ENERGY

We’re doing a
great job of
creating
renewable
energy—but we
don’t have the
infrastructure to
actually use it
Better storage batteries and the framework to
support them is key.
By Amal Ahmed Yesterday at 9:30pm

Wind and solar energy production in the US has been

increasing, slowly but surely.
Deposit Photos
Last week, some rare positive environmental news reached the public eye: Nearly half of all the
new, large-scale electric power generation installed last year use renewable energy sources,
according to the Energy Information Administration. The government agency reports that of the
total 25 gigawatts of capacity installed in 2017, about 12 gigawatts of that amout came from
clean energy—plus an extra 3.5 gigawatts of small-scale solar, like rooftop panels.
This report follows in tandem with another good energy update: Almost all of the power
plants shut down last year used fossil fuels as their source of energy. And most of those plants
used coal, largely recognized as the most carbon intensive fuel type. And the good news keeps
on rolling. We should expect this trend to continue, since the agency reports that power
companies plan to retire nearly 10 gigawatts of coal power in 2018.
So lots of good clean energy is coming our way. But are we ready for it? Without the right
infrastructure in place, many experts argue, we may not be able to capture and transport all the
energy these new installations are capable of providing.
The root of the issue lies in the way we receive clean energy. Unlike fossil fuel plants, wind and
solar power are intermittent sources of energy. If the wind isn’t blowing strong enough or there
are too many clouds (or a solar eclipse), the supply of electricity might not meet the demand for
it. On the opposite end, if there's strong winds or persistent sunlight, the supply could exceed the
capacity to capture and use it.

RENEWABLE ENERGY INSTALLATIONS

Almost half of all new electric generating capacity installed in
2017 came from renewable sources.
Energy Information Administration

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One issue that researchers are trying to solve is what's known as curtailment.. This occurs when
the renewable energy supply is so great (perhaps from a series of super sunny days) that the
supply exceeds the capacity of the transmission lines that carry electricity from a power plant to
your outlets.
“We can make do with the transmission infrastructure we have for now, but the existing
infrastructure was not built considering the changing energy landscape,” says Jennie Jorgenson,
one of the authors of a 2017 study on wind curtailment from the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory.
In the report, researchers from NREL modeled a scenario in which wind energy provided 37
percent of the needed electricity in the western United States, and analyzed the feasibility of
increasing wind energy consumption. (The most recent estimate from 2016 puts national wind
energy consumption at 5.5 percent.) “We didn’t identify any reliability concerns with this much
wind on the system," Jorgenson says. "But without expanded transmission capacity, we observed
high amounts of wind curtailment." That means that the wind energy produced isn't really going
anywhere it can be used. It’s essentially “wasted renewable energy,” since that energy has to
come from fossil fuels instead.
To attempt to address curtailment problems in Texas, which has installed the mostwind energy
generating capacity of any state, the Public Utility Commission built a $7 billion system of
transmission lines a few years ago. Known as the Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ),
it spans 3,600 miles from the windy west to the more populated eastern and central regions of the
state, carrying enough electricity to serve approximately 1,700 homes.
“We wouldn’t have as much wind [energy] in Texas if we didn’t build out CREZ,” says Joshua
Rhodes, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute.
But at the same time, Rhodes notes, the system was far from perfect from the beginning. The
transmission infrastructure could hardly keep up with the power produced by new wind farms
across the state. The transmission lines were at full capacity not long after the project was
completed. (Though that was only late at night, when the wind blows the strongest and produces
the most electricity.)