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Energy

One (Megawatt) is the loneliest number, but hundreds of batteries are absurd

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12 minute read

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Zinchuk

That comes out to $104,000,000,000, in batteries, alone, to cover those 18 hours on Feb. 8. To make it easier on you, $104 billion. If you use Smith’s numbers, it’s $80.6 billion. Even if I’m out by a factor of two, it’s an obscene amount of money.

SaskPower Minister Dustin Duncan recently told me I watch electricity markets like some people watch fantasy football. I would agree with him, if I knew anything about fantasy football.

I had some time to kill around noon on Feb. 8, and I checked out the minute-by-minute updates from the Alberta Electric System Operator. What I saw for wind power production was jaw-dropping to say the least. Alberta has built 45 wind farms with hundreds of wind turbines totalling an installed capacity of 4,481 megawatts.

My usual threshold for writing a story about this is output falling to less than one per cent – 45 megawatts. Its output at 11:07 a.m., Alberta time, in megawatts?

“1”

Ten minutes later:

“1”

30 minutes later:

“1”

How long can this last? Is there a fault with the website? There doesn’t seem to be.

12:07 p.m.

“1”

Strains of “One is the loneliest number” flow through my head.

I’ve seen it hit one before briefly. Even zero for a minute or two. But this keeps going. And going. I keep taking screenshots. How long will this last?

1:07 p.m.

“1”

1:29 p.m.

“1”

Finally, there’s a big change at 2:38. The output has doubled.

“2.”

That’s 2.5 hours at one. How long will two last?

3:45 p.m.

“2”

4:10 p.m. – output quadruples – to a whopping eight megawatts.

It ever-so-slowly crept up from there. Ten hours after I started keeping track, total wind output had risen to 39 megawatts – still not even one per cent of rated output. Ten hours.

It turns out that wind fell below one per cent around 5 a.m., and stayed under that for 18 hours.

Building lots of turbines doesn’t work

The argument has long been if it’s not blowing here, it’s blowing somewhere. Build enough turbines, spread them all over, and you should always have at least some wind power. But Alberta’s wind turbines are spread over an area larger than the Benelux countries, and they still had essentially zero wind for 18 hours. Shouldn’t 45 wind farms be enough geographic distribution?

The other argument is to build lots and lots of batteries. Use surplus renewable power to charge them, and then when the wind isn’t blowing (or sun isn’t shining), draw power from the batteries.

Alberta has already built 10 grid-scale batteries. Nine of those are the eReserve fleet, each 20 megawatt Tesla systems. I haven’t been able to find the price of those, but SaskPower is building a 20 megawatt Tesla system on the east side of Regina, and its price is $26 million.

From over a year’s frequent observation, it’s apparent that the eReserve batteries only put out a maximum of 20 megawatts for about an hour before they’re depleted. They can run longer at lower outputs, but I haven’t seen anything to show they could get two or five hours out of the battery at full power. And SaskPower’s press release explains its 20 megawatt Tesla system has about 20 megawatts-hours of power. This corresponds very closely to remarks made by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, along with the price of about $1 million per megawatt hour for grid-scale battery capacity.

She said in late October, “I want to talk about batteries for a minute, because I know that everybody thinks that this economy is going to be operated on wind and solar and battery power — and it cannot. There is no industrialized economy in the world operating that way, because they need baseload. And, I’ll tell you what I know about batteries, because I talked to somebody thinking of investing in it on a 200-megawatt plant. One million dollars to be able to get each megawatt stored: that’s 200 million dollars for his plant alone, and he would get one hour of storage. So if you want me to have 12 thousand megawatts of storage, that’s 12 billion dollars for one hour of storage, 24 billion dollars for two hours of storage, 36 billion dollars for three hours of storage, and there are long stretches in winter, where we can go weeks without wind or solar. That is the reason why we need legitimate, real solutions that rely on baseload power rather than fantasy thinking.”

So let’s do some math to see if the premier is on the money.

If you wanted enough batteries to output the equivalent of the 4,481 megawatts of wind for one hour (minus the 1 megawatt it was producing), that’s 4480 megawatts / 20 megawatts per battery = 224 batteries like those in the eReserve fleet. But remember, they can only output their full power for about an hour. So the next hour, you need another 224, and so on. For 18 hours, you need 4032 batteries. Let’s be generous and subtract the miniscule wind production over that time, and round it to 4,000 batteries, at $26 million a pop. (Does Tesla offer bulk discounts?)

That comes out to $104,000,000,000, in batteries, alone, to cover those 18 hours on Feb. 8. To make it easier on you, $104 billion. If you use Smith’s numbers, it’s $80.6 billion. Even if I’m out by a factor of two, it’s an obscene amount of money.

But wait, there’s more!

You would also need massive amounts of transmission infrastructure to power and tie in those batteries. I’m not even going to count the dollars for that.

But you also need the surplus power to charge all those batteries. The Alberta grid, like most grids, runs with a four per cent contingency, as regulated by NERC. Surplus power is often sold to neighbours. And there’s been times, like mid-January, where that was violated, resulting in a series of grid alerts.

At times when there’s lots of wind and solar on the grid, there’s up to around 900 megawatts being sold to B.C and other neighbours. But for 18 hours (not days, but hours), you need 4,000 batteries * 20 megawatt-hours per battery =  80,000 megawatt hours. Assuming 100 per cent efficiency in charging (which is against the laws of physics, but work with me here), if you had a consistent 900 megawatts of surplus power, it would take 89 hours to charge them (if they could charge that fast, which is unlikely).

That’s surplus power you are not selling to an external client, meaning you’re not taking in any extra revenue, and they might not be getting the power they need. And having 900 megawatts is the exception here. It’s much more like 300 megawatts surplus. So your perfect 89 hours to charge becomes 267 hours (11.1 days), all to backfill 18 hours of essentially no wind power.

This all assumes at you’ve had sufficient surplus power to charge your batteries, that days or weeks of low wind and/or solar don’t deplete your reserves, and the length of time they are needed does not exceed your battery capacity.

Nor does it figure in how many years life are you going to get out of those batteries in the first place? How many charge cycles before you have to recapitalize the whole fleet?

For the dollars we’re talking here, you’re easily better off to four (or more) Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors, with 1,100 megawatts capacity each. Their uptime should be somewhere around 90 per cent.

Or maybe coal could be renewed – built with the most modern technology like high efficiency, low emissions (HELE), with integrated carbon capture from Day 1. How many HELE coal-fired power plants, with carbon capture and storage, could you build for either $80 billion or $104 billion? Certainly more than 4,481 megawatts worth.

Building either nuclear or HELE coal gives you solid, consistent baseload power, without the worry of the entire fleet going down, like wind did in Alberta on Feb. 8, as well as Feb. 45, 6, and 7.

Indeed, according to X bot account @ReliableAB, which does hourly tracking of the Alberta grid, from Feb. 5 to 11:15 a.m., Feb. 9, Alberta wind output averaged 3.45 per cent of capacity. So now instead of 18 hours, we’re talking 108 hours needing 96+ per cent to be backfilled. I don’t have enough brain power to figure it out.

You can argue we only need to backfill X amount of wind, maybe 25 per cent, since you can’t count on wind to ever produce 100 per cent of its nameplate across the fleet. But Alberta has thousands more megawatts of wind on tap to be built as soon as the province lifts is pause on approvals. If they build all of it, maybe the numbers I provide will indeed be that 25 per cent. Who knows? The point is all of this is ludicrous.

Just build reliable, baseload power, with peaking capacity. And end this foolishness.

Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online, and occasional contributor to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He can be reached at [email protected]

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Energy

What does a Trump presidency means for Canadian energy?

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From Resource Works

Heather-Exner Pirot of the Business Council of Canada and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute spoke with Resource Works about the transition to Donald Trump’s energy policy, hopes for Keystone XL’s revival, EVs, and more. 

Do you think it is accurate to say that Trump’s energy policy will be the complete opposite of Joe Biden’s? Or will it be more nuanced than that?

It’s more nuanced than that. US oil and gas production did grow under Biden, as it did under Obama. It’s actually at record levels right now. The US is producing the most oil and gas per day that any nation has ever produced in the history of the world.

That said, the federal government in the US has imposed relatively little control over production. In the absence of restrictive emissions and climate policies that we have in Canada, most of the oil production decisions have been made based on market forces. With prices where they’re at currently, there’s not a lot of shareholder appetite to grow that significantly.

The few areas you can expect change: leasing more federal lands and off shore areas for oil and gas development; rescinding the pause in LNG export permits; eliminating the new methane fee; and removing Biden’s ambitious vehicle fuel efficiency standards, which would subsequently maintain gas demand.

I would say on nuclear energy, there won’t be a reversal, as that file has earned bipartisan support. If anything, a Trump Admin would push regulators to approve SMRs models and projects faster. They want more of all kinds of energy.

Is Keystone XL a dead letter, or is there enough planning and infrastructure still in-place to restart that project?

I haven’t heard any appetite in the private sector to restart that in the short term. I know Alberta is pushing it. I do think it makes sense for North American energy security – energy dominance, as the Trump Admin calls – and I believe there is a market for more Canadian oil in the USA; it makes economic sense. But it’s still looked at as too politically risky for investors.

To have it move forward I think you would need some government support to derisk it. A TMX model, even. And clear evidence of social license and bipartisan support so it can survive the next election on both sides of the border.

Frankly, Northern Gateway is the better project for Canada to restart, under a Conservative government.

Keystone XL was cancelled by Biden prior to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Do you think that the reshoring/friendshoring of the energy supply is a far bigger priority now?

It absolutely is a bigger priority. But it’s also a smaller threat. You need to appreciate that North America has become much more energy independent and secure than it has ever been. Both US and Canada are producing at record levels. Combined, we now produce more than the Middle East (41 million boe/d vs 38 million boe/d). And Canada has taken a growing share of US imports (now 60%) even as their import levels have declined.

But there are two risks on the horizon: the first is that oil is a non renewable resource and the US is expected to reach a peak in shale oil production in the next few years. No one wants to go back to the days when OPEC + had dominant market power. I think there will be a lot of demand for Canadian oil to fill the gap left by any decline in US oil production. And Norway’s production is expected to peak imminently as well.

The second is the need from our allies for LNG. Europe is still dependent on Russia for natural gas, energy demand is growing in Asia, and high industrial energy costs are weighing on both. More and cheaper LNG from North America is highly important for the energy security of our allies, and thus the western alliance as it faces a challenge from Russia, China and Iran.

Canada has little choice but to follow the US lead on many issues such as EVs and tariffs on China. Regarding energy policy, does Canada’s relative strength in the oil and gas sector give it a stronger hand when it comes to having an independent energy policy?

I don’t think we want an independent energy policy. I would argue we both benefit from alignment and interdependence. And we’ve built up that interdependence on the infrastructure side over decades: pipelines, refineries, transmission, everything.

That interdependence gives us a stronger hand in other areas of the economy. Any tariffs on Canadian energy would absolutely not be in American’s interests in terms of their energy dominance agenda. Trump wants to drop energy costs, not hike them.

I think we can leverage tariff exemptions in energy to other sectors, such as manufacturing, which is more vulnerable. But you have to make the case for why that makes sense for US, not just Canada. And that’s because we need as much industrial capacity in the west as we can muster to counter China and Russia. America First is fine, but this is not the time for America Alone.

Do you see provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan being more on-side with the US than the federal government when it comes to energy?

Of course. The North American capital that is threatening their economic interests is not Washington DC; it’s Ottawa.

I think you are seeing some recognition – much belated and fast on the heels of an emissions cap that could shut in over 2 million boe of production! – that what makes Canada important to the United States and in the world is our oil and gas and uranium and critical minerals and agricultural products.

We’ve spent almost a decade constraining those sectors. There is no doubt a Trump Admin will be complicated, but at the very least it’s clarified how important those sectors are to our soft and hard power.

It’s not too late for Canada to flex its muscles on the world stage and use its resources to advance our national interests, and our allies’ interests. In fact, it’s absolutely critical that we do so.

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Energy

What Will Be the Future of the Keystone XL Pipeline Under President Trump?

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From EnergyNow.ca

By Terry Winnitoy, EnergyNow

The Keystone XL Pipeline, proposed in 2008, was designed to transport Canadian crude oil from Alberta to refineries in the United States, specifically to Steele City, Nebraska, and onward to refineries in Illinois and Texas, as well as to an oil pipeline distribution center in Cushing, Oklahoma.

Spanning approximately 1,179 miles and designed to transport up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day, the pipeline promised significant economic and energy security benefits. However, it became a focal point of political and environmental controversy, leading to its eventual cancellation by Presidents Obama and Biden.

Here’s a brief look at its history, the reasons it should have been built, the political dynamics that led to its cancellation and will President-elect Trump revive it?

Why the Keystone XL Pipeline Should Have Been Built

Economic and Job Creation

The pipeline was projected to create thousands of construction jobs and several hundred permanent jobs, providing a significant boost to the economy. It was also expected to stimulate economic activity through the development of related infrastructure and services.

Energy Security

By facilitating the efficient transport of a large volume of oil from a stable and friendly neighboring country, the pipeline would have reduced American dependence on oil imports from more volatile regions, enhancing national energy security.

Environmental Safety

Pipelines are generally safer and more environmentally friendly for transporting oil compared to rail or truck, with lower risks of spills and accidents. The Keystone XL was designed with the latest technology to minimize leaks and environmental impact.

Regulatory Oversight

The project underwent extensive environmental reviews and was subject to strict regulatory standards to ensure it adhered to environmental protection and safety measures.

Political Reasons for Cancellation

Environmental Activism

The pipeline became a symbol for environmentalists who opposed further development of fossil fuel infrastructure. They argued it would contribute to climate change by enabling the extraction and consumption of oil sands, which are more carbon-intensive than other oil sources.

Obama’s Cancellation

President Obama rejected the pipeline in 2015, citing environmental concerns and its potential impact on global climate change. He argued that approving the pipeline would have undercut America’s leadership on climate change.

Trump’s Reversal and Biden’s Final Cancellation

President Trump revived the project in 2017, citing economic benefits and energy security. However, President Biden canceled it again on his first day in office in 2021, fulfilling a campaign promise to prioritize climate change issues and transition towards renewable energy.

Political Symbolism

For both Obama and Biden, the decision to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline was also a symbolic gesture, demonstrating a commitment to environmental sustainability and a shift away from fossil fuel dependence in line with their administrations’ climate policies.

Will President-Elect Trump Reinstate It?

Currently, there is no definitive answer on whether President-elect Trump will reinstate the Keystone XL Pipeline. His previous administration showed support for the project, citing its potential economic and energy security benefits. However, reinstating the pipeline would require navigating significant political, legal, and environmental challenges that have developed over the years.

It would also depend on the current geopolitical, economic, and environmental priorities at the time of his taking office. The Keystone XL Pipeline’s history is a complex tapestry of economic aspirations, environmental concerns, and political maneuvers.

Its cancellation has been a contentious issue, reflecting the broader national and global debates over energy policy and climate change strategy. Whether it will be reinstated remains a significant question, contingent on a multitude of factors including political will, environmental policies, and market dynamics.

That all said, re-instating its approval might be the perfect “in your face” moment for Trump to Obama and Biden as he begins his second term of presidency. We’ll have to wait and see.

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