Also, for doubters of whether there was spare capacity to keep TX lights on were TX to have been tied, to lets say Western grid, think about it, were all generation maxed out, like in mid summer? I doubt it as I do not think I got a notice to turn down my heat or save electricity. Plenty of capacity and TX just doubles down on stupidity. But I guess the state believes that 300 poor people's lives are just a blip and not worth their consideration.
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Prediction: Coal has fallen. Nuclear is next then Oil.
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Also, for doubters of whether there was spare capacity to keep TX lights on were TX to have been tied, to lets say Western grid, think about it, were all generation maxed out, like in mid summer? I doubt it as I do not think I got a notice to turn down my heat or save electricity. Plenty of capacity and TX just doubles down on stupidity. But I guess the state believes that 300 poor people's lives are just a blip and not worth their consideration.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Cumulative wind, solar and energy storage capacity hit 200,000 megawatts, which is equivalent to 200 gigawatts. Solar power was also up 19%, energy storage was up 196% and wind was down 25% compared to the previous year.2% of the way thereBy 2070 TX can EASILY handle a 2/21 type event with no gas reserves. What do they do between now and then? Even if they accelerate and can get there by 2030 should they just roll the dice for 8 years? Or spend a few billion to ensure GW are there when GW are needed?
Yes. For the entire US. TX alone would need >300GW. SPP assigns a capacity value of ~17% to wind. So if you have 10GW of wind you get 2GW of capacity value. If TX wanted 70GW of firm capacity they would need ~400GW of wind.
It's a YUGE risk to rely on renewables to keep the lights on. That's why I keep repeating that's not their job. Even if TX had 700GW of wind. Why the aversion to having 70GW of gas turbines there if needed? Is $1B/yr in O&M really that significant compared to a $200B disaster? It's not like they're using any fuel just sitting there. It's like the generator that's tucked away in a garage but with a slightly more intense maintenance schedule.
ELCC is effective load carrying capacity.
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mspohr
Well-Known Member
EIA says Texas electricity generation maximum capacity in summer is 128 GW (2020) so not quite as much as your >300 gW.
So.... TX should plan to only have 128GW when there's enough wind or solar to produce 128GW? That's what the ELCC is. Effective Load Carrying Capacity. 300GW of wind can only be counted on to give you ~42GW... even then it's a gamble. Renewables are really good at giving GWh/yr. Not so good at giving GW at a specific time. That's not their job. Why this instance on using a screwdriver as a hammer? Use a hammer as a hammer. Use Gas Turbines to provide GW when needed if you need it. Use renewables to produce GWh/yr when there's wind or sun.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
No I didn't...
It's going to be years before there's enough surplus renewables to time-shift. What should TX do until then?
It's just math. If you have $1M do you
- Invest in 1MW of wind reducing CO2 emissions by 4,000 tons/yr
- Invest in 3MWh of storage to retire 1MW of gas increasing CO2 emissions by 40 tons/yr due to round trip losses
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mspohr
Well-Known Member
I'm sure you are aware that there is a large daily variation in renewable production and a large daily variation in demand.
There is a daily surplus of renewables... every day at predictible times. Best to put that surplus in a battery for times the demand increases and production decreases.
A battery can respond to changes in demand and production in milliseconds... unlike fossil fuel plants which take hours or days so are useless for responding to demand changes.
Ok, sure, it's just math. But that's only one side of it. There is the climate side as well, where doing it solely by the books without debt does nothing for us. People, companies, nations, continually go into debt to get products now, so adding whatever amount of renewables we need now (over the next 10 years) to starve off the worst is a better plan than "by the math".
???? Yeah.... that's the problem... 99% of the time ~128GW of renewables and 500GWh of storage is is fine. It's the 1% that the 70GW of gas turbines is for. I'm not advocating for thermal generation. I started an entire thread about how thermal generation is obsolete. A gas turbine takes < 5 minutes to go from cold steel to 100%. They're perfect for this use case.
???? The climate side IS the math....
4,000 tons of CO2 reduced vs 40 ton per year increase.... which would you rather invest $1M in?
pv magazine USA: LA could soon be home to the nation's largest green hydrogen infrastructure system.
pv-magazine-usa.com
LA could soon be home to the nation’s largest green hydrogen infrastructure system
Southern California Gas Company is submitting an application to build a 10 to 20GW electrolyzer and 25 to 35GW of new and curtailed wind and solar, along with 2GW of energy storage, to deliver green hydrogen to the Los Angeles Basin.
pv-magazine-usa.com
pv magazine USA: LA could soon be home to the nation's largest green hydrogen infrastructure system.
LA could soon be home to the nation’s largest green hydrogen infrastructure system
Southern California Gas Company is submitting an application to build a 10 to 20GW electrolyzer and 25 to 35GW of new and curtailed wind and solar, along with 2GW of energy storage, to deliver green hydrogen to the Los Angeles Basin.
That's another component too. It makes a lot more sense shift demand to absorb surplus renewables than to invest in storage. H2 production represents ~600TWh of flexible demand... and that number is likely to rise as we use H2 for other purposes such as steel production. Total renewable production is currently ~400TWh. We're decades away from gas capacity retirement making any sense.
BGR: Revolutionary new solar panels don’t need sunlight to generate energy.
bgr.com
UV light also has the most energy.
Revolutionary new solar panels don’t need sunlight to generate energy
New solar panels that don't need sunlight have been invented and could revolutionize the green energy initiative.
bgr.com
UV light also has the most energy.
It's already happening.
Texas led the country in new renewable energy projects last year
Republicans for decades have overseen the energy sector in Texas, which still ranks 10th in the country for fossil fuel consumption.www.cnbc.com
Texas installed 7,352 megawatts of new wind, solar and energy installation projects in 2021, significantly outpacing California, which installed 2,697 megawatts of storage projects. Oklahoma, Florida and New Mexico were the other top producing states.
Texas also surpassed other states in the amount of storage it has under construction or in advanced development, reaching nearly 20,000 megawatts, followed by California at nearly 14,000 megawatt
Cumulative wind, solar and energy storage capacity hit 200,000 megawatts, which is equivalent to 200 gigawatts. Solar power was also up 19%, energy storage was up 196% and wind was down 25% compared to the previous year.
In the cleanpower report that the CNBC article cited as their source: U.S. surpasses 200 gigawatts of total clean power capacity, but the pace of deployment has slowed according to ACP 4Q report | ACP
"While 27.7 GW is the second largest year on record for combined wind, solar and energy storage installations, it is only 45% of what’s required to stay on track for an emissions-free power sector." ... in 2035
Which means we're NOT on track to have enough renewables and storage in place to be zero-emissions by 2035. And as eevee-fan has pointed out, the issue is supply, more specifically battery supply. You can't buy what's not available.
I can understand winterization for the immediate future. Longer term, I wonder what you think about the analysis done by Tony Seba and RethinkX?
https://tonyseba.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/RethinkingEnergy2020-2030-LRR.pdf
Rethinking Energy Case Study 2. Texas said:
Those numbers are _huge_, when you consider that global PV manufacturing is only something like 150GW/year at the moment.
One of my concerns with Tony Seba's article is the overly optimistic battery cost improvement forecast and that it does not account for seasonal/weather system grid impacts relating to heat pumps for home/commercial air/water heating and EV demand.
He anticipates battery costs will improve 80% in the next 10 years. Deeply wish for that to happen, but I am not seeing any realistic trend near that. For example, 3 years ago we took bids for home PowerWalls. The price has not gone down during that time. Meanwhile, in New England, he models 89 average demand hours for battery storage. That is huge, and not economically feasible compared to keeping some spare NG generating power capacity on hand.
Peak electricity demand on a power and energy basis will flip seasonally and shift further into the night as homes transition to heat pump heating of air and water. Most homes in the U.S. use significantly more energy to heat their air/water than cool their homes in the summer.
I believe strongly on getting the grid to maximum solar/wind renewables. On an energy basis we can get to ~100% economically. But getting there 100% on a generation capacity basis is much more expensive than some want to consider. It's not because of solar or wind, but because of edge case scenarios as we have discussed recently in this thread.
Consider a week+ long regional winter system with frigid temperatures, low wind speeds, heat pumps running full throttle, EVs still needing charging...
Vehicle to grid, if it hopefully takes off, will help peak shaving on a hourly/daily basis. But this will not be such an asset during a week+ of frigid temperatures and low wind production where batteries would be drawn down rapidly.
He anticipates battery costs will improve 80% in the next 10 years. Deeply wish for that to happen, but I am not seeing any realistic trend near that. For example, 3 years ago we took bids for home PowerWalls. The price has not gone down during that time. Meanwhile, in New England, he models 89 average demand hours for battery storage. That is huge, and not economically feasible compared to keeping some spare NG generating power capacity on hand.
Peak electricity demand on a power and energy basis will flip seasonally and shift further into the night as homes transition to heat pump heating of air and water. Most homes in the U.S. use significantly more energy to heat their air/water than cool their homes in the summer.
I believe strongly on getting the grid to maximum solar/wind renewables. On an energy basis we can get to ~100% economically. But getting there 100% on a generation capacity basis is much more expensive than some want to consider. It's not because of solar or wind, but because of edge case scenarios as we have discussed recently in this thread.
Consider a week+ long regional winter system with frigid temperatures, low wind speeds, heat pumps running full throttle, EVs still needing charging...
Vehicle to grid, if it hopefully takes off, will help peak shaving on a hourly/daily basis. But this will not be such an asset during a week+ of frigid temperatures and low wind production where batteries would be drawn down rapidly.
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mspohr
Well-Known Member
» It is both physically possible and economically affordable to meet 100% of electricity demand with the combination of solar, wind, and batteries (SWB) by 2030 across the entire continental United States as well as the overwhelming majority of other populated regions of the world. »
The Clean Energy U-Curve captures the tradeoff relationship between electricity generation and energy storage, and is a valuable tool for both understanding how 100% SWB is achievable as well as identifying the optimal mix of generation and storage capacity in any given region. »
Lowest cost 100% SWB systems will typically require just 35-90 average demand hours of battery energy storage, depending on regional climate and geography. »
100% SWB will provide the cheapest possible electricity system by 2030 – far less expensive than new conventional power plants, and in many cases less expensive than continuing to operate existing coal, gas, or nuclear power plants.
Here are the specifics on pg 37.
Now let's transplant that to Feb 10 - 18 2021 and see how long the lights stay on...
Solar and Wind were at ~20% due to weather. So ~275GWh/day from 362GW of solar and 164GWh/day from 40GW of wind. Let's round that up to 500GWh/day to make the math easier.
ERCOT was using on average >1000GWh/day for those 8 days. So.... that 2TWh battery is dead and the lights are out by Monday and you have rolling blackouts for another ~3 days.
This would probably be fine 99% of the time. Maybe even 99.9% of the time. You need gas turbines to chase the 9s to 99.9999%. And who's to say this was a worst case scenario? It only takes ~1" of snow to bring solar output to 0%. What if it had snowed over large parts of TX on 2/19?
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