Oversimplification

There are too many lobbyists and lawyers that would have legislators believe that energy considerations are as simple as delivering electrons from point A to point B.

Considerations for energy generation must focus on power production, the grid to which the power is delivered, and the environment and any economic benefits and opportunities beyond power production.

Consider a car that can get you from point A to point B. If an electric grid has an aging transmission infrastructure, then instead of driving on a straight highway with no stops you'd be driving city streets in heavy traffic with a lot of stops. Any car that drives highway miles will get better gas mileage than driving the same distance on city streets. Driving city streets raises your cost to travel from point A to point B. An aging infrastructure can likewise increase the cost of delivering electrons from point A to point B

An aging transmission infrastructure increases electric bills through greater maintenance and line-loss of electricity

If the car in this example is considered to be the "energy generator," of course we'd want to know how many miles per gallons it gets and how much pollution it produces. Additionally we want to consider its fuel source and the security and safety considerations of delivering that fuel source to the car. Additionally, performance is a key factor. Aging power plants like aging cars can be susceptible to breakdowns and unexpected accidents. New power plants have less chance of breaking down and newer technology is normally more efficient and environmentally friendly.

Now, let's say that you have a very fuel efficient car that has no brakes and does not maintain a consistent speed on the road. The car even takes a mile to come to a complete stop once it is up to speed. To accommodate this type of car on any highway would be challenging and downright impossible to accommodate on city streets. This means if you owned one of these brakeless cars you'd have to walk from your house to the highway, a great inconvenience. The state would have to spend money to accommodate such a car by placing signs that say "Stop one mile Ahead" and have runaway ramps for cars that cannot stop in time. Because these cars can't travel at a consistent speed, they cause other cars on the road to speed up and slow down and this makes the other cars get worse gas mileage. The more cars with no brakes that are on the road the more inefficient the highway system becomes and the less efficient cars can travel down the road. We can, at great expense, accommodate some of these cars with no brakes on the highway, but too many of these brakeless cars and the entire highway system will collapse.

This is an allegory to accommodating intermittent technologies such as wind and photovoltaic solar technologies without complementary energy generation.

Let's say that the state is not willing to redo its highway system (electrical grid) to accommodate the brakeless car (wind and solar energy generation technology) that cannot maintain a consistent speed. The state comes up with a plan to attach another vehicle with a "tow/push" bar to the brakeless car. When the brakeless car cannot get up to speed a tow vehicle will assist it. When the brakeless car cannot brake, the tow vehicle will brake for it. This illustrates the relationship of a complementary power supply.

Let's imagine that the tow vehicle normally get's 25 mpg without towing any car. With all the starting and stopping the tow vehicle is doing to assist the brakeless car, the tow vehicle achieves only 12.5 mpg. During an average trip the tow vehicle is used 70% of the time. The brakeless car is used only 30% of the time. We'll assume the the brakeless vehicle uses no gasoline.

On a 100 mile trip the tow vehicle tows the brakeless car 70 miles. The brakeless car travels 30 miles. The tow vehicle uses 5.6 gallons of gasoline and that is the entire amount for the trip. Had the tow vehicle travelled without towing the brakeless car it would have only used 4 gallons of gasoline. Though a person could claim (unethically we may add) that 2.4 gallons of gasoline (30 miles divided by 12.5 mpg) were displaced by the brakeless car.

Wind and solar technologies are most ofter complemented with SCGTs (Single Cycle GasTurbines) that burn Natural Gas. SCGTs are about 30% efficient in turning natural gas into electricity. CCGTs are about 60% efficient in turning natural gas into electricity. SCGTs are able to complement the variability of wind and solar technologies. CCGTs really aren't a good fit to complement highly variable power needs and are used to supply power that has low variability requirements. This directly relates to the tow vehicle (complementary power supply) and how when it assists the brakeless car that it is half as efficient (SCGT compared to CCGT) and uses more gasoline than the tow vehicle would have if not towing a vehicle.

While this is a rudimentary allegory, it somewhat accurately conveys the hurdles of integrating wind and solar technologies on the grid. Sometimes, it is possible for wind and solar to be complemented with a portion of more efficient baseload power instead of inefficient power sources. How often this occurs and to what extent are largely unknown without advanced modeling and access to chronological load dispatch reports.

Can wind and solar technologies displace fossil fuel technologies on the electrical grid?

Yes, it is possible for wind and and solar technologies to displace fossil fuels on the electrical grid and thereby displace GGEs (Greenhouse Gas Emissions).

Displacing GGEs may not be environmentally beneficial if the implementation of the technology caused more overall GGEs to be created.

You are not accomplishing much environmentally if you take the above car example. While 2.4 gallons of gasoline is displaced - 5.6 gallons of gasoline was used instead of 4 gallons. More overall fossil fuels were used and more GGEs created.

• State legislators should demand that CLDRs (Chronological Load Dispatch Reports) are recorded and made available to grid modelers. CLDRs are vital to accurately making predictive models of the electrical grid.

• While many state legislators are focused on energy generation - energy transmission and the quality of energy that is delivered is very important. Consider how adding a generation technology to the grid affects dispatchability, predictability, frequency control, spinning reserves, reactive power, security, distribution, environmental impact, and consumer price.

• State legislators should demand that their RTO (Regional Transmission Organization) share modeling data so state legislators have an independent source with the data to audit and accurately model the electrical grid.