What are they planning for?? Post on /pol about an email from one of the largest Health Insurance companies to their employees (full post in comments)
(media.greatawakening.win)
👀 EYES ON! 👀
I know folks want to brush this off, but you should take it seriously. We have shutdown over 50% of the 500 coal plants across the country. While some new gas 2x1 and simple cycle units have gone in, not nearly enough to cover demand.
Between electric vehicles and places like Denver regulating all new housing units must have electric heat, demand has shot up. Add into the fact that forecasters actually predicted flat electrical growth. This was true for a short while, but there are only so many LED light bulbs and energy efficient appliances you can use. Oh did I mention they are still shutting down coal fire units. One of our plants got told to shut off their units, but just mothball it, don't tear it down just yet.
Senior management have to walk a political line with the PUC and politicians within the state. If we have brown outs, its the company who takes the brunt of public anger, not the politicians.
Now in an effort to curb demand, peak rates have gone into effect. This will also have short term benefits, but not cover the sure increase in demand.
My company went condition orange over 30 times last year. We were able to cover the needs by transferring power from out of state. That's all fine and dandy, but the power needs are continuing to increase and the transmission lines are not enough to cover the difference in the future. I have been told we are 60 MW in the hole this year and over 1200 MW in the whole next year.
We are looking into some trailer sized simple cycles to try and cover the difference, but its not that simple to just hook up a bunch of trailers to gas if the pipelines aren't large enough. Than there is the emissions problem, they must be placed far enough away from major cities not to impact their air standards. This increases line losses.
Add into the works supply issues and warehouses that have been had critical parts trashed due to accounting and now simple short outages at a plant turn into weeks while waiting on critical parts. One of our plants was down recently for months due to lead times on parts.
TLDR: We are using more power than we are generating. Enjoy your new mandatory smart meters and rolling brown outs in the future.