Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I keep reading how wind and solar are finally cheaper than fossil fuels … and every time I’ve read it, my urban legend detector rings like crazy.
It rings in part because the market is very efficient at replacing energy sources based on their cost. Here, for example, is the story of kerosene, emphasis mine:
When a clean-burning kerosene lamp invented by Michael Dietz appeared on the market in 1857, its effect on the whaling industry was immediate. Kerosene, known in those days at “Coal Oil”, was easy to produce, cheap, smelled better than animal-based fuels when burned, and did not spoil on the shelf as whale oil did. The public abandoned whale oil lamps almost overnight. By 1860, at least 30 kerosene plants were in production in the United States, and whale oil was ultimately driven off the market. When sperm oil dropped to 40 cents a gallon in 1895, due to lack of demand, refined petroleum, which was very much in demand, sold for less than 7 cents a gallon. …
SOURCE
My question was, if wind and solar are so cheap, why are they not replacing traditional sources overnight?
So I decided to look into the question. The main number used to judge how expensive an energy source might be is called the “LCOE”, the Levelized Cost Of Energy. It takes into account all of the costs for new power plants—capital costs, overhead and maintenance costs, fuel costs, financing costs, the whole gamut of expenses for that power source. Well … except for one cost, but we’ll come to that later.
Here is the latest information on the LCOE for various energy sources, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2021 report entitled Levelized Costs of New Generation Resources.
Figure 1. US IEA levelized costs of electricity, 2021.
And yes, that clearly says that onshore wind and standalone solar are cheaper than any other source of energy.
I looked at that, and my urban legend detector started flashing red and the needle pegged out … why?
Because of the numbers in the first column, the “capacity factor”. The capacity factor for an electricity generation system is what percentage of the “nameplate” generation it actually produces. For example, if the nameplate on a windmill says it will generate 16 gigawatt-hours (GWh, or 109 watt-hours) per year if it ran 24/7/365, and due to the intermittent nature of wind it only actually generates a quarter of that, then its “capacity factor” would be 25%.
I looked at the claimed capacity factors for wind and solar, which according to the US EIA folks are 40%+ and 30% respectively, and I thought “No way. Not possible.”
Now, part of the error in the solar capacity factor is explained by footnote 4, viz:
4Technology is assumed to be photovoltaic (PV) with single-axis tracking. The solar hybrid system is a single-axis PV system coupled with a four-hour battery storage system.
Why is that a problem? Well, because tracking systems need to move each individual solar panel at a steady rate during the day so the panels always face the sun. Then, at the end of the day, they rotate the panel back to its starting position. Unlike fixed systems, these require a complex installation of motors, time sensors, bearings, levers, and the like to rotate the panels.
And because such mechanical “single-axis tracking” systems are expensive to install, expensive to operate, expensive to maintain, and subject to damage from weather, it is very rare for a grid-scale solar farm to use such systems. Almost without exception, they are fixed-angle systems with the panels mounted securely to a (theoretically) wind-proof frame like those at the Topaz Lake Solar Farm shown below.
Figure 2. Solar panel fixed mounts, Topaz Lake Solar Farm, one of the world’s largest.
If you imagine the necessary motors, gears, levers, and other mechanisms required for a single-axis tracking system to be able to rotate each and every one of those nine million! solar panels to follow the sun throughout the day, you’ll understand why fixed solar panels are the norm for grid-scale installations.
In any case, I thought I’d find the real data on this question of capacity factors. The amazing source, Our World In Data, has all of the information needed. Here is the current average of all of the world’s real-world wind and solar installations in the most recent year for which we have data, 2019.
Figure 3. Actual and theoretical (nameplate) generation, 2019 data.
As you can see, the US IEA is way off in fantasyland about the capacity factors of wind and solar. In both cases, they are claiming far larger capacity factors than we have out here in the real world.
Now, in Figure 1, they claimed levelized costs as follows, in US cents per kilowatt-hour:
- Combined-cycle gas — 3.45¢ per kWh
- Solar — 2.90¢ per kWh
- Onshore Wind — 3.15¢ per kWh
That’s the basis for the claims that renewables are now the cheapest sources of electricity. However, given the actual capacity factors, in reality these costs are:
- Combined-cycle gas — 3.45¢ per kWh
- Solar — 6.21¢ per kWh
- Onshore Wind — 4.97¢ per kWh
“Cheapest sources”? No way.
And as for offshore wind, they’re just as far off. They claim 11.5¢ per kWh, but the new Block Island offshore wind farm is charging the utility, not the customer but the utility, 24.4¢ per kWh …
And finally, there is a huge elephant in the US EIA room … backup power. This is the missing cost I mentioned above.
If you add a gigawatt of unreliable intermittent renewable wind or solar energy to a system, you also have to add an additional gigawatt of some kind of reliable dispatchable energy, where “dispatchable” means you can turn it up or down at will to replace renewables when there is no wind or sun. The US EIA levelized cost document linked above does mention the need for backup … but it doesn’t even touch the cost of backup. All it says is:
Because load must be continuously balanced generating units with the capability to vary output to follow demand (dispatchable technologies) generally have more value to a system than less flexible units (nondispatchable technologies) that use intermittent resources to operate. The LCOE values for dispatchable and non-dispatchable technologies are listed separately in the following tables because comparing them must be done carefully.
They say that dispatchable technologies have “more value to a system” … but they fail to mention that “more value” translates into higher real-world costs for non-dispatchable renewable technologies.
How much higher? Well … they don’t say. But you can be sure that it won’t be free. At a bare minimum, it will be the capital cost of the dispatchable backup generator plus some portion of the other fixed, variable, and transmission costs … and that means that because of the costs of the needed backup generators, there is very little chance that solar and wind will ever be competitive with other methods.
TL;DR Version: Neither wind nor solar are ready for prime-time, and due to their need for backup power, they may never be ready.
Here on the hill above the ocean, my gorgeous ex-fiancee and I are preparing to visit relatives in northern Florida. We’ll be on the road starting Tuesday for about three weeks, leaving our daughter and son-in-law here in the house to enjoy the sun. If you live in the northern Floridian part of the planet and would like to meet up, drop me a message on the open thread on my blog. Just include in the name of your town, no need to put in your phone or email. I’ll email you if we end up going there. No guarantees, but it’s always fun to talk to WUWT readers in person. I’ll likely be posting periodic updates on our trip on my blog, Skating Under The Ice, for those who are interested.
My very best to everyone,
w.
Willis – the other reason for the LCOE costs is that the EIA assumes the lifetimes of all generating resources is 30 years.
Only in the wet dreams of the Eco-Nazis are wind and solar installations going to last 30 years.
See my more detailed comment about that above. EIA was criticized then, yet has done nothing.
Oh, they’ll be there in 30 years, just as rusting toxic hulks.
And scars on the landscape.
Willis:
North-south single-axis tracking PV systems are relatively simple, usually consisting of a central tube mounted in rings on top of poles spaced along the length of the tube. Because the weight of the PV modules is balanced side-to-side, the actuator can be fairly simple also.
4-hr battery backup is a big battery, and very few if any large “utility scale” grid-tied PV systems have any battery at all.
The much bigger issue in PV systems is the output power, which is based off the so-called (actually misnamed) “name-plate” ratings on the back of modules. There are a number of not-so-obvious issues here:
1) These ratings, and the labels themselves, are required by the National Electric Code, and must be used as design parameters for things such a wire sizes. This is all about safety.
2) The power ratings are at 1000 W/m2 (one-sun) total irradiance, a standardized solar spectral irradiance, and last but not least, 25°C module temperature. These numbers go way back in time, and were developed from doing laboratory measurements of efficiency on individual solar cells. These conditions are almost never encountered in actual use as modules get hot in sunlight and output power drops.
3) It is not a simple matter to estimate the actual power a system might or should produce. This involves models and solar resource data. But, “capacity factor” is still linked to the nameplate power, whereby 100% capacity is defined as the number of module times the nameplate. This is obviously a fictitious number.
4) Energy is of course the time integral of power, but rating a system on energy instead of power is even more complex.
[CORRECTED—see below]
Carlo, Monte June 25, 2021 1:15 pm
Kinda true … although you’ve left out the motors and the controllers and the sensors and the wiring and the fact that e.g. Topaz Lake has 9 million panels …
But the main reason that N-S tracking isn’t done is that available solar power varies approximately by the cosine of the N-S solar angle. That angle varies from + 23.4° to -23.4° from solstice to solstice. That means that tracking N-S will increase your solar exposure by only about 5%, or a bit more because of increased reflection … not worth the hassle. They just set them to the angle of the sun at the equinox and fugeddaboudit.
w.
I am getting 2%. Still not worth the hassle.
Oh Navigator, shouldn’t it be 23.4° and 8.25%?
[CORRECTED]
Curious George June 25, 2021 4:04 pm
Oh Navigator, shouldn’t it be 23.4° and 8.25%?
Nope. You point it at the sun on the equinox, and from there it goes up 23.4°, back to the next equinox, down 23.4° and back to the next equinox.
BUT you can’t just look at the extremes. You need to average it out over the year. Here’s how I calculated it in R, where .633 is the average of the sines from 0° to 180°:
(1-dcos(23.4))*.633 = 5.2%
w.
Wouldn’t you point the panels at where the sun is going to be on the equinoxes? The solstices would be the two extremes in the sun’s travels north/south.
AARGH! My bad, I was 100% reversed. I’ll fix my comments.
w.
The Tropic of Cancer is at 23.4, not 11.7. Where does 11.7 come from?
AARGH AGAIN! Another brain fart. You’re right, the sun swings 23.4°N and S of where it is on the equinox. I’ll fix the numbers.
w.
Willis: I’ve seen quite a few N-S systems in these parts including a large one just outside the DIA main terminal. “Actuator” includes everything needed to rotate the central tube. More importantly, they aren’t designed to compensate for the yearly solar position, rather they track the sun from east to west over the course of a day, which overcomes a lot of the losses that a fixed-tilt system has to live with.
Having said all this, more than once I’ve driven past the DIA system when the modules are pointed toward someplace other than the sun! Oops. They do have higher maintenance.
To overcome all the incidence angle losses requires a two-axis (azimuth-elevation) tracker, which are quite a lot more complex. High-efficiency concentrating PV needs very accurate two-axis tracking.
Ah, I see the problem. I call systems that “track the sun from east to west over the course of a day” E-W systems.
Having said that, the problem then is shading. Once you tilt a bunch of solar panels up to say 60° or so to catch the morning sun, to avoid shading you need to use far fewer panels.
So one effect basically offsets the other, and you end up back where you started.
Best regards,
w.
Yes, they have to be spaced to minimize shading at low sun elevations.
There is another issue that complicates PV system physical design: the DC-AC inverter. These have a voltage “window”, a range over which they are able to perform the conversion. Above the max voltage they shut down and the output power goes to zero; the same is true for the min voltage.
At low sun angles in the morning or afternoon it is easy for the string voltage to be below the minimum, especially if the string is partly shaded. So the spacing also has to consider when the string voltage will be outside of the inverter window, when it doesn’t matter if the string is shaded or not.
Tracking is a waste of money.
There is only so much energy falling on an acre of solar panels during a good day. In the morning and evening, the sunlight is coming in at an oblique angle, and the solar cells are less efficient. Would they be more efficient if they were pointed normal to the sunlight? Sure. But in the morning and evening, each panel would be partially shadowed by its neighboring panels. Same amount of energy, more capital and maintenance.
Spread them apart so they shadow less? Sure, but then you have an acre of solar panels on three acres of ground and still have the extra capital and maintenance cost.
…
True.
w.
North-south trackers follow the sun position from dawn to sunset. Being pointed normal does minimize losses, but this requires a two-axis tracker.
“Because the weight of the PV modules is balanced side-to-side”
Sorry there is such a thing as Wind Load. Th force or wind speed times distance or radius of the arc of the these large panels is the torque applied to the rotor. Ask any Sailor what that can do.
Dealing with that requires electronic brakes or sophisticated worm-gear drive systems. These worm gears have to be built to handle the torque Some of these motor drives remind me of the old WWII Prop motors used for adjusting Propeller blade pitch I have seen in Army surplus stores and used for radio antenna rotors. Either brake systems or Worm gears they are going to waste 50 to 100 watts per hour per motor.
Wind and solar are so cheap that the more power generated by them the more your energy bills go up.
😂
Funny how that works, isn’t it? Anyone capable of logic and reason should be able to see through the “renewable energy” propaganda based on this one simple, inescapable FACT.
The basics of solar energy on Earth is one can get solar energy 25% of the time.
If Earth didn’t have atmosphere you get solar energy 50% of the time and you get
an average of 1360 watts of sunlight per square meter.
On Earth the time one harvests solar is called peak solar hours- which is roughly
3 hours before and after noon and one can get average of 800 to 900 watts per square
meter of sunlight. If and when the sun is near zenith {precisely at zenith only can occur
in tropics} sunlight is about 1050 watts of direct sunlight + 70 watts of indirect sunlight- solar
panel can get energy from indirect sunlight. So clear skies with sun close to zenith one gets
1120 watts of direct and indirect sunlight per square meter.
But in 2 hours away from zenith the sun will always be 30 degrees below the 90 degree of zenith- 60 degree or less above horizon [or 30 degree away from zenith] and this doesn’t reduce amount sunlight by much. But there no place on earth that you can the sun near zenith every day. At earth equator, during equinox [spring or fall] it’s exactly at zenith at noon.
But at winter or summer solstice it’s about 23.5 degree away zenith and 2 hour before or after noon doesn’t quite fall 30 degree but it will be about 50 degree from zenith or 40 degrees
above horizon. And at 40 degree above horizon one starts lose significant amount sunlight and gets much more significant when 30 degrees above horizon, and sunlight is going twice as much atmosphere as does when sun is near zenith. And later or early in day, the sunlight can go thru 10 times as much atmosphere. Or why there is thing called solar peak hours which roughly allow about 6 hour of day to get solar energy. And thing is this allows you to
have fixed solar panels- you gain much solar energy if follow sun dawn to dusk.
But if Earth didn’t have atmosphere you would be crazy not to track the sun.
So if Mars with little sunlight you would track the sun, and if tracking the sun on Mars, you more solar energy and your peak hours is 12 hours rather than 6 hours.
So Mars distance gets 60% less sunlight at it’s distance from the sun, and solar energy works
better on Mars. That is solely due to how thick Earth’s atmosphere is.
But rather than think Mars is better one can how bad it is to harvest solar energy on Earth.
And it’s really bad to try to collect solar energy closer to polar region on Earth vs it could better to collect solar energy at polar regions on Mars- because Mars has very thin atmosphere. With Lunar polar region it’s lot better to collect solar energy as compared to anywhere on Earth or Mars. In regions in lunar polar region one get “peak hours” 80% of the time. And with high earth orbit or other orbits, one get “peak hours” over 90%- and some Earth orbits and lunar polar region one also getting 1360 watts per square meter rather earth surface best of 1120 watts per square meter [direct and indirect sunlight}.
Solar energy was developed and made for space- for a reason.
And thing is this allows you to have fixed solar panels- you gain much solar energy if follow sun dawn to dusk.”
I should said:
And thing is this allows you to have fixed solar panels- you *DON’T* gain much solar energy if follow sun dawn to dusk.
Also in Low Earth orbit, ISS gets 60% of the time being “peak hour”. It’s 400 km up.
Or one would have get pretty high above Earth surface to get 50% or more.
And I didn’t spell it out, but more percentage of time you get solar energy, the less battery power you need. And with very small region of lunar poles, collecting solar from different regions with a polar region, allow near 100% grid access to solar energy- you need very little
battery storage. And what doing on lunar polar region is making rocket fuel- that works as battery storage {fuel cells batteries] so roughly you have no battery storage issues- or purpose for being there in to make chemical energy {rocket fuel}.
Though nuclear energy is also very good option, particularly if have access to water to use
as coolant {and mining lunar water to make lunar rocket fuel- so likewise no shortage of coolant to make nuclear energy more efficient. And also one want use water to make solar energy more efficient. Or Parker Probe uses water cooled solar panel, so panels don’t fry as get really close to the sun and kept below a 70 C temperature where solar panels are more efficient. If solar panels on Earth surface were worth doing, one should also keep solar panel cooler then they are getting on Earth- other getting a bit more energy, solar panels could also last longer.
And we coming up the train wreck of getting all this waste material of alternative energy, toxic waste to make them and toxic waste of when they are used up.
The total clean up will cost more than installation and maintenance. and ignoring this problem obviously will make it cost more. And what pols always do best, is ignoring problems. So not a train wreck but rather, endless train wrecks
The capacity factor of my fixed rooftop PV system is 15.5 % (5 years of data). This is on California’s Central Coast, thus it a bit higher than the 14% global average. I read recently that Germany’s capacity factor is 10%, which makes sense since it is much further north.
I passed 2 solar farms today in northern Vermont. They were both fixed.
The fix has always been in for solar farms.
They’ve been fixed?
That would mean they can’t have children?
One can only hope.
I lived in Munich for 6 years. The southern German PV problem is NOT only latitude. It is also the weather caused by the Alps on which they border.
Solar and wind require lots of land. The farther away that land is, the more transmission lines are required. After early solar and wind facilities are built, it looks like it’s going to cost more to locate additional facilities that won’t be optimally close. I don’t see an way organizations like IEA can account for that. Costs would have to go up with more stuff built.
In addition to the extra cost of the transmission lines, the longer the transmission lines are, the more of what power is being generated will be lost in transmission.
I’m pretty sure they calculate capacity factors at the the farm, not at the point where the power finally gets to the rest of the grid.
I often hear that this new solar or wind farm will power x number of homes but never industrial sites. Can you actually make solar panels or windmill components using solar or wind power?
Nope, and that has always been the tell. And it’s worse than just the inability to power the factories, just think of the mining, transport, refining of raw materials. As I like to put it, “when you can make windmills and solar panels without the use of ANY energy in ANY part of the chain that is anyhting OTHER THAN wind or solar power, then you might have something.
Of course, that will never happen. These things are useless. Wose than useless when they attempt to use them as replacement for dispatchable energy sources.
Refining silica (SiO2) to silicon metal requires a lot of energy, and the process used needs coke, which is a product of coal. Then there is the energy needed to purify and grow Si crystals which also needs a lot of energy.
So no.
Great post Willis, thanks.
Willis,
A couple of notes:
1) Backup power cost. I would say that diesel generators would be the easiest way to estimate. Back in the mid 2000s, that cost was $0.50/kwh. I would assume it is well over $1 by now.
Then multiply by “percent backup”. If 2% – then $1/kwh = $0.02 added to the renewable cost per kwh.
2) I also wonder if more BS occurs with the amount of renewable power generated that is unusable. There are certainly significant periods where the power being generated is surplus to needs and grid storage capacity – at which point it goes into a hole in the ground (i.e. wasted). It would not surprise me if all the rosy numbers put forward treated all power generated equally even when some percentage of it is literally of zero or negative value.
Not only would “wasted power” not being “accounted for” not surprise me, I’d be more likely to be shocked if it WAS being “accounted for.
Let me put it this way: the wasted power might all be accounted for because the contracts covering them require the utilities to buy all renewable power provided regardless of need.
I don’t know that, but it would not surprise me.
Well explained Willis.
Question: How do they get away with publishing such inadequate analysis?
Answer: They got the answer their political masters required, and we will continue to be fed the fantasy that wind and solar are cheaper.
The other critical assumptions in LCOE calculations are expected life and end of life disposal costs.
There is no need to do all this fancy calculatin’.
Every place where wind and solar have a substantial presence has experienced increased electricity rates. It has gotten so bad in Germany they are going to fold the extra-costs into the general budget.
Only very naive people think that wind and solar, on a large grid, are cheaper than fossil fuel. They cannot be, since the building out of a completely duplicated infrastructure (one for wind/solar, and one for thermal sources), is very expensive. Both types of infrastructure will be underutilized. Very inefficient and very expensive.
It is a massive fraud.
“the building out of a completely duplicated infrastructure”. Why?
Because the backup power sources that jump in when there’s no wind at night (so wind+solar=zero) are, by simple logic, already sufficient to support the grid on their own. If wind and sun would never start again, or if all wind and solar would be dismantled, they’s be chugging away exactly as they already do during windstill nights. Wind and solar power are just a DUPLICATION, a second, strictly unnecessary grid, because the so-called “backup” isn’t just a few small stopgaps, but has to be a fully functional power grid on its own or it won’t do the backup job (because wind + solar revert to zero output both every night, and on top of that, randomly and over non-predictable timeframes depending on the daytime weather).
Certain people try to claim that less CO2 is being produced because the FF plants can be throttled back whenever the wind is blowing or the sun is shinning.
Unfortunately, out here in the real world, that can’t happen. This is because the FF plants have to be kept on hot standby so that they can take over whenever a cloud passes over your solar farm or the wind drops in intensity.
These can happen in seconds to minutes, while it takes hours to bring up most FF plants from cold standby.
Willis,
I think you will find this paper of considerable interest:
https://www.mcc-berlin.net/fileadmin/data/pdf/Publikationen/Ueckerdt_Hirth_Luderer_Edenhofer_System_LCOE_2013.pdf
Willis:
Nice post!
From my notes about a 3/2019 Manhattan Institute article on LCOE (like from the EIA)
for wind & solar
1- ignores storage, transmission & [FF] backup
2- assumes costs of competing fuels only increase [peak oil fallacy]
3- uses a low discount rate [and likely sweetheart loans for wind/solar]
4- optimistic maintenance, repair & replacement schedules
5- ignores some subsidies, tax preferences & mandates [feed in tariffs!]
6- unrealistic capacity factors [MI came up with 33% & 22% for wind & solar]
7- unrealistic depreciation schedule [30 yrs for wind turbines despite an average ~ 20
year life expectancy for on-shore turbines; worse for off-shore]
[And maybe #8- costs of making the Grid more complex & fragile; including the inefficiency
and accerated wear-and-tear of ramping up & down the backup sources.]
So, based on real-world data from EU, USA, Canada & Australia there is a ~linear
increase in electric rates for customers as the % of wind/solar capacity rises.
.
Why are we making our electrical grid more weather dependent, more fragile
and more costly?? It’s nonsense.
Here in central Arizona we are having another beautiful (if hot) day that is perfectly
consistent with “climate change”. Enjoy your trip tp Florida!
Also, why are we making ourselves more dependent on imports for energy? England, once independent in its production of electricity, now imports wood pellets, natural gas, solar panels, wind turbines, and electricity itself.
California import 93% of its natural gas, as well as a lot of electricity from other states.
And, this effort does NOTHING to lower atmospheric CO2.
Great post, Willis!
WUWT must be over the target, doing some serious damage to the Church of Climastrology edifice; as there seem to be a number of new acolytes here, posting their religious screeds shrilly and often! It’s rather amusing to watch them flailing about, trying to win arguments for which they are so seriously outclassed!
Have a great trip to Florida , and wave to the north as you pass through Las Cruces!
Its like with belief systems. The trick is to get them to believe lies. Then they can be made to believe anything. Then they can be dominated by the few “enlightened/learned’?
So funny, 41% CF for wind, basis: what does it have to be to show it cheaper than CCGT? 40% looks “artificial” let’s use 41%.
Battery storage: $121.84, we know that’s for the battery alone and that a total package including all the electronics, site preparation, interconnecting and testing will at least double the price, but if we get called on it we’ll just say we based the price on used batteries. Shameful.
I still like your description of your wonderful spouse. A thousand thumbs up my man.
CCGT: $34.51/mWh
Wind +battery storage: $171/mWh (5X more than CCGT)
Wind onshore $31.45 for 1/3 of time + battery storage $121.84 for 2/3= $11+$80=$91 (bull feathers)
(Wind at 33% capacity factor 41*0.8)
Wind onshore $31.45 for 1/3 of time + battery storage $240.00 for 2/3= $11+$160=$171* per mWh
* battery storage $240 package installed and connected on site (minimum)**
**Battery prices may drop a few dollars, but the electronics, fire suppression, site prep, interconnections will not.
Let me see if I have this right. If I quote somebody, that’s the same thing as saying it myself?
Are you really this desperate to salvage what little is left of your pride and integrity?
And so the troll limps off, pathetic till the end.
This looks like a more realistic comparison with 100% RE vastly more expensive than the options, including nuclear and various combinations.
Challenging the GenCost report on the cost of intermittent energy. 100% RE with firming could cost over $400 per MWhour
https://www.riteon.org.au/netzero-casualties/#218
What, no Griff?
I thought windmills were his specialist subject
Perhaps he morphed into L Sellin.
Thanks, Willis. Have fun in florida, very likely milder than here in Oregon this weekend.
And just a little more:
They’re unsightly.
Wind turbines kill birds, eagles, and bats.
Solar requires lithium batteries that in production pollute with actually toxic materials. Not like that wonderful CO2 that they refer to as a “pollutant”.
Willis,
A very cogent presentation but the underlying problem is that even with corrections, “levelized costs” are not level at all. Consider the question from the other end, what is the VALUE of intermittent power?
Imagine a power grid that fully meets demand, 24/365. Add intermittent sources providing 0% to 100% of demand with semi-predicable outages of minute, hours, or days. What happens to costs?
In the real world, all the existing equipment is still needed to cover renewable shortfalls and outages. Capital, operating, and maintenance costs remain the same or increase due to load cycling. Only fuel costs are reduced.
Thus, the value of non-dispatchable power is at most the avoided fuel cost for the back-up systems. Renewables had an economic case in 2014 when oil was $120/bbl and expected to become increasingly scarce. Fracking changed all that, but the renewables lobby was already well established. Now they only survive on mandates, regulation and subsidies.
Also, your story of kerosene claimed that from 1857 “The public abandoned whale oil lamps almost overnight.” The story later notes the price of sperm oil in 1890, some 33 years later. That hardly seems like overnight to me. The point being that once the infrastructure for an industry is in place, sunk cost economics mean that takes a long time for that industry to wind down.
The amount of fossil fuels avoided by using renewables is always less than advertised.
The reason is that even if renewables are producing 100% of demand, the FF plants can’t be shut off. They need to be left in hot standby ready to take up the slack whenever a clouds passes over the wind farm, or the wind slacks even a bit.
There’s one resultant in your analysis that didn’t seem to be explained:
Just how does someone become your *ex* fiancé??
You marry her, as explained here … and besides, we were only affianced for less than 24 hours.
w.