There's no point in building new power plants if they can't connect to the grid

 

RealClearWire makes a very important point.

The total capacity of energy projects in the nation’s queues is growing fast and increased by 40% year-over-year in 2022, according to a recent report from the Berkeley Lab ... But to be able to build the infrastructure needed to meet our targets, development and construction timelines must be radically shortened.

Some more sobering statistics: The combined solar and wind capacity currently actively seeking grid interconnection roughly equals the installed capacity of the entire U.S. power plant fleet. And just 21% of projects (and 14% of capacity) seeking connection from 2000 to 2017 had been built as of the end of 2022.

Not surprisingly, bad wait times are only getting worse. The typical duration from connection request to commercial operation increased from less than two years for projects built from 2000 to 2007 to nearly four years for those built from 2018 to 2022. When companies do finally get projects reviewed, they often face another hurdle: Local grids are at capacity, so they are required to spend much more than they planned for new transmission lines and other upgrades.

The mission-critical priority is not the ability to build energy resources. It’s the infrastructure and ability to absorb and leverage those energy resources. Forget about politics, policy, and money – if you don’t have the infrastructure to support the new technology, nothing else matters.

This New York Times headline from February sums up the issue well: “The U.S. Has Billions for Wind and Solar Projects. Good Luck Plugging Them In.”

Much of the U.S. grid was built in the 1960s and 1970s, and over 70% of it is currently more than a quarter-century old. But age isn’t the grid’s only problem. The U.S. power infrastructure was built to bring energy from where fossil fuels are burned to where the energy will be used. The nation’s electricity industry, meanwhile, grew via a patchwork of local utility companies whose targets were to meet local demand and maintain grid reliability.

. . .

Along with the need for new ways to transmit and store sustainable energy, the existing grid will need a major upgrade as demand for electricity rises to meet the needs of electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other replacements for conventional energy sources. A modernized and expanded grid “will be the backbone of the energy transition – and a requirement of any realistic decarbonization pathway,” according to a 2022 report by McKinsey & Company ... The U.S. grid will need to expand by 60% by 2030, and doing so would require “a mind-boggling acceleration of the typical ten-year capital project timeline. It is, arguably, a century of work to do in less than a decade.”

There's more at the link.

This is becoming more and more complicated as electric vehicles become more widespread, and need charging stations to function.  We've all seen pictures of an EV charging station with its own diesel generator attached, because the operator can't get adequate (sometimes any) connections to the local power grid.  It's become something of a joke, but we're probably going to see more of it.

I'm seeing it with local companies as well.  I've studied logistics for years, as a bellwether of the entire economy.  Many companies, from big box stores to vehicle service stations, are complaining that the logistics infrastructure is costing them money and time, delaying their work, aggravating their customers, and imposing additional costs to source materials from alternate sources.  They can't get around the problem;  they're utterly dependent on the infrastructure to supply them, and that infrastructure all too often is breaking down.  Warehouses can't get enough people to pick and pack goods and ship them out;  supermarkets can't get enough workers to restock shelves;  transport firms are competing for drivers and delivery staff, making things worse for each other by trying to outbid one another.  (One regional manager for a trucking company told me he's offering big bonuses to drivers to come and work for him, but he's being forced to pay them over six months to a year, because if he pays up front, the drivers will take the bonus, then within three months turn around and hire on somewhere else for another big bonus, regardless of written agreements.  If he tries to enforce the agreements, nobody will hire on to his company any more - so he's forced to knuckle under.)

The electrical grid is just another piece of infrastructure, and suffers from the same problems as other types of infrastructure.  There aren't enough trained electricians, technicians and engineers to maintain what we've got now, never mind expand and upgrade it.  How are all these new energy projects going to come online?  Your guess is as good as mine.

Peter