California Independent System Operator (CAISO)

[Ulmo]

9,359MW peak utility solar PV yesterday. 91,918MWh utility solar PV providing 15.3% of total 597,477MWh utility delivered use yesterday. Nice round hump near this year's Earth Day. Add behind-the-meter solar PV and it is almost a quarter of all electricity for the day coming directly from sun collectors, not dirty recycled biology remains. Also, that's not even counting hydro (which I love), wind, and nuclear, all clean sources of power. California government also adds a bunch in their "renewables" portfolio that doesn't belong there in my opinion (depleting the Earth's core of heat (?), burning garbage (!), and natural gas plants that get a little boost from sun mirrors). But since California government is hell-bent on ceding to communist pressures to eradicate some of the cleanest sources of energy, hydro and nuclear, even though I want us to keeping using them, I'd like us to also hedge our bets by getting enough solar that if the crazies get their way we don't go back to dirty fuels. Therefore, my view of our main target is replacing dirty fuel use, by which I mean most of the recycled biological mined things like coal, oil, and gas.

 

[SageBrush]

But since California government is hell-bent on ceding to communist pressures to eradicate some of the cleanest sources of energy, hydro and nuclear,

Why do you taint an otherwise sensible post with nonsense like painting an anti-nuclear stance as communism ?

My own views on nuclear are probably best described as unsettled and inadequately informed, but I'll tell you this: any industry that cannot insure through the private markets says oodles about safety risks and externalized costs. Is that your 'librel,' 'communist' thought in action ?

 

[Ulmo]

Why do you taint an otherwise sensible post with nonsense like painting an anti-nuclear stance as communism ?

My own views on nuclear are probably best described as unsettled and inadequately informed, but I'll tell you this: any industry that cannot insure through the private markets says oodles about safety risks and externalized costs. Is that your 'librel,' 'communist' thought in action ?

Half the safety risks and externalized costs are from the very protesters themselves.

This LA Times article omits a lot of the pertinent information:

PG&E to close Diablo Canyon, California's last nuclear power plant

They omit that the plant was designed to last for many more years past the technical license expiration, and that the license expiration is usually easy to renew, but it got politically clogged up. At least the LA Times article lists the culprits (in glowing terms). PG&E, activists and politicians agreed to increase the cost of electricity for ratepayers in exchange for switching to more natural gas use and a "commitment" to adding more solar power, but we're already adding more solar power, so I feel like that commitment is fungible, but as a silver lining, at least it's enhanced commitment. Some of the very cost increases being cited in the article are because of the early shut down. Although during mid-day full solar power means they don't need the nuclear plant running, they can still find use for all that nuclear power even during mid-day: storing it in batteries, charging cars, moving water around, selling it to other states, desalination, high energy particle physics experiments, pre-heating cement factory kiln burning air, whatever, and anyway, the date at which the solar gets to the point where that level of looking for buyers would become super-pertinent would be around when the end of when the plant was built to last for.

This is yet another in a long line of activist lies and misdeeds in California and regarding nuclear power. This has been long discussed in other places. Just because we're losing the battle on nuclear power doesn't mean I want to lie about it to cover it up. I'm sorry if my otherwise good post had a little bit of historical baggage.

As for my opinion of what to do about it, I think we need to call out the misdeeds so the activists have to pay more to try to mess anything else up next time they sink their talons into something else, and wear them out, so they do the least damage to us in the future, and meanwhile, do what is most productive, which right now politically is solar power, and solar power works very well, so I think we are all happy about that, and that is a truly good thing. Thank god for solar power.

 

[SageBrush]

Half the safety risks and externalized costs are from the very protesters themselves.

Back this up with well reasoned and data rich references. Please exclude propaganda

 

[Ulmo]

Back this up with well reasoned and data rich references. Please exclude propaganda

I don't know what category all of the weekly addresses about all of the weekly goings on about this issue over the last many decades from Bill Wattenburg on his radio addresses fall under, but he had a lot of damning things to say about the anti-nuclear activists, with plenty of examples. Often, he'd repeat older refrains over and over, but he'd always sprinkle in the newest and latest thing going on that week in the arena. I wasn't his topic secretary, so I never wrote it all down. It's kind of like sports: a bunch of back and forth and not really much good comes of it except someone's bottom line. I never had much stomach for collecting all the details. So, I don't have it. All I found on his web site is the older information he has on coal being worse than nuclear power.

• Bill Wattenburg
• The Global Warming Hypocrites

A large number of his writings used to be on the web, but a lot of it has been scrubbed. This constant cry for examples falls flat when people are allowed to erase history. It is a national travesty that his writings have been scrubbed from the Internet; in my opinion, that's the same disease of altering information available to the public that allows ISIS to invade USA. But, that's another topic.

For now, we have solar power, so let's do solar power. Suffice it to say that I don't have the old data about the old lost battles because the old soldiers (virtual information buckets) were murdered in the battle field, as in any war. Bury our dead and move on, but don't forget.

 

[SageBrush]

I don't know what category all of the weekly addresses about all of the weekly goings on about this issue over the last many decades from Bill Wattenburg on his radio addresses fall under

From your offered link

In many ways, the global warming hypocrites in this country have become the modern-day equivalents of the Red Guard army of angry peasants unleashed in China to punish the troublesome folks who had learned to read and write.

Category: Garbage

 

[RubberToe]

CAISO curtailment report...

CAISO: California curtailed 80 GWh of renewables in March

 

[Pollux]

Thank you, everyone, for explaining to me the missing chunks. I had some knowledge of them, but it's really hard for me to have the type of integrated knowledge on this topic that I already have on, say, computer programming and communications networks (which I grew up with since my first modem when I was 13 for the last 33 years); my knowledge of these water and energy issues was hidden by me not being part of the water negotiating being done in the 1950s and 1960s (I wasn't born, and I never lived on a farm), and the energy utility practices, contracts, laws and regs (I've never worked in or for an energy utility concern); I've been aware of the major and many minor issues to be handled, but had no idea of the history and current handling of them, and due to my general non-familiarity didn't know of some of the topic specific knowledge. But, I've always been keenly interested in it anyway, so I've been seeing these huge gaps, and didn't know what to make of them. This helps quite a bit.

I appreciate this thread; it's informative for me, too. Thanks.

 

[Pollux]

I don't know what category all of the weekly addresses about all of the weekly goings on about this issue over the last many decades from Bill Wattenburg on his radio addresses fall under, but he had a lot of damning things to say about the anti-nuclear activists, with plenty of examples. Often, he'd repeat older refrains over and over, but he'd always sprinkle in the newest and latest thing going on that week in the arena. I wasn't his topic secretary, so I never wrote it all down. It's kind of like sports: a bunch of back and forth and not really much good comes of it except someone's bottom line. I never had much stomach for collecting all the details. So, I don't have it. All I found on his web site is the older information he has on coal being worse than nuclear power.

• Bill Wattenburg
• The Global Warming Hypocrites

A large number of his writings used to be on the web, but a lot of it has been scrubbed. This constant cry for examples falls flat when people are allowed to erase history. It is a national travesty that his writings have been scrubbed from the Internet; in my opinion, that's the same disease of altering information available to the public that allows ISIS to invade USA. But, that's another topic.

For now, we have solar power, so let's do solar power. Suffice it to say that I don't have the old data about the old lost battles because the old soldiers (virtual information buckets) were murdered in the battle field, as in any war. Bury our dead and move on, but don't forget.

So I visited the second link, on Global Warming Hypocrites, written in 2007. I didn't make it all the way through. But from what I read -- maybe the first half or even a bit more -- I'd divide Wattenburg's thesis into these parts:

• Ad hominem attacks
• If nuclear had been "unleashed" (my word), we wouldn't have so much coal, which would be a good thing for everybody
• We're going to build way more coal plants in the next decade or so, and that's the fault of the "GW hypocrites" who won't allow nuclear to reach its potential

To which I'd point out that the last 10 years have fundamentally undermined Wattenburg's arguments.

• Ad hominem attacks -- not worth responding to.
• If nuclear had been "unleashed" -- but it was unleashed, in those halcyon days before 1981 / Three Mile Island. Before that, the EPA had barely been in existence. Power that had been touted as "too cheap to meter" had become wildly expensive. TMI taught the public that Bad Things Could Happen and after that it was no longer just a conversation between the various technocratic elites. (I, myself, would say that public fears went beyond the rational, but that's often the case and a sad fact that has to be dealt with.) Even today, neither public nor technocratic elites has factored in the cost of waste disposal.
• And Coal is dying, killed by gas, not by the EPA or environmentalists. Peak Coal lies in the past. Dying in China, where the EPA and environmentalists hold sway; dying in the USA, no matter what the current administration says or does. Dying, dying, soon dead.

Alan

 

[3mp_kwh]

So I visited the second link, on Global Warming Hypocrites, written in 2007. I didn't make it all the way through. But from what I read -- maybe the first half or even a bit more -- I'd divide Wattenburg's thesis into these parts:

• Ad hominem attacks
• If nuclear had been "unleashed" (my word), we wouldn't have so much coal, which would be a good thing for everybody
• We're going to build way more coal plants in the next decade or so, and that's the fault of the "GW hypocrites" who won't allow nuclear to reach its potential

To which I'd point out that the last 10 years have fundamentally undermined Wattenburg's arguments.

• Ad hominem attacks -- not worth responding to.
• If nuclear had been "unleashed" -- but it was unleashed, in those halcyon days before 1981 / Three Mile Island. Before that, the EPA had barely been in existence. Power that had been touted as "too cheap to meter" had become wildly expensive. TMI taught the public that Bad Things Could Happen and after that it was no longer just a conversation between the various technocratic elites. (I, myself, would say that public fears went beyond the rational, but that's often the case and a sad fact that has to be dealt with.) Even today, neither public nor technocratic elites has factored in the cost of waste disposal.
• And Coal is dying, killed by gas, not by the EPA or environmentalists. Peak Coal lies in the past. Dying in China, where the EPA and environmentalists hold sway; dying in the USA, no matter what the current administration says or does. Dying, dying, soon dead.

Alan

Alan,

I don't know who Wattenburg is, but among the nuke casualties I was looking at a few minutes ago is OPPD's Fort Calhoun, in Nebraska. Like Diablo, they recently announced closure. Since power they cannot generate themselves comes from the Southwest Power Pool, they will shoring up their mix with a 55% coal-based resource (SPP ISO, per EIA data). There are a lot of coal plants sitting idle, even if new ones aren't getting built. Diablo is similar, but with natural gas since there is no arguing how much California uses. CPUC said it'll be replaced by renewables, but I have cognitive issues with that since the CA ISO isn't just made up of renewables and nukes. Maybe in CPUC's world it was when they made the arrangement with PG&E, but for CO2 I think the best policy is for reduction, not swapping among carbon free resources (Sort of like Pilgrim for Off Shore, in MA). Now, "50% renewable, by 2030" looks closer to the other 50% being fossil, under CA's renewable portfolio standard.

Subordinate nuclear risk to CO2 risk, or the other way around. It's generally false to think you aren't doing one, or the other in practice. I still dissent from the general opinion we can lock up existing nuclear plants under the belief that, "yeah, maybe some day California gets bellow 250 million tons per year. We've got time." (not trying to put words in anyone's mouth) The empirics of the CO2 problem get chipped away very slowly, and the speed of feedbacks seem threatening and uncertain enough, to me, to weigh the possibility of another Chernobyl or Fukushima.

No matter how each one of us feels, organizations like EDF and NRDC are helping defend against natural gas lawsuits which are trying to prevent states from valuing their "Zero Emissions Credits", from nuclear. Diablo's support was in exchange for closure. That bargain wasn't required in NY and IL, and from what I'm reading the same is being discussed in CT, NJ, OH and PA.

 

[renim]

the point is, renewable energy curtailment is real, is now, and its happening in California for valid reasons

 

[miimura]

the point is, renewable energy curtailment is real, is now, and its happening in California for valid reasons

I'm sure one of the reasons is that there are long term procurement contracts for power from fossil power plants.

 

[renim]

I'm sure one of the reasons is that there are long term procurement contracts for power from fossil power plants.

I doubt it, at least in California.

What it would be related to is the provision of non energy, grid stability services.
and ability to ramp when required.

 

[miimura]

I doubt it, at least in California.

What it would be related to is the provision of non energy, grid stability services.
and ability to ramp when required.

Then why are the IOU's getting their knickers in a twist now about "Departing Load" and CCAs? If there were no long term contracts, then what are PCIA's about? The Silicon Valley CCA is Carbon Free, so they must be buying power from a different mix of suppliers, leaving PG&E holding the bag on the fossil power purchase agreements. The law says they can't stick it to the remaining bundled rate payers, so they have to tack on more costs to the CCA customers.

California utilities propose bill charges for community aggregation customers

 

[SageBrush]

I doubt it, at least in California..

Nothing to doubt, just look at imports. One of the most offensive coal plants in the country (San Juan) is not too far from where I work, and I am well aware of the export contracts they have to California.

But they are drying up due to California's insistence on imports being included in carbon counting, leading to plans to shut down at least part of the plant's capacity as the contracts expire in 2022 and 2029.

 

[Ulmo]

Nothing to doubt, just look at imports. One of the most offensive coal plants in the country (San Juan) is not too far from where I work, and I am well aware of the export contracts they have to California.

But they are drying up due to California's insistence on imports being included in carbon counting, leading to plans to shut down at least part of the plant's capacity as the contracts expire in 2022 and 2029.

I hit love because that is real progress, but it is too slow. That's one of the reasons I voted Davis out. @renim didn't know when he posted "I doubt that" what Davis did to us.

CAISO curtailment report...

CAISO: California curtailed 80 GWh of renewables in March

Thank you. That article system suggested this referral, which I found even more interesting:
California oversupply volumes grow, ISO curtails more renewables - Electric Power | Platts News Article & Story

From what that article says, there is a lot of activity, meetings, agreements being worked on, construction, money going on right now about this. It looks like the companies, institutions and governments are working on this over the next few years. This combined with some wording in our Tesla PowerWall 2 SGIP applications (participation in the power imbalance marketplace) makes me think they're finally getting ready to do something about this. They saw it coming, complained, realized it was true, saw it coming faster, and are now employing the people who are ready to deal with it. This is the organizing that needs to be done in order to handle clean energy that isn't (just) hydro or nuclear. If they succeed, in three to five years, we will have solved this problem to such an extent that we'll be having fun looking at the market transition to clean energy with all of its balancing functions working to various degrees, and then we can see the paths ahead with clarity, such as the costs of solar, wind, and rain.

Progress isn't guaranteed. The balls could be dropped by so much as a change in country with some oil countrymen taking over as dictators and switching us to the good old Saudi Gold energy format. Coal could come roaring back if the life expectancy was dropped to around 20 or 30 years because no one would care about old age health problems because everyone was spending so much time at war or various religious round-ups. Or, lesser efforts could mount up and just change things. But as long as we insist on clean energy, the current path forward seems most probable.

 

[Ulmo]

In case anybody missed my ballyhooing tonight in the Charging forums, here's some links:

Demand Charges — The Hidden Cost (and dirty secret) of EV Charging for Businesses
Demand Charges — The Hidden Cost (and dirty secret) of EV Charging for Businesses
Demand Charges — The Hidden Cost (and dirty secret) of EV Charging for Businesses

The last one I quote here:

Wow; check out this DoubleSpeak: [from Greenlots supports SCE's EV Charger tests]

“By embracing workplace demand response programs, utilities gain new opportunities to engage their customers and avoid disintermediation by third parties,” said Brett Hauser, CEO of Greenlots."

Translation: Utilities don't want to let end users without knowledge of or access to these features the ability to ramp up use during high electricity availability and ramp down use during low electricity availability in order to make a case for getting contracts for supplies that are priced to the supplies instead of exorbitant "demand charges" during peak electricity availability (from sun and wind) during peak cost periods from the utilities (charging the most for their electricity and delivery during the time when they have the cheapest electricity). I.e., mechanized theft.

Don't tell Mr. Hauser I said that; instead, go ahead and implement his systems in your companies' parking lots, and get the money for yourselves. The electricity is out there. Check out my screenshot from today in CAISO:

View attachment 225004

And although CAISO doesn't give curtailment figures for today, a recap of an article already referenced on TMC:

Spring Oversupply Lifts CAISO Curtailments | RTO Insider:

80 GWh Curtailed in March
CAISO curtailed about 80 GWh of renewable generation in March, nearly double the curtailments during the same month last year. So far this year, curtailments have occurred in 31% of all five-minute dispatch intervals, compared with 21% last year and 16% in 2015, the ISO estimates.

And then, the utilities "avoid disintermediation by third parties" so they can gouge customers during mid-day for exorbitant "Demand Charges" and "Peak Time of Use Rates" that are unfathomable for most of the country exactly when they have the most cheapest energy. Thanks, Gov. Davis!!!!!

And:

CAISO: Renewable energy curtailment could hit 8,000 MW this spring

 

[Ulmo]

Some CAISO graphs from today (Saturday April 29, 2017):

VV

--------

And a windy yesterday (Friday April 28, 2017):

VVVVV

Note that CAISO doesn't include clean energy nuclear and hydro in their green reports, but does include "biomass", "biogas", and "solar thermal", which are all mostly dirty energy types in their green stats:

For Friday, assuming 5GW home and small business customer-side solar PV generation, 30.8% of yesterday's electricity was provided by solar PV + wind.

Here's the clean energy breakdown totals for the day: solar PV 21% (just solar PV provided 21% of all electricity in California yesterday); wind 9.8%; it looks like clean nuclear provided ~3.7%; and hydro ~15%. Geothermal provided 3.4%, and "small hydro" another 2%. That's a total of ~74.2% provided by completely clean energy in California yesterday. The rest was coal, oil and gas.

Wind and solar that was curtailed (unused) yesterday was about 5GWh, which came to ~0.78% (less than 1%) of the total used.

To take that curtailed electricity for yesterday out of context, if they could have found a way to actually sell it (rather than paying people to use it) for, let's say, $0.03/kWh, they'd get about $150,000 for it. If they retailed it for $0.11/kWh, that's $550,000 to split among the delivery and generator. Or, if it was used to charge one Tesla Model X P100D, it could go an EPA range of 14,619,883 miles, a bit more than the typical usage pattern for one Model X. Or, if each one went 1,044,277 miles, it would cover the energy for 14 of them. Or, let's say it was 200 miles of EPA range for every Model X 90D in the state: the amount of electricity from solar and wind curtailed yesterday would be enough to make 78,125 Tesla Model X 90D's go 200 EPA miles for the day. In January of 2017 there were around 244,983 EV's in California, so that would be almost 20kW for every EV in California of solar and wind curtailed yesterday, or enough to go about 58 EPA rated miles in the most power hungry of them all, the Model X P100D, across every EV in the state. I know many commutes are longer than that, but some are shorter. So, I'd say that the 5GWh of curtailed solar and wind from yesterday which was a "modest" amount compared to past days was almost enough to charge every EV in the state for that days' use. Of course, there's real costs to getting and delivery the electricity. It just puts the amount in perspective.

 

[Ampster]

To take that curtailed electricity for yesterday out of context, if they could have found a way to actually sell it (rather than paying people to use it) for, let's say, $0.03/kWh, they'd get about $150,000 for it

I enjoy you perspective on this growing issue in California. I am concerned that, if curtailment continues to grow, investors will attribute higher risk to renewables investments. What I don't know is who takes the loss when CAISO pays load to come on?

 

[RubberToe]

April total renewable power in California is likely to exceed 30% for the first time ever. I generally post this info in a different thread, but I'll cross post here if that happens since the data for my spreadsheet comes directly from the CAISO website Ulmo is also using.

RT