News & Blog

This is part 1 of a two-part blog articulating the view of Jonathan O’Sullivan of the Eirgrid Group, which has TSO responsibilities for the systems of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  The view encompasses how the industry evolved to its current state, and where it needs to go from here to satisfy the goals and needs…

“Storing Energy at Sea (StEnSea)” is a novel pumped storage concept for storing large amounts of electrical energy offshore. In contrast to well-known conventional pumped-hydro power plants, this concept greatly expands the siting possibilities, and allows for modular construction and ease of assembly.  Instead of two separated water reservoirs of different heights, the StEnSea concept…

The National Electricity Market, or NEM, is the electricity interconnection on the east coast of Australia. Ongoing growth of Variable Energy Resources (VERs) such as wind and PV has required a range of adaptations in both system operation and modelling, and is increasingly challenging the wholesale market design. NEM demand ranges from 15-35 GW, and…

The grid is changing, and we are starting to feel excited and frightened at the same time. If you aren’t, you should be. Because this stuff is frighteningly exciting. Many of us, including our friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues, may have rooftop solar panels, battery storage in our garages, electric vehicles in our driveways, or…

Heating:  Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? Burning carbon-based fuels is not a good idea if we want to avoid emissions of carbon dioxide. Despite this, Europe (as an example) is burning a lot of fossil fuel in order to provide heat. Approximately 25 % of final energy use in the EU-28 goes…

Northeast China Power Grid Northeast Interconnections or power grid covers the northeast part of China, which includes Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang provinces and East Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, with a total installed capacity of 147 GW and 120 million people served. The maximum generation of Northeast Grid is 70 GW; the all-time peak load is…

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is the system operator for most of Texas. The ERCOT Interconnection is an electric island grid with limited Direct Current (DC) Tie connections to the Mexican and Eastern US Interconnections. ERCOT today has more than 22 GW of installed wind and roughly 2 GW of utility-scale solar and…

Early proponents of the hydrogen economy encountered an intractable two-part problem: The cheapest source of hydrogen is natural gas, which leaves a carbon footprint larger than using natural gas directly; and Producing hydrogen from electricity is expensive and not terribly efficient. These points are made in Joseph Romm’s book The Hype About Hydrogen (2005) and are probably responsible for the trope: “Hydrogen…

The importance of flexibility As the power system continues to evolve, with wind and solar generation playing an ever-greater role, we hear more and more about the importance of increasing its flexibility. The IEA considers flexibility a global priority, and addressed its May, 2019 report on the status of the power system on policy and…

Power systems are undergoing a rapid change in generation mix due to the growth of inverter-based resources (IBRs) such as wind, solar, and battery energy storage.  The dynamic behavior of the Bulk Power System (BPS) that has typically been driven by synchronous machines is increasingly influenced or even largely determined by IBRs.  Stability challenges related…