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All of this is great news, but won't we still need natural gas turbine generation for periods of cloudy weather and low wind?
I'm skeptical that we'll be able to go without some kind of fossil fuel backup power for a long time. Unless there's some way to have a global grid that can transmit power over vast distances without big losses.
All of this is great news, but won't we still need natural gas turbine generation for periods of cloudy weather and low wind?
Rarely cloudy everywhere, and the two big use times of the Year -- Summer (Air Conditioning) and Winter (Heat) are both favorably aligned with Renewable. Throw in Waves, Hydro, Geo-Thermal, reverse of those "Storage" methods a couple of posts back . . . and yeah, maybe Emergency Generators of some sort of fossil, like NG. But like Emergency Generators -- other than testing -- they do not have to run EXCEPT in some Emergency.
Speaking directly about the Cloudy and Low-Wind -- Since our largest loads are Heating and Cooling -- Cloudy and Low-Wind make our overall Energy Use go WAY Down.
Point being IF renewables were as over-built as Nukes and Fossil already are -- you would no longer need Nukes or Fossil.
But you understand the real economic "damage" and battle in this is not technology? That part is known and affordable (actually costs less than the total of the existing) . . . . the battle is that Distributed Renewable Generation is . . . Distributed -- Not a Central Plant Model. Central Plant Model allowed a LARGE Capital (Money) System to collect and extract wealth from across a region. In terms of Cash Flow -- everyone making their own power on their own Rooftop -- Wipes out Billions of Cash Flow. In terms of GDP -- a HUGE Recession.
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I'm skeptical that we'll be able to go without some kind of fossil fuel backup power for a long time. Unless there's some way to have a global grid that can transmit power over vast distances without big losses.
Sure, the East-West Time Zones across a Continent makes it favorable, as well. Take the US for example -- with 4 or 5 Time Zones (depending on how far off-shore you care to go). And Run Times (for Solar, if cranked over to the East) Starting at 7 or 8 am, (Eastern). Now run the Sun across the Sky for 5 Hours. Mix some Solar Thermal in all the way out to the West Coast which easy runs (due to Thermal Lag) to Mid-night (Pacific), and we just covered 19 hours (of the WAY heaviest use) of a 24 hour day.
Mix Wind, Hydro, Waves, Geo-Thermal, some self-storing systems especially for heat and cold (like the JC Penney HQ) . . . and there is not a lot not covered.
And I suppose you may know that some places like Japan are simply planning Solar Generation Power parked "overhead" in Orbit? Sun is "up" most of the time, no clouds, very high gain, and just beams power down to an array.
We will use simple cycle gas turbines for a number of years to come. They are cheap and can be easily sited.
The US generation base is huge. It will take 20-30 years to replace the existing units. During that time technology will continue to advance. Nothing to worry about.
– SolarCity Corp (SCTY) reported a bigger quarterly loss as the residential solar panel installer's total operating expenses jumped 54 percent.
SolarCity, which is backed by Tesla Motors Inc founder Elon Musk, said net loss attributable to shareholders widened to $25 million, or 25 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $21.5 million, or 22 cents per share, a year earlier.
Revenue rose 81.6 percent to $122.6 million
Total operating expenses rose to $226.9 million from $147.4 million.
The company said in February it would increase sales and marketing spending to counter the impact from its decision to exit the Nevada market.
Shares tumbled over 13% in extended hours trading and have lost over 55% so far this year."
Further, excerpted from Slate's recent article:
"While solar companies and their customers love net metering, utilities hate it. These for-profit companies have to fund and maintain the infrastructure that can deliver electricity to every home on the grid, 24 hours a day, and at a fixed price. But customers who go solar sharply reduce their power purchases and extract revenues through net metering. Utilities only recoup some of those costs through a fixed monthly fee that all electricity customers pay simply for the privilege of being connected.
Net metering wasn’t much of an issue for utilities when rooftop solar was a cottage industry. But residential rooftop installations grew 69 percent in the third quarter of 2015 from the third quarter of 2014. By the end of the third quarter of 2015, SolarCity counted 160,000 residential customers in the United States. Vivint Solar, the second-largest residential company, had installed some 60,000 units by the end of September.
Nevada’s market has been growing rapidly, thanks to local conditions—lots of sun, lots of rooftops without tree shade, a favorable net-metering policy. Vivint set up shop there in July. And by the end of last year, some 17,000 residents had solar on their rooftops.
In late December, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission, as is its right, changed the rules on how utilities operating in the state must treat solar net-metering customers. First, it said utilities could jack up the fixed monthly charge from $12.75 to $17.90—an increase of $5.15 per month, or about $62 per year for solar customers—and then increase it to $38.51 by 2020 (a threefold increase). The NPUC also decreed that those feeding power into the grid would henceforth get a smaller credit—instead of paying 11 cents per kilowatt-hour, utilities would only have to pay 9 cents per kilowatt-hour, an 18 percent reduction. Those charges would fall rapidly to 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour by the beginning of 2020. What’s more, these new rules wouldn’t apply only to new solar customers; they’d apply to people who installed their panels last year, or two years ago.
The decision is devastating for rooftop solar in Nevada. Solar is a business that relies on cash flow. The people (or companies) that own rooftop solar panels will have to spend lots more money each month just to be connected, and will receive much less money than they anticipated for the excess power they produce. It makes what was a great deal a pretty bad deal. Even with the federal tax credit intact, the economics behind rooftop solar no longer make sense in Nevada. And so in the first week of January, SolarCity announced it would be leaving Las Vegas and the rest of Nevada; it fired 550 workers and closed a training center. Vivint said it is terminating operations in the state, and solar installer Sunrun left as well. The dramatic moves are both an effort to get Nevada’s political and regulatory system to respond and a recognition that they simply can’t sell their product under the new pricing regime."
IF solar energy is so benefical at the consumer level, how does one reconcile that these tech leading companies lost their position in the Nevada marketplace ... surely as good a locale for solar energy demand given the air conditioning loads and lots of sunshine to harvest?
Theree has to be a compelling reason why Nevada's PUC moved so dramatically to alter the playing field for residential solar. Is it likely that solar is not competitive without extensive gov't subsidies ... in view of the fed gov't 30% portion of the installations? What's really going on here?
Also note that the compensation rate per KWH is 9 cents. That's a pretty good mark-up if the real cost per solar KWH produced was under 3 cents/KWH. Perhaps the true cost per KWH of solar is significantly higher so that the margins aren't there as touted by these solar companies?
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