IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2019 - 19

guest editorial

J. Charles Smith and Charlton Clark

the future's energy mix
the journey to integration

I

IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT IT'S
been two years since the publication of
the last issue of IEEE Power & Energy
Magazine devoted to the integration
of large wind and solar plants. A lot
has happened during that time. What is
most amazing is the breathtaking pace
with which the composition of the generation mix is changing. When I look at
the generator interconnection queues and
see the increasing amount of wind, solar,
and storage entering the queues and the
near disappearance of nuclear and coal,
it makes my head spin. We have passed
a point of no return in this regard.
Wind and solar are mainstream
now, and battery energy storage is not
too far behind. In March 2018, the
Utility Variable-Generation Integration
Group changed its name to the Energy
Systems Integration Group (ESIG). In
the previous incarnations of ESIG (the
Utility Variable-Generation Integration Group and the Utility Wind Integration Group before that), the commonly accepted thinking was that we
needed to integrate wind and solar into
the conventional energy system.
As newcomers to the system, wind
and solar were often perceived as disrupting the status quo, with a lot of study effort spent on calculating integration costs
and operating impacts. This changed
as these resources became mainstream
sources of our most inexpensive energy.
With clean electricity expanding rapidly,
we understood that the next big challenge is to use renewable energy from
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2019.2933283
Date of current version: 18 October 2019

november/december 2019

the electric system to clean up our other
energy systems as well-fuels that we
use for heating, transportation, buildings, and industrial systems. By doing
so, we soon realized that we could access
many more sources of
flexibility to help balance the system at the
same time. Call it energy systems integration,
as we do at ESIG, or
call it electrification;
we end up at the same
place, a decarbonized
energy supply.
There is an inexorable movement by society to decarbonize the
energy supply. I see it
every day when I read
the electronic energy
news. Another city, another county, another
state, another company
has made a commitment to clean energy, often committing to
80% clean energy by the end of the next
decade and 100% clean energy by some
future date (typically 2050 or sooner).
For cities, counties, and states, there are
myriad reasons, but the bottom line is that
citizens and voters are demanding it. For
companies, this is driven by the demands
of shareholders, customers, and employees as well as the fact that it makes good
business sense.
In the spring of 2018, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Xcel Energy,
Ben Fowke, announced at the annual
Edison Electric Institute meeting, that

Xcel would be shutting down two coal
units at its Comanche plant in Colorado
10 years earlier than expected and replacing them with a mix of wind, solar, and storage. Amazingly, he said
that this would save
the company and customers money, the
air would be cleaner,
and system reliability
would improve.
"I will tell you, it's
not a matter of if we're
going to retire our coal
fleet in this nation, it's
just a matter of when,"
he said at the convention in San Diego,
California. It knocked
my socks off. Then,
in December of 2018,
Xcel made another
announcement stating
that it was committing to a 100% clean
energy supply across its eight-state territory by 2050, a first for the industry.
The company had a pretty good idea of
how to cut carbon emissions by 80%
by 2030. It wasn't quite sure how it was
going to eliminate the last 20%, but it
wasn't going to let that stop it.
To make matters more interesting,
Jim Robo, the CEO of NextEra Energy, made his own startling announcement on his earnings call in January
2019. He predicted that solar and
wind plus storage will be cheaper than
coal, oil, or nuclear power early in the
next decade, this will be massively

Call it energy
systems
integration,
as we do at
ESIG, or call it
electrification;
we end up at
the same place,
a decarbonized
energy supply.

ieee power & energy magazine

19
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2019

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