Maggie Shober
maggieshober.bsky.social
Maggie Shober
@maggieshober.bsky.social
Clean energy in the Southeast
Reposted by Maggie Shober
All along the East Coast, residents are being asked to conserve energy during the extreme heat. Today is only going to be hotter.

The climate crisis is here and we need a grid that can handle it. That means better transmission planning and an independent FERC.
June 24, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Update: this will be covered more in meeting 3. That wilp be in late May, no exact date yet.
Not clear from the slides how Duke will incorporate the results of its Multi-Value Strategic Transmission planning process into the IRP.
#energysky
March 13, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Lots of talk about Nc SB261 on this call. Duke reassuring folks that you can’t wait until 2048 to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. True, but also, the driver of climate change is cumulative GHG. Earlier reductions are a big big deal.
#energysky #climatesky
Duke Energy starting their first NC Carbon Plan stakeholder meeting today. Slides posted yesterday show this will mostly be an overview of the IRP process and topics for next meetings. I imagine the April 28 meeting on load forecast will be quite popular.

www.duke-energy.com/our-company/...
www.duke-energy.com
March 13, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Duke Energy starting their first NC Carbon Plan stakeholder meeting today. Slides posted yesterday show this will mostly be an overview of the IRP process and topics for next meetings. I imagine the April 28 meeting on load forecast will be quite popular.

www.duke-energy.com/our-company/...
www.duke-energy.com
March 13, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
Extracting Profits from the Public: How Utility Ratepayers Are Paying for Big Tech’s Power
My new paper with Eliza Martin uncovers how utilities are forcing ratepayers to fund discounted rates for data centers
🔌💡
eelp.law.harvard.edu/extracting-p...
Extracting Profits from the Public: How Utility Ratepayers Are Paying for Big Tech’s Power – Environmental and Energy Law Program
eelp.law.harvard.edu
March 6, 2025 at 1:50 PM
On a stakeholder call hosted by two utilities, and one of the utilities just dropped off because they lost power. Not a good look.
March 5, 2025 at 3:43 PM
My maiden name is Surface. While in college as physics major, I told my advisor I was going to name one of my kids Gaussian. He fell out of his chair laughing. Best reaction to a joke I ever got.
what's the most specifically funny joke you know. as in, you need to know or understand a subject to get why it's funny. the dad joke of your speciality, if you will
February 27, 2025 at 4:11 PM
So TVA could add between 2,000 MW or 20,000 MW of solar over the next 10 years. I whole order of magnitude range. I understand that IRPs can't be prescriptive, but this is just a fake exercise.
February 24, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
#EnergySky friends, we are releasing a set of papers today outlining how #SurplusInterconnection can unlock GW of new resources. Surplus is a way to plug wind and solar into existing thermal plants.

Check out our papers, along with a cool interactive dashboard, here: www.scarcitytosurplus.com
From Scarcity to Surplus: A Renewable Energy Revolution
Exploring innovative solutions for renewable energy deployment
www.scarcitytosurplus.com
February 21, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
Me: An integration cost for renewables is absurd. Are Alabama Power's engineers are dumb?

Alabama Power: Our team had another look and realized we don't actually want to charge this fee now.

Fun tidbit though... the fee would have only applied to non-Alabama Power QF projects. Anti-trust anyone?
February 17, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
Bringing this 2022 chestnut over here. Hey, it's still true!

Whispers: There's a commission in your state of 3 - 5 people who can shut down all the fossil plants and pipelines and replace them with clean electricity, and SCOTUS can't stop them.
February 13, 2025 at 6:41 PM
TVA Board meeting starting soon, watch here.

They will vote on a new Chair, discuss federal funding for transmission, and other items

www.tva.com/about-tva/ou...
Board of Directors
www.tva.com
February 13, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
Which will be faster? Building a commercial fusion project or getting through TVA's interconnection process?

Could go either way really.

subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...
E&E News: TVA partners with Type One on commercial fusion project
The federally owned utility aims to generate enough fusion power to potentially light more than 300,000 homes.
subscriber.politicopro.com
February 12, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
Biden: You need to be net zero by 2035.

TVA: We’re not subject to this order. You can’t make me.

Trump: You can discriminate and be racist again!

TVA: Woohoo! We deleted any half-assed commitments we had. This EO we like so we are definitely subject to it!
TVA is about 90% white and 80% male. But that is just too few white men, per the KKK freaks in the Trump administration.

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/ja...
February 6, 2025 at 2:46 AM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
BREAKING NEWS: Georgia Power just filed its latest long-term plan. Reliance on fossil fuels undermines the utility's commitment to transition to a low-carbon future & will continue to force Georgians to foot the bill for these fossil fuel infrastructures. ow.ly/4v5c50URtZV
January 31, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
You may run into people who say that renewable energy is expensive. Here is an explanation of why that's not the case and how it actually saves the economy money.
www.theclimatebrink....
An explanation of how renewable energy saves you money
Fossil-fuel hacks are lying about renewable energy; don't let them get away with it
www.theclimatebrink.com
January 27, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
Wait a minute. You mean to say that we don’t need to blanket the earth with data centers and coal & gas plants to maybe arrive at a future where we can wave a magical AGI wand to make all of the consequences of that go away?

Yes. This is a false trade off. Let that sink in. 16/
January 27, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
Join SACE Research Director Maggie Shober and other energy experts as they discuss ways Congress can modernize TVA's governance to ensure reliable power for 10 million customers in the Southeast @themacrogrid.bsky.social 🔌💡

🗓 When: Jan. 30
📍Where: virtual
🔗 RSVP: ow.ly/261s50ULnPr
January 23, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
Well this is rough news from EIA. Natural gas prices may close to double over the next couple years as we start exporting LNG? Who knew? Who possibly could've predicted this? Did we make our own "national energy emergency"? 🔌💡

www.eia.gov/todayinenerg...
EIA expects higher wholesale U.S. natural gas prices as demand increases - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
www.eia.gov
January 23, 2025 at 5:11 PM
As opposed to TVA that imported 20% of its peak while asking schools across the region to close to conserve energy.
PJM set a new winter demand record, ~145GW, displacing a decade-old peak

Prior to the new record, only a single day had cracked the winter top ten in the last decade. Impressively, the RTO accomplished this while exporting ~8 GW to neighbors.

💡🔌
January 23, 2025 at 12:08 AM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
Well, apparently TVA asked local schools to close to conserve power. Big yikes!

“officials saying the decision to close schools was due to an appeal from TVA and EPB that the community voluntarily reduce power usage between 6:00 and 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday.”

www.chattanoogan.com/2025/1/22/49...
January 22, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Reposted by Maggie Shober
TVA with a 7.3 GW delta between demand and net generation, OMG.

Lights stayed on though, thank you probably to MISO and that we are precipitation free.

Check out the flat line at the top of the curve on the second photo. Probably some nice DR there.
January 22, 2025 at 4:04 PM
7.3 GW of imports. Thanks MISO for keeping my lights on!
TVA appears to have set a new demand record 📈

The previous record was ~34.5 GW on January 17th, just last year.

You can track this here: www.gridstatus.io/eia/TVA

A note of caution though, this EIA data can change as it gets updated, consider it preliminary in the moment.

💡🔌
January 22, 2025 at 5:54 PM
A lesson for southeast utilities here
#EnergySky #ERCOT looking good this morning thanks to 3.3 GW of storage dispatching before solar came ramping up, also - 20% of energy from Wind doesn't hurt! Prices below $60/MWh. Nice work Texas - Batteries save consumers $$ and keep the lights on even when it is COLD. @gridstatus.io
January 21, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Excel: the original ghoster
January 14, 2025 at 9:38 PM