Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Florida Utility To Close Two Natural Gas Plants, Build World's Largest Solar Battery System (electrek.co)

Posted by BeauHD on from the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Florida Power & Light has joined the race to build the world's largest solar battery storage system, announcing plans for its massive Manatee Energy Storage Center. The utility plans to build a 409 MW/900 MWh battery, to be powered by an existing FPL solar plant in Manatee County, Florida. It will begin serving customers in 2021. FPL says the battery system will be able to power 329,000 homes for two hours. For comparison, FPL notes the battery system is equivalent to 100 million iPhone batteries, or 300 million AA batteries. The system will be used in periods of high demand. The utility company also said that it will accelerate the retirement of two natural gas facilities at a nearby power plant. "FPL says the project will save customers more than $100 million while eliminating more than 1 million tons of carbon emissions, though no cost estimates for the project were disclosed," reports Electrek.

And while the Manatee Energy Storage Center is projected to be the "world's largest solar-powered battery storage system," it will have some competition from Texas where there are plans to build a 495 MW battery storage system that would be paired with an equivalent 495 MW solar farm in Borden County, Texas. It too is due to come online in 2021.

62 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    They build it in Texas, they close fossil fuel plants so you can bet your ass that money can be made this way.

    1. Re:Well... by markdavis · · Score: 1

      >"They build it in Texas, they close fossil fuel plants so you can bet your ass that money can be made this way."

      Hopefully, yes. Trying to force something to work that isn't ready doesn't pan out well for anyone. This could mean the technology is finally ready. That is good, because we need reliable, long-term energy independence.

  2. Sooo..... by Freischutz · · Score: 1

    So..... Floridans have finally figured out that they can use the sun to run the air conditioning systems they use to escape the heat of the sun?

  3. Manatee Energy by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 3, Funny

    How exactly does that work? They move too slow to generate a lot of kinetic energy, and burning them is a challenge . . .

    1. Re:Manatee Energy by TimothyHollins · · Score: 2

      There's a lot of viagra in the wastewater from retirement homes.

    2. Re:Manatee Energy by OzPeter · · Score: 3, Funny

      How exactly does that work? They move too slow to generate a lot of kinetic energy, and burning them is a challenge . . .

      Geez .. don't you know .. the manatees are going to be the operators of the plant! Thats why it is called a Manatee Energy Storage Center - the Manatees are operating it.

      This is really forward thinking by Florida. When climate change floods the whole state and everything is underwater you'll find that the manatees are eminently suited for manual labor. So its essential to start getting them trained up now for the job.

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  4. Energy conservation off the table? by Latent+Heat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What if a combination of a reflective roof, improved sealing and insulation of attic ducts, and a higher-efficiency A/C unit is more cost effective than a solar photovoltaic panel?

    The reflective roof is more than covering your house in tin -- there are coatings that reflect sunlight with better combined ability to reflect incoming radiation along with emit heat that gets in as infrared. Florida houses typically lack basements, so the A/C ductwork is in the hot attic -- sealing air leaks and insulating the ducts helps a lot. Newer A/C units are much more efficient.

    "Uh, why not do both solar electric and A/C efficiency?" Indeed, why not, but all of the resources and press attention is going into the production side over the demand side. Low-hanging fruit, baby!

    1. Re:Energy conservation off the table? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      Indeed. What's the point of adding all these new "green energy" systems everywhere if you're going to keep wasting most of it?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:Energy conservation off the table? by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "What if a combination of a reflective roof, improved sealing and insulation of attic ducts, and a higher-efficiency A/C unit is more cost effective than a solar photovoltaic panel?"

      Then do that too.

      I think you're missing the point that this is not a rooftop system. That's important. For argument's sake, let's say this system is 1GW peak. To deploy that on homes you'd need to install 200,000 average 5k rooftop systems. Or, as you suggest, you could improve existing systems to lower the energy use. If that's 1kW per home, then you need 1,000,000 homes to be upgraded.

      Current pricing on utility-scale solar is about 80 cents/W. So installing one 1 GW plant will cost you about 800 million dollars. In contrast, installing on the rooftop costs about $3.25/W, so that option would be 3.25 billion dollars. Re-doing the homes as you suggest will cost thousands per home, so I would not be surprised if it was tens of billions.

      So the end result is the same, 1GW offset. One solution costs many times less than the others. Done like dinner.

    3. Re:Energy conservation off the table? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      all of the resources and press attention is going into the production side over the demand side.

      American demand for electricity is declining, and is 4% below the peak.

      LED lights, better insulation, more efficient appliances, are all driving the decline.

      This doesn't make the news because it isn't flashy like a big new solar battery installation.

      The adoption of electric cars may reverse the decline.

    4. Re:Energy conservation off the table? by gtall · · Score: 1

      More cost effective? Could you please tell us how you plan to cost out the amount of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere to run the AC necessary. Don't hold back, lay it on us.

    5. Re:Energy conservation off the table? by skullandbones99 · · Score: 1

      Peak electricity demand during the 24 hours of a day will still decline when electric cars are widely deployed. Electric car owners will be incentivised to use cheaper off-peak electricity tariffs during the night. Therefore, the minimum electricity demand will increase during the night to charge up electric cars. This will benefit the Nuclear industry and wind industry by allowing the baseload limit to be increased to accommodate electric cars. It is likely that the number of power plants will go down despite electric cars being deployed.

      If a battery is deployed in a domestic house then this house battery can be charged via solar panels and / or using a cheaper off-peak electricity tariff. This house battery can be used to charge an electric car during periods of peak grid electricity demand but the owner will be not be paying the higher peak electricity tariff due to the time displacement provided by the house battery, Also the owner may be able to sell some of the electricity stored in the house battery and electric car back to the grid during peak grid electricity demand.

      The key to making the electricity grid more efficient is to deploy storage such as batteries onto the grid. Grid batteries will also kill off natural gas peaker plants as was observed in Australia after the Tesla grid battery was deployed.

    6. Re: Energy conservation off the table? by marklark · · Score: 2

      <sarc>Well, let's just stop doing all that, then! </sarc>

  5. Don't worry by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

    It's not a problem, because The Sun Always Shines On TV.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  6. Except... by MaryannG · · Score: 1

    ...they're NOT closing anything in relation to this announcement. In fact, had someone clicked on the article they wouldn't have to scan too far to find this:

    "Texas’s power grid operator has stressed the need for more electricity resources in the region to power oil and gas drilling operations."

    So no, they're not closing fossil fuel plants in favor of this...and the reason they're building this is BECAUSE of fossil fuel efforts.

    --
    Social Media Handywoman at Texas Boys Balloo
    1. Re:Except... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      "Texas’s power grid operator has stressed the need for more electricity resources in the region to power oil and gas drilling operations."

      So no, they're not closing fossil fuel plants in favor of this...and the reason they're building this is BECAUSE of fossil fuel efforts.

      The fossil fuel plants they're closing are in Florida, not in Texas. Read the summary again.

      Also,isn't it interesting that Texas power grid operator believes solar systems are the way to power gas and drilling operations? It's something of a significant admission, it seems.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:Except... by gtall · · Score: 1

      Not an admission by the Texas grid operator, they've been big on wind for awhile. The problem is that the pols are big on wind too, but only when it issues from their mouths.

    3. Re:Except... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      This is a good demonstration of something few people realize: oil, outside of the conventional reserves in the middle east and a few other places, isn't really a viable energy source. American shale oil extraction is energy positive, but not enough to be really worthwhile. Oil's value is mostly as an energy storage mechanism to power transportation.

      So it doesn't make sense to burn that oil to power your extraction operations. It does make sense to build a solar facility to power extraction.

    4. Re:Except... by Klaxton · · Score: 1

      Your assertions seem plausible, but do you have some cites to support what you said?

    5. Re:Except... by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      How the grid owner can profit most with solar and batteries. It sells those systems, supplied and installed, first profit, it handles and sells the electricity coming off those systems for profit. For those who can not afford to buy outright, it leases those systems and the energy they sell, helps pay for them over time. As the grid operator it will have a monopoly of the buy price and sell price of that electricity and will not have to negotiate with a major energy corporation, so the margins will be big.

      So power companies who own the grid and the power stations will be looking to divest the power stations, and to keep prices up, including really high buy prices for the electricity, they sell on their grid. Meanwhile, they will be working overtime getting people to install the largest possible solar battery power system on their property, screaming, EARN TAX FREE MONEY, makes thousands a year with the IRS not knocking on your door (well at least for the electricity you use and not that you sell, what you sell you have to pay tax on but that will be in the fine print).

      Going forward, for sound investment reasons, you have to separate grid owner and operators from power station owner and operators. Pay real close attention to sneaky divestment and stick with the grid investment whilst avoiding the power station investment, the insiders will be doing exactly the same and of course you can bet crooked pension funds will be buying up all those power stations.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    6. Re:Except... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Try starting here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/...

      Energy return on energy invested is the basic idea: how many barrels of oil do you get if you invest one barrel of oil in production? Shale oil and tar sands are quite a bit below the world average, which means middle east conventional oil must be considerably above that average.

      Now, this is my speculation, but a bit of math with fuel prices would probably support it. Oil is a famously inelastic resource, meaning it doesn't really obey the law of supply and demand; demand is pretty much fixed, because transportation isn't something we can easily use less of. So the Saudi's are printing money, but shale oil and tar sands do okay too, even with their crappy EROI, because the price of oil is inflated due to its necessity for our transportation infrastructure. Because of the price of oil is inflated relative to its intrinsic energy value, almost nobody burns it to make electricity.

      By the way, the conclusion of that paper is basically that we're screwed unless we improve our energy production technology. Economic prosperity is closely related to EROI; if you have low EROI you spend all your resources trying to produce energy, not much left over for other things. Fossil fuel EROI is all decreasing towards the danger zone. Hydro power has good EROI, but is mostly exploited. Nukes would work, at least for a while. Wind and solar are okay, at least in ideal locations, but need to improve in order to maintain our current prosperity.

    7. Re:Except... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Going forward, for sound investment reasons, you have to separate grid owner and operators from power station owner and operators.

      I agree. All electricity generation should be nationalized.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  7. iPhones? AA batteries? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For comparison, FPL notes the battery system is equivalent to 100 million iPhone batteries, or 300 million AA batteries.

    First of all, is it true there's only the equivalent of three AA batteries in an iPhone?

    Secondly, 100 million iPhone batteries or 300 million AA batteries may sound like a lot, but when divided by the power required by houses, it doesn't seem like much. Can someone convert that in a how-many-tesla-car-batteries-can-fit-in-a-stadium number?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:iPhones? AA batteries? by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 4, Informative

      For comparison, FPL notes the battery system is equivalent to 100 million iPhone batteries, or 300 million AA batteries.

      First of all, is it true there's only the equivalent of three AA batteries in an iPhone?

      Yes, it is true. A typical alkaline AA battery has up to 2800 mAh capacity. Of course, this is at 1.5V, so the power capacity is around 4.2 Wh. So 3 of them would be around 12.6 Wh. A, iPhone Xs Max has a 3174 mAh battery, at about 4.2V. So around 12.6 Wh. So yes, about the same capacity.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    2. Re:iPhones? AA batteries? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      I'd need zero AA's to power my Tesla since I don't have one.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  8. Florida Flicker and Flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We used to call Florida Power and Light (FPL) "Florida Flicker and Flash" when I lived in the Orlando area. They had terrible power. Blackouts weren't that bad, though not rare. But constant brownouts, momentary flickers, occasional spikes were daily life. They couldn't control it worth a damn. Then they brought plants like those two natural gas plants online and things got much better. Guess that was too good, so they want to go back to the flickering and flashing...

    1. Re: Florida Flicker and Flash by adfraggs · · Score: 1

      Frequency control is a big part of stable power and batteries are very good at instantaneous adjustments. Better and more efficient than gas. People have it kind of wrong when they think of batteries powering 100s of 1000s of homes for a number of hours, it will never be used loke that. Instead when systems detect a short term drop in power generation they use the batteries for a few minutes to stop it cascading into something worse. That's what stops brownouts and flickering power.

  9. And the cost of power by gabrieltss · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Will tripple or even quadrupole. So far all this "alternative energy" stuff on a large scale has shown not to be less expensive but more expensive. If they really want to sell solar or wind as a better alternative - they need to make it cheaper in cost. It's still cheaper to use natural gas, coal or fossil fuels. I bought solar panels to put on my property to take advantage of the "free" sun. But wow was it costly. It will take me 20 years to recoup the cost......

    --
    The Truth is a Virus!!!
    1. Re:And the cost of power by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      pushing the planet's environment to be inhospitable to our way of life. Things must change - change is inevitable. To cling to the past and the status quo is always a losing position.

      I assume you were aiming for irony in the above. Mandatory and major change because something is inhospitable to our way of life. We cannot cling to the past! Our way of life is at stake!

    2. Re: And the cost of power by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      It is already on parity with coal.

      It is hard to take you seriously when you spit out nonsense like this. If you really want to evangelise for solar you should at least try to keep your claims in the realm of plausibility, otherwise even people who might have been swayed by your argument will immediately write you off.

    3. Re:And the cost of power by gabrieltss · · Score: 2

      PFFT! And hence reply as AC - no real facts - just climate change boogie man scares.
      I wanted to go solar to reduce the cost and reliance on the electric company. But right now there isn't a lower cost yet. The cost of a solar installation needs to come down a lot more to make it cost effective. When it costs $20K+ for a solar installation - yeah not going to cut it. People are better off finding how to do it themselves, build your own pannels - it can be done I found out. Build your own outbuilding with battery banks - oh yeah and the LiOn batteries that are best for solar yeah those are way pricy too. Cheapest I found were around 600-800/each for 100amph. Solar/Wind may sound like the solution but like I said until the cost comes down - it's not. So maybe if all the folks with their climate change boogie man stories would do something about getting cost down instead of telling boogie man stories people might take it serious more.
      The reason people stay with the coal, natural gas, and fossil fuels is COST! Oh electric cars? Yeah you recharge them from what? an outlet? Where is IT getting it's electricity. Oh yeah form one of those big bad coal, natural gas or fossil fuel electric plants. So tell me how they are saving the environment? Now Hydrogen cars are the solution!

      I worked for Uline for a while. They have started converting their forklifts from electric to hydrogen fuel cells. They have eliminated WALLS of battery charging stations down to 1 hydrogen fuel cell "pump" in the warehouse. In fact they got hydrogen fuel cells that were drop in replacements for the batteries in the forklifts so they didn't have to buy new equipment. I was amazed at what they were doing and being light years ahead of the competition. They put in a huge hydrogen tank in a brick enclosure out side. The new 1 million square foot warehouse (1 mile long) they are building will have an underground hydrogen tank. If Uline can do this -any- company running large amounts of forklifts in warehouses could do it. Now I can't tell you what the upfront initial conversions costs were to do this but I do know it's a far better solution.

      Now if the automobile manufacturer's would get a clue and skip this electric car Bull Shit and go right to hydrogen it would be a much better deal. THAT would go along way to getting rid of "gas". Look how quick the move from incandescent to LED went. Florescent bulbs are actually WORSE for than incandescent on the environment. It's the mercury gas in the bulbs. You can't just dispose of them in the trash like incandescent bulbs. They are highly TOXIC. But oh how they were pitched as better for the environment than incandescent. I called Bull Shit then too. I waited and kept my incandescent bulbs. Now LED is CHEAP and I replaced everything with LED in the house and garage. Save more money and electricity with LED than incandescent or florescent.

      So, moral of the story - don't always take the climate change boogie man stories to heart. They are a scare tactic to get you to jump at the first solution they think is best. This is NOT always so. Do we need to do something about the problems facing our environment - yes, but we need to do it RIGHT. Not just jump at the first hair brain ideas that come along.

      --
      The Truth is a Virus!!!
    4. Re: And the cost of power by zmooc · · Score: 2

      If you can recover the costs within its lifetime compared to using fossil electricity, it's not more expensive, it's cheaper.

      --
      0x or or snor perron?!
    5. Re:And the cost of power by gtall · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And the cost to dumping the CO2 into the atmosphere acidifying the oceans, melting the ice caps, causing more destructive storms, etc. is what, precisely?

    6. Re:And the cost of power by DogDude · · Score: 1

      Hey, buddy. None of that matters if *my* electric bill for my house goes up by $10/month. You're trampling my *freedom*!

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    7. Re:And the cost of power by skullandbones99 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Now Hydrogen cars are the solution!

      A hydrogen car has an electric drivetrain, a small battery, a fuel cell and a hydrogen tank.

      A battery electric car (BEV) has an electric drivetrain and a big battery.

      Hydrogen cars are losing the battle against BEVs for the following reasons:

      1. The fuel cell and hydrogen tank are not needed in a BEV so this cost and mass are avoided. Instead a BEV is dependent on deploying a battery with a high storage capability (up to 100kWh) with a high power output.

      2. A BEV will have a better 0 to 60 MPH rating than a hydrogen car because the fuel cell cannot provide the needed high power output for fast acceleration. Hydrogen cars use a small battery to supply power during periods of high power demand. As battery technology improves, the hydrogen car becomes nearer to being a pure BEV which increases the risk of the fuel cell and hydrogen tank being redundant.

      3. A BEV can be charged from anywhere there is a suitable power socket including a domestic house. A hydrogen car requires a hydrogen refuelling station which are rare. Therefore, BEVs already have a better charging infrastructure than hydrogen refuelling stations.

      4. Hydrogen needs to be compressed which takes energy and also the hydrogen tank must be designed to be safe during car crashes. BEVs can catch fire in a car crash due to the battery being damaged, however, the probability of a BEV catching fire is less than the probability of an ICE car catching fire.

      5. Hydrogen takes energy to be created such as via electrolysis. This energy reduces the overall efficiency of a hydrogen car. If water is used to generate hydrogen using electrolysis then a source of water is needed which will have an environmental impact. Hydrogen can also be generated from industrial fossil fuel processes but this hydrogen would need to be transported to the hydrogen refuelling stations so having an environmental impact.

      6. Only a handful of car manufacturers are building hydrogen fuel cell cars and these cars have a very small share of the electric car market. The race to hydrogen fuel cell cars has already been lost to BEVs.

      7. There is a race in the electric semi-tractor market between hydrogen fuel cell and BEV. This market has not yet decided which technology will win. Hydrogen may get a foothold in this market because sending freight travels along defined routes so only a few hydrogen refuelling stations are needed to support a freight route. But on the other hand, battery technology is continuing to improve which could eliminate the fuel cell.

      The reason people stay with the coal, natural gas, and fossil fuels is COST! Oh electric cars? Yeah you recharge them from what? an outlet? Where is IT getting it's electricity. Oh yeah form one of those big bad coal, natural gas or fossil fuel electric plants. So tell me how they are saving the environment?

      The accuracy of this claim depends on which country you are in. The biggest market per capita for electric cars is Norway where the electricity grid is 98% hydro-electric. Therefore, this claim fails for Norway. In France the electricity grid is 75% Nuclear and so your claim is also invalid for France. Renewable energy deployment in Europe is increasing each year which means your claim becomes more inaccurate each year. There are countries in Europe such as Poland that have a high percentage of electricity generated from coal but even for Poland it is better to generate the pollution at the rural coal fired power station than in the cities where the population lives. Therefore, electric cars will still benefit countries that use coal as pollution from ICE cars in cities will be reduced.

    8. Re:And the cost of power by supercell · · Score: 1

      You are making the assumption that CO2 in the atmosphere is doing those things. Those are assumptions not facts.

  10. Very good, but expected, almost inevitable ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Informative
    In CA PG&L is closing three natural gas plants replacing them with batteries. Four systems, two experimental at 10 GWh each. Two large systems 350 MW x 4 hours and 175 MW x 4 hours.

    South Australian grid using wind mills widely separated was the first one to go in with a 50 MW system. It stabilized the grid and flattened the spot market prices so much they saved millions of dollars. Every dollar saved by the utility is a dollar NOT EARNED by gas powered plants. The ROI on natural gas plants are going to take a serious rework, they are losing juicy profits in the spot markets.

    Now, Florida. Cost of storage batteries is falling so rapidly, it is like the micro chip revolution in computing. There is a Moore's Law for batteries, with a time period of about 7 years.

    The neck of the famous "duck curve" is after sunset in CA. Solar has stopped, but a/c load is yet to peak. That one hour after sunset is the last critical piece needed for solar to become totally effective against natural gas. It is at hand. It is very exciting for the renewable energy fans.

    Some of the gas plants operating in the peak load are "quick response" gas turbine plants. Their quick response is still measured in tens of minutes. The batteries are responding in milliseconds. The key thing about spot market electricity is, the price can go negative. If the gas plant is producing power and the grid could not absorb it they need to pay someone to take their power. The gas plant will not throttle down for several minutes. Who can absorb that power and get paid? The Batteries! Once the battery systems reach a critical mass, all natural gas fired power will be sold at long term pre negotiated fixed contract prices. Not the spot market. This will seriously change the ROI calculations of these plants that were already built. I am expecting the owners of these plants to cry uncle and come with hat in hand asking for "relief" from the utility rate payers.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Very good, but expected, almost inevitable ... by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Informative

      In CA PG&L is closing three natural gas plants replacing them with batteries.

      Which is pretty much what FL is doing. Note that what is closing is NOT coal plants. They're replacing one (relatively) clean system with another (cleaner) system, NOT replacing a dirty system with a clean one....

      Which, interestingly, is something I saw predicted a few months ago - that solar isn't going to be replacing coal, but natural gas,,,,

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    2. Re:Very good, but expected, almost inevitable ... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

      ...that solar isn't going to be replacing coal, but natural gas,,

      Coal is disappearing all on its own. In 1997, coal accounted for 52.8% of the electricity generated in the US. In 2017, it accounted for 27.4%. The reason for the decline is that coal plants have been replaced by...natural gas plants.

      And now, natural gas plants are being replaced by solar plants. You could correctly say that solar is generating electricity where coal once did. So, solar is replacing coal, but there is an intermediate step.

      https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs...

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Very good, but expected, almost inevitable ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
      Coal to natural gas conversion is very cheap and natural. So as soon as the gas prices fell below coal per megajoule they switched to gas. Easier to transport, adding a bunch of nozzles to an existing coal fired furnace is trivial, without ash removal issues it is so much simpler.

      So natural gas will kill coal very quickly. Solar will kill natural gas slowly.

      Natural gas is cleaner than coal. Thats about it. Megajoule per megajoule it emits same amount of CO2 as coal.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    4. Re:Very good, but expected, almost inevitable ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
      Usually wont reply to AC. But to rebut the FUD.

      The link I posted is from bloomberg, not some wild eyed greenie tree hugging site. They calculated load cycle, investment cost, repayment interest, amortization and life of the batteries into the calculations.

      Tesla batteries have been absorbing at the rate of 128 kW for several years now, discharging to a surging peak of 400 kW routinely. And you still FUD on chemistry.

      NG is a sort of battery? Yeah, sure solar energy from millions of years ago were stored in the natural gas and is being discharged now. Once you deplete it, just wait for a few hundred million years for it to "recharge". Dimwitted beyond belief!

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    5. Re:Very good, but expected, almost inevitable ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      Yup! drill-baby-drill crowd and dig-baby-dig joined hands to take the government. Then the drill-baby-drill crowd stabbed the back of the dig-baby-dig crowd and shrugged its shoulders "free market-baby-free market". Who said there is honor among thieves?

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    6. Re:Very good, but expected, almost inevitable ... by supercell · · Score: 1

      How much CO2 and environmental toxic waste is produced by 20 years worth of batteries equivalent to a 500 MW Nat Gas Plant?

    7. Re:Very good, but expected, almost inevitable ... by chill · · Score: 1

      Except Florida only has one active coal plant left in operation, and that is already scheduled to be shut down by the end of the year.

      Traditionally, Florida used oil-burning rather than coal-burning electricity plants. Those have steadily been converted to natural gas over the years.

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  11. Vacuum fluctuations by goombah99 · · Score: 2

    They use the cavitation of the manitee fart bubbles collapsing. these get instantaneously hotter than the sun, cause fusion and also photons streaming out of the squeezed vacuum states.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  12. Re:But... by lgw · · Score: 1

    But, if the sun doesn't shine, how will you be able to watch TV?

    Florida is a great place for solar, assuming you have a way to hurricane-proof the setup, or eat the cost of rebuilding. It's the energy storage that's the problem.

    Ultimately, orbital solar is the way forward for mankind, but in the meantime solar plus storage, or solar plus natural gas works well as long as your latitude isn't too high and you don't have a problem with days-long cloud cover.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  13. The con artist must be having an apoplectic fit by quonset · · Score: 1

    Expect to hear of some kind of "tax" being imposed on companies who don't use coal, or any fossil fuel. The excuse will be they're killing jobs as well as falling for that Chinese hoax of climate change. The same hoax the con artist cited in his need to build a sea wall around his failing Irish golf course.

    “If the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct, however, it is likely that there will be a corresponding increase in coastal erosion rates not just in Doughmore Bay but around much of the coastline of Ireland. In our view, it could reasonably be expected that the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring. As a result, we would expect the rate of dune recession to increase.”

    Maybe the con artist will suddenly be into regulations and force the company do years of environmental studies to determine the effects of not pouring CO2 into the atmosphere when producing electricity.

    1. Re:The con artist must be having an apoplectic fit by gtall · · Score: 2, Funny

      How dare you call the President a con artist. A con artist is able to calculate secondary and ternary effects so as to get an outcome favorable to him. The President has the intellectual depth only sufficient to make him a con to fools and be a tool of the Russian mafia and their boss, Putin.

  14. Re:But... by gtall · · Score: 1

    Uh...there's a problem with orbital solar. The energy is up there, we're down here. Care to explain to us how it gets transferred, or has your Space Nut Helmet of Science not yet told you.

  15. Re:But... by skullandbones99 · · Score: 1

    Power can be transferred via microwaves from a satellite. Alternatively, use a big mirror in space to beam light down to the surface and collect this light using a solar furnace or a solar farm. In this case, solar will work during the night!!

    However, it is a bit too close to being a James Bond villain's weapon.

  16. Re:^ world's dumbest faggot right here lol by gabrieltss · · Score: 1

    Look at this AC - he's too stupid to know ANYTHING but how to suck every cock in the joint!

    --
    The Truth is a Virus!!!
  17. Re:But... by lgw · · Score: 1

    Uh...there's a problem with orbital solar. The energy is up there, we're down here. Care to explain to us how it gets transferred, or has your Space Nut Helmet of Science not yet told you.

    Really? The atmosphere is more transparent to microwaves than UV and visible light. There's less loss beaming the power down than there is letting the sunlight come through the atmosphere and then hitting the solar panels. Before you ask, you don't build a death ray to send the power down, you use a receiver that's about a square block (and a retroreflector safety mechanism, so the sat will cut the beam off if it drifts).

    Of course, the current designs for orbital solar are thermal, not photoeletric, so there's an efficiency hit there, but that's more than made up for by the fast you get about 4x the incoming watts/m^2 in orbit than on the ground, and it's never cloudy, and it's never night (will, maybe for a few minutes a day, depending on the orbit).

    With current Falcon 9 launch costs, orbital power is actually cost competitive. But it's new and unknown, so no one's going to take the risk until launch costs fall further or natural gas stops being so very cheap.

    If you missed the Slashdot article a couple years back, PG&E actually worked up a serious proposal for orbital power to avoid NIMBY issues, but ultimately abandoned it because of NIMBY issues.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  18. Bad reporting yet again by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

    It's Oil and Gas combined cycle power plants
    You can get the info easily enough from the state public service commission
    http://www.psc.state.fl.us/Fil...

    And the consumer savings are b.s. as well FPL is playing games with the Solar Base rate adjustment program and fuel recovery cost programs

    http://www.psc.state.fl.us/lib...

    The SoBRA factors are incremental cost recovery factors that will be applied to base rate charges in order for the Company to collect the revenue necessary to recover the costs associated with building and operating the 2017 SoBRA projects. Witness Cohen testified that the SoBRA factors are based on the ratio of the Company’s jurisdictional revenue requirements for each Project (by year) and the forecasted retail base revenue from electricity sales for the first twelve months of each rate year, beginning January 1, 2018 for the 2017 Project and March 1, 2018 for the 2018 Project. Witness Cohen also presented an exhibit to demonstrate the inputs and calculations performed to determine the resulting incremental cost recovery factor of 0.937 percent for the 2017 SoBRA projects. FPL asserted in its brief that even when all of the SoBRA projects are reflected in customer bills, FPL’s typical residential bills will remain below national and statewide averages. Table 7 below reflects the base rate changes and fuel cost recovery changes that will occur for typical monthly residential bills for customers using 1,000 kWh of electricity. Column 3 in Table 7 reflects a typical bill before the application of incremental cost recovery factors for any SoBRA projects. Column 4 in Table 6 reflects a typical bill for a residential customer using 1,000 kWh of electricity when the incremental cost recovery factor of 0.937 percent for the 2017 SoBRA projects is applied, and Column 5 reflects a typical bill for a residential customer using 1,000 kWh of electricity when all of the projects are implemented.11

  19. Re:But... by sfcat · · Score: 1

    With current Falcon 9 launch costs, orbital power is actually cost competitive. But it's new and unknown, so no one's going to take the risk until launch costs fall further or natural gas stops being so very cheap.

    If you missed the Slashdot article a couple years back, PG&E actually worked up a serious proposal for orbital power to avoid NIMBY issues, but ultimately abandoned it because of NIMBY issues.

    Citation you can see from space needed. I doubt PG&E abandoned it due to NIMBY unless it was concerns about the giant space death ray that the design calls for. PG&E only builds what the regulators tell them to build (or buy). And utilities like reliability and predictability and I'm not sure such a exotic scheme qualifies in the near future. Space is expensive (and dangerous) and there are lots of losses in harnessing energy (the second law of thermodynamics is a bitch). Its hard to see how orbital solar can compete but I haven't crunched the numbers on it yet. And finally, PG&E has been burned hard by just about every flash in the pan energy technology and I doubt that they are eager to try again right now.

    --
    "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
  20. Did you even read the HEADLINE? by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    But, if the sun doesn't shine, how will you be able to watch TV?

    By using a BATTERY that got CHARGED WHEN THE SUN WAS SHINING.

    Which is what TFA was abuot. I know you didn't read it. But did you even read the title of the Slashdot article? It's in that, too.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  21. Wish they'd told us what KIND of battery. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    I'm curious about what battery technology they plan to use. It would have been nice if TFA had mentioned that. (Or did I miss it?)

    Lithium Ion? Vanadium Redox? Something else?

    Who's the manufacturer?

    Does anybody happen to know?

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    1. Re:Wish they'd told us what KIND of battery. by chill · · Score: 1

      I think it varies depending on the location. In the Miami-Dade they actually use recycled automobile batteries. However, I think that's probably a one-off project.

      FPL already has 18 solar farms in Florida, and at least one large-scale battery storage project at Babcock Ranch, a town designed from the ground up for solar.

      According to their 10-Year Power Site Plan that was filed in April of 2018 they are still experimenting with battery configurations, and purchase through competitive RFP.

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    2. Re:Wish they'd told us what KIND of battery. by thoughtlover · · Score: 1

      "According to their 10-Year Power Site Plan [frcc.com] that was filed in April of 2018..."

      For some reason, this announcement sounds like political greenwashing. The current voter-initiated ballot proposal to open Florida's energy market up to competition would reduce profits to the state-run monopoly.

      https://www.miamiherald.com/ne...

      NOTE: I was actively petitioning for this campaign in Florida for a couple weeks -Floridians all said their energy bills were too expensive, especially when they're seeing relatives in other states with far-lower bills. My water bill in Colorado is 1/10 of a similar residential bill my friend pays in Wisconsin. That last one begs for pause, as Colorado is a semi-arid desert, whereas Wisconsin is right next to the largest fresh water deposit in the world. Seriously, wtf??

      --
      No sig for you! Come back one year!
    3. Re: Wish they'd told us what KIND of battery. by chill · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure what you mean by political greenwashing. What I meant was, in searching for information I found this document posted on that website. I did not find anything that spoke to the specific battery technology, other than the one statement in their Miami-Dade project that use recycled car batteries.

      I was trying to be clear that they claim not to be manufacturers of batteries, which I believe, but simply buy them from others. Nothing more or less.

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  22. Re:But... by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    When the sun is out the solar makes energy.
    The wind is blowing just right. Then wind power is working.

    The battery will work when the sun is going up and down.
    When the wind stops, is blowing too much.
    Thats when wind and solar power gets to be a problem. When it stops working.
    At night is back to the energy from nuclear generating stations, hydro, gas to keep the power on.
    The great new battery allows for the loss of wind power and the loss of the sun.
    Then normal energy can be generated all night and everyone has power.

    Your paying for a new battery to support the new solar and wind energy production.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  23. Re:But... by lgw · · Score: 1

    Citation you can see from space needed.

    Give it a read, it's not a joke: https://www.pge.com/nots/rates...

    Solaren is using an innovative space-based solar technology, which, if successful, would represent a break-through in the renewable power industry. While emerging technologies like space solar face considerable hurdles under a traditional viability analysis, PG&E believes that potential, significant benefits to its customers from a successful space solar installation outweigh the challenges associated with a new and unproven technology

    Space is expensive (and dangerous) and there are lots of losses in harnessing energy (the second law of thermodynamics is a bitch).

    Utility-scale power generation is expensive (and dangerous) and there are lots of losses in harnessing energy (the second law of thermodynamics is a bitch). Starting with 4x the power density really helps, though.

    You have to get past your 1970s ideas about launch costs and difficulties. Current, real-world, for sale today launch costs are about 1/10th what they were in the 70s, if you include the cost of government subsidies. And costs look to keep falling - reusable rockets are a real thing now, not a SF dream.

    I doubt PG&E abandoned it due to NIMBY unless it was concerns about the giant space death ray that the design calls for. PG&E only builds what the regulators tell them to build (or buy).

    You'll note the pdf is a proposal to the regulators by PG&E. Good guess as to the rest of it.

    Its hard to see how orbital solar can compete but I haven't crunched the numbers on it yet.

    There is a launch cost at which it makes sense. (For most stuff currently done in space, the payload is the dominant cost, but solar thermal is dead simple compared to a communications sat.) And power generation is a trillion dollar industry - if it starts moving into space, we'll get significant economies of scale vs the currently tiny space launch industry.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  24. Re:When gas pipes leak by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    AC when the ""but when sun stops?" is an event called night.
    Then people who need 24/7 energy will have to pay for that energy from hydro, gas, coal, nuclear.
    Thats why the loss of solar at then end of every day is a consideration in 24 hour energy pricing.
    Re "coal transport fail" - they extra coal where it's waiting.
    Most advanced nations have extra oil stored for "oil supplies"
    Nuclear power keeps working day and night for a long time. Maintenance can be scheduled as not to change energy costs.
    Thats not the daily loss of all solar every night and the need to find a power price every night.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"