The following article was written by a leading environmental activist, who’s also running for governor of California, not some fossil-fuel advocate.
Guest essay by Michael Schellenberger
Over the last year, the media have published story after story after story about the declining price of solar panels and wind turbines.
People who read these stories are understandably left with the impression that the more solar and wind energy we produce, the lower electricity prices will become.
And yet that’s not what’s happening. In fact, it’s the opposite.
Between 2009 and 2017, the price of solar panels per watt declined by 75 percent while the price of wind turbines per watt declined by 50 percent.
And yet — during the same period — the price of electricity in places that deployed significant quantities of renewables increased dramatically.
Electricity prices increased by:
- 51 percent in Germany during its expansion of solar and wind energy from 2006 to 2016;
- 24 percent in California during its solar energy build-out from 2011 to 2017;
- over 100 percent in Denmark since 1995 when it began deploying renewables (mostly wind) in earnest.
What gives? If solar panels and wind turbines became so much cheaper, why did the price of electricity rise instead of decline?
One hypothesis might be that while electricity from solar and wind became cheaper, other energy sources like coal, nuclear, and natural gas became more expensive, eliminating any savings, and raising the overall price of electricity.
But, again, that’s not what happened.
The price of natural gas declined by 72 percent in the U.S. between 2009 and 2016 due to the fracking revolution. In Europe, natural gas prices dropped by a little less than half over the same period.
The price of nuclear and coal in those place during the same period was mostly flat.
Another hypothesis might be that the closure of nuclear plants resulted in higher energy prices.
Evidence for this hypothesis comes from the fact that nuclear energy leaders Illinois, France, Sweden and South Korea enjoy some of the cheapest electricity in the world.
Since 2010, California closed one nuclear plant (2,140 MW installed capacity) while Germany closed 5 nuclear plants and 4 other reactors at currently-operating plants (10,980 MW in total).
Electricity in Illinois is 42 percent cheaper than electricity in California while electricity in France is 45 percent cheaper than electricity in Germany.
But this hypothesis is undermined by the fact that the price of the main replacement fuels, natural gas, and coal, remained low, despite increased demand for those two fuels in California and Germany.
That leaves us with solar and wind as the key suspects behind higher electricity prices. But why would cheaper solar panels and wind turbines make electricity more expensive?
The main reason appears to have been predicted by a young German economist in 2013.
In a paper in Energy Policy, Leon Hirth estimated that the economic value of wind and solar would decline significantly as they become a larger part of electricity supply.
The reason? Their fundamentally unreliable nature. Both solar and wind produce too much energy when societies don’t need it, and not enough when they do.
Solar and wind thus require that natural gas plants, hydro-electric dams, batteries or some other form of reliable power be ready at a moment’s notice to start churning out electricity when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining.
And unreliability requires solar- and/or wind-heavy places like Germany, California, and Denmark to pay neighboring nations or states to take their solar and wind energy when they are producing too much of it.
Hirth predicted that the economic value of wind on the European grid would decline 40 percent once it becomes 30 percent of electricity while the value of solar would drop by 50 percent when it got to just 15 percent.
In 2017, the share of electricity coming from wind and solar was 53 percent in Denmark, 26 percent in Germany, and 23 percent in California. Denmark and Germany have the first and second most expensive electricity in Europe.
By reporting on the declining costs of solar panels and wind turbines but not on how they increase electricity prices, journalists are — intentionally or unintentionally — misleading policymakers and the public about those two technologies.
The Los Angeles Times last year reported that California’s electricity prices were rising, but failed to connect the price rise to renewables, provoking a sharp rebuttal from UC Berkeley economist James Bushnell.
“The story of how California’s electric system got to its current state is a long and gory one,” Bushnell wrote, but “the dominant policy driver in the electricity sector has unquestionably been a focus on developing renewable sources of electricity generation.”
Part of the problem is that many reporters don’t understand electricity. They think of electricity as a commodity when it is, in fact, a service — like eating at a restaurant.
The price we pay for the luxury of eating out isn’t just the cost of the ingredients most of which, like solar panels and wind turbines, have declined for decades.
Rather, the price of services like eating out and electricity reflect the cost not only of a few ingredients but also their preparation and delivery.
This is a problem of bias, not just energy illiteracy. Normally skeptical journalists routinely give renewables a pass. The reason isn’t that they don’t know how to report critically on energy — they do regularly when it comes to non-renewable energy sources — but rather because they don’t want to.
That could — and should — change. Reporters have an obligation to report accurately and fairly on all issues they cover, especially ones as important as energy and the environment.
A good start would be for them to investigate why, if solar and wind are so cheap, they are making electricity so expensive.
Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,” Green Book Award Winner, and President of Environmental Progress, a research and policy organization.
Read more at Forbes Blogs
Add to that the fact that we are shutting down perfectly usable, mostly paid off, ling lived generation capacity, only to replace it with short lived junk that will not be paid off for 30 years, far after they become worn out.
And the increases in prices hurt the 99% folks the most. Women and children…
That’s the problem with Utopia . It’s bad for those it says to protect like any socialist idea.
Sue the pants off them. There probably should be some sort of “class action” “environmentalists knew” case taken against the alarmist brigade. That case would point out the full scope of the deliberate wilfull ignorance that has been on display for decades.
Plus the installation of a no privacy Smart Meter.
“…installation of a no privacy Smart Meter”
How does a Smart Meter invade your privacy? You can opt-out if you want.
In several ways:
1. others can read your energy demand any time
2. government can switch you off any time.
They know exactly what electronic device you are using and at what moment. And in spain you can’t opt-out . If you know how please tell me.
Paul, Samrt meters are mandatory in Texas if you want to be connected to the grid.
Sorry, I was wrong. CenterPoint will be happy to reinstall a dumb meter for $201 up front and $32.80 per month forever thereafter.
…The main reason appears to have been predicted by a young German economist in 2013….
That’s funny.
I would imagine that this complete mess would have been predicted by the Electrical Engineers themselves when the idea was first mooted – but then they were probably white male techies, and therefore no one need listen to them.
It was also predicted by Dr Denny, in her famous PhD thesis on wind power in 2007 : https://erc.ucd.ie/files/theses/Eleanor%20Denny%20-%20A%20Cost-Benefit%20Analysis%20of%20Wind%20Power.pdf
But the environmentalists didn’t read that either. She was probably a denier.
It looks as if they will inly start reading things that predict a problem once the problem has been made real, apparent, and they are fairly sure they won’t get ostracised for reading them. Much like politicians. Not a good way to run anything….
Long before those dates. Any engineer responsible for long range planning (and costs) of ANY electric utility in the US could have and should have been consulted. I started work for Portland General Electric in 1974 and I was immediately aware that any of the engineers in power supply there were (and are) well aware of the quality of power issues (wind and solar are LOW quality power producers simply because they are NOT always available when the demand requires). That being a fact, it is necessary to provide ‘other’ generation capacity virtually at all times. Since the biggest cost to a utility is the capital investment (NOT FUEL!) the capital cost always drives the electric rate. It has never been a secret but sometimes folks have to actually ask the right questions and be prepared to accept answers that don’t fit their preconceived notions of reality.
My experience with greenies is that they are so indoctrinated that nothing can possibly go wrong with going green. The world will be 1 big green lollypop. They live in a fantasy green delusion. And no one can reason with them.
An excellent article! Now we need to be sure Politicians of all stripes in the UK and other countries where this ludicrous rush for “renewables” is costing everybody a fortune! Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland would do well to read it, for sure!
Phil
Nicola Sturgeon can’t read anything but her own propaganda!
My desire is to retire back to Scotland in five years or so, from the SE of England.
I’m not doing it if the SNP are still in residence, I’ll just have to console myself with Cumbria, as close to the border as I can get, but still in England.
You could try Northumberland, HotScot. Always happy to accept Scottish refugees!
Newminster
Thank you, also under consideration.
Nicola Sturgeon is a Scots Nationalist and a Socialist, a National Socialist if you like.Yup, that’s about right.
Scots of my acquaintance refer to Nicola Sturgeon as “Wee Jimmie Krankie”.
Or the red dwarf.
Very non-PC
That’s the one that wanted an independent Scotland ruled by Brussel.
Robertvd
Correction…….that’s the one that want’s…………..The mad protégé of the mad Salmond has been left carrying the can for his failure, and she’s to stupid to recognise it.
An excellent article! Now we need to be sure politicians of all stripes, in the UK and other countries where this ludicrous rush for “renewables” is costing everybody a fortune, read it and learn from it! Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland would do well to read it, for sure!
The main reason appears to have been predicted by a young German economist in 2013.
Expletive, expletive, expletive. Are expletive serious? Predicted by a young German economist in 2013? Are you expletive expletive serious?
How about EXPLAINED by every last person with any background in power generation AT ALL since before the very first idiotic solar and wind farms were even proposed, let alone built. Who with any understanding of the basics of power grids DIDN’T see this coming? Yeah some of them didn’t have the cahonies to say so because it wasn’t politically correct, but the notion that this was first thought of by some fresh faced economist is absurd.
+100
+1000
We have been shouting for years: No one listens
Exactly. The economics only works for the Lefties if the Quality of Service (QOS) targets are very significantly relaxed, but it’s so so obvious and so easy to calculate that such ignorance at such high levels of governments and advisory institutions belies belief. If ideology corrupts, absolute ideology corrupts absolutely.
I do not see where the author claims that Leon Hirth was the first to state the issue. A link is given to a published paper that explains what is happening. The word “predicted” is used (and I haven’t read the Hirth paper) here but that does not imply “a first” claim.
It is good to have a reference to an actual paper, rather than to what Leo S. claims as “have been shouting for years.”
I’ve been reading posts here at WUWT since fall of 2008 (migrated from POTS to DSL), and picking up other blogs since, and now this issue is something I seem to have known forever.
I am sure that EEs recognized this very soon, but one doesn’t have to be an EE to see. Rather, I think some don’t see it because they don’t want to.
Someone could do us a favor and search for the first 10 or 20 papers that made predictions of this sort.
That would be a good read. But I’m not the one to do it.
I’ll just say thanks to A.W. and his blog.
For a start here is a paper from 2004 that makes the point.
And here is a PDF of a 2006 report to the Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers by my father that follows on from that.
In the late 1970’s this was all explained in excruciating detail to Governor Jerry Brownout and his PUC and Energy Commission. They chose ideology.
I think EEs have always understood that intermittent asynchronous generating resources were not as good for the system as conventional generation, But when the amounts were small and the system was robust it was not a big deal. In theory (and practice) their use in small amounts instead of conventional generators would cause either a slight decrease in reliability or increase in cost (or both). The small burdens from small amounts, many would judge as worthwhile due to what we might learn and how we might support future growth of beneficial technologies. I think most EEs expected that such technology would only be expanded when it could provide enough benefits to pay for the extra costs it incurred. When it became apparent that mandates and subsidies were supporting uneconomic renewab
(Cut off)… uneconomic levels of renewables those concerns were widely understood and the potential consequences feared.
This is when I like to mention that California had windmills in the early ’80s, you can see them in the closing shot of the movie “Less than Zero” w. Robert Downey Jr. and James Spader. Not a good movie, but I like to notice backrounds, and in the shot they are on a highway, camera pulls back to show what was likely a Jimmy Carter-subsidized wind farm. How’d those work out? I’m guessing it worked out just like Dave Fair (or somebody he knows) explained it to Jerry Brown way back then.
Throw enough money at it, however, and any electric generation system will work. The problem is that there is little money left over for other things. It’s like everything else in life.
Paul,
Wind farms with smaller turbines were built during Jerry Brown’s first two terms as governor in the late 1970s and early ’80s. As you suspected, they didn’t work out so well.
The bigger, more advanced Chinese turbines of today are a little more powerful but far deadlier to birds and bats. And of course more unsightly and still soak up huge subsidies, squandering money better left unspent.
“In 2017, the share of electricity coming from wind and solar was 53 percent in Denmark, 26 percent in Germany, and 23 percent in California. Denmark and Germany have the first and second most expensive electricity in Europe.”
Great article, but I question the amount of power from wind and sun in Germany. More likely this is th e sum of “renewables”, which include hydro, and, more importantly, “biofuel”. Sun and wind are probably down to ca. 15%.
One always has to be cautious when talking about “renewables.” Those sources are that much of the energy supply in those places – by nameplate generating capacity.
The nameplate on a coal plant, natural gas plant, nuclear plant (and hydro, assuming no severe drought) tells you what it can generate; just flip the switch. Wind and solar – not. In fact, they only generate their nameplate capacity under very rare conditions. The “flip the switch” sources have to make up the deficit when the “renewable” sources can’t meet demand – and you still have to pay for the upkeep and operators of those reliable sources even when they are NOT running – which raises prices.
I wish the author of the OP well – although his bid for Governor is certainly not going anywhere. Not in California.
Writing –
Very astute observation. If an area starts with a coal fired plant for electricity and adds solar and wind, then they have just added new installation and maintenance costs to their area. Those costs have to be paid.
Otter Tail Power Company in Minnesota is asking for a rate hike in South Dakota (they serve both states) primarily to recoup the costs involved in their wind farm investment.
German grid data available here
https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm
It also gives a good indication of what the weather (well wind and sun) was like on any given day!
Also here. https://www.agora-energiewende.de/de/themen/-agothem-/Produkt/produkt/76/Agorameter/
I noticed that Germany’s solar and wind totals 22.4% for electricity generation and biomass is a further 7%. and burning of waste provides 0.9%. Can anybody confirm that the burning of the biomass and waste is completely pollution free in that all the particulate matter is caught in the scrubbers? So not counting nuclear (11.7%) and hydro(3.1%) ; renewables total up to 30.3%. I would think that geothermal will add to this total in the future. However the challenge will be to hit the 50% renewable goal not counting nuclear and hydro, without sending the price/cost of electricity through the roof. The German authorities definitely have that goal in mind. I just dont see how that is possible considering the massive capital cost of electrical lines for the grid to accomodate this new solar and wind generation.
I could see getting some electricity from wind in Denmark, intermittent though it would be. But sun?? The country doesn’t get all that much sun even in summer, and what there is comes in at a lowish angle. I can’t imagine the solar segment of production giving out more than five or ten percent of capacity.
Yes, excellent cold hard look at the thing.
This is connected to the idiotic persistence in using Levelised Costs as a standard of comparison between conventional and wind and solar. This amounts to pretending that intermittency has no cost, and that all electricity is equally valuable and usable no matter when its produced and no matter what the demand may be at the time. A huge peak produced when there is no demand has the same value as when there is no demand. Suddenly dropping off supply when demand is high has no cost either.
Its idiotic, it was refuted years ago by peer reviewed papers, but the faithful will still not admit it because it conflicts with their fantasy of a world running on wind and solar
You find this being argued among other places on Ars Technica which on climate has turned into an echo chamber of fanatical global warming doom mongers, and equally fanatical religious believers in renewables.
Good to see a sensible business approach to the whole scam.
Nothing wrong with levelised costs, provided they ARE levelised
Renebasles are not. Their external costs – backup, grid connection, storage, environmental impact, especially where their raw materials are sourced – none of these are added in to provide a holistic ‘levelised cost’. Neither is cost of capital which may be subject to low interest ‘green loans’.
The net result is falling prices from ‘renewables’ and rising cost to the consumer.
As soon as you run out of other people’s money to maintain this system it will fall apart in an eyeblink. Most people can buy a Ferrari. It’s the maintenance which makes it expensive to drive.
Whoever has the lowest energy prices wins in the world market place. The germans and we here in Ontario are beginning to realize that we are losers because of going green
I am surprised the author didn’t quote the experiences coming out of Australia. The states with the highest percentage of so-called renewable energy have the highest electricity prices. They also have to import electricity from neighbor states when the sun’s not shining and the wind is not blowing and that puts pressure on the grid in those states too. South Australia was the worst offender. It has blown up its last coal fired power station. When the demand one time last year was so great on the inter-connector with Victoria a breakdown occurred. Then the whole state was plunged into darkness for at least a day in some places.The Australian press reports South Australia has the highest electricity prices in the world.
I hate the word “renewable” when it is associated with energy. Energy cant be created or destroyed let alone “renewed”. What it is really is intermittent energy.
“Normally skeptical journalists routinely give renewables a pass. ”
Duhhh…, they were programmed to do that by their “liberal” educations at J-school. And they are paid to continue that by their Progressive leaning publishers.
What Mr.Michael Shellenberger does not do is carry out this energy cost analysis to its logical conclusion from current trends in California (or Germany). The endgame is catastrophic and essentially leads to situations like South Australia where electricity grid brown-outs and black-outs occur with increasing frequency during summer nights when the sun isn’t shining and the wind is not blowing. Industry flees, consumers suffer. Yet climate virtue prevents an honest analysis of the cause.
The conclusion is the picture is not pretty if the renewables boat doesn’t do a 180… and soon.
Of course, you’ve got renewable investors like billionaire Tom Steyer, heavily long invested in renewables derivative positions, funding the climate charades and funding the political (Democrats) support for more wind and solar, and funding non-attributable, dark attack machines on Republicans and climate d3niers.
“Normally skeptical journalists routinely give renewables a pass. ”
Duhhh…, they were programmed to do that by their “liberal” educations at J-school. And they are paid to continue that by their Progressive leaning publishers.
What Mr.Michael Shellenberger does not do is carry out this energy cost analysis to its logical conclusion from current trends in California (or Germany). The endgame is catastrophic and essentially leads to situations like South Australia where electricity grid brown-outs and black-outs occur with increasing frequency during summer nights when the sun isn’t shining and the wind is not blowing. Industry flees, consumers suffer. Yet climate virtue prevents an honest analysis of the cause.
The conclusion is the picture is not pretty if the renewables boat doesn’t do a 180… and soon.
Of course, you’ve got renewable investors like billionaire Tom Steyer, heavily long invested in renewables derivative positions, funding the climate charades and funding the political (Democrats) support for more wind and solar, and funding non-attributable, dark attack machines on Republicans and climate d3niers.
Re: Insurance and wind farm costs.
4 C Offshore, 05, January 2017
‘Submarine power cable losses total over EUR 350 million in claims’
http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/submarine-power-cable-losses-totalling-over-eur-350-million-in-claims-nid5127.html
And:
Maritime Journal, 20 Nov 2015
‘A Basic Guide To Wind Farm Insurance’
Has a link to the guide.
http://www.maritimejournal.com/news101/insurance,-legal-and-finance/a-basic-guide-to-wind-farm-insurance
WindPower Monthly, 23 May 2017
‘Wind resource presents biggest risk to industry’
Re: Insurance
http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1434436/wind-resource-presents-biggest-risk-industry
The San Diego Union-Tribune, Calif., April 25, 2018
‘Tule Wind Project knocked offline’
According this article, offline for past two weeks due to a faulty underground cable.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/sd-fi-tule-offline-20180425-story.html
A good start would be for them to investigate why, if solar and wind are so cheap, they are making electricity so expensive.
Sure Mr. Schellenberger, let’s blame those reporters. Not the green activists who made the lives of anyone who spoke out against wind and solar a living h*ll including getting them fired from their jobs. Let’s just ignore all that, huh?
But since you want it investigated, its this simple.
There’s base load generation like coal and nuclear that is good at steady state production, and there is load following generation that can nearly instantly make up for variability in demand and supply. You need both or the grid will fail.
Base load generation costs X
Load following generation costs 10X – 30X or even more.
For every watt of power you provision from highly variable sources like wind and solar, you have to remove one watt of power at a cost of X and provision a watt of power in load following that costs 10X – 30X and you have to pay for it even when you’re not using it because it costs nearly as much JUST to have it on standby and if you DON’T have it the grid will fail.
This was known before the very first wind mills and solar panels ever went into production. Call for an investigation into THAT Mr. Schellenberger. There’s no mystery to why wind and solar push prices up, even if they were FREE they would increase costs.
I think you should be a little easier on Mike Shellenberger (name is misspelled in the article). While I don’t share his concern about the effects of climate change, he has been adamant in his support for nuclear energy as a low carbon alternative to fossil fuels. He understands the importance of reliable electricity to modern society, and as a result has been regularly attacked by other environmentalists.
But the reporters are to blame. Most of them are outright propagandists for renewables and propaganda does work, especially when it’s so broadly disseminated among a naive population. Also, the propaganda has built massive support for subsidies which has resulted in even intelligent investors like Warren Buffett deciding it makes sense to put money in wind, for now anyway.
Honest reporting would bring the renewables charade to a quick end, but don’t hold your breath for honest reporting any time in the near future.
And, in my opinion, honest reporting would also up President Trump’s approval rating to north of 60%, but that’s a separate issue. Still, when a documented 90%-plus of all news stories on him are negative it’s amazing he’s anywhere near 50%. Propaganda works. There’s a reason autocrats always deploy it, but first commandeer all the news organs in their domain.
And, as long as this is turning into a screed, the combination of the internet and WUWT (and other similar, though less-read, sites) have given the news propagandists a run for their money. After all, the author is running for California’s governorship. He wouldn’t have a chance of getting this story out without alternative media. The current crop of national reporters would belittle him mercilessly.
But the reporters are to blame.
The reporters were silent in part due to their own incompetence and political leaning. But mostly due to political pressure from greens. MSM doesn’t allow COMMENTS in their articles from skeptics let alone articles from their reporters. That’s a management decision, not a reporter decision. Then this green shows up with some backward looking analysis and says, hey, this economist may have figured this out. BSH*T! When THIS (or any) green steps up and says, yes, this was known, and we buried it through intense lobbying and pressure, ruined people’s careers, yes even lied, and we shouldn’t have, then I will be impressed. This particular green is making it out like it was some really complicated thing that was hard to figure out and the press is to blame for them not doing their jobs. BSH*T. The greens are to blame for silencing the reporters, not they turn around and blame them? BSH*T, BSH*T, BSH*t!
We are subject to the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality. Doom and gloom sell. Repeated doom and gloom sell more. No conspiracy, just the largest load of incompetence ever found.
+googolplex
“Base load generation costs X
Load following generation costs 10X – 30X or even more.
For every watt of power you provision from highly variable sources like wind and solar, you have to remove one watt of power at a cost of X and provision a watt of power in load following that costs 10X – 30X and you have to pay for it even when you’re not using it because it costs nearly as much JUST to have it on standby and if you DON’T have it the grid will fail.”
Wasn’t that true in 1970?
Sounds like the issue is really one of markets.
Wind tends to attack baseload, but, solar attacks peak loads.
If there are any gaps, you price the gap.
That’s where Peakers need to compete in real-time pricing.
WWUT’s own Willis Eschenbach was all over this more than two years ago
Willis analyzed the relationship between the retail price of electricity and national amounts of “renewable” generating capacity.
“Obama May Finally Succeed! by Willis Eschenbach on August 3, 2015
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/03/obama-may-finally-succeed/
His chart shows that the retail price of electricity should be expected to increase by 0.0002 U.S.$ for each additional KW of installed renewable generating capacity. R^2 = 0.84, p-value = 1.5E-8.
He says: “That is a most interesting result. Per capita installed renewable capacity by itself explains 84% of the variation in electricity costs. …
Today, President Obama said that he wanted 28% of America’s electricity to come from renewable energy by 2030. …
Currently, we get about 4% of our electricity from wind and solar. He wants to jack it to 28%, meaning we need seven times the installed capacity. … this means that the average price of electricity in the US will perforce go up to no less than 43 cents per kilowatt-hour. …
Since the current average US price of electricity is about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour … that means the true price of electricity is likely to almost quadruple in the next 15 years.”
The reason is obvious. We have a conventional electricity system which provides all our electricity needs. Then we build a second system which only works when the wind blows. Then we build a third system which only works when the sun shines. We now have three systems to pay for when we only used to pay for one system (which we still need as it is the only one which works all the time). We are now paying for two unnecessary systems as well as the one that works all the time.
Philip
there is a fourth: some storage capability. Usually pumped hydro but now expanding to various battery technologies. In reality Denmark pays Norway to store its over production then buys it back later.
Quite right; the fourth unnecessary system (battery storage) is needed to assist the second and third unnecessary systems.
I’ve always admired the Norwegian approach to free gifts! First they make sure that THEY reap the long-term benefits from their oil bonanza and now they charge to store your surplus energy AND charge you to have it back when you need it.
Talk about having it coming and going …
Newminster
You forgot to mention that we also retire early, and then go to live in places like the Mediterranean, or Florida (my choice) where taxes are lower and the sun always shines to remedy the main objections to living in Norway.
The same issue occurs with subsidies, if you want the same ‘subsidies’ in e.g. various infrastructure between fossil fuels (e.g. building the plants, railways, ports, royalties etc) and renewables, they have to compare in output and length of life to get your money back-which they don’t.
So if you give a 100 million to a coal power station and 100 million to a wind turbine project it’s not making things ‘even’, because the wind turbine doesn’t provide the same output.
All true – I wrote similar conclusions in 2005.
E.On Netz, in their report “Wind Power 2005” describes the problems.
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
One of the greatest disadvantages of wind power is the need for almost 100% conventional backup. E.On Netz (the largest wind power generator in the world) says the “substitution capacity” in Germany was 8% in 2003, and will drop to 4% by 2020. See Figure 7 in the E.On report.
“In concrete terms, this means that in 2020,
with a forecast wind power capacity of over
48,000MW (Source: dena grid study), 2,000MW of
traditional power production can be replaced by
these wind farms.”
Another big problem with wind power is that power varies as the cube of the wind speed – this causes sharp peaks and valleys in the power output from wind farms, so extreme that it can cause the entire grid to crash – try that in winter – remember the 1998 ice storm? People died…
A near-miss occurred in German during Christmas week of 2004 – see Fig. 6 in the E.on report.
“The feed-in capacity can change frequently
within a few hours. This is shown in FIGURE 6,
which reproduces the course of wind power feedin
during the Christmas week from 20 to 26
December 2004.
Whilst wind power feed-in at 9.15am on
Christmas Eve reached its maximum for the year
at 6,024MW, it fell to below 2,000MW within only
10 hours, a difference of over 4,000MW. This corresponds
to the capacity of 8 x 500MW coal fired
power station blocks. On Boxing Day, wind power
feed-in in the E.ON grid fell to below 40MW.
Handling such significant differences in feed-in
levels poses a major challenge to grid operators.”
I share the feelings of many here. Not excrement, Sherlock! You really need your young economist in 2013 only after a large scale human experiment before you see something that was very obvious from the start.
Still it is good that some facts dawn to some people, and they have the guts to put them to print. It is, of course, whole lot a different story if this has any effect on wind power plant salespeople, politicians wanting to pose green, or their voters. But, if this kind of stuff were published in The Daily Gosh, then maybe it will also end up in The Guardian, thus changing the minds of the politically hypercorrect and intellectually adorable.
I see I typoed my No Scheiss, Sherlock! I put it to my increasing Alzheimer. Sad it that.
But just think of all the new friends you will make.
Beyond the issues being discussed, this “large scale human experiment” has had devastating effects on rural residents. There were no studies done by the wind industry to prove that nearby residents would not be harmed by audible or inaudible noise.
Electricity is charged for on the basis of kilowatt hour. Charging on the basis of kilowatts with just a small additional charge for the variable energy component would mean everyone would be paying their fair share. Most peoples’ bills would be quite similar, even those of the domestic solar brigade who can’t bring themselves to sever the link to the grid but expect others to pay for their security of supply.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think you know what you’re talking about 4 Eyes. A Kilowatt hour is just what it says it is, 1000 Watts of power for 1 hour. But it could also be 100 Watts for 10 hours, or 6000 Watts for 10 minutes.
The Kilowatt Hour is the ‘volume’ measure of how much electricity you use, comparable to ‘gallons’ in fluids, or ‘ megabytes’ in data. Trying to buy electricity in Kilowatts instead of Kilowatt Hours would be like trying to buy gasoline by the width of the pipe it flows through. It’s almost meaningless.
~¿~
It’s not meaningless, and it is actually done.
paying for kW means you have to pay for grid and capital cost of the plants and men servicing them, whether you ask for power or not, just because you may use them at will.
paying for kWh makes sense only insofar as you use fuel and a few maintenance fees proportionate to energy delivered, which is a small part of the cost, actually.
All right, there are some services where you pay a flat rate just to be connected, and regardless of whether and how much you use it, like cable TV or old style home phone service.
But would that really make since for electicity? Maybe in the future, when the price per Kilowatt is so low that it really is ‘too cheap to meter’ then it would make since to pay a flat rate for your hook up, say based on how many Amps it is rated for. (Most home services in the US are 100 or 200 Amp services, while industrial one’s can be in the 10’s of thousands)
But it really doesn’t make much sense today, and it certainly wouldn’t be ‘fair’. Why should I have to pay as much for electricity as a family of 5 who live in a house 4 times the size of mine? What would be the point of ‘saving electricity’ if you payed as much regardless of how much you used?
You know the power companies are going to be making the same profit regardless, so each of those Kilowatts still has to be payed for. All this plan does it makes the people who use the least help pay for those who use the most, and since there’s no incentives to use less EVERYONE is going to use as much as they can to get there money’s worth.
It’s Liberal ‘equality’ at it’s most absurd. And as one of those who will end up paying for the rich’s wastefulness, I’ll be saying No Thanks.
~¿~
Depends on the country and company, I guess.
In fact, I pay electricity on the basis of
* a fixed part, whether I use electricity or not. Supposed to pay for fixed cost (plant, grid, servicing, etc.), on the basis of max kW contracted. The more kW, the higher .
* a variable part on the basis of kWh used , itself with two component (basically : daytime= high price, night time = low price. )
* last but not least, taxes, and taxes, and more tax, and taxes again. Part of the tax goes to “renewable”, but, don’t worry, not all of it, the taxman has other charities to finance.
I am not sure of the respective share, but it could be 1/3 fixed kW + 2/3 variable kWh, and half taxes in both
That’s the biggest problem for the poor. They no longer are able to pay the ‘fixed part’. So they need government help to pay the bill = higher taxes.
Most people (me included) won’t object a 10% tax to take care of the 10% needy people… if it actually were used in such a way. The fact is, for the most part it isn’t. Poor people are just human shields, pretext for power of the taxman. Who gets the lion share. When poor are mentioned, I know I am fed manure and robbed.
Besides, poor won’t need the government paying their bill, if the government didn’t tax them so much in the first place
If it’s administered by the government, it will never be used that way.
If poverty were actually to be solved, millions of government employees would lose their jobs and thousands of politicians would lose their best opportunities for graft.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
Denmark’s problem is that it is windy, and as long as they were importing electricity a lot, they thought they could use the same wires to export wind power and get even. Wrong. Electricity on demand is more valuable that electricity that falls randomly from the sky. They got away with it for a long time because neighbouring Norway has a lot of extremely flexible hydro power. But when Germany copied their approach, the wind power became less and less valuable, now sometimes going heavily negative when external effects are included.
The grid planners could see the consequences, but the Tōhoku quake / tsunami just put more and more political effort on closing nuclear and trying to fill this gap with something that wasn’t there.
I blame die Bundeskanzlerin Merkel for a lot of bloody stupid energy politics.
German political system doesn’t give her so much power, the Kanzler just follow the strongest political wind, or face replacement by someone with a better feeling. The whole of Germany is green mad, so is its head. Not the other way round.
It’s what comes of relying on the Greens to keep you in power. Sturgeon has the same problem in Scotland. The biggest disadvantage to any form of proportional representation is that you sacrifice the ablity to set policy and stick to it — at least until the next election.
The Greens are never on present showings likely to form a majority goverment in any major democracy but they can do an awful lot of damage by insisting in their totalitarian policies as the price of keeping a party in power.
Very much a case of the tail wagging the dog!
We are fighting like hell NOT to have proportional representation here in Canada. But idiot Trudeau wants to bring it in. if he succeeds the Greens will hold the balance of power forever even though they only have 1 federal seat now.
Alan, what was missing from this otherwise excellent article was any mention of the subsidies that are provided to renewables, both on the capital cost and the electricity generated and sent to the grid, and how these subsidies distort the whole electricity market in any country where they have been implemented. The deadly combination of these two subsidies causes both gross over-investment in renewables to the detriment of coal and gas fired generators, and (in the UK, EU and Australia at least) significantly raises the retail cost of electricity to ordinary consumers through a clever but almost invisible mechanism that forces electricity retailers to buy expensive ‘renewable energy certificates’ from renewables generators in a faux ‘market’, the cost of which is simply added to the retail price. The government typically simply gives one of these certificates to the renewables generators for each megawatt hour (MWH) of renewable energy that they send to the grid, which by the way the retailers are forced by legislation to buy in preference to reliable base-load electricity. The electricity retailers must in turn buy one of these certificates for each MWH of renewable electricity that they sell. Currently in Australia these certificates are worth about A$85.00 per MWH, which represents a hidden subsidy of between 50 and 200% of the current wholesale cost of grid electricity. For example, last year one small 2-turbine community wind generator in the state of Victoria received about A$700,000 for its certificates, vs about A$450,000 for the electricity it actually sent to the grid. At the same time, base load generators have lost about 20-30% of their demand to renewables, causing them to become unprofitable and lowering their market value to the point where no new base load generation has been built for at least a decade, and is unlikely to be built whilst these subsidies exist. This is the most pernicious and economically damaging legislation that I have ever seen. And yet most of the governments that implemented it continue to support it, even as our electricity network becomes both more expensive and less stable. I’m sure that if this crazy scheme was used as the plot of a novel, no-one would believe it. How did we get to this point?
+1
Without subsidies, we would have the right share of renewable, that is, just enough to make the best use of existing storage (not the other way round) and on-demand hydro.
And price could even drop a little.
Subsidies corrupt the economy. And the politics, of course.
I agree. I don’t think that Mr Schellenberger has thought through the roll of subsidies in higher electricity prices in his otherwise excellent article. For example, you don’t really have to push unneeded electricity off on your neighbors with disruptive pricing. If you don’t bribe the producers to generate it, they likely won’t generate it. The problem of course is that — as Warren Buffett has pointed out — folks wouldn’t build much wind or solar capacity if they didn’t have a guaranteed market.
In Europe, there’s probably some excuse for renewable energy policies, since the easy alternative is a potentially unhealthy dependence on Russian/Middle Eastern fuel suppliers and neither region is one you really want to be dependent upon. California … not so much I think.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/22/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-288/comment-page-1/#comment-2643835
Quote from the above SEPP article – TWTW Oct 21, 2017:
“Number of the Week: 2.2 million workers needed to replace 52 thousand? One of the sillier essays in Politico stated: “And as jobs go, coal mining is now a tiny sliver of the U.S. economy, employing about 52,000 Americans last month, down 70 percent over three decades… By contrast, the solar and wind industries employed almost 10 times as many Americans last year, and they’re both enjoying explosive growth.”
If this essay is correct (it is not, and the definitions are vague), the energy industry that employed only 52,000 in mining produced 30% of the US Electricity in 2016, but wind and solar required 520,000 employees to produced 7% (6% wind and 1% solar). To generate the electricity produced by the coal industry, the wind and solar industries would need 2.2 million workers. Who can afford such inefficiency?”
My comment:
WHAT IS GRID-CONNECTED WIND POWER REALLY WORTH?
Wind power is intermittent and non-dispatchable and therefore should be valued much lower than the reliable, dispatchable power typically available from conventional electric power sources such as fossil fuels, hydro and nuclear.
In practice, one should assume the need for almost 100% conventional backup for wind power (in the absence of a hypothetical grid-scale “super-battery”, which does not exist in practical reality). When wind dies, typically on very hot or very cold days, the amount of wind power generated approaches zero.
Capacity Factor equals {total actual power output)/(total rated capacity assuming 100% utilization). The Capacity Factor of wind power in Germany equals about 28%*. However, Capacity Factor is not a true measure of actual usefulness of grid-connected wind power. The following paragraph explains why:
Current government regulations typically force wind power into the grid ahead of conventional power, and pay the wind power producer equal of greater sums for wind power versus conventional power, which artificially makes wind power appear more economic. This practice typically requires spinning backup of conventional power to be instantly available, since wind power fluctuates wildly, reportedly at the cube of the wind speed. The cost of this spinning backup is typically not deducted from the price paid to the wind power producer.
The true factor that reflects the intermittency of wind power Is the Substitution Capacity*, which is about 5% in Germany – a large grid with a large wind power component. Substitution Capacity is the amount of dispatchable (conventional) power you can permanently retire when you add more wind power to the grid. In Germany they have to add ~20 units of wind power to replace 1 unit of dispatchable power. This is extremely uneconomic.
I SUGGEST THAT THE SUBSTITUTION CAPACITY OF ~5% IS A REASONABLE FIRST APPROXIMATION FOR WHAT WIND POWER IS REALLY WORTH – that is 1/20th of the value of reliable, dispatchable power from conventional sources. Anything above that 5% requires spinning conventional backup, which makes the remaining wind power redundant and essentially worthless.
This is a before-coffee first-approximation of the subject. Improvements are welcomed, provided they are well-researched and logical.
Regards, Allan
* Reference:
“E.On Netz excellent Wind Report 2005” at
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
What is true is Allan is clueless when it comes to electric power.
He likes to cherry pick one event, one place in the world, and ignore everything else.
what he says is true everywhere for wind
There is no farming so easy as subsides farming.
The existence of solar and wind power sources, per se, does not cause any price increase. It is laws that force power distribution networks to give preference to power from those sources that causes the increase.
The near-total ban on coal power plants that began in the Obama administration (and has caused most of them to be decommissioned so that Trump can’t bring them back) also takes away a cheap alternative.
What we need is a free market in energy. (And don’t complain about externalities unless you can put numbers to them.)
Don’t ask for number, you fool. They will make up needed number. 50$/t coal, for instance, because, you know, CAGW.
I can only say that solar is able to sell electricity at $0.02 to $0.03 per kWh in India. This is because, in spite of any ‘words’ to the contrary, electrical power in India is paid for based on its availability at the moment. This tells you what the ‘intermittent’ power alternatives are worth.
What’s the monthly income of a poor family in India and how much electricity do they consume?
electricity at $0.02 to $0.03 per kWh in India.
≠====≠==
The average wholesale price of electricity in the US is about $0.034 per kWh.
When the wind blows and the sun shine the wholesale price drops to zero. Normally that would cause inefficient producers to stop producing.
To solve this governments pay wind and solar to keep producing even when the wholesale price is zero. Even when electricity is free the wind and solar companies are paid to keep producing.
Even if the price goes negative the wind and solar producers are paid to keep produce something electricity while at the same time other people are willing to pay you money just to take their electricity.
And people wonder why costs are rising?
Yes but we here in countries that guarantee electricity generation 24 hours per day 365 days of the year will never agree to blackouts or brownouts. Solar is good for areas that dont have electricity without it.
Yeah, Alan; we really want to pay for unreliable power if we are Third Worlders.
Not ‘work’ — ‘worth’.
[Reply: Fixed it for you. ModE. ]
If there could ever be any benefit to be derived from Wind and Solar power production, it would have to be as a supplement for a specific application; obviously hooking it up to the overall grid has no value, but added to an airport’s local grid or running air compressors in a large industrial park, might have some appreciable value.
Solar to warm your own water.
Yes. Wind and solar should only be hooked up to equipment that is fine with a variable supply. The problem is that electricity is sort of like a river. When it is flowing smoothly no problem. When the flow is changing rapidly it creates enormous problems all along its length.
As they say. It is called power for a reason.