Illustration: Tiffany Herring/Axios
The GOP push to fast-track fossil fuel power plants is bumping into a harsh reality: Wind, solar and battery projects far outnumber those plants in the waiting line.
Why it matters: The idea of using more "dispatchable power" from fossil-powered plants to meet rising energy demand is behind proposed legislation to carry out President Trump's energy agenda and meet soaring electricity demand.
- But renewables and battery projects make up about 95% of proposed power projects in the interconnection queue. There just aren't that many delayed fossil fuel power plant projects in comparison.
- The White House excluded wind and solar from projects that can meet its national energy emergency.
The big picture: Allowing certain "dispatchable" or "baseload" plants to jump to the front of the line is amplifying a larger fight over what types of power should supply the grid.
- Rep. Julie Fedorchak, a sponsor of the House bill, considers dispatchable resources to include natural gas, coal, oil, nuclear — "anything with an actual fuel supply that you can count on," she told Axios.
- Batteries could count, she added, but most commercially viable technologies today can dispatch power for only up to four hours.
- Renewable projects have created an "unfair" situation for other resources waiting in the queue, said Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, which generates 36% of its power from wind turbines (and 55% from coal).
- "If we don't get more baseload, we have a problem with the grid," Hoeven, the bill's Senate sponsor, told Axios.
FERC Chair Mark Christie said in November that early retirements of dispatchable sources could be "potentially catastrophic."
Between the lines: There's no widely accepted definition of "dispatchable." It's generally understood to be a plant that can ramp up and down at any time of day in response to times of grid stress.
- "The [Republican] bill's vague definition could apply to anything and everything," said Rob Gramlich, head of Grid Strategies.
- "It will be amusing to watch policymakers struggle to exclude renewables on some technical basis."
Friction point: Democrats and renewable backers argue that Republicans are pushing back a booming market of cheap energy that undercuts energy dominance.
- The national energy emergency was "made up to skirt the law — it was made up to favor some sources and not others," Sen. Martin Heinrich said on the floor Wednesday.
- He led the charge on an unsuccessful Democratic vote to repeal the emergency.
Rep. Sean Casten told Daniel the queue-jumping bill is a "solution in search of a problem."
- "The idea that regulators at the state and federal and regional level are not already thinking about [having power to dispatch] is just dumb," he said.
- Queue-jumping creates potential conflicts in the energy market, which should be left alone to "self-select the things that make the most sense," ACORE CEO Ray Long told Axios.
