Drew Smithee, PE

I’m on a mission to civilize #EnergyTwitter one thread at a time.

NEWS: The White House plans to bring together utility companies and data center developers for a voluntary pledge designed to ensure rapid growth in electricity demand from artificial intelligence does not drive up power bills for households and businesses, according to three people familiar with the plans. w/@lailakearney

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@PMoutis @BryceJohanneck Excuse me while I go cut the grass…

@DrewSmithee @BryceJohanneck 🤣🫡

The grid does not need a tightly regulated 60 Hz The rotor shafts of non-IBR spinning Generators do And so does Droop Control But The Grid does not

@PMoutis @BryceJohanneck Nah, I was just fucking around. Turns out you can say anything on the internet. But I get your point.

@DrewSmithee @BryceJohanneck Any money bags to spare Mr Vanderbilt? They will go into good research use - @BryceJohanneck my witness!

@PMoutis @BryceJohanneck As the great great great great grandson of a Vanderbilt I understand.

@BryceJohanneck @DrewSmithee @DrewSmithee I love me a good ol' Mr Money Bags if there's one available... Do you realize how many money bags they early power engineers burnt through to get this "grid"-thing started?!?!? We're kind of in THAT situation! (for the past 10 years actually)

An apolitical example of why nobody takes experts seriously any more. Some study apparently demonstrated that blowing on a cartridge "does nothing" and it went against the lived experience of pretty much everybody.

@andrew_carter Have you tried including temperature in your model?

@DrewSmithee watching the drift over a heatwave is interesting. still a few residuals I don't have terms for.

I mean I guess I can forgive the EEA for a summer peak record.

@andrew_carter That’s actually pretty neat.

@DrewSmithee I model non-compliance rates at a vertical, and there's for sure a lot of educated inference in realtime system wide attrition. I apply a peer matching model when quality customer meter data flows through over the following 36 hours. It's usually pretty close.

@andrew_carter I mean you get that drop when you call a program but things like IVVC will continue to scale as the day moves on. Idk feels like something my boss would ask me and I’d be like… uhhhhhhhh…. Throw on 3500MWs

@DrewSmithee watching SCADA, then post hoc validation against non-participating peers

Now this is what I call a hot take. I look forward to some crazy person inventing something silly like a 50hz grid.

@BryceJohanneck @PMoutis Mr money bags installing VFDs over here

@PMoutis Lots of AC industrial motors are no longer synchronous! You and I are creating the Point on Wave standard and the future!

Report warns capping utility ROE could stall grid investment amid rising demand dailyenergyinsider.com/news/52950-rep…

Also, fwiw: Most state commissions put a limit on the length of the extension. This length is based on the NPV of the revenue generated by the new customer. This makes your rates lower. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

This is also how extending electric distribution works.

Wild headline

Big progress in the Pigeon River Gorge. Crews have placed ~68,000 cu. yds of roller-compacted concrete (RCC), enough to construct about three-quarters of a mile of retaining wall. That’s about 8% of the total RCC planned for the I-40 recovery project following Hurricane Helene.

Just to say, flexing demand & building capacity solve diff problems. Flexibility trims peaks but it *doesn’t create the firm capacity structural load growth requires.* I actually think the post 70s issue is that we stopped building supply ahead of demand, which imho was a mistake

Texas Gas Transmission filed for the Dearborn County Lateral, a 12-mile, 20-inch line delivering 265 MDth/d of firm transport from its mainline to Vistra's Miami Fort plant in Hamilton County, Ohio. The lateral supports converting Miami Fort, a 1,000+ MW coal plant on the Ohio River, to natural gas. Vistra had slated the site to close by the end of 2027 but reversed course, citing power demand and PJM reliability. The coal units now retire in 2028 with a gas repower. #NatGas #PJM #NatGas