This week Chris is joined by Meredith Angwin, author of the book “shorting the grid”. The two talk about the stability of the US grid, how the northeast was once on the brink of a rolling black-out and why gas power plants play such a crucial role in this. Listen in to find out how tax credits influence the occurrence of negative electricity prices and how grid costs are allocated to the consumers.
Link to the book:
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Meredith-Angwin/dp/1735358002/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=shorting+the+grid&qid=1651396265&sprefix=shorting+th%2Caps%2C112&sr=8-1
This week Chris is joined by Meredith Angwin, author of the book “shorting the grid”. The two talk about the stability of the US grid, how the northeast was once on the brink of a rolling black-out and why gas power plants play such a crucial role in this. Listen in to find out how tax credits influence the occurrence of negative electricity prices and how grid costs are allocated to the consumers.
Link to the book:
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Meredith-Angwin/dp/1735358002/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=shorting+the+grid&qid=1651396265&sprefix=shorting+th%2Caps%2C112&sr=8-1
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| Timestamp | Speaker | Transcript
| 18:30.58 | chrissass | Welcome to insider's guide energy I'm your host Chris Sass and this week I am super excited to have with us the author of shorting the grid Meredith Angwin. Meredith welcome to the program.
| 18:38.43 | MeredithAngwin | Very happy to be here Chris thank you.
| 18:42.11 | chrissass | Well Meredith it has been such a joy I've been looking forward to this interview for weeks now I read shorting the grid and it really transformed the way I think of things so I've been in the energy business a number of years. I've been in this podcast business coming up on 3 years and I spend most of my time talking to new and emerging technologies renewable energy transformation and what you learn along the way is you become more and more pragmatic. Start with kind of ah a wide-eyed. We're going to save the world. We're going to do everything and and then when you realize it's a gray field. There's nothing greenfield and it becomes hard to get this transition in place and it's never as easy as it seems but I always get overly optimistic because I talk to folks I talk to battery storage companies and grid scale storage. All these things and when I read your book. What it did is it helped me step back and say okay, well where are we today what policies are in place especially in the Us power grids because I think it's really your example really covers the isos and and in the the lack of transparency where it is today and then. What are the consequences of the policies. We think we're voting for or perhaps our representatives are voting for what are the consequences of that and will we get to the place we want to be and so what really excites me about today's conversation is to kind of go into that a little bit and share with their audience some of the thinking. So when they hear a policy that says hey everybody's going to put solar in everybody's gonna put wind in and we're gonna you know, give some sort of incentives or some sort of tax advantages this and that what could that mean to the grid and the stability of the grid those are topics I hope we get through in our interview today. So maybe it makes sense to the start though is how did you come about writing a book.
| 20:17.92 | MeredithAngwin | Well I've been in energy all my life I I was ah ah ah I got an a degree in physical chemistry actually geochemistry and I began working in in geothermal energy.
| 20:18.54 | chrissass | About energy.
| 20:32.82 | MeredithAngwin | To some extent and also but I want I wanted to work in geothermal energy. But the first job I got was in fossil energy. Of course, there's not that many jobs in geothermal and I was doing ah pollution control for gas fire plants. Knox control and then then I went onto geothermal and then in geothermal I began working with nuclear people and I hadn't really paid any attention to nuclear because I was all about you know I was going to be renewables and I began to see the virtues of nuclear and when they asked me. To to join their group I did so there I was I was in nuclear energy I had my own consulting company for about 10 years doing corrosion and pollution control consulting chemistry materials materials. Not the grid materials and then but when I came out here. Um. I began writing a blog in favor of my local nuclear plant of Vermont yankee and someone who read the blog said hey you should join the consumer liaison group for the um. Greatd Appre for is on new england because you write about the grid every now and again and I did in my blog. Something would come up about the power plant and I would just say okay I'm going to I'm going to write about this something about the grid and the power plant interaction I'd write about it in the blog and so so I didn't have a great. Overall view. But I I research a little topic write a blog post and so forth. So then I joined the consumer liaison group and then I thought oh my gosh who knew this stuff was going on and I began to try and explain it to people who had been following my blog and it just got to be so thick I mean it is so complicated and so. Ah, non-intuitive and I thought this is not going to work I'm not going to be able to sit here and for in a 15 minute discussion describe auctions capacity auctions capacity factors capacity value people are just going to go. Could you go away. So I decided that I needed to put it down somewhere because I couldn't find a book that would explain it to me I could not and so I ended up writing and the other thing is I began working with the grid operator began seeing the decisions being made. Realized the decisions were not leading to a reliable grid and and and I was I was getting really ah discouraged about some of the things that happened 1 winter which I describe extensively in my book where we came the northeast came.
| 23:07.18 | MeredithAngwin | Very close to having rolling blackouts in very cold weather and I was I was watching that in real time and anyway so then I decided well nobody's going to want to listen to me for 5 hours about this. So I better put it in a book where I can look it up.
| 23:21.80 | chrissass | But I'm glad you did the book shorting the grid was a great read I found at Page Turner I really enjoyed I got tuned in and you talked about all these kind of esoteric subjects but you do it in a way that simplifies it and makes it really engaging. so so I appreciate thank you for doing that.
| 23:37.49 | MeredithAngwin | Thank you.
| 23:40.82 | chrissass | Was It was really a pleasure to read um and and you've you've touched a couple topics in in your kind of your Introduction. You talked about you know, perhaps rolling Blackouts and and an unstable grid. Um what? What do you mean by resulting this stable Grid. So We we always hear the Us grid is fragile. That's the terminology I think I hear the most when we talk about it and we talk about moving to renewables and sustainable energy. Um, what's your take on that are we a fragile grid or where where are we out on the grid.
| 24:09.84 | MeredithAngwin | Well, we are becoming a fragile grid and I could I could just say that there are 2 major reasons. Okay, the first reason is that um, we're we're we're well we have 2 reasons and there. Connected. We have a lot of renewables on the grid and the renewables go on and off when they want to not when we want them to so now we have to have something on the grid which will um back up those renewables what if they go off when we want them to go on I mean. I wish everybody could visit a grid operator's control room. All these people working so hard looking at at at the balancing because every moment on the grid. The amount of electricity used and the amount of electricity being. Generated have to be exactly the same they have to be in balance in real time and so the thing is that the the grid operators are working really hard to keep everything in balance all the time. So now you've got renewables that go on and off at their choice. And they are generally backed up with by what's called ah fast response resources and there's really only one fast response resource you can build nowadays and that's a gas fire plant and there are other things that can be fast response for example, a very large battery could be fast response. Unfortunately there the the very large Gri batteries even the ones you hear a lot about are not truly a grid scale There may be a hundred Megawatts ah but a grid is six Thousand Megawatts even a small ah grid like ours. Okay, and um. 6 to 10000 and so the hundred megawatt isn't going to help you if you your grid is mostly wind and the wind just died down and then the other thing is that you can have hydro but nobody's building hydro so the only fast response resource available is a gas fire plant. So you say so what's wrong gas is cleaner than than coal. It's not as disruptive to the ecosystem as hiver. Yeah, we want to get rid of it someday because because of global warming but in the meantime it's working great. Well it isn't because gas is delivered through pipelines. And even if you are right on top of a huge gas reservoir if the pipeline won't deliver it to the power plant. You don't have gas gases just in time delivery unlike nuclear and coal which are very different but they have 1 thing in common they store.
| 26:56.21 | MeredithAngwin | The fuel on site and to a certain extent a hydrop plant with the pond behind it is storing fuel on site in that case, the fuel is water but gas plants do not store fuel on site gas plants want just in time delivery and sometimes that delivery doesn't happen. Now in new england where we're pretty well set up for winter because we have to be that it doesn't happen. Didn't have a whole lot to do with problems per se on the gas lines but it had to do with the fact that. In a very cold weather homes are using a lot of gas for heating and they have priority. So all of a sudden the power plants couldn't get enough gas and they were dropping out. Ah and in Texas where it isn't as well set up for winter. Gas pipelines didn't supply the gas fire plants because um because they had ah cold problems that that is ah they there were frozen valves. Also the price was going so high that a lot of the power plants was like if I if I begin paying for this gas I'm going to go broke. So they just drop off the grid they say okay I'm not I'm not playing bye-bye it was great now one of the things about that is that as I say in my book is in a in the supposedly deregulated areas called the. Ah. Regional transmission organization areas of which new england and Texas are both the power plants are merchant generators. They have no obligation to stay on the grid if they're losing money. They go offline and yeah, right, that's a business decision in in. More traditionally regulated areas a power plant has an obligation is part of a bigger system with an obligation to serve the customers and that that easy. Why I wrote a book because I just it ends up being so complicated what it boils down to is. You can't have renewables that go on and off on they want to and back them up with gas which may not be available in a crunch and have a so a stable grid it just it just doesn't work that way.
| 29:18.15 | chrissass | So so I I do agree that it's a complex thing to try to cover in a podcast right? So know it's fantastic I I think you know what I took away from from what you've talked about so far was at least in the Us system the way it works is the individual.
| 29:23.26 | MeredithAngwin | Um, I'm sorry.
| 29:37.11 | chrissass | Home would get priority for the gas and when you need it and when it's going to spike up is when the demand is the most and that's the same time that the power plants are going to want to spike up as Well. Let's say in a cold spell or something like this and that can be problematic I Also recall that you talked a bit about. Trying to encourage companies to keep fuel on site and this was as another solution and you you you said Le Coal Perhaps yeah oil or some other fuel could be stored on site less desirable for the the environment but it would be ready to go and and sitting there not just in time or was a war of water. And I think there was some conversation in your books about regulation and kind of bidding into the the auctions and how that implemented people's desire to do that or the profitability of doing that. Maybe maybe that makes sense because that was kind of my opening for me as well understanding how that kind of took place.
| 30:28.20 | MeredithAngwin | yes yes yes I agree well the thing is the auctions are um, are they go a certain way if if I bid if 1 power plant bids in it say $10 another the power plant bids in their $20 and another. Power plant bids in at 30 and they need all 3 of them. They choose all 3 of them and then everybody gets paid to 30 okay that that's called the clearing price. It's the price of most expensive power plant they need and they they they get it now when the demand is in this high. Maybe they'll only choose the $10 and $20 power plant I'm I'm I'm using very simple ideas here. Well if you're a power plant. You want to be chosen as much as possible so you don't want to be the $30 power plant necessarily because you're only going to be used sometimes. That's called a peaker plant. Maybe you want to run you know 80% of the time we're 70 or 50 not just when demand is extremely high so you're not going to do anything that will increase your runtime costs because you would have to bid in higher then. And then you might be the the $25 power plant that doesn't get chosen when they're choosing the $20 ones. So the power plants have very little incentive if they're a gas-fired power plant. They can store oil and many of them are what's called dual fuel. That means if I can. Burn gas or it can burn oil and ah then if they if they begin storing oil though they they begin paying for the oil upfront and they may or may not get paid back for it. They may just end up well that makes you expensive sorry we're not choosing you so what happened was that in in this situation. Um the grid operator Iso New E England put together a winter reliability program. Where it just went ahead and ah bought oil that was stored at the power plants and then if they used it they they they paid paid it back. But if otherwise they didn't it's it was a complex thing. They always do these complex but basically it made sure that there was oil. For when there wasn't gas available because the power plants wouldn't pay for it. The grid operator had to say hey reliability is important to us and we're doing this for you and they did this under a program called ancillaries. Well it was called the winter reliability project program.
| 33:13.46 | MeredithAngwin | But they have the grid operator has a whole bunch of things they do to stabilize the grid such as voltage regulation frequency regulation and they they do that under what's called ancillary services. So this wasn't like such a huge reach for them. To to say. Okay, this is another ancillary service we need. But ah unfortunately if you if the grid operator doesn't do that you can. You can have a very very fragile grid and that is that when the demand is high. Ah. For um, for natural gas then you may not have natural gas plants going online. This is not good say what you need is is to to do this sort of thing. Ah Texas was a really interesting version of this because everybody in the. After the Texas blackout everybody was pointing fingers your fault that is the the wind failed. No, we couldn't get enough natural gas. No. It was the wind. No, it was natural but what happen it was the sequence. The wind went failed the wind when the wind went away. Ah, natural gas tried to rev up and you couldn't get enough natural gas and and some of the things were freezing then the natural gas couldn't make up for it and that's how you got the blackout there that was ah sort of an illustration of fragility. But unfortunately right here in new england. We practically had the same illustration.
| 34:44.32 | chrissass | So So I think yeah I get kind of the sequence of what happens. Um, you know, being someone that does want to see energy transition and and see renewal. You know, renewable sources of energy and understanding.. There's the pragmatic approach where we are um. What what is the true cost Then. And yeah, we we hear that solar and wind have gotten really cheap I mean I think you could sell you could probably bid in really inexpensive into these auctions in here.
| 35:10.60 | MeredithAngwin | Oh yeah, you can they can ask the grid operator to they say they can say to the grid Operator. We'll pay you to take our power I mean that's really cheap, right? If if if I were selling apples and I say please buy my apples I'll give you a dollar for every apple you buy. That would be really a good deal for you. But the question is where's that dollar coming from.
| 35:30.35 | chrissass | Um, so where is that dollar coming from and what's the consequence. So I have an unfair advantage having read your book. But I think I think it's important to conversation.
| 35:39.15 | MeredithAngwin | Um, me okay.
| 35:43.50 | chrissass | Um, so tell us tell our audience. What what? you think that that happens when we do this is so if I've got a negative price for wind energy because it's blowing. It's blowing stink today and I can sell it to you for negative. Um, what does that mean.
| 35:52.89 | MeredithAngwin | Well, that means that you don't need any money from the grid to run your wind turbine but you need to be on the grid because you get 2 forms of payment that aren't from providing electricity. They're just from the fact you're on the grid. And 1 of them is there's something called the production tax credit which means that you get um, usually around it. It varies but usually around ¢2 per Kilowatt hour for being online. That's a tax credit. So if you have if you're a big company and you have to pay taxes. As Warren Buffett said these these are the reason we build wind turbines because that that tax credit comes right off your tax line and goes right to your bottom line. It's better than a profit because the profit would be taxed so you so you get a tax credit and you can also sell. Something called a renewable energy credit and that means that you've made a kilowatt hour of renewable energy. You know you've got ¢2 from from ah the Uncle Sam is a tax credit now you can get four or five cents or maybe less maybe more for um. Selling that credit to somebody who needs it now who's somebody who needs it. It's somebody who is like for example, a distribution utility in a state that says you must buy 25% of your power from renewables. Well they can't. Just change everything over that way. I mean they they've got power plants and stuff what they do is they go to a wind turbine place and say or actually they go to an exchange where they can buy it and say hey I need to buy some of your credits because I'm going to show those credits to my regulators and then I'll on behalf. I'll satisfy the 25% renewables because I'll have bought so many of your wind turbine credits. Well as you can see the wind turbine and doesn't need any money from the grid. It's now getting ¢6 when grids are usually running at at success or something and ah. Or ¢2 or aceor it. It people say oh, they're the cheapest thing on the grid but they wouldn't be the cheapest thing on the grid if they actually had to support themselves by payments for their electricity but they don't. And meanwhile all these plants the traditional plants that generally support themselves by being paid for their electricity. They ah have ah they're quote too expensive for the grid. No, they're not, they're they're just trying. They're just not.
| 38:40.10 | MeredithAngwin | They're just not getting extra money they're they're trying to sell their kilowatt hours to make a living and as I have a chapter in my book that selling Kilowatt hours is a bad deal for a power plant. You got to look for other sources of income.
| 38:54.64 | chrissass | But so so I guess then what's the consequence so you you now have when although I did have an interview last week with someone that does behind the meter wind and they said that they aren't really taking advantage of their customers at least the racks weren't important to the the large enterprises that the market they were in they they they. Didn't even go use most of the time. Um and they they thought it was still a cheaper cost. But I guess what does that mean for the the average homeowners power bill or whatever when you have all this going on. So if if all large industry and all these corporations are putting wind and solar up how does that help me does that mean my bill goes down does my bill go up.
| 39:31.76 | MeredithAngwin | Your your bill goes up because you see and and you aren't being able to see how your bill goes up because the thing is that depending on where you are sometimes you have a section of the bill which is basically what we paid for energy.
| 39:33.46 | chrissass | You know how does that and.
| 39:49.15 | MeredithAngwin | And then there's another section of bill like sort of like everything else and and the thing is that the the recs go into that everything else section. So your bill is going up but the energy portion of your bill might actually be going down. Because they're buying from wind turbines or whatever but the the overall bill is going up and and it it's sort of hidden as a matter of fact, everything is hidden to be blunt. It. It. It is very discouraging. Um I there are sunshine laws for ah government agencies. So supposedly, you're not supposed to meet in a closed room and and. And make decisions and nobody can track who said what or anything you're supposed to be meetings are supposed to be open. There are no sunshine loss on the grid. Ah you can't get into so the meetings in which these decisions are made Ferc. So but you can but then you have to go up to the. The highest level and your local grid operator. It's pretty closed I'm so sorry to say that.
| 41:02.70 | chrissass | Right now. No I think that was one of the points that that you make very clear is is is kind of trying to expose how these things happen and so does that mean then if these companies are making their own power buying their own power. Does that mean that the grid can be smaller or does the grid still need to have the same scale because they're selling less right? because they're if you're a large fortune one hundred Fortune one thousand you and you have wind turbines or solar panels and you're getting you know. Variable energy when when the sun's out or when the winds out you're not using it. But I think for the most part these guys are falling back to the grid when it's not in those conditions. So there's a grid capacity change is there less demand on the grid for this urge you have to build over capacity.
| 41:48.40 | MeredithAngwin | Now the peak demand continues to be as high as ever I mean there are time I mean pardon me it's a truism that there are times when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow and at that time you still need. The other power plants and you need the grid to provide think ah your power and so you know it it depends on so many factors like let's say you're a little island. And you use you don't have any real resources except wind and solar and you import fuel oil or diesel to run the rest of the time. Well at that point ah wind and solar just prevents you from using Diesel So. It's good thing. Even if it's only part time right? Even if you have to keep 100% Diesel Capability Available. You're still using less less fossil when you're using the wind and solar. But what most of us aren't little islands that are importing. Everything we we have existing power plants. We have existing infrastructure and um, you're acting using the grid as a backup and the power plants that you're using as a backup aren't being paid enough to stay in business. Because they're not used enough and so it gets to be very complicated and by the way I Want to say that when people begin talking about. Well we have to decarbonize with wind and solar every now and again I just say hey nuclear. And ah, sometimes people go oh well anything but that I mean yeah, there's greenhouse gases and global warming. But you mentioned something that's even worse and I don't think it's even worse. But I think it's ah ah, really, It's the important part of of any kind of decarbonization or any stability.
| 43:50.53 | chrissass | How does that work in the us where nuclear plants and Europe you know some countries are without it California you certainly wouldn't want to be a nuclear killer plant. But I mean you know I think there's certain countries like France that has you know fairly strong nuclear capabilities right now or Switzerland still has a fero amount. But.
| 43:51.90 | MeredithAngwin | For a grid.
| 44:09.00 | chrissass | Many of them are shutting down and and you make a ah big business case that the the incentives for the things that are getting voted on today by the state governments and all don't leave the the margins that they need to sustain these kind of plants in the future. So how does that remain part of our long-term grid stability if if that's you.
| 44:28.64 | MeredithAngwin | Well I think it is part of the solution and I want to say that all these things that the states are voting on and and and and Rex and we can do it all on renewables and so forth and so on these are all policy decisions that don't have a whole lot to do with how the physical grid works I mean.
| 44:28.67 | chrissass | It's what you think is part of the solution.
| 44:48.32 | MeredithAngwin | And and so you know you can reverse a policy decision by signing a piece of paper the right people have to sign what? um I mean is that if you if you close down a nuclear plant and many have been closed down. It is almost. It is certainly. Going to be replaced by Fossil Fuels it is going to be replaced with you say Oh but we're building we're building we're building. Ah, ah, renewables you close down that nuclear plant and your percentage Fossil Fuel will go up. Because the renewables won't be there all the time but the nuclear plant was so.
| 45:24.83 | chrissass | But what about gridstale scourch so I mean so many guests on this podcast so much money is going into grid storage that sooner or later that that has to be cracked right? So there's there's so many promising technologies right up you mentioned hydro which has been around forever pumped hydro or Whatever I mean then there's other base loads like closed loop geothermal. We've talked to which is interesting. It's just costly, but there are some base load technologies that are renewable. But then there are also things like iron flow batteries and looking I am battery tech and all that. So do you not think that it will that that that. That you know that over time over the next you know, five years three years ten years that we'll crack that code.
| 46:07.80 | MeredithAngwin | I think it's always going to be uncomfortably expensive to do that and let me let me give you the my ideas on that. Let's say you have an ordinary grid. Okay, just a regular old grid with. Different kinds of power plants on it. Maybe some renewables but mostly regular power plants. You keep enough power plants on the grid for 20% more than you expect the highest demand to be that way if there's a power plant offline. Or there's some kind of interruption on transmission to some power plant. You still could satisfy the highest man and that has worked well for for tens of years okay now let's say we're going to go to a grid and let's imagine we have storage and it's grid level and and so forth now. I don't think they're going to be building a lot of pump storage so when I say storage I'm going to say some some type of battery because I can't imagine anybody in this country saying oh yeah, why don't you just take a section of that mountain down and make a reservoir there and then put a bunch of turbans at the base. By the river and up in the mountain. Yeah, and a work it will work absolutely but but I don't think they're going to build a much of so here we have ah so here we have for example a a set of wind turbines for example and let's say they can make 100 % of the power needed by the grid and they're ready. They're ready and the wind is blowing and they're doing great. Well fine. So who's who's who is um who is charging up that battery. You need another wind turpin. When the wind is blowing great to charge the battery for when the wind isn't blown but going blowing great and then you need a battery so where before you needed 1.2 times the amount of megawatts that are used by the grin at full til now you need 3 times. The wind turbine that's making power for the grid the wind turbine that's making power for the battery and the battery. So I don't mean to be discouraging. But I I mean you just count. It's just a matter of counting.
| 48:23.57 | chrissass | Okay, so.
| 48:33.69 | chrissass | So so what's your vision. So assuming that you wanted to have heavily renewable assuming you wanted to reduce emissions. What's the vision for the future. So how do we have a stable grid and you know I want my cake and I want to eat it too right? so. I mean I know you mentioned nuclear and and saying you know that they're getting shut down I do also know that with the current war in Russia and things like that that there was even a lobby in the us to to keep getting uranium from Russia to keep the nuclear plants cheap fuel supply right? So I think that that was 1 thing they didn't want to send sanction. Um, so.
| 49:08.69 | MeredithAngwin | Still.
| 49:11.14 | chrissass | What's what's the panac. Ah what's the plan that we do that gets us to a stable grid with policy and an environmentally friended grid. You know 3 years five years ten years out.
| 49:19.88 | MeredithAngwin | Um, well, ah, first of all, we have a lot of your radium and in in and in the us and in in especially in Canada the reason we import from Russia is we don't have you. Uranium. It's expensive more expensive here to to mine it and also we don't have ah facilities to turn the raw uranium into the into fuel pellets and and we buy the fuel pellets from from Russia. So at any rate, um I am very clear on what my perfect grid would be my perfect grid would be a lot of nuclear plants running base load and people say oh there is no such thing as base load. But no, there is it's base load is whatever. Amount of energy is needed from the grid 24 hours a day and that turns out to be about twoirds of the energy on the grid I if you the the the heights like when we should get up in the morning and turn on the lights. That's only for part of the 24 hours and it's actually doesn't usually go as high as to double what was base load. So at any rate, um, so you have base load for nuclear for the base load part then what about the load following we'll load following. I think for load following there might be New Nuclear there could be ah um, ah, natural gas and and renewables there natural gas backing up the renewables you understand that now we're looking at a third of the. A third of the energy on the grid. Not the whole thing and we're letting the renewables be a big portion of it and then the natural gas be some of it. So the thing is people the grid the actual grid we have out there is like. 80% or 78% or whatever percent fossil fuel. That's what's going on. Okay, and then there's 20% nuclear and and but fifteen twenty percent ah renewables okay 60% fossil fuel I think it's more like 70 actually but at any rate. Um, maybe it's 60 but what I'm saying is that's what's really out there and then people are beginning to say no no, we have to look at how we can how we can completely decarbonize and I'm like hey how about you.
| 51:59.87 | MeredithAngwin | You have 60% decarbonization and and and and and 20% natural gas and and and 20% renewables I'd be much better if you're looking at decarbonizing but people go like oh no, it doesn't get us where we need to be and I'm like this is this is not. Not reasonable I mean you may say we need to be at 0 but that means as you're saying 10% is really unacceptable. It's not not I mean I don't know I'm I'm rather pragmatic I'm ah you know, ah, you know if I ah. If I wanted to buy a new car I wouldn't say well I need this car to be top of the line I would buy the car that fit what I could buy you know and and similarly i. Even if you know people are very concerned with global warming which I don't think they are or they would be pro-nuclear but at any rate, um, wouldn't it be lovely if we could electrify everything with ah, mostly nuclear.
| 53:09.17 | chrissass | so so I knew your stance coming into this a little bit about nuclear. We talked in the pre-call a little bit about it. So I appreciate covering that um when you talk about buying a new car. You triggered something else in my mind and I don't know that all our audience who have a global audience about half from Europe have from North America understands maybe the grid structure in North America so we talk about this iso thing and then we get this regional isotype thing our regional providers and 1 thing that was kind of interesting that I didn't understand is how 1 state's policy might get paid for by another state in this regional model. Um, is that something we could kind of concisely explain to the audience and because I thought that was interesting so you know you know you're you're you're in a small state and I'm a neighboring state and we we are on a regional grid for lack of a better, a regional distribution network and we decide to do something in our policy. Who bears the cost of these things I thought that was kind of interesting. So.
| 54:03.95 | MeredithAngwin | Well, that that was a whole section I had in the book called ferk one thousand flies under the radar and basically it isn't even about the regional transmission organization it what but used to be in terms of transmission and used to be is like up to like. Ten years ago or five years ago it's the the goal in transmission was the people who take advantage of it pay for it. So for example, many transmission lines were what was called socialize that is they might run through Vermont but Vermont doesn't pay 100% of it. Vermont pays. Whatever percentage of costs are Vermont's portion of the local grid. So Vermont is only 4% of the local grid Connecticut Boston we're all they're all in the grid they use huge amounts. So if there was a new transmission lines as the grid operator says we must have this for reliability Vermont would pay 4% of the cost in good old Massachusetts would pay probably 50% or maybe 40% in Connecticut anyway, what I'm saying is that it would be paid for in percentage of how much you use it. Now with the recent ferc 1000 the idea is that you would socialize costs that has spread them over a bigger area if the costs were necessary for state policies which means that I could have a state policy that I need to import. Wind wind power from wherever I can get it including ah canada including the midwest whatever and I need transmission lines for that's my policy and according to Ferc 1000 that would be that would be ah. Ah, socialized and all the different states would use it pay for it and and not use it necessarily. It might be my state's policy and I'm happy as a clam with it because the other states states are paying for it. My policy they haven't had a chance to vote on it. They can't throw but the bums out if they don't like it but they're paying for my policy and I find I find that really appalling now if if you remember back when I talked about how I had joined the consumer liaison group somebody called me up and. And said, um, you know why don't you join it and and I said oh okay, I'll I'll come to some meetings. Maybe I'll join it and the person who called me I asked him why he was in it. He said at one point I realized that I could be taxed through my.
| 56:49.10 | MeredithAngwin | Utility bill and I would not know anything about it and I will not be able to stop it and that's why I decided to join this group and see if I could do something about it.
| 56:56.66 | chrissass | And so does the group really influential does it dola mean you're you're out there making noise you're you're trying to get people interest in things. But as I think you say is you know reporters can't go to some of these meetings and they're they're fairly close and only certain representatives. So.
| 56:59.67 | MeredithAngwin | Oh no, it's.
| 57:13.69 | chrissass | How much say do you really have I mean are you just noise or are you really making a grassroots change.
| 57:16.81 | MeredithAngwin | Ah, we were noise I'm going to be blunt about it. We were noise the consumer liaison group was open to reporters and so forth and they all came because all the other meetings were closed and the closed meetings are where the decisions are being made. On the other hand, my feeling is that if you can't um if you can't ah ah, change things. You're never going to be able to change things that people don't even know they're happening and so I felt that. Tell people. It's happening is worthwhile but no the consumer liaison group was just kind of a um in one way it was a it was just a talking first point but a bunch of people talking in another way I don't know if there was any other. Meeting outside of Washington Dc where Ferc 1000 was addressed and discussed and certainly there wasn't another meeting where ferk one thousand was discussed in terms of what would happen in New England so we did do some things that I considered important.
| 58:28.36 | chrissass | So to who do you normally spend your time talking to is it energy enthusiasts energy insiders or or general just people that buy energy at their home who who's your normal audience who who likes to read shorting the grid who likes to hear hear you see speak or read your blog.
| 58:46.12 | MeredithAngwin | I'm I'm sorry to say it's mostly energy enthusiasts. But I think I'm breaking out of that mode I've been on more general podcasts I've been on podcasts for investors and I think I'm beginning to break out of that that mode that energy walks. Like me I love energy wonks but I'm saying that. Ah you know I don't want it to be 100 % energy wonks and and that's one of the reasons that I wrote shorting the grid in an an approachable style I mean you know, ah there are very. Ah, complex books out there mostly written for lawyers about all this stuff but nobody reads them and nobody knows what's going on and um, so and I also I give. Little courses at my local community ecology thing and I give talks but I wish more people were more interested in it I think Texas was a wakeup call for a lot of people. It's. Everything sort of changed after Texas I think.
| 59:54.40 | chrissass | But I think in the us right? As you say correctly, assuming there's gas plants us has plenty of gas for years to come there's there's reserves for gas and so you know from energy security point of view I think the us is in a ah, reasonably good place for the planet point of view maybe less. So if if you're. Trying to decarbonize but from an energy security and low cost energy isn't the us in a good place.
| 01:00:18.15 | MeredithAngwin | Oh yeah, it ends it is the thing is though that different areas in the Us are in terrible places because for example in New York won't let new new gas pipelines be built so there you go and when they retire a coal plant then they can't even get. A gas plant but well they can build a gas plant but it may not may or may not be able to get gas to run. That's one of the things I found really annoying when I was looking at some of the government projections projections like are you are you are you is this grid. Okay for the winter. And they'd say oh yeah, it has lots of plants. Um, however, we some of the plants may not be able to get fuel but but but that's not we're not looking into that right now it's very discouraging.
| 01:01:06.99 | chrissass | And and and what about upgrades the grid. So one of the recent things I've heard quite a bit from folks that are doing renewable is the the legacy grid is still runs very slowly so decisions to start and stop power and. And kind of use maybe 5 or optic networks to control and the speed is not there and so maybe that's smart grid. Maybe that's I don't know what they're you know what? they're alluding to where they go but it seems like the command and control is still antiquated. Have you seen that as part of your conversations around the grid as well.
| 01:01:42.60 | MeredithAngwin | Not really because when you get right down to it this starting and stopping quickly is is is because of the the rather spiky nature of many of the Renewables. You know the clouds go across the sun very quickly. Well on the other hand if I want to start up ah a gas planter shut it down it. It. It takes a few minutes. So all this Oh we got to get it much Faster. We got to get much faster if if you. The the people who want to be ah, a highly new renewable Grid want everything to be flexible, but it actually engineering is different from that engineering flexibility and reliability don't actually necessarily come into the same package. So For example, if you have a sports car. It's really Flexible. You know Boom Really really accelerates it. It may even be reliable but is that sports car going to be useful for moving goods from town to town. Well oddly enough Semis are not Flexible. Just no acceleration whatsoever but they are steady and that's what you need for a grid you need steady as well as flexible and and and a lot of people who want the new Smart Grid want 100% flexible and and not acknowledging how how. Electricity is actually used in this country.
| 01:03:11.12 | chrissass | And then the electrification of everything going on right now. So just just the concerns of the stability of the grid are they going to get amplified here is more and more electrification takes place but you know we're we're on a mission to electrify just about everything.
| 01:03:27.46 | MeredithAngwin | Well yeah, it's going to make it harder and I mean I was at a meeting the other day where the Ceo of our our our our our local grid Isa New England was saying if everybody had ah.
| 01:03:29.80 | chrissass | Um.
| 01:03:45.77 | MeredithAngwin | Ah, charging in their ah garage and and and we would need a lot more ah stronger distribution grids a lot more energy on the grid and if the grid went down and then came back up again. The. A lot of those ah ah batteries So The car batteries would be like okay it's up. Let's go and then I bring it down right down again because there'd be a sudden. Huge thing much much more than if the lights in your house just go on.
| 01:04:23.63 | chrissass | So the sudden demand search but I think technology can solve for that right? and that might be an argument for the smart grid right? because that that kind of control you could you could manage more right I mean we went through that with the internet I mean I I spent really part of my career building Telephone Networks and Communication Networks and same kind of problem if everyone tries at the same time.
| 01:04:31.26 | MeredithAngwin | You could manage it. That's right.
| 01:04:42.62 | chrissass | So I think that could be engineered out. Um I think the demand can't be engineered out right? So if if if you look at you know, let's say Boston Logan and every car had a charge what was parked there look at the demand and in the and the companion capacity you would need just to handle all the cars parked in the Logan parking lot while you're flying. Um.
| 01:04:57.69 | MeredithAngwin | Yeah.
| 01:05:00.17 | chrissass | And so so I think those are the changes that I see in the distribution so she wrote this book. You got folks like me that have become fans that really like it. So what are you doing next where where are you going now. So you you are you creating another ah sequel are you? You're just spending time speaking to people. What's what's next on your agenda.
| 01:05:05.28 | MeredithAngwin | I.
| 01:05:15.30 | MeredithAngwin | Well, what I'm doing now is I'm sort of filling in things in my mind that I I was afraid that if I began following those threads the the grid would be the shorting. The grid would be. Thousandp page book that I'd never finish so I'm I'm following some threads for example about the history of Auctions and I'm also um, ah following some threads about the history of fracking I mean there's just a lot of things that I'm interested in that i'm. I'm following threads on right now and and they probably will turn into another book. Um, maybe I don't know I don't like to promise to write another book. It's a lot of work I called this the book that ate meredith because I kept saying well I'm sorry I I really can't do that i. This book is just keeping me going all the time I mean I did go to movies or whatever but it it was just an ah immense effort at the time just immense.
| 01:06:21.63 | chrissass | What's the shelf fly for this book. So to me, it's still pretty relevant I mean to me I read your book and suddenly started on utility drive and other places that's the articles I'm like oh okay, that add a perspective to this or that is there a shelf life where or the the value of this you know three years from now are people still reading it and getting the same kind of. Like value enter is it become historical pretty soon.
| 01:06:40.31 | MeredithAngwin | Um, no, it's it's still relevant. That's a really interesting question that I ask myself a lot about the shelf life of it. Um, it was written before Texas so the thing is that it would you know people who study Texas can still refer to. Sequence in the book about new england and it's the same thing. Um I don't know if it about the shelf life really? but I think that it will continue to have a long shelf life and the reason I say that is that the other major book about the grid that ah well there are other books out there. But. Um, there's a book ah by Gretchen Bay called the grid and it's a very different book from mine but it is old much older and it's still selling well and and and the thing is that this until people begin writing more books about the grid. These older ones they're still relevant and they're still important at least I think so ah, ah, ah you you might say well. But what we need is another book about the european grid and another book about the biso grid and I agree but. In the meantime shorting the grid and Gressen Backys book the grid are the only 2 general. Well I shouldn't say the only 2 I mean you know, but the major ah general purpose grid books out there.
| 01:08:08.39 | chrissass | Understood and and I think the european market's very different so this is why it was so as an american and in in being in the energy business. It was very interesting to me I think we've had a fantastic conversation I hope our audience has enjoyed going all over the place that we've we've covered a lot of ground in a short period of time. Ah, Meredith I want to thank you for being our guest today. Thank you so much for being on the program.
| 01:08:31.12 | MeredithAngwin | Thank you very much I'm very happy to have been on the program.
| 01:08:35.20 | chrissass | And for our audience if you've enjoyed this conversation I found mar this book on http://amazon.com if you look in the show notes you'll see a link to the book. I highly recommend reading it once again, you spend another hour of your life listening to insider's guide to energy I hope you're smarter about the us grid. And you find out more information about it if you've enjoyed the program. Please share it comment give us likes and don't forget to subscribe to our Youtube channel we'll talk to you again next week bye bye