CAISO has issued the Summer 2008 outlook and in it they say that the clean energy future we are moving toward will present new benefits -- but also new challanges. While the summer outlook looks good, the grid operator will have continued reliance on conservation and demand response (demand response: this is a program that allows the utilities/CAISO to shot down participating businesses when the grid is stressed for electric capacity -- when we are short electricuty -- typically on really hot days or when the grid experiences disruptions -- like fires near transmission).
The challanges that California will face as we transition to the new cleaner energy sources is exactly that "the transition." How to get to greener from the existing mix of supply? I think it will require a bridge -- earlier I called it a blue bridge (referring to clean burning natural gas). The blue bridge will be in the form of new state of the art generation that will provide grid support and reliabilty as the new green generation is developed and interconnected by new transmission. So I am back to my old song and dance: we need everything--new transmission, new gas fueled generation, conservation, demand response, and renewables of all kinds. Guess what? The CAISO agrees. They also agree there needs to be a delicate balance for how we bring these resources ton-line.
As for the summer... well, I am not as confident as the CAISO, I think that when the temperatures hit the century mark, all bets are off and folks just do not conserve. The demand response programs are grossly under subscribed, so I would not lean on those too much. Having said that -- the reserves look good, but that means that all the conservation that can occur and all the demand response that can occur, will occur. It also means that we get all of the transmission flowing without interruption (the energy imports from other part of the West) and that we have no major, fires or hydro disruptions. That's a lot of if's.
So, until we build the infrastructure we desperately need, we will be counting an many moving parts and leaning on hope to keep our lights from flickering. Good luck to us all this summer!
To see the CAISO release, go to: www.caiso.com
Companies like CAISO and Enernoc (http://www.enernoc.com) that offer demand response programs for families and large corporations are very important these days. Great article, thanks!
Posted by: George | May 01, 2008 at 02:49 PM