Southwest Minnesota’s electric grid experiences severe congestion from renewable energy - KTTC

Southwest Minnesota’s electric grid experiences severe congestion from renewable energy

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Congestion in southwestern Minnesota’s electric grid is so severe, officials are saying it is the worst they have seen in years. This problem is not only limited to Minnesota but is also an issue in multiple states. Director of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs EDF Renewables Adam Sokolski says congestion on the electric grid has slowly increased since about 2018.

“In southwestern Minnesota, we have seen some congestion here and there over the last few years; however, over the last three or four years we have it’s gone from minor amounts of congestion to really severe congestion,” he said.

Companies like EDF Renewables are curtailing wind farms, or reducing their power, to help alleviate the congestion.

“We had to shut off our wind turbines because there is not enough space on the grid equivalent to roughly a 200MW wind farm, not operating for a year,” Sokolski said. “There is that much energy curtailment happening in southwest Minnesota you could take a very large wind farm and essentially have it close down for a year,” he said.

The curtailments EDF Renewables and other companies are experiencing may prevent them from harnessing the power wind energy has for their customers.

“But if you look at the energy you could produce, we have a large windfarm that literally half or even some months even more than half of the energy we could have produced was not able to flow to customers on the grid because of congestion and curtailment in southwest Minnesota,” Sokolski said.

The congestion on the electric grid, along with the curtailments at certain wind turbine sites, could impact utility customers that directly buy from EDF Renewables and other companies.

“We are seeing that...with customers are being charged with facilities and they are not being able to deliver,” Sokolski said. “The customers have to then need to purchase another source and pay for it to make up for the full amount of demand,” he said.

Ratepayers might see higher rates in some cases, but part of the congestion issue lies with the heavy demand for wind energy and leaning off fossil fuels. Director of Operations and Chief Operating Officer, at Southern Minnesota Municipal Power, Mark Mitchell said the electric grid was not originally designed to handle renewable energy like wind and solar.

“The transmission grid, the backbone grid that we have, was really developed to bring power and energy from large central generators whether they were nuclear or coal,” he said. “...but now what we have as those coal generators and natural gas generators retire, they are being replaced with small wind farms and solar farms that are spread all over the state rather than the central locations used to be,” Mitchell said.

The other side of the issue behind the recent curtailments and congestion is that years ago, grid operators did not anticipate the high demand for wind energy and did not plan enough transmission.

“Transmission takes a decade to plan and get permits for and build it before it ever gets energized,” Sokolski said. “It takes ten years from idea to wire that is available in real-time,” he said.

Grid operators are essential to planning how much electricity is needed across the state and the Midwest too. Director of Energy Reliability and Security at the Minnesota Commerce Department Division of Energy Resources, Jessica Burdette said grid operators make long and short-term forecasts to help determine the electricity demand.

“At times you may have wind turbines... that are not spinning or coal mines that are not running,” Burdette said. “It just depends on what those short-term forecasts are, what the conditions of the day are,” she said.

Additional transmission is needed to make up for recent curtailments and meet the growing demands of renewable energy. The race to have carbon-free electricity by 2040 will continue to be a challenge in the next few years.

“...you know we are going to have more needs we are going to need a lot more transmission to make up for the new demand but to also pick up all the additional wind that has been built up over the years that has been congested,” Sokolski said.

However, each source of energy, renewable or nonrenewable, has its consequences, and wind energy has its drawbacks such as ongoing congestion. Burdette says it is a risk that is understood and not completely unexpected.

“I cannot emphasize enough the arc of time,” she said. “The choices we make today affect us for decades to come and there are always things that come up that we have to continue to manage throughout the life of those investments,” Burdette said.

Moving forward energy officials say the goal is not to eliminate congestion but to reduce it with more transmission. In the long run, they are optimistic that transmission will catch up with the high demand for renewable energy. One of the latest grants to help with transmission issues was approved in October by the US Department of Energy and is worth 464 million dollars; it will be given to the Minnesota Department of Commerce and regional grid operators.

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