Electricity, Carbon, and Norway

[wayner]

According to this page http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NY#tabs-4 the bulk comes from NatGas, followed by Nuclear and hydro. But you are right that MN is primarily coal - change the state parameter on that we page to see that.

Anyone know why Hawaii wouldn't have more solar? They have already reached grid parity. The current residential rate is about US$0.30/kWh which is more than Ontario pays for microFIT (adjusted to CAD). And a year ago the price was higher at $0.39. Surely solar is competitive like that, given the economics discussed earlier in this thread. Why doesn't Hawaii have primarily solar with backup from petroleum? But in 2011 only 1% of their power came from solar - source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Hawaii

 

[SmartElectric]

Anyone know why Hawaii wouldn't have more solar?

"Free enterprise" at it's finest. The power company monopoly isn't playing ball. Too much profits on the line.

Just an example:
HECO Continues to Stall Solar Installations in HawaiiAnne Smart

 

[Chrisizzle]

To the moderator, can we separate this conversation on electrical power sources?

I've seen more relevant topics to supercharging get migrated out. I think this is my third day of logging in an not reading anything about superchargers. I now have a superficial knowledge of Norway's oil export though...

 

[mknox]

"Free enterprise" at it's finest. The power company monopoly isn't playing ball. Too much profits on the line.

There's actually a lot more to it than that. I know some HECO folks and integrating renewables is a top priority. Massive amounts of solar is very difficult to integrate into an electricity system for various technical reasons.

 

[glenhurst]

A friend of mine is a consultant to power companies. He was describing how they have lots of state and federal regulations they have to meet, they're limited by law in the rates they can charge customers, they're limited by law in how much profit they can make, they get fined for any outages, and so on. The primary goal is stability and reliability, and by and large they succeed at that. But that whole setup ends up being the antithesis of an environment where innovation can happen quickly. The risks of trying new stuff are often just too great.

 

[mknox]

A friend of mine is a consultant to power companies. He was describing how they have lots of state and federal regulations they have to meet, they're limited by law in the rates they can charge customers, they're limited by law in how much profit they can make, they get fined for any outages, and so on. The primary goal is stability and reliability, and by and large they succeed at that. But that whole setup ends up being the antithesis of an environment where innovation can happen quickly. The risks of trying new stuff are often just too great.

This is precisely how it works in Ontario, Canada too. Utilities are "natural monopolies" and I don't think it is unreasonable to see heavy regulation. Ontario has a regulated rate of return to the shareholder, regulated rates, regulated performance indicators and such just as you describe.

 

[S'toon]

My province's government seems to actively hate "being green." They've actually stopped the green initiatives of the previous administration, and ended green power programs. They seem to hate the environment. It's the strangest thing. Our Premier is as dumb as rocks, his government can't balance the books, but he has a great personality so people like him.

 

[mknox]

My province's government seems to actively hate "being green."

One of the craziest things I've seen your government do was the "knee jerk" reaction to a few improperly installed smart meters. That spilled over into Ontario too. Now any time there is a fire withing 100' of the meter... it must be the smart meter's fault. I can assure you that there were just as many meter base fires before smart meters and they are almost always caused by loose connections or broken lugs within the meter base. When do these lugs break or get loosened up? When a meter is changed. Duh! Smart meters with properly designed rates can be a very good enabling technology for a number of green initiatives.

 

[alexhoff]

And then the question becomes why do they have such great incentives in Norway? Because they're smart. Don't expect any sort of forward thinking especially with regard to environmental or 'green' initiatives from stupid canada/harper. Three provinces have minor EV incentives when in fact every province should have a 50% or so rebate for EV's, solar installations, etc. The thousands of people who've choked to death on GTA smog would've appreciated it.

I read through this thread, and as a Norwegian, you need understand the economics at play in Norway. Oil, Cars, etc are HEAVILY taxed. Automobiles can have 100% tax on them. their is no "incentive" on EVs, there is just significantly less tax. So instead of buying a BMW 320i/d or whatever flavour you prefer, you can afford a Tesla because of different taxation.