T-Mobile Commits To 100 Percent Renewable Electricity By 2021 (cnbc.com)

T-Mobile said on Monday that it will move to 100 percent renewable electricity by the year 2021. It had also "finalized a contract for wind power from the Solomon Forks Wind Project in Kansas," reports CNBC. "Power generation there is due to begin at the beginning of 2019, and will supplement the energy T-Mobile receives from the Red Dirt Wind Power Project in Oklahoma." From the report: John Legere, T-Mobile's president and CEO, said moving to renewable energy was the right thing to do and smart business. "We expect to cut T-Mobile's energy costs by around $100 million in the next 15 years thanks to this move," he added. T-Mobile has also joined the RE100, a group of global businesses committed to renewable power. Other members of the RE100 include Apple, Facebook and Google.

Comments

Re:This is a wise choice, with a mix of renewables

[Anonymous Coward]

Same problem with more conventional sources, well a far worse problem when you include cleanup.

Most coal fired sites remain wasteland for generations. And we won't even discuss the costs of nuclear cleanup.

Re:This is a wise choice, with a mix of renewables

[iggymanz]

Coal still used in the here and now, and export market is growing. Might as well have them get it from us than somewhere else...

Re:Publicity Stunt

[PopeRatzo]

This is more of a publicity stunt than anything else. T-Mobile headquarters is just outside of Seattle here in Western Washington. We're already 90%+ hydroelectric power in this region. The remaining 10% is heavily influenced by wind power generation as well. The only areas they need power otherwise is primarily for cell towers throughout the country.

So, you're confirming that the story is true, but it's still a "publicity stunt"? Would it have been better if they had hidden the fact that they're committed to 100% renewable energy? Does hydroelectric power somehow not qualify as "renewable" in your mind?

Publicity Stunt that has zero net effect

[Solandri]

Nuclear plants are typically run at max capacity, and renewables can't willfully increase the amount of electricity they generate. So any excess electricity generation has to come from fossil fuels. So buying electricity from a renewable plant doesn't change the total amount of renewable energy generated. If this wind farm was going to sell all the electricity it produced even if T-Mobile didn't buy any of it, then there's been no net change in the amount of fossil fuels consumed to generate electricity. All T-Mobile has done is cause a bunch of people who would've bought electricity from this wind farm, to buy electricity from a coal or gas plant instead.

Before

• 100 MWh generated by fossil fuels
• 20 MWh generated by wind farm
• T-Mobile consumes 10 MWh of fossil fuel electricity, everyone else consumes 90 MWh of fossil fuel electricity
• Everyone else consumes 20 MWh of wind electricity.

After:

• 100 MWh generated by fossil fuels
• 20 MWh generated by wind farm
• T-Mobile consumes 10 MWh of wind electricity, everyone else consumes 10 MWh of wind electricity.
• Everyone else consumes 100 MWh of fossil fuel electricity.

No net change in fossil fuel consumption. Assuming your energy consumption remains the same, to cause a real reduction in fossil fuel use, you have to use renewable energy which otherwise wasn't going to be generated e.g. If T-Mobile decided to install new wind turbines on property they owned, that would result in:

• 90 MWh generated by fossil fuels
• 20 MWh generated by wind farm, 10 MWh generated by T-Mobile's wind turbines
• T-Mobile consumes 10 MWh of wind electricity, everyone else consumes 20 MWh of wind electricity
• Eveyrone else consumes 90 MWh of fossil fuel electricity

That's a net 10 MWh of fossil fuel electricity consumption. Real changes in renewable energy use comes from adding renewable generation. Not from buying your electricity from a renewable source that was going to sell it all whether or not you bought form them. Likewise, charging your EV with solar panels on your house doesn't reduce the amount of electricity generated by fossil fuels. It only reduces it if the only reason you installed the panels was because you got the EV (that is, if you hadn't gotten the EV you wouldn't have installed the panels). If you were going to install the panels anyway, all you've done is shift solar electricity that was going to be used to your house, to be used your EV instead.

For the same reason, it's important to realize that energy conservation has the same impact regardless of whether you live in an area which gets most of its electricity from renewables or from fossil fuels. The entire electrical grid interconnected. Electricity generated by renewables that is not used locally is transmitted to other areas, where it causes a reduction in the amount of energy that needs to be generated by fossil fuel plants

Re:Publicity Stunt that has zero net effect

[whoever57]

You ignore the simple mechanism that when entities commit to buying renewable energy, more renewable energy generation is installed.

Or, to put it another way, you falsely assume it is a zero sum game.