By Mark Ahlstrom, CEO, WindLogics Inc.

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I had a boyhood fascination with butterflies and their complex lifecycles. Today, fly rods have replaced my butterfly nets and my fascination has turned to mayflies. A diverse mix of mayfly larva live in a stream for years, undergoing several radical transformations, just so that the adult mayflies can burst from the water on the right day to continue the species. If conditions change in the stream, the mix of species will rapidly change, but mayflies thrive nonetheless. This is amazing in its complexity, its diversity... and the fact that it works at all.

At first glance, it seems rather inefficient. If presented with requirements to design a mayfly, no engineer would design a process of such inefficient stages and transformations. Why not engineer the perfect end result in a more direct way?

The answer, perhaps, is that it is vain of us to think we can know perfection, especially in highly complex systems where the criteria for perfection keep changing. Insects use great diversity, intense competition and ongoing adaptation to survive and flourish in a complex and changing world. Such methods have been proven to work very well.

Diversity, competition and adaptation are also very powerful forces in the electric power system, and over time, they can optimize systems in ways that no amount of conventional planning and engineering can accomplish. A robust and efficient system needs many choices and options — fossil, nuclear and renewable — with appropriate transmission, carbon pricing and markets to encourage creative optimization. Like the diversity of mayflies in the natural world, diversity is critical as our power system becomes increasingly complex and interrelated.

New types of variable generation, primarily wind energy, have become mainstream options and are an important part of this diversity. The cost of energy from new wind plants is competitive with other options and becomes even more so as we analyze the full costs of other new generation. Yes, the costs of dealing with variability and transmission of wind need to be part of the equation, as do associated costs and externalities of any type of generation, but the numbers work.

Forward-thinking power system operators are now “keeping their eyes on the prize” when it comes to renewables. Variable renewables like wind add complexity and operating challenges. But numerous studies have shown that adding wind energy reduces the system-wide cost of energy and therefore the costs to ratepayers. A free and low-carbon fuel source has obvious advantages. The question is no longer if we’ll have large amounts of wind energy on the grid, but how we will engineer the tools and information that operators need to manage it reliably and comfortably. These are solvable engineering challenges.

The requirement for reliability, the paramount concern of system operators, quickly leads to this question: “How can I deal with an energy source that isn’t always available and can’t be precisely forecasted?” In fact, wind has the same basic characteristics of capacity, variability and uncertainty as coal or gas plants, but just in very different proportions. Wind does challenge current processes that assume generation is relatively “flat” and certain, but we can engineer new solutions to manage this variability.

Wind power forecasting is just one of these solutions. We can’t expect wind forecasting to be perfect — weather is extremely complex — but our techniques (and accuracy) continue to improve. We are now learning that it’s what you do with the power forecast that really matters, just as it is with the load forecast. With the right tools and experience, system operators will get skilled at understanding the confidence around different situations, knowing when they should be careful and when they can relax.

The challenge of wind energy is good for all of us. It forces us to question our assumptions, enhance our understanding of our power systems, and improve our tools and practices. The results of these efforts will lead to better solutions for the entire industry.

Some characteristics of our destination seem pretty obvious: improved system visibility and flexibility, probabilistic methods, smart grid technologies. Other solutions that aren’t yet obvious will no doubt emerge. As is always the case with innovation, the most dramatic improvements will come from those willing to push beyond the conventional wisdom and challenge the basic assumptions and operating practices that we use today.

As any economist will tell you, what happens at the margin is what really matters. Because yesterday’s cost of nuclear, coal or gas is not tomorrow’s cost, we need a diverse set of options in the future of the power system. We must look at our world with fresh eyes and know that it will continue to change. After all, dealing with change is what both evolution and engineering are all about.

Author: Mark Ahlstrom is CEO of WindLogics, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources.