Guest post by David Middleton
The featured image is a photo of a greenschist from the French Alps.
Top 10 States Leading the Renewable Energy Revolution
By Ralph Cavanagh[…]
I just couldn’t resist comparing electricity prices to the “Clean Tech Leadership Index” (CTLI) and I was not disappointed. Six of the ten States with the most expensive electricity are in the CTLI top ten.
| CTLI | Rank | Residential ¢/kWh | Rank | |
| Hawaii | 55.5 | 10 | 29.04 | 1 |
| Alaska | 17.6 | 21.58 | 2 | |
| Connecticut | 58.7 | 6 | 20.06 | 3 |
| Massachusetts | 77.8 | 2 | 19.84 | 4 |
| New Hampshire | 44.6 | 18.98 | 5 | |
| California | 92.0 | 1 | 18.87 | 6 |
| Rhode Island | 51.3 | 18.01 | 7 | |
| Vermont | 72.2 | 3 | 17.39 | 8 |
| New York | 63.6 | 5 | 17.02 | 9 |
| Maine | 45.5 | 15.92 | 10 | |
| New Jersey | 44.7 | 15.57 | 11 | |
| Michigan | 50.1 | 15.38 | 12 | |
| Wisconsin | 34.5 | 14.51 | 13 | |
| Maryland | 46.9 | 14.16 | 14 | |
| Pennsylvania | 42.2 | 14.08 | 15 | |
| Delaware | 43.3 | 13.86 | 16 | |
| Illinois | 55.3 | 13.76 | 17 | |
| Kansas | 16.9 | 13.3 | 18 | |
| Alabama | 18.1 | 12.82 | 19 | |
| New Mexico | 48.1 | 12.76 | 20 | |
| South Carolina | 28.6 | 12.64 | 21 | |
| Minnesota | 55.9 | 9 | 12.58 | 22 |
| Ohio | 35.0 | 12.35 | 23 | |
| Nevada | 36.9 | 12.13 | 24 | |
| Indiana | 24.6 | 11.99 | 25 | |
| Colorado | 58.4 | 7 | 11.89 | 26 |
| Florida | 20.7 | 11.76 | 27 | |
| Arizona | 32.8 | 11.73 | 28 | |
| Georgia | 25.6 | 11.73 | 29 | |
| Iowa | 36.1 | 11.65 | 30 | |
| Mississippi | 12.1 | 11.53 | 31 | |
| West Virginia | 14.5 | 11.52 | 32 | |
| Virginia | 35.9 | 11.46 | 33 | |
| Texas | 40.2 | 11.31 | 34 | |
| South Dakota | 21.7 | 11.11 | 35 | |
| North Carolina | 36.5 | 11 | 36 | |
| Wyoming | 13.6 | 10.91 | 37 | |
| Utah | 38.9 | 10.74 | 38 | |
| Montana | 29.0 | 10.74 | 39 | |
| Tennessee | 25.5 | 10.63 | 40 | |
| Oklahoma | 21.8 | 10.54 | 41 | |
| Nebraska | 17.0 | 10.52 | 42 | |
| Oregon | 69.6 | 4 | 10.51 | 43 |
| Kentucky | 22.2 | 10.48 | 44 | |
| Missouri | 28.6 | 10.43 | 45 | |
| Idaho | 36.6 | 9.92 | 46 | |
| Arkansas | 23.5 | 9.85 | 47 | |
| North Dakota | 8.0 | 9.56 | 48 | |
| Louisiana | 14.1 | 9.46 | 49 | |
| Washington | 57.4 | 8 | 9.28 | 50 |
Oregon and Washington benefit from massive hydroelectric resources, while Hawaii and Alaska have expensive electricity due to their remoteness. So, I cross-plotted electricity prices vs. CTLI for all 50 States and 46 States (deleting AK, HI, OR & WA).
References
[1] 2017 U.S. Clean Tech Leadership Index
[2] US EIA Table 5.6.A. Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State, March 2017 and 2016 (Cents per Kilowatthour)
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“Regardless of the Trump administration’s efforts to promote fossil-fuel interests, clean energy is making undeniable inroads.” Undeniable. In just 120 days. Congratulations.
Poor people everywhere be dammed.
Fort the record, my hydro bill used to be $80 and this time it is $215.
That’s Wynnesanity!
California’s Governor Moonbeam Plays President, Signs Climate Deal With China
California Governor Jerry Brown signed a new climate change agreement between the State of California and the People’s Republic of China on Tuesday.
“””””””””The Associated Press reports, however, that the agreement does not bind either China or California to specific greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.”””””””””””” /snark
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/06/07/jerry-brown-plays-president-signs-climate-deal-china/
Moonbrown has already decreed that California is to become 100% electric (vehicles) and 100 renewable electricity. I actually attended a University of California Solar Seminar where the lootenant governor asserted in so many words, that this is the mandate, in his keynote speech.
A second State Employee speaker (I have his name somewhere) described some of the projects they are undertaking, with taxpayer money to achieve the 100% renewable electricity.
Of course solar energy businesses were heavily represented in the audience. It’s an annual symposium that I’m invited to each year, sponsored primarily by UC MERCED, which is more accurately UC Atwater. It is part of the UC Merced, but they have this Country Club play pen, in Atwater on an old B52 airbase, run by Professor Roland Winston and his associates. They ARE actually researching and doing practical solar energy projects for small remote villages and such in undeveloped places where wires don’t run. Winston would choke if asked to bless Ivanpah or Tonopah. He’s a leading expert on non imaging optics; practically invented the whole discipline himself. So he really know how to collect solar energy, and Ivanpah is NOT it.
G
6.26 cents per kilowatt-hour here in Montreal, Canada
Here is how ya make money off the rich people by providing them “solar generated power” via the grid they are connected to.
Here is how ya make money off the rich folks by providing them “solar generated power” via the grid they are connected to.
Ohio is NOT 12.35. Its triple that. There are transmission fees, handling fees, climate change fees and the tripled rate because we have to buy from Canada instead of one of our own plants…now closed.
Last year everyone started cutting down their trees in order to burn wood to stay alive in winter.
Has anything happened to change the physics? As I understand it, solar doesn’t work unless the sun is shining, necessitating backup by fossil fuels. Wind power doesn’t work if the wind is too fast or too slow, likewise necessitating backup by fossil fuels. Those fossil-fuel power sources have to run 24/7 just to fill in the gaps in solar and wind power; a bit wasteful, yes? How much more efficient it would be simply to have the fossil-fuel sources take the whole load!
Nope, you’re spot on, but Governor Moonbeam has rebranded himself into Gov. Sunbeam, and his revival circus show will be passing legislation to suspend the laws of physics.
However the laws of economics will actually advance Sunbeam’s goal, but only due to how the numbers are derived. CA may well be 100% green and be able to supply all the needs of the few remaining individuals, as every one with means will be leaving for OR, WA, or heaven forbid ND. They are plotting a strategy to turn CA from the worlds 8th largest economy to one that will be teetering on the brink of collapse. I can only wish that the secessionists succeed (wow! say that one 3 times real fast) so that the rest of the US won’t have to bail them out.
Rocketscientist, this is just a plan to make a small fortune in renewables. Start with a large fortune.
that one that one that one
Easy, (-;
There will always be winners in the green game, such as Al Gore.
Yes, but demand is not constant over 24 hours, nor is it constant over the year. Many places have a peak in demand during daylight hours when solar is most available. Fossil fuel plant is OFF when renewables are running… forecasting allows fossil fuel (gas) to be spun up as renewables fall off and soon batteries will entirely replace spinning reserve/peaker plant
UK has good wind resource in winter when solar produces less (though I note yesterday wind and solar were producing 38% of all UK electricity during the day, with coal at 1%). California in summer can meet an increasing part of demand from solar, with batteries, hydro and CSP covering the evening peak/ramp up as solar falls off.
Your assertions are out of date.
I see Griff is back to peddling nonsense.
Yes, demand is variable but so what? Unless the variabilities line up, this makes the problem worse, not better.
The peak in demand for electricity is in the early evening. The peak solar is closer to noon. Just because both are technically during the day isn’t relevant.
No, fossil fuel plants are not “OFF” when renewables are generating power. The reason for this is simple enough that even a low grade moron such as yourself should be able to understand it.
You can’t just shut down and turn on fossil fuel plants with the flick of a switch. They take hours to days to start up or shut down.
Secondly, running them at anything less than flat out means they aren’t being run efficiently which increases their cost.
Griff, just last year I heard a Ca-ISO representative complain about the need to quickly ramp up fossil fuel-fired generation in the late afternoon as solar output slides to zero and residential demand soars. ISO has to try to be efficient in programming generation to meet demand, so it tries to ramp up the more efficient base load plants (mostly combined cycle turbines) to meet demand, but that rapid increase in generation is not something those combined cycle turbines are designed for, and boilers physically cannot do it, so there is an increase in wear and rear on those units from this misuse to accommodate the renewables fad. Please let me know if the magic battery fairy ever shows up, but in the mean time the renewables mandate is molesting California’s else trinity generators as badly as Michael Mann molested his paleoclimatology data.
In California renewable output peaks around 1 pm but demand peaks between 8-9 pm.
Your governor has his head where the sun never shines and is, accordingly dim!
Hey MarkW, don’t be rude! Just because everything he says is moronic doesn’t mean Griffy is a moron! Griffy is not a moron, he’s making big bucks getting paid to troll this and numerous other sites!
“Congratulations”
You forgot the /sarc tag.
Certainly coal power plant announced shutdowns have continued since Trump got in…
In Griff’s world, any trend that he likes will continue forever. Reality need not apply.
CA is emitting 250% more since closing SONGS nuclear plant and paying Nevada Power $.08 KWh to take excess power
It sounds crazy but it’s actually standard operating practice for most systems.
If California has excess power, why is Wyoming adding the Barack Obama Legacy Wind Plant (aka Sierra-madre-Chokecherry)? All that wonderful wind energy defiling that plains was to go to California. California doesn’t sully it’s own state with the turbines. They destroy other’s states.
I live in CA Sheri, and we’ve got turbines everywhere. They used to amuse me. Now I see them as monuments to evil.
I wonder, David, does your cost per KWH include subsidies, or is it just user price?
States generating electricity from coal should start to have a second look at the imputed damage from coal combustion. When they export coal generated electricity they should add to it the supposedly economic cost of electricity generation from coal. So if it takes $0.10/kwh they should charge $0.30/kwhr when they dispatched the coal generated across the boundary Then take in $0.08/kwhr when there is an excess of power on the other side of the boundary as electricity from wind and is hardly stored at all. If they negotiate really hard they may be even able to get below $0.08/kwhr
Why should anyone look at ficticious (imputed) numbers?
Loose any sensible argument and invent the term “imputed” where on can makeup any number with false information. Sounds like the methods the Soviets used to starve the population
What is the imputed value of all those birds death Obama gave a pass on?
eo June 7, 2017 at 6:18 pm
eo, as a resident of the State of WV, …… I shur would appreciate it iffen you would tell me what some of those “imputed damage from coal combustion” are ….. and how they are affecting my health and living standards.
Or are you just one of those “streetcorner mimickers” that is 100% supportive of the “green agenda”?
eo, what are these alleged pollutions from coal. All the bad stuff was taken care of decades ago and is already priced into the cost of production.
So now Griffy’s alter ego EO is lecturing us on the BS concept of externality!
Don’t forget to add in the imputed costs of solar, e.g. the toxic waste nightmare spreading across Chinese water systems.
The same relationship holds for Europe. Denmark highest renewable electricity share (wind) and highest retail rate. Germany second highest renewables and retail rate.
That’s because wind and solar are cheap – according to knowledgeable Christiana Figueres of UNFCCC and Paris Agreement fame. Always a superior knowledge.
See guest post True Cost of Wind over at Judith’s Climate Etc for a proper comparison. CCGT ~$56/mwh. Onshore US Wind ~$146/mwh when properly compared with correct useful lifetimes, capacity factors, backup costs, and such.
The True Cost of Wind Electricity
https://judithcurry.com/2015/05/12/true-costs-of-wind-electricity/
DH, thanks. Again I was lazy on my iPad. That post’s comments are also important. Regards.
Everything is cheap, when other people are paying.
The kicker is that Germany is using just about as much lignite coal as it ever did. To get rid of the uncontrollable electricity from wind they are selling it cheaply to the rest of Europe. So, the Germans end up subsidizing everyone else. LOL link They boast about all their renewable electricity but it’s seen as a complete crock once you apply a sharp pencil.
They may need to hang on to that supply:
The Basler Zeitung writes: “a collapse of the power supply threatens when the remaining German nuclear power plants are taken offline over the coming years“.
When do the FPI figures get released?
(Frozen Pensioners Index).
18.87¢/kWh in California? I’ll take all you got. With the tiers and surcharges I doubt anyone effectively pays less than 25¢.
+1 In Southern California my last bill was $22 for 290 kWh usage ($.07477/kWh) and $51 with delivery, generation, basic charge, bonds, city tax, and state tax included.
Do you really care about the breakdown of delivery, generation, etc.? I personally don’t, but instead consider my total user cost. In San Diego, I paid $39.64 for 184 kWh. AFAIC, that’s 21.54 cents per kWh.
“…Do you really care about the breakdown of delivery, generation, etc.?….”
And you don’t? You must take that into account when you see charts/graphs showing the relative costs of electricity. Are they being honest or not? Honest = actual/total cost. Don’t you see that?
In Texas thanks to my high tech TPO roof I’m averaging less than 500kWh per month and my bill is in the $23.00 per month range ever since switching to plant rewards small consumers.
$51 / 290 = 17.7 c / kWh
Yes. I am pointing out the disparity in using kWh charges as the cost basis.
Present California tariffs in process ask for about 30 ¢ soon and about 50 ¢ not too long from now for residential retail. Time Of Day price tariff Central Vally Summers can run a few cents under $/kwhr. That is exactly when you need A/C most. Btw. 110 F in the shade and there aint no shade…
Yeah, I live in their rate zone… (PG&E)
Oh, and 19 ¢ /kwhr ends if you go over the set expected usage (average based on neighbors / area) so everyone is spanked if they are not below average… now think about that for a minute… can you ever get most people below average?…. so when is a penalty really a normal rate?…
I lived in the Inland Empire of SoCal for 28 years, and in fact started a renewable energy company in 1999. It was designed to take the green waste (lawn clippings, branches, etc) and turn them into natural gas. It would have been economically viable because municipalities at the time were paying disposers $20 a ton to safely get rid of green waste. The natural gas revenue would actually not have contributed almost anything to the bottom line, as it turns out. But it would have been solvent had the $20/ton rate kept going.
One of the reasons I finally fled SoCal was that my home electric bill was once $1,200 for a single month. It was due to the fact that electric power rates were set in a manner similar to progressive income tax rates, and I had a big house that used a fair amount of power. Mr. Smith is on point about that.
Can I assume you’re no in the market for an electric car?
… when everyone is above average !
I presume they only hit you with the higher rate for that amount that you go over , they do not recalculate all your bill at the ‘penalty’ rate.
Who in NJ is paying $0.15/kW-hr? With all fees and taxes, I’m at about $0.12.
DJ
I don’t know where you live but if I look at all the costs, it is about 0.15/kwh. It may be less in some locations until the planned shut down of a number of coal and Nuclear plants throughout the state to meet the upcoming renewable mandate. Electricity from all those offshore wind turbines will likely cost about $ 0.25/kwh. We are on the rod to hell and the enviros are fighting the natural gas line to convert to natural gas fired electricity facilities
I live in Canberra, Australia. We are almost completely powered by the Snowy Hydro Scheme and yet we are paying $0.15 per kW-hour. I know the ACT’s green government is paying into the green/renewable belief system, but it has only wasted one or two motzas on it, so I don’t see why our electricity prices should be so high.
Most of any bill is not from electricity. Most of it is transmission fees, nuclear decommissioning fees, distribution, and tree trimming, tariffs and other surcharges. Most of these other costs are set by politicians or utility oversite organizations. In some cases the oversize organizations may simply rubber stamp utility rate increases. In fact my last electricity bill in the San Francisco bay area was $0.11 per KWH. Total electricity bill was about $70 dollars and half of that was the cost of the electricity to power my volt. I live in a condo and my next door neighbor pays more than 2 times what I pay. Neither of use have air conditioners and my neighbor doesn’t have an electric vehicle. Why the bill difference? I have been systematically monitoring my power usage and looked for areas of waist and eliminating them. He is only just starting to realize that he needs to do the same. I am not living in dark rooms or sweating in hot rooms. I have a 50 inch TV (I watch too much) grow lights for my orchids and an aquarium that has a water pump that runs all the time.
There was a time when the Scots lead in the colonization of the Isthmus of Panama.
Oops…led not “lead”…
CA’s cost would be even higher if it didn’t get cheap hydropower from BPA. Besides OR and WA, BPA also serves ID, MT, NV, UT and WY.
There was no market for wind power in Montana. So a deal was made with Alberta to take Montana wind power.
Alberta has been picked- to- pieces/bashed from the inside and the outside.
Meanwhile the idiots in Alberta government are decommissioning coal!
And, hydropower electricity from Hoover Dam and Palo Verde nuclear power in AZ. With all the imported power California will never close to 100% renewables.
Can they actually back up their claim that the two states produce 20% of their electricity from renewables, or are they once again confusing installed capacity with actual production?
It’s nameplate uber alles.
That 20% figure excluding hydro is way too high. 15% including hydro. Renewables also includes biomass and geothermal (about 2% together).
Hydro is not renewable in California. We are basically agin dams. We don’t even want dams for water storage let alone renewable solar energy. Hydro is almost the only reliable form of solar on demand, because of the huge storage capacity of that dam battery. It’s trivial to send another thimble full of water down the turbine pipe, when I turn on my electric toothbrush; day or night.
G
Looking at the EIA numbers California net generation was 26.4% from renewables for the 1st quarter 2017. I haven’t looked at the 2016 numbers.
“…California net generation was 26.4% from renewables for the 1st quarter 2017….”
And how much of that was actually used? They won’t tell you because they can’t.
PG&E, My utility reports 30% renewables based on calculation methods the Ferc (Federal utilities and regulation commission and california utilities commission approve. And in the case of California old hydro does not count as renewable.
But of course the greenies will still say how economical wind and solar are. (Awake and online, Griff?).
Yes. So they don’t need or get subsidies either in US or EU. (No sarc tag needed, hopefully.)
I have not see a post for Griiff in weeks, yet there are posts about him every day. That is a accolade to how effective he was. GET OVER HIM.
Been on holiday… renewably powered Germany as it happens…
Is this the same Calif that passed a health care bill and no way to fund it?
..they over built and over refurbished gas plants…now they are generating more elec than they need
Californians are paying billions for power they don’t need
California regulators have for years allowed power companies to go on a building spree, vastly expanding the potential electricity supply in the state. Indeed, even as electricity demand has fallen since 2008, California’s new plants have boosted its capacity enough to power all of the homes in a city the size of Los Angeles — six times over. Additional plants approved by regulators will begin producing more electricity in the next few years.
Although California uses 2.6% less electricity annually from the power grid now than in 2008, residential and business customers together pay $6.8 billion more for power than they did then. The added cost to customers will total many billions of dollars over the next two decades, because regulators have approved higher rates for years to come so utilities can recoup the expense of building and maintaining the new plants, transmission lines and related equipment, even if their power isn’t needed.
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-capacity/
…and they get credit for doing something wonderful…when they should not even be allowed to run a coffee shop
Isn’t Nancy Pelosi’s husband connected in some way to the natural gas industry?
“when they should not even be allowed to run a Whelk stall”
In English-English parlance.
Auto
I like it!……..
whelks? those are the high end slugs
winkles for the underclass
Could CA capacity-building be a result of surrounding States withdrawing from power sales contracts?
California is destined to be 100% renewables (non hydro) and 100% electric vehicles. We will then find out just how much excess electricity California really has.
We probably have more excess electricity than does South Australia and Victoria combined.
G
Which is not surprising if you compare populations !
While overall demand has stayed flat. the type of power plants California needs are changing. With a lot of solar now California needs power plants that can ramp up and down very fast and completely shut down when not needed. Many of the older plants cannot do that. Furthermore with nuclear no longer being an economic source of power and last one will be shutting down soon. Also power demand on hot days can easily be double normal demand. So as a result older plants are being shut down or will be shut down in a few years. and new ones are being built. Also with the recent drought very little power was generated from hydro so probably some power plants were built due to the electricity needs during the drought. But all that said California utilities don’t own power plants. California utilities only sign contracts for power. The private sector may be overbuilding power plants right now
Why don’t they put a bunch of exercise bikes running generators in the civil service offices? A horn can sound every time a cloud goes over and the race begins! You might have a hope of getting some value out of your fleet of idiots and some power on demand and cheaper than wind and solar. Please post video on line if you use this idea. Please!
In there any info about the reliability in each the states? Remember there are two components to the retail price, the price of the energy and the cost of maintaining, (reliable), delivery. I pay about 14.75 cents for power from a co-op in Northern Michigan, but we have incredibly reliable delivery given the hostile winter weather that we have here. The reliability, alone, is worth a ton.
Michigan is in the process of obtaining more electricity from Ontario to cover an expected shortfall in electricity supply.
Michigan is already getting electricity generated in Ontario for very low prices and/or free. Ontario generated electricity is “dumped” on the market at prices below prices charged to Ontario residents. Same thing applies to New York. And how much would New Yorkers have to pay for their electricity without cheap and/or free Ontario generated electricity?
This practice has resulted in many Ontario residents being placed into Energy Poverty which is paid for Ontario residents. Ontario has government owned electricity generation.
Ontario is at present over-building their electricity capacity with no need for the additional electricity supply.
Vermont had to make a deal for Quebec generated electricity after Vermont closed its nuclear power plant. Transmission line construction is in progress from Quebec to Vermont.
California would have to curtail its electricity production if the new western states power grid had not been approved.
About time that the real facts are revealed.
Perhaps the role Earthjustice and the Sierra Club played in closing Michigan coal fired power plants should be reviewed? Earthjustice HQ is in California.
And at the same time Earthjustice and the Sierra Club were advocating for renewable energy in Michigan.
Wikipedia: Earthjustice
HQ San Francisco, Calif.
Programs: Earthjustice International Program
“Every year, Earthjustice submits a country-by-country report on human rights and the environment to the United Nations.”
Impact on U.S. environmental law:
In the 2006 Supreme Court case (Mass. v. EPA) Earthjustice attorneys helped a coalition of state governments and environmental groups to force the EPA to fight global warming by limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthjustice
EPA is U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Barbara, I think you are a bit confused. The surplus that Ontario sells is only available when it is not needed, hence the negative pricing. Ontario is adding capacity but it is non dispatchable so it can’t be relied upon to serve demand.
Perhaps you should check with parties that are watching how much it’s costing Ontarians for “dumping” surplus electricity into the U.S.?
Renewable energy producers in Ontario are first in line to provide electricity. So then nuclear has to be steamed off and/or hydro spilled to make way for renewable energy supplies to be first inline.
Nuclear & hydro power are curtailed so that the more expensive renewable energy is used first.
NPR/National Public Radio, Pennsylvania, July 11, 2016
Environmentalists challenge grid operator’s new reliability ‘regulation’
The Sierra Club, NRDC, Earthjustice and Union of Concerned Scientists filed a lawsuit Friday challenging a federal agency’s approval of the new regulation adopted by the operator of the nation’s largest power grid, PJM Interconnection.
Earthjustice + environmental groups filed a lawsuit against a Federal agency.
https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2016/07/11/environmentalists-challenge-grid-operators-new-reliability-regulation
Fair point. Where I’m at in FL certainly isn’t cheap, but considering that after a CAT II hurricane they can get power up and running again fast enough that the food in the freezer doesn’t spoil, I can at least see where the money is going. Considering that we’re in the lower 50% across the country (27th in the chart above), I’m pretty pleased with the service.
Contrast that to New Orleans where the power was certainly cheaper (LA is 49th above), but we lost power in a light wind. We had a prolonged outage at least three times a month the entire time I lived there. A CAT IV hurricane (basically a decent sized thunderstorm for those unfamiliar) took more than two weeks to recover from. The power savings over four years were probably more than made up for in the cost of spoiled perishables alone. I can’t imagine what kind of financial havoc it played with industrial customers. Every grocer had to have a massive back-up generation system installed on-site.
My kingdom for an edit button. Got the hurricane categories backwards.
Looking at Ca’s Energy sources…it gets 16% from hydro….pretty large factor compared to the average US at 8%…only 8% comes from nuclear….they will shortly need to make that up. probably from out of state coal….lol….they already get a considerable amount of power from out of state…they only stand around 11% wind and solar….a few more percentages with biomass and geothermal. but a whopping 60% comes from nat gas….I’d like to see what happens when they try to go 100% renewables…..glad I don’t live in that state…..
They will do quite well since they will merely fall back on the grid and let the grid balance their unstable power and supply what they need – sort of like South Australia, but the grid California ties into has greater capacity.
Total renewables for california right now is 30% excluding hydro. The utilities are required to reach 30% by 2020 . They got there a little early. There are even higher renewable target for 2030 and 2040. There are power shortages and power reliability is about equal to any other state.
“Total renewables for california right now is 30% excluding hydro.” Nameplate, not actual usage.
The California ISO shows renewable capacity at 28.7% of total installed capacity as of 3/27/2017.
“….renewable capacity at 28.7% of total installed capacity….” Useless data. How much ‘renewable’ energy is actually used?
Make believe-not actual. There, fixed it for you.
The bottom 25 differ by about 2 3/4 cents , the top 25 by 8 cents. Obviously, we have a winner for the cause of rate spikes.
Interesting. So Oregon and Washington are low because of massive hydroelectric capacities – the same sort of renewables that “greenies” really hate to start with. I am surprised that they haven’t tried to have them destroyed like California did theirs, unless, of course, they are federally owned perhaps?
Irony can be so ironic!
Oregon’s recently disgraced governor did try to breech the Columbia River dams, the geese which have laid so many golden eggs, but since they’re mostly federal, he couldn’t.
He had also previously opposed wind mills because of their presumed ill effects upon ground squirrels.
But now it appears that only salmon are animals worthy of Green worship and protection. Birds, bats and squirrels, not so much.
They are. At least one dam on the Columbia is targeted for removal. One dam on the Olympic Peninsula has already been removed and many of the smaller hydro power plants are having a hard time gettin thei licenses renewed.
There is cost, and then there is value.
The value of an energy source that cannot respond to load demand is next to zero or negative.
Then there’s California, the “best of both worlds”… Higher cost *and* less value!
Leaving the question, what is a Green idea worth?
How much influence does Bonneville Power purchasing by California have on the overall CA average?
I don’t know, but large hydro has fallen as a source since 2011.
https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=CA
Drought, maybe?
David, are you aware that NE US gets a big proportion of its electricity from Quebec Hydro. Wholesale price is 4¢/kWh and Minnesota, and possibly others, get subsidized power from windmills in Ontario! (they way over built w-capacity because the lefty prov gov had a secret plan to force us off natural gas for heating in the near future! The policy document was leaked and there was a furor and they backed off saying it was one of a range theoretical ideas.). If you can find how much electricity imported by state you could calculate the real price of for those states. I believe the entire city of NY uses QH power. The citizens are being ripped off those prices with the state getting a bigger profit than QH.
NYC is not yet getting their whole supply of electricity from Quebec but they would like to get more if not all of their electricity from Quebec and Ontario.
Pennsylvania as well. Closed down western Pennsylvania coal power plants and now want electricity from Ontario. The Lake Erie HVDC under water line has already been approved for 1,000 MW with maybe expansion to 2,000 MW if approved. Cable will connect Ontario and western Pennsylvania.
I did know that, I grew up in Connecticut. Even though I was only 7 years old at the time, I remember this:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/57769/12-biggest-electrical-blackouts-history
It was rumored that the The Great Northeast Blackout was the result of a UFO attack… 😉
“1. NORTHEAST UNITED STATES AND NORTHERN CANADA // NOVEMBER 9, 1965”
So, NWT and Yukon had a blackout?
Washington state is lowest because of Bonneville power and the legacy of committed public works projects back when dams they were not blocked by advocacy groups.
At the time, new Federal hydropower was more expensive than existing. The REA coops bought it at the time because the IOUs wouldn’t.
When existing hydropower became less expensive, BPA started spreading it around to the favored, including IOUs.
…and when a major silver mine in northern Idaho closed in a steel workers union fight, its power commitment was sold off to California.
why do I imagine you were thinking of blueschist?
Blueschist is what falls from the sky when planes flush in flight
But it “sends the world a message”. THAT’s the important thing.
Yeah. Yet more posing, posturing, symbolism and money-wasting by the elite ruling ‘do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do’ class of clueless morons. AKA, ‘our betters’.
How do you afford to live. Here in Alberta we pay less than $0.05/kWh Canadian plus $40/month delivery fees. That is primarily Coal and Natural Gas (its too flat here for hydro electric dams).
Does the above table include delivery fees etc?
I’m pretty sure it does. I pay about 11¢/kWh in Dallas. About 8¢ goes to Reliant for the electricity and about 3¢ goes to Oncor for delivery.
Well, we don’t use the A/C, the heater is gas, all lightling possible is CFL or LED (though that is very limited as they have a blue spike that resets your bioclock and causes insomnia..so I have a drawer full or removed LED bulbs and now we sleep well again). The entertainment center was just converted to lower power flat screens. I use a Raspberry Pi main desktop (about 5 W instead of 200+W). The fridge is now smaller with high efficiency.
That just leaves the All Electric Kitchen… so I’ve got a camp stove for boiling water to make drip coffee and bought a kerosene stove / oven for bread baking. It sits on the patio where the propane BBQ gets lots of use… I still use the AEK for some quick meals, and sometimes a slowcooker for the other end. Cold salads and sandwiches help too. Especially when not using the A/C on warm days… Cold cerial instead of pancakes makes low electricity breakfast, too. Lots of wood for the wood BBQ, weather permitting. Yeah, 2 different fueled BBQs. Propane easier if there is damp or drizzle. Lucky we have dry 80% of the year…
How burning gasoline, kerosene, and wood improves the environment is left as an exercise for the student of all things green-law…
Oh, and the water heater is gas too. Basically, use gas wherever possible, use efficient appliances where you can, avoid cooking other than fast things or use older fuel based tech for long cooking things or short intense power (bring 6 cups water to a boil… means fire up the fire… I have a click to light propane one-burner that is great for that.). Then the microwave gets a lot of use…
I have a semi-automated electric pressure cooker that doesn’t use much power once it’s raised its contents to the desired cooking level. It’s an Instant Pot, the latest version of which which has 4.6 stars on Amazon reviews and sells for $120 here:
https://www.amazon.com/Instant-Pot-Multi-Functional-Pressure-Cooker/dp/B01NBKTPTS/ref=sr_1_3?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1496878143&sr=1-3&keywords=instant+pot
My house is 100% LED lighting and I’ve never had any problem sleeping.
Regarding the ‘blue spike’, if you believe this, it appears that the ‘warm white’ LEDs do not have the dreaded ‘blue spike’. I think that most ‘cool while’ lights (weather LED or other) have that blue spike; it is what makes it ‘cool’.
Yeah I’ve been to Alberta and it sure is flat, specially if you are driving from Banff to Jasper. Just boring mile after boring mile, flat as a pancake. Specially around the Columbia Ice Field. Sort of like a frozen lake or the Arctic sea ice.
G
Flat!?! You’re in the middle of the Rocky Mountains! There are 10,000 to 14,000 peaks on both sides of you.
What’s boring is having to drive around 30 mph (something like 57 km). But then you can round the bend and there are 30 rams in the road. Hit one of those at your peril.
Alberta has a thin little slice of the Rocky Mountains. There are a few dams in there, but it is mostly all National Parks, so no industrial development allowed.
When I say ‘No Hydroelectric’ power, that is a bit of hyperbole. Here is a Wikipedia list of our meager hydroelectric power generation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generating_stations_in_Alberta#Hydroelectric
That’s even less than Montreal (in Quebec, where hydro is abundant), if the number further up is correct.
Once again we see the utter stupidity of the greenie folks. “Clean” energy they define arbitrarilly and, stranger than fiction, they leave out nuclerar power, which means that they are not basing “clean” on emissions. When one eliminates emissions as a criteria, then certainly a 2500 MW coal plant that occupies perhaps 75 acres, producing power that is equal to that produced by 6250 wind turbines, occupying tens of thousands of acres would have to have a far smaller environmental footprint. Ditto for all those solar roofs. Wind turbines rest on a more or less square block of concrete built into the ground. So where is the money coming from to remove these concrete monsters when the time comes, something already required and already being financed by nuclear power plants? And turbines DO have negative effects on the ground around them.
South Carolina is close to adding yet two more nuclear plants into its grid, and already produces enormously fewer emissions than California. SC currently is 57.2% nuclear as of this past quarter, and after the addition of the two new nuclear plants, will add 19.8%, yielding 77% of its power emission free. THAT is clean energy, unsubsidized by the Feds. California will never reach that level of emission free power. As I recall, they are targetting 25% emission free in a decade or so as their goal. and it’s not even clear which power they are talking about, since a large proportion of California’s power is bought from plants outside the state and not under the control of California. California, land of stupid idiots and even dumber govts.
I might add that the power required by a fleet of a million all electric cars (the approx number of vehicles in South Carolina) could be provided by less than a third of the output of a single nuclear reactor.
Um, we who live here (and considering our ag. history) like to say:
“California, land of fruits and nuts”
Both kinds….
It is a geologic fact that the continental U.S. tilts to the SW, and everything loose rolls into CA.
“South Carolina is close to adding yet two more nuclear plants into its grid”
Do you know if the Cherokee plant is still go?
I believe it is doubt since Westinghouse went bankrupt…
Worse yet the only nuclear plant still “on-line” in California is scheduled to be shut down in the near future. PG&E plans to close Diablo Canyon within the next 10 years. The plant has been in operation since 1985 and still has useful life but the greenies in CA are too strong a force. PG&E has totally caved to environmental mandates.
Also just announced, 3 mile island plant to close…
“the utter stupidity of the greenie folks”
Well, they apparently believe that reality is comprised of just a competing set of narratives and whoever’s narrative is shrieked loudest and most often, wins. Unfortunately their allies seem to be politicians and media, so their delusion works far more than it should.
Well, to quote every eco-activist I’ve ever heard, “It’s just a beginning… just a BARE beginning.”
I’m sure they’ll make up that penny and then some.
“further confirmation that regardless of the Trump administration’s efforts to promote fossil-fuel interests, clean energy is making undeniable inroads.” In the case of California it is because the legislature has mandated it. That is why our energy costs are so high. The inroads are only because individual states are mandating the change. It ain’t because it is the cheapest source out there. The free market pricing has nothing to do with this increase in wind and solar.
But the PTC/Production Tax Credit does. The PTC which was adopted by the U.S. government is a way of transforming to the new Green Energy Economy.
Canada is using the Feed-in-tariff way of transforming to the new Green Economy.
State mandates are at the sub-national level to get renewable energy installed in states or provinces.
State mandates plus the PTC or Feed-in-tariffs are the way to the new Green Economy.
Interesting, but misses the mark entirely.
Average residential electricity price in the US lower 48 states is an almost perfect function of electricity consumption per capita (kWh/y/customer), with least-squares-regression r^2 = 0.9997. see e.g. Figure 1 at http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-perfect-correlation-us-electricity.html (data from US Energy Information Agency for calendar year 2014)
Such residential prices have very little, if any at all, to do with renewable contribution to the state’s grid. The facts show that California residential electricity use is below the national average, and the price per kWh consumed is slightly above average. The reason for the California higher price relative to the national average is low electricity consumption in a mild climate, by a very large number of customers, approximately 15 million customers statewide.
In addition, to disprove the contention that increased renewable energy also increases residential prices, see Figure 1 of http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/california-electricity-rates.html.
In California, where renewable energy contributed almost zero to the grid ten years ago, residential prices have barely kept up with inflation over the past decade. Over the past 20 years (1995 to present), inflation-adjusted residential prices have declined 2 cents per kWh, a bit more than 10 percent.
The renewable-energy bashing may continue on WUWT. but the facts show clearly that renewables do not increase residential electricity prices. Quite the opposite is true.
I would definitely consume a lot less electricity if I had to spend $0.19/kWh.
What are you paying now *ALL IN* for electricity, David?
I am paying 18.5 cents per kWH ALL IN here just north of Dallas, Texas.
Base Rate is 11.5 c per kWH, BUT, the delivery charge fee ADDS another 30 some percent to the final bill. That, and a few misc fees and taxes.
DO YOU SEE THE NUMBERS GAME BEING PLAYED YET!?
I’m paying about $0.11/kWh, all-in, for a very large house with 4 AC units, a pool and a lot of other gadgets and about $0.13/kWh, all-in, for a small apartment in Houston.
I don’t see “THE NUMBERS GAME BEING PLAYED”… but, I minored in math.
I live in West Texas and I am looking at my most recent electric bill. My all-in price includes usage charge, energy charge, Oncor electric delivery services, gross receipts tax Reimbursement (whatever that is), and Sales Tax 1.5%. My total is .123 $/KWh. In Texas, unlike California, the more I use, the cheaper it gets.
Soon to be a little higher usage per California customer when the Brownian Motion to 100% renewable and 100% electric kicks in.
Elon Musk already knows that someone is paying for the free electricity his cars use. Pretty soon he’ll find out how much that person is paying for his 650 horsepower commute vehicles. Well with the only reliable battery charger, being in your garage, your actual safe driving range is closer to 70 miles than it is to 300.
I just did a round trip from Sunnyvale to Brentwood in Socal (OJ Street) on a single tank of gas less the final 30 miles, and the reason we used so much gas, is I let my son drive about one third of the trip, and he’s a lead foot. Well we went down there for a party and then drove home. Who would stay in Socal, specially in the hollyweird/Santa Monica region ??
G
“Elon Musk already knows that someone is paying for the free electricity his cars use. ”
Yes he knows where it is comming from. He is paying for it. It has been that way since tesla started. HOwever in the last couple of years they have changed there policy and free power is now limited. If you exceed your limit they charge your.
You sir, are either deliberately deceiving or You are deceived.
Yup
http://eyeonhousing.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Map_2013.png
Too fracking funny… There isn’t a special green exemption from the law of supply and demand. Lower demand doesn’t cause higher prices.
The combination of the Peoples Republic of California’s Euro-sized electricity rates and its climate lead to lower demand in the PRC…
If Texas had summers like the PRC, the average monthly electricity bill would be a lot lower.
Southern California Edison charges 0.16 cents/KWh in Tier 1 (up to 335 kWh), 0.25 cents/kWh in Tier 2 (up to 1,340 kWh) and 0.31 cents/kWh in Tier 3 (now called HIGH USAGE CHARGE), I call it the save the planet charge, feed a democrat charge above 1341 kWh. If you have a larger home with two AC units and or a pool, it can easily go into Tier 3. Electricity bills above $500 per month are not unusual in the summer, sometimes higher.