“Utilities should select the most cost-effective energy mix to provide reliable and affordable service, without being constrained by government-imposed mandates that make it more expensive for their customers.”
Cost effective. It's an argument that can cut two ways.
In his classic "Lectures on Physics", Richard Feynman had this to say about a topic different from wind/solar, but which applies none the less.
"If you start a [classical] argument in a certain place and don't go far enough, you can get any answer you want."
The argument in question here is the marginal costs of an infinitesimal addition of wind/solar generation, without regard to the system costs that finite additions of wind/solar impose on the grid as a whole -- inefficient use of fuels ramping thermal plants, maintaining a spinning reserve, additional transmission costs, over building of wind/solar plants, and the as yet not clearly understood amount of battery storage. We can forget about pumped hydro because the resources for necessary amounts of pumped hydro simply do not exist.
That stacked resource diagram from TEP is in all IRPs and drives me utterly crazy. Is the amount of wind/solar displayed a nameplate rating or some seasonal average or what? The storage component has different units than the other categories, so time duration has snuck into this graph without so much as a peep from the utility or PSC (ACC in this case). The graph is fundamentally misleading because the utilities really don't have much clue about storage needs in a weather dependent system.
As an electrical engineer, I think the most maddening part of renewable energy additions is advertising their nameplate ratings as what the system will actually see. A 1MW solar farm will not actually have a capacity factor of 100% over its lifetime and does not have the ability to ramp up or down. And when the sun goes down, that 1MW becomes 0MW, every single day without fail.
Adding wind into it is more maddening because wind is so unpredictable and when weather reaches the extremes wind usually disappears or is ineffective. So a wind farm with a 5MW nameplate will never reach that 100% capacity factor ever.
As for natural gas and nuclear, they can easily operate on the upper end of their capacity factor at virtually any time. This is referred to as “baseload” generation, which has to be spoon-fed to the public to understand.
Thank you for all you do and keep up the good fight.
Arizona’s action is a threat to the Green power oligarchy and to the environmental left in general. Don’t expect them to accept this defeat gracefully, lest others learn from Arizona’s example. I would expect action at the Federal level to reverse this. You might think Republican control of the House would prevent this but the Left now rules largely through the regulatory agencies. Congress is irrelevant.
Arizona gets about 35% of its electricity from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the most powerful in the nation at 3.9 GWe, and the only one in a desert -- and it occupies 4,000 acres, not 4,000 square miles. It's cooled by reclaimed waste water. Its wholesale price is 3.79 ¢/kWh, among the lowest in the nation, right down there with the Washington Nuclear Generating Station on the Columbia River, Diablo Canyon on California's central coast, and fully amortized plants in the northeast that, in their infinite wisdom, some states are closing. But nuclear is the most expensive way to make electricity, and solar and wind are the least expensive, right? Isn't that why the utilities want rate increases and subsidies? And in the entire civilized world, nuclear power is safer than Teddy Kennedy's car, but that's another story for another day.
If the Public Utilities Commission denied the rate increases, forcing solar and wind to stand on their own two feet, and insisted that solar and wind scammers pay for their own transmission to get electricity from behind the back of nowhere to the places it's actually needed instead of foisting this onto the system operator, APS and TEP would probably start singing a different tune.
Quoting battery capacity in megawatts instead of megawatt hours is deceptive. 400 megawatts for how long? Ten minutes? That's worthless. My calculations, using real data from California, USA as a whole, Texas, EU as a whole, Denmark, and Germany, show that storage of 1,000 to 1,500 watt hours per watt of average demand is necessary to provide firm power, depending on your location. Assuming Tesla prices and lifetime, free installation, 100% charge-discharge efficiency, that batteries can hold 100% charge for six months, and that full discharge won't destroy them, the cost is only three times total USA GDP. Not once, but every year, forever. Adding in the other costs, the price might be thirty times total USA GDP -- every year, forever. Read http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Worse.html. Even better, read my new book "Where Will We Get Our Energy?"
One burning question I have is-at the glutinous rate we consume fossil fuel-how many years, decades, millennia do we have left? OK two questions. Can wind and solar alone, ever meet the requirements of constructing and maintaining wind and solar?
"there is an energy hierarchy of needs where reliability must come first, affordability must come second, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions must come third."
Amazing how many folks have it - literally - completely backwards.
“Utilities should select the most cost-effective energy mix to provide reliable and affordable service, without being constrained by government-imposed mandates that make it more expensive for their customers.”
Cost effective. It's an argument that can cut two ways.
In his classic "Lectures on Physics", Richard Feynman had this to say about a topic different from wind/solar, but which applies none the less.
"If you start a [classical] argument in a certain place and don't go far enough, you can get any answer you want."
The argument in question here is the marginal costs of an infinitesimal addition of wind/solar generation, without regard to the system costs that finite additions of wind/solar impose on the grid as a whole -- inefficient use of fuels ramping thermal plants, maintaining a spinning reserve, additional transmission costs, over building of wind/solar plants, and the as yet not clearly understood amount of battery storage. We can forget about pumped hydro because the resources for necessary amounts of pumped hydro simply do not exist.
That stacked resource diagram from TEP is in all IRPs and drives me utterly crazy. Is the amount of wind/solar displayed a nameplate rating or some seasonal average or what? The storage component has different units than the other categories, so time duration has snuck into this graph without so much as a peep from the utility or PSC (ACC in this case). The graph is fundamentally misleading because the utilities really don't have much clue about storage needs in a weather dependent system.
As an electrical engineer, I think the most maddening part of renewable energy additions is advertising their nameplate ratings as what the system will actually see. A 1MW solar farm will not actually have a capacity factor of 100% over its lifetime and does not have the ability to ramp up or down. And when the sun goes down, that 1MW becomes 0MW, every single day without fail.
Adding wind into it is more maddening because wind is so unpredictable and when weather reaches the extremes wind usually disappears or is ineffective. So a wind farm with a 5MW nameplate will never reach that 100% capacity factor ever.
As for natural gas and nuclear, they can easily operate on the upper end of their capacity factor at virtually any time. This is referred to as “baseload” generation, which has to be spoon-fed to the public to understand.
Thank you for all you do and keep up the good fight.
As I’m sure you’re aware, Leah Stokes recent book depended heavily on how the evil Arizona utility was fighting renewables.
This situation may be the start of a battle royal. I hope Palo Verde wins.
At the very least, it is an encouraging start on the road back to sanity
Arizona’s action is a threat to the Green power oligarchy and to the environmental left in general. Don’t expect them to accept this defeat gracefully, lest others learn from Arizona’s example. I would expect action at the Federal level to reverse this. You might think Republican control of the House would prevent this but the Left now rules largely through the regulatory agencies. Congress is irrelevant.
Excellent news! Well done analysis.
Arizona gets about 35% of its electricity from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the most powerful in the nation at 3.9 GWe, and the only one in a desert -- and it occupies 4,000 acres, not 4,000 square miles. It's cooled by reclaimed waste water. Its wholesale price is 3.79 ¢/kWh, among the lowest in the nation, right down there with the Washington Nuclear Generating Station on the Columbia River, Diablo Canyon on California's central coast, and fully amortized plants in the northeast that, in their infinite wisdom, some states are closing. But nuclear is the most expensive way to make electricity, and solar and wind are the least expensive, right? Isn't that why the utilities want rate increases and subsidies? And in the entire civilized world, nuclear power is safer than Teddy Kennedy's car, but that's another story for another day.
If the Public Utilities Commission denied the rate increases, forcing solar and wind to stand on their own two feet, and insisted that solar and wind scammers pay for their own transmission to get electricity from behind the back of nowhere to the places it's actually needed instead of foisting this onto the system operator, APS and TEP would probably start singing a different tune.
Let the litigation begin
The Boys are back in town.
Let's have another nuclear plant instead of expensive unreliables.
Quoting battery capacity in megawatts instead of megawatt hours is deceptive. 400 megawatts for how long? Ten minutes? That's worthless. My calculations, using real data from California, USA as a whole, Texas, EU as a whole, Denmark, and Germany, show that storage of 1,000 to 1,500 watt hours per watt of average demand is necessary to provide firm power, depending on your location. Assuming Tesla prices and lifetime, free installation, 100% charge-discharge efficiency, that batteries can hold 100% charge for six months, and that full discharge won't destroy them, the cost is only three times total USA GDP. Not once, but every year, forever. Adding in the other costs, the price might be thirty times total USA GDP -- every year, forever. Read http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Worse.html. Even better, read my new book "Where Will We Get Our Energy?"
One burning question I have is-at the glutinous rate we consume fossil fuel-how many years, decades, millennia do we have left? OK two questions. Can wind and solar alone, ever meet the requirements of constructing and maintaining wind and solar?
Well ole Otto was wrong, all of us make mistakes, only a fool repeats them. Otto did exactly that. Either way the point is made. Good article
"there is an energy hierarchy of needs where reliability must come first, affordability must come second, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions must come third."
Amazing how many folks have it - literally - completely backwards.
Nice post, Mitch & Isaac.
Do it!