Last Updated: December 8, 2022
Electricity is one of those modern necessities that we can鈥檛 live without anymore. In talking about grid mix, we should first look at the disruption caused by the most recent storm in Ontario. This violent windstorm swept through a vast swath of Ontario and parts of Quebec, leaving more than consumers without power.
For some of them, losing power doesn鈥檛 just mean losing lights. When the power grid is significantly damaged or suffers a failure, households could be dealing with flooded basements or loss of running water because their sump or water pumps stop working, loss of heat from electric-run furnaces, food in fridges and freezers goes bad. The list goes on.
鈥淗ydro One said Thursday that about , with those in the Bancroft, Perth and Tweed regions expected to be without power for several days.鈥�
And as climate change continues to make heat waves hotter and storms stronger, our electricity grids are only going to come under increasing strain.
It鈥檚 also why there鈥檚 so much worry about through the summer of 2022.
If we want to create a more reliable electric system, we need to take a good hard look at our grid infrastructure and the way the grid is fundamentally designed. Grid mix is going to play a critical role in that design.
Grid mix is also the key to getting our economy to net zero.
The Root of the Problem: Grid Design and Climate Change
It鈥檒l come as no surprise that is the second largest source of emissions in the US after transportation. It’s because 60% of electricity comes from burning fossil fuels.
In our haste to electrify everything, we鈥檙e placing more and more demand on our power grids and increasing our power generation needs. Much of the time, we鈥檙e meeting that boom in demand by burning more fossil fuels, like natural gas.
It鈥檚 the elephant in the room we need to talk about: we鈥檙e not going to do much to solve the climate crisis and decarbonize if we keep burning fossil fuels in big, centralized, dirty power plants to power our 鈥渮ero-emission鈥� cars and other 鈥渃lean鈥� technology.
We also can鈥檛 build the infrastructure鈥攖hings like transmission and distribution lines鈥攆ast or efficiently enough from centralized power plants to keep up with the forecasted electricity demand.
We鈥檒l use the highway analogy: The way our current electricity grid is designed, we need to build infrastructure for the 4-hours of highest demand in the entire year. It鈥檚 like building a superhighway that鈥檒l be full on the busiest travel day of the year (let鈥檚 say Christmas) and nearly unnecessary for the other 364 days. Building infrastructure in that way just doesn鈥檛 make sense… and it costs us all a lot of money.
Our COO, Matthew Sachs, breaks this down even further in this interview:
If we actually want to shift power generation to cleaner sources, create a more resilient grid, and do so in the most economically viable way, decentralization is key.
And at the crux of a decentralized system, is clean generation technology like solar, wind, and energy storage.
What is Grid Mix?
Grid mix is quite simply the proportion of power generating sources that supply power to a grid. Here are some visual examples broken down by market:
New England (ISO-NE)
Ontario (IESO)
California (CAISO)
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New York State (NYISO)
As illustrated in the above real-life graphs, the higher the demand, the dirtier the generation. For commercial and industrial consumers, this directly affects their Scope 2 emissions and decarbonization goals.
But it also affects the prices all electricity consumers pay. The dirtiest sources of power generation are also, generally, the most expensive.
How Energy Storage Fits In
There is a lot of buzz about distributed鈥攐r decentralized–energy resources. It’s because it鈥檚 one of the key technologies that will enable the functionality of a decentralized grid and will reduce the need for infrastructure development as demand rises.
In fact, many jurisdictions across North America are championing and supplying generous incentives for the development of sited solar and energy storage.
New York Energy Storage Highlight: In 2019, New York passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act), codifying some of the most aggressive energy and climate goals in the country, including 70% renewable energy by 2030 and 3,000 MW of energy storage by 2030. The available incentives are working, and at last update New York was already at 82% of the 2025 target. This prompted Governor Kathy Hochul to announce plans to double the energy storage target to 6 GW by 2030.听听
Energy storage is the key piece of energy technology that will alleviate the intermittency of distributed, clean generation resources like building-sited solar and ensure that power is being supplied closest to where it is being consumed.
This storage technology also saves听large energy consumers a lot of money by using stored energy when demand and prices are the highest… and when the supply of power is dirtiest with fossil fuel peaker plants meeting demand spikes.
Energy storage allows us to more efficiently use our electricity resources while cutting emissions. We can build resiliency, reduce the need for costly infrastructure upgrades (which we all end up paying for), and profitably reach our net zero goals鈥攖his is the power of decentralization.
Let鈥檚 Make Power Plants Obsolete听
Buildings are the key to the clean energy revolution听
As we detail in this blog post, the current, centralized electricity system is not sustainable. Between the climate crisis, blackouts, aging infrastructure, and rising costs, the system needs a huge overhaul. The demand for electricity is high 鈥� and getting higher 鈥� and big power plants aren’t meeting our needs.
At 911爆料网, we say it’s time to disrupt, decentralize, and decarbonize. We can do this through software and energy storage solutions for the real estate sector. Our tech turns commercial buildings and industrial facilities into hubs in a new, decentralized electricity system. This means cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable electricity.
Energy Markets are Complex. We鈥檒l Help You Navigate Them.听
Our team of energy experts can help you with everything from project design and financing to energy storage development and operation.