Renewable energy isn't that expensive

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Oregon found that renewable energy isn't much more expensive than coal power, an increase of 0.1% over the next 14 years is cheap enough to abolish coal power plants ? If this article is not a spam then coal power in US will be gone in less than 20 years.

Quote:
Oregon Finds Switching From Coal to Renewable Energy Is a Bargain

Earlier this year the state passed legislation that requires utilities to stop generating electricity from coal by 2030. At the time, one of Oregon’s two main energy utilities, Pacific Power, predicted that the switch to renewables would come with a fairly high cost, hitting customers with a rate increase of 0.8 percent per year through 2030. That’s a cumulative increase of about 12 percent over the next 14 years.

Since then, however, things have changed. After the legislation passed, Pacific Power put out a request for bids for renewable energy projects, and developers came back with prices much lower than expected.


Quote:
How low? Try 0.1 percent through the year 2028. That’s not per year, like the previous estimate. It’s the projected rate increase for the entire time period.

That amounts to a 10-cent rate increase for every current $100 in electricity costs.

What happened? “When we did our initial analysis of this, we didn’t have the latest prices from the markets,” said Pacific Power spokesperson Ry Schwark. “We went out in the market and found that there is such an amount of renewable energy coming online in the next couple of years that we were basically able to move our coal-free compliance date up two years to 2028” without having much of a rate impact on consumers, he said.

Schwark said that the company is preparing contracts with 12 new renewable energy projects—including 11 big solar farms and one wind array—that will come online over the next year and a half. Ten of those sites are in Oregon. (Pacific Power also does business in Washington state and California, although most of its customers are in rural Oregon.)


http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/08/11/switching-coal-renewable-energy-bargain-oregon
 
lol @ anyone who doesn't believe those contracts are going to end up being a boondoggle with massive cost overruns.


Have we figured out how to store that renewable energy for nighttime yet? Hmm, didn't think so...
 
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Was going to say the same thing - that's great until the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.

We can monitor how much of our electricity is coming from windpower - and some days its nothing, and other days its nearing 40%.
 
So you guys are saying that Pacific Power scams their customers ? The actual increase on customer's bill will be much more than 0.1% from now until 2028 ?

Remember that this renewable energy isn't replace 100% traditional power plants, it will replace coal fired power plants by 2028 only. They still have other ower plants to generate electricity at night when solar panels don't generate any electricity.

Also, cost of battery for storage is lower every year, it should be less than $150-200/kWh by 2025. At that price no new traditional power plant(coal, natural gas, oil ...) will be built.

This point is critical, Pacific Power will not build any "renewable energy" project, third parties are building those and sell electricity to Pacific Power under a long term contract. Pacific Power doesn't need to spend any capital to build anything, so they don't have any risk and their customers don't have any risk either.

Quote:
After the legislation passed, Pacific Power put out a request for bids for renewable energy projects, and developers came back with prices much lower than expected.
 
Originally Posted By: firemachine69


Have we figured out how to store that renewable energy for nighttime yet? Hmm, didn't think so...


Yes.

You can use molten sodium to store thermal energy and drive steam turbines @ times of low sun or night; i'm sure that is not what you want to hear.

http://www.solarreserve.com/en/technology/molten-salt-energy-storage

We know you don't want renewables to succeed, but technology marches on...
 
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Originally Posted By: JimPghPA
They will still need a conventional power plant (coal, gas, or nuclear) for when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing.

The wind is always blowing, sometimes you just need to find it
wink.gif
 
Not saying they are scamming anyone. Folks are merely pointing out that that while renewable energy sounds great, there are drawbacks - and right now the big one is that there is no cost effective way to store the energy for when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow.

There are times that is the case - meaning the entire load has to be picked up by other sources - gas, coal, nuclear, hydro... Thus it isn't as simple as for every Megawatt of Coal energy being replaced by a renewable one being a zero sum game.

I'll also state my experience with solar developers is they underestimated their costs and are being pinched between what they've promised and delivering it...
 
Are those bids based on doing renewables with or without external subsidies?

What if they cannot deliver sufficient power at the projected price points?

It's not that I don't want renewables to work, it's that I don't trust the projections.
 
Originally Posted By: javacontour
Are those bids based on doing renewables with or without external subsidies?

What if they cannot deliver sufficient power at the projected price points?

It's not that I don't want renewables to work, it's that I don't trust the projections.

I don't have answers to your questions.

All I know is Oregon requires their utility companies to stop producing electricity with coal power plant(s) by 2030.

Utility companies in Oregon are starting to find other source of power to replace coal power, and they have 15-16 years to accomplish the task.

Five to 10 years from now batteries will be cheap enough to store excess power during the sun shinning and/or the wind blowing.

One thing I know is most Utility companies are multi-billions enterprises, they have plenty of people with experiences to manage the supply and demand of hard to control electricity.

Another thing: Oregon customers are happy to pay 0.1% increase in their electricity bills with renewable energy.
 
For the people saying Night screwes everything up;

I think though you have to realize it's a grid and a system, and electrons don't care that they were generated via renewable versus coal even though people may care. So electricity is fungible.

It is really easy to satisfy this need using bookkeeping/credits and other ways to make people feel better without needless inefficiencies of storage.

So Oregon, say they need 100 MW in the day and 50MW at night. and for arguments sake let's say night and day are same time. So they need 75MW-Day of power produced per day.

Assume a utility has 200MW generating power during the daytime only via renewables and 100MW is avail by day or night using coal; because they supply more than just Oregon but several states. So more than enough Renewable energy is available.

So they 100MW-D of energy can be produced by renewables and 100MW-D available via coal.

Then they could just use bookkeeping to argue that 75MW-D electrons that got produced are all assigned to Oregon. even though some of the actual electrons were produced by night using coal.
Only when ALL the states say no coal, then they don't have the extra usage to shift around using bookkeeping.
 
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Again Jimmy, it's EASY when a technology is disruptive for it to place into the mix, and cost effectively.

When these things come down to reliance, the following are simply matters of physics.

1,000MW coal gas or thermal, at 90% reliability (pretty low target) can generate 21,600MWh in a 24 hour period.

1,000MW of solar or wind can produce (I've factored in no reliability loss) can produce 6,000MWh in a 24 hour period.

So while it's disruptive, and cutting into the day time grid, it's cheap...someone has already built and paid for the infrastructure, and the baseload requirement...they can be connected plug and playstyle, and cheap.

But if what these people say that they are offering (100% renewable) were true, they would need 4,000MW of installed capacity, and 15,600MWh of storage to provide for the times when the sun doesn't shine and the wind isn't blowing...that's the 24 hour budget, doesn't allow for weeks of no wind, or a binch of cloudy days (well any cloudy days really).

Simple facts, simple maths...simple people believe that the answer is easy.

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Originally Posted By: firemachine69


Have we figured out how to store that renewable energy for nighttime yet? Hmm, didn't think so...


Yes.

You can use molten sodium to store thermal energy and drive steam turbines @ times of low sun or night; i'm sure that is not what you want to hear.

http://www.solarreserve.com/en/technology/molten-salt-energy-storage

We know you don't want renewables to succeed, but technology marches on...


Above math STILL applies...in order to store the energy you need to harvest the energy first...and with 25% availability available on a perfect site, you need 4 times as much installed capacity.

I know that you don't want to understand the facts over the fairy tale, bu a renewable energy economy requires multiple times the existing installed infrastructure to simply meet the daily energy budget.

And then you need frequency control and power factor correction, and while these plug an play technologies are being introduced, they don't do ANY of that...they will need to step up to the plate and deliver THAT in the renewable energy future, and that's not cheap either.

4c wholesale prices will become 20c wholesale just to pay for what needs to be there.
 
Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
I'd be interested in your thoughts on what roles it can play; all I hear @ this point is "none"


Was that for me?

You are projecting something that I'm not saying and reacting as if I'm saying it.

It's clear that you don't get the physics of it, and are swayed by the emotional element of it.

You can reread any of my posts any time and ask any technical question that you like.
 
Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Originally Posted By: firemachine69


Have we figured out how to store that renewable energy for nighttime yet? Hmm, didn't think so...


Yes.

You can use molten sodium to store thermal energy and drive steam turbines @ times of low sun or night; i'm sure that is not what you want to hear.

http://www.solarreserve.com/en/technology/molten-salt-energy-storage

We know you don't want renewables to succeed, but technology marches on...



Sure, let it march on.

But not with one dime of my tax dollars.

You know, if that sort of "advancement" was spent on making fossil fuels more efficient...
 
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR


This point is critical, Pacific Power will not build any "renewable energy" project, third parties are building those and sell electricity to Pacific Power under a long term contract. Pacific Power doesn't need to spend any capital to build anything, so they don't have any risk and their customers don't have any risk either.


There can be tons of risk, it depends on the verbiage of the agreement. These are the types of "deals" struck with companies doing the wind and solar developments up here. HydroONE isn't setting up wind farms or solar farms, they are buying power from them on contract, and these contracts were all propped up by government subsidy and tax credits.

The end result is the exchange of money for no power generated, or the exchange of money for them not to generate, when the capacity is not needed. On top of that, they are guaranteed rates far more than what the staple generators are paid.

The end result of this has been some of, if not THE highest hydro rates in North America, all within a 10 year period. This is all reflected under the guise of the "Global Adjustment" fee on our bills which makes up some 77% of our rate. It is a catch all for the hidden costs of the green energy boondoggle and the forced implementation of generation where none was needed (the coal plants were shuttered due to decreased demand and the refurbishment of the Bruce nuclear facility).

Ontario's situation is a shining example of what not to do.

 
What you are saying is either Pacific Power of Oregon is being duped by contractors or they are lying to the state regulator and the press ?

Thinking about this article a little more I am not so sure that the rate of increase of 0.1% from current power generator to renewable for 14 years is accurate and valid. I think if changing to renewable increases customer rate by 10-20% then it may be believable.

As far as I know most utility companies operate with cost plus in their markets. They need to comply with local regulations, if they are forced to replace coal power with renewable they have no choice but to comply.

Pacific Power clearly said that they didn't expect the rate of renewable is as low as it is now, at least from the bids they received. If they claim the increase is 0.1% but it turns out to be 30-50% what the regulators will tell them ? Rate payers will not be happy with false promise.
 
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