Ed Hoskins has done an analysis of cost ratios, and no matter what your viewpoint of economics might be, the numbers here don’t lie. Without being propped up by subsidies, solar and wind aren’t even in the race as their competitiveness leaves them at the starting line while cheap natural gas (aided by fracking) runs laps around the race course. He writes:
In summary, the figures show that these three major nations of the Western world have spent about ~$0.5trillion to create Renewable Energy electrical generation capacity nominally amounting to ~5.8% of their total generation. This capacity could be reproduced using conventional natural gas fired electrical generation for ~$31 billion or ~1/16 of the costs expended.
The data by table:
Solar energy is about ~34 times the cost of comparable standard Gas Fired generation, whereas Wind-Power is only ~12 times the comparable cost.
Had conventional Gas Fired technology had been used, the full ~31 GW capacity would have provided non-intermittent electricity production and wholly dispatchable power could be generated as and when needed.
As all Renewable Energy technologies are only viable with the support of costly government subsidies, market intervention and manipulation, can this be a responsible use of public funds ?
The following data sources for the USA, Germany and the UK were reviewed:
United States of America: data available 2000 – 2012
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/60197.pdf
Germany: data available from 1990 to 2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany
United Kingdom: data available 2008 – 2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_Kingdom
These data provide installed “nameplate” capacity measured in Megawatts (MW) and energy output measured across the year in total Gigawatt hours, (GWh). Thus they do not provide directly comparable values as Megawatt nameplate capacity and the actual energy outputs achieved. For this comparative exercise the annual Gigawatt hours values were revised back to equivalent Megawatts for, accounting for the 8,760 hours in the year. This measure eliminates the effect of intermittency and non-dispatchability characterising Renewable Energy power sources. It also allows for the calculation of capacity factors accounting for the intermittency of Renewable Energy.
The Energy Information Association provides the capital cost information in US$ for the USA
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/capitalcost/pdf/updated_capcost.pdf .
This note should be read in conjunction with the earlier entry at WUWT,
which shows the growth of Renewable Energy installation the three Nations.
The USA Energy Information Association publishes comprehensive information on the capital costs of alternate electrical generation technologies, in Table 1 of their 2013 report. From that full list these notes consider three technologies:
Large Scale Photovoltaic: this is the most economic of the PV technologies at ~$3.8 billion / GW.
Combined Wind 80-20: merged onshore 80% and offshore 20% wind at ~$3.0 billion / GW.
Natural Gas Advanced Combined Cycle: the costliest technical option at ~$1.0 billion / GW.
“Overnight Capital Cost”, (just as if an power generating installation has been created overnight), is the standard comparative measure for capital costs used in energy industries.
The specific Overnight Capital Costs used include:
- Civil and structural costs
- Mechanical equipment supply and installation
- Electrical and instrumentation and control
- Project indirect costs
- Other owners costs: design studies, legal fees, insurance costs, property taxes and local electrical linkages to the Grid.
- However for this comparison Overnight Capital Costs specifically do not include:
- Provision of Back-up power supply for times when renewable power is unavailable.
- Fuel costs
- Remote access costs
- Extended electrical linkages to the Grid
- Maintenance
- Financing
etc.
For these comparisons the EIA data denominated in US$ was used: no consideration is taken of currency variations. These brief results are primarily for comparative purposes and do not purport to give precise actual expenditures by the various governments. They do however clearly indicate the order of magnitude of the sums involved.
The results for the individual Nations in tabular form using the EIA Overnight Capital Cost data are shown below:
There is also a very large discrepancy in maintenance costs shown in the EIA table 1. Compared to a standard Natural Gas plant, maintenance of Photovoltaics cost more than half as much again, Onshore Wind-Power costs about 2.5 times as much and Offshore Wind-Power costs about five times as much.
There are also significant questions about the longevity and engineering robustness of the Solar and Wind-Power Renewable Energy technologies: this is particularly problematical for off-shore wind farms.
A careful analysis might well indicate that in spite of the cost of fuel being essentially free, the development and installation of both Solar and Windpower involves the releases of substantial amounts of CO2 which may hardly be compensated for by the use of these technologies over their installed working life.
However there still remains a further major problem with all these Renewable Energy sources. Their electrical output is intermittent and non dispatchable. Their output cannot respond to electricity demand as and when needed. Energy is contributed to the grid in a haphazard manner dependent on the weather, as can be seen from German electrical supply in the diagram below. Power certainly not necessarily available whenever required.
Solar power inevitably varies according to the time of day, the state of the weather and also of course radically with the seasons. Solar power works most effectively in more Southerly latitudes and it certainly cannot be really effective in Northern Europe.
For example in Germany, its massive commitment to solar energy can briefly provide up to ~20% of country wide demand for a few hours either side of noon on some fine summer days, but at the time of maximum power demand on winter evenings solar energy input is necessarily nil.
http://www.ukpowergeneration.info
Electricity generation from wind turbines is equally fickle, as in the week in July 2014 as clearly shown above, where Wind-Power input across Germany was close to zero for several days. Similarly an established high pressure system, with little wind over the whole of Northern Europe is a common occurrence in winter months, when electricity demand is at its highest.
Conversely, on occasions Renewable Energy output may be in excess of demand and this has to dumped expensively and unproductively. This is especially so, as there is still no solution to electrical energy storage on a sufficiently large industrial scale.
That is the reason that the word “nominally” is used here in relation to the measured outputs from renewable energy sources.
Overall these three major nations that have committed massive investments to Renewable Energy, ~$0.5 trillion or ~2.2% of combined annual GDP. This investment has resulted in a nominal ~31Gigawatts of generating capacity from an installed Nameplate capacity of ~150Gigawatts. This nominal 31GW of Renewable Energy output is ~5.8% of the total installed generating capacity of ~570Gigawatts.
But even that 31GW of Renewable Energy production is not really as useful as one would wish, because of its intermittency and non-dispatchability.
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I think that the analysis above, while accurate needs to build in at least two more costs. First, every watt of solar/wind needs to have backup of a watt of power that will be available when the sun doesn’t shine (as it so predicably will) 4390 every year, or when the wind is calm. This capital cost needs to be charged against the cost of the solar/wind. Further, solar capacity must be assessed on the basis of the shortest days of the year, not on mid-summers day, but as much as 2/3rds of that capacity will be useless in the sunny times. By the time you have built in those costs, solar/wind is even less affordable.
[“4390 [hours]”, right? But that assumes 12 hours/day average over 365 days a year. .mod]
More energy is used during the day than at night, but we aren’t allowed to satisfy part of that energy usage from daytime solar pv? Our air conditioners can be either coal powered or they can be solar powered with backup coal power, but we can’t possibly run them off of unbacked up solar even though there’s a strong correlation between heat and sunshine?
Oops, I meant to check the box
Sunniest place in Canada is Medicine Hat, Alberta which gets 2500 hours per year of sun. In the United States, many of the southwestern states exceed that but even then solar insolation drops by half during winter.
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/Information-SolarFolder/SunHoursUSMap.html
Yet the most recent DOE analysis finds that wind power is at 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, an all-time low.
And I can put in a 5KW residential PV system with a 25 year production cost of about $0.03/ KWh (plus maintenance).
Greg
You use the usual warmunist trick of pretending price is cost.
In reality
Cost = Price + Subsidy
Electricity consumers have to pay the Cost.
Richard
No subsidies associated with the above PV system numbers.
And you make the usual moronic argument that the price I pay for electricity is the price at which the coal fired power plant sells electricity to the grid. I pay $0.24/kwh for a significant portion of my electricity, not $0.06/kwh.
cesium62
You provide the usual pro-wind tactic of telling lies when you write to me saying
NO! I did NOT say that and you cannot quote my having said that because I did not.
Richard
Oh, I’m sorry. I assumed you had reading comprehension skills and were paying attention to the context in which you were writing.
cesium62
Clearly, the error is mine: I assumed you had made a mistake but you now say you are a deliberate and anonymous liar.
I did NOT say what you attribute to me and you do not cite or quote my having said it because I did not. When I pointed this out you try to justify your lie by providing another falsehood.
Obviously, you are yet another typical agent of the windpower industry. Lies are all they have as excuses for their subsidy farms.
Richard
“the numbers here don’t lie”
Oh yes, they do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
Yes, whenever I see a statement such as “the numbers here don’t lie” it sends up a red flag to me.
Also note that the numbers in the Wiki are in many cases dated so todays actual costs will be lower for solar and wind. (Tomorrow’s even lower…)
Here’s another interesting price point: Solar power is apparently going to be sold to Austin Energy for about 5¢/kWh under a new 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with SunEdison from two solar power plants totaling 150-megawatts of capacity — a 350,000-panel, 100-megawatt facility; and a 150,000-panel, 50-megawatt facility nearby.
Greg
Nobody would want that intermittent power at that price.
Please state the mandated requirement on the grid company which forces them to accept it.
Richard
This is an analysis I wrote a couple of years ago. I tried to do better on true costs by looking at the cost of intermittency.
It is a hard calculation to do.
And I am not sure how close my actual capital fuel and O & M costs are – but the firm of the calculations is about right.
I offer it up to those interested in the matter
http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Renewable%20Energy%20Limitations.pdf
Currently most residential PV systems are grid tied with no storage (batteries).
However Tesla’s Gigafactory is targeting $100/KWh batteries. An average home uses about 30 KWh / day. It’s not much of a stretch to think that homeowners could buy enough batteries to cover their overnight power usage, thus becoming essentially grid independent. Just depends on whether the tariffs incentivize them to do so. I think it will happen. (Edison already credits me $0.75 per KWh saved on Power Save Days from 2 pm to 6 pm.) Plus LED lighting and increasingly efficient devices and appliances will reduce that 30KWh / day, and smart appliances can shift some power use to PV production hours.
EV charging throws a slight wrench into this, but the vehicle doesn’t care when it gets charged so build the infrastructure to charge it during the day.
Interesting article in IEEE Spectrum Sep 14 edition: “Solar’s Green Dilemma – must cheaper photovoltaics come with a higher environmental price tag?”. The process starts with silica (silicon dioxide), but the emissions can include: carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, silicon tetrachloride ,hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sodium hydroxide, cadmium telluride. And a LOT of water needed in the construction and running of manufacturing plant. Closing line: “And just maybe, with a sustained effort by consumers, manufacturers, and researchers, the photovoltaics industry will one day be truly, not just symbolically, green”.
I’d be very interested to see this analysis repeated with nuclear as well as gas.
The biggest difference is the little secret that no-one likes to mention. I took a tip from Anthony and installed PV solar energy generation on my roof. The initial cost is quite steep, about £8000, but it is coming down.I paid for it, nothing from government. The major advantage is, that I do not have to keep buying energy from someone else. As a result, no-one is making a continual profit from my pocket. Pretty well all other forms of energy generation are a a bottomless basket of profit for whoever delivers the energy. Home based energy and hot water generation does not give that. Now say I was a senior exec in a multi national power generating organisation, what systems would I be promoting? I must admit that it is really relaxing to watch the cost of energy bounce around while sipping a cold beer from a fridge that cost me nothing to run. Thank you Anthony for the tip, I hope you are getting as much satisfaction from your solar derived as I am. Solar energy might be uneconomic on a national basis, but on an individual householder basis it’s sweet.
Told you so; twelve years ago:
From our 2002 paper by Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae at
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
If only politicians would read – and think!
Politicos from Germany, Great Britain, Spain, California, Ontario and others: Please Note.
Same old mistake, over and over– these studies and comments compare apples to oranges. There is a higher INITIAL cost of PV or Wind compared to nat gas, yes, but this includes the net present value of all the future fuel costs, i.e. zero. Nat gas plants, no matter how efficient, do not include all future fuel and maintenance costs. The cost of nat gas fuel can go down. It can also go up. But for certain these generators stop running if you don’t keep buying fuel. The cost of wind and sun never change, and are built in, or in effect, prepaid. And nat gas power plants take huge amounts of maintenance labor, which PV plants in particular do not. PV panels need a wash about once a month, that’s all. No moving parts, no lubrication, no governor, no scheduling and dispatching, just sit back and get power– when the sun shines. Store it for when it does not. Yes, it is non-dispatchable and non-schedulable. The primary problem is that the traditional grid is designed for constant power feeding predictable demand, and the future grid must be redesigned to handle variable power feeding variable demand. Deal with it. But stop trying to back-engineer renewable energy sources to fit an obsolete grid essentially unchanged since George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla designed it for their clunky machines.
REPLY: Those “clunky machines” are far more elegant than anything an anonymous coward such as yourself can dream up. Your opinion is noted, and ignored. I have PV power myself, I’ve done three PV projects. True, PV has its advantages, but not as a primary power source and in the current vein of technology, will never, ever be as as cost-effective as natural gas. – Anthony
“True, PV has its advantages, but not as a primary power source and in the current vein of technology, will never, ever be as as cost-effective as natural gas. – Anthony”
Perhaps, but what’s the real cost gap? Certainly not as large as this study would suggest – didn’t this poster have a rather good point that this study is flawed given how initial costs work?
” but what’s the real cost gap? Certainly not as large as this study would suggest …..”
It’s larger than this study confirmed.
See Rud Istvan, September 6, 2014 at 12:36 pm comment under primary comment Sam Hall, September 6, 2014 at 3:04 pm
Of course the numbers are approximate.
For the mainstream media, I had to dumb down our message (on grid-connected green energy):
“Wind Power: It doesn’t just Blow – it Sucks!”
“Solar Power: Stick it where the Sun don’t Shine!”
Niiiiice!
The ignorance of respondents such as “A.Nony.Mouse” is just staggering. They suppose that “free fuel” can swamp all the other financial factors that go into net-present-value and levelized cost calculations. By my calculation (and unlike some, I actually did this for a living), the total life-cycle cost per Kwh of output of central photovoltaic solar based on the European experience is ten times the life cycle cost of a combined cycle gas turbine plant (including maintenance and fuel at current U.S. natural gas prices). And that does not include the capital cost of spinning reserve or energy storage required to back up solar (assuming you’d like some correlation between flipping a switch and seeing your lights illuminate).
You can assume that future natural gas prices escalate at unrealistically high rates and you can assume the solar cells themselves are eventually free (but not everything else that goes into a central solar plant) and you STILL will find solar to be economically ruinous by comparison. The problem with both solar and wind is that neither can benefit from fundamental economies of scale due to the inherently limited energy density of the technologies. In both cases, there is simply too much physical material required for too little power output. Capital cost per average Kwh of useable output swamps all other factors by a country mile..
“There is none so blind as he who will not see.” There is also none so foolish as he who argues power plant economics without even a smidgen of knowledge of either power plants or economics.
His cognitive dissonance is palpable. The ‘Green’ indoctrination is so thorough and the belief system so engrained that he struggles to not acknowledge reality, as expressed by facts and hard analysis above, lest the facade of those shaky green constructions all come tumbling down on his fragile, misled ego.
Your observation The problem with both solar and wind is that neither can benefit from fundamental economies of scale due to the inherently limited energy density of the technologies. is ‘spot on’ and needs to be always listed along with wind and solar energies other extensive failings.
Thanks for your experienced based knowledgeable insights!
Mac
Here’s a synopsis of a typical Anthropogenic Climate Change abatement project, Cape Wind Nantucket. This will be the first offshore wind turbine installation in the United States. Cost, $2.6 BILLON. This project has been the subject of debate in excess of ten years and several lawsuits. The turbines are of German origin built in Denmark, the concrete foundations are contracted to a foreign construction firm, the offshore ten story substation is contracted to a Canadian electrical firm, and the project will employ 50 full time employees. So much for the “Green Economy”.
This 120 wind turbine project is rated at 468 mw and will produce 143 mw after applying a capacity factor of 30.4 % (as computed the the University of Delaware) the time the wind actually blows, life cycle is 20 years therefore this project will produce 24.6 Terawatts life cycle. Insofar as this project located in an area which is enshrouded in fog 200, on average, days of the year a low wind velocity environment, a more realistic life cycle output would be 15 Terawatts.
The contracted cost of the Cape Wind energy will be 23 cents a kilowatt hour (excluding tax credits, which are unlikely to last the length of the project), which is more than 50% higher than current average electricity prices in Massachusetts. the bay state is already the 4th most expensive state for electricity in the nation. Even if the tax credits are preserved, $940 million of the $1.6 billion contract represents costs above projections for the likely market price of conventional power. moreover, these costs are just the initial costs as they are scheduled to rise by 3.5 percent annually for 15 years. by year 15 the rate will be $.38 per Kilowatt. Draw your own conclusions. Wind reducing electricity rates, I think not, and the contracted price, which took a court case to make public is simply outrageous. You’re getting played big time if you buy into this nonsense.
The Math (baseplate mw x capacity factor x 8760 (annual hours) x life cycle (years))
People, people. It’s just math, not opinion. Nobody is arguing that gas turbines are not more flexible, more schedulable, etc. etc. and we all admit that we will always need them for instantaneous backup. But the article we have been commenting on stated flatly that the CCGT is cheaper. Period. Just not true in a real-world situation. Using the values in the original paper by Ed Hoskins, you can easily extrapolate two scenarios—a. Natural Gas stays fixed cost for the life of the generator (not very likely) or b. Natural Gas doubles every 10 years (reasonable, based on history). Here is a table of the calculations, again using Hoskins’ factors:
Comparison of Combined Cycle Gas Turbine vs. PhotoVoltaic Generation
Initial Costs and Ongoing Fuel Costs
A.Nony.Mouse
9/15/2014
1 MW Faceplate– CCGT Initial Cost PV Initial Cost– large scale
Source: Ed Hoskins per “Guest Blogger”,
Watt’s Up With That? Site, reported Sept. 6, 2014
Initial costs $1,020 M $3,870 M
Maintenance–Labor
& Materials– annual $16.10 M $0.50 M (est.)
Source: Calif. Energy Commission
Fuel– Nat. Gas at Henry Hub Fuel– Sunshine
+ “Cal. Differential” (cost to transport
to So. Cal. From Louisiana)
Source: CEC $40.00 per MWh $0.00 per mMWh
8760 Hours per year
Annual MWh (nominal) 8760 MWh per year Nominal l
Annual Fuel cost $350 M $0 M
Total Annual cost $366.50 M $0.50 M
A. Assume No Increase in Gas Costs: (Costs over time, regardless of production)
10-Year Total cost $4,685 M $3,875 M
20-Year Total cost $8,350 M $3,880 M
30-Year Total cost $12,015 M $3,885 M
Est. actual production 0.85 0.21
Est. MWh produced 7446 1840
10-Year Total cost/MWh $0.629 $2.106
20-Year Total cost/MWh $1.121 $2.109
30-Year Total cost/MWh $1.614 $2.112
B. Assume Gas Costs Double every 10 Years:
Ave. 10-Year Total cost $6,518 M $3,875 M
Ave. 20-Year Total cost $23,010 M $3,880 M
Ave. 30-Year Total cost $55,995 M $3,885 M
10-Year Total cost/MWh $0.875 $2.106
20-Year Total cost/MWh $3.090 $2.109
30-Year Total cost/MWh $7.520 $2.112
As you can see, in the land where gas prices never rise, the CCGT cost per MWh is always better. But if gas prices rise at a rate of doubling every 10 years, somewhere around year 15 the PV system is cheaper per MWh and gets cheaper thereeafter.
Anything that burns fuel burns money over time; anything that has free fuel does not. Put graphically, a rising-cost-over-time line chart will eventually cross over a flat-line cost chart. Under any set of reasonable projections, the fuel-burning system must eventually cost more per unit than the free-fuel system. We can argue the night over my projections or yours, but can we just do the math and skip the name-calling?
A.Nony.Mouse
All your analysis is wrong because it is physically impossible to operate CCGT plants as you suggest.
CCGT is combined cycle gas turbine. It uses both gas turbines and steam turbines. And it takes time to start them: anybody who has boiled a kettle knows that. Indeed, it takes days to start the steam turbine from cold.
Therefore, a CCGT plant operates in either of two modes when a wind-powered subsidy farm starts to displace its electricity output. Initially, the CCGT plant ramps down to generate less electricity: this reduces its efficiency so its fuel demand – and, therefore, its emissions – increase. Assume the subsidy farm is very large, then it may displace all of the electricity from the CCGT and, in that case, the CCGT will operate ‘spinning standby’ so it burns fuel at its best fuel efficiency to keep all its parts hot and running until the wind changes.
Of course, one could use a single cycle gas turbine so it could shut down and have relatively short start up time but that would be very inefficient and so it would also use more fuel.
E.ON operates the German transmission grid and builds wind-powered subsidy farms in the US. It says:
http://www.nerc.com/docs/pc/ivgtf/EON_Netz_Windreport2005_eng.pdf
Your analysis assumes that the CCGT plants stop working when wind-powered subsidy farms provide electricity but – in reality – the CCGT plants must continue to operate and they use MORE – not less – fuel because of the subsidy farms.
Richard
Er, uhm, uh. No. You are wrong. Dead wrong. There – No name-calling. 8<)
So, let's "do the math" but with real numbers.
Solar (PV) cannot generate any power between 3 pm (15:00 hours) and 09:00 local solar time. Thus, the running reserve MUST operate at full capacity between 15:00 hours and 19:00 hours each day because the local electrical demand IS between 1:00 and 19:00. Solar cannot provide significant part of that power because each minute past 3:00 PM there is less and less energy landing on the solar panels. Thus, your "solution" fails.
The real and physical harm that the vagrancies of wind power are playing on our world's infrastructure is WORSE than the harm that solar is causing because wind changes so quickly and so greatly in deliverable power. Solar at least is predictable: <16% capacity before 9:00 AM, rising on a perfectly clear day between 9:00 from 10% to 100% nameplate "claimed" capacity (maybe) and then falling from 100% (maybe) back to 10% at 15:00 (more dust and clouds in the afternoon on most days) and then continuing to decline to sunset that evening. Nothing, of course, after sunset.
Wind, on the other hand, jumps from 0.0 to 15% to 85% nameplate levels to 50% to 30% to 90% nameplate levels in only minutes. ANd – it does that rapidly and randomly every day. The changes as today's electrical operators try to follow the load AND "reap the whirlwind" is breaking their power turbines, destroying pipes, heat exchangers, boilers, exhausts, intakes, coolers, separators, reaction chambers, generators, and turbine blades nationwide. Now, while that destruction is "good" for the turbine repair business of fixing and welding and replacing, it is tearing up the 3 and 4 inch thick plates and blades and pressure vessels and boilers and heat exchangers and castings that make up the fleet.
The cracks from these sudden and massive heatup and cooldown rates MANDATED by "your EPA" and YOUR renewables are YOUR fault: The "costs" of "renewables" is the rest of the plants that actually do provide power.
But, to your simplified math example above: Double the natural gas price? "That" is based on what rates
at what times?
And, to make your own claims worse: The solar PV cells lose 15% nameplate rating their first 60 days, then stabilize to a lower output over the next 15 years. Usually, by 10 years they are generating only 50% original rating, and about 35% after 15 years. Few remain operating for 20 years – by that time, their bases (foundations and roof mounts) have had to be removed to replace the roof itself, and almost no original cells are put back up over the new roof and new foundations. If you can find a 20 year operational life – Show us. In no case is there a 30 year operational life. Conventional base load power plants routinely operate for 50 years – and many get 30 and 50 year uprates to CONTINUE in operation at even more efficient levels their second 30 years.
Thus, the "free energy" solar cells have a 15 year life – and ALL of their costs MUST BE replaced – at a standard rate-of-return of 10-12%! – (You forgot that little item) – at a capacity factor of 18-22%.
Assume a generous 20% capacity factor: To actually get the nameplate rating of ONE 120 Megawatt solar power plant, I need to build not a 120 Meg unit, not a 240 Meg unit (as if "half the time it is after dark") and not 480 Megawatt unit (remember the 3/4 of each and every day that your "free energy" solar plant is generating no power?) but an 600 Megawatt power plant!
But it is even worse than that!
See, we have to build and run power lines for that 600 Megawatt power plant out in the desert back to where the power is actually used: And THEN we have to build another 90 Megawatt capacity to make up for the electric current losses between the remote desert site and where the people are suing your "free" power.
But is is even worse than that: This remote desert location needs to be duplicated with a running backup anyway. So, your "free energy" 120 Megawatts actually costs the money to build a 600 Megawatt electric grid, 5x 120 Megawatt solar power plants AND a 600 Megawatts conventional power plant!
And then you have to add the costs of replacing EVERY solar panel and solar panel mounting frame every 15 years.
Your points are good, and valid. I am not trying to claim that solar PV would or could ever be the primary energy source, except for those poor bastards trying to live off the grid (and I am one– we have an off-the-grid mountain property with 3 separate PV systems so when one is down we don’t lose the others).
Plus I found a major error in my math that reverses my conclusion– EVEN with doubling gas prices every 10 years, solar PV is never cheaper than gas within the lifetimes of the systems. So I concede.
I worked for many years in a high financial and planning management position within a major utility, and am very familiar with the impossibility of scheduling wind power. I agree that it is a monster, and probably does more harm than good.
I guess PV is primarily good for two things– 1. peak shaving and 2. better distributed power. I think we must rebuild for maximum distributed energy, and be able to isolate into microgrids as needed. Our grid was designed for high efficiency and reliability under stable conditions, and does very poorly otherwise. Witness the fact that many of the largest transformers are custom-built and require as much as a year to replace!! And one utility’s system design is incompatible with its neighbor’s so they can’t exchange equipment. Who would design such a thing today, given current conditions? This mentality has to change, and plug-and-play design has to be incorporated.
Maybe the ultimate will be house-scale fuel cells running on existing natural gas lines? Less waste heat, less harmful emissions. PV will continue as a niche solution?
Seriously, good people: Cheap abundant energy is the lifeblood of modern society.
Expensive energy and poor building insulation results in tens of thousands of excess winter deaths in Europe.
I suggest that green energy schemes (scams) are responsible for driving up energy costs, and increasing winter morality rates too.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/24/claim-climate-change-caused-more-deaths-in-stockholm/#comment-1457996
(abridged)
Excess Winter Deaths for England and Wales totaled 24,000 in 2011-2012, Separate stats are kept for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Excess Winter Mortality rates are typically lower in colder Scandinavian countries, and higher in some warmer countries in Southern Europe.
It is appropriate to pause for a while, and recognize that these were all real people, who “loved and were loved”.
Regards, Allan MacRae
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_288362.pdf
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/theme/vital-events/deaths/winter-mortality/
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/demography/default.asp32.htm
Epilogue:
When I was involved in the fledgling environmental movement in the late 1960’s, our objectives were to improve the environment and save lives. It now appears that the opposite is true.
A sad but true progressive talent, noted by many for decades. ( The “affordable care act” and various “affordable housing acts” as some recent examples.)
….regarding housing of course the “Community reinvestment act” which was a significant portion of the housing collapse. And our current “Community organizer has a talent for de-organizing and dividing communities.
Don’t you see it? Companies go for renewable energy because of huge subsidies that guarantee profits. Cost competitiveness is for economists and consumers. Profit is king to for-profit companies. They will make 24-karat gold toilet bowls if somebody will pay for it.
It never ceases to amaze me. The renewables advocates, imagine a future scenario, where the “cost” of renewables continues to fall, while the “cost” of fossils continues to climb. Ergo , renewables will inevitably replace fossils.
Well I remember when oil was $2 a barrel, and shale oils was not cost competitive, but if Arabian crude ever went to $6 a barrel then shale would be the ticket.
Well light crude did go to $6, and the shale people were counting the fortunes they could make, if the regular stuff ever got to $11 a barrel.
Well that happened too, but shale oil was still out of reach. It was not until shale recovery technology made breakthroughs that greatly reduced the energy needed to extract oil from shale, that it became viable.
And so it is with PV solar. since these panels cannot replace themselves with just their own energy output, the real cost of solar cells, will continue to rise with oil prices. They will never overcome the 1kW /m^2 solar limit, and construction costs will surely rise as ordinary energy cost rise; often due to regulations.
The oil industry used to get a “Depletion allowance”, which is simply a depreciation cost of their resources; the purpose being to allow the energy company to recover the capital necessary to explore for new supplies, and tap them. But regulations, and increased taxes, aim to syop energy companies from renewing their sources of supply.
The semiconductor industry has totally insane depreciation allowances. If I build a $100M new competitive silicon factory to manufacture market competitive semi-conductor devices, that plant is only going to be competitive for the next two or three years; then it will be obsolete, and nobody will buy the products it can make.
So I have to build a new more modern plant, with the next generation of geometry reducing technologies..
But such a fab is going to cost me $500M; not because wages and prices, have gone up, but because completely new advanced lithography, and semiconductor materials and processes have to be developed to meet the new market demands.
So the Intels, and AMDs or Siemens, have to either make good solid profits, under reasonable tax burdens, in order to put away the capital to build a new $500 M wafer fab. The next one will cost a cool $1B.
Well actually, they are well beyond these prices right now.
The only alternative source of capital, is new investment by share holder risk takers; who can only be attracted by the probability of future profits.
Stupid tax policies, will eventually kill off a lot of hi tech industries, as companies cannot fund the plants to build the new technologies.
So dream on you pipe dreamers, who think that one day terraforming Mars is a great idea. Where are you going to get the money to do that.
People taxed to death by the social program vote buyers, will not buy your pie in the sky.
Today’s San Francisco Chronicle has a front page horror story about our fabulous new Kentuck Fried Chicken factory, down in the waste desert lands of Southern California. Seems like they basically had to sterilize the entire area to build that monstrosity, and no real environmental impact studies were ever done or approved. They just waived that requirement, in the haste for Obama expediency.
Well the greens wanted to play with the sorcerer’s magic wand and magic potion book. So now they can pay to take down all that scrap metal, and restore that place to a real desert wasteland again.
While I imagine that most of this is true, I wasn’t impressed with the level of professionalism in this article. The sources (like Wikipedia) are weak. Some of the analysis is confusing.
It would be great if someone would take another shot at this and do a better job of it. This is not good enough for me to send to my Warmist friends…something I had hoped I could do.
Disappointing.
Proud Skeptic
This is getting a little old but may be what you want.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/courtney_2006_lecture.pdf
Richard
Thank you
See also:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/30/renewable-energy-in-perspective-solar-and-wind-power/#comment-1723991
The E.On Netz 2005 Wind Report is an insider’s view of the wind power industry.
– NNB the Substitution Factor (<<10%), which is much more significant that the Capacity Factor (~~20%).
Excerpt of above post:
Re E.On Netz Wind Report 2005 – see especially:
Figure 6 says Wind Power does not work (need for ~100% spinning backup);
and
Figure 7 says it just gets worse and worse the more Wind Power you add to the grid (see Substitution Factor).
OK, get a study done on how much wind or solar electricty would get to any electric meter and in fact have enough current flow to run the coffee pots for one morning.
All used up in the transmission, distribution lines and transformers before it gets to one customer.
Unless the customer is 100 yards from the solar/wind power. Seems that would require some 4 billion or so units.
How much use were the solar panels? Fail when you need them most.
Have the costs of the water used for fracking and potential loss of water to existing communities in frack zones, and the damage fracking causes, been calculated in?
Solar PV has a well defined role: power generation for single-family homes, and some apartment buildings. It is cost-effective in that role in a wide belt across the U.S. Granted, there is a 30% Federal Tax Credit to sweeten the deal, but it is close enough even without it. For grid power, I think it is clear that we still need to burn something, unless we just got our shit together and built some thorium plants.
Solar PV does of course need to be tied to the grid, and there needs to be reliable grid power. So we still need to burn something.
Why pay quadrillions of dollars to make windmill farms on land and at sea, that will rust and decay in decades, and produce miniscule amounts of electricity? Why go for solar energy in countries that have winter half the year and overcast [weather] half of the remainder? When these two combined can only provide 5% of what is needed, it is a utterly futile waste of taxpayer’s money to even attempt this exercise.
The money is betters spent making the grid better, and in investing in efficient gas powered plants or modernized nuclear plants. The rest of the money can be given in tax refunds or to see too it that poor people get what they need. Stop this madness. CO2 has no mystical magical powers to destroy this planet. It is the food for plants and gives us a greener environment.
Let China clean up it’s energy sector. Europe and the US is already clean enough.