Will Fisher

The LeBron James of Power Gen. Cofounder @StrobePower - Running America's Modern Power Plant. Ex-Power Developer. Oxford Energy Systems. Posting about Power.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

"We have an old grid — it could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that’s needed. So I’m telling them they can build their own plant, they’ve got to produce their own electricity."

@realDonaldTrump is right about the problem, and @JigarShahDC is right to point out the cost increase fear driving the initiative. But "Bring Your Own Generation" is only half the answer. In isolation, it ring fences large loads from ratepayers. But we shouldn’t limit our ambitions to risk-adversion, we should seize the opportunity and make that private capacity work for the grid, not against it.

Here’s why — and how ↓

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

Don’t get me wrong, I suspect it may have been a bill of goods. But if you’re going to spend our money, you should implement it, or you should hold Mr Scott Strazik to account.

And again, to be fair to coned, virtually all of these community storage facilities are on unbelievably dumb set point based, non-dynamic dispatch programs. The batteries here run a comically small amount of hours because they’re going the easy route with clean easily guaranteed revenue rather than actually trading.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@xiaowang1984 Why’d they spend that much on Opus if they’re not going to use it? It’s supposed to do state estimation

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@xiaowang1984 Fine, but they have a dynamic right to intervene…. This is one of the most sensored systems in America

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@FreemyerGreg @jeffsaintjohn Is that true? Please send the COA from FDNY, nothing’s been published yet.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@DanielPalken @Arnold_Ventures @IFP @_HannahRitchie This is an incredible initiative. Thank you for helping us make sense of what we already have.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@ShanuMathew93 Popping a 60M turbine probably didn’t help

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@mcuban That plus paying an insane amount of property taxes should effectively mean people get free power, free schools, and municipal services.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@mcuban Just require them to pay for residential electricity. Should be pretty easy to do

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@xiaowang1984 @ENERGY Congratulations!

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@xiaowang1984 It routes to ConEd first, and then up to NYISO. We then have a NYISO direct connection as well

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@xiaowang1984 Wholesale Value Stack. The NYISO DER Participation model, which I’m proud to say were the only ones using successfully in NYC.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@xiaowang1984 Yeah, it’s their underground network which is manhattan and most of Brooklyn/Bronx. Their radial network is Westchester, Staten Island, and much of queens

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@xiaowang1984 They just need to treat their meshed network like the TSO does. It’s one of the only places in America that could reasonably do that.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

You’re right. I guess I’m just saying you’ll never provide anyone an incentive to do so if you don’t either force everyone to do it, or provide them a bonus incentive to do so.

The problem I see right now, and this is personal, is I’m required to stream state in real time to the utility under this NYISO framework, but there is no one who’s interested in doing anything with that data except the NYISO itself. And why should the utility care? Almost no one is required to provide state so why would you change the operating process to leverage that knowledge.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

@xiaowang1984 Gotcha, so the upstream protections need to be informed by the downstream. So force them to provide that visibility.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

True, but most protections boxes are required to have independent 8hr backup for control power. No?

I agree with you. The whole industry as it stands just does short cuts and lets the grid absorb the complexity. All I’m saying is if you actually go about enforcing the same rules across the board (and we should probably think through which are good rules generally) I think you’d have a hell of a lot more innovation and value creation.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

So your point is set point protections are insufficient or rather are crude. I think that’s probably true, but it’s the utility that’s demanding the crude protection framework. If I understand you correctly NEC added the concept of a PCS to create essentially this dynamic framework. I think it’s fine for utilities to ask for that last line of defense, but the host should be operating within the envelope.

Am I understanding you correctly?

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

Why? CCGTs are pushing 4000/kWh. That looks a hell of a lot like an old gold plated CHP to me.

The battery assets are virtually identical in $/kWh across the spectrum from utility to C&I to resy as I’m sure @JLopas can attest.

All power gen is floating up to its new normal. We’ve been riding on the back of depreciated assets for 20 years, it’s unsurprising that everything’s being repriced right now.

[Will Fisher @Will_Powerman]

Or just make the people who want grid access pay it. Sure that will make it uncompetitive for resy, but the system barely cares about single phase power anyway.

If we actually think data centers and load growth is happening, the residential sector will be so small as to be irrelevant. We’re talking about buildings which take 3ph power and can materially affect the system - surely they can pay for it.

And I struggle to understand why a regulator needs to be involved except to the extent that the DNO continues to use its market power to gatekeep interconnections even within this protection framework. If putting in a relay got a plant online in 30 days, no one would whine about the 1000 relay.