Agreed, Willard. I would have been nice to be able to directly follow up sources by a web link. Maybe an idea for the next post? In any case, thanks gentlemen for a very informative post!
Comment on Solar grid parity? by wijnand2015
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by robertok06
“Robert and Segrest, how much do those loan guarantees to Vogtle cost the DOE/taxpayers? ”
They will cost A SMALL FRACTION of what the many solar (photovoltaic and thermal) units will cost. Just look at the numbers allotted for “renewable” energy and nuclear installations.
Look at the delays and cost of the proposed mega-installation for off-shore wind in Cape Cod!…
That big corporations are greedy and try to get the most out of the taxpayers is a fact, of course, I’m not denying it, but saying, or implying that this is a feature of nucleare alone is a stretch of imagination, to say the least… or what comes out of the south end of a north-facing bull.
R.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by robertok06
“roberttok66: Thus under your logic, base load generation is always much more important than peaking?”
Of course!… because baseload generates 24h/24, and therefore ALSO during peak-load times!… is it that difficult to understand?
R.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by robertok06
????
I am PREFECTLY aware of that!… I live in France! :-)
R.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by Joshua
Interesting, related (to the first link) and updated discussion here:.
http://energyskeptic.com/2015/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/#responses
Yet more evidence of how the nature of the “discussion” about climate change reveals patterns of interaction that run parallel to discussions of many other polarized issues.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by Willard
> I have “high” respect for him always “Walking the Talk”.
See for yourself:
When the reporter attempted a follow-up remark – referring to a December Washington Post-ABC poll that showed roughly two-thirds of Republicans to believe minorities receive the same treatment as whites under the criminal justice system – Paul walked out of shot
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/10/rand-paul-walks-out-live-interview
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by timg56
Bob,
Operative word in your comment – “should”.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by ticketstopper
Utilities buy and sell all the time, *but at spot wholesale prices*. Feed-in tariffs at residential prices, much less higher than residential prices (i.e. FIT subsidies) is outright economic suicide.
Utilities also have the ability to provide power at planned intervals. One utility doesn’t just hit up another and say: I need 100MWh in 20 minutes.
I’m all for net metering if the solar PV homeowners are paid according to wholesale spot prices – including negative pricing as was experienced over 55 hours in Germany last year.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by Pekka Pirilä
Both are essential for reliable supply of power. It doesn’t make sense to declare one as more important than the other.
Peaking power plants like gas turbines are technically capable of producing either base load or peaking load (although the might need a lot of maintenance if operated continuously). Base load plants are often technically ill suited to load following.
Another essential difference between peaking power units and base load units is in cost structure. The investment cost of base load plants is high but operating costs including fuel costs relatively low. That makes them economic when operated most of the time. Peaking plants have lower investment costs and higher fuel costs. That keeps the cost of maintaining sufficient capacity moderate, but makes it uneconomic to operate the plants for big fraction of time.
Solar and wind power do not fir well in this classification. As I have described before, wind is closer to base power while the nature of solar varies greatly depending on the local conditions. Classifying solar as ether peaking or base load is equally wrong.
The normal definitions of peaking and base load units require that both are available in almost all cases where the are needed (technical availability must be high, something like 0.9). The technical availability of solar and wind is a small fraction of that due to the variability of winds and sunshine.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by timg56
Did you mean to write Switzerland?
Though it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Swedes with 50% hydro.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by timg56
Exactly.
The US Navy and Darpa have spent more money on battery research than anyone.
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Comment on Science: in the doghouse(?) by micro6500
<blockquote>Why not a course in Sherlock Holmes?</blockquote>
Heavens no, they already apply Holmesian logic, "we've proven that warming isn't anything we have thought of, so it <strong>must</strong> be this other thing we thought of"
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by Pekka Pirilä
Neither Sweden nor Switzerland has nearly 100% hydro, but both have most of their power either from hydro or from nuclear plants. In Sweden hydro generation is usually the larger of the two, but last year they were about equal. In Switzerland nuclear is larger, when pumped hydro is excluded (on the net pumped hydro consumes power).
In Norway practically all electricity is hydro.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by Stephen Segrest
<b>Pekka Pirila</b> The load shape, characteristics of the load shape, reserve margins, operating costs, and grid integrations are the Drivers in generation resource planning. The objective in System Planning is to find the lowest cost "right fit" for these Drivers.
As almost every Electric Utility is demonstrating in the U.S., this "right fit" can be Renewables (especially solar for some peaking load).
Does any application of solar <b>always</b> beat the cost of say a natural gas combustion turbine as the least-cost "right fit"? <b>Of course not</b>.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by Pekka Pirilä
I made an error on Switzerland by misinterpreting the statistics. The share of pumped hydro is not nearly as large as I thought. Thus hydro is significantly larger than nuclear, but nuclear is important as well. (about 55% hydro and 39% nuclear in 2014).
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Comment on Week in review – energy, water & food edition by brentns1
Exxon, Chevron opt out of European Big Oil’s climate huddle
The biggest U.S. oil producers have dismissed the prospect of joining their European peers in forging a common stance on climate change, with Exxon Mobil’s CEO saying he doesn’t intend to “fake it.”
snip
Climate models that seek to predict the outcome of rising temperatures “just aren’t that good,” Tillerson said, reiterating a position he has publicly advocated at least since his promotion to CEO in 2006. The company is wary of making efforts to reduce emissions that may not work or that will be deemed unnecessary if the modeling is flawed, Tillerson said.
“Mankind has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity. Those solutions will present themselves as the realities become clear,” he said. “I know that is a very unsatisfying answer for a lot of people, but it’s an answer that a scientist and an engineer would give you.’’
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/exxon-chevron-opt-out-of-european-big-oils-climate-huddle/
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by Pekka Pirilä
Solar does contribute to the peak hours as I have stated repeatedly, but it’s not peaking power generation in the standard classification, because solar is not operated in load following mode. It cannot be operated in load following mode without energy storage, which is possible to a limited extent in CSP. Presently such storage has a negligible role.
How much it contributes to peak hours and how much it reduces the need for real peaking generation depends very strongly on the local conditions.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by PA
There isn’t anything wrong with up to an 18% blend of wind and solar in the energy mix.
But renewables are going to cost pennies on the dollar a decade from now and be more efficient. Polluting prime real estate now with expensive and less efficient renewables doesn’t make a lot of sense. Covering more acreage with more expensive hardware is a fool’s errand.
10 years from now we aren’t going to tear up the less efficient renewables and turn the land back to other purposes. We are going to have wasted a surplus of land from the best sites on old less efficient expensive renewables and have to put new renewables on even more acreage.
This is as bad as paying twice for the same power.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by matthewrmarler
franktoo: Matt asked why I suspect the negative externalities of electricity from renewable sources would be higher than the negative externalities from fossil fuels.
My question was why “much” higher.
Additionally, would you expect them to be reduced with continued R&D.
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Comment on Solar grid parity? by Richard Arrett
PA – I agree with your point.
But I am not sure how it applies to the big picture.
The future design of anything will be more efficient and cheaper for anything, not just renewable.
If I follow your logic, why would I build any energy system now – they will all be more efficient and cheaper in the future (presumably).
How do you address that point?
Thanks in advance.
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