Balancing Renewables on the Grid

Keeping the electric grid running every day is a dance between 6 major sources of power generation: natural gas, coal, wind, nuclear, solar and hydro.

As the electric grid adopts more renewables, the dance is becomes increasingly complex. Using data U.S. Energy Information Administration's opendata website, it possible to see what happens through a year [1].

The animation below shows the changes in electricity generation in 2022 as the day and seasons change in Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) grid. This is one of the nine grid operations in the US and incorporates power plants from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

Some interesting things to observe:
-Natural Gas is the largest power generation source
- Coal is most active in summer and winter with the high demands
- Nuclear varies with the seasons generating the most in summer and winter.
- Wind generates the least in summer and in the early morning and late afternoon. There are multiday stretches with little generation. This shows that even over a large operator, there are strong correlations with energy production.
- Solar has the usual seasonal and daily variations. It also has multi-day stretches with little generation due to cloud cover.
- Hydro helps fill in gaps from wind and solar especially in the morning and evening when wind power falls off. It supplements power in the the summer.

As renewables increase and batteries are added to the grid, this dance will become increasingly complex.

We see the use of space based solar power, collecting power in orbit continuously in orbit and dispatching to earth (SBSP) where it is most needed as a great contributor for the grid and look forward to demonstrations and deployment in the coming years.

References
[1] - https://www.eia.gov/opendata/