Energy Supply - The Challenges of a Changing Landscape

Energy Supply - The Challenges of a Changing Landscape

Marshal Albright, President/CEO

When you flip on a light switch, you expect the light to come on, and when you plug in a phone charger, you expect it to charge. As your energy supplier, it is our job to make sure that happens nearly 100% of the time.

A variety of events can and occasionally do occur, causing your power to go off and when it does, Cass County Electric Cooperative employees work safely and quickly to restore your power. As a cooperative, we maintain our infrastructure; poles, wires, transformers, and all other electric supply devices to ensure we deliver above-average reliability.

We rely on Minnkota Power Cooperative, our wholesale power supplier, to generate power and to make sure your power is on when you need it. Wide-spread power blackouts can occur but are rare and are usually related to a catastrophic event or extreme weather. However, as we add more non-scheduled power sources (e.g., wind and solar) to the grid, blackouts could become more common.

Energy supply challenges Minnkota Power Cooperative supplies electricity to Cass County Electric Cooperative and participates in the MISO wholesale market. Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) is a not-forprofit member-based organization that ensures reliable, least-cost delivery of electricity across all or parts of 15 U.S. states and one Canadian province.

This past January, MISO was in a critical situation during the polar vortex because forecasted electricity demand nearly exceeded the supply. This condition was primarily driven by two factors: colder-than forecasted temperatures in the entire upper Midwest and less than anticipated wind power generation.

These factors led to MISO issuing a Maximum Generation event, calling on all available resources (especially fossil fuel) to supply the grid with energy to avoid possible rolling blackouts.

The frigid weather in January 2019 caused problems for energy sources, especially wind energy. When the air temperature falls below minus 22 degrees or lower, wind turbines shut down to protect internal components from the cold weather.

Wind energy represents a significant portion of our power supply (34% capacity for Cass County Electric Cooperative), so when the wind doesn’t blow as anticipated, that presents a problem, especially during extreme temperatures.

Minnkota’s wind energy has a potential capacity of 459 megawatts, but during the polar vortex and MISOinitiated Maximum Generation event, Minnkota’s wind energy was producing very little, and sometimes not at all.

When the wind turbines are not producing electricity, and energy demand is high, we have two ways to make up the difference; reduce power demand and generate electricity through backup resources. During the polar vortex event we successfully did both, our energy management system operated as planned by reducing the high electrical demand on the grid resulting in no blackouts or brownouts.

Regionally, enough fossil fuel (diesel and natural gas) power plants were available to fill the void left by the lack of wind energy in the MISO region, including running our coal-fired baseload power plants at full capacity.

Cass County Electric and Minnkota Power support an all-of-the-above energy supply strategy. Diversity in our energy supply is important, because when one source is in short supply others can fill in the gaps. We are a national leader in the amount of wind energy as a percent of our total energy capacity.

Renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, can sometimes present a challenge as a reliable energy source because the wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun only shines for part of the day.

In the not-so-distant future, and if utilities are forced to switch to a renewable-only source of power, rolling blackouts during extreme weather conditions could be possible, and I don’t believe that is what our consumer-members desire. Until battery storage becomes cost-effective and sustainable, we must rely on baseload generation and fossil fuel peaking plants to keep the power on 24/7/365 days per year.

A reliable and affordable power supply is the heartbeat of our local, state, and national economy. There is no one, perfect energy choice. All are needed. When taken together, all energy sources; coal, natural gas, renewables and energy efficiency – assure reliable and affordable power, now and in the future.

As your local electric cooperative, we are looking out for you, our consumermembers, to make sure your power is on, it’s affordable, and we will continue to be good stewards of the environment.