then finally you have the power sources that can be spun up/down quickly for the rest of the peak power needs. This will be single phase gas and hydro (some). These must meet requirements not only for uptime but also for spin up/down response time.

And then the critical final part. Place a significant carbon tax on all CO2 output. Significant enough that coal will go away. And enough that the single phase gas plants are hit. Not to put them out of business, but to incentivize alternatives for them. We’re stuck with gas plants for the next 10 – 20 years, but lets have the financial incentives to keep it to that.

What will this do? If it’s designed right it’ll have the following effect:

1. No new wind generators. This is the easiest way to determine that this has been structured right.

2. Work starts on building 10 new Vogtle plants/year until the SMRs start shipping. These plants should be distributed with an eye toward SMRs joining the grid. The goal is baseline power is 100% Nuclear & Hydro.

3. Do everything we can to get the SMRs into production.

4. Continue the research into all generation types, especially solar, geothermal, and batteries (again loosely defined).

5. Keep an eye on geothermal. It might be as significant as SMRs. And in that case baseline power would be Nuclear, Geothermal, & Hydro.

And what happens if we don’t do the above? Well first off plants will be built based on the various incentives in the plethora of legislation favoring/harming different generation types. The grid will have more brownouts and blackouts because the generating capability does not match our needs. And we’ll generate more CO2 further warming our planet.

Success requires that we take our emotions and prejudices out of this and focus on what makes sense. Key to that is explicitly weighing trade-offs instead of pretending we can accomplish these goals without any downsides. In other words, be grown-ups.