Utilities Face Billions In Losses From Distributed Renewables

Lucas123 writes: Over the next 10 years, adoption of distributed power in the form of renewables such as solar power has the potential to reduce revenues to grid utilities by as much as $48 billion in the U.S. and by $75 billion in Europe, according to a new study. The study, by Accenture, revealed that utility executives are more nervous (PDF) about the impact of distributed — or locally generated renewable power — than ever before. 61% of those surveyed this year indicated they expect significant or moderate revenue reductions compared to only 43% last year. The cost of rooftop solar-powered electricity will be on par with prices for common coal or oil-powered generation in two years, and the technology to produce it will only get cheaper, according to a recent report from Deutsche Bank. New technologies, such as more efficient solar cells, are also threatening to increase efficiencies and drive adoption.

Comments

The study...

[hcs_$reboot]

...by Accenture

Stopped there.

Re:The study...

[golodh]

@ hcs_$reboot

...by Accenture

Stopped there.

Any specific reason for that?

Re:The study...

[thegarbz]

...by Accenture

Stopped there.

Why? Do you have a fundamental disagreements with the summary of findings? Do you automatically assume a specific company is lying when they provide the study?

Everything they said makes sense, in fact the effects they are talking about are being felt by utilities already. So why stop reading just because you know which consultant prepared the study?

Re:The study...

[drinkypoo]

"prior to incorporating in Bermuda, Accenture was operating as a series of related partnerships and corporations under the control of its partners through the mechanism of contracts with a Swiss coordinating entity." -Wiki

It's evil. Kill it with fire.

Re: The study...

[abramsh]

I think the detail your missing is that it's not that utilities are worried about people going off grid.

I don't need 20Kw of instantaneous power generation, I need 20Kw of instantaneous power available to me for a very short period of time, and I need to generate 12Mwh per year to cover my total needs (including my electric car BTW). When I'm not using all my power, it goes on the grid for someone else to use.

Today, the utilities keep my lights on by generating enough power to make up for the fact that distributed generation is not producing enough at night or on cloudy days to meet the peak demand, but what happens when we have more distributed generation as well as distributed storage?

The answer is the utility still exists, but it makes its money by servicing it's line and providing a market, not by generating itself.

Reduced revenues != lost profit

[BarbaraHudson]

reduce revenues to grid utilities

And there are costs associated with generating those revenues (pun intended). Will it tip the utilities into loss? Certainly not to the extent the summary implies.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[phantomfive]

Will it tip the utilities into loss? Certainly not to the extent the summary implies.

I would suggest that depends entirely on how many people install solar panels.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[jythie]

Keep in mind that while they might reduce their costs in terms of fuel, the infrastructure they are responsible for maintaining will keep growing. When this topic comes up people often forget about that rather massive recurring cost and most consumers just sorta take it for granted that someone will fix/upgrade things.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[BarbaraHudson]

That's why most utility bills have a "minimum charge for being connected to the grid", and then a consumption component.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[rahvin112]

Utilities are regulated monopolies when selling to residential consumers. They are forced to sell at fixed power rates that don't vary with demand. Business power though is mostly unregulated. Companies pay for power at different rates every hour. Night time is very cheap but daytime power can be very expensive for a company. Utilities make the bulk of their profit on business power. Solar is going to be pushing power into the grid at peak amounts when peak commercial use is on. This is going to drive down peak power pricing dramatically and may actually flip it to nighttime. So rather than charging a business .30 kwh from 2-5pm with their 10% margin on top is going to get reduced significantly and could even go negative which will wipe out commercial profits almost entirely.

That's what they fear more than anything. If they end up as a company that only makes money on the grid maintenance and not power they won't be worth 10% of what they are today.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[fluffy99]

The graphs in the study are not scaled properly and are misleading. The middle US case, which even has some dubious assumptions, only represents a 5% drop in total demand. It doesn't include important things such as costs to increase capacity if demand actually continues to rise. Most predictions show a continued overall energy demand far greater than predicted to be generated by wind or solar. Status quo of a non-increasing demand is actually good for their profits as they just need to maintain what they have. Solar power which produces during the peak energy hours helps them as well since the peak surges are covered using gas turbines which are very expensive to run (hence the reason for tiered pricing based on time of usage)

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[ShanghaiBill]

That's why most utility bills have a "minimum charge for being connected to the grid", and then a consumption component.

Three problems:
1. The connection charge and consumption charges are do not always reflect the actual costs.
2. Another big cost is base load generating capacity. Base load is priced assuming it will run 24/7. But if solar can supply 100% of power on a sunny day, then the base load generator will be sitting idle.
3. Another big cost is dealing with intermittent supplies from renewables. If solar is providing much of the load during peak hours (mid-afternoon), and suddenly some clouds roll in, the power company has to react and rapidly scale up their generator. That is expensive, yet the capacity to do so will sit idle 99% of the time. Who will pay for that? One solution is on-demand pricing, so with the clouds roll in, prices jump, and marginal users scale back their consumption.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Facegarden]

Well, they're kind of in a losing position - raise rates to pay for losses, and people just move to renewables sooner.

It seems pretty clear that generating electricity from free sunlight is going to be cheaper than mining and transporting fossil fuels to a complex facility to burn them. Solar has it's own "moore's law" equivalent that says the price of the panels goes down by 50% every time we double installed capacity. We're currently only powering less than 1% of the world from solar, so there is a lot more room for doubling. You can find a study that goes either way, but supposedly solar is already at parity with coal power in certain regions, and fossil fuels only get more expensive, not less.

Regulated or not, if you're selling the horse and buggy and someone else is selling the automobile, your industry will die.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[K. S. Kyosuke]

20%. Not 50%. 50% cost reduction for twice the installed capacity would mean a solar panel singularity or something like that. :-)

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[K. S. Kyosuke]

2. Another big cost is base load generating capacity. Base load is priced assuming it will run 24/7. But if solar can supply 100% of power on a sunny day, then the base load generator will be sitting idle.

Assuming there will be many base load generators at that point in time... Much has been made of the fact the Germans started building new coal plants like crazy, but what gets ignored by conservatives (in the general meaning of the word) is that these are "flex-load" plants, with the old base-load coal plants are being closed down.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Facegarden]

Ah, my mistake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Costs do halve roughly every ten years at present rates.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[sumdumass]

I do not think you have thought that through.

If any power source becomes cheaper than what we have, the utilities will simply impliment it themselves. The worse things we will see is a drop in rates the utilities pay for net metering or abandoning it altogether.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Wycliffe]

Well, they're kind of in a losing position - raise rates to pay for losses, and people just move to renewables sooner.

It seems pretty clear that generating electricity from free sunlight is going to be cheaper than mining and transporting fossil fuels to a complex facility to burn them.

Even IF green energy becomes cheaper, this doesn't mean distributed power is going away anytime soon,
it just means that large power companies will have to move to green energy sooner.
Economy of scale still applies to solar energy. It's still going to be cheaper for a utility company to set up hundreds
of solar panels and sell the electricity to consumers than it will be for everyone to buy/maintain their own system.
There is a potential saving by being able to eliminate distribution costs so it's possible that local generation could
bet out economy of scale if distribution costs are a significant part. So the question really becomes
what percentage of your electricity price is generation and what percentage is distribution?
The other way that local generation wins is if people start installing solar for reasons other that cost of generation.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[tshawkins]

3, assumes there is no storage capability at the renewable end, new storage technologies are comming online every day, largely driven by the EV industry. If the solar system could store 24 hours worth of energy, then that problem goes away. True it will drive up costs and that may change the break even point, but storage costs are on the same downward trajectory as the renewable generation costs.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If they end up as a company that only makes money on the grid maintenance and not power they won't be worth 10% of what they are today.

Small government, small utilities? ;-) I actually think that they almost wouldn't deserve to be paid for the maintenance of the current grid, but nothing prevents them from building long-range HVDC conduits that are going to come in very, very handy one day.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[currently_awake]

If people install solar panels without the batteries they will use the panels during the day and the grid at night. The utilities will have the full cost of infrastructure and generators but without the revenue from all that daytime use.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[BarbaraHudson]

Some cities have already passed bylaws requiring you to be connected to the grid. With enough lobbyists, you can "fix" any problem.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[amiga3D]

I doubt the grid will go away anytime soon. The idea of self sufficient power at that level is a ways off. Renewables will grow certainly but a lot of that growth will be tied to the grid to be distributed. Someone will get paid to run the grid at the very least. I expect power companies to also start to build renewable power facilities as well. Your analogy doesn't fit really. They'll still be selling electricity no matter what the source is.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[amiga3D]

With enough votes you can fix the city governments.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[amiga3D]

I've noticed a lot of companies are starting to generate their own power. The local Frito-Lay operation burns their used oil to generate power for their plant.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar power also takes land. Any homeowner putting up solar panels is likely doing so on property they already own. Utilities would have to buy or lease land to put solar panels on.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this "continues to rise"? US Electricity demand has been basically flat for 8 years now.

Re: Reduced revenues != lost profit

[danbert8]

Good thing nobody has electric heat in the winter or an electric water heater... Oh wait. The grid is not going away. Batteries can't power stuff like that.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[ShanghaiBill]

Well, they're kind of in a losing position - raise rates to pay for losses, and people just move to renewables sooner.

Raising rates is just one option. If they raise the base connection fee, that will not move people to renewables sooner. If they reduce the feed-in tariff, that will actually discourage the adoption of renewables.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[jonwil]

Here in Australia more power companies are forcing residential customers (especially those with grid-tie solar connections) onto "time of use" metering where you pay more at times when demand is higher.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[postbigbang]

Not really flat, but not growing as it once did. The utilities missed business in the communications game but the UTC.org was moving in the right direction.

Utilities could get in to the solar game themselves, but think more like telcos and other utility monopolies. At some point, all commercial monopolies fail, dying ugly deaths after trying to buy protective legislation.

Oh, wait.....

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[MrL0G1C]

From $4 per watt in 2008 to $0.5 per watt in 2014 that's a lot more than halving every ten years, I wouldn't be surprised if the price halved again within the next 2-3 years, that would lead to utility solar being cheaper than coal power.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[taiwanjohn]

Economy of scale still applies to solar energy. It's still going to be cheaper for a utility company to set up hundreds
of solar panels and sell the electricity to consumers than it will be for everyone to buy/maintain their own system.

That pretty well describes Elon Musk's business plan with Solar City. From what I've seen, it looks like they've already passed the tipping point into self-sustaining progress. Their main problems seem to be keeping up with demand and managing the "growing pains" of such rapid business expansion.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[MrL0G1C]

"So the question really becomes what percentage of your electricity price is generation and what percentage is distribution?"

Admin, grid, profits = 50% of the price you pay for electricity. That means your solar system can be nearly twice as expensive (per watt) as the utilities and still break even.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Moridineas]

and fossil fuels only get more expensive, not less.

Tell that to the price of oil (plunging, as we speak).

Re: Reduced revenues != lost profit

[mSparks43]

I hope it does.

it's fuxing nonsense that you can generate electricity cheaper via microgeneration than you can buy it from the grid.

but what they mean is the grid providers face loosing billions out of the extra normal profits they make price gouging grid customers.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[fluffy99]

Not flat and not growing as fast as before. Most estimates show 1-2% growth per year http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/a..., depending on whose estimates you use and the future oil prices. The sad part is that the loss of US manufacturing to China is partly responsible. Demand in some regions and states like California continues to climb much faster than the US average, driving the higher rates in those areas.

I suspect you'll see co-ops and companies investing in and maintaining local solar farms once the pricing comes down enough. Much the same way you see wind farms popping up everywhere.

Re: Reduced revenues != lost profit

[jklovanc]

Do you watch use your computer after dark? There is 400 watts. Watch TV? Do laundry? cook? Run your refrigerator? Have a shower? You numbers are very far off.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[jklovanc]

Twenty four hours may not be enough. During a big storm solar will be degraded for much longer than that. Also at higher latitudes winter solar output can be as little as 1-% of summer output. One can either massively over produce in summer or rely on grid power in the winter. If one is relying on winter grid power then the equipment generating that power will only be used a fraction of the year.

but storage costs are on the same downward trajectory as the renewable generation costs.

The problem with local storage is that it is mainly batteries. Batteries are not environmentally friendly.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Dahamma]

Will it tip the utilities into loss? Certainly not to the extent the summary implies.

I don't see how you can possibly be "certain" about it based on the tiny amount of information and unknown future of the industry. Not saying it *has to*, but when you have a HUGE amount of capital tied up in many, many, billions of dollars of power plants that could either become idle or highly underused, it can get pretty hard to turn a profit.

Not that I really care about the profit of a power company for it's own sake - but the problem is renewables just aren't going to meet 100% of the needs any time soon, and providing random amounts ultra-reliable power generation to make up for somewhat unreliable distributed sources is a more expensive, less rewarding, and very different business than what they are built to do...

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Dahamma]

Actually, many homeowners putting up solar panels these days are just allowing solar power companies to put them up and then leasing back the power from them. That model is becoming more and more popular. Imagine if a traditional power company bought one of those solar lease companies - they'd now own the solar panels on your roof...

Re: Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Dahamma]

Bullshit.

"Night time" is not when you sleep, it's when it's dark. Which in the winter is still 14+ hours for the majority of the population and more for many.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Dahamma]

Actually, *many* utilities currently have net metering without significant minimum charges (like $5), usually decided by state utility commissions. Honestly who knows right now how well that covers their overhead. I'm sure utility companies claim is doesn't and customers claim it does.

But it's clear that charge is only going to go up as reliable non-renewable power gets more expensive to produce. Hopefully it's offset by the reduced hourly rates due to increased renewable use...

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Dahamma]

Please provide relevant examples or citations of cities that *require* you to pay for a utility if you don't need it. It would be really interesting to see...

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[khallow]

Utilities could get in to the solar game themselves

They can always get into the solar game later when it makes economic sense to do so. Or a government could pay them a few billion dollars to dabble.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Barsteward]

The grid should never go away, its sensible to have a backup system that can also generate power in during the peaks. What the generation companies should do is invest in storage solutions to capture the excess power generated by household solar during the day. Once the all countries buildings are covered by solar panels, they can reinvent themselves as power storage companies and that should cut a load of costs for them

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Barsteward]

Yes, but you tailor your power solution to the environment, no-one is suggesting that solar should be the only option. Clean power is the driving force so hydro/nucleur /wind can be used in areas where solar is not a major player. There are storage solutions out there being developed that are not batteries, some old ones like pumping water uphill during excess power generation to be used in hydro.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Maxo-Texas]

The problem is that solar won't start off able to deal with 50 year events like utilities used to be capable of handling. I say used to be because these days they can't any more due to cost savings measures they've taken to increase profits.

For example- land lines used to stay on unless the line was cut down. After our last hurricane, the land lines went off after 6 to 24 hours when the batteries at the local substation ran dry--- these days any new lines are fiber optic (no copper- no power) and old lines are being replace.

Likewise- our electrical power used to be back up within a few days after a hurricane. I'm not sure what has changed but it was 2-3 weeks in many areas. I suspect cost cutting there too- less repair supplies kept on hand (don't want all that stuff sitting around causing inventory taxes), fewer staff retained (enough for normal times but no extra capacity), and less proactive tree cutting.

But hit solar with a 5 day storm- people die-- and a five or even seven day backup will come to be normal.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[jklovanc]

There are storage solutions out there being developed that are not batteries,

Which ones work on a household level? All the ones I have seen only work at grid level and at relatively small capacities.

some old ones like pumping water uphill during excess power generation to be used in hydro.

Have you looked into pumped hydro? It only works where there is significant height drop and large areas for reservoirs. It also nearly doubles the cost of the electricity it stores. Hydro dams work because there are millions of gallons of water flowing by daily. Their reservoirs are continually being refilled naturally for no cost. Having to refill the reservoirs by pump costs a lot in electricity for the pumps and maintenance. Do you have any idea how big a static reservoir would have to be to handle a week's worth of electricity for a large city? For example pumped hydro in Texas would not work very well at all which happens to be a great place to produce renewable electricity..

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Barsteward]

yes, but as i mentioned, solar shouldn't be the only solution in any areas and especially where its not practical. A lot of the negative responses to an article about solar or wind or some new tech always make the assumption its going to replace existing tech completely, no-one in their right mind would place all their eggs in one basket

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[angel'o'sphere]

Gas turbines are not used for that kind of peak, they are used for fine grained balancing power. The few 100MW around the big load curve is fluctuating.
The main load curve peak is simply followed with ordinary load following plants, which are what ever plants the grid uses, usually coal, sometimes nuclear, or: renewables.

The missconception comes from the fact that in english we say peak for the overall high plateau on the daily load curve, but also for the small peaks on top of that, the actuall real demand.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[angel'o'sphere]

Thst is why you seperate grid operators from power producers.
Then only grid operators have costs for _that_ infrastructure and can charge anyone who uses the grid, even people who buy the fed in energy from roof tops.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[angel'o'sphere]

Those 'Moores laws' are nonsense in the long run.

How 'cheap' can it get to melt sand into pure Si ... cut it into pieces, dope it to make it a semiconductor, manufactor solar cells from it and finally craft panels? And in the end you have to set up the panels somewhere.

Ofc, the prices could half sooner or later, possible half again to reach a quarter of current levels, but bejond that? I doubt it!

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Barsteward]

I've not seen anything about house sized non-battery solutions yet unfortunately but there could be community sized ones. For some reason a lot of innovators seem to want to produce the "big bang" units first. There are developments in to tidal pumping of sea water e.g. https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/n.... Your arguments make sense if you are only relying on one source of power generation and storage. As all of these new ways are still relatively young in development, there is plenty of scope for improvement. Not many ideas translate into instant success.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[AmiMoJo]

The rates are "fixed" in the sense that the utility companies fix the system through heavy lobbying.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[AmiMoJo]

Fortunately if you have weeks or months to spool up extra capacity it isn't much of a problem to take plants offline for half the year. Good opportunity for maintenance in fact.

Recycled batteries are very environmentally friendly. Instead of throwing them in landfill or expending energy to break then down, just re-use them as building scale storage. A "dead" battery pack is usually 80-90% good, with just one or two dead cells. A depleted EV pack might have 70-80% capacity left.

For larger grid scale storage chemistries like low temperature sodium sulphur are still much, much better than coal or gas in terms of environmental impact.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[AmiMoJo]

It's still going to be cheaper for a utility company to set up hundreds
of solar panels and sell the electricity to consumers than it will be for everyone to buy/maintain their own system.

Only if energy companies are willing to accept zero profit. Otherwise it will always be better for the consumer to install their own solar PV system as it will pay for itself in 5-10 years maximum, and then it's all just free energy. Maintenance costs are low and will continue to fall, and unless you are really unlucky will never exceed the value of what the panels produce.

Electricity companies will have to go from making all their money during peak times to making it all during low demand times. Peak times are when solar is producing the most output (and battery packs can shift it by a few hours easily enough) so energy companies will be looking to cover night time use like electric vehicle charging.

The real danger is that electricity prices will rise and only those who can afford their own solar panels will be able to keep their costs under control. We need to make sure that everyone has access to affordable energy, even if they can't fit their own PV system.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Wycliffe]

It's still going to be cheaper for a utility company to set up hundreds
of solar panels and sell the electricity to consumers than it will be for everyone to buy/maintain their own system.

Only if energy companies are willing to accept zero profit.

A utility company could easily still make a profit using the same technology as the consumer.
If they save only 10% via economy of scale and then tack on another 10% for the customer
convenience of not having to maintain their own system, that is 20% right there. My guess is
that economy of scale is closer to 50% as the utility company can use technologies that are
not practical at the home level, cut corners that are not safe at the home level, optimize in
ways that are not practical at the home level as well as buy in bulk and create custom specs.

A power plant near my house did a $20 million dollar upgrade which was suppose to increase
yield by 5%. They said that if it worked then they would break even after 3 months.
Those type of optimizations are just not practical on the individual level.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[BarbaraHudson]

You could have searched it yourself, but here you go.

A Florida woman has gone head to head with a local judge who has declared her efforts to live off the grid illegal and in violation of local and international code ordinances.

Robin Speronis, a 54-year-old former real estate agent currently living in Cape Coral in a small duplex, has her own solar panels and collects rain water for her needs, She has even installed a simple outdoor shower in order to be independent from the municipal energy and water supply. The local power company and water supply surely have a hand in the Special Magistrate Harold S. Eskin’s ruling that, although the regulations for her city are redundant and unreasonable, she was in violation of city code as well as the International Property Maintenance Code.

Apparently generating your own power and using rainwater or other natural elements is not your sovereign right. Speronis using her own elbow grease to live more in balance with nature is now part of a heated debate.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[FredThompson]

Doubtful. Solar power and other "renewables" are not consistent. I suppose the exceptions are some thermal and water motion systems but those sources are so rare as to be inconsequential.

Electricity cannot be stored efficiently. Thus, power plants need to generate more than the expected peak energy required at any given time. In the case of solar panels, that utility-generated power must be available for use as the solar panel output varies.

The reality is that IF economical storage of electricity ever exists, it will come to the utilities FIRST, industrial use SECOND and individual use far later. Economies of scale apply. Every electrical utility would love to have such tech available. Currently, they must generate at or above the historical/expected peak need at any time. The higher the peak demand, the higher the cost to customers.

Better technologies for individual users to reduce electrical draws would be displays that use primarily reflective light. That would also be much better for human eyesight. Passive heat dissipation and concentration would be really helpful. Imagine how much energy is used for displays and cooling of electronics. I have no idea your age but before home computers and cell phones existed, home use of electrical power was much lower. Things as simple as electric irons and ovens use a huge amount of power because they're huge resistors. Lower-power processors in smartphones would be great. The primary reason they have been getting larger is to have larger internal batteries. Larger screens on them are secondary reasons. Marketing promotes the large screens as a benefit because that's more attractive to people than a thicker device. Of course, the new ones are more like small clipboards, not a radio you can put in a pockets...but I digress.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[SLot]

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/2...

http://offgridsurvival.com/liv...

http://offthegridlive.com/abou...

There you go.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[jythie]

Though what we could see there is another case of middle class exodus since detached homes with enough roof space to cover the energy needs of a family (plus the storage capacity) are not something most people are going to manage.

One of the blind spots I think a lot of people in the tech industry have is forgetting that we tend to make well above average pay and are more likely to live out in suburbs or rural areas than the majority of the country. Though that might also mean we do not make up enough of the customer base to matter anyway.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[jythie]

In general such laws require one to be hooked up, but not be paying for or consuming power, and that is just a housing code thing. Cases (like the one mentioned by the other poster) where use of the utility is required are usually rooted in one fee covering multiple utilities. In the Florida case the local utility charged for water consumption but that pool paid for both water delivery and sewage removal. In her case she was collecting her own water but still using the sewer infrastructure, so the law was not all that well drafted but it was attempting to address a real balance that she was taking advantage of.

Re: Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you watch use your computer after dark? There is 400 watts

400W?! What sort of rig are you running? I have only come close to that only when I buy the most knuckle dragging beast of a box. Most of my computers are in the 20-50W range these days. Hell my TV is not even that much anymore. My fridge uses a bunch but it is also 15 years old and will be replaced with something that uses quite a bit less.

I *might* use 400W total for about 3-4 hours on end.

Have a shower?
Its called natural gas. You should try it. Fire heats water way more efficiently than a coil pack. Its what the big boys use to generate electricity.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[jklovanc]

Fortunately if you have weeks or months to spool up extra capacity it isn't much of a problem to take plants offline for half the year. Good opportunity for maintenance in fact.

The capitol and interest payments required to build the plant would now have to be spread over much less production which would drive up the cost of electricity. Even plants that are not operational require maintenance.

Recycled batteries are very environmentally friendly.

There will not be enough recycled batteries to make a difference for a very long time. How fast do these batteries degrade once they start having problems?

For larger grid scale storage chemistries like low temperature sodium sulphur are still much, much better than coal or gas in terms of environmental impact.

How much do the installations cost? Added costs mean higher electricity prices. What is the manufacturing process for these batteries like. Sodium is very dangerous in elemental form. They will also need to be completely replace every 15 years or so.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[DanielRavenNest]

The big drop since 2008 is because solar cell production at that point exceeded silicon ingot needs for electronics. When electronics was the main demand, it was not worth making separate plants for "solar grade" silicon. Electronics grade is much more expensive, because crystal defects make computer chips unusable. They only make solar cells a little less efficient. Nowadays silicon ingots for solar panels is the dominant market. In this graph you can even see a rise in price as silicon got in short supply, followed by the crash as new solar-grade production went into operation:

http://costofsolar.com/managem...

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[MrL0G1C]

That is part of the reason, continuous manufacturing improvements / new techniques is the biggest reason for the drop. New methods of creating Solar Panel / Solar energy collection are still being invented regularly. The chart you linked goes from $60/Watt to $1.5/Watt but the price now is below $0.5/Watt.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[afidel]

The problem is off-grid systems are a LOT more than 2x wholesale grid prices, and storage tech isn't moving anywhere near the pace of panel production (it turns out storing electricity chemically in an efficient and reversible process is really, really tough to do economically)

Re: Reduced revenues != lost profit

[afidel]

Do you watch use your computer after dark? There is 400 watts.
LOL, on slashdot that's funny. My VMWare hosts which are dual 10 core Xeon's with 384GB of ram, multiple network cards and fiber channel HBA's peak just over 300W:
Last Week-
average 183 W | 625 BTU/hr
peak 301 W | 1027 BTU/hr

Unless you're running dual GPU with a 60" display there's no way you're using 400W.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[afidel]

One can either massively over produce in summer or rely on grid power in the winter. If one is relying on winter grid power then the equipment generating that power will only be used a fraction of the year.
My average power draw during the summer is ~4x my winter draw since I use natural gas heat but air conditioning, and I'm fairly typical. So you design your solar system to produce ~75% of summer demand and your grid demand remains relatively constant yet significantly lower than today which should actually reduce the utilities costs significantly since they will need fewer plants and less grid infrastructure and fewer grid upgrades.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Facegarden]

Haha, wow... What an incredibly narrow view of the world you have. These "laws" are absolutely not nonsense. It is a real, broadly documented effect that the cost to produce goods in a large industry continually declines as a manufacturer learns over and over all the places they can reduce costs. http://www.economist.com/node/...

A manufacturer may come up with a trick to increase yield one year, so that there is 10% less product that falls out of the line after manufacturing due to defects. They may build more factories closer to consumers to reduce delivery costs. They may buy bigger machines to spit out twice as much goods for the same amount of labor, cutting labor costs in half. Their suppliers could get better at making the machines, offering faster machines for the same price - cutting down on overhead costs per part. The mines who supply the silicon could get more customers and invest in better machinery too, similarly decreasing their costs (which they can pass on to the consumer of those materials). Researchers can find new materials (like carbon for solar) that are cheaper than traditional materials. They could double efficiency for the same amount of material, cutting costs in half again.

Companies continually improve their processes to maintain their edge in a competitive marketplace. There is always someone who will come in and undercut you, so you need to be able to continually improve your processes or you will die. The whole phenomenon of continually lower prices was identified in the 1960's, and has repeatedly been shown to be valid over long terms. Moore's law for semiconductors is one great example, and solar panels still have huge demand above what we currently need them for. These laws apply to all kinds of things though... I'm sure it applies to tires, paper, pencils, shoes, televisions, LEDs, batteries, windows, magnets, etc. As long as an industry is growing - there will be money to invest in lowering costs.

You do need a place to put solar panels, but every rooftop in the country has more than enough room to power the underlying building with solar using just today's 20% efficient solar cells. We need power at night, but Elon Musk thinks lithium batteries will work just fine, and we have enough lithium to increase our use 20% every single year for 30 years before we'd need to even look for more. Lithium is one of the most abundant materials on the planet and the batteries are easy to recycle. Musk has said he plans on selling 30% of the batteries from his new factory to solar home customers (and he already owns a solar panel factory and a solar installation and leasing company). A solar-driven world seems very, very plausible.

Plus, we literally cannot afford to keep burning fossil fuels. We have no choice but to go carbon neutral and nuclear is not the option. We get free power from the sun. It is absolutely silly not to take advantage of it. Those fossil fuels we love? They were originally plants that grew from the sun or animals that ate plants that grew from the sun. Everything on Earth exists because of the vast power of the sun.

Re: Reduced revenues != lost profit

[tinkerghost]

Oh, it will go back up. Probably once Russia has learned their lesson.

Actually it's the shale & oilsand reserves that are supposed to be pressured here. Both are much higher resource costs than traditional pump wells - they can turn a profit at $80/b and be subsidized @ $60 by traditional wells from the same company, but under $60/b things get very dicy.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Dahamma]

I agree - so I looked it up and apparently they *were* doing this (via investments):

http://www.solarcity.com/newsr...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB...

But then their new CEO decided to abandon them:

http://www.bizjournals.com/san...

And then they changed their mind *again* and wanted to invest, but the PUC decided against it:

https://gigaom.com/2012/05/10/...

So, basically WTF. It's a complicated situation...

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There's talk of using upgraded metallurgical-grade silicon for PV panels. Apparently, it could prove another major jump on the raw inputs part of the costs.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[MrL0G1C]

Wrong on both counts.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[angel'o'sphere]

Haha, wow... What an incredibly narrow view of the world you have. These "laws" are absolutely not nonsense. It is a real, broadly documented effect that the cost to produce goods in a large industry continually declines as a manufacturer learns over and over all the places they can reduce costs. http://www.economist.com/node/... [economist.com]
I would rather say: what an idiotic few of the world you have, or on economics.

You can not reduce cost for manufacturing something below the costs of the raw materials, the energy and transportation of said thing.

If your idea would be right prices would drop all the time instead of INCREASING all the time, ah, you did not notice that beer, bread, milk butter: IS NOT CHEAPER than 30 years ago?

These laws apply to all kinds of things though... I'm sure it applies to tires, paper, pencils, shoes, televisions, LEDs, batteries, windows, magnets, etc. As long as an industry is growing - there will be money to invest in lowering costs. No it does not ... a magnet is a magnet is a magnet ... there is no way to make a stronger one or a significantly cheaper one ... costs can not lowered to zero. It is as simple as that.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Facegarden]

I said pretty clearly:

"As long as an industry is growing - there will be money to invest in lowering costs."

Once everyone is drinking milk, there isn't much room to dump money into lowering costs, because the profit gets squeeze out of the industry from competition. Many things do hit a floor and level out in price. But there is no reason to believe solar is anywhere near that floor. The raw material - silicon - is one of the cheapest and most abundant materials on the planet. Those lower cost rules don't go on forever for all products, but they are valid for periods of development in a product's life cycle. And I believe solar power will be one of the most important products of this century, so there is lots of room for growth. Humans cannot afford to keep hurting the Earth to get our energy, and solar presents a clear opportunity to harvest thousands of times more energy than we currently use. The technology is already on par with the cost of fossil fuels and we will continue to find ways to make it cheaper and more efficient.

Also, Milk is cheaper. You just can't tell because our dollars aren't worth the same amount. According to a short search, in 1950 a gallon of milk was $0.80, which is $7.88 in today's money. Milk is cheaper because we have enormous milk factories now, not little farms that have to support a bunch of workers.

And OF COURSE you can't reduce the cost of something below the cost of raw materials, but as I said in my previous post you CAN reduce the cost of raw materials by investing in better mining equipment.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[angel'o'sphere]

The raw material - silicon - is one of the cheapest and most abundant materials on the planet.
No it is not. A kg of Silizium (refined) costs $16 - $20. Copper e.g. costs about $5 per kg.

The fact that the planet is basically made from Silizium and that it is "abundant" does not make it cheap.

According to a short search, in 1950 a gallon of milk was $0.80 YES , which is $7.88 in today's money. NO, those $0.80 are already corrected towards current value of the dollar!!!

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Dahamma]

Actually already saw that one, and it's not a good example. It's from March, and if YOU had actually searched better (or found a less biased source), you'd have found that almost all (including the electricity requirement) was later dismissed by a judge.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Dahamma]

Except those are all old and have been mostly dismissed by judges. Basically, the cities tried and the judges reasonably ruled the statutes were invalid. And if you look for other sources, you quickly realize these are the tiny minority, and most cities don't really care.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[BarbaraHudson]

1. How many people would even bother taking it to court?
2. The requirement to be hooked up to the muni water system was upheld.

Re:Reduced revenues != lost profit

[Dahamma]

1. Who cares, it just took one case to invalidate it for everyone in that municipality.
2. We were talking about electricity, not water. But nonetheless, the water hookup was required because they *did* keep the sewer hookup, and they were part of the same package. The fact is the judge was reasonable. If they wanted to go completely off the grid they should move out to where they can use a septic tank and do whatever they want with their water.

Re: Reduced revenues != lost profit

[danbert8]

I'd say it's more analogous to a capacitor. And it will lose its charge very quickly if not kept powered.

That day

[phantomfive]

The cost of rooftop solar-powered electricity will be on par with prices for common coal or oil-powered generation in two years

That will be a beautiful day.

Re:That day

[fluffy99]

The cost of rooftop solar-powered electricity will be on par with prices for common coal or oil-powered generation in two years

This is only true if you live in an area that current has ridiculously high electricity rates. Places like California and Long Island with rates hitting as high as 25-cent/kwh. It's certainly not true for places like where I live that are running 6.5-cents/kwh. Ironically the high rate places are so high because demand has increased and the utilities are having to recoup the cost of increasing capacity or buying outside power by raising their rates. Decreased daytime demand will probably _lower_ the rates in these areas.

Re:That day

[Tokolosh]

"Cost" is not the same thing as "Price". We should bear this in mind any time the government is involved - power, oil, health care, internet...

Re:That day

[Waffle Iron]

You may like living in the stone age, but most of us would rather be comfortable.

One o the best ways to stay comfortable is to not get your home destroyed by the crazy weather created by your cheap electricity rates.

Re:That day

[Maury Markowitz]

"It's certainly not true for places like where I live that are running 6.5-cents/kwh."

Does that include all distribution fees and taxes? Because if it doesn't then your parity rate is likely closer to 10 to 15 cents, which is about the current going rate for large scale PV. Residential it's higher until you remove the price of a roof job. Still not parity, but not far.

Re:That day

[fluffy99]

"It's certainly not true for places like where I live that are running 6.5-cents/kwh."

Does that include all distribution fees and taxes? Because if it doesn't then your parity rate is likely closer to 10 to 15 cents, which is about the current going rate for large scale PV. Residential it's higher until you remove the price of a roof job. Still not parity, but not far.

Yeah, if you roll in the service delivery fee I'm at 7.9-cents/kwh.

I have trouble believing a estimate of 15 cents/kwh as the going rate for large scale PV. The lowest estimate I could come up with for lifetime cost per kwh on personal solar setups was 22-cents/kwh. I'm going by the calculations at http://www.nmsea.org/Curriculu... and using a much lower panel cost of $2.50/watt (versus the 2013 cost numbers they have) and assuming similar costs for the install labor, batteries, etc. Those calculations leave out some important things though, such as 1 or 2 battery replacements over that lifespan, maintenance/repair, sales taxes, added homeowner insurance costs, and what the upfront cost would have earned if it had been invested instead. I'm not sure 25-years is a reasonable lifespan estimate for chinese made panels.

With efficiency improvements expected within the next few years, I feel people would be better off delaying and waiting for better panels to come on the market.

Too many people are focused on the panel cost per watt coming down, but not understanding that's like trying to use gas mileage to estimate cost per mile. You need to account for installation cost, insurance, maintenance, depreciation, lost interest by tying up the money, etc. So while the car might get 10-cents/mile based on the mileage,it might be closer to 30-cents per mile once you figure the true cost.

Re:That day

[jklovanc]

Does this include the cost of the base load plants that still need to exist in case there is a storm and the solar panels do not work as well? Does this take into account the seasonal variation in electricity production? For example, Germany produces ten times as much solar energy in June as it does in January. Therefore to produce one unit of electricity in January costs ten times as much as in June.

Re:That day

[JaredOfEuropa]

No, and that's part of the problem. I pay a small fixed fee and a per kWh charge to my utility. Presumably, the fixed fee doesn't pay for the infrastructure, but what they make on the power they sell me on average lets them operate at a profit. If people are buying a whole lot less power because of domestic solar installations, the utility won't be able to cover their costs.

The other problem is that solar power is competing at consumer level prices, which often include an hefty tax. That makes solar attractive to consumers, but it also means that when you are generating a surplus, the utility is effectively buying that power back from you at consumer prices as well. Even if they can sell that power elsewhere and perhaps shut down a generator or two, it means that instead of generating power at a marginal cost of €0.02/kWh and selling it at €0.19/kWh, they buy and sell at the same price and make nothing.

Re:That day

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course... In years where there are below normal numbers of hurricanes, tropical storms, and tornadoes, that's "just the weather". Be there one major hurricane or a tornado that strikes a heavily populated for a calendar year it can be blamed by global warming. Back in the Roman times they sacrificed animals to appease the weather gods that they believed were responsible for their extreme weather. In modern times, the greens just want us sacrifice our economic prosperity to appease their god. How little has man changed.

No change in the discussion I'm sure

[Harlequin80]

Seems to be a lot of very similar articles at the moment.

If you would like to know how this thread will turn just go here - http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...

Re:No change in the discussion I'm sure

[rahvin112]

Wall street is running a LOT of articles on it right now because it's a tremendous change in the status quo that will affect investors pretty massively. The Motley Fool runs a couple articles a week on all the changes. And yes there are that many changes and developments going on.

Re:No change in the discussion I'm sure

[sconeu]

I trust the Fool a hell of a lot more than I trust the WSJ.

Re:Just Green propaganda, Utilities aren't scared.

[Ol Olsoc]

Just Green propaganda, Utilities aren't scared.

After oil dires up. we shall fold the tents.

An important point left out...

[bogaboga]

The cost of rooftop solar-powered electricity will be on par with prices for common coal or oil-powered generation in two years, and the technology to produce it will only get cheaper...

...as production continues to be in low cost, high productivity countries like China and India which can export to the US unfettered.

They have good reason to be nervous

[DerekLyons]

They have good reason to be nervous... They'll still be on the hook to provide full power when solar is producing less than peak capability or isn't producing at all, but there's little chance they'll be allowed to significantly raise their rates. This works out to being required to maintain full generating and transmission capacity with sharply reduced revenue.
 
Not to mention that very few people installing subsidized and/or cheap solar panels will spend the money to install unsubsidized and expensive battery capacity. That's long been a deep flaw in the thinking of solar power supporters - that they can have their cake and eat it too, the unspoken assumption that the utilities will always be there and will always have the capacity to make up any lack. You get what you pay for folks, TANSTAAFL.

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[fermion]

it is an interesting theory, but misses a couple facts. First, the owners of the grid are protected. For instance, in disasters in the recent past the repair costs for the grid have been passed directly to rate payers even though the gird operators should have reserved cash to pay for those repairs. It is like the owner of corner grocery charging everyone a dollar extra because he was robbed the previous evening. Likewise, many people buy electricity through resellers. The producers mostly know just sell bulk, so they are not really interested in how much electricity is used, just that enough is sold to support the plants. And the solar panel is only going to allow them to reduce capacity, and increase profits. Here is how. There is such an overcapacity of overnight electricity that resellers give it away. The generators have to provide an excess during the day, and have to charge more to cover the costs. With a bunch of residential solar panels feeding electricity back into the grid during the day when people are not home, the providers can afford to supply electricity at night when they were giving it away for free before. In my a typical use case in my area, a family might spend $300 on electricity when there is a lot of sun, and $100 when there is little sun. With solar panels, such a family might see no money going to electric company, but maybe extra electricity feeding the grid at peak times when before there might have been brownouts. The only problem is this grid, which obviously is going to have to be funded separately, maybe $20 a month for a connection.

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[LordLucless]

It is like the owner of corner grocery charging everyone a dollar extra because he was robbed the previous evening.

Pretty sure grocery stores do pay for repairs/stock loss/insurance through increasing the price of their goods. How else would they do it?

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[MrL0G1C]

Tesla: 85KWh battery.

If a car can have a 85KWh battery then why can't a house have a 10KWh battery? The price of batteries is set to plummet due to mass scale production of electric cars which need the batteries and the billions going into battery R&D.

Most of the cost of Solar PV is in the installation and bureaucracy now.

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[DerekLyons]

If a car can have a 85KWh battery then why can't a house have a 10KWh battery?

I never said they couldn't - I said they'd be expensive. (And 10KWh isn't very much.)
 

The price of batteries is set to plummet due to mass scale production of electric cars which need the batteries

Which means that if you add additional demand for batteries for houses... the prices are going to go right back up. (Supply and demand, simple economics.) And even "plummeted" prices are still very expensive - into five figures.

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[khallow]

With a bunch of residential solar panels feeding electricity back into the grid during the day when people are not home, the providers can afford to supply electricity at night when they were giving it away for free before.

Who's paying to store this power for supply at night? And without an increase in demand (say from a hoard of electric cars recharging), you just made the oversupply problem even worse.

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[TubeSteak]

Pretty sure grocery stores do pay for repairs/stock loss/insurance through increasing the price of their goods. How else would they do it?

This might come as a shock to you, but sometimes companies will eat a cost and accept lower profit margins.

Sometimes it's a matter of image "we don't want to be perceived as raising prices"
and sometimes it's just a matter of market share "if we raise prices, we lose customers"

Grocery stores have less margin than most business, but they generally absorb short term price spikes to maintain customer loyalty.

On the other hand, utilities are complete bastards and ask for rate hikes every chance they get, regardless of any economic or business needs.

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[thegarbz]

They'll still be on the hook to provide full power when solar is producing less than peak capability or isn't producing at all

Will they? Legitimate question, is this a legislated guarantee in the USA? It's not in many other parts of the world. In Australia for instance many utilities are shutting down turbines and cutting back as they are already making losses. This currently hasn't knocked on to consumers as the peaking plant capacity was very large in Australia, however now we're finding that peaking plants are running at a far higher rate than previously and in some cases running non-stop.

We have no requirement to keep private businesses open and making a loss. I predict we're going to go through a few wide scale power outages and then we'll see government subsidies roll in to keep old base load plants viable.

What we should see is new baseload plants being constructed now which can operate greener and cheaper but we as a nation lack any ability for forethought. Just slap another bandaid on the problem, a peaking plant here, a tax there, maybe a carbon scrubber on the 50 year old blackcoal plant. She'll be right mate.

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[angel'o'sphere]

Depending on what kind of usage you want to cover: 10kWh is a lot! A fridge uses about half a kWh per day (german A+++ rated, typical size, likely quite small by american standards) ... a computer might need the same amount per hour, and if you cook with electric power you might need 1kWh per hour already.
My household uses a bit less than 10kWh per day, I guess if I would optimize I could get down to 7kWh ... so a 10kWh storage lasts me minimum a night already (during which I use more than the average person as I'm a night person)

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[angel'o'sphere]

Baseload plants are not the same as peak load plants.
How can you use both terms so closely together and still mix up what base load actually is?
Base load plants are absolutely unaffected by renewable energy until you produce more than 50% of your power (not energy) with them!

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[DerekLyons]

Depending on what kind of usage you want to cover

No it doesn't, it depends on the power usage of the house - unless you expect the residents to go into power saving mode every night and every time there's cloudy weather.
 

My household uses a bit less than 10kWh per day

Googling about, that shows you well below the American average (roughly 30KWh/day). And even with a full 30KWh battery... I haven't seen the sun in six days. (Not at all unusual for this time of year.)

Hence the ongoing need for baseload.

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[angel'o'sphere]

No it doesn't, it depends on the power usage of the house
Sigh. And the power usage if your hosue is out of control of you? You are not able to stop heating the swimming pool when the sun goes down? You can not switch off the light in rooms where no one is inside? You can not replace high power using bulbs with LEDs or halogen bulbs?

Googling about, that shows you well below the American average (roughly 30KWh/day). And even with a full 30KWh battery... I haven't seen the sun in six days. (Not at all unusual for this time of year.)

Of course i'm below the american average. I don't live in the US!

Actually I have to look up my latest bill, I guess my daily usage is somewhere between 5kWh and 7kWh ... but the average I looked at was 3500 kWh a year for my type of flat, but I doubt I use that much as my stove/oven is gas and I don't use much light and my computers are all laptops.

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[thegarbz]

False. There used to be a case where baseload plants would provide most of the power. You generate all the time and burn it away when it wasn't being used while your turbines were ramping. This worked well with a steady supply causing major swings in wholesale price over the course of the day. When electricity is cheap you can burn it at a loss, when it's expensive you'd make up the profits, and the ability to succeed came from the ability to be the fastest to adapt to a change in demand.

Enter peaking plants and green energy designed specifically to take advantage of times when electricity has the highest wholesale value. This affects the economics of running the base load plants. You say they are unaffected? Don't tell me, tell it to CS Energy, Sunpower, and Stanwell who are cutting jobs and shutting down baseload capacity. In the extreme circumstances there are small peaking plants now providing baseload. Why? Because they are new, because they are built next to cheap supply of LNG, they often run as combined cycle systems and provide utilities for local plants, and because all the renewables and peaking plants that have opened up have made the old baseload plants nonviable by upsetting the economics of making money in the industry.

Anyway regardless of what you think about my knowledge of the industry in which I work, your assertion that the plants are "absolutely unaffected" is quite simply wrong.

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[angel'o'sphere]

Sorry ... that is all nonsense.

Having different prices changing more or less constantly we have since when? 20 years? I would say less.

The difference between base load, mid range load, peak load and fast balancing plants we have since 90 years. Your idea is completely ridiculous.

Enter peaking plants and green energy designed specifically to take advantage of times when electricity has the highest wholesale value. This affects the economics of running the base load plants.
No it does not. Base load is something like 50% of 'peak' (40% in Germany, close to 60% in France, roughly 50% in the USA) ... unless you can produce more than 50% of your power with renewables, the base load plants still stick at close to 100% full load. And their costs don't change at all.

You say they are unaffected? Don't tell me, tell it to CS Energy, Sunpower, and Stanwell who are cutting jobs and shutting down baseload capacity. They are not cutting down base load capacity but mid range capacity, you simply don't grasp what base load is and believe "fossile" == "dispatch able" == "base load", which is wrong.

Anyway regardless of what you think about my knowledge of the industry in which I work, your assertion that the plants are "absolutely unaffected" is quite simply wrong.

Then you should start reading up how your industry actually works instead of using the anti pattern "intellectual violence" on me: I work in the same industry: idiot!

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[thegarbz]

Your idea is completely ridiculous.

Regardless of what you think this is not my idea. This is me regurgitating the facts of how the industry in which I work operates economically and why the older generators are currently struggling. You can use all sorts of words like ridiculous, unaffected, but you are wrong.

Also base load generation is exactly what it is large single turbines designed to run consistently against a stable grid. The changing economics does not change the way these plants have been built, and you can't magically turn a base load generator into a peaking plant.

Anyway I don't need to read up on how my industry works. I actually work in it, daily. I sit only a few meters from production planning people, operations engineers (of which I am one) and accountants. But please go on and keep telling me how everything we are doing is actually wrong, it is quite entertaining.

Idiot yourself!

Re:They have good reason to be nervous

[angel'o'sphere]

How should a base load plant be affected if you can only switch it of or replacing it by a peak load or mid range plant?

Sorry, your so self proclaimed expertise because you work close to the "planners" (planning what?) as what (a coffee brewer?) does not make you an expert.

Your last three posts make no sense on the technical level, oh ... the reason is you gave no technical explanaition. So: you full of hot words and as you give no explanaition no one will ever believe you have any clue about power generation.

Again: we have base load plants, producing roughly 40% -50% of the daily peak load, running on 85% - 90% capacity. Midrange plants producing the gap between the base load and the peak, for a limited set of hours in a day that is also 40% - 50% of the peak load. Then we have peak load and balancing power plants that shape the load to demand.

Now we get 10% or 15% of our power from renewables, like wind or solar (hydro is another issue and irrelevant).

How should those 10% or 15% of renewables have any effect on base load plants? I say: they have not You say: they have ... please explain or accept you have no clue, and are indeed an idiot.

Uh, no.

[goodmanj]

Guys, "lost revenue" is not the same as "loss". If I buy widgets for 99 cents and sell them for a buck, and my customers start buying fewer widgets, I'm not losing $1 for each widget they fail to buy from me, but that's exactly what the paper is suggesting.

Now, if my customers can make their own widgets and force me to buy them for $1 (as some states require utilities to do), I can claim that I'm losing money on that deal. But my losses are a penny a widget, not a buck.

Re:Uh, no.

[JaredOfEuropa]

But you're not just selling widgets, you are also building roads to be able to bring those widgets to your customers, and paying for those roads with the sales of those widgets. If your customers are making their own widgets but are still using your roads to buy and sell them, your loss not only consists of the 1 cent net profit per widget; the average per-widget cost of that road is a loss as well. This means that you have to start charging the cost of the road separately instead of rolling it into the cost of each widget, and that is the problem: utilities will have to change their business models but in a lot of cases regulation prevents them from doing so.

Re:Uh, no.

[thegarbz]

Guys, "lost revenue" is not the same as "loss". If I buy widgets for 99 cents and sell them for a buck, and my customers start buying fewer widgets, I'm not losing $1 for each widget they fail to buy from me, but that's exactly what the paper is suggesting.

That's because you don't understand the difference between fixed costs and variable costs. The cost of the plastic used to make the widget, that's a variable cost. Every widget you buy has this cost built in. Every widget you don't buy saves you this cost.
The cost to pay yourself and your marketing staff, that's a fixed cost. It doesn't matter if you buy zero widgets, or 10000 widgets, you get paid the same, the rent gets paid, the phone bill gets paid, the company computer equipment is amortised.

If you buy 100 widgets for 99 cents and sell them for a buck, and then have to cover 50cents for the cost of electricity in your warehouse in the first place then you're making 50c profit out of $100 revenue. If you now are only able to sell 50 widgets you're breaking even $0 profit off $50 revenue. If you sell 1 widget you're now making a 49c loss out of $1 of revenue.

You can try justify and sugar coat it all you want, but the reality is there are already plants running at a loss and shutting down turbines and cutting staff in an attempt to stay viable.

I thought power companies were happy to shed load?

[ZorinLynx]

We have a load control transponder here which allows the power company to temporarily shut off the air conditioner and/or water heater, basically creating a "rolling blackout" of just those devices when demand for power exceeds supply.

The fact that they deploy such devices suggests utilities would be happy to shed some load, especially during the brightest time of day when solar works best and air conditioners are working hardest.

So what's the deal? They want us to use more power after all?

The problem with short term thinking

[Dunbal]

Those utilities are not envisioning the fact that all that power savings that is "eating into their profits" today is energy they can sell to tomorrow's customers. Why? Because populations grow over time, and they grow quite quickly. Instead of bitching about the paper loss they think they are seeing, they should be celebrating the fact that they don't have to build more power-plants and infrastructure for 10-20 years and will be able to serve a much larger base with the same infrastructure. So that 2% increase to the electric bill they apply for in 2024 will mean much, much more actual revenue for them - for exactly the same fixed cost.

But no. Greed. Let's bilk people today because they dare try to do something to save money and stretch current resources by diminishing consumption.

Re:The problem with short term thinking

[Harlequin80]

But they do have to build more infrastructure to handle solar. They may not have to build more plants but they have to change the design of the network to handle inputs from different locations at fluctuating rates.

That said I don't read anything that shows the energy companies here in Australia are overly concerned by solar. In fact most of them push it to their customers. Solar allows them to get electricity at a cheaper price to sell to someone in a different spot. There is money in moving electricity around, not just in burning coal to make it.

Re:The problem with short term thinking

[ockegheim]

Australian energy companies don’t have too much to worry about, at least while the Prime Minister’s tongue gently caresses the large intestines of fossil fuel executives.

Re:The problem with short term thinking

[Harlequin80]

Oh? And what would you suggest he should do differently?

Let me guess? Change tax laws with no consultation? Would you suggest Tax laws that were on the very edge of constitutional legality?

Mineral resources are owned by the states. Environmental policy is lead by the states with Federal environmental law being able to be MORE strict not less. The federal government has no ability to ban mining, no ability to ban certain types of power stations, or ability to shut a power station down. So how exactly is he caressing parts of their internal digestive system?

I would suggest that you back away from propaganda that comes from people who are either caressing or being caressed in a similar fashion.

Re:The problem with short term thinking

[DerekLyons]

Those utilities are not envisioning the fact that all that power savings that is "eating into their profits" today is energy they can sell to tomorrow's customers. Why? Because populations grow over time, and they grow quite quickly. Instead of bitching about the paper loss they think they are seeing, they should be celebrating the fact that they don't have to build more power-plants and infrastructure for 10-20 years and will be able to serve a much larger base with the same infrastructure.

The problem here isn't short term thinking - it's that you're utterly clueless. If the population goes up, capacity still has to go up - because the utility has to have the capacity to supply the grid when renewable sources aren't available. If you have twice the population, you have twice the night time load - and you need twice the daytime capacity available for cloudy days, for deeply cold days, etc... etc...

Not to mention that in many urban areas, a good chunk of that growth will go into apartments - which don't have sufficient roof space for solar to offset a significant part of consumption.

Renewable power sources are not magic, and they are a supplement, not a replacement, for baseload capacity.

Re:The problem with short term thinking

[Barsteward]

If all new housing was built close to passive house standards, i.e. properly insulated, heat/air recovery system etc then the demand on the utility will be a lot lower. There are houses here in the UK built to this german standard and they effectively get free heating/lighting because they have a solar system to generate power. Here are a couple of examples how 2 places in Europe have been clever about their power generation. http://cleantechnica.com/2014/... and http://cleantechnica.com/2014/...

Re:The problem with short term thinking

[thegarbz]

That said I don't read anything that shows the energy companies here in Australia are overly concerned by solar.

That's because you're not reading the right material. Stanwell just cut staff at all plants and has mothballed 700MW of capacity at Tarong in an attempt to try and make a profit, Swanbank is also suffering having decommissioned one unit 2 years ago and the other is in question. CS Energy is investing money in their own solar equipment and small peaking generators (which actually turn a good profit at the moment) at Kogan Creek, and that's just the few plants I know about in the south east of my state.

The big baseload generators are all struggling. Admittedly that is not only because of solar causing a reduction in load and a drop of the wholesale price, but also the likes of Origin Energy running small peaking plants all over their LNG pipeline which has the effect of reducing the wholesale price of electricity at its peak, which is precisely when the larger baseload plants made money.

They are worried and they are under cost pressure. You just don't read about it in the daily dribble which is too busy trying to decide if Labour or the Liberals are the worst people to run the country.

Re:The problem with short term thinking

[Barsteward]

I think you lack comprehension. try reading the links and then think before you post.

If it was 1914...

[crioca]

And In other news: Horse and Buggy Industry Face Millions In Losses From Private Automobiles.

Re:If it was 1914...

[jklovanc]

Except that the Horse and Buggy industry did not have to keep thousands of units on standby for when the automobiles didn't work. The electricity producers have to keep capacity on standby to deal with weather and seasonal variations.

Re:If it was 1914...

[angel'o'sphere]

have to keep capacity on standby to deal with weather and seasonal variations
Only true in a local scale. E.g. if a small village produces its daytime energy with solar (and has no wind for the night). Not true on a country/nation wide scale or global scale. There is always somewhere enough power. (And yes, now you come with grid transmissions and grid losses: ignoring the fact that you have that grid and those losses already. Or how do you think your town gets power when the local utility is down due to maintenance ... or a malfunction ?)

Re:If it was 1914...

[jklovanc]

Not true on a country/nation wide scale or global scale.

Global scale is irrelevant as there are no trans oceanic high capacity electricity transmission lines. Those kinds of lines are extremely expensive.

ignoring the fact that you have that grid and those losses already.

Yes we have a grid but the issue is that the Grid is near capacity. It is not designed to carry electricity from Texas to New York. Most electricity is consumed within 1000 miles of where it is produced. There is a misconception of how the grid works. Many people see it as a big pond where electricity can be poured in at any point and taken out at any point. That is not the case. It is more like a network of canals where each canal has a limited capacity. Put too much in, take too much out or try to transfer too much electricity and things break.

The point many people miss is that the area that is producing must have excess capacity to deal with the ares that are not producing. That means a lot of excess capacity and extra costs. Add together the cost of local capacity, the cost of capacity to cover other areas and the cost of additional transmission lines to get the power to other areas. Those costs add up to very expensive electricity. Could it work? Yes. Could it make electricity so expensive that it has a significant impact on the economy? Also yes.

Re:If it was 1914...

[angel'o'sphere]

Why are you complaining and pointing out the grid problems of the USA?

As if it is not possible to upgrade a grid?

Are you still in the illusion that the USA have the biggest grid, or what ever?

Ever heard about he biggest synchronized grid on earth? Hint: it is not in the USA and not in north america either.

Bottom line: you argue you are not able to have a grid on par with China or India or Indonesia ... wow ... how backyard.

Could it work? Yes. Could it make electricity so expensive that it has a significant impact on the economy? Also yes. Astonishing it works in the rest of the world without impact on the economy. go figure!

Re:If it was 1914...

[jklovanc]

Why does it work on larger grids? Disptachable power is produced close to where it is used. Even in China's grid electricity is not transported thousands of miles. You are still think about a grid like a big lake and that is a false model.

Re:If it was 1914...

[angel'o'sphere]

Pffft ... no I don't think about a grid as a large lake.

Certainly a huge deal of power is produced close where it is used. Nevertheless a lot of power is transported long distances. E.g. because the nuclear plant right here produces 2x the power needed right here, or a far away hydro plant produces 10x the power needed there.

Why don't you look on wikipedia for high voltage trans europe power lines? Do you think we built that power lines by accident and never use them?

How do you believe Norway sells power to Spain? Or to Germany, or Germany to Spain? Or to France for that matter?

Yes: regardless what you believe, power *IS* transported thousands of miles. That is the point about high voltage "transportation grids" (that is the difference to "distribution grids")

Don't forget batteries for storage

[koan]

http://disinfo.com/2014/12/elo...

Yet Musk’s so-called gigafactory may soon become an existential threat to the 100-year-old utility business model. The facility will also churn out stationary battery packs that can be paired with rooftop solar panels to store power. Already, a second company led by Musk, SolarCity Corp. (SCTY), is packaging solar panels and batteries to power California homes and companies including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) - See more at: http://disinfo.com/2014/12/elo...

Re:Don't forget batteries for storage

[Nethead]

Off-topic side note about WalMart. I've done data cable work at more than a few and found that they do one really neat trick when they build: For their main electrical room they haul in a 40' container (before the walls are up) and set it in the back of the store. All the electrical mains come in there through a wall. All the main breakers and the telco demarcation point is in there so if they catch fire the rest of the store has a chance. Off-topic but kind of cool if you're into that thing, which I am.

Re:Predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

A LOT will happen in 10 years; especially in renewable energy.

Is that a prediction?

Beautification

[pubwvj]

Time to tear down all those ugly power lines.

I LMFAO at utilitys

[wulfmans]

I built a house 1 mile away from the overhead power lines. They told me it would cost me 60K USD to run power to my house. FUCK THAT. I installed 6KW of solar panels a nice inverter a decent battery bank and a 30kw diesel genset for 20k. These leaches need to die a horrible death.

Re:BULLSHIT!

[n6kuy]

Earning less than expected == loss.

Blame the Democrats for that kind of thnking. Every time some agency gets less of an increase than before they whine about budget cuts, when really it's a cut in the amount of budget increase.

Um, like, what?

[roc97007]

Ok, so maybe I haven't spent enough quality time with TFA and the overproduced marketing blurb from Accenture that it was quoting, or maybe I'm the stupid that everyone is with, but it seems like the real meat of the article wasn't there. The whole thing reads like a deep fried twinkie.

So what does "billions of losses" mean in this context? It's certainly more money than my beer budget, or what I'm likely to ever win on the Powerball, but what is it as a percentage of the total revenue of the electricity producing industry? How much of this is a "reduction in the increase" caused by increased demand (due to factors like more electric cars, population increase, new particle accelerators, and other factors).

Does the author make an actual verifiable point, or is this another examples of "there's been a 10% increase in piano related deaths. Panic!" I can't really tell.

Partially driven by hate

[EmperorOfCanada]

I can say that I hate my local power company. They have thwarted renewables and competition at every turn. I presently pay some of the highest power rates in North America while our Tiny power company's CEO earns one of the highest wages of any power company. Thus if some technology comes along that is 20% more per Kwh I will buy it if can give a big FU to the power company. I very much doubt that I am alone. Minimally nobody "loves" their power company and thus will feel no loyalty and stay if there are better options.

If I had a rooftop solar, a great set of economical batteries, and some sort of crunch time generation capability then I would literally smile each and every time I saw that the power company was struggling financially.

So anyone trying to figure out how many people will make the switch at any given cost they need to remember that customer inertia will be lower as people will be all too happy to make the switch if it is possible.

My hope is that the richer people in my locality will make the switch first which will be in the high profit downtown areas which will put a tiny dent into their profits. Then they will raise the rates a bit which will put another tiny dent into their profits. I hope that this becomes a bit of a cycle until they manage to corrupt a few local politicians into promoting a bill that will make rooftop solar illegal. Then this will hopefully cause a huge uproar that not only loses the government their next election but causes people to redouble their efforts to go off grid because now it is a political statement. Then I hope the power company goes bankrupt.

Oh and we will have a greener planet.

Re:Humanity 2014

[roc97007]

Yeah, that's like threatening to work harder.

I fail to see how they're "losing money"

[msobkow]

I can see them losing market share to renewables, but that's not the same as losing money.

There is nothing about legislation anywhere in North America that guarantees the continued success of an obsolete business model. No matter how many congressmen and senators the MPAA and RIAA have bought off.

Re: Predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

It should not matter anyways. Utilities such as these should be there to serve the people. They should only worry about covering costs, not making a profit.

Demand Is Falling Hard

[JimSadler]

Germany and other European nations are quickly eliminating fossil fuels and nuclear. In the US we are behind in applying solar, wind and water energy both in a collective and individual way. But the handwriting is on the wall. Big energy will do every corrupt trick in the book to keep sucking at your wallet. As homes and businesses go off grid we will see much higher rates for homes still on the grid. This is Future Shock. It is rather like Uber threatening to eliminate the taxi industry. It is quite like Tesla threatening to cripple gasoline and diesel producers and the cars and trucks that use gas and diesel. And it is like robots replacing fast food workers. It is all happening at a very high speed and some social chaos will follow.

the cascade of stories

[argStyopa]

....smells suspicious - all the meme-generating about "utilities are terrified of renewables" from multiple sources and multiple directions makes me think that someone's laying the ground work to fight the eventual effort of "Ah, so, now that renewables are so fearsome, I guess we need to pull their subsidies".*

*to be clear, I would love to see the subsidies pulled from ALL power generation, conventional, nuclear, and renewable, and let's actually see which wins out in the marketplace as the cheapest (or, if not precisely cheapest, the best compromise for the bulk of the populace between cheap, sustainable, and clean). But that's a Pollyanna belief; I know there's too much money/power in power for it not to be gamed by every side simultaneously.

Re: Predictions

[I4ko]

You took the words right out of my mouth. Where are my mod points when I need them.

Re:Predictions

[Darinbob]

I predict that consulting companies face billions in losses as the markets continue to lose faith in their predictions.

bullshit

[slashmydots]

They turn the damn power plant down and feed it less fuel which costs less money. I call massive bullshit on this one.

Re:bullshit

[EmperorOfCanada]

Fuel is a significant cost but not as big as you would think. Running the powerlines, the transformers, etc, and all the administrative aspects of a power company is very very expensive. Also they have losses that a small producer (your roof) doesn't have such as massive transmission losses over distance. Assuming a company is making $0.10 profit per dollar of revenue that they have the problem that if they lose a dollar in revenue they don't lose the entirety of the remaining 90 cents in costs. They might only lose 5-10 cents in costs. Thus a point can be reached where they become profitless without having to lose a significant number of their customers.

The other key is that while there are high density customers who can't easily leave (apartments) there are lots of rich downtown homeowners who can afford the capital costs to go off grid the moment it looks vaguely sensible to do. These are people who can afford the installation costs along with potentially replacing low efficiency appliances with high efficiency one and will be extended the credit to finance the switch. The cost of providing electricity to these customers is lower than those out in the rural areas who are less able to make the switch. Plus as each customer goes off grid they are gone. The trend toward this sort of technology getting cheaper means that it will only be more and more making the switch along with even the larger industrial power users.

Where this will all get interesting (right after I finish my bankrupt power company celebratory dance) is that the remaining few power users are going to be asked to pay for the entire grid. This means that a few companies and tall buildings will be told that they are going to prop up the entire power company's infrastructure. Thus I suspect there will come a point where various governments will try to force people to pay a tax that subsidizes the power company. A solar roof panel tax or some such. That government will not be re-elected.

Re:bullshit

[jonwil]

Rural areas are very much able to go off-grid. I have family who used to own a sheep station 100s of km from the nearest town and they ran for many years off a combination of a diesel generator and batteries with a small wind turbine (this was back before solar panels really became anywhere near viable). Provided all the power needs for the property. No reason why rural properties elsewhere couldn't do the same with solar/renewables and batteries with a generator (running off the same diesel they use to run the tractors and machinery most likely) for those times when the sun isn't shining and the batteries are dry.

Re:bullshit

[EmperorOfCanada]

I wasn't thinking so much as their physical ability (which is great because of the land area available) but more the financing. Someone typically living in a nice neighbourhood can financially make the switch on a whim. Whereas a more typical rural person will both have less capital and less access to financing to make the switch.

Two things that might balance this though is that someone of less means might have a greater incentive to trim their budget and will be willing to make compromises to achieve the switch. The other is that rural people often have less reliable power supplies because the power company treats those long extended power systems like crap.

But the person I see switching first is a retiring urban baby boomer who will make the switch for the dual reason that it gives them some more fiddling with their house (no more expansion renovations for the kids) and it will lock in their power bill seeing that their income is now also fixed.

For instance in my locality they are doing a big stupid power project that seems to have a once sided contract that was vetted by a wandering group of drunken monkeys. My guess is that the result is that the power company is going to see the costs on this project go up and up and up. All those "ups" will be passed on to us. So we might go from one of the highest power rates in North America to the highest rate in North America. So from a financial point of view we might very well be a test bed of boomers running for the hills.

Re:bullshit

[angel'o'sphere]

Grid losses are in the 5% - 7% range.

Re:bullshit

[EmperorOfCanada]

This depends upon the range. For instance quite a bit of New York City's Electricity comes from Churchill Falls which is in the far north of Atlantic Canada. Far far far north. So it is a bit higher. I am amazed that more energy than a 9 volt battery shows up at the NYC end.

One of the other factors that encourage people to go off grid is that they are no longer reliant upon a complicated and vulnerable grid. Thus as batteries + solar come into the economic range of grid power the next giant blackout will spur many people to make the switch when they see a few neighbours here and there with the lights on and the cold beer flowing.

I doubt that the power companies will all collapse in an overnight homedepot run for home solar systems but that their monopoly of providing electricity to people's homes/businesses will slowly be eroded one panel at a time. The real key will be when people can afford to have enough reliable batteries to go off grid. Right now that is a finicky expensive nightmare but it is getting better. Plus with more and more people installing LED lighting + far more efficient appliances the graph of usage vs generation ability are converging. Also when enough people start to go off grid a whole host of mainstream appliances will be for sale that do things to accommodate a battery/solar power system.

I was reading about a local factory that went fully solar and basically got hate mail from the local utility where the utility was accusing the company of encouraging the utility to build out its infrastructure to accommodate their needs and then going solar/wind. The company responded by publishing the hate mail and two power bills; one from 2006 and one from 2013. Their 2013 bill was about 40% larger. They also claimed that the payback was going to be under 10 years and potentially under 5 if power rates went up at the same speed. The company said that they would have then eliminated one of their biggest expenses. As I pointed out power rates in this area are about the highest in North America.

Re:bullshit

[angel'o'sphere]

I talked about the "total grid loss", not about a single line. Which includes all other losses besides transportation, like the need to "waste burn" excess power in resistors as no pumped storage plant has capacity.

For your example we need to know the distance and the voltage. I would be surprised if it even is close to 10%.

Very long distances like in far east siberia / Kasachstan are covered with 1 million Volt lines, even over 10,000km the loss is below 5% ...

Look at the loses this way

[future assassin]

All those billions saved by the consumer will be funneled back to the local economy and smaller companies. Those companies will develop new technologies faster than some company only concerned with profits over market innovation. As an added bonus the gov will get a bigger chunk of tax since the little guya will pay way more corporate tax than some big ass corporation.

Re:Predictions

[techno-vampire]

Nobody can predict the future...

I beg to differ. Anybody can predict the future, and millions of people do it every day, when they buy a lottery ticket, bet on a horse, play the stock market or put money into a retirement plan. What I think you mean is that nobody can accurately or reliably predict the future.

Re:Regulated Monopolies Never Lose Money

[jonwil]

It costs the utilities a certain amount to provide you with a grid connection (grid maintanence costs, power station maintanence costs, repairs, wages, capital expenditure etc) no matter how much electricity you use. So why shouldn't the electricity companies charge you this fixed cost directly instead of trying to roll it into the variable per-kWh cost?

My power company charged me for 420kWh of "anytime usage" and 56 days of "service to property charge" on my last bill and there is no reason electricity companies couldn't do the same thing everywhere (as long as they reduced the per-kWh charge in line with the maintanence costs that are now being covered by the service charge and not the usage)

Re:Predictions

[WalksOnDirt]

More prosaically, and more accurately, I can predict the Sun will rise in the morning, or that it will be colder here in a month.

They should sue!

[cplusplus]

...and protect their business model! It's the American way (tm)(R).

They have good reason to be nervous

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea the cost of lost, damaged, or spoiled products is factored into the price of everything.

We should be worried too. If power companies can't make money to cover the cost of maintaining the grid, they will stop doing it, since it has to be done, government will take over. As in everything government dose, they do it badly, so it will cost more to operate the grid, and the cost will be added to taxes. In any case everyone WILL pay one way or another to maintain the grid.

Misleading title of article I think, I think it meant lost revenue, not lost profit.

doubtful progress

[swell]

After following PV solar developments for over 40 years, I've noticed two things:
#1 - Every month there is a technology breakthrough that will 'revolutionize' the industry.
#2 - After 40 years (40 X 12 = 480 breakthroughs) we are 2X as efficient as before.

The utility industry needn't panic immediately. We'll need a few hundred more revolutionary breakthroughs first.

Oh, and storage technology? You guessed it, many more revolutionary improvements needed. Or maybe we should just return to the original meaning of revolutionary and dump the hype.

Re:doubtful progress

[Stuarticus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... Oh look! I think you might be wrong.

What planet are you from?

[DerekLyons]

What planet are you from? No utility I'm aware of gives away power for free. Not to mention you completely ignored the required to cover periods when solar is providing sufficient power during the day. (Etc... etc...) You have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

Re:What planet are you from?

[fermion]

For Example

Big utilities faces losses! Oh my!

[fustakrakich]

So, what are we supposed to do? Is there some call to protect their interests? Are we supposed to shun solar now because somebody might not make their projected profits? Are we being told that our economic system abhors self sufficiency? For capitalism that appears to be so.

Re: Predictions

[Dahamma]

It should not matter anyways. Utilities such as these should be there to serve the people. They should only worry about covering costs, not making a profit.

I mostly agree, though unfortunately that almost by definition means they may need to be nationalized... ie. the one thing that could be done to make them lose even *more* money...

Re: Predictions

[khallow]

Utilities such as these should be there to serve the people. They should only worry about covering costs, not making a profit.

A profitable utility is a utility which is covering its costs.

Re:Predictions

[khallow]

Utilities such as these should be there to serve the people. They should only worry about covering costs, not making a profit.

They aren't trying to predict a very chaotic system, like the weather, ten years out. Energy production is a pretty staid field and I think it is possible to make predictions and build up likely scenarios.

For example, people aren't going to magically stop driving cars or plugging stuff into wall outlets (unless, of course, you're in some sort of near future apocalyptic scenario) over ten years. And without massive government-level interference, demand and demand trends aren't likely to change that much over the span of ten years. Meanwhile on the supply side, you have decision processes that take years to decades to implement. This is exactly the sort of slowly changing system where making predictions can work.

Re:Demand Is Falling Hard

[jklovanc]

Germany and other European nations are quickly eliminating fossil fuels and nuclear.

Take a look at these actual numbers. Nuclear Power down 0.1%. Brown Coal down 3%. Hard coal down 11%. Gas down 18%. Their overall production also decreased by 21 TWhrs or 4%. So any reductions in nuclear or brown coal can be covered by decrease in demand. Sorry but Germany will be using nuclear and fossil fuels for quite some time yet.

Take a look at January 2104 (Page 13). 80% of electricity was produced by conventional sources.

Re:Just Green propaganda, Utilities aren't scared.

[SuricouRaven]

New sources are being discovered all the time. With the improvement in extraction techniques that made shale a viable source, by the time oil dries up it will be someone else's problem.

Re:Just Green propaganda, Utilities aren't scared.

[Barsteward]

Try to mitigate the power an aircon uses by insulating your property to an inch of its life. A properly insulated house keeps the temperature steady.

Re:Predictions

[LifesABeach]

Well, these enlighted CEO's have been telling the rank and file to train in other fields of work. May I suggest to Edison International types to consider becoming a massage therapist?

Re: Predictions

[dinfinity]

Why the hell is that unfortunate? Utilities should be nationalized. Their existence and proper functioning is essential to society and shouldn't be subject to the whims of shareholders and career tigers or 'operating at a profit'. Even though I believe nationalized industries do not necessarily have to be less 'efficient' than private ones (the efforts to make them efficient have been meager and successes underreported), I'd rather have inefficient organizations operating at a net loss than ones that will fuck me over left and right to extract every penny they can and don't give a flying fuck about the service they should be there to provide.

This 'socialism bad, free market good'-crap really needs to stop.

Re:Predictions

[AmiMoJo]

It's not actually a prediction, it's a statement of what is already happening. Look at countries like Germany. Even look at the US where renewables are popular and energy companies are fighting them hard to protect their profits. It's already happening.

Re: Predictions

[macpacheco]

Ohhh so stupid... There is NO enterprise without PROFIT.
Communism doesn't work. Efficient people are greedy, regulated capitalism exploit greed to benefit the people. Without profit there's no capitalism.
At the same time... Electricity distribution will continue, it will just use a different electricity flow profile, it will be more focused on transporting electricity between consumers instead of from large generating assets to consumers.

Re:Demand Is Falling Hard

[angel'o'sphere]

That means 20% was produced by renewables, or not?
So what is your point?

Re:Humanity 2014

[12WTF$]

Christopher Hitchens called conspiracy theories "the exhaust fumes of democracy".
I suggest you stop sucking the tailpipe of capitalism.

Re:Predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

nope all that has happened is solar and wind crap has been built on the back of forced subsidies.

Now they are having to build coal power stations, as the solar/wind shit is on the verge of DE-stabilising the power grid, due to not enough base load generation (it's not worth building if it can't sell it's power all the time).

All the solar and wind people expect others to pick up the cost of covering their asses when it's dark and the wind don't blow, the poorest end up paying for this cost!!!

and all for fuck all reduction of Co2 (even if the UK reduced all Co2 output to 0%, it would make a grand total of 0.02%, china's increase in Co2 is more than that every year!!!, and we would all be freezing and starving and broke!).

So any fucker who installs solar without also paying for full backup should have a fucking windmill rammed up there arse!!!.

I love it!

[kilodelta]

It's about time the incumbent energy providers get their comeuppance. Of course where I live National Grid - and I'm sure we all know THEIR history and origins in Britain, well here I am in the northeast U.S. paying some of the highest electricity rates. Why? Because National Grid is feeling the pinch from solar and wind projects that keep popping up in my state. They even had the temerity to ask for another double digit rate increase this year. If the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission grants this one I think all the staff and commissioners should be pilloried at a minimum.

Re: Predictions

[FredThompson]

This comment wasn't "insightful."

Profit IS a requirement because profit is needed to pay for upgrades/maintenance and other contingencies. The alternative is taxing citizens repeatedly at varying rates to match needs.

It's also not as simple as setting a percentage or total profit allowable. Suppose there's a major unexpected accident. The money to repair must come from somewhere. Suppose the population grows quickly or the electrical demands grow quickly such as when people started buying large screen TVs. Investment money must come from somewhere and it must be available when needed.

Oil Price Not Relevant

[Nit Picker]

Except for islands and other locations isolated from large scale energy production, oil is little used for electricity production. Citing the drop in oil prices in the context of the cost of fossil fuel for electricty generation just confuses the discussion.

Re:Oil Price Not Relevant

[Moridineas]

I was responding to someone who said specifically that "fossil fuels only get more expensive," a statement that is demonstrably false. If you don't like oil as a specific, take natgas or coal. My statement is equally valid for either of them.

Re: Predictions

[Code Herder]

That's amusing, I assume you don't know much about your marxist neighbor in the north, that is Canada. For example Hydro Quebec, which has been nationalized since 1944 has been a great success: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.... We have some of the cheapest residential power in North America AND we're making a tidy profit selling our fairly important over capacity to our neighbors in the states: http://www.hydroquebec.com/pub...

On behalf of Canada, I apologize for destroying all your capitalists wet dreams with our mixed economy. Sorry, sorry!

Re: Predictions

[Code Herder]

That's amusing, I assume you don't know much about your marxist neighbor in the north, that is Canada. For example Hydro Quebec, which has been nationalized since 1944 has been a great success: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.... We have some of the cheapest residential power in North America AND we're making a tidy profit selling our fairly important over capacity to our neighbors in the states: http://www.hydroquebec.com/pub...

On behalf of Canada, I apologize for destroying all your capitalists wet dreams with our mixed economy. Sorry, sorry!

Re: Predictions

[Pumpkin Tuna]

Agreed. I used to have power service from the for-profit Duke Energy (the same folks that dumped coal ash in the Dan River). Outages were frequent, service was poor and they were constantly appealing to the State power commission to raise rates so they could fatten the purses of their stockholders.

Then I moved 1 mile away into an area covered by the local rural electrical co-op. In two years, my power has gone off a total of 2 times. Each time for under an hour. Customer service is excellent. When Duke (from which my co-op buys power) got a rate increase, the co-op lowered a fee to keep our effective rate down.

If that's socialism, Yay socialism!

They will still make their money (delivery charges

[scamper_22]

I'm in Ontario, Canada.
Electricity as everywhere else is not some total free market system. It is some quasi semi regulated monopoly. It's public/private nature depends on the region.

This is my sample utility bill:

Electricity use:
on peak = $15
mid peak = $17
off peak = $30

Delivery:
$83

Regulatory Charges:
$5

Debt Retirement Charge:
$5
______________
The actual electric cost is less than half my bill.

The same is true of water. We had a big campaign years back to use less water. Whooops, they realized they were not taking in as much money. So they upped the 'delivery' aspect for water.

The utilities themselves will be okay as long as people/governments expect to be connected.

And then the big generators themselves will be okay because everyone wants a stable grid, so government will pay them some fixed rate to keep it all profitable.

Re:Demand Is Falling Hard

[jklovanc]

That conventional is not being eliminated quickly.

Re: Predictions

[Code Herder]

Well, as you might've guessed I'm from Quebec, so I'll fully admit that I knew Hydro One was state owned but I wasn't aware it was problematic.

I've just looked it up and ouch Ontario power is twice as expensive as Quebec. The only place where it's more expensive is Nova Scotia and PEI ( which is normal I guess ): http://www.ontario-hydro.com/i...

Still, the point stands that state owned and run power *can* be done right.

Re: Predictions

[dinfinity]

Nice ad hominem.. Dickwad.
Starting off with a straw man doesn't make you look great either: I never said that free markets are killing us.

Anyway.
The highly regulated private entities 'solution' is a Frankenstein monster born out of compromise. It's what you do when nationalization of certain sectors is called communist but you are also very aware that leaving it purely to the market would lead to a very shitty and untenable situation.

If a private entity operates in a natural monopoly, you will be writing veritable books of regulation to 'hold them accountable' and prevent all the ways in which they can and will cut corners to profit from their monopoly (hate the game, not the playa). Tell me, have you factored in the cost of the government entities necessary to regulate these profitable and 'efficient' government regulated private entities? What if, as a society, we add that cost to what we have to pay these private entities for their services, then weigh that against the quality of the service they are providing and consider whether a nationalized variant would really be worse?

Open your eyes, man. Don't throw away centralized government.
Instead: Fix it. Make it awesome!

Re:Demand Is Falling Hard

[angel'o'sphere]

Pfft ... doubling the renewables should double the yield ...
As far as I know we will be fully renewable around 2050, the greens even favour (and me too) 2030.

Of course I had preferred 1997 ... but alas.

Re: Predictions

[AutodidactLabrat]

After all, name ONE insurance company returning 98% of premiums to the policyholders, other than Social Security, that is.
Or explain why FED-EX can only compete with USPS by violating Labor laws and illegally reclassifying drivers as "independent contractors".
For that matter, has ANYONE priced Xe costs compared with the U.S.M.C. on per hour costs?
For that matter, did anyone wonder why internet access costs SOARED once AT&T was no longer regulated?
No, the 'deregulation' has mostly resulted in soaring costs and diminished service (ask anyone who remembers flying in the 70's rather than cattlecar flights today).

Re: Predictions

[SirCowMan]

A great success for Quebec, a continuing drag on Newfoundland -- seeing as we are essentially subsidizing 15% of HQ revenues, care of the Churchill Falls debacle following the Shawinigan L&P takeover.

Re: Predictions

[leslie.satenstein]

Why the hell is that unfortunate? Utilities should be nationalized. Their existence and proper functioning is essential to society and shouldn't be subject to the whims of shareholders and career tigers or 'operating at a profit'. Even though I believe nationalized industries do not necessarily have to be less 'efficient' than private ones (the efforts to make them efficient have been meager and successes underreported), I'd rather have inefficient organizations operating at a net loss than ones that will fuck me over left and right to extract every penny they can and don't give a flying fuck about the service they should be there to provide.

This 'socialism bad, free market good'-crap really needs to stop.

Wow, is this a repeat of the ice-man who lost his business to air-conditioning and to home refrigeration? I have no sympathies for them. The gravy train stops when the technology becomes too expensive, or is displaced by newer lower cost alternatives.

Accenture wants to outsource jobs

[WillAffleckUW]

Just saying. I mean, they have offices here, we know them well, it's part of why the pipeline deals are falling apart, since the internal energy firm documents show they intend to outsource all the factory and tech jobs to overseas temporary workers.

Energy firms should be more like Seattle City Light (public utility) which realized that many renters and home owners have houses that aren't suitable for installing solar or wind - e.g. in cities, part of a townhouse complex or condo or apartment where the bill payer can't easily install their own solar or wind power, but is willing to buy shares in City Light owned solar installations (in city) or wind farms (outside city).

Adapt or die.

Capitalism cares nothing for your heavily taxpayers subsidized fossil fuel lifestyle. Solar and wind are currently cheaper than oil and coal, for example. Remove the tax subsidies and cheap mining leases and fossil fuels would be even less optimal for consumers.

"Second Great Electrification" will dwarf DER..

[bobwyman]

The Utilities should be focused on the need to dramatically grow the market for electricity rather than worrying about losing 10% or 20% of today's small market to DER deployments. Today, only 1/3 of energy delivered to end-users is in the form of electricity. The remaining 2/3 is largely fossil fuels. Those fossil fuels are primarily consumed in direct, point-of-use combustion to provide energy in transportation or thermal (heating) applications. The utilities should understand that almost every penny of revenue that flows to satisfy the 2/3 of demand not currently satisfied by electricity is, in fact, money that could instead flow to the electric sector (both utilities and DER).

The key to growing electric revenues, and thus making DER irrelevant, is "fuel switching" -- switching from fossil fuels to electric vehicles and heat pumps (for heating/cooling). This switch is largely inevitable and will result in greater efficiency of energy use, lowered emissions, lower costs for consumers and higher revenues for utilities. Over the next few decades, it is clear that we must move away from fossil fuels. The environmental impacts of fossil fuel use will only become increasingly unacceptable and it is inevitable that the price of fossil fuels will increase. Over time, we'll see an increase in the portion of delivered energy that is in the form of electricity. We'll also see it generated from cleaner sources.

What we will see over the next few decades is the "Second Great Electrification" of society. The first great electrification began over a 100 years ago and has primarily focused on lighting, communications, appliances and entertainment. The Second Great Electrification will focus on transportation and HVAC (heating/cooling). The result of this will be one of the most massive transfers of income in history: We'll transfer most of the revenue and profits of the fossil fuel industry to the Electricity Generation industry -- some of which is utilities but much of which will one day be composed of site-sourced renewable energy such as rooftop solar, wind, etc.

Re: Predictions

[cwsumner]

Why the hell is that unfortunate? Utilities should be nationalized. ...

Corporations (and Utilities) are separate from the Government so that they have an incentive to keep an eye on each other. If they are nationalized, then they are all one and there is no one left to keep an eye out.

Besides, what gives you the idea that the government doesn't want to make a profit even bigger then the corporations? 8-P

Re: Predictions

[dinfinity]

You are what's wrong with the world. You're effectively saying that effective intra-governmental oversight is impossible and that any government is only after its own financial gain.

If you'd open your indoctrinated eyes, you'd see that there is a plethora of well-functioning intra-(semi-)governmental oversight relations. Probably even in the US. Stop throwing away the baby with the bath water. Government isn't necessarily and inherently evil.

Finally: the notion that corporations 'keep an eye on the government' is fucking ridiculous and implies that corporations have a responsibility they shouldn't, can't and fucking don't have. Unless by 'keeping an eye on' you mean 'lobbying and bribing the fuck out of ~'.