Fire Season: Climate & The Power Grid

TLDR SUMMARY

• Some states are struggling to meet power demand in the summer months.
• Increased temperatures are a major driver of electricity demand.
• The capacity of the grid can be directly impacted by wildfires and droughts.
• For California, this threat may be exacerbated due to a reliance on solar power and imported energy, which are both threatened by wildfires and drought in the region.

To skip the personal story from last summer and get right to the research on the California electric grid and how climate may impact it going forward — click here.

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An Introduction to Wildfires

In August 2020 the west coast was ablaze as we drove from Oregon to Lake Tahoe. We stopped for gas in a tiny, rural California town. At this point the town would have made a good backdrop for a post-apocalyptic blockbuster movie. Ashes were falling sporadically from the sky with a backdrop of haze from the fires in the distance.

The plan was to head back northwest out of Tahoe stopping at Lassen Volcanic National Park, but our route had become inaccessible due to the spreading fires which would become the August Complex and North Complex.

At one point, not long before we were to turn onto a major California highway, we saw a dozen police vehicles zoom past us. As we caught up to the police, we found a closed on-ramp due to a fire threatening to cross the highway.

For a short period of time, I felt unsure of my safety. It was the first time I had been this close to significant, active wildfires. Once I did feel safer, from a distance I captured the videos below that show the smoke blocking out the sun.

As fate would have it, these particular fires ended up being noteworthy. The August Complex would go on to become the largest in California’s recorded history. All totaled six of the twenty largest fires in California history started in August or September 2020.

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Electric Grid Rabbit Hole Deep Dive

I ended up falling down an electric grid research rabbit hole earlier this year.

I learned that the same week in August 2020 I was driving through the state, California’s power grid operator (a.k.a., California ISO) had to institute planned blackouts.1The blackouts were partly caused by energy consumption driven by Californians needing to be indoors to avoid extreme temperatures. That’s certainly, at least, a loose tie back to the wildfires but maybe not a direct link. Planned blackouts in California are typically driven by a potential for the state to run out of electricity.

There are two important things to know about California’s grid. First, it is comprised of a relatively large portion of renewable sources. The state relies heavily on solar-based renewables specifically.2Typically 70-80% of the state’s renewable sources are solar-based. Second, California relies heavily on imported electricity from surrounding states.

In June 2021, California ISO representatives spoke of the events of the summer of 2020:

It continues to get hotter every year. As a result, the grid will continue to remain vulnerable to high loads and decreased imports during a broader West-wide heat wave event like the one we saw last year. If imports dry up and we’re limited to capacity that’s been secured under resource adequacy contracts, were facing the possibility of scarcity of energy supply this summer.

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The ISO, which manages about 80 percent of the California electric grid and part of Nevada’s, typically imports electricity from neighboring states and from within California. But during a regional heat wave like last August [2020], energy would be in great demand throughout the west, making imports unavailable.

As you can see in the graph below, renewables (lime green line) are the dominant source for part of the day.

If we pull out the timing of when the state relies on electricity imports and show that graphically, you will notice something…

…it’s the exact inverse of the renewables line in the prior graph. When the sun is shining, the state has less of a need to import electricity. At the end of the day, California imports more electricity than any other state.

As my deep dive into California’s grid continued, I was surprised to learn that energy supply data shows that smoke and particulate from fires can have a significant impact on solar generation.

The graphic above shows that, in August/September 2020, solar generation declined nearly 30% from the July 2020 average as wildfires including the August and North Complex burned across California.3I’ve focused on solar here but hydroelectric power is also at risk, too. As the climate becomes dryer, rivers where hydroelectricity is produced will be less effective. In the first four months of 2021, hydroelectric generation in California was 37% less than in the same four months in 2020 and 71% less than during those months in 2019. (Source: EIA.gov)

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As I finish writing this piece, this topic has started to boil back up to the surface as fire season sets in during a massive west coast drought.

First, there is a worthwhile tweet storm from David Friedberg regarding drought/wildfires which starts here:

north america is in the midst of a worsening mega drought, increasing the probability that any of a number of events could lead to a black swan-like economic/social crisis… (1/n)

— david friedberg (@friedberg) July 8, 2021

Additionally, Jason Calacanis and Tim Urban had this exchange regarding nuclear energy…

The Chernobyl meltdown was a lot worse than a radiation disaster. It led to the construction of hundreds of fossil fuel plants that would never have been built. https://t.co/H8u5cvPkfV

— Tim Urban (@waitbutwhy) July 8, 2021

…which tees up a discussion of capacity factor. Capacity factor essentially measures the reliability of the power source by measuring how often a plant is running at maximum power. A plant with a capacity factor of 100% means it’s producing power all of the time.

Nuclear has the highest capacity factor of any energy source. It produces not only reliable power but carbon-free power. Those are two attributes that California desperately needs to focus on to reach its 2045 goal to be carbon neutral.4The goal post set at 2045 creates a tight ~25 year window for a state that cannot itself generate enough power today. If the imports that California relies on are not carbon neutral by 2045, this means the state will need to increase the overall capacity of its own grid while making this shift to 100% renewables.

That’s a monumental task, and not one that I feel fully confident in as I read the statement from the California ISO that I shared earlier, where there is this ominous comment..

“How the grid holds up will ultimately depend on Mother Nature.”

That feels a little bit like a “shrug and give up” response. 🤷 But California ISO can only do so much. To some extent it is at the mercy of the state legislature. The one that decided to shut down the Diablo Canyon nuclear facilities by 2026. The ISO’s modeling shows that “the system hits a critical inflection point after Diablo Canyon retires” and that modeling analysis predicts a “significant resource deficiency”—3,493 MW in effective capacity—in 2026. 🤦

There’s no doubt there are negatives when it comes to nuclear.5Such as the waste generated as well as a massive NIMBY — not in my backyard — problem. Right or wrong, as Tim Urban alludes to, nuclear energy has been made a controversial subject.

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Conclusion

My main reason for writing this is to highlight these two things I’ve learned in my research:

1. Some states in the most powerful nation in the world are struggling to produce enough power.6California is just one example. And California ISO provides detailed data which makes it a great case to study. I believe the data makes this indisputable. New York also had a scare this month. This is not top of mind for the average American because most people have not been impacted by a planned blackout.
2. In what is something of a terrible cycle — increased temperatures put additional stress on the grid7This increased demand is mainly due to a very simple thing — air conditioning. California ISO’s CEO recently said the “single biggest variable” will be energy conservation by Californians — doing things such as setting the thermostat at 78 degrees, closing drapes to keep rooms from getting hot, avoiding the use of appliances during the hours when stress on the grid is at its peak.
   
   The ISO’s CEO having to tell folks to turn their thermostat up and close their drapes really is a wild thing to hear coming from a state in the richest nation in the world. and exacerbate wildfires and droughts. More significant wildfires and droughts put more strain on the grid by lowering the effectiveness8a.k.a., capacity factor of solar and hydroelectric power. This means capacity related blackouts could become more common.

With no silver bullet solution for generating reliable, clean energy that is from a currently socially acceptable source, we are left with an increasingly hot-button topic. When it comes to the most significant, complex problems of our lifetime, it is going to require bold ideas to formulate actionable solutions.

The clock is ticking, though. Maybe the worst part is no one really knows how much time remains on that clock. With fire season upon us, it is a reminder there must be a point of no return — a point when it is too late. A time when taking on the risk and controversy associated with swift and decisive actions seems so obvious in hindsight.

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UPDATE — JULY 11, 2021

Unfortunately, the very same weekend I rushed to publish this post in draft form, there is a new and significant development as reported directly by California ISO:

Transmission lines, knocked out by the #BootlegFire in Oregon, are still out of service, reducing power supplies by as much as 5,500 megawatts typically imported into California and other balancing authorities south of Oregon.

— California ISO (@California_ISO) July 11, 2021

At the time I am writing this update, the current power demand in the state is 35,000 megawatts. The Bootleg Fire is threatening to cut off access to 5,500 megawatts, which is 16% of the current demand for the state. That’s a significant portion of the state’s capacity.

The grid held up well today. However, California ISO has issued a press release asking Californians to conserve energy tomorrow as there could be a supply-side capacity issue in the evening.