When Energy Is Done Right, a Rising Tide Will Lift All Boats – Watts Up With That?

By Gary Abernathy

This article was originally published at The Empowerment Alliance and is re-published here with permission. 

When it comes to energy, the main concern for working class Americans and families in general is affordability.

For large tech corporations – and specifically, the huge data centers necessary to fuel the emerging artificial intelligence boom – the focus is on access to abundant and reliable energy.

Are those divergent concerns inherently incompatible?

In fact, what at first might seem like competing objectives should, thanks to free markets, dovetail into a confluence beneficial to all, as an all-of-the-above approach to energy resources coupled with a modernized electric grid boosts overall output while simultaneously lowering costs.

Bolstering such a prospect would be congressional passage of the Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act (ARC-ES) recently introduced by Ohio Congressman Troy Balderson (R), which guarantees that our most affordable and reliable energy sources remain crucial components of the overall energy picture.

Right now, U.S. electricity reliability is hampered by the fact that from coast to coast our nation is served by a patchwork network comprised of three major grids.

As described by EBSCO, a leading provider of research databases, “[T]he grid’s infrastructure has a number of problems. One major problem is the age of the infrastructure. The energy grid was pieced together over the course of a century, and all the parts were introduced at various times. Many of these parts are getting older and becoming less reliable.”

Another drawback is that “the U.S. energy grid has no real way of storing power for use in the future. All the power that people use at a particular time must be created at the moment it is needed.”

Yet another challenge is the fact that the grids were originally built to convert traditional energy sources like coal and gas. “Renewables” such as wind and solar are not easily integrated into the existing grid, in part because of the relatively remote areas in which they have been built.

“Today’s transmission system simply is not designed to ingest all that remote power,” as explained by the Energy Department’s national laboratory for energy systems. “Bursts of power on an especially sunny day in the desert could cause grid faults – little blips that can propagate and cause outages – or overload power lines.”

Pressure from the Biden administration to set artificial deadlines to transition from traditional energy sources to renewables was a recipe for disaster, as our outdated grid system was simply not equipped to handle such a rapid conversion. Had those unrealistic objectives been maintained, the result would have been disastrous on two fronts – falling far short of meeting the energy demands of evolving technology while leading to greater price hikes for average households.

The Energy Department’s Grid Modernization Initiative is working with partners to create the “grid of the future [that] will deliver resilient, reliable, flexible, secure, sustainable, and affordable electricity.”

As an Energy Department analysis shows, a modernized, integrated grid can better meet the demands of emerging technology by making the grid “smarter and more resilient through the use of cutting-edge technologies, equipment, and controls that communicate and work together to deliver electricity more reliably and efficiently can greatly reduce the frequency and duration of power outages, reduce storm impacts, and restore service faster when outages occur.”

For average consumers, a modernized grid allows them to “better manage their own energy consumption and costs because they have easier access to their own data.” The grid of the future will also feature meters and sensors adjusting to power ebbs and flows, voltage regulation reducing waste, and lower operational expenses for utilities, resulting in lower costs for typical households.

Environmentally, a modernized grid more efficiently integrating an array of energy resources for cleaner outputs is a much more realistic way to reduce emissions and protect our environment than “net zero” objectives or “carbon credit” schemes that can never realistically be achieved.

It will be crucial that modernization initiatives utilize the all-of-the-above approach represented by ARC-ES to keep reliable and affordable energy at the forefront of electricity generation while allowing time to upgrade the grids and eventually accommodate the cautious integration of renewables as part of the energy mix. Why? Because reliability is a national security imperative.

A key component of the ARC-ES philosophy is a requirement that energy resources must guarantee that electricity is dispatchable 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Reliable sources such as natural gas must be available “to complement and provide backup to renewable energy sources during periods of low availability.” Also crucial is “the capability to ramp up or down electricity generation within one hour, stabilizing the electrical grid.”

The “all-of-the-above” approach of ARC-ES creates a tide that lifts all boats, providing electricity that is both reliable and affordable – not defective and wasteful because the government is picking and choosing winners and losers.

A modernized grid following the principles of ARC-ES that utilizes all of our crucial energy resources – including renewables when their integration is reasonable and affordable – will provide the volume and reliability sought by businesses, and the affordability crucial for average household budgets.

Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation.

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.