Comment by nonplus
2 hours ago
Agreed, this is a difficult topic to simplify. "The grid can handle it" is almost always a * statement.
Can it handle it today? What about next year with the approved interconnects? What about in 2030? Does "handle it" include summer load or just average, what if temps are 5 degrees hotter than power models ran? What if PJM can't solve it's high priority overloads this year?
People want to talk about the grid as a binary system vs what it really is.
If serving those 37 customers forces choices that increase risk or cost for real customers (citizens, critical infrastructure like hospitals), it's a bad deal.
It seems like power utilities are optimized to solve problems, and serving these 37 customers can be framed as a solvable problem more easily than "Keeping the grid affordable and reliable" can.
Nobody has proven that those 37 customers are to blame compared to the poorly structured forward pricing system which is largely to blame for some of their recent pricing increases. Not sure where this grid can handle it narrative is coming from. Most of the woes in this article are cherry picked.
If you want to pretend the only source of information on this subject is the linked article I'm sure you can find many users here to debate within your arbitrary parameters.
Same goes for proof, which I'm sure would exclude power flow models if they were available for said debate.
Edit: We can agree the article is not comprehensive, and doesn't have data PJM and utilities have not published.