It is 7 pm, 29 June 2017 in New England, and it is overcast, no sun and no wind. Such conditions are typical in the morning and in late afternoon/early evening year-round. Electricity generation, obtained from the ISO-NE website, was as follows:

Nuclear 29%, gas 56%, hydro 5%, coal <1%, renewables 9%, of which wind 2.3%, solar 0%.


It is 6 am, 30 June 2017.

Nuclear 38%, gas 49%, hydro 4%, coal <1%, renewables 9%, of which wind 0.8%, solar 0%.


Wind and Solar Energy are Variable and Intermittent: Wind and solar electricity are weather-dependent, night-day dependent and season-dependent. They are variable and intermittent, and therefore not reliable sources of electricity and not dispatchable.


A grid operator, such as ISO-NE, would never call wind turbine or solar system owners and tell them to provide X MW for Y hours, whereas there are many traditional generators on the NE grid ready, willing, and able to perform that service, 24/7/365, i.e., those generators are dispatchable.


Batteries for Reducing Grid Disturbances due to Wind and Solar: In the future, there will be many solar systems tied to a distribution grid. Increasing the capacity, MW, of those solar systems would decrease the stability of the distribution grid, especially during variable-cloudy weather.


Wind speed and direction are notoriously variable 24/7/365, especially on ridgelines. Some wind systems use large-scale battery systems for “smoothing”; using them for storage for later use would be highly uneconomical, except in special cases, such as on remote islands.


Battery systems, tied to distribution grids with many solar systems, are used in California and Germany to smooth excessive energy variations. GMP has a program to install Tesla Powerwall 2.0 battery units at ratepayer premises. The units act as dampers, which work as follows:


- The varying DC electricity of the solar systems is fed as AC into the distribution grid.

- The battery systems maintain distribution grid stability by absorbing electricity from or providing electricity to the grid, as needed.

- DC to AC inverters of the battery systems are about 85%, 50%, and 10% efficient at 20%, 10% and 2% outputs, respectively, i.e., 50% of the converted electricity is lost as heat, if charged and discharged electricity quantities occur at less than 10% of inverter capacity!

- The round-trip loss: 1) AC to DC into battery; 2) while stored in the battery; 3) DC to AC out of battery, is about 20% on an annual average basis. 


NOTE: Such charging and discharging has nothing to do with storing midday solar electricity for use at night, as is sometimes claimed; that would be grossly uneconomical, unless the electric rate differential is extremely high.


Typically, in damping mode, the battery system would be charged to 60 to 70% of rated capacity, MWh, so it can be charged up to 90 to 95% and discharged down to 25 to 20%, depending on the battery type; some types allow more range than others. The charge controller prevents charging above 90% and discharging below 20% to preserve battery life. BTW, those 90/20 limits also apply to your mobile phone.


Typically, in damping mode, the charging-discharging range is well within 60% to 70%, i.e., this narrow-range charging and discharging generates significant heat (energy is wasted), as much of it may occur at less than 10% of inverter capacity, unless multiple inverters are used. As more solar systems are added to the distribution grid, additional battery capacity would be required.


NOTE: In the distant future, some folks envision damping, with owner permission, using the batteries of EVs that are in use, and the retired batteries of EVs that otherwise would be discarded. At least one thousand EV batteries for each distribution grid would need to exist. All of them likely would not be available for service 24/7/365.


Variable Ridgeline Wind Output in New England: The speeds and directions of winds on ridgelines vary, which varies the output of each wind turbine. After such outputs are combined and fed, via a substation, to the high voltage grid, the voltage, frequency and power factor may vary in excess of what is allowed by ISO-NE, the grid operator.


As a result, the regulations of utility and grid operator regulations for wind turbines have become stricter, and require stable voltage, and frequency, reactive energy supply to the network, and voltage control to support network failures.


This was the case with the 63 MW Lowell Mountain wind system feeding into a weak Vermont Northeast Kingdom high voltage grid system. GMP installed a $10.5 million synchronous-condenser system to “smooth” the wind turbine output, as required by ISO-NE, and fed the output to two high voltage lines. Total grid connection cost was about $20 million.


“Socializing” Costs to Make Solar and Wind Appear Less Costly: By socializing costs, wind and solar APPEAR to be competitive, but are anything but that. See URL for a detailed example of socializing solar costs.


Coping With Wind and Solar Electricity in New England: At present, the NE grid has sufficient dispatchable capacity (MW), nearly all of it fossil and hydro, for peaking, filling-in and balancing, 24/7/365, the small quantities of variable wind and solar electricity. This peaking, filling-in and balancing will become ever more difficult and costly:


1) As fossil-fired dispatchable capacity (producing steady electricity at about 4 - 5 c/kWh) is squeezed off the system by low NE wholesale prices


2) Due to increased wear and tear caused to combined-cycle gas turbines, CCGTs, due to more frequent start/stop operations and up/down ramping operations, which is inefficient (more fuel/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more O&M cost/kWh), as it would be would be for a car.


3) As nuclear plants are retired (producing steady, near-CO2-free electricity at about 4 - 5 c/kWh)


4) As expensive wind and solar become an increasing percentage of the total electricity supply to the NE grid. The more wind and solar, the less effective it becomes to remove CO2, due to the less-efficient operation of the other generators. See URLs.


Subsidies to encourage storage solutions, such as lithium-ion batteries, would be required to attract investment in all types of electricity storage systems to smooth/dampen the variations of wind and solar energy.


Long lasting wind lulls and seasonal variations would require massive utility-scale storage capacity, GWh, if fossil and nuclear plants were driven off the grid. See URLs for:


- Insufficient fuel and CO2 reductions due to wind energy in Ireland and Australia

- The storage requirements due to solar and wind lulls in Germany

- The adverse wind turbine noise impact on people and animals.


Synchronous Rotational Inertia: Traditional generators provide the synchronous rotational inertia that serves to stabilize the grid. Wind provides very little synchronous rotational inertia to the grid and solar provides none. In fact, wind and solar electricity tend to destabilize the grid.


NOTE: There are pro-RE folks who claim rotational inertia is not needed, because it can be artificially provided by electronic systems, which is true. Here is a very expensive example: Ta’u, a part of the US Fiji archipelago in the Pacific, with 600 residents, has 5000 PV panels, 1.4 MW, and 60 Tesla Powerpacks that store 3 days of electricity, in case of bad weather with a cyclone.


CCGT plants provide synchronous rotational inertia to the grid, plus they provide most of the peaking, filling-in and balancing, 24/7/365, i.e., whenever variable, intermittent wind and solar electricity is insufficient to meet demand.


Germany and Wind and Solar: Germany could not reliably operate its grid with 17.8% wind and solar penetration in 2016 (3 times as much as the US) without relying on the spare peaking, filling-in and balancing capacity of the grids of neighboring countries, such as Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Poland, The Czech Republic, etc. The same is true for Denmark.








- About 60% is generated in winter.

- During winter, the best wind month is up to 2.5 times the worst summer month

- New England has the lowest capacity factor (about 0.262) of any region in the US, except the South. See URL.



- Solar electricity is strictly a midday affair.

- It is zero about 65% of the hours of the year

- It is always minimal early mornings and late afternoons/early evenings

- It is minimal much of the winter

- It is near zero with snow and ice on the panels.

- It varies with variable cloudiness, which would excessively disturb distribution grids with many solar systems, as happens in southern California and southern Germany on a daily basis*. See Note.



If we were to rely on wind and solar for most of our electricity, massive energy storage systems (GWh-scale in case of Vermont) would be required to cover multi-day wind lulls, multi-day overcast/snowy periods, and seasonal variations. See URL.

Wind Plus Solar Plus Storage in New England: See URL for estimate of turnkey capital cost of storage system.

Germany Historic Wind and Solar: Germany has excellent public records for the past 15 years showing the variability and intermittency of wind and solar energy, i.e., denial/obfuscation of the facts is not an option.


NOTE: Utilities, such as GMP, are installing Tesla Powerwall 2.0 battery units at ratepayer premises to smooth/dampen those variations and to perform other services, such as reducing GMP demand, MW, as seen by ISO-NE, and forward demand charges, $/MW, as imposed by ISO-NE, during late afternoon/early evening, when demand is peaking, but solar is minimal, and wind usually is minimal as well.


NOTE: If someone were to make the claim “my production facility runs on solar”, that would mean a slowly increasing production from early morning until about noontime, and then a slowly decreasing production until late afternoon, with no production the other hours of the day.


In case of variable cloudiness, production would rapidly ramp up and down during production hours.

In case of snow or ice on the panels, there would be minimal or zero production during production hours.


And for such occasional electricity, we have to provide generous subsidies, plus we have buy the electricity at 2 – 3 times the NE annual average wholesale price, which has been about 5 c/kWh since 2009, due to low-cost gas (50% of NE generation about 5 c/kWh) and nuclear (26% of NE generation about 4 - 5 c/kWh).


A Hypothetical Example of Massive Energy Storage in New England: If the Wilder Dam in the Connecticut River were about 100 ft. tall and river water were allowed to accumulate upstream of the dam, a very large lake, at least 100 miles long and several miles wide would be created. If hydro turbines were added, such a lake would store enough energy to cover multi-day wind lulls, multi-day overcast/snowy periods, and a part of the seasonal variations. Many thousands of households and businesses would need to be relocated and other manmade detritus would need to be removed.


- Norway has a large number of such lakes and generates 98% of its electricity from hydro, already for about 100 years, plus it has net exports.

- Hydro-Quebec has a large number of such lakes and generates 99% of its electricity from hydro, already for many decades. H-Q has at least 5000 MW of hydro plants, already built, ready to provide a major part of the electricity for New Hampshire and Vermont. Currently water is uselessly passing over spillways, instead of through hydro turbines. See below section “More Energy From H-Q a Much Better Alternative”. H-Q is panning to complete another 5000 MW in the next 10 years (2017 - 2027).


Wind and Solar Capacity Credits in New England: Grid operators give capacity credits to generators for long term planning purposes, based on various criteria. These capacity credits (usually a percentage of reliably available rated output) are added to determine the MW available to serve peak demands at any time of the year.


ISO-NE needs to have up to 10% more accredited generating capacity, MW, available than the yearly peak system demand to ensure reliably serving the demand; that 10% is needed in case one or more plants have scheduled or unscheduled outages.


Currently, NE has 30,500 MW, resources - 28,100 MW, peak demand = 2,400 MW, or 8% reserves. This percentage is low, because of low capacities of installed wind and solar, which do not have a reliably available output.


In NE peak demands occur in late afternoon/early evening, which is about the same time wind is minimal, i.e., not much capacity credit can be given to wind.


Solar does reduce midday peak demand, but still higher peak demands occur in late afternoon/early evening, when solar is minimal, i.e., not much capacity credit can be given to solar. This URL shows solar disappearing at 7 pm to 8 pm when demand is peaking, in California. See page 5.


Wind Capacity Credits in Texas: The Texas grid operator, ERCOT, has set the capacity credit of Texas wind at 5700 MW of 22000 MW (installed) = 25.9%, mainly because onshore wind turbines in coastal areas are driven by daily winds from the Mexican Gulf that are reliable and strong during midday peak demand hours. NE has no such wind conditions.


This report has a recent summary of capacity credits for various energy sources. It shows Texas has 84,325 MW, resources - 58,956 MW, peak demand = 25,369 MW, or 30% reserves. This percentage is high, because of large capacities of installed wind and solar. As a rule, the more wind and solar capacity, the higher the reserve percentage becomes. See URL.


That means, as build-outs of wind and solar continue, Texas may have 50% or 75% of "reserve" capacity, i.e., almost two electricity generating systems to do one job, including:


- Greatly expanded grid systems to connect the widely dispersed wind and solar systems

- Greatly expanded storage systems

- Traditional generators, performing the peaking, filling-in and balancing, 24/7/365, i.e., whenever wind and solar electricity is insufficient to meet demand.


Such an electricity generating system is much more costly than the present system. In Germany and Denmark, with high build-outs of wind and solar, have the highest household electric rates in Europe, about 30 eurocent/kWh, whereas France, 80% nuclear, about 15 eurocent/kWh, one of the lowest.


Two Energy Systems to do One Job: High wind and solar build-outs means, in Germany and in New England, almost ALL traditional generators, such as gas turbine, nuclear plants, and hydro plants, must be kept in good running order, fully staffed, fully fueled, and ready to generate, as required by the grid operator.


However, most of those plants would have to operate inefficiently (more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more O&M/kWh, as in Ireland, Australia, etc.), while providing electricity for peaking, filling-in and balancing the variable solar and wind energy, 24/7/365, year after year.


The end result: Almost two energy systems to do one job, unless massive energy storage systems take over the job of the traditional plants. The economic feasibility of that is much talked about, but, in fact, is not even close to appearing on the horizon.


Crediting Wind and Solar With Primary Energy: Traditional primary energy, such as coal, gas, uranium, wood, etc., is the energy fed to power plants, which convert it into steam to produce electricity 24/7/365. There is not a wind or solar plant in the world that produces 24/7/365.


The stochastic energy of wind entering a wind turbine rotor, and the variable, intermittent energy due to variable cloud cover, etc., from the sun impacting solar panels cannot be equated with traditional P.E. The quality difference of traditional P.E., versus that of wind and solar is dramatic.


In New England there is not sufficient wind to turn the rotors for 30% of the hours of the year (wind speeds must be more than 7 mph to turn the rotors), and there is no sun for 65% of the hours of the year.


Wind and solar could not even function on the grid without the traditional generators, and those generators would have to ramp up and down, at part-load, to deal with wind and solar, and take an economic hit to boot. Wind and solar is merely a helper electricity source that needs support 24/7/365.


Some pro-wind and pro-solar people want to make wind and solar electricity more important than in reality. They want wind and solar electricity to have a multiplier to create an artificial P.E. They want wind and solar electricity be credited with that artificial P.E. so it would appear more important in reducing the world’s primary energy.


Equating the P.E. of wind and solar with the traditional P.E., of coal, gas, etc., is well beyond rational, because the more wind and solar energy on the grid, the less efficient the traditional generators that have to deal with it.


Destruction of Pristine Ridge Lines: In New England, utility-scale wind systems are built by destroying pristine ridge lines, untouched for about 10,000 years.


About six, 500-ft tall, 3 MW units per mile, at about 2000-ft elevation or higher, reached by means of a 50-ft wide, 3 mile long, winding, access road. The blasting and destruction is beyond belief, millions of tons of materials are moved. The wind turbines often are imported from Denmark, Germany and Spain, and the solar panels often are made in China with dirty, inefficient coal plants.




New England Wind Generation was Minuscule in 2016: New England had installed at end 2016: VT 119, ME 901, NH 185, MA 115, RI 52, CT 5 = 1377 MW, which required the destruction of about 92 miles of pristine ridge lines, plus building about 100 miles of 50-ft wide access roads.


For reference, the annual average New England onshore capacity, generation and capacity factors, obtained from the ISO-NE website, are shown below. The 2014 CF is representative, because not much capacity was added during 2014, but the 2015 and 2016 CFs likely are low, because some of the added capacity was not in service for the full year.


NOTE: Wind generation was 105,572 GWh in 2016 and as a percent of NE generation would be about 100 x 3,162,544/105,572,000 = 3.0%, at the representative CF = 0.262. See table.







% of total NE generation






































New England Solar Generation was minuscule in 2016: About 1918 MW of solar was installed in NE by the end of 2016. That MW includes “behind the meter”, such as resident-owned/leased rooftop, plus “after the meter”, owned by wholesale market participants.


In 2016, total solar generation would be about 1918 x 8766 x 0.140 = 2,353,846 MWh, or 2.2% of total NE generation, if all MW were in service for the entire year. Generation of the best month in summer is about 4 times the worst month in winter; the ratio is 6/1 in Germany. See URL.


A Hypothetical Example of 20,000 MW of Future Wind Turbine Capacity by 2050: For this calculation, it is generously assumed the New England onshore annual average CF is about 0.29, instead of the actual of about 0.262 in 2016. Due to varying wind speeds and directions:


- The output of a future 20,000 MW would be about 500 MW, or less, during early morning hours and late afternoon/early evening hours, based on pro-rating ISO-NE performance data of the existing NE wind turbines. That many wind turbines would have to be distributed at about 400 locations, because feed-ins of 50 MW of variable wind energy would be a major problem for weak rural high voltage grids, as has already been proven regarding the Lowell wind system in rural Vermont.


- Destruction of about 20000/1377 x 92 = 1336 miles of pristine ridgelines, plus about 1300 miles of access road, would be required to install the 20,000 MW.


- Electricity production would be 20,000 x 8760 x 0.29 = 50.8 TWh/y, about 51/125 = 40% of the load on the New England grid.


- The turnkey capital cost would be about 20,000 MW x 2.5 million/MW + $15 billion for grid expansion and storage systems = $65 billion during the 2017 - 2050 period, about 65/33 = $2 billion/y for each of 35 years. If a part of the 20,000 MW would be offshore the capital cost, $/MW, and O&M, $/MWh, would be much higher.


Plus a significant capacity of CCGT plants would be required for peaking, filling-in and balancing, 24/7/365, whenever wind, solar, bio, hydro are insufficient to meet demand.


More Energy From H-Q a Much Better Alternative Than Wind and Solar: At end 2014, H-Q's 62 generating plants, all but one are hydro plants, had a capacity of 36500 MW.


- H-Q ADDED 5000 MW of hydro capacity during 2004 - 2014 period.

- H-Q is planning to ADD 5000 MW during the 2015 - 2025 period.


H-Q is building four new hydro plants, with a total capacity of 1,550 MW, which could produce about 1,550 MW x 8,760 x CF 0.50 = 6.8 TWh/y, enough electricity to serve 1.36 million New England homes with each home using about 5,000 kWh/y.


At present, H-Q exports electricity to New England, New York, Ontario and New Brunswick. H-Q has about 30 TWh/y of hydropower available for export, about half of which is contracted to supply utilities in New England.


The hydro plants could be used for near-CO2-free peaking, filling-in and balancing, but that would require several 1000 - 1500 MW HVDC transmission lines (underwater, overhead or underground).


A large quantity of energy could be bought from Hydro-Quebec at a cost to utilities of about 5 - 7 cents, with adjustments based on New England wholesale energy prices.


That energy would have much less CO2 emissions/kWh than wind and solar energy, and would be a steady, year-round supply, wind or no wind.


Having more, low-cost*, steady, not variable, not intermittent, near-CO2-free, hydro energy from Hydro-Quebec would be the best way to get all the sectors of the New England economy moving again. In this article, Dostis of GMP, states a new GMP/Hydro-Quebec power supply contract likely will have energy prices of about 5 - 7 c/kWh.


* About 5 - 7 cents/kWh, plus 1.0 c/kWh for transmission, adjusted based on NE wholesale prices, which have been 4.5 - 5 c/kWh since 2008.


Proposed HVDC Transmission Lines: Getting a significant quantity of hydro energy from Quebec, New Brunswick and Labrador would involve:


- About $5 - $7 billion in new HVDC transmission lines for all of New England,

- NO significant grid changes,

- NO significant generator mix changes, plus

- The wholesale cost of the hydro energy likely would be 5 - 7 c/kWh under 20-year, market-based, contracts. A MAJOR LONG-TERM plus for the New England economy.

- By using HVDC lines, the issue of frequency differences, etc., between grids is moot, because the AC energy from the ORIGINATING grid is converted to DC, which does not have a frequency, and then converted to AC at the frequency of the RECEIVING grid. The operators of the two grids continue to supervise the regulation functions on their grids.


NOTE: HVDC lines have very little loss/mile compared to HVAC lines. There are dozens of onshore and offshore HVDC lines in Europe. Just Google. Here is a URL, go to page 49, and you will see HVDC transmission adds less than 1 c/kWh to the cost of energy.


Four proposed HVDC lines to connect Quebec, New Brunswick and Labrador to New England:


- Blackstone, a Venture Capital Firm, is planning to build a $1.2 billion, 154-mile, $7.8 million/mile, 1000-MW, HVDC transmission line that would run beneath Lake Champlain. The line, called New England Clean Power Link, would carry hydroelectric and wind power generated in Canada to metropolitan energy markets in the Northeast.


- Eversource Energy is planning to build a $1.6 billion, 192-mile, $8.3 million/mile, 1090-MW, HVDC transmission line, called Northern Pass, which would run mostly through New Hampshire to provide energy to Southern New England markets.


- Champlain Hudson Power Express, a $2.2 billion, 333-mile, $6.6 million/mile, 1000-MW, HVDC transmission line under Lake Champlain and the Hudson River to New York City.


- Northeast Energy Link, a $2 billion, 230-mile, $8.7 million/mile, 1100-MW, underground, HVDC transmission line from Orrington, ME, to Tewksbury, MA.


Just these four transmission lines could import into New England = 4300 MW x 8760 h/y x CF 0.75 = 25.3 TWh/y, or 25.3/127.2 = 22.2% of New England's total consumption in 2014.


Based on the above, it would be a huge folly to overburden New England economy and the NE electric grid with such very expensive, low-quality wind energy.


Let us hope so-called policy makers come to their senses before it is too late.


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