By Steve Goreham
Two states and more than 80 cities and counties have now announced a goal of receiving 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. Wind, solar, and biofuels are proposed to replace electricity from coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants. But evidence is mounting that 100 percent renewables is poor policy for US households and businesses.
More than 80 cities announced commitments to get 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources. Minneapolis committed to attaining 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030, Salt Lake City by 2032, and St. Louis by 2035. Nine counties and two states, California and Hawaii, have also made 100 percent renewable pledges.
Some cites already claim to get all power from renewables, generally by using a little electricity “sleight of hand.” Rock Port, Missouri claims to be the first US community powered by wind because it has a local wind farm. But when the wind doesn’t blow, Rock Port gets power from other generators in Missouri, a state that gets 77 percent of its electricity from coal and 97 percent from non-renewables in total.
On September 10, Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 100, committing California to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2045. Brown stated, “It’s not going to be easy. It will not be immediate. But it must be done…California is committed to doing whatever is necessary to meet the existential threat of climate change.”
But cities and states pursuing 100 percent renewable electricity lay the foundation for a future painful lesson. Households and businesses will experience the shock of rapidly rising electricity prices as more renewables are added to the system.
Wind and solar cannot replace output from traditional coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants, despite claims to the contrary. Wind and solar are intermittent generators. Wind output varies dramatically from high output to zero, depending upon weather conditions. Solar output is available for only about six hours each day when the sun is overhead and disappears completely on cloudy days or after a snowfall. Hydropower is a renewable source that can replace traditional power plants, but even this source is insufficient in years of drought or low snow runoff.
Experience shows that utilities can only count on about 10 percent of the nameplate capacity of a wind or solar facility as an addition to power system capacity. For example, on December 7, 2011, the day of peak winter electricity demand in the United Kingdom, the output of more than 3,000 wind turbines in the UK was less than five percent of rated output. The UK House of Lords recognized the problem a decade ago, stating “The intermittent nature of wind turbines…means they can replace only a little of the capacity of fossil fuel and nuclear power plants if security of supply is to be maintained.”
To achieve “deep decarbonization,” states will need to keep 90 percent of traditional power plants and add increasing amounts of wind and solar to existing systems. Total system capacity must first double and then triple as 100 percent renewable output is approached. A 2016 study by Brick and Thernstrom projected that California’s system capacity would need to increase from 53.6 gigawatts to 90.5 gigawatts at 50 percent renewables and to 123.6 gigawatts at 80 percent renewable output.
Rising system capacity means enormous electricity cost. In 2017, California received 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, excluding power from large hydroelectric plants. California 2017 residential electricity rates were 18.24 cents per kilowatt-hour, 50 percent higher than any other US western state.
From 2008 to 2017, California power rates rose 25 percent compared to the US national average increase of about 7 percent. But the worst is yet to come. As California adds renewable capacity to approach 100 percent renewables, generated cost of electricity will likely triple.
International examples show soaring electricity prices from renewables penetration. High levels of wind and solar in Germany and Denmark produced household electricity prices four times US rates. Renewable programs pushed power prices in five Australian provincial capital cities up 60 to 160 percent over the last decade. Wind, solar, and biofuel penetration in Ontario, Canada drove electricity prices up more than 80 percent from 2004 to 2016. Renewable output in these locations remains far below 100 percent.
Green energy advocates recognize renewable intermittency and hope that advances in battery technology will save the day. Large-scale commercial batteries, they claim, will be able to store power during high levels of renewable output and then deliver power to the grid when wind and solar output is low.
But batteries are not the answer because of the large seasonal variation in renewable output. For example, wind and solar output in California in December and January is less than half of the output in summer months. Commercial large-scale batteries available today are rated to deliver stored electricity for only two hours or ten hours duration. No batteries exist that can store energy in the summer and then deliver it during the winter when renewable output is very low.
Superstition is powerful. There is no evidence that 100 percent renewable efforts, all combined, will have a measurable effect on global temperatures. Instead, cities and states that pursue 100 percent renewable policies will learn the hard lesson of skyrocketing electricity prices.
Originally published in Master Resource. Republished here at the request of the author. Steve Goreham is a speaker on the environment, business, and public policy and author of the book Outside the Green Box: Rethinking Sustainable Development.
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So Gov. Brown says 2045, well he may well be gone by then. So lets have a practical demonstration . Build a number of windmills around his home, and run it 100 % on green power.
And what about when the Greens claim that wind and solar are cheaper than coal, adding all the stand by costs of the fosssell fuel generaterrs or hydro to the mix.
With the childrens court case coming up, will they put the little ones in the witness box and ask them the hard questions, or will the adults behind this farce step forward and do the talking ?
General deployment of 100% renewables at country/state grid level for a first world country is quite frankly a nonsense. It can only exist via paper shuffling, number fudging and leaning on neighbours with real power. All for the sake of virtue signalling. How many times do we need to go around this loop.
Very few locations on Earth can achieve anything like 100% renewables on a truly independent basis. Renewables have a useful role to play, 100% renewables with the current technology set is rainbows and unicorns stuff , or as we say in my country, bullshit.
“Experience shows that utilities can only count on about 10 percent of the nameplate capacity”
Pretty much-
https://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2018/october
and if the thermal insurers aren’t amortising their investment but actually cross subsidising their unreliable competitors to cream revenue off the top at will then naturally they have to get much larger returns when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. Either that or they go to the wall and leave the unreliables and fan club to enjoy their fallacy of composition at some stage.
When I was young, in the 1950’s, I lived in a state of Australia which was 100% renewable electricity – the practical, unpopular kind – Hydro and had no connection to other grids. The system had a main water storage with a capacity of more than 12 months water – the equivalent of a battery with 12 months supply capacity. There was a 5 year drought and the system ran out of stored water. The result – draconian power rationing, power cuts and a mad scramble to purchase any second hand diesel-fired gas turbine generators which could be found world wide. Longer term, a large oil-fired power station was installed as backup. Imagine a 100% renewable system based on wind and solar with no fossil backup – a few cloudy, windless and very hot days and poof! no air conditioning, people dropping like flies and industry & commerce at a standstill.
The mania about unilateral local wind and solar is extraordinary. Even if you accept the CO2 – warming scientific theory, it makes absolutely no sense.
Its doing at great expense something which can have no effect on the supposed problem. Suppose Minneapolis, for instance, does go 100% renewable generation. What effect is that going to have on climate? None whatever. Its a tiny proportion of US electricity generation emissions, which are in turn a small proportion of US total emissions, which are in turn a small proportion of global emissions.
It is like the government of Tuvalu deciding that its going to tackle local sea level rise by lowering the island’s local emissions from electricity generation.
The great thing about the latest IPCC report was that it finally got real about the implications of what they claim to believe. And the much derided piece recently in the Guardian also got real about what the IPCC report means.
If they are all correct, then what is essential to the survival of civilization is the complete abandonment of all fossil fuel use. All biofuel use as well. It has to be, if they are right, global and total. It means the end of Phoenix and the other cities that depend on air conditioning. The end of the suburbs and the freeways and the shopping malls. Closing down most industry and construction. It probably means the end of the big Chinese cities, moving the population back to the country, to work at who knows what, and it certainly means scrapping their 100 million installed base of cars, closing down their huge steel industry, closing down their construction because of the carbon intensity of cement…. It means moving to non-oil based agriculture…. It means India ceasing to industrialize….
What the greens are now advocating is the logical and correct consequence of what they claim to believe, its the total abolition of industrial civilization.
If this is what is needed, then for Minneapolis, as a for instance, to reduce its emissions by installing wind and solar, even if that could be done, is as much use as handing the passengers on the Titanic tea cups, and telling them to get to work bailing. Because every ittle helps.
You can get a reasonable idea what the IPCC prescriptions really mean if you imagine what it would take in terms of world prices to do it. You would probably have to go to $20 a gallon or higher gasoline and heating oil, and similar prices for coal and wood for burning. And this would have to be worldwide.
This is what Minneapolis needs to focus on if they are really persuaded that emissions are dooming civilization. What they are actually proposing to do is totally pointless.
I suggest, if you want to get some sense into these discussions, going to the forums in which these issues are discussed, and advocating what it would actually take. The more people there are in the comments section of the Guardian advocating £20 a liter for UK gasoline and heating oil, the quicker minds will clarify. Make the greens face the logical consequences of what they claim to believe, by advocating what they should be advocating if they were logically consequent.
Then lets see who really believes what.
Except it never works like that.
I submit, what they really want to do is completely remove the Middle Class and return to a simple Feudal society where the Lords don’t even have to provide security.
All of these costs that would be required to raise would receive immediate push-back by the Entitlement and Fixed Income demographic who would loudly demand “affordable ____” where ___ is any real or felt need e.g. housing, medical, utility, education, food, etc.
The nobles would then take that $20/unit price and make it $30/unit whereas the difference would be given to the Entitlement Class as a means to subsidize the Evil raise in prices due to the Bogeyman.
“If this is what is needed, then for Minneapolis, as a for instance, to reduce its emissions by installing wind and solar, even if that could be done, is as much use as handing the passengers on the Titanic tea cups, and telling them to get to work bailing. Because every ittle [bit] helps.”
Good comparison!
This proposed futile effort by Minneapolis is the same as the futile efforts of European nations and Australia to fix CAGW. Meanwhile, China and India and others are increasing their CO2 output by leaps and bounds at least until the year 2030.
The only sane solution for those who believe CO2 is a problem is to support replacing future power generation with nuclear reactors. Nuclear reactors don’t add CO2 to the atmosphere and the political Right would support the Greens if they called for this kind of plan, and all the complications of nuclear power are fixable here and now.
Wake up, Greens! There’s only one way to get from here to there: Nuclear powerplants.
The solar + wind graph does look like a predictable, manageable production profile.
Though it clearly shows that the would need to be probably a factor of three over-sizing in order to satisfy demand all year round. How much of the state will need to be covered with turbines and PV to achieve that goal?
Sure it looks manageable when viewed monthly, but you need to look at the hour by hour data and what risk of how much shortfall you are prepared to take. A windless and sunless week is likely to wreak havoc.
To supply the total instantaneous load and charge the magic batteries at the same time, you’ll actually need more than 6 times the nameplate rating of the renewables.
Someone should sue the companies that claim a solar or winding installation can power X-number of homes based upon the nameplate rating of the renewables. It’s false advertising!
old engineer summarized it very well.
Yesterday, I dived into the Danish wind turbine Ragnarok, after reading countless headlines claiming Denmark during 2017 produced all it’s electricity with wind. I thought to myself: Can that be correct, why would they then regularly import from Norway, Sweden and Germany? I was also looking for the actual average CF (Capacity Factor) during 2017. Here is the calculation I did and my reference links:
—————————–
Wind Denmark during 2017
Wind production:
14700GWh over 365 days
1.68GW on average
Using 6100 wind turbines
275kW average output
Total capacity 5.5GW
31% CF on average
Reference:
https://techxplore.com/news/2018-01-output-denmark-year-record-setter.html
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/14/total-wind-capacity-surges-total-number-turbines-may-soon-plummet-indulging-4-decades-danish-wind-energy-data/
http://energynumbers.info/capacity-factors-at-danish-offshore-wind-farms
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/denmark.aspx
____________________________
The most interesting and fact filled reading was actually the one from World-Nuclear above, where they roughly calculated that only half of the energy from Danish windmills are actually used by the Danes. Add to that, that Danes use about 10% from imported nuclear. Here are two paragraphs from World-Nuclear:
Denmark’s electricity mix
Robust connection between Norway’s hydro turbines and West Denmark’s wind turbines holds the key to successful exploitation of wind for Denmark, and the German and Swedish connections are nearly as importantc. The power imported from Sweden (5.2 TWh in 2011, 2.7 TWh in 2010, 3.8 TWh in 2009, 6.6 TWh in 2008, 5.0 TWh in 2007, 1.7 TWh in 2006, 7.6 TWh in 2005) is almost half nuclear and half hydro. The power imported from Germany (2.9 TWh in 2011, 6.4 TWh in 2010, 3.6 TWh in 2009, 1.4 TWh in 2008, 1.5 TWh in 2007, 4.0 TWh in 2006, 0.6 TWh in 2005) is largely generated by brown coal and nuclear power. (Germany itself imports 9 to 20 TWh/yr from France, which is 75% nuclear.) Norway is almost all hydro.
Hence nuclear power provides an essential part of Denmark’s electricity. In 2011, with imports of 2.9 TWh from Germany and 5.2 TWh from Sweden, it would seem that about 3.5TWh used was nuclear – nearly 11% of total final consumption, and one third of the domestic consumption from wind. This fluctuates year to year, mainly due to NordPool prices, and Energinet.dk analysis showed 1% nuclear in 2010, 7% in 2011 and 14% in 2012.
As far as I can see, Denmark is still a poster child for expensive, but successful, high utilization of wind, which is largely due to the huge hydro batteries in Norway. Most other regions or countries do not have these geologic circumstances to go as far as Denmark. Add to that, that Denmark export about 97% of their wind turbines, so the mentality and social conduct is to love windmills (I worked as engineer in the industry in the mid 1980’s).
I wrote about this back in 2004, so why are we still having this debate now? If they were serious about renewables, they would have started building huge pumped storage systems ten years ago. But they are nkt serious, because they do not want people to know the TRUE cost of renewables.
In the UK, we would need 12,000 gW.hr of backup, for 10 windless winter days. Dinorwig, our largest backup system, stores 10 gW.hr. So we would need 1,200 Dinorwigs to make renewables work. But Dinorwig was the most expensive power station in the world, because the Greens forced it to be built inside a mountain (yup – one of the largest caverns excavated). We could NEVER afford 1,200 Dinorwigs.
And that is without electric transport. If we had that too, then we would need 2,400 Dinorwigs. And if space-heating also went electric, then make that 4,800 Dinorwigs. (Plus the millions of wind turbines to generate that amount of electricity).
Renewable energy, our downfall.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/25/renewable-energy-our-downfall
R
nothing is 100% renewable. trees are as close as we can get.
There are two elephants in the fossil free room.
Firstly the stated intention to turn transport over to electric vehicles.
The second is to turn domestic heating and cooling over to electricity.
How can this be done with renewables?
I’d guess with 97% certainly, the little girl is on the roof of a UK chicken shed.
(I’d suggest those those are ‘Moon Boots’ she’s wearing)
And in this Modern Day And Age, absolutely horrifying!!!
Where the f*** is that girl’s parents, letting her ‘work’ at height, in slippery conditions and near a fibre cement (possibly asbestos) roof and No safety harness.
Even before there are 4, 5 or 600 volts of DC power up there.
What is going on in that picture is *easily* worth 3 years in jail for whoever sent her up there
AND a £10,000 fine.
Pity the 100%-renewables policies were not implemented in CA and HI in time for the effects to be felt on November 6, 2018.
With Greenies running the show, there’s no need to change the clocks because it’s always bat-shit crazy time.
If California elected officials only had a brain. By 2045, wind and solar will be remembered as efforts by energy-ignorant global warmists that were ridiculously stupid, even for Californians. Everyone in the know WRT future energy technologies knows that molten salt nuclear reactors can provide low carbon power at prices cheaper than fossil fuels or anything else. Commercialization could begin within a few years if the regulators got off their duff and the govts provided just a fraction of the moneys sunk into wind/solar and other nonsensical technologies.
If the ‘D’ Party manages to capture the Legislative Branch, you can completely forget about practical energy. California has shown us what the D Party envisions as your future. That is their plan for Western Civilization.
No such impediments on China, India et al.
old engineer summarized it very well.
Yesterday, I dived into the Danish wind turbine Ragnarok, after reading countless headlines claiming Denmark during 2017 produced all it’s electricity with wind. I thought to myself: Can that be correct, why would they then regularly import from Norway, Sweden and Germany? I was also looking for the actual average CF (Capacity Factor) during 2017. Here is the calculation I did and my reference links:
—————————–
Wind Denmark during 2017
Wind production:
14700GWh over 365 days
1.68GW on average
Using 6100 wind turbines
275kW average output
Total capacity 5.5GW
31% CF on average
Reference:
https://techxplore.com/news/2018-01-output-denmark-year-record-setter.html
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/14/total-wind-capacity-surges-total-number-turbines-may-soon-plummet-indulging-4-decades-danish-wind-energy-data/
http://energynumbers.info/capacity-factors-at-danish-offshore-wind-farms
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/denmark.aspx
____________________________
The most interesting and fact filled reading was actually the one from World-Nuclear above, where they roughly calculated that only half of the energy from Danish windmills are actually used by the Danes. Add to that, that Danes use about 10% from imported nuclear. Here are two paragraphs from World-Nuclear:
Denmark’s electricity mix
Robust connection between Norway’s hydro turbines and West Denmark’s wind turbines holds the key to successful exploitation of wind for Denmark, and the German and Swedish connections are nearly as importantc. The power imported from Sweden (5.2 TWh in 2011, 2.7 TWh in 2010, 3.8 TWh in 2009, 6.6 TWh in 2008, 5.0 TWh in 2007, 1.7 TWh in 2006, 7.6 TWh in 2005) is almost half nuclear and half hydro. The power imported from Germany (2.9 TWh in 2011, 6.4 TWh in 2010, 3.6 TWh in 2009, 1.4 TWh in 2008, 1.5 TWh in 2007, 4.0 TWh in 2006, 0.6 TWh in 2005) is largely generated by brown coal and nuclear power. (Germany itself imports 9 to 20 TWh/yr from France, which is 75% nuclear.) Norway is almost all hydro.
Hence nuclear power provides an essential part of Denmark’s electricity. In 2011, with imports of 2.9 TWh from Germany and 5.2 TWh from Sweden, it would seem that about 3.5TWh used was nuclear – nearly 11% of total final consumption, and one third of the domestic consumption from wind. This fluctuates year to year, mainly due to NordPool prices, and Energinet.dk analysis showed 1% nuclear in 2010, 7% in 2011 and 14% in 2012.
As far as I can see, Denmark is still a poster child for expensive, but successful, high utilization of wind, which is largely due to the huge hydro batteries in Norway. Most other regions or countries do not have these geologic circumstances to go as far as Denmark. Add to that, that Denmark export about 97% of their wind turbines, so the mentality and social conduct is to love windmills (I worked as engineer in the industry in the mid 1980’s).
You will have to find out Denmark’s power usage, to determine if they are correct, and are (sort of) 100% renewable.
Denmark exports to Scandinavia when there is lots of wind, who store this as hydro, and then export it back when the wind is low. Trouble for Denmark, is Scandinavia imports at 50% cost, and exports at 150% cost. Hence Denmark has the highest energy costs in Europe. And their system would not work, if they could not use Scandinavian mountains for storage.
R
I do not believe any Norwegian etc hydro has pumped storage… rather exported wind substitutes for hydro – water not used can be used later.
Guys (and gals), this is the most startling statement in this whole thread, so far:
“they determined that every Ice Age in the last quarter million years, every single Ice Age began in less than 20 years, beginning in less than twenty years. ”
so, when did the current 20 year clock start?
We are living in an Ice Age, and it has periods which are called glacial period and interglacial period.
We currently living in an interglacial period an Ice Age which has lasted over a million years.
Your average global temperature is about 15 C [59 F] and this is fairly cold.
Humans prefer warmer air temperature which is called room temperature that is around 20 C.
Assuming humans are wearing clothes, 20 C air temperature is warm enough.
Humans like warmer air temperatures because human are a tropical animal.
And in the tropics whether it’s glacial or interglacial periods, the average temperature is higher than 20 C.
What happens during a glacial period is the average temperature outside of the tropical zone, get much colder than it is now. But even presently the air temperature outside the tropics is cold- we have global average temperature of 15 C, because the average temperature of the tropics increase the global average temperature. Or France average temperature is about 9 C and France is warmed by the gulf stream, and would be about 10 C colder were the tropical ocean was not transporting heat via the gulf stream to Europe. Or Canada which not warmed by tropical ocean water, currently as average temperature of about – 4 C. But during glacial period, Canada and France get a lot colder than there current average temperatures. Unlike the tropics.
The entire ocean average temperature is currently about 3.5 C.
During glacial period the range of this temperature is about 1 to 3 C, and during interglacial period this average ocean temperature is about 3 to 5 C.
Iffen Minneapolis continues with their “FEEL GOOD” plan to attaining 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030, me thinks they will surely be freezing their arses off more n‘ more each year as their “switchover” progresses, …… because, to wit:
https://futurism.com/world-without-blackouts-power-future-renewable-energy/
It’s been proven that what this article states as not doable is precisely doable.
It is not impossible, but the capital investments can be high.
Norway use only renewables in electricity production, and Sweden use only renewables and nuclear. For Norway’s part it is 96% hydro, 2% wind and 2 % from heat plants. For Sweden it is 40% Hydro, 40% Nuclear, 11% wind and 9% from heat plants. The heat plants use mostly biological fuels.
Hydroelectric with pumped storage are the only usable solution for storing really huge amounts of energy. The investment cost is high, but the facilities, i.e. tunnels and dams, last for at least 100 years.
/Jan
Jan Kjetil Andersen – November 4, 2018 at 6:31 am
But, but, but, … Jan Kjetil, …… most of the “wacko” warminists, especially here in the US, deny that “hydro” is a renewable ….. and they literally hate the thought of “nuclear”. Wind and solar are their preferred “go to” electrical power source.
I have calculated the true cost of renewables in the UK, something the Chief Scientist at the DECC called out as “an appalling delusion”, but without publicly costing it. But I picked up the envelope he dropped and “did the arithmetic”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/03/idea-of-renewables-powering-uk-is-an-appalling-delusion-david-mackay?CMP=share_btn_fb
Adding the storage in the UK (very small pumped opportunity), to provide the essential majority supply backup fossil currently provides unrewarded, roughly increases the unit cost by a factor of TEN, mostly storage cost for week w/o renewables. This is an undeliverable solution, as the UK is too small to generate enough renewable energy to power today’s demand if covered entirely with wind turbines, including the Queen’s coastal waters. I also quantify that. The paper seeks a journal that is willing to publish it. My own IET declined because the engineering included economics, no comment on the technical basics because of course they are simple deterministic physics so no easy way to reject them, apart from a mistake I can simply correct. Here it is as a w.i.p. on SSRN. The answer is £1.2 Trillion for a weeks support in the winter with no sun and no wind, renewed every year. Enough for for the first 4 years of batteries to build enough nuclear power to deliver a future fossil free transport and heating free tripled demand for 60 years at £5Billon per GW CAPEX. Universal Metric: Repeat purchase cost of battery backup is. c.£50B pa per TWh (nb: Today’s prices, half what they were, less any future volume discount)
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3274611
If you would like another effort for a hotter country such as Australia using solar PV and pumped storage Peter Lang’s paper is a good one.
http://www.solaripedia.com/files/393.pdf
Euan Mearns has also taken a look at the reality of the delusional words and undeliverable “policies”.
Your chief scientist needs a new song book. His tune is in complete contrast to Australia’s chief scientist. Dr Finkel wrote a report that said Australia will be run on 100% ambient sourced energy by 2050.
https://www.energy.gov.au/sites/g/files/net3411/f/independent-review-future-nem-blueprint-for-the-future-2017.pdf
It is all done through the invisible hand of “diversity”. Diversity allows all calculations to be based on averages. That means wind generators can be counted to supply 30% of capacity all the time and solar generators in Australia 16% of capacity all the time. Once the magic of diversity is thrown in it all works in their simple models!
For any country or region contemplating going 100% intermittent renewable (solar, wind) I have only one thing to say:
Please, please, please DO IT!
Black comedy / farce is what the climate debate needs. It has too many serious po-faces.
And this From the UCS Blog
Despite Trump Roadblocks, Full Steam Ahead for Clean Energy Transition
“The low cost of renewable energy was also a primary reason offered by Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) executives when they announced just last week they will move up several coal plant retirements—amounting to 1,800 MW of capacity—and be entirely coal free within the next decade. Consider that coal accounts for more than 70% of Indiana’s power generation mix today and NIPSCO’s decision becomes even more jaw-dropping. In addition, while final decisions have not yet been made, NIPSCO’s own analysis suggests that the most cost-effective strategy for replacing their coal fleet is through a mix of wind, solar and battery storage.”
Thanks – that’s made my day!
I don’t think I have any relatives in Indiana.
Wind Farms Cause Global Warming? Please, Say It Isn’t So,
Harvard Study
https://naturalgasnow.org/wind-farms-cause-global-warming-please-say-it-isnt-so/
Worth pointing out that in 2018 the number of wind turbines in the UK has tripled since 2011 to 9,100 with a capacity of 20,152 MW. Energy produced (MWh/p.a.) is 54,550,446
Also additional HVDC lines have been built to ship that power.
Quite a different picture!
(Perhaps writers could try and use current stats?)
https://www.renewableuk.com/page/UKWEDhome
Right, I’m off back to sleep.
So, you’re saying the power of Stupid has tripled? Impressive!
Griff! We’ve missed you. Welcome back
Sorry Little Griffy, capacity and actual output have never met ! D’oh !
griff, time for a reality and math check:
1) Your stated capacity of 20,152 MW divided by your stated 9,100 wind turbines in the UK amounts to 2.2 MW average capacity per turbine . . . this is consistent with the maximum rated power output of today’s typical industrial-size, large wind turbines, so one must conclude the UK doesn’t have many smaller size wind turbines contributing to the power grid.
2) However, for wind turbines, although industry estimates project an annual output of 30-40% of the 24/7/365 theoretical for good locations, real-world experience shows that annual outputs of 15-30% of capacity (i.e., a “capacity factor” of 15-30%) are more typical, accounting for actual wind vector variations, severe weather shutdowns, and maintenance needs.
3) Your claim of 54,550,446 MWh per annum based on a maximum capacity of 20,152 MW implies an average capacity factor equivalent to full power delivered for 31% of the year . . . this is at the very top end of the range of real-world experience.
Enjoy your dreams of ideal technology operating in an ideal world.
griff, my apologies about erroneous capacity factor in my Item #3 above: your equivalent value of a 31% capacity factor for industrial wind turbines is right in line with the US Energy Information Agency number of 34% capacity factor for US wind turbines over the five-year period 2013-2017. My “real-world” experience capacity factor range of “15-30%” was based on an old reference article.
Unfortunately (for me), I decided to check on this only after I made the above post.
But the little failure doesn’t matter anyway. What are those 55 MWh/a compared with the actual consumption of 300 GWh/a? That is short of a factor of about 5500.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/643414/DUKES_2017.pdf
I think you missed a decimal place? That it is equivalent of 55 Gwh?
Its good to see people correcting inadvertent mistakes… makes the discussion more honest.
I’m only quoting the stats at the link… which I believe would be for 2017 as they seem to be whole year. 2018 would likely be larger – more offshore capacity and Western HVDC in operation.
e.g. this:
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/05/17/britains-wind-farms-beat-out-nuclear-for-first-time-ever/
I would note there are now many larger turbines installed offshore in the UK, where capacity is (if I remember correctly) around 30%.
Many onshore turbines are now 4.5Mw, many offshore turbines 6Mw or larger.
(I really did not intend to rejoin commenting here. sigh)
From the article: “Households and businesses will experience the shock of rapidly rising electricity prices as more renewables are added to the system.”
Of course, at the same time this is happening there is the clear projection of increased demand for grid electricity due to the increasing (largely government incentivized) push for electrical vehicles to replace ICE-powered automobiles and trucks.
One possible result per the Law of Unintended Consequences: the government-mandated push for “renewable energy” causes electricity rates to go so high that it destroys the government-incentivized marketability of EVs.
Oh well.
It is time, then. To invest in California REITs.
Real Estate Investment Trusts.
Surely, REITS are forming to invest in California real estate most likely to host bird choppers?
Early investors could see their shares climb as California ends up paying “fair market value” for scarcer and scarcer suitable land.