How power transmission is handled to keep our lights on

by Mary Eiserman | Jun 20, 2025 | Clean Energy, Energy

For power to flow from source of generation to user, an activity known as balancing the grid occurs. Any imbalance between the power produced and the energy being consumed at millions of endpoints can cause an imbalance in the system. Grid operators can either allow the imbalance to overwhelm the system – which can cause extensive damage to the electromechanical parts of the system – or they can start to force customers off the grid with rolling blackouts. If the grid goes out of balance faster than grid operators can react, the safety equipment on the grid takes over, shutting off major swaths of the network and causing massive blackouts that can take days, weeks or longer to recover from.
To balance supply and demand, utilities have traditionally relied on central power stations, and when demand peaks, they have turned to so-called peaker plants that often run on fossil gas. But renewable energy and batteries offer cleaner ways to balance the grid. Complicated? Yes!

Learn more from the below linked article; 

The power grid explained — plus demand response virtual power plants and more,… | Canary Media

Solar and Wind Boom Sparks Conflicts on Land Use

by Mary Eiserman | May 31, 2025 | Clean Energy, Energy

Although solar and wind farms require less land than some rival non-fossil-fuel power sources (such as biomass burning), they require MORE land than fossil fuels. Using agricultural or forested land has become a problem throughout the world. This article reviews ways to reduce the impact of solar farms through building solar farms on old industrial, brownfield sites, and decommissioned landfills; installing floating solar panels on existing lakes behind dams; growing forage crops such as alfalfa and hay in the gaps between solar panels; grazing sheep in rows between solar panels; incorporating crops that require afternoon shade; and forbidding solar farms on top of peat deposits, prime ag land, and replacing forest with panels. Building floating wind farms in deeper waters can avoid much of the killing that occurs when birds fly into the structures, particularly at night.

‘Green Grab’: Solar and Wind Boom Sparks Conflicts on Land Use – Yale e360

Virginia Tops California as Nations #1 Electricity Importer

by Mary Eiserman | May 27, 2025 | Clean Energy, Energy

Almost 10% of all U.S. electricity is sent across state lines in the lower 48. Twenty-five states produce more electricity than they consume and export electricity to states where consumption exceeds supply. Virginia imports 36% of the electricity used in the state, making it the largest electricity importer in the continental U.S. Due to all the data centers being built, the increase in the demand for electricity in Virginia will be twice the increase predicted for the rest of the country. In fact, unconstrained demand for power in Virginia could double within the next 10 years.
Virginia now imports 40% of our power needs versus 18% in 2020, and the cost of imported power is 10 times higher than it was during the previous year, but half of solar projects proposed in Virginia were rejected or withdrawn.

Virginia Tops California as Nation’s #1 Electricity Importer  Virginia Solar Summit Blog

Is AI juice worth the Carbon Squeeze?

by Mary Eiserman | May 18, 2025 | Clean Energy, Energy

Water Use:   About 40% of energy data centers use goes to cooling. In 2021, Virginia Tech found that nearly half of US data centers then in existence were fully or partially powered by power plants located within water-stressed regions.
Generative AI search tools consume ten times the electricity of a typical Google search, according to the International Energy Authority. And most AI answers today are riddled with errors, researchers at Columbia Journalism Review’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism found recently. Leading AI-driven search engines incorrectly answered more than 60% of test queries.

Power Use & Costs:
1) Siting a data center properly can improve the affordability of electricity for domestic customers while reducing overall grid emissions.
2) Locating a data center near a renewable energy source and close to an existing generator with an approved grid connection protects customers from paying for infrastructure upgrades.
3) Moving AI systems from the cloud to your phone can mean a 100 to 1,000-fold reduction in energy consumption per task.