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I feel bad for the people of Ohio that their leaders are so shortsighted. Renewable energy is the future, so backing out now is going to lose ground for them.
This line jumped out at me...
"However, it isn't cheap enough to compete with utilities in most areas just yet."
But the early birds will probably wind up selling wind and solar energy to states like Ohio one day, for a nice profit.
Here's the article from last spring about how Austin Energy had accepted a bid from a private company for a 25 year contract to purchase 150 megawatts of solar energy from them for a little less than 5 cents per kilowatt. Even more surprising, there were nearly 30 companies submitting similar bids.
Then in August, the City Council made solar power the "default" power supply for the city...
Quote:
Last night, the Austin city council voted in favor of a resolution that would increase the city's rooftop and utility-scale solar targets by 800 megawatts over the coming years.
It creates a plan that would build a small paradise for distributed energy companies, including a utility-scale solar target of 600 megawatts by 2017, a rooftop solar target of 200 megawatts by 2020, explicit language enabling third-party solar ownership, a floor price for the value-of-solar tariff, and a mandatory strategy to procure 200 megawatts of fast-response storage.
To be honest, I didn't pay that much attention to Ohio's SB310 when it was signed into law last June, but since Motley Fool brought it up again, I dug into the story a little deeper. I discovered this is pretty much a playbook move against renewable energy standards by fossil fuel industry lobbyists, particularly representing the Koch Brothers and the coal interests, to push back against a modest set of renewable energy goals which had wide bi-partisan support when they were first passed in 2008.
In other words, despite broad community and business support for the renewable energy policy which had been in place for the last 6 years, and amid strong evidence that the state's gradual ramp up to wholly achievable goals was working well, reducing pollution, reducing electric bills, and stimulating job growth, the corrupting influence of large amounts of coal industry cash drove it off the rails.
So pay attention, because this show might be coming to your state next...
Quote:
How the Koch brothers stole Ohio
Renewable energy took a major hit in Ohio last week. Republican Gov. John Kasich signed into law Senate Bill 310, freezing the state’s renewable energy mandate for the next two years. The mandate, first implemented in 2008, requires the state’s utilities to incrementally add renewables to their energy mix — 1 percent every year until 2025, when wind, solar, hydro and biomass sources would eventually comprise 12.5 percent of total power. By making reductions on the demand side, the state aimed to achieve “25% by 2025.” It was a proposal that, at the time, had bipartisan backing, and managed to pass nearly unanimously.
My, how times change. The backlash from the state’s coal-heavy utilities has arrived, says Ed FitzGerald, Kasich’s Democratic opponent, and it’s been helped along by national interests that are using the state as a “lab rat” for their anti-green energy campaigns. Another 29 states and the District of Columbia have passed similar mandates; Kansas’ recently managed to survive a similar attack.
Here's another piece that powerfully summarizes the situation...
Quote:
ThinkProgress: Ohio Is Poised To Be The First State To Roll Back Its Renewable Energy Standard: “Since the standard came into effect, Ohio’s clean energy sector provided 25,000 jobs and at least $1 billion in private sector investment. This has saved ratepayers roughly $230 million, dropping electricity rates by almost a percent and a half. So who is driving the opposition to the standards? Akron-based, coal-dominated utility FirstEnergy has been leading the charge, with a group of utilities spending $694,000 to donate to state legislators.”
Now that we have a battleground state, it means that people are now taking solar and alt. energy as a serious threat to the old ways of doing energy. It means that solar has reached mainstream.
IMHO, before now there wasn't enough of it around to pose a threat - so O&G (and coal) - weren't spending political and monetary capital to fight it before now. In addition, politicians were riding the "green living" and feel good bandwagon to the polls without any O&G consequences, because there wasn't enough of it around to make a noticeable difference.... Now apparently there is enough going around to make that difference in the O&G (and coal) bottom line.
The one main obstacle to truly going "off grid" and not needing the power company is energy storage. Once that nut is cracked look out - and I think that nut is close to getting cracked. Granted it will take a while to make enough of whatever that new storage tech is to get out to the masses, even after it becomes commercially available,
Now that we have a battleground state, it means that people are now taking solar and alt. energy as a serious threat to the old ways of doing energy. It means that solar has reached mainstream.
IMHO, before now there wasn't enough of it around to pose a threat - so O&G (and coal) - weren't spending political and monetary capital to fight it before now. In addition, politicians were riding the "green living" and feel good bandwagon to the polls without any O&G consequences, because there wasn't enough of it around to make a noticeable difference.... Now apparently there is enough going around to make that difference in the O&G (and coal) bottom line.
The one main obstacle to truly going "off grid" and not needing the power company is energy storage. Once that nut is cracked look out - and I think that nut is close to getting cracked. Granted it will take a while to make enough of whatever that new storage tech is to get out to the masses, even after it becomes commercially available,
Just my .02...
Efficient and cost effective off-grid storage has always been the better solution. The problem is that nearly every planning commission/agency in the USA regards off-grid energy harvest and use as something to be regulated out of existence.
What is telling is how many people who say that off-grid storage of electric isn't efficient or something for mainstream also support using storage for cars (EVs). There is a disconnect. Let's see, Tesla can warrant their batteries for how many years yet the same can't be done for residential storage?
Oh, the technicals will no doubt explain the different purposes, technologies and use cases but that is just smoke.
You see, no one really wants the average household to be energy independent. Why who is going to pay to maintain all the infrastructure being used for grid systems? We can't have the buck stopping at the front door of individual homes can we? That would be a travesty of economics.
You betcha, we need reliable, efficient and long term sustainable off grid energy storage solutions. Notice how anytime energy storage is discussed, it is limited to large scale systems Guess why? Because if it is limited to large scale systems you still rely on grid systems. In turn that keeps the money flowing, in single direction of course.
Nope, lets do this piecemeal using intermediary steps so that in the end, the same people now selling you power will continue to with one small change. You'll be paying for the power you generate, not the power they generate.
A common theme. Get things to the point that you do all the work, invest all the resources, maintain the systems and pay someone else for the "privilege".
What is telling is how many people who say that off-grid storage of electric isn't efficient or something for mainstream also support using storage for cars (EVs). There is a disconnect. Let's see, Tesla can warrant their batteries for how many years yet the same can't be done for residential storage?
Actually, it not only can be done, it is being done already, although a nice healthy cost reduction would help a lot to make it more common.
One of Elon Musk's other companies is SolarCity, which is already using Tesla batteries for energy storage in home and commercial solar installations...
This is from last year...
Quote:
SolarCity is marketing the solar-and-battery bundle in parts of California served by Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison , in NSTAR’s territories in Massachusetts, and in areas of Connecticut served by Connecticut Light & Power. SolarCity is starting with those regions because those utilities’ demand charges are particularly high, and that makes it more likely for businesses to see energy savings by choosing solar and energy storage, Rive said.
SolarCity will guarantee that its energy storage service could cut the demand charge by a pertain percentage, likely around 20%, said Jonathan Bass, SolarCity’s spokesman . Customers would sign a contract for the solar electricity and a separate agreement for energy storage. The solar contract could last up to 20 years while the energy storage agreement would top at 10 years, which is the life expectancy of the battery system.
And this is from a couple of months ago, with a photo of an actual Tesla energy storage unit in use... next to the homeowner's Chevy Volt car...
Quote:
Palo Alto-based Tesla, best known for its all-electric Model S sedan, aims to be in the front ranks of the emerging energy storage market. Besides offering the residential energy storage units to customers through SolarCity, where Tesla CEO Elon Musk serves as chairman, Tesla is making much larger-scale energy storage systems for commercial businesses at its Fremont factory and has installed an energy storage unit at its Tejon Ranch Supercharger station off I-5 in Southern California.
"Tesla is driving as fast as we can into this space," Straubel said during a keynote address at the recent Energy Storage Symposium sponsored by Joint Venture Silicon Valley. "I see us more as an energy innovation company at our core than even a car company."
Straubel, who also serves on the board of SolarCity, said lithium-ion battery technology, which powers Tesla's cars, has revolutionized both the electric vehicle and energy storage markets.
Tesla is ramping up manufacturing to reach the full capacity of its Fremont factory, with the goal of making half a million cars a year by 2020. To drive down the cost of batteries, it plans to break ground this month on a massive "gigafactory" for battery production that is expected to produce more batteries than currently are being made globally. The batteries are not just for Tesla's cars but also for Tesla's product line for stationary storage.
It has been widely discussed that the new Tesla Gigafactory, being developed in Nevada, will be supplying batteries not only for Tesla model cars, and for other car companies for their EVs... Tesla batteries currently supply the highest energy density of any such batteries for sale.. but also for the increasing energy storage market for solar and wind energy installations.
So pay attention, because this show might be coming to your state next...
Here's another piece that powerfully summarizes the situation...
I usually don't attack the messenger but ThinkProgress and Salon?
The job creation are often inflated e.g. a guy sweeping the floor in a bus station is going to have job sweeping the floor no matter what is powering the bus and if look at the criteria used by the feds even an oil lobbyist dealing with environmental issues fits the criteria. Most of the good jobs are going overseas and they never account for job losses.
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