Somewhere in the effort to boost the amount of electricity Illinois gets from renewable energy, the wires have gotten crossed.
A federal agency last week agreed to essentially favor fossil-fuel generators over generators of renewable energy in the grid serving Chicago. That threatens to take Illinois in the wrong direction on fighting climate change, just as two new studies released last Monday say the Earth is probably on track to breach the Paris climate agreement’s goal of restricting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Burning fossil fuels contributes to the increase in the planet’s overall temperature by sending greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
It’s the wrong time to put renewable energy on the back burner. Illinois will need to do whatever it can to offset the mistaken ruling.
Already, the waiting list to connect new solar, wind and battery storage facilities to the power grid that serves Illinois is so long that some proposed renewable energy projects die. Others that are ready to plug in have to wait. And wait. And wait.
Now, to add insult to injury, the five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a plan that will effectively move fossil fuel plants ahead of renewables in the queue of generators waiting to hook up to the grid.
“This is essentially a bailout for the fossil fuel industry,” said Jack Darin, director of the Sierra Club’s Illinois chapter. “It is a threat to the growth in clean energy jobs in Illinois and other states.”
Backlog to connect to power grid
The plan was proposed by PJM Interconnection, which operates the electrical grid for Washington, D.C. and all or part of 13 states — including the Chicago area. The plan gives PJM authority to give 50 fossil fuel power plants priority in hooking up to the grid based in part on their ability to generate power around the clock. The plan leaves facilities that would generate renewable energy with a cord but no place to plug it in.
Hooking up new plants that generate electricity isn’t exactly a snap. The permit process takes time. Grid operators need to be sure a new power producer doesn’t overload the nation’s aging electrical grid at a particular point. Additional high-power transmission lines may needed.
Power grids also are facing voracious demand for more electricity from heavy users, such as data centers, cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence.
Right now, there are enough utility-scale solar, wind and battery storage projects waiting to hook up that could generate more electricity than the capacity of all the power plants operating on the nation’s grid today, according to the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition. Those projects can’t help the environment if they can’t plug into the grid and send electricity to customers.
PJM has the worst hookup backlog in the nation, and critics say it has slow-walked the ability of renewable energy generators to link to the power grid for years — and now it is declaring a crisis. Critics also say PJM is denying permission for some solar and wind generators to add battery storage to their sites, which could add to the round-the-clock reliability of those energy sources.
Ideas are floating around in the Legislature to prevent Illinois’ renewable energy goals from being electrocuted by PJM’s plan. Battery-storage facilities, energy conservation and “demand response,” in which power users get a credit for using less electricity at peak hours — usually on just a few days a year — could actually make renewable energy more affordable than burning fossil fuels, environmentalists say.
State Rep. Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, said the Legislature is also looking at ways to expand the reach of transmission lines to renewable energy sources in other states. She called the PJM plan “ridiculous.”
“There are renewable energy generators that have been waiting five years to get to the top of the queue,” Gabel said.
Illinois — and the world — needs to get more energy from renewables. The state needs to use every tool it has to try to offset any attempt to go back to the days of indiscriminately burning fossil fuels.
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