Peter Kelly-Detwiler - The Energy Switch: How Companies and Customers Are Transforming the Electrical Grid and the Future of Power

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Copyright 2021 by Peter Kelly-Detwiler

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kelly-Detwiler, Peter, 1960 author.

Title: The energy switch : how companies and customers are transforming the electrical grid and the future of power / Peter Kelly-Detwiler.

Description: Lanham, MD : Prometheus Books, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: The way humans produce, distribute and consume power will be cleaner, cheaper, and infinitely more complex within the next decade. In The Energy Switch, leading energy industry expert Peter Kelly-Detwiler looks at all aspects of the transformation: how we got here, where we are going, and the implications for all of us in our daily lives. Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020049921 | ISBN 9781633886667 (cloth; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781633886674 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Electric power consumptionUnited States. | Electric utilitiesEnvironmental aspectsUnited States. | Energy industries Environmental aspectsUnited States. | Energy developmentEnvironmental aspectsUnited States. | Energy policyEnvironmental aspectsUnited States.

Classification: LCC HD9685.U5 K394 2021 | DDC 333.793/20973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049921

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.481992.

To my wife Julie, who knows enough about what I do to know she wouldnt want to do it, and whose love and laughter are the limitless and treasured source of energy that keeps me going.

And to my fellow professionals in the sustainable energy arena, working tirelessly and passionately to create a better legacy for future generations you will never know. Your efforts lift me up and continue to inspire me.

O n a chilly April morning in 2019, I drove from my home about an hour southwest to Fall River, Massachusetts, an aging mill town located on the shores of Mount Hope Bay. A hundred or so people and I boarded a ferry with about 100 or so other people, and we navigated our way through the stiff whitecaps driving down the bay. As we got closer, all eyes were focused on two behemoth 500-foot-tall cooling towers soaring above the greenish hulk of what remained of the now-shuttered 1,600 megawatt (MW) Brayton Point coal-fired power generating plant.

During its glory years, the plant had generated 20% of Massachusetts electricity supply, supported hundreds of well-paying jobs, and provided $4 million in annual tax revenues to the town of Somerset.

I had been to the site the previous year to write a story about the new plans to repurpose the facility and met with officials from the Commercial Development Company (CDC), who had bought the 307-acre site, including the environmental liabilities, from the power company for just $8 million. During that visit we toured the plant, walked the dock where the coal used to land by barge, andthe highlight of the visitwent inside one of the cooling towers.

On my initial visit, CDC Vice President Steve Collins had outlined to me the companys plans for the site, which involved site cleanup and environmental remediation, salvage of material for scrap, demolition of the existing infrastructure, and preparation for its repurposing. It was the repurposing part of the story that had drawn my interest. The site, with its deep channel and proximity to highways and the open ocean, was a near-perfect location to support the logistics associated with the emerging multibillion-dollar offshore wind industry. Brayton Point had another significant characteristic as well: a 1,600 MW interconnection to transmission lines and the regions power grid. In that sense, Brayton Point was an ideal electric outlet for the offshore wind industry to plug into when the first facilities came online.

The eye of Sauroninside the cooling tower.Photo courtesy of the author

Brayton Points conversion from the old to the new power grid is a near-perfect symbol for the enormous multitrillion-dollar energy transition happening in power grids across the planet, driven by societal changes and technological advances. Its a transition that is occurring with startling speed.

EXPLOSIVE CHANGE

We were far from alone out there: dozens of pleasure craft were clustered as close as they could get to the red marker buoys delineating the approach limits. Lights blinking, two orange Coast Guard launches and a police boat herded us back away from the site. Across the bay, traffic on the I-95 bridge came to a halt several minutes before 8:00 a.m. Meanwhile, we huddled at the rail, coffee cups warming our hands, and watched expectantly. For most, it was an opportunity to watch the towers blow up. For me, it signified the transition from the old to the new and, yes, the prospect of the explosion was undeniably alluring.

Right on the hour, as if to make the transition more pronounced, a loud boom announced itself across the water, and black puffs of smoke emanated from circular black lines at the base of each tower where charges had been placed. Almost immediately, both towers began to settle and then buckle as they fell. The entire collapse took no more than five seconds, leaving behind an enormous dust plume that blew across the bay and obscured the bridge, a huge pile of rubble, and extraordinarily ill-timed and costly $570 million investment.

The implosion.Photo courtesy of the author

Those cooling towers had taken four years to build and were only seven years old, a victim of changing times. It wasnt renewables such as the rapidly expanding offshore wind industry that were responsible for Brayton Points death knell; rather, it was cheap fracked natural gas that flooded power markets and elbowed dirty and more expensive coal-fired power generation out of the way. But just as gas (with half of coals carbon emissions and limited particulate matter) pushed coal off the table, gas will inevitably be shouldered aside as well. Natural gas plants are far from carbon-free. And in the sunniest and windiest locations of the United States, renewable solar and wind facilities are already driving down market prices and forcing the closure of some gas-fired plants. In other areas, utilities are shutting down coal-fired plants, bypassing gas-fired plants, and moving straight to a combination of renewables and batteries. The signals pointing to a carbon-free grid are becoming increasingly visible, even though many challenges remain.