Electricity suppliers search for ‘inertia’ to power a greener future. National Grid ESO has plans to create am inertia market through which it can procure the stability previously provided for free thanks to spinning reserves.
FT 4th Dec 2020 read more »
The roadmap to the lowest cost grid is paved with distributed solar and storage. We wanted to know what the grid would look like, and cost, if we stopped ignoring the benefits of distributed energy resources and optimized their integration through a better modeling process. We found that when you use better planning models and scale both local solar and storage, as well as utility-scale solar and wind, you maximize cost savings and unlock the path to the lowest cost grid. For months now we have heard President-elect Joe Biden tout the job and economic growth that would come from transitioning to a clean electric grid. We’ve also heard from critics who say the new clean electric grid he is proposing will cost upwards of $2 trillion. These assumptions about costs are misguided, as are other widely-held assumptions about a clean electric grid. Transitioning to a clean electric grid could actually cost less money and save us billions of dollars, create jobs, and result in a cleaner, more reliable grid across the United States. We found that when you use better planning models and scale both local solar and storage, as well as utility-scale solar and wind, you maximize cost savings and unlock the path to the lowest cost grid. In fact, it could generate nearly half a trillion dollars in savings to ratepayers over the next 30 years.
PV Magazine 4th Dec 2020 read more »