By Robert Bradley Jr. — June 14, 2023
“While solar and wind receive huge subsidies, the end user pays for the party.”
“The dream of a solar and wind grid is collapsing very quickly as they are only profitable in a low penetration context.”
The following LinkedIN discussion is notable for its insight and reader reaction–and timely with summer concerns about grid reliability, given the wind/solar penetration at the expense of reliables.
Oscar L. Martin teed things off with this post:
Early adopters of solar and wind such as Texas or California are starting to see alarming signs of saturation even when the total energy production of intermittent sources barely reaches 24% of the total in those areas. Basically the dream of solar and wind is collapsing very quickly as they are only profitable in a low penetration context.
The image below shows the curtailed percentage of annual production curtailed from solar and wind farms in Texas in the last 12 months, ranging from 10 to 30 percent of the total production, and growing year over year.
Another example is the exponential growth of the curtailed percentage in California, an underdeveloped grid that needs to import almost 1/3 of its energy. In this state, the curtailed renewable energy was 0.75% in 2015, 1.1% in 2018, 3.1% in 2021, and skyrocketing to 4.5% in 2022. In the past 12 months, 2.6 TWh were curtailed in California, equivalent to the energy consumed by 300,000 homes in a year. When the amount of curtailed energy grows faster than the installed capacity the signs of saturation are starting to be relevant, showing that the cost of additional solar and wind will be more and more expensive as they won’t be as productive as before and will increase even more the total cost of energy for the end user.
How is this possible in a region such as California with a deficit in energy production? Solar and wind are notorious for failing to generate when they are most needed, and flooding the grid when they are not. For instance, electric car charging peaks at night, when solar energy is absent. And the wind speed drops significantly in summer and winter when electricity demand is highest. The consequence is a daily excess of discarded energy that worsens during the spring and fall seasons. The more renewables, the more curtailment, and lower returns for renewable farm owners but the same high fixed cost for the end user.
While solar and wind receive huge subsidies, the end user pays for the party. Is there any other alternative? Of course, instead of using clean intermittent sources that are destabilizing the grid and making it more expensive for the end user, the use of clean but dispatchable energy sources such as nuclear, geothermal, or hydroelectric have demonstrated they result in lower overall energy cost, lower emissions, lower rate of blackouts, lower waste, and lower impact on the environment.
The dream of a solar and wind grid is collapsing very quickly as they are only profitable in a low penetration context.
One Brian Wark angrily responded:
Oscar has real hate on for wind, solar, and storage. Every week posting misinformation. Who is really paying for your nice suits Oscar? You can’t just hate a new technology can you? Missing the point that closing or limiting use of a Gas or Coal plant leaves capacity on its transmission lines. Or we can stick battery storage either on site in your home or factory. Or nearby to power the entire neighbourhood. Lots of unused transmission lines at a site near you, San Onofre nuclear plant now closed.
Oscar Martin responded:
Brian, it is not hate. I only think we have way better options. It is not a feeling, but a rational deduction based on the poor performance of these technologies in those regions with higher grid penetration such as California, Texas, or Germany. I see two main problems:
– Intermittency is something that could be solved with affordable and massive energy storage, something that so far doesn’t exist. So, they require a backup of 100 percent of the peak demand.
– Extensive material and energy requirements, make them very invasive to the environment, with massive mining and waste generation. This is way more complicated as recycling is not required in most places and the toxic waste goes to landfills.
So, neither solar nor wind are ready for prime-time. I like nuclear because it is the most efficient, with the lowest emissions, waste, and land requirements. Geothermal and hydroelectric are not as efficient but they are great clean and reliable options where available.
Regarding San Onofre, I would like to see a refurbishment program like the Canadians successfully did in 2005, updating and bringing back online reactors that were shut down in 1990 and 1995.
Steve M commented: Texas uses all of the Wind and Solar that it can transmit. The lines get saturated and need either A) bigger lines or B) Energy Storage or C) Both. Oscar L. Martin can you show any point in time where Texas’ demand was less than its Wind and Solar supply?
Oscar Martin responded: … You can’t deploy solar and wind as a replacement for dispatchable sources already installed, so any new solar or wind farm is installed on top of the dispatchable backbone. In a solar/wind grid, that would be considered the backup capacity. Something that costs money even when they are not producing. So any additional wind or solar farm requires new power lines. Without them, the grid gets saturated quickly and makes all those solar and wind fields completely useless. We know ERCOT has been struggling with this, and it is not an easy solution as new powerlines take 10-15 years to be deployed due to the similar environmental requirements compared to nuclear.
By using geothermal, nuclear, or hydroelectric, you can effectively replace fossil fuel generation with another reliable but clean power source, without requiring additional power lines in the case of nuclear, as they can directly replace fossil fuels.
Final Comment: Yes, wind and solar as grid electricity are cancers for reliability. But Martin’s clean-for-clean energies’ swap neglects 1) hydropower as unreliable (bad water years) 2) geothermal as unproven at scale and 3) nuclear as capacity limited. Natural gas generation technologies–more efficient and cleaner than ever before–are the solution.
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The immediate response to Oscar was to accuse him of hate and taking dark money. A certain sign of someone who can’t make a rational argument. I doubt I could answer so politely if it were me.
Regarding San Onofre, sorry but you cannot reuse those power lines. San Onofre is a centralised power generation facility. Solar and Wind are distributed power generation, they need a completely different distrubution network.
A sinister fossil fuel cabal acting behind the scenes paying ‘influencers’ to manipulate consumer choices.
That is one of their rationalisations as to why ‘free’ wind and solar haven’t taken off by storm as would be expected if open market forces applied rather than solar and wind having to be mandated by governments and be heavily subsidised.
…paying ‘influencers’ to manipulate consumer choices.
Hmmm
Sounds like Anhauser Busch (Bud Light) and Dylan Mulvaney
That blew up in their face, didn’t it.
I think they have lost something like $20 billion in stock value over this stupidity.
Businesses shouldn’t alienate their customers if they know what’s good for themselves.
Or Target and it’s women’s swim suits complete with pockets in which to tuck male genitalia. They’ve also lost billions in value.
The funny thing is that when they panicked and ordered their stores to move the swim suit displays from the front of the store to the back, they ticked off all the LBQTXYZ groups, who are now also boycotting Target.
Wow, that is the cost of a decent sized nuclear power PLANT. The brand spanking new UAE plant those amazing Koreans are finishing was about $25B for 4 x 1.3GW units.
That’s like 4 huge windfarms with batteries included!!! Power dark or shine, all the time.
We must respond politely and rationally with data always and often to get our point across, or the message will be lost in the deluge of attacks from both sides of the fence.
As the left has learned, often ridicule is the best response.
The variable outputs of heavily-subsidized wind and solar are totally UNUSABLE, could not be fed into the grid, without the presence of a fleet of quick-reacting power plants, such as CCGTs, to counteract to ups and downs of these outputs, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, year after year.
The more wind and solar systems tied to the grid, the larger the fleet of counteracting plants
Heavily-subsidized wind and solar are a black hole money pit, FROM DAY ONE, i.e., never profitable, even at low penetration levels, on an A-to-Z, mine to waste dump, basis.
A black hole getting wider and deeper, as more wind and solar are added to the grid.
Curtailments are a FEATURE of wind and solar.
The more wind and solar tied to the grid, the greater and more frequent the curtailments, which can be readily analyzed, AND PREDICTED, using 15-minute grid operating data, and daily demand curves, and weather data
I forgot to mention something very important regarding CO2 not being removed, a claimed.
IRELAND FUEL AND CO2 REDUCTIONS DUE TO WIND ENERGY LESS THAN CLAIMED
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
EXCERPT
Wind proponents often claim one kWh of clean wind generation displaces one kWh of dirty fossil fuel generation, which is true.
However, the inefficiencies introduced into the electrical system by variable, intermittent wind, results in wind being less effective at reducing CO2 than claimed.
The more wind percent on the grid, the more the inefficiencies.
Ireland’s Power System
Eirgrid, the operator of the grid, publishes ¼-hour data regarding CO2 emissions, wind electricity production, fuel consumption and total electricity generation.
Drs. Udo and Wheatley made several analyses, based on the operating data of the Irish grid in 2012 and earlier, that show the effectiveness of CO2 emission reduction is decreasing with increasing annual wind electricity percentages on the grid.
The Wheatley Study of the Irish Grid
Wind energy CO2 reduction effectiveness = (CO2 intensity, metric ton/MWh, with 17% wind)/(CO2 intensity, with no wind) = (0.279, with 17% wind)/(0.530, with no wind) = 0.526, based on ¼-hour, operating data of each generator connected to the Irish grid, as collected by SEMO.
More and more wind percent on the grid leads to less and less CO2 reduction effectiveness
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-potential-pitfalls-of-offshore-wind-lessons-from-the-uk
A Devastating Verdict Against Wind (and Solar)
The EU “solution” was to give Ireland money to put in connections to the much larger UK and French grids.
The small Irish variations, while big on the Irish grid, disappear in the noise of the much larger UK and French grids, just like the small Idaho variations disappear in the much larger Illinois grid.
A public-relations problem, adverse to wind and solar, “solved” by making it disappear, by smoke and mirrors.
Just having fun in Lalaland of the Ruinables
In other words, they don’t make the problem go away, they just hide it better.
It hides in the noise of the grid, until all grids have high wind and solar percentages
Then, all hell breaks loose
I have the impression that CCGTs take time to warm up. SCGTs are very fast responders, but they have efficiencies in the 30-35% range, versus 50-60% for CCGTs.
So intermittent wind and solar even make gas-fired backup generation less efficient, more costly, and increase GHG emissions.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong. It does happen occasionally.
You are a smart rock! Yes, the combined cycle plants have to raise steam if they are to use true combined cycles. Raising steam slows down response. The simple cycle plants are very much faster to respond, but their efficiency is terrible (possibly only 20% thermal efficiency; or only 60% of the average of the US coal-fired fleet) because of their intermittent operation.
See my below comment.
The FLEET of CCGTs perform counteracting services as well as fill-in services to meet demand.
Almost all of them are always hot.
They are rarely offline, because that is a money loser.
The daily warmup occurs with simple-cycle, gas-turbines units to serve peak demands in late-afternoon/early-evening, when solar is reliably minimal and wind is USUALLY minimal as well
Keeping them always hot, even when their output isn’t needed, burns lots of fuel.
Correct, however new state of the art CCGT is rated at 67%. Anytime it is reported lower is because of being offline or on warm standby to make room for ruinous unreliables. None of this is complicated; the world would be a better place with zero subsidized wind and solar on the grid, zero subsidized mutilated corn and soybeans in our gas tanks and zero subsidized 1,000-pound batteries be lugged between charge stations, and zero liberal/progressives in government creating the expensive circus.
Minute by minute? More like second by second.
That’s the one use for grid scale batteries in these schemes. The batteries can respond in milli-seconds, and they can keep the grid from collapsing during the minutes it takes for fast CCGT plans to ramp up.
Of course the fact that those grid scale batteries add billions of dollars in up front construction cost and millions of dollars in on going maintenance costs is usually overlooked by the advocates of insanity.
There is much rotational inertia which makes second-by-second overkill.
I will settle for “less than minute-by-minute basis”, which I normally use in my articles.
The battery “instantaneous response” exists, but is a sales gimmick, not required in the real world of grid operations
Yes, we can supply all our electrical requirements with wind or solar or a combination of the two for a few years (until we go bankrupt). I’ve done the calculations and posted them here on WUWT and on Quora. But I very conservatively used100 hours of storage. Such a short time frame only increases electrify cost 10-fold. The top 25% income earners can readily handle that without blinking.
The problem is the over-building of storage for winter demand in the north and summer demand in the south. Since we absolutely positively can never afford to do that; why are we screwing around with something that does nothing for the environment and only makes electricity more expensive?
I think as respects San Onofre the discussion was about updating nuclear reactors and bringing it back on line, not using the infrastructure there for worse-than-useless wind or solar.
the only thing leftists are really good at is name calling
Wind and solar are intended as subsidy mining operations, with no thought given to grid effectiveness.
Exactly. Once one realizes that the subsidies constitute the entire point of Renewables, everything becomes clear.
Without subsidies, the entire industry would collapse overnight.
Without subsidies, it would not even exist.
As I like to call it, worse-than-useless.
Don’t large geothermal installations have an association with seismic events and decreasing efficiencies over time?
Seismic events, no.
Decreasing output over time, yes.
Most of the geothermal locations are in areas that are already seismically active.
As Steve M correctly says, in Texas there was no point at which output was curtailed for lack of demand. The problem was that the grid could not transmit what was available and wanted.
And as he said, the answer is a better grid. Which will no doubt happen.
I doubt it. Personally, I believe rather than upgrading the grid sufficiently, the powers that be will just add more generators to it..
Its the same thing as highways: backup on the highways? Make them bigger! Never mind that the real problem is getting people on and off the highway.
Who pays for this “better grid” Nick?
In case you haven’t noticed, consumers are already being bled dry by price increases.
In your backyard, suppliers are inflicting 20 – 30% increases on consumers right now.
The reason for the price rises is rise in the price of gas and coal.
California uses almost no coal get when they opted to cut over to Ruinables electric rates jumped from 9-11¢/kWH up to 22¢/kWH now at almost 26¢
getyetDang autocorrect autoreplace
I get tired of your ignorance. Powder River Basin coal $0.82 (yes, 82 cents) per million BTU. One-third the cost of natural gas even at it present very low price. Cheapest fuel around. It’s why Wyoming and Idaho have very cheap power. But that will end as our major utilities plan to ditch combustion of all types for wind…or actually they play the word game of “wind+storage” without ever identifying or proposing to build storage except for a plan to make some inadequate amounts of pumped storage if they can get the permits for reservoirs and other appurtenances…
It’s not ignorance, he knows better. He gets schooled each time he makes these claims. His job is to protect the narrative, and he’s very good at it.
Mr was complaining of the rise in prices in Australia. We don’t have access to Powder River coal. The rise here is due to rises in coal and gas prices.
Nick, my question to you was “who pays for building this ‘better grid’ you so imperiously demand.
Taxpayers?
Consumers?
There are no other options.
You will keep repeating any politically useful lie.
The cost of electricity started rising long before the cost of gas did.
The cost of electricity rose by a bigger percentage than did the cost of gas.
The cost of gas has returned to normal, but the cost of electricity has stayed high.
Nick,
Twenty years ago we had thermal power stations adjacent to dedicated coal mines that were designed that way to minimise cost such as international price movements. These are getting rare because the power stations are being dynamited in favour of W&S.
So who looks too smart by half now?
Do you still believe that Australia should go for high penetration of W&S, while others like me favour forgetting political interference, reviving free enterprise principles and building modern power stations next door to coal mines?
We are talking about people like politicians making gross mistakes with the capacity to kill many people through enforced shortages of that essential good named electricity. It is not a remote numbers game or a power grab any more, it is getting deadly more serious by the day.
Good luck to your mates at CSIRO with the injection of the doubtful skills of a former Chief Medical Officer scurrying to evade blame, retribution and responsibilty for more mistakes of the type that kill people.
Geoff S
I don’t know what planet you are getting your data from, but it isn’t this one.
The problem was never lack of demand, it was always lack of supply.
Wind and solar cut out, and thanks to the decision to replace reliable gas powered pumps with ones powered from the grid, natural gas wasn’t able to keep up.
“The problem was never lack of demand, it was always lack of supply.”
The problem this article is talking about is curtailment, where supply is available but can’t be delivered.
The problem this article is talking about is “… solar and wind are notorious for failing to generate when they are most needed, and flooding the grid when they are not …” i.e. lack of supply.
Lack of Supply/Demand cohesion
..OR — How the introduction of unreliables into a grid completely f!@ur momisugly#s up the grid, creates a nightmare for operators, destroys business and consumer confidence in energy costs, and adds pressure to an already inflated economy…
Ye gads, but you warmunists are duplicitous!
“..can’t be delivered”? Waddahell dat means, boy?
What you meant to say is what the article said: Your whirlygigs generate power when NOBODY NEEDS IT.
“…can’t be delivered…” indeed!
P.S. Why are you warmunists so retarded you can’t schedule your car charging for when power is available? Oh, I forget, facts don’t matter when you hold the moral high ground, right? Riiiight?
You beat me to it. Supply is curtailed when it produces more than demand requires.
It is why auto makers watch their supply chain so carefully. If a certain model is not demanded, they curtail the supply. Wind and solar work just the opposite. They curtail supply when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine regardless of demand. Then they turn around and produce supply when demand is lower. Just backwards.
Nick Stokes misses the whole point of the article. The more wind and solar you build, the more likely that curtailment will be needed when the wind does blow and solar does shine. This reduces the income for those generators which, in turn, requires higher prices for the supply that is used.
Fossil fuel plants are not the issue nor is the fuel type. Fossil fueled generators will be needed for backup regardless of how much solar and wind capacity there is.
Stokes mission is to spread FUD for the IPCC about any facts that are in opposition to its propaganda.
He’s not missing the point. He’s avoiding it.
Exactly right. Zero value surplus generation upsets the simplistic LCOE calculations badly. If only 20% of the output from an additional wind farm or solar park is contributing to needed generation on days of higher demand and reduced renewables output, while the other 80% simply adds to the existing surplus, then the cost of the useful part is at least 5 times the number you first thought of.
…. when you own the science…
You’re forgetting the main cause of curtailment, which is “where supply is available WHEN NOBODY NEEDS IT.”
Which is the parasitic disease of wind and solar. It is produced NOT when needed, but at the whims of the weather and time of day.
That’s a polite way of saying that renewables only produce power when nobody needs it. However grids don’t collapse from those kinds of problems. Grid’s collapse when the power available isn’t enough to fill the demand.
I love the way Nick tries to hide reality by dancing gracefully around the truth.
There are two elements to curtailment. One is where it becomes necessary because the grid cannot handle the power throughput on particular transmission links. The second is where the overall level of generation exceeds demand.
For the first kind of curtailment it is important to recognise that it is not economic to build sufficient grid capacity to handle occasional high flows from intermittent renewables generators: it is much cheaper to build peaker plant close to demand centres. There will always be an optimal level of locational curtailment of intermittent generation. Although there may be excess potential dispatchable generation behind a grid constraint this is usually simply in the form of backup, not must run capacity. Dispatchable grid constrained generation is usually the result of damage to part of the grid network, leaving a potentially overloaded segment on the operational grid.
Where the overall level of generation exceeds demand then there will be curtailment however big of a grid you build, because storage is not economic. South Australia is a classic example, fuelled by over-subsidised rooftop solar.
No, that is not the answer. You can see it if you just look at
https://gridwatch.co.uk/demand/percent
After you get up to speed with the implications of the ‘this month’ and ‘last month’ hourly averages, take a look at the wind only charts
http://www.gridwatch.co.uk/wind
If its not being generated, it doesn’t matter how good your transmission network is, there is nothing there to transmit.
Whats happening in the UK is that 28GW of installed wind is delivering less than 5GW for most of a month. And if you look at the percent charts, you see that what installing all this wind has in fact led to is the burning of gas.
Which we know is having to be burned as SCGT, so maybe 30% or so efficiency as compared to the better than 50% you would get by dispensing with the wind and using CCGT.
This is so ridiculous coming from an intelligent and numerate person! The effect of installing wind and solar is neither to lower gas fuel costs, nor to lower emissions. Its a way of having to install less efficient gas plants to make up for the fact that you have to go to prodigious effort, expense and burning of fossil fuels in order to make use of wind and solar at all. And the more you have of it, the more expense and fuel you incur.
And the more curtailment you have, because the more you install, the more you generate when its not usable. So the result of that is that your capacity utilization falls the more you install.
This is totally idiotic and only justifiable by intellectual dishonesty and contortions. And the most ridiculous thing of all, it doesn’t even make a dent in CO2 emissions which is supposed to be the justification.
Look at the UK charts. It leaps out at you. They would be better off just installing CCGT and getting rid of all the wind and solar.
Texas is at 26% ruinous and unreliable. they haven’t exceeded “The Pollock Limit” (See Monkton here on WUWT a couple months ago). TPL indicates that once the W&S capacity factor (35%?) is exceeded W&S on a respective grid becomes uneconomical. Because Texas has an isolated grid there isn’t any way to hide true costs behind flexible imported hydro (like Denmark does or Germany used to do with cheap Russian Natural Gas). Texas “isn’t there yet”, but they’re working at it! The economic damage the nuisance wind and solar does to conventional producers is a separate issue.
An implication of this post is that grid scale , economical , storage is needed for these renewables to be a useful and reliable part of our energy systems and solutions. Today this criteria is not met. Until it is , color me skeptical on it’s ultimate potential.
There is no such thing as “grid scale storage” of electricity.
There most likely never will be any such thing.
There are not enough batteries, they cost too much, cannot be made at the needed scale, do not last long enough, and cannot be charged and discharged at the rate required to supply the power grid, and are terribly inefficient.
But all of those reasons do not have to be considered, because the first one is the deal killer.
In the headline article, the Brian Wark’s “angry response” demonstrates he has no idea what he is talking about, when he blithely states: “Or we can stick battery storage either on site in your home or factory. Or nearby to power the entire neighbourhood.”
But, as all wind and solar acolytes just know and unquestionably believe, every element of the pathway to promised cheap and reliable power delivery will eventuate because the missing last element is –
“and then a miracle happens . . . “
Has there been any place that has benefited from solar and wind power over FF?
Possibly Islands where FF must be imported rather than having available domestic supplies to make use of
A wind installation was done on the Galapagos Islands. It failed.
In fact, as the Manhattan Contrarian points out, there has never been a controlled, experimental wind turbine site, properly established to understand the benefits or otherwise of wind. Governments just subsidise the construction of massive farms in the belief they work.
That is a massive assumption.
Yes, landowners who agree to put wind or solar farms on their land
Does Hubble count?
It is amazing how dumb lefties are when it comes to understanding how an electrical grid functions. Putting up more powerlines and adding more wind and solar doesn’t solve the need for power 24 hrs a day when, at night or cloudy day, the sun don’t shine and even more erratic is times when the wind doesn’t blow. This is not rocket science type understanding. Even a fourth grader could grasp this problem.
Lefties pick positions based on what feels right, not what actually works.
There’s the problem, lefties and alarmists are stuck in second grade
“The dream of a solar and wind grid is collapsing very quickly as they are only profitable in a low penetration context.”
They aren’t profitable in any context, it’s just that when penetration is very low, it’s easier to hide the costs.
Should read “they are never profitable, but can be made to appear so from the standpoint of the owners by mandating their poor and unpredictability delivered power be given preference in the grid along with other large subsidies and tax credits. “
The problem with renewables is that they don’t work most of the time!
“The nameplate farce”:
There should be financial penalties for wind and solar power plants inability to deliver at least 90% of their permitted nameplate ratings on an ANNUAL basis, like their backup competitors of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants that provide continuous uninterruptable electricity.
Subsidies for wind and solar power plants are based on “nameplate ratings”, thus they should be penalized when they cannot deliver what they have been permitted for.
Practically every windmill or solar panel requires a backup from coal, natural gas, or nuclear, thus understanding electricity generation’s true cost is paramount to choosing and prioritizing our future electricity generating systems.
“I like nuclear because it is the most efficient, with the lowest emissions, waste, and land requirements.”
Indeed. There’s no need for miles and miles of rail lines for coal trains or miles of pipelines for gas (although I’m very pro-natgas, as it’s still quite clean and easy to transport). In terms of mass and volume, even low-enriched uranium packs far more energy than coal or giant reservoirs. But for enviros/greens, nuclear power produces essentially zero emissions, doesn’t kill birds with giant blades, doesn’t prevent fish from migrating in a river, and the nuclear waste can just be put back in the place where it was originally obtained- in the ground.
Nuclear provides abundant, reliable, and inexpensive power.
Therefore the Warmistas will always hate it.
China on target to burn 4,400Mt of coal in 2023. The rest of the world is irrelevant to carbon consumption. Any reduced carbon consumption in the west is offset by Chinese consumption.
If you want wind turbines and solar panels China needs to burn a lot more coal.
Australia needs to instal 10,000km of new transmission line to interconnect all the intermittent sources. Current rate is around 500km per year. So the Net Zero transmission network will be in place in Australia by 2050 providing China can keep supplying all the junk needed and someone comes up with a viable battery.
Forget about the “viable battery”, it’s not going to happen. The enclosures, overcurrent protection interconnecting switch gear, fire suppression and more plus labor and site prep costs $200/kwh, $200,000/MWh, 100 hours of storage for a few cloudy and calm days gets the cost to $20,000,000. Storing the output of a 1,000 MW facility = $20,000,000,000 ($20 billion) BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED. A fully functional facility installed and commissioned at 2023 prices with batteries? Better have a $50 billion line of credit or a “government loan guarantee”.
You also can’t let the batteries get too hot or too cold. So heaters and AC will be necessary at each location.
1) Turnkey, all-in, $500 to $600 per kWh, delivered as AC,
2) They last about 15 years, after which come
3) The recycle and disposal costs
In 2000 coal use worldwide was 4699 million tonnes (Mt). In 2022 it was expected to be 8038Mt of which China 4250Mt, India 1103Mt, Other Asia 898Mt. (total 6257Mt c. 77% of world total)
In August 2022 coal powered generation in China was over 500 TWh, a MONTHLY level of generation higher than the total ANNUAL coal power generation of any country other than India and the US.
China, India and Indonesia are the world’s three largest producers of coal and that production is only going in one direction.
Souce, IEA ‘Coal 2022 Analysis and Forecast to 2025’ December 2022
And provided the suckers buying all this needless crap from China can keep paying the bills, given they are at the same time catering their economies.
Try 4.4 BILLION METRIC TON, which is more than 50% of the coal consumed by the entire world, about 8+ BILLION METRIC TONS
Most of the later plants have ultra-super-critical units, about 43% efficient, with all self-use loads accounted for, such as high-efficiency air pollution control systems
Whatever the EU and US do to reduce coal consumption, is more than offset by the rest of the world, the main reason CO2 keeps increasing, which is good, because CO2 is a life gas for flora and fauna. Ask any greenhouse farmer
Build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators and remove wind and solar from the grid, then we can address things that really matter.
Nick, you’re just the one to educate this poor fool:
Both you and one of the “commentors” in the article complain about the inability of the grid cables to carry your solar/ whirlygig electrix.
Can somebody please explain to me; is the viscosity too thick? Does it run at an exotic frequency?
Please, please explain to me the phrase:
…but at least we now know that all we need is “we can stick battery storage either on site in your home or factory. Or nearby to power the entire neighbourhood…”
Why hadn’t one of us dumbfarks thunk of that?
It was raining at the time.
You have to have a wry smile at the gap or disconnect, between the engineering reality of grid energy and the wishful thinking of the so called green renewable energy advocates.
Here in the UK we have absolute examples, or monuments if you like, to the folly of pushing ‘renewable’ energy. That push achieved by destroying expensive existing energy infrastructure and robbing customers of their energy choices, is nowhere more obvious than in Shropshire.
In Shropshire UK at the Ironbridge gorge, home to the actual initiating site of the industrial age, a one GW coal fired power station was build in the 1960/70 to replace the earlier low capacity plant built in the 1930s.
Coal was supplied by train on dedicated tracks ensuring no interference with road traffic. Power lines were built that marched across the county to the West Midlands conurbation.
The plant was shut down at the end of 2015 and demolished, literally blown up to ensure it could never be recommissioned. The power lines still march across the county heading towards the West Midlands but now carry no power they are redundant. The rail line is redundant. The employment was lost, all the workers were made redundant.
The end plan for the site is a new housing development, effectively a new town in what is one of the most iconic and industrially significant places on earth.
The renewables industry can not use any of the site’s original infrastructure, none of the power lines, or the rail lines, or the workforce, or the river cooling option can be redeployed.
Utter destruction without a single benefit.
Meanwhile earlier this week the Ratcliff of Soar coal fired power station in Nottinghamshire, the last one standing was fired up to keep the grid alive because it was too sunny and warm for the solar panels to cope, it would be funny if it was not so tragic.
It is fast and easy to build a new coal fired power plant.
So there is always that.
I made a detour to visit Ironbridge and to be sure to drive past the power station while the cooling towers were still standing: they were a particularly pleasing brick, here viewed from the River Severn on a calm autumn day.
A point I keep trying to make but to the vast majority there is no difference between wind and solar and conventional generation. Renewables are inferior technically and are not a direct replacement, they are uncontrollable feeding a grid that needs very fine control, they lack inertia for stability, they do not provide reactive power for voltage stability and do not support short circuit current levels for correct operation of transmission line protection systems.
That is before intermittency which I believe is unsurmountable.
Agree with all of that apart from the puzzling statement “there is no difference between wind and solar and conventional generation.” ??
Clearly there is, you spent the rest of your post detailing it!
Never mind the costs…
Full article
Here, the Australian Energy Market Operator AEMO is a government body for planning the future requirements of the National Electricity Market, NEM, that covers most of the east part of the country.
In 2020, AEMO released a major study, Integrated System Plan, ISP. –
https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/major-publications/isp/2020/final-2020-integrated-system-plan.pdf?la=en
This plan spoke of “renewables”penetrations of 75% as it they were the practical target, a stepping stone to 95% or more.Some of us objected to major aspects but were blown off with unsatisfactory responses. Then, Covid confusion hampered matters further, so we have renewables growing by default.
Currently, the world is seeing some of the difficulties at low penetrations, as per the arfticle, but little public discussion of what needs to be changed and why.
….
It would be most helpful if some engineers with experience of national sized grids could critique this AEMO report, to compare what was confidently forecast in 2020 with the emerging problems evident in 2023.
In my humble view, we need to stop this dangerous lemming-like rush to 75% penetration ASAP.
Please,you people with experience, what bullet points should we use to restore sanity to AEMO?
Geoff S
Those who support climate change ideology use euphemisms to hide the damage to our economy and our standard of living from the implementation of their belief system.
In the above, the term “curtail” and “curtailment” is used when they mean turn off the electricity, and force people to sit in the dark, in the heat or the cold.
”Demand management” is another term often used. “Demand management” likewise means that the electricity is shut off to some users because “renewable” wind and solar power is incapable of producing enough supply of electricity to meet the demand.
There is also nothing “renewable” about an electricity production system that requires the capital intensive production equipment (windmills and solar panels) to be thrown away and replaced every twenty years or so.
Fossil and nuclear fuel plants last 50 to 100 years, with the necessary fuel dug out of the ground and used as needed.
The materials for “renewable” electricity generation are dug out of the ground and replaced every 20 years. One in not more “renewable” than the other.
And when the power is curtailed- I bet the wealthy won’t be in the dark and cold. They can afford generators for their mansions- with which they’ll burn ff. I doubt they’ll install wind turbines in their beautifully landscaped yards- nor will they cover their mansion with solar panels.
Wrong. Curtailment is done when power is produced but cannot be used. It isn’t taken away from someone, anyone, who wants it.
Demand management is what you described under curtailment. It happens because power is wanted but is not available, the opposite of curtailment.
>>Story Tip>>
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni recently reversed her country’s legislated moratorium against the cleanest and most reliable form of power generation there is. Meloni’s move makes way for the reactivation of 3 plants shuttered after the moratorium took effect – Caorso (860MW), Enrico Fermi (260MW) and Latina (153MW) along with plans to build all new plants, as well as tapping into the latest small modular reactor technology.
Italy Returns to Nuclear Sanity. Shouldn’t We?
Real Clear Energy
Duggan Flanakin
15 May 2023
The Italian parliament, demonstrating confidence in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, this week formally backed her plan to reintroduce nuclear power plants into Italy’s energy mix, reversing the nation’s 1987 moratorium on nuclear power.
Meanwhile, energy-starved Germany is feeling the pinch from shuttering all of its 17 nuclear power plants.
____________________
Giorgia Meloni is rapidly shaping up to be the most competent and intelligent leader in Europe (even if her name translates to “Georgia Melons” in English).
From the article: “The dream of a solar and wind grid is collapsing very quickly as they are only profitable in a low penetration context.”
The only reason wind and solar are “profitable” is because they receive taxpayer subsidies. If not for these subsidies, wind and solar would not be economically viable. They can’t stand on their own.
Remember: Warren Buffet says the only reason to invest in wind and solar is for the taxpayer subsidies.
The neighbor down the street (and his wife) recently went from one Tesla plus a small Kia to two brand-new Teslas. I detest having to pay for a portion of his battery car fleet through my tax dollars.
What on earth is that supposed to mean? The only limits to nuclear capacity are the byzantine regulation process that makes plants so expensive to build, and the persistent low-level anti-nuclear fear-mongering from you-know-who.
Where I live, in Ontario, 60 percent of the GWh generated is nuclear. Is that the capacity limit? In France, it’s 70 percent. Is that the capacity limit? Exactly why couldn’t it be 100 percent, Mr. Bradley? Talk sense, please.
Current commercial nuclear is apparently not dispatchable, rather like coal. Demand varies, so diapachable sources, in addition to the nuclear, are required for the higher demand periods.
“So, neither solar nor wind are ready for prime-time.”
**********
Agreed.
And a NY state senator has an interesting legislative idea that he came up with. Prohibit fossil fuel use for solar and wind energy from the mining to the end-of-life stages. Watch what happens if such legislation were to come up for a vote. Voting against it would be an admission that solar and wind energy are dependent on fossil fuels.
Senator George Borrello Introduces Legislation to Prohibit Use of Fossil Fuels in Manufacturing of Renewable Energy Equipment | NY State Senate (nysenate.gov)
“ALBANY – Senator George Borrello has introduced legislation that would prohibit the use of fossil fuels in the manufacture or distribution of renewable energy equipment or infrastructure, citing the ‘inherent environmental and ethical conflict’ that results from using an emission-producing energy sources to manufacture ‘green’ energy sources like wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars.”
I love it, but I know that it probably won’t go anywhere.
Some legislator in CA, a few years back, introduced legislation that, in summary, said all “renewable” products purchased for use in the state must meet CA’s own environmental, sustainable, labor, etc. requirements that apply for manufacturing, mining, transportation, etc. done in state. I personably believe it was introduced only to point out the rampant hypocrisy of CA government, not with any thought that it would actually be enacted. Of course it was quickly shot down.
As someone with 40+ years in the energy sector, I’d like to put on record that renewables are an expensive con for consumers, but a great cash cow for sellers, installers and owners
Heavy industry, smelting iron or aluminum, has to have uninterrupted power. We need an industry that can utilize intermittent power from weather-dependent sources, but produces something useful.
Green Hydrogen? Or?
Green hydrogen is very costly. Intermittency is part of the reason: surpluses are intermittent and highly variable in size, meaning that you cannot guarantee good utilisation of the electrolysers, which operate at reduced efficiency when switched on and off anyway.
See also Shell’s Refhyne project that sought to make 1% of its refinery hydrogen via electrolysis at Wesseling. This report was pre energy crisis:
https://refhyne.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/D7.2-report-v7.0-clean.pdf
and this one in the middle of the crisis
https://www.refhyne.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/REFHYNE-Lessons-Learnt_Aug22_PU_FV.pdf
Not encouraging that they found the costs becoming even less competitive with SMR, the traditional method of making hydrogen.
G’Day it doesnot add up,
Thanks for the reply and the links. When a 53 page .pdf report is considered a “Brief summary …”, ouch.
From the second of those studies, “The electrolyser system requires ultra pure water…” That I wasn’t aware of. Not going to be available at a solar/wind ‘farm’ site.
There has to be a product (or service?) that ‘constrained’ energy can be used for, on site. Right now I’m out of ideas.