the research consultancy for energy technologies

Power Grids

  • Bottlenecked grids: winners and losers?

    Bottlenecked grids: winners and losers?

    What if the world is entering an era of persistent power grid bottlenecks, with long delays to interconnect new loads? Everything changes. Hence this 16-page report looks across the energy and industrial landscape, to rank the implications across different sectors and companies.

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  • Grid connection sizes: residential, commercial and industrial?

    Grid connection sizes: residential, commercial and industrial?

    What are the typical sizes of grid connections at different residential, commercial and industrial facilities? This data-file derives aggregates estimates, from the 10kW grid connections of smaller homes to the GW-scale grid connections of large data-centers, proposed green hydrogen projects and aluminium plants.

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  • Power grids: the biggest bottleneck in the world?

    Power grids: the biggest bottleneck in the world?

    Power grids will be the biggest bottleneck in the energy transition, according to this 18-page report. Tensions have been building for a decade. They are invisible unless you are looking. And the tightness could last a decade. Further acceleration of renewables may be thwarted. And we are re-thinking grid back-ups.

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  • Solar inverters: companies, products and costs?

    Solar inverters: companies, products and costs?

    This data-file tracks some of the leading solar inverter companies and inverter costs, efficiency and power electronic properties. As China now supplies 85% of all global inverters, at 30-50% lower $/W pricing than Western companies, a key question explored in the data-file is around price versus quality.

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  • Hydro power: generation by facility, availability over time?

    Hydro power: generation by facility, availability over time?

    Hydro power generation by facility is tabulated in this data-file for the 20 largest hydro-electric plants in the US. The average facility achieves 43% availability, varying from 39% in hot-dry years to 51% in wet years; and from 33% at the seasonal trough in September-October to 53% at the seasonal peak in May-June. What implications…

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  • Harmonic filters: leading companies?

    Harmonic filters: leading companies?

    This data-file screens 20 leading companies in harmonic filters, tabulating their size, geography, ownership details, patent filings and a description of their offering. Active harmonic filters reduce total harmonic distortion below 5%, with 97% efficiency, within 5 ms. Half a dozen companies stood out in our screen, including one large, listed Western capital goods company.

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  • Solar and wind: what decarbonization costs?

    Solar and wind: what decarbonization costs?

    The costs of decarbonizing by ramping up solar and wind are highly dependent on context. But our best estimate is that solar and wind can reach 40% of the global grid for a $60/ton average CO2 abatement cost. This is a relatively low cost. Yet it still raises retail electricity prices from 10c/kWh to 12c/kWh.…

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  • Power grids: when will wind and solar peak?

    Power grids: when will wind and solar peak?

    Wind and solar will most likely peak at 50-55% of power grids, without demand-shifting and batteries; more in wind-heavy grids, less in solar heavy grids. This 12-page note draws conclusions from the statistical distribution of renewables’ generation across 100,000 x 5-minute grid intervals.

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  • California’s grid: wind and solar statistical distributions?

    California’s grid: wind and solar statistical distributions?

    This data-file aggregates the statistical distribution of total electricity demand, solar generation and wind generation, every 5-minutes, across California, for the entirety of 2022, in order to understand their volatility and curtailment rates. The data suggest that wind and solar will most likely peak at 50-55% of renewables-heavy grids.

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  • California power generation over time?

    California power generation over time?

    California’s power grid ranges from 15-61GW of demand. Utility scale solar has almost quadrupled in the past decade, rising from 5% to almost 24% of the grid. Yet it has not displaced thermal generation, which rose from 28% to 30% of the grid. We even wonder whether wind and solar are entrenching natural gas generators…

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