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Your post is incorrect. Present pricing in Germany reflect what has occurred over the past decades and primarily reflects the high cost of fossil as nuclear is phased down. The highly competitive solar will begin service in the early 2020s and will completely crush fossil by 2030. And the levelized cost of electricity that will be obtained will in fact be lower than the operating cost of fossil. So yes the capital cost is included and still beats fossil. If you think about it you would realize that virtually the entire cost of solar is capital. Operation and maintenance is a tiny sum and will get smaller.
Solar will it appears become cheap enough to duplicate fossil and save substantial money when it is available.. Wind will have different characteristics but will likely still be useful in the mix. And likely the mix will change as continuous duty fossil plants will no longer make any sense.
This is utter and complete nonsense given the fact that fossil fuel (coal fired or natural gas fired plant) = cost to produce electricity, vs for solar or wind... Solar (or wind or both) + fossil fuel (natural gas backup MW for MW) = cost to produce electricity.
The FACT is fossil fuel generation, for the ENTIRE amount of peak demand, is required in BOTH equations. That means solar and/or wind is ADDITIONAL COST. This is capital expense that MUST be paid for or else the power companies LOSE money. If power companies lose money they go bankrupt. If power companies go bankrupt the price of electricity RISES due to a reduction of production but no reduction in demand. Supply and demand concept of economics 101.
Do you think electric utility companies should be required to build, operate and maintain their fossil fuel generation for free? If not, then who, other than the ratepayer, pays for this DUPLICATION of electric generation? Furthermore, the interference of the market by solar and wind dictates a significant increase in the return on capital investment in fossil fuel generation, the generation that is required in BOTH basic models, therefore the cost of that generation MUST increase because the ROI payouts are significantly delayed.
Solar and wind are a guaranteed way to cost additional money. GUARANTEED. It cannot cost less. It never will cost less as long as each MW of generation must be backed up by a MW of fossil fuel generation.
Fossil fuel (capital, operation and maintenance cost) = generation cost < winner
Solar, wind or both (capital, operation and maintenance cost)+(capital, operation and maintenance cost) = generation cost < loser
How are you incapable of grasping such a simple concept?
I think the attached is a great article on the subject but those who support solar wind mandates will undoubtedly proclaim the source, WUWT, is biased rather than accepting that they merely seek the truth, rather than accepting nonsense based upon blind faith.
Who is John Popovich and what are his credentials?
He apparently does not know much about the cost of electricity and how it is made.
The big one is his assumption that solar is not economically competitive. There are now a number of projects demonstrating that solar is competitive for projects beginning soon and going into service in the early 2020s. And given present trends continue solar is simply going to kill fossil at least in the sun belt.
I will agree there are lots of interesting questions. Why are we still pursuing thermal solar if we cannot get it to pencil out as competitive? It does have the time displacement capability in some configurations but is that sufficiently valuable to pay a premium? I would point out that Ivanapah does not appear to have a problem with its mirrors ala Barstow.
Yet another thread converted by the utopian solar and wind crowd into renewable energy (solar & wind) = good, fossil fuel energy (coal) = bad.
Not utopia, just common sense and good economics. Solar power has become very cost competitive.
If the "KS" in your username means Kansas, that state is making a mistake not embracing solar. Kansas only makes a tiny amount, a mere 4.7 MW despite LOTS of sunshine, especially in the western half of the state. Solar energy is by far and away the No. 1 job producer in the U.S. in the energy sector. From what I hear of the economy there, the state could use some new jobs.
Not utopia, just common sense and good economics. Solar power has become very cost competitive.
You're assuming that 1 Megawatt of solar can displace 1 Megawatt of conventional power generation. But it can't. In fact, every Megawatt of solar must be backed up by 1 Megawatt of conventional power generation. So the only benefit of the solar plant is a reduction in fuel cost for the conventional plants (during sunny weather). But unless the fuel is extremely expensive, the saved fuel cost is not enough to offset the capital cost of the solar plant.
If solar and wind made economic sense, why do governments have to force utility companies to add solar and/or wind to their grid or provide big subsidies?
Because the technology is being rolled out that allows the power to be stored. And with the price point dropping on all of it, it is kind of inevitable.
Really? So WHERE is this grid scale storage technology being implemented at ANY cost, much less at a reduced cost. Show us where it exists. How long, IF such technology exists, will that storage supply the section of an interconnected grid at grid scale, in seconds... minutes... or even hours?
In order to have grid scale storage, it must be able to supply supply the grid with electricity for days if not weeks. A feat so incomprehensible, with multiples of TW/h supplied, yet simpletons want to point to a lithium ion batteries offer no more than 500 to 1000 charge/discharge cycles, i.e. less than 2 to maybe a little over 3 years of use if used daily, which they would... and we're not talking about 3.6v @ 2500 mah, no, were talking about an equivalent to 115KV AC or so with an unknown amount of TW/h needed.
I wish my company would have known about this utopian grid scale storage before we built several 500MW natural gas turbine generators to back up our government mandated wind farms. We could have saved several hundred millions if we only had YOU to guide us in this inexpensive and new grid scale storage.
This is utter and complete nonsense given the fact that fossil fuel (coal fired or natural gas fired plant) = cost to produce electricity, vs for solar or wind... Solar (or wind or both) + fossil fuel (natural gas backup MW for MW) = cost to produce electricity.
The FACT is fossil fuel generation, for the ENTIRE amount of peak demand, is required in BOTH equations. That means solar and/or wind is ADDITIONAL COST. This is capital expense that MUST be paid for or else the power companies LOSE money. If power companies lose money they go bankrupt. If power companies go bankrupt the price of electricity RISES due to a reduction of production but no reduction in demand. Supply and demand concept of economics 101.
Do you think electric utility companies should be required to build, operate and maintain their fossil fuel generation for free? If not, then who, other than the ratepayer, pays for this DUPLICATION of electric generation? Furthermore, the interference of the market by solar and wind dictates a significant increase in the return on capital investment in fossil fuel generation, the generation that is required in BOTH basic models, therefore the cost of that generation MUST increase because the ROI payouts are significantly delayed.
Solar and wind are a guaranteed way to cost additional money. GUARANTEED. It cannot cost less. It never will cost less as long as each MW of generation must be backed up by a MW of fossil fuel generation.
Fossil fuel (capital, operation and maintenance cost) = generation cost < winner
Solar, wind or both (capital, operation and maintenance cost)+(capital, operation and maintenance cost) = generation cost < loser
How are you incapable of grasping such a simple concept?
Flat nonsense. Fossil consists of two costs. The capital cost of the plant and the variable cost...fuel and maintenance to run it. Solar is virtually all capital cost with a tiny operating cost...generally rounded to zero. Any time solar can operate fully loaded at less than the variable cost of fossil it makes perfect sense to do so.
And the rolling in of solar will vastly change the economics of fossil. The fossil facility now sits idle during all sunny hours. In much of the sun belt that will be well over half the electrical energy generated. So now the economics of the fossil plant are different. Its capital cost is spread across less than half the electricity during any given time period.
Now I realize of course you have to be careful here. Existing facilities are a sunk cost and the calculation must reflect that. But as you start bringing on new capability the weight on capital cost has now doubled for fossil and will tilt the economics to lower capital implementations even with higher operating costs...ie the day of the turbine peaking plant is here.
And you are simply being dull on wind and solar cost more. No they do not. They simply replace more than half of the variable cost of fossil. If the total cost of the wind and solar is less than the variable cost of the fossil fuel not burned you make money. This is quite simple stuff.
And I would also suggest that it is natural gas that is the competitive fossil fuel not coal.
Who is John Popovich and what are his credentials?
He apparently does not know much about the cost of electricity and how it is made.
The big one is his assumption that solar is not economically competitive. There are now a number of projects demonstrating that solar is competitive for projects beginning soon and going into service in the early 2020s. And given present trends continue solar is simply going to kill fossil at least in the sun belt.
I will agree there are lots of interesting questions. Why are we still pursuing thermal solar if we cannot get it to pencil out as competitive? It does have the time displacement capability in some configurations but is that sufficiently valuable to pay a premium? I would point out that Ivanapah does not appear to have a problem with its mirrors ala Barstow.
Solar CANNOT be economically competitive when it REQUIRES the exact same fossil fuel backup as would be needed to just run the fossil fuel generation. It simply CAN NOT be less expensive, EVER.
Every single bit of the push to renewable (solar and wind) energy has come from government mandates driven by the emotional rants of people who are completely clueless about what it takes to reliably run a generation, transmission and distribution electric utility.
Last edited by KS_Referee; 04-18-2017 at 03:34 PM..
Solar CANNOT be economically competitive when it REQUIRES the exact same fossil fuel backup as would be needed to just run the fossil fuel generation. It simply CAN NOT be less expensive, EVER.
??? There is no utility anywhere, as far as I know, that has reserve capacity of 100% above generation for any type of energy. It's a lot smarter to have a diverse portfolio of different plants. Natural gas plants have a LOT more moving parts than solar plants do -- you just might need solar to help back up the NG or coal plants when it goes down.
You seem to be making this straw man argument that solar advocates think there will be 100% replacement of fossil fuel. No one suggests that, and it's physically impossible unless there's a huge breakthrough in storage. That's not on the horizon any time soon.
In terms of cost, wind is the cheapest form of energy. Solar and Nat Gas are tied, and that's without subsidies:
Solar CANNOT be economically competitive when it REQUIRES the exact same fossil fuel backup as would be needed to just run the fossil fuel generation. It simply CAN NOT be less expensive, EVER.
You seem very emotionally invested in this, but your logic isn't sound.
Let's break it down.
Power arrives at your meter with a cost pretty much made up by distribution, capital investment in generation, operational expense of generation, and fuel.
All power has a distribution cost. Doesn't really matter if a kWh is generated by hamster wheel or nuclear reactor, so let's not involve those.
OK, so we have capital & operational cost of generation facilities. You're stating - as far as I can follow - that the capital investment for fossil-fueled generation capacity is the exact same whether it is the sole source of power or whether it is backfill for other power sources. I doubt that, but we can assume for argument's sake that it's certainly not higher, correct?
We have the capital and operational investment in renewable energy generation facilities as well, obviously.
And finally, we have the fuel costs. Zero for wind and solar, 60% of the generation cost for coal.
SO... If the capital and operation cost of the renewable energy plants are lower than the fuel cost of the coal that's not consumed due to them being there, they will provide savings. This is pretty much not debatable.
I am 100% sure that you can find a green group claiming this is so and a pro-coal group claiming it isn't. But don't tell me it's a logical impossibility for renewable energy to provide savings.
Lower generation loads on the fossil plants should make for longer lifespans as well, and of course we have the externalities - the environmental consequences of coal mining, the fly ash, the emissions.
ETA: Or what Elliot and lvmensch said.
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