Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
As is usually the case with all Los Angeles Times climate alarmist and renewable energy advocacy articles this latest one hyping the wonders of highly subsidized and unreliable solar energy is full of propaganda claims extolling the alleged benefits of solar energy.
The article claims that California in 2018 achieved the goal of having 34% of its electricity provided by renewable energy.
This claim is completely wrong. Actual energy use data from the CEC clearly shows that in both 2017 and 2018 only 29% of the states electricity was provided by renewables versus the 2018 planned target of 34%.
Even more significant the state has been falling behind its targeted renewable energy growth time table since at least 2012 by only achieving 15% renewables that year versus the planned 22% target. The state has continued behind its highly touted politically driven plan ever since then.
The Times articles completely fails to mention the huge tax payer subsidizes paid to solar plant builders who receive Production Tax Credits (PTC) of $0.023 dollars per KwH for a period of 10 years which pay for the capital costs of these plants.
These huge and lucrative renewable subsidizes are why Warren Buffet would like to partner with California to mandate changes in the western U.S. transmission network rules to allow greater access to other western states so unusable solar in Ca. could be forced upon other states so he could receive increased subsidizes for his production from his Ca. renewable projects.
Also unmentioned in the Times article are the many other major shortcomings associated with renewable energy plants that significantly undermine both the stability and reliability of the electric system grid.
Renewable solar and wind projects cannot provide required electric system stability needs associated with voltage, frequency and synchronization control, regulating margin needed for rapid load changes, load ramping capabilities needed for large grid operation nor can they provide spinning and standby reserves for unexpected load changes.
Only dispatchable and reliable fossil plants can provide these functions. The unreliability of renewables coupled with their inability to provide grid stability functions dictates that significant amounts fossil backup must always be available to maintain grid stability and reliability. This is an ineffective and high cost way to operate an electric system grid.
The Times article minimizes the significant environmental damage done by renewable projects which ravage huge amounts of land because of their need to tap into very low power density energy sources.
The Times article conceals the fact that the unusable solar energy problem clearly demonstrates these plants unreliability which dictates how these resources must be used because they cannot be operated in a dispatchable manner which allows the building of power plants to be optimized so such waste of resources is avoided.
Renewable energy is both costly and unreliable and only built because of lucrative tax payer provided government mandated subsidizes as well as ill-conceived government mandated requirements dictating its use.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This duck (curve) won’t hunt…
All you need to know about Warren Buffett is he is a businessman out to make money. He is motivated by money and profits, and altruism does not enter into that equation.
So now the LAT is conditioning its readers to go from “100% renewables are our future” to “Renewables plus storage plus fossil fuels plus conservation plus blackouts are our future” Bravo
“the wonders of highly subsidized and unreliable solar energy ”
It is highly subsidized, but it is not unreliable. Reliably, there will be no solar energy produced between 9 pm and 5 am, most of any day’s solar energy will be produced between 9 am and 5 pm, and there will be far more produced in June than in December.
It is reliable, it is just not very useful.
You can include about 3 hrs before sunset and 3 hrs after sunrise as times when there is little to no useful energy coming out of those solar panels.
The times article says excess solar is good for rate payers. So excess solar is sold cheap. How does that lead to a sustainable system? A huge upfront financial investment that overproduces at the cheapest time of the day to the point that CA pays for someone to take it. What am I missing?
The most hilarious thing about Solar Power in California is how the entire industry is about to be cratered by leftists.
One of the biggest subsidies that most people are unaware of is Senate Bill 871 from 2014 which granted solar developers an exemption from any property tax re-assessment upon the completion of a solar power plant.
This means that most utility-scale solar farms in California pay next to nothing in property taxes, because their assessed property values are that of the worthless desert scrub land they are built on.
But one of the big initiatives that leftists are pushing in 2020 is a ballot initiative to do away with Proposition 13 protections for commercial property. If it passes this means that all of these solar farms will be re-assessed at market value within 3 years.
Now while having to pay between 1% and 2% of the property value doesn’t actually sound like a lot, it is worth noting that solar power plants are grossly over-valued in the market and they tend to only generate less than 5% of their gross value every year as revenues. This means that under a property tax re-assessment, upwards of half of the equity cash flows could be expected to get eaten up by the new taxes. Also, given how much debt these facilities tend to carry I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few projects go bankrupt.
So when it comes to leftists and their subsidies for solar power I guess it’s apropos to say that The Lord Giveth, and The Lord Taketh Away.