Matching electricity supply and demand is a high-wire balancing act. As we add more solar, wind and batteries, and shut down thermal generation, it shifts the balance. New kinds of distributed resources can help to balance things out — but they also make grid management more complex.
In our fourth episode of season 1, Dr. Melissa Lott explores the new ways to manage the zero-carbon grid.
We’ll revisit the Texas grid disaster of 2021. Why did the electricity system nearly go down for weeks or months? And could we have blunted the outages with different ways of balancing the grid?
Guests: Catherine Traywick and Elta Kolo.
The Big Switch is produced by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy in partnership with Post Script Media. Our producers are Daniel Woldorff, Dalvin Aboagye and Stephen Lacey. A special thanks to Kirsten Smith, Genna Morton, Artealia Juilliard and Kyu Lee.
Geothermal energy doesn’t get near the attention that wind and solar do. But to decarbonize…
Energy access is central to reducing poverty. Energy is also critical to developing country efforts to move towards broader prosperity, which are significantly increasing their demand for energy.
There’s been a pretty major shake-up in the world of transit decarbonization. This summer, the…
As global warming mitigation and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction become increasingly urgent to counter climate change, many nations have announced net-zero emission targets as a commitment to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In this episode, a former oil-and-gas man named Efrem Jernigan catches the solar bug. Inspired…
Climate change is one of the central challenges of the 21st century. Building and linking the policies, technologies, financial systems, and markets needed to achieve climate goals is key to addressing this challenge.
On this show we talk a lot about the “big switch” to zero-carbon energy sources….
This commentary represents the research and views of the author. It does not necessarily represent...
Energy security has long been a central objective of energy policy, yet remains poorly understood and defined. Assessing energy security risks, and how they are evolving, is key for both the public and private sector.
State-owned enterprises (SOEs) play a major role in the production of goods and services across many of the world’s largest economies, particularly in electricity generation, oil and gas, and heavy industry.
The global gas market is undergoing a period of profound transformation as a result of new sources of supply, demand, changing trade patterns, and technological and policy shifts. The transition to a low-carbon economy and efforts to curb air pollution are also key policy aims that will impact the role of gas in the future energy mix.
Corporate pledges to purchase renewable electricity have led to significant new solar and wind capacity investments and driven down the carbon intensity of the power sector in the United States.
The clean energy transition requires a substantial study and understanding of financial and economic tools. Leveraging funding is crucial to effectively invest in clean energy innovations—to cut air pollution, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and fight climate change.
Read the Article Abstract Energy efficiency is seen more often as a means of reducing...
Energy access is central to reducing poverty. Energy is also critical to developing country efforts to move towards broader prosperity, which are significantly increasing their demand for energy.