This is not a report of curtailing rooftop solar. This is a report on curtailing commercial solar and wind. As far as I know no major utility has controls in place to curtail bulk residential rooftop solar. 1.5 million MWH's curtailed last year.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
CPUC NEM 3.0 discussion
- Thread starter jjrandorin
- Start date
You are having what we call a gross conceptual error. They are curtailing solar and wind because they are in an overgeneration condition (due to the solar and wind) and if they want to be able to make it through the peak when solar goes away they have to have dispatchable, reliable generation online. They are curtailing it because they absolutely have to so the grid does not go into a high frequency condition with potential for widespread major grid outages.
I am not. I understand the tactical reasons why renewables are currently curtailed.
If maximizing renewable generation was the strategic goal then contracts wouldn't promise generation levels to fossil fuel plants which also could be curtailed.
Yeah, the problem is a lack of storage. They should have industrial scale storage that soaks up the oversupply, then releases it in the evening. The other thing they should do is get off of the system of fixed time-based rate schedules. If there's so much supply that they have to curtail it, they should send price signals to their customers that it's better to consume energy NOW, i.e. lower the rates dramatically. How about 8¢/kWh? Still got an oversupply? 5¢/kWh. Still too much? 3¢/kWh. At what point would you plug in your EV and just start charging because you can and it's cheap? I normally set mine to 60% but if prices fell to 3¢/kWh, I'd push it all the way to 90%. I'd also start doing laundry and run my dryer just because it's so cheap to do so when they're trying to avoid curtailment. All of this activity means I can avoid charging the car or running the dryer at other times, and helps shift to renewables.
Unfortunately you are. When the sun goes down the solar goes away. How do you meet the peak when you have no solar and you have shutdown your thermal fleet of generation?
"Part of what has made the growth in renewables possible is the ramp rate of natural gas. The ramp rate is the speed at which an electricity generator can increase (ramp-up) or decrease (ramp down) generation. Coal and nuclear plants have prolonged ramp rates, while oil and natural gas facilities ramp much more quickly."
The Role of Natural Gas Ramp Rates in Electricity Generation
The electric grid system in the United States is changing slowly but surely to improve service and reliability as well as reduce carbon emissions. As such, policymakers, independently owned utilities, customers, and other stakeholders are working to adjust how the nation generates, transmits...
www.shalehub.org
Last edited:
In the market they send price signals. Of course if you are talking about you the end use residential customer there is not a billing mechanism in place nor is there a signalling system in place to achieve this.
Yes thye should put in industrial scale batteries, in fact they are currently charging over 700/MW into batteries as of 13:30. I suppose that is going to take a few more batteries.
So who is going to pay for all of this?
You think at the CAISO they don't know what can start up in what amount of time and haven't already taken that into consideration. They literally have every piece of data on every unit connected to their system, startup time, start up cost, minimum run time, max daily startups, ramp rates, transition point, max capacities, min capacities, minimum off time, how long a combined cycle plant will be locked out if it does not get a restart. They have it all, you are not reinventing this wheel. You are not coming up with things that have not been thought of.
And you are telling all of us that CAISO does everything they can technically to maximize renewable generation sources? I don't buy it...
My bet is that there are contractual constraints or gentleman's agreements to maximize the profits of the fossil fuel plan generators.
If you have insider knowledge there please do tell.
I am telling you YES absolutely without question. I worked at CAISO running their balancing desk matching generation to load in real-time.
I'm pretty sure that CAISO does not have data on every unit connected to the system. Consider the case of a house with solar and NEM: the solar is generating 5 kW, and the house is consuming x kW. The CAISO knows that this house is consuming (x - 5)kW (if x < 5, then it's feeding energy into the grid). But they don't know that the solar is actually generating 5 kW and that the house is consuming a portion of it, i.e. they can't tell the difference between this scenario and the solar generating (5+y) kW and the house consuming (x+y)kW. All they know is the net generation or consumption. And therefore, they have no idea how that net amount would change if the rates were different.
"All this" is storage. We already know that the actual electricity from solar, which is being curtailed, is 3 cents a kwh.
We also know, and for sure I know since I just bought them, that inefficient, retail level ESS is about 11 cents a kwh without any subsidies.
I would imagine that utility level ESS is less, but lets just go with that.
That means that true peak clean energy ought to be 14 cents per kwh. Or, to put it another way, it would be 11 cents more than whatever the utilities are charging. Three cents for the energy you put in at noon, plus 11 cents for the ESS to store it.
For LADWP that would be overnight per kwh of 31 cents instead of 20 cents.
For SCE I guess their peak would go to 71 cents instead of the current 60 cents which I just saw yesterday.
Its not like peak energy from ESS is Nine Bucks a Kwh or something impossible. Its more, but frankly many LADWP customers might not even realize their peak charges went up by 11 cents, especially if it was ramped.
As for the IOUs, I mean, everybody hates them already, they are probably going to raise rates anyway.
This post is the discussion. If Zabe is correct, lets assume its no scam and you just have to run peaker plants at some minimum level, and we are at or near that level now. Fine.
I am even angrier at policymakers now than before. This isn't even that difficult. The solar adoption curve is ahead of the ESS curve, fine, accellerate the ESS adoption curve either at utility level or private level. Move those batteries as fast as they can be made.
Its not like the planet depends on it or anything.
Instead its some BS argument about how rich solar people are sticking it to poor people. Shame.
I am talking about every commercial generator not rooftop solar. They are not curtailing rooftop solar as far as I am aware. I am sure that if the IOU's were curtailing rooftop solar there would be a discussion on this board about it.
Yeah, Zabe confirmed that the CAISO doesn't see rooftop residential solar generation as a "source." Rooftop solar merely depresses the demand CAISO measures across the grid. So if a million homeowners turn their solar arrays off, CAISO will see a surge in demand compared to the demand they see on a normal day. But it stands to reason that if there is a lot of cloudcover/rain in a forecast then CAISO will expect demand to increase since there will be less residential solar output suppressing demand at the grid.
I also think we somehow went into a rat-hole talking about CAISO in general. This whole NEM thing is about whether rooftop solar benefits the state.
The answer to the question about whether CAISO can effectively manage energy generation for a grid under NEM 2.0 or NEM 3.0 is "yes of course." Changes to energy policy take decades, and all their options can buffer what happens on a normal day. And of course if CAISO thinks it cannot source enough energy, then you can just expect some rolling brownouts. It's not like the grid just collapses.
I dunno about ERCOT though... that Valentines day freeze-fest seems magnitudes way worse than what California was dealing with during its heat waves. But then Texas isn't blaming residential solar for their problems. They're just blaming windmills.
If you are in a CCA and in PG&E territory, you are not buying PG&E electricity. But you are paying PG&E a delivery charge. I mentioned this earlier. What is wrong with paying PG&E the delivery charge for exports to the grid? Would that not be a "fair" charge to cover grid maintenance? They seem to say it is for CCA customers.
Isn't that what the NBCs (non-bypassable charges) are for NEM2.0? You pay more to take energy from the grid than you get paid to give the same amount of energy back. The difference is the NBC.
Let's assume this is accurate, and for holydonut as well.
If we can only dial the natural gas plants down to 4,000 mw, from their high of 12,000. And that applies in imports as well, and we see the nuclear flat, basically that CAISO is not lying, and we are already curtailing utility level solar.
Then no, more rooftop solar, or solar of any kind, is no longer beneficial in the sense of unlimited upside. From the other chart it would just increase curtailment.
Now, the only thing we have not covered is whether curtailment is bad, but it looks to me like the real problem is lack of ESS and the nightime demand.
For example, what is needed to drop natural gas down to a 3,000 mw minimum is not more solar, its 1,000 mw of ESS so natural gas plants new "range" is 3,000 to 11,000 rather than 4,000 to 12,000.
Its not as if rooftop solar needs to stop immediately, but its time for everyone to look out their window to see a utility van installing PWs on everyone's house. When asked "hey, what is that thing you are putting on my house next to the meter?" The response would be, "never mind, just a new piece of equipment."
We also need vehicle to grid capability like yesterday. In another thread it was concluded that Tesla's lack a rather small piece of equipment to make this work, and of course you need a bi-directional charger, but the batteries are out there.
All of these things would be helpful.
Some part of the overgeneration conditions (I am not saying ALL just some part) is rooftop solar without ESS.
Who will pay for all the new storage?
Under the current NEM contracts the non-solar customers will have to pay for this storage.
My example above was simply the utilities pay for it and add it on to the bill. Under my NEM I paid for my own storage. LADWP does not have enough rate arbitrage to have any pay back at all.
And my point was that the bill would go up for everyone, but by a very acceptable amount to do our bit to save the planet.
Plus we get even better air.
The reason its not being done, I suggest, especially to Zabe who knows is that this is the current set of players and their interests.
1. If you are a utility level energy provider, you have to meet that 3 cents per kwh target or you don't exist. That's why you don't already see utility level ESS. First of all, the actual utilities don't finance or own the production. But putting that aside, lets say we all decided to stop yakking and build a giant ESS storage factility. Sure, the utilities could pass the 11 cents along, but we have to get it built in the first place and private financing would be more or less impossible as there is noguarantee SouthPas Fan's plan will find a cash flow.
2. If you are a solar installer, I mean good for your but your just trying to make a living, not save the world, you can't get batteries, especially PWs as it is, so you are not going to turn down work. Plus, you are going to be against NEM 3.0 or anything that will hurt your business. The person sitting in th aisle at Costco is going to give you a blank stare if you ask about the CAISO curtailment curve.
3. If you are a typical customer, all of this is some discussion only for real geeks with way too much time on their hands. Not that most customers are too capitlist or not enough, its just too much analysis for the general public. And by the way, the stupid SGIP program, which wasn't even that good, was the only think to incentivize private ESS that I was aware of, and so you can't rely on individuals to do it.
4. Finally, the utilities, as we now know, are purely middlemen, with most of the responsibility as to the grid and in the case of IOUs, shareholders, they are not really paying much attention to the environment, its all a PR move for them. They just pass along costs. The only thing that gets their attention is a threat to their profits. Period.
5. CAISO is working to maintain the grid, it has no responsibility, at all, as to what "the grid" actually is.
6. Sadly, academics like Bornstein have the brains to figure this out, but instead they decided to spend two years wondering if anyone was being overcharged. Not a bad study, but sad as this discussion has done a better job than a bunch of tenured professors as to what the overall structure should be.
So its zero for six.
The NBCs are a fraction of the Delivery Charges in the CCA agreements. You could say PG&E messed up and does not charge enough for the NBCs
Similar threads
- Locked
