26 Feb Why not max out energy efficiency, solar adoption, demand response, electrification of transportation & utility scale storage?

Dear Mayor, City Council members, and supporting staff,

What is in the scenario mixer? Why not max out on energy efficiency, solar adoption, demand response, electrification of transportation and utility scale storage?

Or how to provide energy services without the need for new fossil thermal generation while providing options to integrate more renewable generation

The generation plan as proposed by Austin Energy assumes a growth in generation capacity of 13%, about 2% per year. My question to you is what would a scenario look like that does not involve growth and still can meet the reliability goals? It would be very modest to request a 0% growth of consumption going forward. We have options available to us that can curve growth far beyond growth.

City Council can adopt a simple resolution asking Austin Energy to come up with a plan to change the current growth in the generation capacity pathway into a pathway where consumption is flat. There is tremendous opportunity out there to go beyond and actually reduce consumption. This will make the need for more generation redundant. In this scenario we only need to replace generation we lose at the end of the lifetime of the various generation plants and do not need to add new fossil fuel based capacity. There are technologies available that can accommodate the integration of more renewable energy by providing storage when the wind blows and release locally when consumption is highest. It has the potential to remove the need for any fossil fuel generation. It is a scenario where we use less electricity during the day, use less during the peak hours, produce more during the peak with solar PV, produce more at night with cheap wind then store it and use it during the day.

What are these ingredients?

The most relevant options for today’s world are:

1.     Energy efficiency – estimated at 20-30% of total consumption possible by 2020

2.     Large scale adoption of solar – peak shaving capacity of 25% possible by 2025

3.     Demand response programs – peak shaving of 10% possible by 2020

4.     Electrification of transportation – storage capacity of 10% of total generation possible by 2020

5.     Compressed air energy storage – storage capacity of 400MW in one single plant is possible today, that is 10%.

I have a simple ask for you: request a scenario that goes all out on these options and see how they relate to the current proposals. It will paint a very different picture. It also asks a different role of the utility. What ingredients would you like to see in the generation plan scenarios going through this generation plan process?

Below you will find short introductions that show the potential of these “ingredients’ of a generation plan. I hope we can integrate them into the process and see what we need to organize to leverage the full potential of these technologies.

Energy efficiency is one of the quickest and least costly ways of replacing existing capacity. Efficiency investments mean that fossil fuel based plants can be retired without a need to replace that capacity, while other power plants could simply be run more cheaply—all of which could mean that consumers could lower their electricity bills. It costs a utility an average of 2.5 cents per kWh to invest in energy efficiency measures, as compared with 6 to 15 cents per kWh for new generation sources. Source: Elliott, R.N., R. Gold, S. Hayes. 2011. Avoiding a train wreck: replacing old coal plants with energy efficiency. Washington, DC: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy link. Going all out on energy efficiency has the promise in it to save up to 20-30% of all generation. McKinsey: unlocking energy efficiency in the US economy link . Energy efficiency is a huge resource. In many studies that look at lowering the cost of electricity and lowering the carbon footprint of the utility, energy efficiency comes first. We can do the same in Austin. This is a tremendous opportunity to involve the community in our municipal utility.

It can potentially be a big opportunity to help the households with lower incomes which constitute 25% of Austin Energy customers. We should be able to design a retrofit program for these households to give them lower bills. We have programs for solar PV, electric cars, rebates, energy efficient building codes, but they all apply to either new construction or households that can pay upfront for the out-of-pocket cost of these programs. There has to be a way to retrofit 25% of all houses and find a way to pay for it upfront, we all know that the savings are far greater than the cost.

Large scale adoption of solar

The beauty of solar is that it helps to reduce peak demand a lot. It is a very special resource as it produces the most energy when we need it the most- when the sun shines. The Rocky Mountain Institute just recommended a wide scale adoption to Fort Collins in their effort to become carbon neutral (stepping up: benefits and cost of accelerating Fort Collins’ energy and climate goals link). I suggest reading this report as it includes many elements of what Climate Buddies refers to as the victory scenario. The report includes a pathway for the utility to achieve carbon neutrality. Solar provides “Value Beyond Energy Generation”, it creates benefits to grid operations and total system efficiency. For example, distributed resources can reduce line losses, defer capacity investments, and minimize land impacts. Renewable resources can act as a hedge against volatile natural gas prices.

Demand response programs

Making the use of electricity less favorable during peak use, and more favorable during off peak times can help reduce the need for peak plants which reduces the need for capital investments tremendously and saves electricity when market prices are the highest. We have yet to seize the full potential of this option. Customers in the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) area can sign up to get paid to reduce their peak demand. They deploy an array of programs to reach different users and ask them different contributions. The total of the contracts adds up to 5-10% of installed capacity (link). That is significant.

Electrification of transportation

The benefits of electric cars are easily understated. If all cars in Travis County would be electric, the batteries would be able to store one day’s worth of consumption. How about we leverage 10% of the potential and store wind energy at night and use the electricity during the day? We would need two-way charging and unloading, technology that is available in demonstration projects. And we need many more electric cars. Side effects include lower ozone and other air pollution and lower peak demand. Did you know that the carbon footprint of transportation in Travis County is as big as the carbon footprint of Austin Energy? We should pay attention to both to meet our climate goals. There is a clear win-win connection between them and we should start to leverage that.

Compressed air and thermal energy storage

Storage capacity can help shift peak loads to moments in the day where demand is less and power is cheaper. It allows for more renewables to be put online as well. The biggest compressed air energy storage is under construction in Tennessee Colony here in Texas with a capacity of 317 MW (link). That is utility scale. Austin Energy presented the cost of this technology and it is the third cheapest option for dispatchable technologies, ranking cheaper than coal. It will allow for more cheap wind to be stored and utilized at a later stage during the day of week. We have some notable experience with storage here in Austin, think of the thermal storage facility at the domain that produces cold water over night and uses it to shave peak demand by supplying it during the afternoon to the surrounding buildings. This facility has a size of about 4 MW, so 25 of those would make 100 MW which is a sizable amount.

The options are abundant. Let’s put them in the mix.