Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [See update at the end]
We’ve been told over and over by very serious people that wind and solar are far cheaper than natural gas and coal … and yet the more renewables we add to the grid, the more our electricity bills keep going up and up. Ever wonder why that is?
If you want to see how to lie with numbers while wearing a suit and a straight face, look no further than Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy—LCOE, for those fond of acronyms and allergic to reality. LCOE is the financial world’s favorite energy cost yardstick: strip-mined of context, it tells you—supposedly—how much it costs to generate a megawatt-hour from any shiny new wind turbine, solar panel, or gas plant, averaged over its life.
Currently, Lazard says:
“Despite facing macro challenges and headwinds, utility-scale solar and onshore wind remain the most cost-effective forms of new-build energy generation on an unsubsidized basis (i.e., without tax subsidies). As such, renewable energy will continue to play a key role in the buildout of new power generation in the U.S. as the lowest-cost and quickest-to-deploy generation.”
See below how much cheaper wind and solar are than gas or coal? Sounds fair. Appears to be precise.
In reality? It’s financial alchemy, the spreadsheet version of Schrödinger’s Cat: deeply misleading, and possibly dead when you open the box.
Here’s the pitch. LCOE claims to offer a one-stop number: capital, operations, maintenance, fuel, and some sparkling optimism about the plant actually running at the output you wish it did.
What it doesn’t tell you—because the truth is a budget line item nobody wants to explain—is what it costs to actually plug that source into the chaos of a real grid. LCOE blithely ignores grid integration, backup, balancing, transmission upgrades, stabilization, wind turbine blades snapping off, and the nasty habit of solar and wind to give you exactly zero when you need power most.
In short, the LCOE measures the cost of what the plant should produce at the fence, not what it costs to deliver real, reliable electricity to your coffee maker when you actually want it.
Of course, to avoid lawsuits, in the fine print underneath the above graph Lazard says (emphasis mine):
Other factors would also have a potentially significant effect on the results contained herein but have not been examined in the scope of this current analysis. These additional factors, among others, may include: recent tariff-related cost impacts; implementation and interpretation of the full scope of the IRA; economic policy, transmission queue reform, network upgrades and other transmission matters, congestion, curtailment or other integration-related costs; permitting or other development costs, unless otherwise noted. This analysis is intended to represent a snapshot in time and utilizes a wide, but not exhaustive, sample set of Industry data. As such, we recognize and acknowledge the likelihood of results outside of our ranges. Therefore, this analysis is not a forecasting tool and should not be used as such given the complexities of our evolving Industry, grid and resource needs. Except as illustratively sensitized herein, this analysis does not consider the intermittent nature of selected renewables energy technologies or the related grid impacts of incremental renewable energy deployment. This analysis also does not address potential social and environmental externalities including, for example, the social costs and rate consequences for those who cannot afford distributed generation solutions.
and:
Variations in fuel prices can materially affect the LCOE of conventional generation technologies, but direct comparisons to “competing” renewable energy generation technologies must take into account issues such as dispatch characteristics (e.g., baseload and/or dispatchable intermediate capacity vs. peaking or intermittent technologies)
So, since Lazard is lying to us, what do we need to make informed decisions? Enter LFSCOE, the Levelized Full System Cost Of Energy—a metric so drearily comprehensive it’s almost honest. LFSCOE stuffs at least most of those hidden extras back into the variable column: the new transmission lines, the battery storage, the backup generators running on gas or coal, the cost of running a grid that isn’t just a science fair project for intermittent electrons. You want to compare wind, solar, nuclear, and gas on a somewhat level field? This is where the rubber finally meets the road, and it’s filled with potholes.
Here are some estimates. The LCOE for utility-scale solar? Lazard currently says $0.024–$0.096 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), which is $24 to $96 per megawatt-hour (MWh)—a figure recited like gospel at every green energy conference. For onshore wind, $0.024–$0.075/kWh, reported with the certainty of Newtonian physics. But plug these into the grid at scale and watch the magic unravel. When you add the hard system costs—grid balancing, expanded transmission, dedicated backup—real-world LFSCOE numbers emerge, and the story turns bleak for “cheap” renewables.
Recent system studies (IEA, EIA, Fraunhofer, you name it) peg the true LFSCOE for new onshore wind, at modest penetration levels (say, Germany or Texas): $0.08–$0.14/kilowatt-hour ($80 – $140 per megawatt-hour) after you factor in balancing, storage, congestion, and all the rest. Solar PV, barring the magical desert utopia where the sun shines every day, runs $0.07–$0.13/kWh if you want the lights to actually stay on and the grid not to wobble. Offshore wind, king of bad surprises, lopes in around $0.12-$0.18/kWh, and someone’s still writing up the bill for winterizing those turbine-servicing fleets of maintenance vessels.
Meanwhile, the real-world LFSCOE for new combined-cycle gas—dispatchable, flexible, can be sited anywhere, shows up during the Super Bowl—still hovers around $0.05–$0.075/kWh, system costs included. Nuclear? If you actually build it on budget (a rare unicorn), $0.09–$0.12/kWh, but the output’s reliable, the US is easing the regulatory mania which will lower prices, prices are dropping for the new mini-reactors, and you don’t have to build Texas-sized batteries for a cloudy week in February. Here’s an overview of the above numbers.
Lazard’s LCOE, in other words, is a metric for making renewables look good in PowerPoints, Excel dashboards, and glossy investor prospectuses. It’s the swimsuit edition of the energy-cost beauty contest—ignoring the fact that when you take solar and wind home to dinner, you’re also on the hook for their utility bills, therapy sessions, and spare bedrooms for all their unreliable friends.
It gets shadier. Lazard doesn’t wear the blame alone; the entire consultancy-policymaker-energy-industrial complex has played along. Banks issue green loans, politicians issue green press releases, and somewhere along the line, actual grid operators are left counting the hours until the next rolling blackout—brought to you by “record renewable penetration.”
So, does LCOE tell us anything useful?
Sure. It tells you what it would cost to build a power plant if you never had to connect it to anything, if electrons were wishful thinking, and if the world were as flat as a spreadsheet.
On the other hand, if you want to know what you’ll actually pay to keep the grid running—on a steamy Saturday afternoon in August in the Florida Panhandle, when it’s overcast and wind’s at a dead calm, everyone’s aircon sounds like it’s warming up for takeoff, and it’s anyone’s guess if your freezer will survive—you’d better reach for LFSCOE, dust off your reality glasses, and start counting all your hidden costs.
If energy policy were ever honestly debated, LCOE would be confined to the footnotes, right next to unicorn sightings and promised Powerball payouts.
But as long as reality is subordinate to narrative and the cost of electrons is calculated by the people selling you the next miracle, the first thing to get blacked out will be the truth.
Sigh …
My very best to all,
w.
Yeah, You’ve Heard It Before: When you comment, quote the exact words you are discussing. It’s surprising how much unnecessary friction it avoids.
[UPDATE] From a commenter in the thread below:
I didn’t say it was limited to a single technology, I said it models scenarios with a single technology being used for almost 100% of generation.
The part you are overlooking is that all of those additional costs come into play, not just at almost 100%, but as soon as you add unreliables to the grid.
For example. If you want to add a gigawatt of wind power to an existing grid, you absolutely have to add an additional gigawatt of conventional power for the dunkelflaute, as the Germans found out to their sorrow. Modern power grids only have backup spinning reserve for what they’re generating, so they can’t cover the new gigawatt.
And that nearly doubles the cost of that gigawatt, whether that gigawatt is 100% or 10% of your generation …
In addition, it starts on day one, not at 100%, and it’s not counted in the LCOE.
Next, you have the land costs because a wind farm covers a far greater area than conventional generation. And while the land won’t be expensive because it’s likely out in the boonies, it’s a real cost that starts on day 1 …
… plus, because it’s out in the boonies, the power is being generated where it’s NOT needed. That means that to get it where it IS needed you’ll have to put in roads, giant towers, high-voltage powerlines, transformers, and substations over a great distance.
And that’s expensive, and has to start well before day 1 … whether that gigawatt is 100% or 10% of your generation.
Etc. ad lib. Yes, as you imply, it must slightly overstate the costs at 10%, because the costs increase percentagewise the more unreliables you add to your grid …
… but that’s a bad thing, not a good thing …
Next, you say.
” It’s not superior to LCOE “
Including those very real costs and others beyond the scope of this comment is exactly why LFSCOE is far superior to LCOE. When I go to buy something, I want every single cost factored in.
The part you’re not acknowledging is the use of the LCOE by climate alarmists to convince people that renewable = cheap, when the reality is, almost every real-world example says renewable = expensive. It is misleading, which is bad enough. But that misleading claim is being deceptively used to aggressively sell a green agenda to an unsuspecting public, which is far worse. It’s bad data wrongly used in a worse cause.
Finally, the goal of the climate alarmists seems to be to have a wholly or almost wholly renewable grid … so LFSCOE would seem to be the proper choice in any case for this kind of long-term power supply question, no?
My best regards to you,
w.
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Texas in 2021 discovered just how well windmills work in freezing rain and still air.
Tom – lots of distortions about the Texas feb 2021 freeze by the advocates. About 5% of texas wind generation was lost to freezing rain.
The remaining loss of wind generation was due to lack of wind across the entire north american continent. The texas ercot fiasco lost 40% of electric generation for about 40 hours which was limited to ERCOT, while wind lost 60-90% for about 6-11 days depending on where in the north american continent.
Oddly the advocates absolve renewables for their significantly greater failure while condemning the gas plants.
As Alex Epstein noted, wind turbines may have only been part of the problem, but they were none of the solution to saving the grid from complete collapse.
Absolutely correct – One of the repeated defenses of Wind for the continent wide failure is that Wind was “expected to be dormant:” and therefore should share no of the blame for the Texas grid failure. Since wind was not the blame for the Texas grid failure, we should rely more on wind!
Okay – but Wind proved it is not a solution. What part is hard to understand
Great stuff Joe, Down Under we have wonderous things like battery farms that will provide a smidgeon of power for all of 60 minutes. Using the Texas example, and right now in southern Australia we are in the middle of a wind pause lasting several days making your comments highly applicable in my part of the world.
Brilliant!
One of the worst offenders of solar power insanity, and has an out-size audience, is Elon Musk. As brilliant as he is, he pushes solar power like it’s gonna be this magical power source to save humanity. Since he’s obviously quite intelligent and can do engineering maths, I can only conclude he knows he’s lying to sell snake oil.
His Mankind to Mars ventures similarly are lunatic, and will end in tragedy for those who hop on his Starships to go there. But that an off-topic, different story.
Musk had Tesla buy SolarCity for $2.6 billion in 2016. It was a pure bailout rescue. Lyndon Rive had previously cofounded it with Musk. They are cousins.
Space exploration is dangerous.
Cook circumnavigation of the planet was also dangerous.
It’s not the risks. There are always risks. One could get hit with a meteorite.
Nor is it the probability that one or another risk will go south.
What is missing, clearly, is the benefits.
Cost-risk-benefits analysis determines if something is worth the effort.
Then, of course, there are gamblers.
Captain James Cook’s circumnavigations of the globe were primarily driven by a combination of scientific curiosity, exploration, and British imperial ambitions. The British Royal Society, with the support of the Crown, sought to observe the transit of Venus and explore the South Pacific, including the possibility of a large, undiscovered southern continent (Terra Australis Incognita). Cook’s voyages also aimed to expand British knowledge of the Pacific, chart coastlines, and establish trade routes.
clearly he and many others saw alot of benifits to his journey …
Colonizing Mars ? not so many …
A fascinating aside to Cook’s journeys is the actual route he took once he passed through the Straits of Magellan/Cape Horn.
His first journey was in the latter stages of the Little Ice Age.
His route to Tahiti was well north of the later journeys indicating that he was avoiding the ice bergs prevalent in the Southern Ocean at the time.
that is a nice story but doesn’t appear to be true. Have a look at the route on
wikipedia at (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_voyage_of_James_Cook). As expected he sailed north until he reached the latitude of Tahiti and then sailed due west until he reached it. Which was the only way to navigate given the issues regarding finding your longitude without a decent clock.
And where is the evidence for ice bergs prevalent in the Southern Ocean at that time? Unless there are reports from American whalers that seems unlikely since nobody was sailing down there back then.
Nice example, Izaak. I hadn’t thought of the map. Instead I looked at what Cook wrote in his log. No mention of icebergs. Your conclusion is correct.
w.
You recounting of Cook is not in question.
Your opinion of Colonizing Mars is a subject for in depth debate and CRB analysis.
It would be a great place to send Democrats. They could protest its “excessive” atmospheric CO2 levels and demand “action” to solve the “crisis.”
The sun can get you to Mars with a solar sail. But getting back….
But getting back….
Can you tack with a solar sail? (at least partly serious, and yes, I know it’s only theoretical)
I was being somewhat sarcastic. Actually, I remember an article from over 60 years ago in Boy’s Life (the Scouting magazine) with a story about doing such a thing. They had a small pod attached by 3 cables to an immense circular sun sail They were able to tack by changing the shape of the sail with one of the three cables. The illustration of the craft in space was on the cover. I was blown away.
They were able to tack by changing the shape of the sail
Very cool, thanks for sharing!
Hitch a ride on a comet?
Some years ago I published over at Judith’s a detailed comparison of CCGT versus onshore wind, using the reality of the ERCOT grid at then Texas wind penetration of about 10%. The result: CCGT LFSCOE $58/MWh compared to wind at $146/MWh. This at a time when the ‘official’ US EIA estimates had them about at parity at about $90/MWh each.
Old saying: Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.
Levelized Costs of New Generation Resources in the “Annual Energy Outlook 2022” [p6 at EIA.gov]
Here the EIA admits you can’t really compare costs, then goes right on with the comparison:
“The duty cycle for intermittent resources is not operator controlled, but rather,
it depends on the weather, which does not necessarily correspond to operator-dispatched duty cycles. As a result, LCOE values for wind and solar technologies are not directly comparable with the LCOE values for other technologies that may have a similar average annual capacity factor, and we show them separately as resource-constrained technologies.” [my bold]
[I had copied the quote but, sadly, did not include a link. Sorry]
Is this the article you were looking for? See pg 6:
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
Or create “flexible” meanings for words that have much different understood definitions.
“Levelized” (costs) in their vernacular appears to mean “cynically understated to advance stupid ideas,” but you won’t find that meaning in a dictionary.
Also some years ago I attended a presentation by our local power company on sources of generation. They said the highest cost of power was from off-shore wind, roughly three times higher than combined cycle. Look like that estimate still holds. Their point was combined cycle was much cheaper, they were pushing back against the wind. Oops, but now they have gone all in for off-shore wind, who’d have thunk it?
Why Is Cheap Electricity So D@mn Expensive?
Parliament, government, Mad Ed and net stupid zero
Net zero money is what we’re going to be left with…
So paying for wind, solar and more robust infrastructure with full fossil fuel backup capacity is cheaper than full fossil fuel generation. Right.
I have always believed that if I ran a utility I would set the price assuming no wind or solar but captures all the cost of the fossil fuel system and all the extras. Then offer the wind and solar companies the value of the fuel displaced for conditioned electricity at the fence. That is the only value to the fossil fuel system unless you want to throw in a little for the reduced hours on the fossil system. The utility must provide a fully reliable system with no solar and wind so should only pay the value to the utility-the fuel. The utility should not care what the solar and wind cost to produce, only the value to the utility. Of course the solar and wind could not survive on only fuel cost –TA-DA
I agree, Wind and solar would not survive on any large integrated system. They might survive on fuel cost displacement however in small isolated systems where it is expensive to provide diesel generation such as the Yukon or NWT.
Wind and solar result in very little fossil fuel savings. The problem is that you can’t just shut down the fossil fuel plant when wind and solar are producing. They have to be left on either warm or hot standby, depending on how much warning the plant operators have of any drops in wind or solar generation.
You’re forgetting that there also needs to be no “preference” given to wind and solar by government edict, without which no utility would buy it (because it cannot produce on demand when needed) and none would get built in the first place.
And don’t forget the plethora of New Green Jobs that have to be paid for over and above the existing ones in energy. The whole thing is as honest as a street game of three card monte. What a gyp.
The most accurate metric is to use real world results. For example, compare average electricity rates for Germany and Great Britain before and after significant wind and solar penetration. The real world results do not lie. The economies in both of those countries are cratering as a result.
Also compare their wholesale power costs (net of subsidies/mandates) to other industrialized nations over that timeframe.
Compare U.S. blackout warnings before and after the introduction of windmills and solar to the national grids.
Before windmills and solar = No blackout warnings
After windmills and solar = Many blackout warnings
Very good, Willis, another great Reality Check. I wonder if this Lazard character is subtracting the cost of saving the planet from their numbers?
Here is my comment on jacobson on another post
M Jacobson 100% renewable states that WWS costs are less at least 100 times, yet his Table S9 and S11 tell a different story
Table 9 lists the gross capacity of WWS (in 2050) of 4953 gw .
Table 11 lists the average capacity of WWS of approx 1357 gw
The average hourly usage in the US in 2025 is approx 480gw.
The estimated hourly usage in the US in 2050 will be approx 600gw
LCOE is based on the assumption that all the electricity is consumed. However, Jacobson’s study has 2.2x redundancy. therefore the correct denominator has to be divided by 2.2 to get the correct LCOE. Note that the above calculation doesnt account for storage for the down time,
Lie well enough, and you can become a Stanford professor.
another good example of deceipt is Skeptical science article explaining why the proper measure is the wholesale price from the plants and denmark electric costs are only high because of the government fees. Therefore Denmark is actually cheaper electric costs.
What they ignore is those fees and taxes pay for the grid transmission and the subsidies, etc.
That’s all you need
In the UK the LCOE of Gas is weighted by adding on the notional cost of the CO2 emissions. This means that wind is cheaper than gas, once you add on a tax to make gas more expensive than wind.
Is that the case in the US figures too?
Ours works the other way around. There’s a massive Federal tax credit for building wind and solar. Since the credits are sold to investors prior to construction, they count as equity and reduce the construction cost.
But neither of those manipulations make wind solar cheaper, rather they simply disguise how much MORE EXPENSIVE they ACTUALLY ARE.
I don’t think the people that are aware of their electricity costs would agree with renewables being ‘cheaper’ electricity. All they have to do is look at their monthly billing to see the truth. “Renewables” are the cheapest form of electricity generation is nothing but propaganda and repeating that narrative just makes the alarmists lose what little credibility they have left with each monthly billing. You can lie about social issues and get away with it but you can’t tell somebody their costs are going down when they can see they are going up.
And this is the crux of the whole “renewables” propaganda.
Instead of pointing out the LCOE fallacies in the academic minutiae of the analysis, we need some simple, real-life analogies to present to ordinary folk about just how ridiculous the statements about “cheapest form of energy” are bullshit.
Maybe something along the lines of cost of ownership of a new car over its first 5 years, but leaving out the depreciation factor?
The three major omissions in LCOE
1) Fossil fuel plants are currently covering the costs of stability and intermittancy. That subsidy goes away with high penetration
2) High penetration requires lots of redundancy. The high redundancy results in excess generation when the wind and solar production is high. Therefore the denominator in the cost per watt generated decreases significantly.
3) the cost of back up is not in the LCOE computation (or poorly accounted for)
I’d go further and day that subsidy never goes away, because IT IS NECESSARY regardless of the level of wind and solar “penetration.” Since there is, IN FACT, no way to store the excess generation of “redundancy” it simply adds additional wind and solar costs without appreciable gains in how much electricity *actually used* is coming from wind and solar.
Here in the UK the general public are beginning to become aware of the reasons why their electricity bills are so high, and that the forecasting that they will be higher this winter as more unreliables are added to the mix. Some have also noted the huge costs that are due to relying a lot on the expensive importation of electricity via interconnectors with continental Europe to bail out the unreliables when they fail to deliver, either by inability to generate or by switching off when there is too much for the system to cope with. What a huge swindle, what a cock up by meddling technically ignorant politicians, and those who graft from that bandwagon.
Lying about social issues just takes a little longer for the average person to figure out the scam. The ascendency of President Trump on his second go-around is just the latest example.
Because it’s an estimate of generation cost.
The premise of the entire argument is wrong to begin with. Getting cancer treatment is probably a lot costlier than letting cancer go wild in my body. It’s probably a good idea to get treatment anyway. The cost of dying of cancer is hard to quantify but probably something I want to avoid. Decarbonization is necessary. Our task isn’t to decide if we should do it, just to find out the optimal way.
Decarbonization is necessary
No, it is not Your humble opinion has been noted
Whatever the he’ll decarbonization is.
Comparing apples to porcupines again.
I suggest you go into a personal decarbonization regimen and stop exhaling.
Ha ha! Not nice, but I chuckled.
How do you heat your home in winter? What fuel do you use for hot water service? Many region of the earth have very cold winters and use fossil fuels to keep from freezing to death. Please stop taking nonsense.
Heating/cooling/hot water in our home is all electric. Our winters can get down to -10C or more. Have not had a single issue.
If you are not using fossil fuel electricity as your reliable electricity supply, you must have nuclear and or hydro available then.
Otherwise on a cloudy still winter day and on still nights , you would freeze.
Where supplies your electricity and how much does it cost? I live in BC where 95% of electricity is generated by hydro power. BC Hydro charges 11 cents per kWh.
-10C huh? What if the temp goes -20C or lower?… How much electricity does it take to keep the house above +10C? I’ll bet the electric bill is horrendous.
Please explain to us why decarbonisation is necessary, Alan.
As I mentioned many people would freeze to death in winter without fossil fuels.
Decarbonization is necessary to limit or reverse global warming driven by the buildup of human-caused greenhouse gases, which is fueling dangerous and rapid climate change. If you reject the reality of that threat, then it makes sense to evaluate renewables solely on cost. But that’s not the framework guiding most of the world, where climate risk is a central factor in energy planning. Any argument against renewables that fails to consider this is simply on the wrong track from the outset.
Alan, I fear you are preaching without evidence. The mainstream climate alarmists can’t even decide on the value of the so-called “equilibrium climate sensitivity”, with answers ranging from 1°C / 2x CO2, to EIGHT TIMES THAT.
Not only that, but the uncertainty of that number has INCREASED over the last 50 years. I know of no other field of science where that is true. To me, that is clear evidence that the climate “scientists” are just peddling pabulum.
In addition, NONE of them can explain the warming and cooling of the past 2,000 years. Until they can understand the past, what makes you think they can predict the future, especially since every one of their serial doomcasts has crashed and burned?
Now, if you want to believe such pseudoscience, be my guest. However, bear in mind that warmer = fewer human and animal deaths, since cold is far more lethal than heat. And increasing CO2 also means more food production.
So even IF (and it’s a big IF) CO2 causes mild warming, where is the emergency?
Finally, all of the pain and suffering that folks who believe as you do have put the world through have accomplished … well … exactly nothing.
Fifty years of failed warnings of imminent deaths by Thermageddon™, no visible change from all the onerous regulations, and you still believe it?
I guess PT Barnum was right …
w.
It’s between “bad” and “really, really bad.” With the likeliest values near the “really bad” region in the middle.
I don’t know for certain how the pyramids were built, but I’m watching them build a high-rise in my city, so I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on there.
This is all just tired retreads of contrarian talking points.
CO2 couldn’t stop a full-blown GLACIATION at TEN TIMES today’s levels. Where was CO2’s “climate driving” power then?!
There is nothing “dangerous” about the IMPROVEMENT IN THE CLIMATE since THE LITTLE ICE AGE, which was a period of MISERY AND SUFFERING for life on Earth.
There is no evidence that humans have caused more than a tiny fraction of the warming over the last 250 years. Regardless, that warming has been 100% beneficial. The enhanced CO2 in the atmosphere has been a huge boon for plants, and for animals that eat them.
Evidence that adding 0.75% of greenhouse gases will cause even a noticeable change in temperature, let alone a Catastrophic one, please.
We’ll wait…
Yeah, we’ve been waiting for about 50 years for evidence that CO2 is changing the Earth’s climate. No evidence has ever been presented. Lots of speculation and assumptions, but no evidence of anything.
But, but RCP8.5!
Sorry just getting tired of their ignorance. You’d think the public has been brainwashed.
Thank god for the MSM to fairly report the issues. Without their guidance to keep the politicos in line the economy would be a wreck and the social structure would be on the verge of collapse.
Oh, wait.
WTH?
There is not and never has been a reason to decarbonize. More CO2 is good for the planet. Very good.
That’s like saying watching Oprah Winfrey is necessary.
Rubbish it’s not an estimate of generation it’s an estimate to produce electrons. Generation implies a circuit and you are going to use the electrons.
Then you go into a weird statement “Decarbonization is necessary” without any discussion of why?
Decarbonization is NOT necessary.
“Decarbonization is necessary.”
An unsubstantiated assertion.
“Because it’s an estimate of generation cost.”
Sunlight is free. Wind is free. We get that. The cost to put it into use is the issue, not the cost of generation.
Allow me to provide an analogy.
I have a 2.5 gallon jerry can.
I fill it with gasoline.
Then I walk, carrying the jerry can.
The result? Outstanding miles per gallon.
Does the gasoline in this situation have any benefit?
No.
Total Lifecycle Cost of Ownership is what we used in the past.
It is needed and often is required.
That’s a bit like saying, “before we dig this water well, we need to figure out if having free water for the entire rest of the future of our family will outweigh the cost of digging the well.” The question will never be, “should we do it? Should we get the free water?” It’s just, “what’s the best way to transition to the free water future?” Oh and in this scenario, the outside water we are trucking in is toxic.
If only it were so, my friend. I’ve sailed most of my life. There’s an old sailor’s saying about the cost of running a sailboat that goes …
“The wind is free … but everything else costs lots of money …”
w.
Warmer is better.
There is NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY!
Actually, if we want to avoid the end of all life on earth, we need to stop the natural eons-long decarbonization of the atmosphere.
Happily we’ve made some very modest progress. If that has contributed in any way to the trivial observed warming, that’s a benefit piled on top of the immense benefits of using fossil fuels to power our wonderful standard of living.
Electric bills contain more than kwh. What, say, does a Texas electric bill look like compared to an Illinois electric bill?
Don’t have insight to Il billing, but is Texas, cost of is about 40% of the bill, transmission is 50% and other fees, taxes, etc. is the remainder.
Relevance?
The discussion is “cost to generate” for different sources you are now dragging in taxes, profit margins and the like. Those are political, retail and society issues.
I’m not buying the idea that wind and solar are only twice as expensive as CCGT generation with natural gas <$5.00/MCF. I’ve gone back and forth with Copilot with several scenarios and we keep getting costs for W&S at three times the cost. The big difference in cost is because CCGT is good for 70 years, one build. Solar needs three installations and wind needs close to four plus the dismantling of the several systems.
Legacy mega-scale nuclear in the U.S is as obsolete as coal for power generation. Cost projections for nuclear without the assumption that SMR’s will be assembly line manufactured on high volume is meaningless because it will never happen – too expensive.
Mass producing SMR’s is a game changer, it instantaneously makes solar panels and wind turbines obsolete. SMR’s last 3x longer, have 3x the capacity factor, require 1/3 the minerals, a tiny fraction of the space, and don’t require $billions per site for battery storage. An assembly line factory will produce100’s of these modular per year for transport to the jobsite on semi-trailers for plug and play.
Economy of scale is achieved by volume instead of size. Three hundred megawatts (300 MW) is cost-effectively installed with 4 each 77 MW reactors instead of 3-4 times that amount required for economy of scale by size. The construction phase will be comparable to installing a CCGT which requires much less time and space than wind and solar. The construction time is a couple years or less, not a couple decades like legacy mega-scale nuclear.
We still have no outgrown the childish desire to erect monuments to our collective stupidity.
The Hoover dam is a marvel of engineering, but it rudely disrupted the environment and several smaller dams could have generated the same electricity without the environmental impact.
This philosophically agrees with the approach of SMRs.
Economy of scale through production line manufacturing is much better than one time custom onsite construction.
Thanks, Sparta. You say:
I can find no primary technical analysis that empirically demonstrates that several smaller dams could have matched the same total output with significantly less environmental impact on the Colorado River system.
Available engineering and hydrologic evaluations indicate that constructing multiple smaller impoundments would also alter river flow, fragment habitat, and likely require more cumulative reservoir area, thus distributing similar or new ecological disruptions over a broader geographic range.
No direct, large-scale empirical study that I’ve seen provides a comparative assessment showing that smaller dams on the Colorado could have generated equal power output with less biological and environmental harm.
Such a study or studies might exist, but I’m unable to locate them.
Best to you and yours,
w.
Fair enough.
When writing about power output from nuclear, please state whether you are referring to the thermal power output of the reactor itself (MWth) or the electrical power out of the unit which includes the reactor (MWe). For light water reactors with a 1,000psig saturated steam cycle, the conversion efficiency will be around 33%, so MWe will be ~1/3 * MWth.
Nonsense. Of course it’s MWe. The capacity factor/utilization rate is on line availability minus downtime for refueling and maintenance which is 95%. CCGT conversion efficiency is 70% with 90+% CF is not forced to operate start/stop/partial load/hot or cold standby to accommodate nuisance wind and solar.
Offshore wind also deteriorates at a much faster rate than onshore. Denmark found 60% of its offshore turbines failed in 5 years.
Which “engineers” haven’t seen that coming?!
SALT WATER, anyone?!
Nothing “obsolete” about coal. Alongside near, it remains the best source for baseload power. Better than gas because it can be stockpiled to cover demand surges and supply disruptions.
Gas pipelines don’t give you that.
And if you think coal is “obsolete,” ask yourself why China, India, and other so-called “developing” nations are building it, and why European countries have been begrudgingly forced to turn to it in the face of supply disruptions caused by their own stupid eco policies combined with reliance upon a geopolitical adversary for gas.
I’ve been beating same drum for a decade. Willis is absolutely correct but few people are interested in the facts.
I had hoped that Californian’s would start to take notice as electricity prices soared to almost $0.50/kWh but most remain in some combination of ignorance and/or denial.
Brainwashed via non-stop repetitive propaganda?
How do we learn, the proven best way? Repetition.
A person hears the same thing repeatedly and over time it becomes the “truth.”
LFSCOE is a novel metric that looks at 100% generation from a single technology, which is not what anyone is proposing. Pretending like costs from LFSCOE are more realistic than LCOE without clearly stating this up front is pretty damn disingenuous.
Alan, you say:
Close. LFSCOE is defined as the total cost of providing electricity by a given generation technology, under the assumption that a particular market or electric system must be supplied either solely or primarily by this generation technology plus any necessary storage, over its operational lifetime.
That’s the “Full System” part of the equation. However, it is just as applicable for adding renewables to the existing grid, since the costs and constraints remain the same whether that technology is supplying all or only part of the electricity.
For example, if you add a gigawatt (GW) of solar to a grid, and you want that GW to be truly “firm”—reliably available regardless of sun or clouds—you must also add a GW of backup or storage dedicated to that new variable supply, whether it stands alone or is part of a multi-source grid. This is because the existing backup (from dispatchable plants or storage systems) in any functioning electrical grid is sized to cover the existing system’s needs and contingencies—not to cover an extra GW of fully intermittent, weather-dependent generation layered on top.
Utilities are not being forced to build batteries and add peaker plants because solar and wind are the sole sources. The problems exist whether they are the sole sources or not.
And the same is true of the other constraints regarding renewables—siting costs, grid integration, backup, balancing, transmission upgrades, stabilization, wind turbine blades snapping off, and the nasty habit of solar and wind to give you exactly zero when you need power most. Those exist whether the gigawatt of solar is the only source or one source among many, and every one of them costs money that is NOT included in the LCOE.
They are more realistic, as is proven by my skyrocketing electricity costs in California.
Alan, you are accusing me of “pretending” and lying. You can gently place both those false accusations as far up the distal end of your esophagus as your arms can reach. I tell the truth as best I know it. And while I’ve been wrong many times, I’m neither pretending nor lying. Perhaps you or your friends do that, so you think everyone does.
I don’t.
w.
That’s maybe hypothetically a way it might be used, but that’s not how it is being used in the study’s you’re citing. Those numbers reflect modeling scenarios where a single technology supplies nearly all of the electricity demand, including all necessary backup and storage. This full-system perspective is fundamentally different from evaluating the costs of adding renewables to an existing, diverse grid with shared infrastructure and balancing resources.
Exactly. A perspective adding to an existing system without taking into account the effects on that existing system are bound to be flawed.
Using actual data for an actual power plant is just a model?
Are you actually that desperate?
It appears that he is.
“…modeling scenarios where a single technology…”
Same approach as the IPCC climate models with a single cause (CO2).
Thanks for the links to those studies.
In case anyone’s interested in getting a sense of their plausibility I’ll mention that four years ago I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations based on Lazard estimates and ERCOT wind numbers. For a wind-only system backed up only by batteries I came up with a battery requirement equal to over a whole month of average load. Of course, that would be hideously expensive.
So I recalculated under the assumption that the wind farms would be overbuilt. Under my simplified assumptions–e.g., without taking added transmission cost into account–the optimum cost point if batteries cost about $80/kW required so much overbuilding that the wind turbines would be capable of averaging 2.2 times the average load. If we assume it takes 2.7 MW of nameplate capacity for wind turbines to be capable of averaging 1.0 MW, this translates to a nameplate capacity of 5.9 times the average load. This was the optimum cost point despite the overbuilding because that much capacity reduced the storage requirement to 69 hours. .
Reducing the assumed battery cost to $35/kWh reduced the optimum required average-output capability only to 2.0 times the average load–i.e., reduced the nameplate capacity of 5.4 times the average load–with a battery requirement of 84 hours.
I later did some penetration and diversity calculations that didn’t provide much basis for optimism that things are likely to improve markedly.
There’s no way a grid would be kept going with 69 ot 84 hours. There can be longer “wind droughts” than that.
So you are an advocate of scan and scroll.
As to your points…. not worth the powder.
Sparta, please re-read the end of the post where I say:
“Yeah, You’ve Heard It Before: When you comment, quote the exact words you are discussing. It’s surprising how much unnecessary friction it avoids.”
w.
PS—Saying “your points are not worth the powder” is a very indirect way of saying “I have no facts to falsify your points.” Refusing to debate loses the debate, it doesn’t win it.
Not worth the powder is an historical expression related to the era where dueling for “honor” was acceptable.
PS—Saying “your points are not worth the powder” is a very indirect way of saying “I have no facts to falsify your points.” Refusing to debate loses the debate, it doesn’t win it.
No, sir. It is saying it is not worth my time to address your (aka AlanJ) nonsense. It is also saying it is not worth my time to engage AlanJ in any manner based on how he interacts on these blogs.
For someone who thinks engaging with me isn’t worth their time, you spend a lot of time following me around from thread to thread and engaging with my comments.
The post being addressed is:
LFSCOE is a novel metric that looks at 100% generation from a single technology, which is not what anyone is proposing. Pretending like costs from LFSCOE are more realistic than LCOE without clearly stating this up front is pretty damn disingenuous.
Including all the factors, instead of only part of them is disingenuous?
Really? Do you routinely recommend that most of the important factors be ignored when creating reports?
My point is that LFSCOE explicitly ignores the most relevant real-world context. It models an extreme scenario where a single technology supplies all generation, not the actual scenario where renewables are part of a diverse, mixed portfolio. LCOE has limitations, but LFSCOE is not a more comprehensive metric, it’s just a different way to slice the same pie. And it is not a widely adopted or used metric precisely because of its limitations.
Your base assumption is that of a diverse, mixed portfolio.
That is a false assumption as the state goal of Net_Zero is to eliminate all conventional power generation systems.
It doesn’t mean that, net zero means achieving balance between emissions and removal. It certainly doesn’t mean shutting off all conventional power immediately and replacing it with 100% wind or 100% solar and nothing else.
Too bad there are no carbon capture technologies that work.
I correct my statement. The IMPLEMENTATION of “decarbonization” of energy includes elimination of all conventional power generation systems.
LFSCOE is not limited to a single technology, it can be run on any technology. There is no context being ignored. It is not just different from LCOE, it is far, far superior to it.
I didn’t say it was limited to a single technology, I said it models scenarios with a single technology being used for almost 100% of generation. It’s not superior to LCOE – it isn’t a metric that is even considered by most energy analysts.
AlanJ August 8, 2025 8:26 am
The part you are overlooking is that all of those additional costs come into play, not just at almost 100%, but as soon as you add unreliables to the grid.
For example. If you want to add a gigawatt of wind power to an existing grid, you absolutely have to add an additional gigawatt of conventional power for the dunkelflaute, as the Germans found out to their sorrow. Modern power grids only have backup spinning reserve for what they’re generating, so they can’t cover the new gigawatt.
And that nearly doubles the cost of that gigawatt, whether that gigawatt is 100% or 10% of your generation …
In addition, it starts of day one, not at 100%, and it’s not counted in the LCOE.
Next, you have the land costs because a wind farm covers a far greater area than conventional generation. And while the land won’t be expensive because it’s likely out in the boonies, it’s a real cost that starts on day 1 …
… plus, because it’s out in the boonies, the power is being generated where it’s NOT needed. That means that to get it where it IS needed you’ll have to put in roads, giant towers, high-voltage powerlines, transformers, and substations over a great distance.
And that’s expensive, and has to start well before day 1 … whether that gigawatt is 100% or 10% of your generation.
Etc. ad lib. Yes, as you imply, it must slightly overstate the costs at 10%, because the costs increase percentagewise the more unreliables you add to your grid …
… but that’s a bad thing, not a good thing …
Next, you say.
Including those very real costs and others beyond the scope of this comment is exactly why LFSCOE is far superior to LCOE. When I go to buy something I want every single cost factored in.
The part you’re not acknowledging is the use of the LCOE by climate alarmists to convince people that renewable = cheap, when the reality is, almost every real-world example says renewable = expensive. It is misleading, which is bad enough. But that misleading claim is being deceptively used to aggressively sell a green agenda to an unsuspecting public. It’s bad data wrongly used in a worse cause.
Finally, the goal of the climate alarmists seems to be to have a wholly or almost wholly renewable grid … so LFSCOE would seem to be the proper choice in any case for this kind of long-term power supply question, no?
My best regards to you,
w.
It is more inclusive. 🙂
“As a result, LCOE values for wind and solar technologies are not directly comparable with the LCOE values for other technologies that may have a similar average annual capacity factor, and we show them separately as resource-constrained technologies.”
Using LCOE to “compare directly” to coal, oil, gas, or nuclear IS MEANINGLESS. As can be shown by EXAMPLE AFTER EXAMPLE that PROVES beyond any reasonable doubt that adding wind and solar in any meaningful amount INCREASES electricity costs significantly.
So insisting LCOE is the “right metric” to compare the cost of wind and solar to dispatchable sources makes you either a snake oil salesman or an idiot.
In either case, not someone anyone should listen to.
Willis,
Your second graph that you made just gives sources as “listed in the article”. But the article just says:
“Recent system studies (IEA, EIA, Fraunhofer, you name it) peg the true LFSCOE for new onshore wind, at modest penetration levels (say, Germany or Texas): $0.08–$0.14/kilowatt-hour ($80 – $140 per megawatt-hour) after you factor in balancing, storage, congestion, and all the rest.”
The IEA link just records rapid observed and predicted growthof renewaables – I couldn’t see any “pegging” of LESCOE. The second link didn’t work for me. And the third just gave this graph. So where did you get the “pegged” numbers?
Good question, Nick, and sorry about the shorthand. Not enough room in the graph for the following details.
Best regards, and you are always right to question the claims.
w.
===
Solar PV
Onshore Wind
Offshore Wind
Natural Gas (Combined Cycle)
Coal
Nuclear
Embedded URL and Page References
Links for Detail
Caveat
System-level costs (LSCOE, LFSCOE, LCOLC) require interpolation and reading between lines, as not all primary sources publish all techs side by side. The values here are drawn from the best matching tables, footnotes, and technical appendices in these authoritative publications and are broadly representative for developed-market system cost modeling.
Willis,
Thanks for all that extra detail and citation. However, I just can’t see the numbers. For example, from the Frauenhofer report, you say:
“Table on p. 39 details LCOE of 3.1–11.0 €c/kWh (approx $34–$120/MWh) for utility-scale PV in Germany.”
and
“[Fraunhofer ISE 2024, p. 39]: LCOE of onshore wind in Germany (4.0–8.3 €c/kWh, roughly $45–$90/MWh); with integration/system/backup costs, total ranges up to $140/MWh”
But here is the p39 that I see. It has no tables or numbers at all:
You’ve cited under wind: IEA confirms (see IEA “Renewables 2023”, p. 162–163). I can’t find any IEA report listed that has 162 pages. The CDM report linked has 63.
I just can’t track down these numbers.
Why no hydro power costs on the chart? I live in BC where ca. 95% the electricity is generated by hydro dams. Currently, 1 kWh cost only 11 cents CDN. Most of the electricity in the Pacific Northwest is generated by hydro dams and nuclear power plants.
Hydro costs vary enormously by location and are specific to each jurisdiction so defy generic comparison. Many jurisdictions have no significant hydro potential, while a few others such as BC may be blessed. This is why for most of the world gas-fired (CCGT) is the least cost marginal electrical capacity.
Even in BC the last viable major hydro project (Site C) has now been built at a cost ($15 Billion) far in excess of the “legacy” hydro generation built as part of the Columbia River treaty. The least cost new supply in BC is now gas-fired CCGTs.
P.S. The reason that BC Hydro’s rates are so low is the low cost of the most economically feasible hydro dams built in the 1970’s under the Columbia River treaty that are now well depreciated and offset by “downstream benefits” payments from the U.S.
As demand grows for “electrification” of everything from transportation and heat pumps to electrical compression of LNG, BC Hydro rates can only go up. If the new generation is wind and solar the rates will go up further than if the new generation is gas-fired from the abundant sources in NE BC
We need to convince BC Hydro that CO2 does not cause global warming and that they should start building CCGT plants in the lower mainland. BC has massive amounts of nat. gas. The shipments of LNG have just started at Kitimat.
BC Hydro has recently announced a joint plan with several First Nation tribes to build wind turbine farms on tribal lands. This is crazy. We don’t these bird blenders. I wonder if this is possible to site the wind turbines in the cold north of the province.
BTW: Do you live Washington?
I live in Delta BC
BC is really blessed with hydro power. The final cost for Site C is 12 billion. There is video on YouTube on the Site C Dam. BC Hydro also dams on the Columbia River.
Site C cost is not yet finalized but will be around $15Billion including the incremental transmission costs
Harold, you ask:
There have been exactly zero major new large-scale hydropower dams constructed and commissioned in the U.S. in the last decade.
In addition, for many US states, there are no suitable sites.
Finally, the greens scream like banshees whenever anyone so much as mentions building a new dam.
As a result, it’s basically a non-starter in the race.
w.
100% on that the only places you can build a hydro dam is in countries that the green blob can’t protest and gets ignored like Russia, China etc
ISE Fraunhofer is hardly a neutral player, they are the NREL of Germany. And NREL developed the “System Advisory Model” (SAM) for the US Dept. of Energy, which uses LCOE.
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE
https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en.html
“Under my plan… electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” – Barack Obama
Elections have consequences. Voting for the “first black President” just to show you aren’t racist is not the same as voting for the best candidate for the job.
I used to work closely with electricity grid planning engineers in my engineering economics role for a major electric utility. LCOE was only used after the level for dispatchable capacity in MW (with operating reserve for contingencies) was first determined. LCOE was then effectively the tie-breaker between say the potential for hydro, coal or gas-fired units that were required to maintain a reliable system under the worst case conditions of peak demand. As wind and solar cannot be relied upon for any capacity MW it is pointless to assess them with any LCOE measure.
Unfortunately the LCOE metric has been hijacked by activists without any understanding of its supplementary nature or the need to first address system conditions under certain contingencies (which often include weather conditions such as high or low winds or may occur overnight). This has led to many politicians and institutions being fooled by the thinking that only the average amount of energy delivered over the year will suffice for system planning!
Signing up for a wind farm to provide system energy on the basis of its low LCOE is like signing up for an apparently cheap taxi service that offers a low price but only turns up about 30% of the time in random vehicle sizes ranging from a motorcycle to a bus (and then has to be paid to go away)!
So it’s a missed application of a different standard for tie-breaking. Why am I not surprised?
LCOE is a classic example of using the wrong simplistic tool for the real job at hand.
As Michel frequently points out here, NPV is the only proper way to compare the financial implications of various options to achieve the required solution.
Yes, As long as the NPV includes all the costs of system expansion including firm capacity and transmission costs. Annual energy costs are only a fraction of the total costs of supply (This is especially true if the degrade reliability in which case the opportunity cost of “expected unserved load” must be included).
The other problem is not only does LCOE leave out half the costs, what is also very important is that it overstates production.
If your farm regularly produces huge amounts of power in the small hours when there is little demand, and when it cannot be used, that will still be counted as part of the total lifetime energy produced.
To do LCOE you divide this total into the NPV of the incomplete total of costs.
This gives you a lower cost per MW than if you did it properly, and only counted as production what can actually be used.
I am also not sure how most LCOE calculations deal with constraint payments, if they even do.
That’s a signal to modernize the grid, not a sign that renewables are less valuable. It means that we’re not yet making full use of their value. The proper conclusion isn’t “renewables are misleadingly cheap,” but “cheap renewable power makes grid flexibility more valuable.”
That’s nice, but typically for you, meaningless phrase.
Just how do you propose to “modernize” the grid, and how much will it cost?
Yes, ‘modernize’ in this context is typically deceptive. The implication is that you would install the necessary transmission anyway regardless of generation technology.. But the fact is that its only needed if you are trying to meet your demand through wind.
If you don’t provide for the cost of it getting it to the point of use, then for investment appraisal purposes you cannot count wasted power.
A simple way to see this. You are comparing a CCGT plant in Birmingham to building a wind farm in the Moray Firth. The aim is to supply Birmingham and vicinity.
Someone objects that in your CCGT costs you have not included the cost of modernizing the grid by installing new transmission from the Moray Forth to Birmingham.
That, you reply gently, is because if we go with the CCGT proposal we will not be installing it — because its not needed.
What proper investment appraisal and proper costing requires is all the costs required, and only the costs required, to deliver the power to the point of demand and use.
A common and fallacious claim. To see the fallacy consider this:
What is called ‘modernizing the grid’ is in fact adding lots of capacity from the north coast of Scotland to the south of England.
The only reason to build this is to be able to use the wind electricity generated off the north coast of Scotland by transporting it to where there is demand. Its not ‘modernizing’ at all, its building a specific amount of new transmission capacity.
This is therefore part of the cost of supplying that wind. If you do not include those costs, you cannot include the power in your cost calculations.
Point is the same: you cannot correctly calculate the cost per MWh supplied by a wind farm if you include power generated which cannot be delivered. Either include the costs of delivery or exclude the wasted power.
Investment appraisal 101. What LCOE was invented to avoid doing.
That is a fine exercise to do, but to then have an apples to apples comparison, you need to account for the cost of a. building out the existing grid tailored toward conventional generation and b. the cost of FF driven climate change in the cost of your FF supply.
THERE IS NO “FF driven climate change,” so that imaginary “cost” need not be added.
And the grid need not be “built out” to accommodate what it already accommodates.
No it IS a sign that renewables are less valuable. The *requirement* for “upgrades” to address wind and solar DEFICIENCIES is a point contrary to your argument.
Signing up for a wind farm to provide system energy on the basis of its low LCOE is like signing up for an apparently cheap taxi service that offers a low price but only turns up about 30% of the time in random vehicle sizes ranging from a motorcycle to a bus (and then has to be paid to go away)!
Outstandingly clear analogy, thank you!
Good analogy.
I repeat, another entertaining and informative post from Willis. A couple of questions though. While most places that have gone all in for wind and/or solar have seen their electricity costs spike, Iowa and South Dakota appear to be outliers where they have a lot of installed wind and their costs remain relatively low. I can offer guesses as to why, but suspect you would have a much better explanation – and believe me, I am no fan of wind or solar.
https://www.iaenvironment.org/webres/File/Wind%20Fact%20Sheet%202024.pdf
https://windexchange.energy.gov/states/sd
Also, while my guess is that you are already aware of Ed Hoskins work, just in the remote case that you are not, here is a link to his web site. For those not aware, Hoskins looks at real world data over several years to expose the lie that wind and solar are inexpensive.
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/
Kudos, Willis.
LCOE also accounts wind and solar energy as ‘free fuel,’ so that the purchase cost of natural gas and coal play against fossil fuel energy prices.
LCOE also calculates construction prices (solar panels, wind turbines) according to the purchase price of equipment given fossil-fuel powered manufacture.
A more honest LCOE would calculate the construction prices using costs of wind and solar equipment with manufacture solely powered by wind and solar energy.
The whole of the AGW narrative – all of it – is powered by incompetence.
Pseudoscience, pseudo-economics, pseudo-environmentalism, pseudo-concern.
A plague of all-encompassing and irrefragable self-delusion (AGW, Covid, mRNA jabs, masks, mandates, DEI, trans-genderism, Critical Race Theory, academic critical theory in general, post-normal science) seems to be the defining social state of the early 21st Century.
Thanks, Pat. All true, and always good to hear from you.
w.
Thanks, Willis. Great to see your posts, as well. Regards to you and your fair lady.
“A more honest LCOE would calculate the construction prices using costs of wind and solar equipment with manufacture solely powered by wind and solar energy.”
Why? If I want to save money today on my electricity bills I would go out and but some solar panels and a battery. The fact that they were made using fossil fuels doesn’t enter into the costs nor the benefits as far as I am concerned. Such a system would pay for itself in 8 to 10 years (based on my latitude) compared to a guarenteed lifetime for the panels of 30 years.
Different metrics measure different things. Complaining that metric A doesn’t measure B is as pointless as saying that a heart rate monitor is useless since it doesn’t measure blood pressure.
“The fact that they were made using fossil fuels doesn’t enter into the costs nor the benefits as far as I am concerned.”
No kidding, Izaak. Part of your self-delusional matrix.
Such a system only has a possibility of “paying for itself” due to government manipulation of the market that forces utilities to buy the power said panels produce when not needed (or storage by said battery).
Without said manipulation, far fewer panels would be built and their prices would be far higher.
The place for wind solar and batteries is OFF GRID, and even then the backup will be a *generator* powered by FF.
“On the other hand, if you want to know what you’ll actually pay to keep the grid running—on a steamy Saturday afternoon in August in the Florida Panhandle, when it’s overcast and wind’s at a dead calm, everyone’s aircon sounds like it’s warming up for takeoff, and it’s anyone’s guess if your freezer will survive—you’d better reach for LFSCOE, dust off your reality glasses, and start counting all your hidden costs.”
Hey, I kinda resemble that statement as I reside in the Florida Panhandle. It’s been pleasantly warm last couple of months with temps in the mid 90’s and humidity around 70-90%. Thing is that out in the boonies as I am, the houses are all so far apart that you have no idea what the neighbors are doing.
My electric bills stay roughly the same year round at around $100 a month.
$100/month? Mine are up to around $350/mo and I haven’t run the AC on more than 3 or 4 days this year so far. But here in California we have lots of renewables which explain my cost of around $0.46/kWh.
The big talk I’m always hearing these days is about solar PV plus batteries. There does seem to be a large increase in grid battery deployment, especially in California where they even boast about a decrease in gas fired electricity. What I wonder is if these grid batteries could could be combined with CCGTs to replace gas peakers. I suppose there’d be extra costs to put a fire wall between the CCGTs and the batteries.
If have CCGT plants, you do not batteries, Gov. Gavin has to go before he wrecks the economy of the state. California once had 14 oil refineries, but 12 have shutdown. The last two have announced that they will shut down in 2026.
I still recall tho0se huge battery fires in Claifornia.
Yes I heard about one of those “grid batteries. It was in the news when it was ON FIRE and they were having trouble putting it out.
Just what Cali needs, another firestarter!
I’ve always said “Renewables” are mis-named … the correct label should be Replaceable (usually every 10-15 years)
the fuel is “free” the actual generator is not …
Mean Time Between Failures for WTG is calculated by engineers to be 4.3 years with 50% of the maintenance and repairs to be major costly component replacement.
I do not have at my fingertips the annual degradation factors for SV. It is likely that some act of nature will cause the need to replace panels much sooner than their operational life.
Tornado in Florida. Hail storms, several in the plains states.
Falling branches, high winds, lots of hazards for wind sales facing the sky made of glass.