Grid Stability Quotes

Electricity transmission operates on a frequency between 49.7 Hertz and 50.2 Hertz. What I have done is petitioned the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and squeezed this band to now 49.9 Hertz to 50.1 Hertz. This will contain volatility.

Wind and solar power are land-intensive, a green sin, but not energy-dense, and affordable only when heavily subsidized. And wind power must be supplemented with hydrocarbons for reliability.

Fridges can be modified to nudge their internal thermostats up and down just a little in response to the main's frequency in such a way that, without ever jeopardising the temperature of your butter, they tend to take power at times that help the grid.

We often take for granted that our lights will come on when we flip the light switch, but the reality is that our reliability standards and the current state of the transmission grid leave us all vulnerable to blackouts.

To avoid a blackout, electricity generating companies must lower generation in line with low demand.

A utility can handle up to 20% of production from solar and that helps the grid because it produces electricity when needed. Solar power peaks in the middle of the day and that's also when air conditioning is running and businesses are operating, so power production matches usage.

Intermittency [in availability for wind and solar] changes the economics, particularly this requirement that the power company at all times be able to require power. That's large.

We've been having a lot of hearings lately about the reliability of the grid and the need for more distributive generation. We can be a leader of that here in Connecticut.

If you had a really good - battery, it wouldn't matter that the sun goes down at night and the wind stops blowing sometimes. But at the moment, battery technology is nowhere near good enough to use at utility scale.

If we just isolate distributed solar all by itself, it does not work without the utility around it. And so the utility needs to be paid for the services it provides.

Variable but forecastable renewables (wind and solar cells) are very reliable when integrated with each other, existing supplies and demand. For example, three German states were more than 30 percent wind-powered in 2007 - and more than 100 percent in some months. Mostly renewable power generally needs less backup than utilities already bought to combat big coal and nuclear plants' intermittence.

At the end of the day, natural-gas peakers sit back there and get financed so that the Midwest corridor can have a huge [period] of four to five days of no wind. The peakers are running big time to make that up, because that is the swing piece that can always be turned on.

With a giant battery, we'd be able to address the problem of intermittency that prevents wind and solar from contributing to the grid in the same way that coal and gas and nuclear do today.

I can't inject renewables into a grid that doesn't have base load.

The poorest Americans use three time the energy as the percentage of their income as the average American does. This is going to disproportionately hurt the poor. It may make the whole electric grid unstable, depending on how it is enforced. And it does nothing for the climate.