By Richard D. Patton
Statements implying that wind and solar can provide 50% of the power to the grid are not difficult to find on the internet. For example, Andrew Cuomo announced that
“The Clean Energy Standard will require 50 percent of New York’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2030…”
Considering that the wind is erratic, and the solar cells only put out full power 6 hours per day, it seems a remarkable statement. Can intermittent energy actually supply that much power?
For some answers, we turn to Germany, which has some of the highest electric bills in the world as well as a high proportion of its electric power produced by wind and solar (19%). Let’s take a look at German consumption and generation.
As you can see, the power generation (black line), especially after 2011, has been rising, but the power consumption (blue line) has been falling slightly. The red line denotes dispatchable generation, i.e. all power generated except wind and solar. This includes nuclear, fossil, biomass, hydro and geothermal power.
The table below shows what happened more clearly.
| 2001 | 2011 | 2016 | |
| Consumption | 520.2 | 546.2 | 536.5 |
| Dispatchable | 539.1 | 506.4 | 496.3 |
| wind+solar | 10.6 | 68.3 | 116.3 |
| losses+export | 29.5 | 28.5 | 76.1 |
Between 2001 and 2011, wind and solar generation rose 57.7 billion kwh. The difference of dispatchable minus consumption fell by 58.7 billion kwh. In this period, solar and wind were displacing dispatchable power. Germany chose to reduce its nuclear fleet in this period, so fossil fuel use (mostly coal) remained strong and Germany’s carbon footprint was not significantly reduced.
In the period from 2011-2016, Germany’s wind and solar generation increased by another 48 billion kwh, but the difference between dispatchable generation and consumption was essentially flat at around 40 billion kwh. Losses+export increased by 47.6 billion kwh to 76.1 billion kwh in 2016. This increase is due to exports of 49 billion kwh to other countries in 2016.
While nuclear power fell 20% from 2011 to 2016, the dispatchable non-fossil fuel (nuclear, hydro, biomass and geothermal) portion of power generation remained almost constant, as can be seen on this graph.
This left the German fossil fuel and the intermittent (wind + solar) portion of power generation.
In this period, wind and solar rose from 68 to 116 billion kwh, yet this rise of 48 billion kwh had no effect on the use of fossil fuels to generate power in Germany. During the period of 2011 to 2016, consumption fell by 10 billion kwh. Fossil fuel generation fell by 5 billion kwh, and non-fossil fuel dispatchable generation (nuclear, hydro, biomass and geothermal) also fell by 5 billion kwh. The increase in wind and solar (48 billion kwh) had no effect on fossil fuel use.
Stability Problems, an example
To the problems caused by intermittent power, let us examine German power usage on January 7-9, 2016.
This graph begins at start of January 7, which is a Thursday. The load line (black) shows low power usage. The spot price (orange, right-hand scale) is 25€/Mwh. The blue line is the sum of wind and solar power, and the red line is how much power is being exported.
The day starts and the load increases as people head to work. The spot price rises to 42 €/Mwh because the load is increasing. The wind picks up and the wind+solar line rises. It keeps rising throughout the day. As people go home and the work day ends, the spot price plummets to 12 €/Mwh because there are too many producers of electricity. To cushion the system, more power is exported.
The next day, the price rises in the morning but is still low (25€/Mwh) during the day due to high wind output. Around noon (hour 37) the wind power plummets. This is in the middle of the work day on Friday, so the load is high. Wind+solar was producing almost one-half of the power, but within four hours, approximately 15,000 Mw of power are taken out of the system while the system is near peak load. The spot price rises quickly to 47€/Mwh as the wind+solar power falls. The exports of power are reduced to cushion the system.
Notice that the exports move with the wind+solar power (positive correlation) and the spot price moves opposite to wind+solar power (negative correlation). The correlation coefficient of Germany’s wind and solar energy output and the exchanges with other countries in 2016 was r=0.503. The correlation between the spot price and the wind and solar generation is -.411.
Wind+solar underwent a nearly 6-fold increase in power over 30 hours, and the system must accommodate that power. Wind+solar then fell by 50% (25% of the load) in 4 hours. Exporting some of that power out of the system helps stabilize it. The spot price movements attract or repel other power producers to balance the system and prevent blackouts.
Despite these efforts, Germany is now plagued by blackouts. According to the (German) Federal Grid Agency (the Bundesnetzagentur), there are 172,000 power outages in Germany annually. This was reported by Hessen Public TV (HR). Previously, the German grid was impeccable.
After all of this effort, including patience are the part of the public in accepting these continual blackouts, Germany’s carbon footprint has barely budged. The CO2 emissions from coal and coke have only fallen 2% between 2011 and 2016, due to decreased consumption of electricity. The extra 48 billion kwh produced from wind and solar plants built between 2011 and 2016 was balanced by exports of 49 billion kwh in 2016. In terms of reducing Germany’s carbon footprint, the entire effort is a failure.
Apparently, there is a limit to how much intermittent power a grid can use before it becomes unstable. German wind and solar use maxed out in 2011 at around 68 billion kwh, or 12.5% of consumption. Back in the 90’s, engineering textbooks on wind were saying that people used to believe that wind could only supply about 10% of the power to the grid due to stability problems, but further studies showed that it could actually supply 30%. The real-life example of Germany shows that the engineers who said wind could only supply 10% of the power had a point.
It has not been proven that the NY Clean Energy Mandate (or similar mandates elsewhere) can be met by relying on wind and solar power. Given the example of Germany, doubts are in order. As advertised by its politicians, Germany gets 19% of its energy from wind and solar. What they do not say is that it also exports 1/3 of that energy out of country, leaving its carbon footprint unchanged since 2011. Some small countries, notably Denmark, have advertised that they get 50% or more of their energy from sun and wind. What they really mean is that they have a large country (in the case of Denmark, Germany) next to them absorbing that power and selling them power when the wind stops blowing and the sun goes down. Because it is a small country selling into a big market, its energy sales do not disturb the grid stability of the bigger market. It is a much different case when the larger country (Germany) tries it. Germany’s attempt, the Energiewende (energy transition), is widely judged to have been a failure. If New York goes down that path, it is not likely to do much better.
Sources
Andrew Cuomo 50% announcement
Data for graphs were sourced from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Unfortunately, this is a beta site, but there was no other link to international data.
The EIA website has generation and consumption figures for every country for the years 1980-2016.
The link for German electricity generation (including different sources – wind, fossil fuel, etc.) is:
The link for German electricity consumption is:
The correlation coefficients were calculated from hourly European data compiled by P. F. Bach. He did those same calculations and sent them to me in a personal communication; the numbers matched. Here is the download link to his website.
http://www.pfbach.dk/firma_pfb/time_series/ts.php
He got the data from Entso-e, a platform showing power genraton, consumption and transmission in Europe. Its website is here, and registration is free:
https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/physicalFlow/show
The power outages data are from no tricks zone. Pierre Gosslin, who runs it, usually has interesting facts about Germany. Here is the link to that:
The links to German TV from that article do not work.
Also, from no tricks zone, a report form ARD TV in Germany.
The link from that article to ARD TV is available below
My German is very poor, but the show said 473/day or 172,645/year. Also, the show linked the stability problems to storms and wind power. In other words, wind power was specifically called out for Germany’s stability problems.
I think California and that Nut from New York thinks there really is such a thing as a ZPM.
(Stargate’s “Zero Point Module”. )
The state of NY gets lots of it’s power from Niagara Falls. That’s not wind or solar. They can afford to make such “sounds good” claims. CA and the rest of country can’t.
California does not count large-scale hydro as “renewable”.
It never rains in California? 😎
Some greens hate dams, so. . .
All greens/progressives hate humanity
Excellent article, except for a small quibble.
There is a difference between generation and consumption. Total generation was 612.6 billion Kwh. A certain amount of power is lost in transmission and some is exported. Approximately 19% of the power generated was from wind and solar (116.3/612.6). That is where 19% came from.
folks should be encouraging NY and California and Germany to experiment with going all renewable.
data is good thing, as long as someone else pays for it.
😎
But will data wake them up from their “California Dreamin'”?
It will if you cut the interconnectors to their neighbouring states. They will wake up the first time the wind stops.
I fervently hope that states supplying CA with electricity have public service commissions that allow only surplus generation to be sold, and prohibits consumers of that state from having to compete against CA wrt prices.
Personally, I think it should be prohibited for any state to import any goods or services produced in a manner that is illegal in that state. If a state believes something causes enough harm as to warrant it being illegal, they should not be paying those in other states to do it.
Steve: Data is a good thing as long as it is honestly analyzed. (Remember the hockey stick.) California imports a lot of power from other states and exports excess power when renewable production is high. (Rumor has it CA pays AZ to take this excess production.) Renewable power requires more reserve. The availability of hydroelectric demands California’s variable rainfall and competing uses for that water.
Lunar power panels. The solution is to add Lunar power panels to solar power and wind turbines.
With this combination we will achieve renewable energy freedom.
Is that how the word “lunatic” evolved?
Despite these efforts, Germany is now plagued by blackouts. According to the (German) Federal Grid Agency (the Bundesnetzagentur), there are 172,000 power outages in Germany annually. This was reported by Hessen Public TV (HR). Previously, the German grid was impeccable.
Do you have a source for the last sentence? The data I can find indicated Germany has one of the most stable power supplies for low number of minutes without power in Europe. And that this has been stable for many years at the current level. I can’t see anything indicating the German power has become less stable.
I noticed that too. See my post below.
Is that figure accurate, and if so, what does it mean? Is it worse than in the past? How does it compare to other countries?
More significantly, it isn’t “despite these efforts”, but because of them.
@Kristi Silber
Currently about 73% of California’s electricity is dispatchable. That is enough to cover current non-dispatchable renewables. California is targeting by 2045 to have 100% zero-emissions electricity. This will require huge increases in wind and solar. This will drive the states energy mix of dispatchables to below 25%. There is no way to cover this short fall other than through huge additional costs for backup systems (non-renewables, no nuclear) or significant lifestyle changes by the people, which are never explained. California electricity costs are today already 25% higher than the national average. California currently imports 30 of its electricity because the state government refused for 50 years to invest in adequate infrastructure to accommodate its growth.
And now it is going to kill off its remaining dispatchable natural gas and nuclear plants. All of this will not change California’s weather a whit.
Richard D. Patton said:
“Despite these efforts, Germany is now plagued by blackouts. According to the (German) Federal Grid Agency (the Bundesnetzagentur), there are 172,000 power outages in Germany annually. This was reported by Hessen Public TV (HR). Previously, the German grid was impeccable.”
What levels were seen in the past? What I could find looks like this:
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-electricity-grid-stable-amid-energy-transition
Minutes outage per customer by year.
2006 – 21.53
2007 – 19.25
2008 – 16.89
2009 – 14.63
2010 – 14.9
2011 – 15.31
2012 – 15.91
2013 – 15.32
2014 – 12.28
2015 – 12.7
2016 – 12.8
2017 – 15.14
Germany has the second lowest annual interruption time in Europe, only beaten by Switzerland.
Does anyone have comparison figures for 2018 (they may not have been compiled yet) that would let us see if anything has changed dramatically since 2017?
“Previously, the German grid was impeccable.” *
* Citation needed (to put it mildly)
Can you actually demonstrate that the grid was impeccable before, and worse now? How about some figures? How have you measured this? Or are you just making blind statements on the basis of 172,000 being a “large” number?
The problem is that there are plenty of reasons to doubt mass role out of wind and solar in Germany, so why include the stability of the grid right now as an issue? It seems like this “impeccable” statement is a belief that the author hasn’t investigated recently? Unless there is a source? The article focuses I think on the real problem at the moment, which is cost. You need to be really careful about putting out easily debunked statements like this. Both sides like to use them as a straw man to avoid dealing with any of the points. Either you write articles that have a chance of changing minds or influencing people, or else it is just for the clicks. If the former, be careful to not negate any influence you might have by gifting others a straw man they can easily pick and burn down.
Fake news.
“According to the (German) Federal Grid Agency (the Bundesnetzagentur), there are 172,000 power outages in Germany annually. This was reported by Hessen Public TV (HR). Previously, the German grid was impeccable.”
The reality is on the contrary:
Power blackouts in Germany fall to record low in 2016
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/power-blackouts-fall-record-low-wind-power-record-expected/power-blackouts-germany-fall-record-low-2016
https://www.vde.com/de/fnn/themen/versorgungsqualitaet/versorgungszuverlaessigkeit/stoerungsstatistik-2016
Here in in English:
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-electricity-grid-stable-amid-energy-transition
Here’s a claim that should be debunked here:
“New study debunks myths claiming renewables can’t be integrated into electric grid.”
thinkprogress.org/…
https://thinkprogress.org/a-100-percent-renewable-grid-isnt-just-feasible-its-already-happening-28ed233c76e5/
After President Trump exited the Paris Climate Agreement, the German automobile manufacturers association (VDA) issued a statement (link below) that they are at a competitive disadvantage with the US due to their higher costs for electricity. Wonder why?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-german-carmakers/german-carmakers-fear-losing-competitive-edge-after-u-s-paris-exit-idUSKBN18T1Q0
We can call them “Engineering Deniers. ” I used to wonder why the alarmist crowd continually babbled on incoherently about windmills and solar power, but I’m settling in on a theory.
Politicians like infrastructure spending because that involves distributing money, which enhances political power of those who have the power to do it. So it helps get politicians on board with the global warming thing.
But more importantly, converting electricity generation to wind and solar in an effort to fight emissions is a strategy that is both horrendously expensive and absolutely guaranteed to fail. If the “problem” of excessive CO2 emissions were solvable through CO2 capture at, say, steel mills and building out a new fleet of nuclear power plants, then it’s just a matter of going about doing so. But only with a failure to reduce emissions can one justify massive wealth transfers for reparation nonsense. And only next to proposals that will cost trillion of dollars do wealth transfers of hundreds of billions of dollars seem like a bargain.
I wote for self-[breeding] thorium nuclear gen IV. We can cut polution in very short time, but there are other interests. Just surf YouTube. Thorium is 200 more efficient as Uranium, [much] more abundant, already operated in 1950, but stopped because it’s not useful for nuclear bombs.
It is very fashionable to talk about green. Solar and wind need backup in the same amount in coal, gas, so we pay it twice. Our brains are exposed to everyday deep washing with CO2, climate disasters, so we are willing to pay green taxes to coal and oil barons. Nobody asks how much COx is produced for solar and it’s recycling, probably on the other planet…?
If only there were a natural way to store energy from photosynthesis for a long time to be released when needed…
Coal
Oil
etc.
They are just natural batteries and burning them is recycling.
What about geothermal. I know it’s not technically feasible now but how about the future. We are sitting on a big ball of molten lava. How long before we can tap into that energy. How about accessing volcanoes for a start.
There are plenty of geothermal systems, today. Iceland comes to mind. Hawaii has some, too.
To be feasible on a large scale, your ‘big ball of molten lava” must be reasonably close to the surface of the earth. That severely limits the places where it can be utilized. Both the technology and economics have been changing, though, and the areas that are feasible for geothermal systems have been growing. Perhaps by the time fossil fuels become scarce, they will make the best replacement.
Of course, you could ask Al Gore to design you a system that makes use of the ‘millions of degrees’ of heat he believes we are sitting on.
The Clean Energy Standard will require 50 percent of New York’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2030…
I wonder if the “sources like” part means and some magical as yet not discovered new clean renewable power like maybe cold fusion from pixies.
You have shown pretty well that no grid can manage more than 12% of intermittent renewables without becoming eggregiously expensive. Except of course for ERCOT which was at 18% wind in 2017 and likely got more than 20% from wind in 2018. By 2020 it is possible that they will be nearly 30% from wind+solar.