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How California Grid Operators Managed the Eclipse

By Peter Fairley (/author/peter-fairley)


Posted 21 Aug 2017 | 18:30 GMT

Western grid operators such as Californias have become adept at


hitting the electricity supply curve balls that weather-dependent wind
and solar power toss their way. Todays eclipse was more like a 105-
mph smoker from a predictable fastball pitcher. Grid managers knew
exactly when the moon would transit across the suns path, blotting
out gigawatts of solar power generation. And they could project that,
at its worst, the shifts in solar generation would be no more
challenging than those experienced already on partly cloudy days.

Kevin Geraghty, senior vice president of energy supply for Nevada


utility NV Energy, told the Las Vegas Journal-Review last week
(https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/energy/nv-energy-dont-
worry-about-the-solar-during-eclipse/) that, Well just simply ride
through it. And so they did. By all accounts power systems across the
Western Interconnection absorbed the eclipse-induced solar crash
and resurgence, keeping electrical systems stable throughout.

California faced the biggest challenge. It is not in the path of totality,


but the 56- to 78-percent blockage of sunlight will have a big impact
thanks to 18 gigawatts worth of solar panels deployed at utility-scale
power plants and across rooftopsmore than any other state. Image: U.S. Energy Information Agency
Californias Independent System Operator (CAISO), which manages
Approximately 1,900 U.S. solar power plants will be turned down or squelched by the solar eclipse
most of the states power grid, projected this morning that the eclipse
would knock out about 4,300 megawatts (MW) of utility-scale solar
and another 1,300 MW of rooftop generation. The utility-scale solar loss, traced on the CAISO website
(http://www.caiso.com/informed/Pages/CleanGrid/TodaysRenewables.aspx) after 9 am Pacific time until the eclipses California peak at 10:22 am, was actually 3,400 MW.

Executive Director of System Operations Nancy Traweek told reporters at CAISOs Fulsom control center that the speed at which solar generation was expected to crash and
reboundup to 70 MW per minutewas something CAISO had contended with on certain days in the past when moving cloud cover overlapped with sunrise or sunset.

CAISO expected to manage the quick loss and return of solar power with its established sources of flexibility. Those include rapidly-adjustable hydroelectric and gas-fired power
plants, a regional power market that is purpose-built to balance quick-shifting renewable energy, and a growing capability to store electricity and otherwise shape demand for
power in real time.

Still, they were taking no chances. Traweek told IEEE Spectrum that CAISO secured 800 to 1000 MW of reserve power for the three hours affected by the eclipseway beyond the
350 MW they normally have on hand during those hours.

Some other grid controllers did the same. The Sacramento regions power supplier, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, doubled its reserves according to SMUD
spokesperson Chris Capra.

By bulking up on reserve power, the California grid operators followed the example of those in Europe, which confronted a near total eclipse two years ago. They came through
with flying colors by massively preparing (http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/despite-bright-sun-its-european-grid-operators-1-solar-eclipse-0).
Transmission lines had been unloaded in advance to accommodate eclipse-induced power swings. Grid operators in heavily solar-equipped Germany spent an extra Euro 3.6
million ($4.25 million) to double the normal amount of reserve power at the ready. And over 4 gigawatts of utility-scale capacity in Italy was ordered to sit out the eclipse.

Europes 2015 eclipse knocked out 17 gigawatts of solar power generation across the continent, yet electrical frequencya measure of the match between supply and demand
remained rock solid. It was at all times within 50 millihertz of Europes 50 hertz standard, according to a post-eclipse white paper by the Brussels-based European Network for
Transmission System Operators for Electricity (https://www.entsoe.eu/Documents/Publications/ENTSO-
E%20general%20publications/entsoe_spe_pp_solar_eclipse_2015_web.pdf).

Utilities in the U.S. are benefitting from a few resources that were unavailable to the Europeans in 2015. One is battery storage, which CAISO said it planned to use to the
maximum extent possible. Another is demand response, in which power demand is turned down to reduce strain on the grid.

Nest Technologies told IEEE Spectrum that, as of this morning, roughly 1 million homes across the U.S. equipped with the companys smart thermostats could help reduce power
use by roughly 1,000 megawatts during todays eclipse. Ben Bixby, Nexts general manager for energy and safety, says they include some hundreds of thousands of Nest-
equipped homes that have already given their local utilities permission to pre-cool their houses and otherwise reduce power demand during peak demand hours. The others
signed up after receiving a notice on their devices over the last week (https://nest.com/blog/2017/08/10/solar-eclipse-meet-the-nest-thermostat/) asking them if they wanted to
participate in the event.

The place to watch this afternoon is North Carolina. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the southern state has the greatest amount of installed PV capacity in the
band that will be at least 90 percent obscured. As of May, it had about 2.8 GW of utility-scale PV installations, or about 13 percent of the national total.

Duke Energy, one of the states largest utilities, estimated that its solar supply would drop from about 2.5 GW to 0.2 GW (http://m.illumination.duke-energy.com/articles/what-
does-the-solar-eclipse-mean-for-solar-power) at the height of the eclipse this afternoon.

To manage that drop, and the subsequent rebound, Duke is following Italys lead and asking its solar power suppliers to alter their behavior. In Dukes case, it will be asking solar
plants to begin ramping down ahead of the eclipse, thus reducing the rate at which Duke needs to ramp up gas-fired power plants to replace the fading solar power.

As Sammy Roberts, Duke Energy director of system operations, put it, his grid controllers will, gently press rather than punch the gas pedal.
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