“Just asking questions!”
Energy policy tweets, explained for everyone.
Penney Today, I'm officially launching my new project: Xiao-nly Fans. It scrapes @xiaowang1984's tweets and has Claude generate explanations of them for laymen with links to direct further research. Vibecoding is the future. https://xiao-nly-fans.vercel.app/
Edwin ElectricityXiao Wang son or Jigar Shah daughter
Oh shit the report is out! This guy is a hack tho blaming nuclear plants for not having PSS. Where's the PSS on the solar that grid operator decided to dispatch? If they don't have it maybe they shouldn't have dispatched so much!
Luigi MocciaQui il rapporto ENTSOE https://eepublicdownloads.blob.core.windows.net/public-cdn-container/clean-documents/Publications/2025/iberian-blackout/Final%20Report%20on%20the%20Grid%20Incident%20in%20Spain%20and%20Portugal%20on%2028%20April%202025.pdf
The way you structurally decouple electricity wholesale market prices on gas prices through wind and solar PPAs also kinda has the effect of decoupling consumer prices from the wholesale market entirely 😂
Jan RosenowSpain's renewables build-out has structurally decoupled its electricity prices from gas markets. Gas now sets the price in only 15% of hours, compared to 90% in Italy. Countries that invested early in clean power are far less exposed to fossil fuel price shocks.
This chart is incomplete. There are other avenues of cost shift that are dastardly for how hidden they are. One will be for example thinking that it's a great idea to get 10GW of demand reduction from VPPs and critically paying them equivalently to 10GW of accredited capacity. If you dont put the same deliverability requirements on the first then you end up hiding the cost of the transmission spend it fails to avoid.
Jane FlegalI still think this table from @cleanaircatf is the best re: affordability, describing a range of solutions tackling different drivers over different timescales.
Many Americans cry about Chinese subsidies for manufacturing as why they're winning. The uncomfortable truth is that often (not always), Chinese people are willing to out hustle Americans. But this is a scary idea that'll be rejected because it undermines our superiority complex
Eric 🐇Chinese suppliers: yo guys check out our stuff we are so eager to sell you our stuff we will do business on whatever app you doomscroll on please let us sell you our stuff North American suppliers: contact us for a quote but actually you will never hear a word from us ever
Ricks Re To add some nuance, timescales matter! E.g. demand response and batteries can be great quick capacity solutions, but they'll eat their own ELCCs up real fast if we can't reinforce them with additional solutions like permitting reform or clean firm power
Naam Follow Dr. @JaneAFlegal if you want extremely well-informed takes from a legit expert on how to lower electricity prices and use datacenters to strengthen the US grid and power system.
Jane FlegalI still think this table from @cleanaircatf is the best re: affordability, describing a range of solutions tackling different drivers over different timescales.
Basically tantamount to "don't build datacenters"
Brendon SlotterbackGrow renewables by 8x. Rapidly phase down fossil fuels and stop the rush to fossil gas. Pass state clean energy standards and requirements that data centers bring their own clean generation.
McGeady Re just about every IOU in the US has implemented, or is in a proceeding to implement, or is preparing to file a large load tariff that implements these type of rules. the political discourse on this issue is so far behind the actual rapid regulatory response by the PUC world... shout out to NARUC
Great take. You don't need to be a solar and battery maxi to see the valuable hedge it gives. Especially if ratepayers aren't elected to be in underwater PPAs
Pat Wood IIIHoly cow. #ERCOT #Texas grid was 95% emission free this morning. Nuke+wind+solar. Good price hedge during wartime, too. Change comes quickly in a competitive #energy market
Great take
Will Fisher@amn3siak @xiaowang1984 It just means that they're wildly undervalued. This is commodity-based pricing, not value-based pricing. We should all be paying a hell of a lot more for power relative to how much complaining there is about prices. Having worked most of my career abroad, it boggles the mind
Harrington, PhD, MBA, ERP, CFA “The market treats electrons as commodities, but the human experience of losing them remains profoundly non-economic.”
Palmer I’ve built an economic model of electricity generation investment for a Government research lab. Does that qualify me to say we should drill the North Sea as much as economically possible? Or am I only allowed to do that if I sign up to the nonsense belief that British drilling will have no effect on the economy, but plenty on the environment?
Jon Burke 🌍Dear Readers, @EdConwaySky has neglected to inform you that the CEO of “Britain’s wind power body” is a former senior Conservative Party and Shell staffer with no technical background in energy. Let that sink in.
D. Jenkins Re @drvolts @JaneAFlegal You said she hangs out in a Nazi bar dude. Which also implies Searchlight and BTI are Nazism WTF. Why would you expect anyone to engage with you when you act like that? Leave Nazis out of the conversation unless you're talking about actual Fing Nazis.
Dennis Wow. This might the most unproductive, unhelpful, rude, and borderline deranged set of posts I’ve ever encountered on this app, which is saying A LOT. If you’re looking for an echo chamber I’d suggest Bluesky.
David Roberts@JaneAFlegal The world is full of dickheads. I just wish they could all join together in a dickhead chorus in favor of ALL the solutions, because neither set is sufficient without the other & we need everything.
Bistline Many assume that data centers have spiky, variable loads. Large hyperscale facilities largely don't. They run at 75% of nameplate capacity, nearly flat all year. This changes how you think about grid planning for AI infrastructure.
