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Solar Power and Batteries Are Encroaching On Natural Gas In Energy Production (electrek.co)
Socguy writes: The relentless downward march in cost of both solar and battery storage is poised to displace 10GW worth of natural gas peaker plant electricity production in the U.S. by 2027. Already we are seeing the net cost of combined solar and batteries cheaper than the equivalent natural gas peaker plant. Some particularly aggressive estimates from major energy companies predict that we may not see another natural gas peaker plant built in the U.S. after 2020. GE has already responded to the weakness in the gas turbine market by laying off 12,000 workers. Further reading available via Greentech Media.
"Key concept here is peaker plant production."
That's much better, but it doesn't really address the Public Policy issue, which goes like this:
*Electrical Energy is generated based on Aggregate Demand. Certain kinds of Generation can be scaled back when not needed, like Hydropower, but increasingly Utilities are depending on inefficient smaller Peaking Plants to ramp up for expected demand beyond Aggregate. Unexpected demand leads to Brownouts and Blackouts, common in the Third World, and not uncommon enough in California.
*Energy Production has historically always been cheaper than Energy Storage to meet Peak Demand. Hydropower has usually been used in the past to pump water back up into Reservoirs using excess available Electricity, but this is geologically and geographically limited.
*Batteries are finally getting remotely reasonable for large-scale Electrical Storage, but at least another Order of Magnitude improvement in Costs are still needed.
*"Alternative" Production, after a few false starts, are finally making a dent in meeting Aggregate Demand, but the main value is in meeting Peak Demand, given suitable Storage.
*10GW by Solar is, given Aggregate Demand, not a hell of a lot. But with one "Simple Trick", it can make a lot of sense, and that Simple Trick is getting rid of "Surge Pricing", which has been experimented with in California now for a couple of decades, with varying levels of failure. I won't use the term Conspiracy here, perhaps others have a better word, but California currently has very little Surge capability left. The State, by Public Policy, lets the Utilities buy Out-Of-State Electricity at "Market Pricing", and as a result, the CPUC and CALISO are two of the most Corrupt Energy Arbitragers in the Nation. The State is still paying off their Enron debt. The CPUC is _finally_ being investigated for Corruption, and for their far too cozy Rubber Stamping of PG&E Rate Increases.
*Per Capita usage of Electricity is dropping at a steady rate, as Consumers and some Businesses make the switch to Energy Efficient alternatives. My daily consumption now for a small house is below 4KWh a day, down from ~10KWh a day a decade go.
*Almost by default, usually short-sighted Entrepreneurs are jumping in the long-term Energy Storage Biz. The Tech is almost here, the Demand is here now, but Public Policy is still lagging. My Second Home is already "Off the Grid", with Solar and Lead-Acid Battery Banks, and a back-up Diesel Generator. Once Lithium/Anythium Technology comes down in Cost, I'll make the switch to that, and by then, these will be Home Depot packages, and priced more than competitively Industrially, if...
*Various Tax Incentives exist, both for Consumers and Business, for the Generation of Solar Electricity, and that is a good start, but no incentives exist for the Storage of this Electricity. There are little or no Incentives here because the Public Policy has been Market Based on Surge Pricing, and any recent DOE studies on this have been eliminated this year by the sTrumpet That Shall Not Be Named.
*We, as usual, are going to be screwed.
A better option is to mandate efficiency standards for buildings. The builder can meet them any way they like. In practice solar plus battery is the most cost effective option, but they can still choose the supplier and configuration.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Your logic is all wrong: there's a net benefit in terms of lower CO2 and other emissions when any fossil fuel plant is replaced by solar & batteries (and indeed wind & batteries). Sure, the benefit is larger when the fossil fuel is coal, but that will happen in time. Peaker plants deliver pricey on-demand power, so of course they are the first to be rendered uneconomic. But as solar/wind/batteries scale, costs will drop further and baseload coal and other sources will also be displaced (and in practice this is also already happening, just the change is slower than with peakers because the price differential isn't as favourable for renewables yet, plus assets have longer shelf lives, plus Trumpy loves his coal, etc)
You can thank Germany for cheap solar cells. How did they do that? The "Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz", the law for renewable energy, gave electricity generated from renewable sources priority over other electricity sources and guaranteed a fixed price per kWh. The cost is now part of the electricity price in Germany: A couple of cents are added to the price of every kWh sold to cover the price guarantee for solar and other renewables*. That's because it did not make economic sense to install solar panels when they were a niche technology. A lot of the technological development and mass market expansion resulted from that political decision. Solar is price competitive now because it was given a chance when it wasn't price competitive yet.
*) The price guarantee has come down as the price for solar has come down, and the price guarantee is time-limited, so the "tax" is slowly going to go away. In 10 years, it will be almost gone, but the positive effect of that law is permanent.
I think the biggest issue is getting enough sun on them.
In the UK, we had a bit of weather on Monday, snow everywhere (was brilliant!) so on the day that we needed power the most - as it was bloody cold - all the solar panels were covered in snow, and the sky was cloudy, and as it was a snowy day (ie there was a big high pressure area over the UK) the wind farms were barely turning.
Net result, as seen from gridwatch was that renewables were providing about 5% of our energy demand.
That's the problem with renewables, great to reduce overall yearly carbon contributions, but useless on the worst days, which are the days when we need energy the most. So unless we can provide power from traditional sources, we would be screwed. The renewables lobby fails to appreciate that.
In the UK, we had a bit of weather on Monday, snow everywhere (was brilliant!) so on the day that we needed power the most - as it was bloody cold - all the solar panels were covered in snow, and the sky was cloudy, and as it was a snowy day (ie there was a big high pressure area over the UK) the wind farms were barely turning.
The reason it 'was brilliant!' was that it's so unusual. It was the most snow I've seen here in the last 4 years - no other day in that time has had enough snow that it hasn't melted by mid morning. As long as you have enough backup capacity, having the occasional day of no generation from solar and wind doesn't matter too much. A couple of days later, wind and solar are up to 20% in total.
The bigger problem is that most of the UK uses gas or oil-fired central heating. It's a lot cheaper than using electricity, so even if you switch the whole grid supply over to renewables you're still burning a lot of fossil fuels for heating (which is one of the largest single contributors to energy demand).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
She said the numbers of how much each nation creates pollution per person and the numbers obviously didn't look very good for the USA.
Define pollution, dear Indian lady...
Ezekiel 23:20
Does your economic model figure in the massive subsidy that fossil fuels receive in the form of not having to pay liability damages for the hundreds of thousands of respiratory problems caused every year from externalization of the exhaust going up the stack?
If they started putting a rider in your generation charge to pay back the Medicare claims for downwinders, solar starts to look real good. And this doesn't even touch any arguments about climate change.
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