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Turns Out Wind And Solar Have A Secret Friend: Natural Gas

We're at a time of deeply ambitious plans for clean energy growth. Two of the 
U.S.'s largest states by population, California and New York, have both 
mandated that power companies get fully 50 percent of their electricity from 
renewable sources by the year 2030.

Only, there's a problem: Because of the particular nature of clean energy 
sources like solar and wind, you can't simply add them to the grid in large 
volumes and think that's the end of the story. Rather, because these sources of 
electricity generation are "intermittent" - solar fluctuates with weather and 
the daily cycle, wind fluctuates with the wind - there has to be some means of 
continuing to provide electricity even when they go dark. And the more 
renewables you have, the bigger this problem can be.

Now, a new study suggests that at least so far, solving that problem has 
ironically involved more fossil fuels - and more particularly, installing a 
large number of fast-ramping natural gas plants, which can fill in quickly 
whenever renewable generation slips.

The new research, published recently as a working paper by the National Bureau 
of Economic Research, was conducted by Elena Verdolini of the Euro-
Mediterranean Center on Climate Change and the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei in 
Milan, Italy, along with colleagues from Syracuse University and the French 
Economic Observatory.

In the study, the researchers took a broad look at the erection of wind, solar, 
and other renewable energy plants (not including large hydropower or biomass 
projects) across 26 countries that are members of an international council 
known as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development over the 
period between the year 1990 and 2013. And they found a surprisingly tight 
relationship between renewables on the one hand, and gas on the other.

"All other things equal, a 1% percent increase in the share of fast reacting 
fossil technologies is associated with a 0.88% percent increase in renewable 
generation capacity in the long term," the study reports. Again, this is over 
26 separate countries, and more than two decades.

"Our paper calls attention to the fact that renewables and fast-reacting fossil 
technologies appear as highly complementary and that they should be jointly 
installed to meet the goals of cutting emissions and ensuring a stable 
supply," the paper adds.

The type of "fast-reacting fossil technologies" being referred to here is 
natural gas plants that fire up quickly. For example, General Electric and EDF 
Energy currently feature a natural gas plant in France that "is capable of 
reaching full power in less than 30 minutes." Full power, in this case, means 
rapidly adding over 600 megawatts, or million watts, of electricity to the 
grid.

"This allows partners to respond quickly to grid demand fluctuations, 
integrating renewables as necessary," note the companies.

"When people assume that we can switch from fossil fuels to renewables they 
assume we can completely switch out of one path, to another path," says 
Verdolini. But, she adds, the study suggests otherwise.

Verdolini emphasized this merely describes the past - not necessarily the 
future. That's a critical distinction, because the study also notes that if we 
reach a time when fast-responding energy storage is prevalent - when, say, 
large-scale grid batteries store solar or wind-generated energy and can 
discharge it instantaneously when there's a need - then the reliance on gas may 
no longer be so prevalent.

Other recent research has suggested that precisely because of this overlap 
between fast-firing natural gas plants and grid scale batteries - because they 
can play many of the same roles - extremely cheap natural gas prices have 
helped the industry out-compete the storage sector and slowed its growth.

Two other researchers contacted for reactions to Verdolini's study largely 
agreed with its findings.

"I think policymakers haven't really grasped what 50 percent renewables really 
means in a system, without at least cheap batteries available," says 
Christopher Knittel, who directs the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy 
Research at MIT, and who said he found the study's results quite plausible.

"It's certainly true that as one adds more renewables, the value of flexible 
generation increases, and so I would expect to see some correlation as they 
found," added Eric Hittinger, an energy system researcher at the Rochester 
Institute of Technology who like Knittel was not involved in the study.

Hittinger and Knittel agreed that adding flexible natural gas alongside 
renewable projects is not a major climate change concern because the gas plants 
wouldn't be running all the time - so it's not like adding coal plants. The 
emissions would be real, but considerably more limited. However, they said, the 
principal issue is that the research suggests renewable plants are more costly 
to build, because of the added backup requirement.

"It's a reality check now," said Knittel of the study. "I think it's 
potentially bad news as we start to get higher and higher penetration levels of 
renewables."

The study also lends some credence to the widespread description of natural gas 
as a so-called "bridge fuel" that allows for a transition into a world of more 
renewables, as it is both flexible and also contributes less carbon dioxide 
emissions than does coal, per unit of energy generated by burning the fuel. 
(Environmentalists like to point out that if there are enough methane leaks 
from the process of drilling for and transporting natural gas, this edge could 
be canceled out.)

Hittinger also questioned what the correlation found in the study actually 
means - does it mean that natural gas spurs on the development of more solar 
and wind, or vice versa?

Verdolini said the study implies that the causation occurs with gas plants 
being added first, which then makes renewable projects more easy to integrate. 
"It's an enabling factor," she said, although she cautioned that the study 
cannot fully demonstrate causation.

Verdolini agreed that the findings are something that decision-makers hoping to 
add more clean energy to the grid will have to take into account.

"If you have an electric car, you don't need a diesel car in your garage 
sitting there," said Verdolini. "But in the case of renewables, it's different, 
because if you have renewable electricity and that fails, then you need the 
fast acting gas sitting in your garage, so to speak."

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June:

Avalanches Strand Dozens In Chile

Utah's Snowiest Two-Year Period On Record

Canada Hit With Extremes

Swiss Glacier Recovery

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