Envisage the
electrical grid 25 years in the future.
It runs at least 90% on renewable energy, and itself runs most
transportation as well as much building heating and cooling. Fossil fuels are largely out of the picture
in a world powered by sun, wind, waste and water.
This is
what Evergreen College’s Center for Sustainable Infrastructure (CSI) and its
director, Rhys Roth, have done with their latest report, Rewiring the Northwest’s Energy Infrastructure – A 2040 Vision. The vision has a solid base. Roth
put the question, “How can the Northwest build one of the world’s most
sustainable, resilient, and affordable energy systems by 2040?” to 33 energy
influentials including regulators, analysts, utility executives, public
interest advocates and public agency leaders.
His synthesized results were reviewed and refined by a 20-member expert
team.
CSI was
founded in 2014 to forward a crucial paradigm shift – Infrastructure
investments lock in long-term commitments, so a long-range integrated
infrastructure strategy is needed to ensure that the most economically,
environmentally and socially productive investments are made. The center’s 2015
launch report, Infrastructure Crisis, Sustainable Solutions: Rethinking Our
Infrastructure Investments, lined out 25-year infrastructure goals in five
areas. Energy is the first follow-on
report. Next will be water.
Transportation, recycling and overall performance are coming.
CSI’s
approach centers on breaking down silos between infrastructure sectors in order
to achieve optimal results. The energy sector exemplifies the challenges and
opportunities of silo-busting.
“Seismic
changes are coming to an energy system now broken into discrete silos and
little changed from a century ago,” Roth says.
In
the 1880s the first power grids and auto internal combustion engines were
deployed. By the early years of the 20th
century, Edison’s original DC grid based on small local power plants was
supplanted by George Westinghouse’s AC network of large centralized generating
stations and long distance power transmission.
Also around then, an early contest between steam, electricity and
gasoline internal combustion was settled in favor of the latter. By 1916, 100 years ago, the system we have
today was largely consolidated.
Today,
new technologies are disrupting the system, and re-opening those old
competitions. The rise of competitive
wind and solar generation creates a mix of centralized and distributed power. Microgrids
resembling Edison’s are coming into play. Electric vehicles are back, and the
production ramp-up is driving down battery costs. That is making use of variable renewable
energies more practical overall. At the same time, new digital technologies are
infusing the entire energy system, creating a smart grid capable of
coordinating a network of many power sources with smart buildings and vehicles.
Consumers are gaining new tools to generate power and manage demand in
coordination with the grid, thus becoming players in the system.
Electrification
of everything is a big part of this picture.
Today 25% of
U.S. energy is consumed in transportation. The vast
bulk comes from oil. That is changing. Not only are cars and light
trucks being electrified, but also buses and trains. Buildings and industry represent over 40% of
U.S. energy use, and much comes from natural gas and oil. But electric-powered heat pumps are in increasingly wide
use. Waste heat harvested from sewer
systems is also coming to the fore. One
non-electrified source, solar hot water, is also expected to grow in
importance.
The
new CSI report is resonant with other studies that conclude it is practical to
move to an energy system that is 100% renewable in all sectors, or near to it,
over the next several decades.
Prominent among those is work done by Stanford engineering professor
Mark Jacobson and his team. Their
scenarios for states and nations can be found at The Solutions Project.
For a
climate heated and roiled by fossil carbon pollution, all this is extremely
good news. “Climate
disruption will be a powerful driver to reduce carbon fuels and improve
infrastructure resiliency,” Roth writes.
“Dramatic cost drops in renewables undermine the argument that a move to
low-carbon sources will drive radical cost increases.”
Roth
cites numerous
other benefits including “reduced air and water pollution, improved public
health, energy price stability and affordability, a more resilient grid, a
plethora of new jobs and energy businesses, and replacement of cash-draining
energy imports.”
The Northwest
is well positioned to lead this energy revolution. The report quotes smart grid pioneer Terry Oliver, chief innovation officer for the Bonneville
Power Administration: “Fundamentally we’ve got the pieces in
place to go carbon-free, starting with a huge hydro system that provides some
reasonable flexibility. Our wind resource is perhaps 30% built out – there’s
still a great deal of wind potential and the very best areas haven’t been
tapped because they don’t yet have transmission. We’ve only barely begun to
adopt solar photovoltaic.”
In
this rapidly changing vista, utilities face both threats and new
opportunities. “Without fundamental changes in the
utility business model, erosion of revenue from new customer investments could
create serious challenges,” Roth writes.
“A lot is being said and written about dim prospects for
electric utilities as previously passive customers gain new tools to produce
and manage power on-site that save money and reduce the bills they pay
utilities,” the report says “But this paper presents an optimistic story for
electric utilities which will have a different but essential role to coordinate
and manage the electricity ‘backbone’ that underlies much of the infrastructure
investment that the Northwest needs . . . “
One of the report’s key recommendations is for a new compact
with utilities. Its
call to “rethink renewable energy mandates and incentives” has some potentially
provocative aspects. “State laws, such
as Renewable Portfolio Standards and net metering, have been grafted onto the
existing system to essentially force utilities to buy new renewable energy – a
reflection of the strong popular support for clean energy that have indeed
proven effective in increasing renewable energy development. But these policy mechanisms
may not be the most effective way to get the desired results affordably.”
The
compact Roth advocates would set goals for utilities and reward performance. It would also call on utilities to treat
energy efficiency, distributed generation and demand management on a level
playing field in resource planning. Utilities would be encouraged to take on
silo-busting projects.
In Roth’s
view, it all comes together at the state government level.
“State
leaders possess a vantage point above silos of electricity, transportation, and
heat, and thus are in the best position to coordinate revamping of energy
investments and policies,” he writes. “States must act as chief conveners
bringing together key stakeholders to shape strategies and agreements . . . States
must work together to build regional collaboration that advances the Northwest
vision.”
Roth calls
for a State Infrastructure Strategy to act as a “silo-busting platform to
consider whole systems and identify integrated solutions. The strategy would
create system-wide goals and metrics to align utility investments. It would also, “Remove
barriers to non-utility energy investments that align with goals – Ensure
utilities pay-for-performance based on actual value private systems contribute
to the larger system.” The strategy would direct state clean energy in areas
where markets are leaving gaps or not moving fast enough.
For
regional planning, Roth suggests a major overhaul in the region’s electricity
planning agency, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council: “As we enter a new era of integrated
solutions that dissolve boundaries between electricity, transportation, and
heating silos, we may need to update the Power Council mandate. Alternatively, states could establish a new
agency, modeled on and collaborating closely with the Council, dedicated to
optimizing the whole energy system.”
Non-integrated
thinking is perhaps our greatest challenge globally. The world institutionally acts as if it is
still that world of a century ago, when technologies were less complex, fossil
fuels were seen as an unremitting good, and climate was taken as a given. We can no longer afford such thinking, and
need to begin unifying the picture of where we are and where we want to head. We need large, ambitious, long-term goals
that move us beyond business as usual to meet the huge challenges we face. That
is the point of the CSI energy 2040 report. It should gain a close reading by
everyone engaged in climate and energy issues.
It is a needed vision.
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