How MISO Powers The Midwest
The U.S. Energy Information Administration shares a wealth of data on how power is produced and used in the US. We've been doing a deep dive on how US power is consumed and produced. We focusing heavily on the US Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO). This is where we live, so understanding the changes coming with the phase out of fossil fuels is important.
For background, MISO is responsible for a territory of about 2.5 million square km and 45 million people. The area it serves is about 1/4 of the size of Europe and about 1/3 the energy consumption. MISO is one of 9 non-profit organization that ensure the grid works in the US.
The images below are some snapshots from this deep dive. A few interesting thing are summarized here:
1) In 2022, the total demand in MISO was about 640 TWH. This is about 16% of the US total electricity demand, more then twice UK demand, 25% of European demand, or 8% of China's demand. If MISO was a country if would be the 6th largest electric market in the world.
2) MISO is integrated into the US electricity system and manages a subset of the approximately 12,000 power plants and 190,000 km of power lines in the US.
3) MISO has aggressively retired coal plants and replaced with them wind generators for the past few years. Solar and hydro play a small part in the electricity mix.
4) Electric demand is roughly 1/3 industrial, 1/3 commercial, and 1/3 residential.
5) Annual electric demand varied from a peak of 116 GW in summer to a minimum of 52 GW in spring.
- Natural gas provided the most peak power with between 8 and 52 GW of power.
- Coal varied between 9 and 41 GW.
- Nuclear varied between 7 and 12GW.
- Wind varied from 0.5 to 24 GW.
- Solar varied from 0 to 2.4 GW
- Hydro varied from 0.3 to 3.7 GW
- Other sources like biomass varied from 0.3 to 1.7 GW.
7) Patterns emerge in seasonal and daily power generation.
- Spring and fall have much lower demand and generation
- Summer afternoon and evening cooling drive peak electrical demand
- Wind power falls off with dawn and dust through the year
- Wind power production peaks in the winter and solar peaks in the summer
- Hydro power fills in for wind deficits in winter, spring, and fall, and during summer helps meet peak cooling demand
There are big challenges ahead. Approximately 2/3 of the electricity in the midwest is generated from natural gas and coal. Electric demand is expected to increase with electrification of transportation, electrification of heating, industrial, and data center growth.
While experimental, collecting solar energy in space and transmitting to receivers on earth (SBSP) offers a way to provide firm, clean, renewable electricity and scale to meet the demands that are coming. It is the only renewables option that can provide the 24/7 power needed to replace fossil fuels.
