{"id":37241,"date":"2023-05-09T15:32:59","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T20:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/?p=37241"},"modified":"2023-05-13T09:00:39","modified_gmt":"2023-05-13T14:00:39","slug":"cub-qa-winter-storm-exposes-the-myth-of-fossil-fuel-reliability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/blog\/2023\/05\/09\/cub-qa-winter-storm-exposes-the-myth-of-fossil-fuel-reliability\/","title":{"rendered":"CUB Q&A: Winter storm exposes the myth of fossil fuel reliability"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Moskowitz, CUB Deputy Director<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

This past Christmas Eve, as many of us were busy with last-minute holiday preparations, CUB rushed out an email to people in northern Illinois with this ominous subject line: <\/span>ALERT: Power grid operator calls for energy conservation over the next 24 hours.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We were in the middle of Winter Storm Elliott, and<\/span> PJM Interconnection<\/a><\/strong>, which oversees the grid serving ComEd customers in northern Illinois, made the<\/span> unusual request that everyday customers conserve energy as “the risk of rotating customer outages is very real.”<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, PJM did not have to implement rolling blackouts to save the grid (<\/span>other regions<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, however, weren\u2019t so lucky). But it was an unacceptably close call, and the fossil-fueled power generators who for years had sold themselves as necessary for grid reliability, failed to deliver. Elliott, and these generators\u2019 spectacular failure to show up when needed, exposed the myth of fossil fuel reliability. Let me break it down.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How bad was Winter Storm Elliott?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Elliott was a “<\/span>bomb cyclone<\/strong>,”<\/b><\/a> a weather event marked by an extreme drop in atmospheric pressure, creating dangerous cold, high winds and heavy snow. This<\/span> “once-in-a-lifetime” storm<\/b><\/a> plunged 55 million people across the country into wind-chill alerts; at its height, it left <\/span>1.6 million<\/a><\/strong> customers without power; and resulted in more than 60 deaths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The storm brought record-low temperatures to parts of PJM\u2019s footprint, and resulted in higher-than-anticipated demand for electricity in many areas.\u00a0 The possibility of unexpected electricity demand is nothing new, however.\u00a0 PJM even runs a special “capacity auction” to ensure that when this happens, there are generators ready to step in and supply extra power when the grid needs it. That\u2019s what makes the events during Winter Storm Elliot so outrageous: Generators who had committed to provide the extra power failed to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did Elliott impact utility customers in Illinois?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Illinois, with its ample nuclear power, didn’t experience widespread outages. (We had a surplus of carbon-free electricity during the storm, thanks to strong policies like the Future Energy Jobs Act and the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act.) But conditions impacting another part of the power grid can threaten us all, especially with PJM. The largest power grid operator in the country, PJM covers 65 million customers in Washington, D.C., and all or parts of 13 states, from northern Illinois all the way to the Atlantic Coast. (<\/span>Read about CUB\u2019s CLEAR RTO project to advocate for consumers at PJM.<\/a><\/strong>)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Prompted by “continuing frigid weather” and power plant outages, <\/span>PJM on Dec. 23 called for consumers in its region, including ComEd customers, to conserve electricity<\/a><\/strong>. So what went wrong?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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As you can see in this chart from PJM, about 87 percent of forced outages on Dec. 24 were connected to natural gas and coal resources.<\/p><\/div>\n

How did fossil-fueled power plants perform in the storm? <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Natural Resources Defense Council said<\/a><\/strong>: “<\/span>By Christmas Eve, an astonishing 46 GW of power plants were\u00a0<\/span>out of service\u2014enough to power California. What did nearly all these plants have in common? They were powered by fossil fuels, mostly gas. PJM reported failures across the gas system, including low pressure, frozen compressors, and simply no commercially available fuel.”<\/span><\/p>\n

While the fossil fuel industry has bragged that natural gas <\/span>“defines reliability,” <\/a><\/strong>\u00a0the opposite was true during Winter Storm Elliott. Out of the nearly <\/span>46 GW of “forced outages”<\/a><\/strong>–representing 23 percent of PJM’s total capacity–about 87 percent were natural gas and coal resources.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ameren customers in Central and Southern Illinois are served by a different power grid operator, <\/span>MISO<\/a><\/strong>, which reported that power plant outages reached about 50 gigawatts by Christmas Eve–<\/span>about a third of the capacity that should have been available. <\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<\/b>Out of that, gas made up 44 percent of the outages and coal 32 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

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This chart from PJM displays megawatt-hours of forced outages, illustrating that 95 percent were connected to fossil fuels gas, coal or oil.<\/p><\/div>\n

A “planned outage” is something a power plant might implement to do maintenance, while a “forced outage” is something sparked by an emergency–like Winter Storm Elliott. One senior energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote<\/a><\/strong> that the PJM outages happened for a number of reasons, including frozen pipes, equipment failures or a failure to buy the gas needed. “As we called reserves, a significant portion of the fleet failed to perform,” PJM said, and more than 9 out of 10 outages were reported with less than an hour’s notice, or no notice at all<\/strong><\/em>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cQuite frankly, while a lot of resources did perform well, generator-forced outages were unacceptable,\u201d one PJM official said.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

How did clean energy resources perform?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, wind and solar resources met the moment. In fact, because the storm brought high winds, wind farms actually outperformed, providing <\/span>two-to-three times the energy they normally do Dec. 22-26<\/a><\/strong>, according to the UCS analyst (see chart). <\/span>MISO also reported: <\/a><\/strong>“Wind production remained high during Winter Storm Elliott, providing support to the transmission system.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How has PJM reacted in the wake of Winter Storm Elliott?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The events of last December left the industry reeling.\u00a0 In response to the catastrophe, PJM has\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n