Welcome to the new year. I hope everyone had a good holiday season with friends and family; are rejuvenated, and feel ready to face a new year of change. Obla di, obla da, life goes on ….
THE PROBLEM
In the last post (copied below this post), we noted that our triad of themes for bits and bytes of climate science are also sources of anxiety:
changing climate worries
power availability, affordability and reliability concerns
both hope and anxiety around AI. Hope that AI can help us forecast and control a more complex and rapidly evolving grid to support reliability and affordability of energy. Anxiety around AI automation of systems that can negatively affect us as individuals or the systems we and our communities depend upon; as well as AI’s own heavy energy requirements, particularly data centre growth, that can compete with community level energy demand.
As noted in the previous post (copied at the bottom of this post), actions can allay anxieties. The very first action is to find some credible and easy to digest sources of information, and learn how to use them to gain context, and build intuition on how to connect weather vagaries with energy demand, reliability and affirdability.
The next several posts will be about easy to access sources of information from which we can gain context, and whose exploration builds intuition, as well as concepts and visuals to help you build intuition about changing weather and your energy security (reliability and affordability).
TODAYS PROGRESS STACK
Today we will focus on a simple approach to exploring the interaction of weather and energy demand; based on an approach I used to use as a forester to orient myself in new landscapes. We can think of the communities we live in in a similar way. It takes me about 5 minutes to go through the various sites I introduce; it takes longer the first time around until you get used to the various map interfaces.
A forester’s job is usually to see the Forest (pattern) and the Trees (specific details). To do so we look up, we look down, we look around.
Say I’m on a mountain top — that means looking up into canopy and towards the next peak. Down at the terrain I am currently on. Around to see local patterns such as dense and patchy areas, the presence of a bog, the marks of a previous fire, and other details.
In the context of weather as it affects our energy.
Looking up — being aware of broad weather patterns.
Looking down — understanding the terrain of our community. Are we located on a hillside, on the flat, near a lake, etc. Are we in the centre of a city; in a more rural area.
Looking around — seeking information that gives us context (often found via googling), such as understanding our energy mix; the interconnections of our grid to other grids, even distant international events events that could affect the price of natural gas.
Depending on where you live, where you would go for these sources of information differ. We’ll use simple websites you can view in a browser on a mobile phone, that are usable with no special instructions or training. For the examples, I am choosing the simplest option I regularly use. If you have a different option you prefer, or that is a better option for your area, please let me know (directly or in comments), and I will incorporate it into an update of this post.
I’ll try and avoid terminology in this post — but if you want to understand the common terminology used for energy grids in North America, this is an excellent resource.
For a more general primer on energy terminology, this is a good starting point.
EXPLORING WEATHER AND ENERGY MAPS
We will begin with a pair of “global” views that are useful : weather and demand maps.
I like WorldWeatherMap as it has a simple evocative interface.
https://map.worldweatheronline.com
Starting from a large scale map,
I can rapidly drill to the region I am interested in.
and further drill down to smaller regions.
At a glance, I can look at temperature, the direction of prevailing winds, precipitation.
For Energy Demand at a global scale I usually use Electricity Maps
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h
It allows me to highlight wind and solar layers and toggle between production (generation) and consumption (demand) of energy
I can further toggle between a focus on Electricity, or Emissions created by energy production/usage.
This pair of views in weather and energy trends gives us a wide scale overview allowing us to orient our specific locale with wider scale weather and energy patterns on a map.
EXPLORING PRICE MAPS
Often we want to add energy prices to the mix. If I’m interested in Energy Prices in USA, I can look at Gridstatus
https://www.gridstatus.io/live
While it focuses on several views, we will highlight the map view in the centre of the web page that allows me to compare regional variability in prices.
I can zoom in and zoom out to get a good overview of price variability overall and prices in my area of interest.
This trio of maps gives me a good large scale overview.
If I want a slightly different map view for the USA, I often quickly check the Electricity Data Browser from EIA.gov
While it offers a number of detailed views, I am choosing the map view so I can see variability in energy prices state by state.
EXPLORING LOCAL INFORMATION ON “YOUR” GRID
Since I live in Calgary, Alberta, I often am looking at the Real Time Dashboard, provided by AESO, our local energy regulator. At a glance it gives an overview of fuel mix, energy prices, and interconnections with our neighbours.
https://aeso-portal.powerappsportals.com/data-portal-dashboard/
If I want a bit more price info; I complement this view with a Quick Look at the Daily Average Pool Price Report which covers a week.
http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/DailyAveragePoolPriceReportServlet
Note that peak and non-peak times differ from region to region.
The summary for Alberta is here:
I also sign up to AESO grid alerts for real time notifications of the system being under stress . You need an RSS reader for this service.
https://www.aeso.ca/aeso/understanding-electricity-in-alberta/electricity-conservation-and-grid-alerts/grid-alert-notifications
EXPLORING EXTREME WEATHER
Finally, if I am aware extreme weather is coming to a particular region, I may take a glance at NOAA’s Storm Prediction Centre
https://www.spc.noaa.gov
LOOK UP, LOOK DOWN, LOOK AROUND
How do I put this information together? Well, I know we had a very cold spell Jan 11th 2024, that stressed our local grid (as well as our family); and we have had a cold spell through the last week.
So ,
Look Up — Cold Weather passing; but on coldest day last week we had active spike during peak demand.
Look Down — I live near Fishcreek Park in an older neighborhood that is fairly exposed to the elements.
Look Around — Even though weather is currently cold, but warming we have a relatively high load; dominated by gas/cogeneration (mix of fuels, mainly gas).
If weather trends stay this way; I am worried about my bill, but not too worried about power outage as I was at roughly this time last year, when we were gaming our options if there were a late night power failure.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10217359/alberta-extreme-cold-warning-january-2024/amp/
https://calgary.citynews.ca/2025/01/06/calgary-early-january-warm-up/
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/city/ca/alberta/calgary/hourly
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jason-doering-p-eng-62340a2a_on-the-rise-despite-the-fact-that-it-hasnt-activity-7282056493175054336-UWwy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios
In the next post, we will cover how to think about weather demand and generation pictorially, to refine your intuition in using these maps.
PREVIOUS STACK
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RESOURCES PAGE
I will regularly update this page with resources from the individual Daily Stack posts. Please suggest other useful sources you use and I will try them out and list them.
DAILY STACK GUIDE
This guide will provide a suggested reading order for The Daily Stack as it develops as well as list resources we can use to learn together as we confront three shared and intertwined anxieties: