Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie: Power grid is facing ‘dire consequences’ due to coal & gas retirements

Grids in the developed world were built with a certain amount of overcapacity. This overcapacity was a safety valve to account for unforeseen things happening on the demand side. The production side was reliable so that did not need overcapacity. Until wind and solar came to the scene. They are capacity hogs more than the demand market as they are unreliable. They don’t produce on demand. So they soaked up the existing overcapacity as a gift. And now this gift is gone. Because the grid has been made brittle and still cannot deal with more of what made it brittle in the first place. The triple-digit billions needed to upgrade grids must cost-wise be allocated to the tab of wind and solar. That’s the price we pay for hubris. 

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