The next energy battle: Renewables versus natural gas
Dominion Energy, one of the nation’s largest utilities, in late June erected wind turbines off the Virginia coast — only the second such installation in the United States — as part of a big bet on renewable energy.
The company is also planning to build new power plants that burn natural gas.
Utilities around the country are promoting their growing use of renewable energy like hydroelectric dams, wind turbines and solar panels. But even as they add more green sources of power, the industry remains dependent on natural gas, a fossil fuel that emits greenhouse gases and is likely to remain a cornerstone of the electric grid for years or even decades.
Utilities maintain they need to keep using natural gas because the wind and the sun are unreliable. They are also reluctant to invest in energy storage, arguing that it would cost too much to buy batteries that could power the grid when there isn’t enough sunlight or wind.
“We’ve got to have a resource that has an ‘on’ and ‘off ’ switch,” said Katharine Bond, vice president for public policy and state affairs at Dominion.
For years, environmental activists and liberal policymakers fought to force utilities to reduce coal use to curb emissions and climate change. As the use of coal fades, the battle lines are rapidly shifting, with the proponents of a carbon-free grid facing off against those who champion natural gas, which produces about half the greenhouse gas emissions that burning coal does.
Coal plants supply less than 20 percent of the country’s electricity, down from about half a decade ago. Over that same time, the share from natural gas has doubled to about 40 percent. Renewable energy has also more than doubled to about 20 percent, and nuclear plants have been relatively steady at around 20 percent.
Experts argue that the surge in wind and solar energy is not reducing emissions quickly enough to avert the worst effects of climate change. They argue that utilities need to reduce the use of natural gas, too.
A report in June by the University of California, Berkeley, concluded that by 2035, the U.S. electric grid could get 90 percent of its power without greenhouse gas emissions while lowering electricity rates. To do that, the country would have to increase its use of renewables, energy storage and transmission lines while closing all coal plants and slashing natural gas use by 70 percent.
Utility executives acknowledge that renewable energy will continue to grow. But many dismiss the idea that wind turbines, solar panels and batteries can replace natural gas plants.
Dominion executives say they are committed to a greener grid. Last year, the company closed six coal plants and converted five to natural gas, a fuel it views as complementary to renewables.
Dominion said its growing focus on clean energy should not surprise anyone because it pioneered the use of technologies like energy storage. In the 1980s, it built a power plant near Lexington, Va,, that can use excess electricity to pump water to a reservoir at a higher elevation.
When power is needed, the company can release water to a lower reservoir. The company said the six-turbine facility was able to power up to 750,000 homes and less expensive than a bank of lithium-ion batteries.
Dominion said it is also investing in batteries, but has concluded that the current generation of batteries was still too expensive.