- Grid Brief
- Posts
- New England Heat // Duke and Big Tech // Graphite from Methane
New England Heat // Duke and Big Tech // Graphite from Methane
Jeff Luse
June 20, 2024
Welcome to Grid Brief! Here’s what we’re looking at today: ISO New England struggles with heat, Duke Energy courts Big Tech, and methane is used to create graphite.
New England Power Grid Struggles with High Temperatures
On Tuesday, ISO New England issued an ‘abnormal conditions’ alert and declared a Power Caution for the region for several hours of peak demand in the evening. The operator cited an “unexpected loss of generation over the evening peak.”
New England was one of the regions that the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) identified as having an elevated risk of blackouts this summer in its 2024 Summer Reliability Assessment. The retirement of two natural gas-fired generators at Mystic Generating Station in May of 2024 will lead to less generation capacity for ISO New England, according to NERC.
Duke Energy Wants to Provide 24/7 Power to Big Tech
With tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, searching for abundant and clean energy to power their data centers, Duke Energy is stepping up. The utility that services most of the Carolinas, has developed a plan to let large corporations purchase higher levels of energy than previously available.
Julian Spector of Canary Media reports:
“Essentially, willing corporations could bankroll Duke’s construction of advanced clean energy technologies to deliver on their advanced climate or 24/7 commitments. For instance, the structure could fund early deployments of long-duration energy storage, like the iron-air battery that Form Energy is commercializing for multiday storage. The mechanism could even deploy small modular nuclear reactors, if that long-simmering technology class manages to clear regulatory approvals and produce a viable commercial product.”
Upgrade to Grid Brief Premium to get extra deep dives into energy issues all over the world.
Conversation Starters
Startup creates battery material from methane (Bloomberg)
Oakland-based startup Molten Industries has developed a specialized technique to break methane into graphite and hydrogen, the latter of which can be used as a source of clean energy.
NextEra CEO says tariffs are hurting renewable energy (Financial Times)
“Rebecca Kujawa, chief executive of NextEra Energy Resources, told the Financial Times that tariffs were raising costs for consumers and making it ‘more difficult’ to accomplish the country’s clean energy goals.”
Oil industry looks to address water crunch (E&E News)
Concerned with water quality impacts, state legislatures across the country are cracking down on wastewater injections from the oil and gas industry.
We rely on word of mouth to grow. If you're enjoying this, don't forget to forward Grid Brief to your friends and ask them to subscribe!