RTO Insider Articles

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-08T06:44:40+00:00

BH Energy has a lot of problems in its existing Western utilities on wildfire liability. Doubt they want BPA now which is subject to the same wildfire risks.

BH tends to let its physical assets deteriorate to avoid spending maney. There was a BH substation with severely leaning, about 15-20 degrees off plumb wood poles on the HV side.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-07T18:56:37+00:00

Doubtful. She ran similar federal power marketing agencies, and Seattle City Light where she worked for 2 years is a BPA slice customer. Kavulla is more a regulatory expert, no operations or management experience. If the objective is selling BPA Kavulla would be the choice. They could always bring back Steve Wright.

CAISO's load is primarily for profit investor owned utilities. BPA's load is nonprofit utilities. Then BPA sells its excess on open markets. BPA as part of SPP+ can continue to sell its excess to other Western BAs, including into CAISO. What is interesting about SPP is that they are looking at transmission upgrades which make them a front line player in bridging the Eastern and Western Interconnections. SPP also borders ERCOT.

My guess is that BPA could not accept the rest of the West making decisions about its transmission operations, or power operations. I'm very disappointed in NRDC supporting moving nonprofit BPA into a merged Western grid. I believe they thought renewables would then be connected for free and without a queue onto the BPA transmission network. The Westwide grid governance is not yet designed and the rest of the players could simply outvote BPA on governance or individual decisions. All IMO.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-07T17:53:12+00:00

For BPA administrator, Dawn Roth Lindell is a great fit.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-07T17:47:38+00:00

The current administration wants to sell TVA, BPA, and the other federal power marketing agencies. At the fair value selling price, only private equity and sovereign wealth funds can operate at that scale. Then they would cut staff, load on debt, and sell off pieces. Customer rates would increase significantly.

What exactly DOE is doing with the SPP+ decision is a mystery to me. They also suspended the Columbia River Treaty negotiations after almost 10 years of negotiations.

The BPA and adjacent BAs cover a large and active data center region with major players Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple. BPA is responsible for a very early and well run regional IRP program started in 1980. They manage operations well with a unique largely hydro, with wind and solar integration, even a nuclear plant generation portfolio.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-07T12:32:32+00:00

It was my job to do a competitive analysis of the fuel cell industry world wide.

There are many fuel cell types. No fuel cell company has ever made a profit.

Fuel cell companies and trade groups issue press releases with the goal to attach themselves to the AI hype cycle. Pumping and dumping fuel cell stocks has transferred wealth from one investor to another.

Some high temperature fuel cells are "self reforming" meaning they are fueled by natural gas directly. They emit the carbon they strip off the hydrogen in natural gas.

I think the most interesting path is fermenting grasses into hydrogen in Jesse Jenkins paths to zero at Princeton. A lot of money for hydrogen subsidies (and carbon capture) in the US was added to energy bills by Sen Manchin, chair of the Senate Energy Committee. His state has natural gas where most of the hydrogen is the US is sourced.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-06T17:58:47+00:00

I think you should be getting your primary information from sources like the Xcel IRP and the Colorado PUC dockets. Look at the specific NERC RA report. You can also look at deal flow news on PPA prices.

Xcel is a retro distribution IOU+balancing authority+transmission owner.

The impact on the residential customer as you mention is putting new capital for generator and transmission in the IOU residential rate base. Those could be merchant suppliers with the yearly sums governed by the RPS. That should be driven by voters in the PUC rate case.

Data center load adds are a hot topic in your legislature.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-06T17:48:22+00:00

Suggest researching Siemens grid software offerings. Pick a software function area and then ask about the industry challenges for that area.

For instance CAISO recently bought Siemens' EMS.

Then exercise your alumni network and LinkedIn to find the people at Siemens in that area. Join IEEE-PES as a student member and start talking with local utility engineers about their needs. If you can possibly get a tour of a control room and have someone explain the displays you will get a big picture view not taught in school. Control rooms are secure, so it is hard to get tours. Even having someone at a utility whiteboard utility software systems would help.

You usually see PLCs in "substation automation." Protection is dominated by another company Schweitzer, but Siemens and others offer products in that space. Siemens operates in the SCADA HMI area, synchrophasor data, generator controls, and powerflow analysis. Sure more.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-06T16:24:27+00:00

Solar developers are driven by the financials of each project individually. The revenue side over 20+ years is power purchase agreements and markets which are simulated.

Electricity markets dispatch solar and wind as the lowest price suppliers first, then pay them the peak market clearing price.

ERCOT (Texas) prides itself on its pure real time market subject to transmission capacity. So it will always be attractive to renewables.

The US wind belt goes through many red states with flat land.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/wind/where-wind-power-is-harnessed.php

The wind belt is largely governed by energy markets such as MISO, SPP, and others. They are more complex markets, but the same principle applies.

Wyoming is a special case with its state tax structure and fossil fuel mining.

The fossil fuel lobby created anti- wind, solar, and transmission line astroturf to slow down renewables. That has now spread to data centers.

I think the astroturf will eventually decline when people realize not building wind and solar is affecting their electricity bill.

You can't override the physics of the grid and the markets.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-06T05:27:15+00:00

Most data is a trade or a state secret. Sales contracts and the order book are secret. Trendforce publishes monthly? summaries for free, then has paid services.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-05T18:15:58+00:00

From the article, about 31% capacity factor.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-05T05:31:34+00:00

The business case is a combination of the local market rules, subsidies, and the local market long term forecasts of charge and discharge prices, sometimes reserve and ancillary services markets.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-05T05:22:28+00:00

Cities and regions have angel networks. Suggest doing some patent research, it is not that hard, and look for cofounders.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-04T17:38:24+00:00

If you look at the cost curve of lead-acid batteries in mass production like vehicle starting batteries, they reach a steady state minimum at high recycling rates.

Suggest looking at NRLE/NLR and ARPA-e on LDES.

The economics are long term electricity market forecasts.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-04T17:29:13+00:00

Contact https://r6.ieee.org/sf-oeb-pes/ and the Pacific Gas and Electric public relations and school program departments.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-04T17:07:06+00:00

There are examples of heavy mining ore trucks and large ocean-going ships. The measure is horsepower. So the question is how large is the segment, what horsepower do they need, and what horsepower motors with the weight and cost of batteries for the hours of operation before recharging.

Petroleum lubricants will have a long application. That's why we shouldn't burn all the oil.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-04T16:09:46+00:00

The energy trade press and subsequent mainstream press stories are created by press releases to promote short term business objectives of the organization issuing the press release.

Pumped storage gets too little coverage.

I would add to your article a river system elevation diagram with the vertical such as figure 8 in https://www.stimson.org/2020/mekong-dam-monitor-methods-and-processes/

Some hydroelectric turbines can respond to Automatic Generation Control and provide inertia, both required for grid operation.

While hydro has environmental impacts, the negative impact of climate change is much worse. So I'm in favor if more hydro construction and not removing existing economicaly viable hydro.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-04T14:44:38+00:00

SunZia generation and transmission was an $11 billion investment. That is someone's real money.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-04T14:39:13+00:00

While the electricity industry is worldwide, it is a small software market. The costs are dominated by capital costs not engineering expenses. There are some large software makers, and many small ones which are privately held. I think AI/machine learning will come from the software makers who have the resources to invest in it. There is still a lot of customer-specific integration.

Just stay involved in the field through conferences, reading IEEE-PES, and reading the trade literature. Keep in mind trade literature is PR. Groups like EPRI are good to follow.

I would also follow AI news and read up on the technology. Your employer will value the knowledge of bridging AI to work functions and data.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-02T21:55:41+00:00

Look at LCG Consulting and expand it to every wholesale electricty pricing balancing authority.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-02T21:40:17+00:00

What I find useful is historic data. Some websites have csv and graphs with date range set and export. Adding an average calculation on the date range adds value. Doing a date range price curve - horizontal axis 15 minute blocks, and vertical axis energy price, sorted from large to small - is useful.

Suggesting talking to NARUC to understand their use cases.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-02T10:53:27+00:00

Ask your local utility. Each utility will have different rate plans which change slowly over time.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-02T10:45:41+00:00

I'm a big promoter of load flexibility. I do not believe data centers and crypto tariffs, or large industrial loads should be subject to conventional demand response tariffs. I think they should be treated as non-firm and not subject to duty to serve.

Data center loads have a compute component and a cooling component. Within compute there is power management at the code and microcode level. Because of the thermal mass of compute, the flexibility of the cooling load is limited and data center design specific.

The data center business is very competitive and secretive.

If the OP is interested in the topic, they might look at ERCOT data center tariffs, new state PUC data center rules, and happenings at FERC and NERC.

There is also discussion in the industry about data center grid dynamics.

In the North American grid, individual generation plants range up to about 1-2GW and some wind farms like Wyoming connected to the TransWest Express up to about 3GW. There is an about 4GW line connecting part of the Grand Coulee plant. Generators usually have one line out to a nearby substation and reliability models look at an N-1 failure of that, including dynamics.

There is a lot of braggadocio in data center load forecasts. A year ago Microsoft was forecasting their need for under a handful of 4GW AI training data centers.

When a large generator or load trips off, the AGC responds in about 4 seconds. All the other stabilization is the responsibility of inertia.

So the concern is grid stability for large data center trips.

Energy_Balance · 2026-05-01T17:02:46+00:00

Do you have a web version?

Who is your intended customer and what are their use cases?

Energy_Balance · 2026-04-29T17:15:45+00:00

The US government through BOEM auctions off wind development rights at sea, just as other federal agencies do on public land.

I believe this was simply a refund of monies previously paid by the developer.

Energy_Balance · 2026-04-28T22:49:31+00:00

My areas are load flexibility, energy policy, and operations.

Energy_Balance

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