{"id":307,"date":"2016-08-03T17:42:50","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T17:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/?p=307"},"modified":"2016-08-08T17:59:01","modified_gmt":"2016-08-08T17:59:01","slug":"will-a-bigger-energy-grid-make-way-for-renewables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/will-a-bigger-energy-grid-make-way-for-renewables\/","title":{"rendered":"Will a bigger energy grid make way for renewables?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Jaffe, August 3, 2016<\/em><\/p>\n

On the 10th floor of Xcel Energy\u2019s downtown Denver office building, energy traders sit before banks of screens filled with flickering, colored digits, buying and selling electricity for the utility\u2019s sprawling service areas. In one corner, a trader monitors the Midwest wholesale market and in another, the Southwest Power Pool \u2014 an odd name given that it actually covers the Great Plains, not the Southwest.<\/p>\n

On a recent day, an electronic map showed North Dakota in blue, for the price of the state\u2019s wind power was near zero, while southern Indiana was burnt orange, with the price of a kilowatt-hour near 8 cents. Five minutes later, Ohio turned pale green as the price dropped to 5 cents.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, the trader handling Colorado had no fancy, color-coded price map. When he needed to buy or sell, he had to get on the phone and call around to other utilities to find out what they had at what prices. Then he had to fix the price, coordinate the dispatch of the electricity and file the paperwork \u2014 all things being done automatically across the room by the Midwest Independent System Operator, or MISO, and the Southwest Power Pool, which covers all or parts of seven states.<\/p>\n

There in a nutshell is the state of affairs when it comes to Western electricity markets. While 60 percent of the nation\u2019s electricity is handled through computerized regional markets, the West is stuck in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Electricity sales in the West are Balkanized among 38 \u201cbalancing authorities\u201d or local markets. \u201cIt is a bus with 38 drivers,\u201d says Carl Zichella, director of Western transmission for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. \u201cIt is tremendously inefficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

TO READ COMPLETE ARTICLE, go to High Country News’ site. Requires subscription or free trial:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.hcn.org\/articles\/bigger-grid-more-renewables-energy-electricity<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Utilities are embracing California\u2019s bid to expand its grid, but states aren\u2019t so sure. Article from High Country News web site by Mark Jaffe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310,"href":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerngrid.net\/wcea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}