U S Falling Behind on Renewable Energy

[Robert.Boston]

Robert, any idea on how new renewable plants compare to new fossil fuel plants on a likely-energy-produced basis, rather than on a possible-power basis? I would think that wind and solar has a lower GWh/yr : MW ratio than fossil fuels, which are probably lower than nuclear?

The term is "net capacity factor", which is the ratio between the expected power production to the theoretical maximum. It depends a great deal on the location, but some decent back-of-the-envelope numbers are:
Nuclear: 90%
Coal: 70%
Gas (Combined-cycle): 80%
Gas (peaker): 20%
Wind, on-shore: 30%
Wind, off-shore: 40%
Solar: 25%
Wave: 50%

I'm quoting these off the cuff, but they give you a fair comparative sense.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Here's the latest regressive step pushing back against competition to oil & gas:
Kansas Legislature mulls slashing renewable energy incentives

Best line of the article: "conservatives in the Legislature who have traditionally opposed tax increases have said renewable energy is one sector they don't mind turning to for revenue."

 

[FlasherZ]

It turns out that my solar project from last year might never see a positive ROI. I received this note this morning:

Dear Rebate Applicant:

We want to provide you with an update on the status of the Solar and Wind Rebate Program.

As you may be aware, in mid-January, facing an extraordinary budget crisis, Governor Rauner issued Executive Order 15-08, placing a spending freeze on all non-essential state agency funds, while a review is conducted by the Governor's Office of Management and Budget (GOMB). During this freeze, the Illinois Office of Energy & Recycling has not been able to process rebate payments.

The GOMB review of our program funds continues, and, at this point, it is not clear when or if Fiscal Year 2015 rebates will be paid. We are sorry for the challenge this may present you and hope to be able to provide final direction regarding the status of your rebate in the very near future. In the meantime, if you have questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

We appreciate your patience and understanding, as the State takes necessary steps to address this unprecedented fiscal crisis.

Without this rebate, the payback in terms of power offset is going to be near 23-25 years, which far exceeds the inverter lifetime and comes near the panels' lifetime. Budgeting a replacement inverter about 15 years out means no return at today's energy pricing. Of course, I could make assumptions about power pricing, but then we have to talk about cost of money, inflation, etc.

Hopefully the state pays out the rebates that had been approved, but the lack of a program in Illinois in future years is going to really stem the growth of renewables here. Power is extremely cheap - Ameren/IP charges ~5-6c per kWh, my co-op charges ~9.5c, which makes it difficult for renewables to pay for themselves in distributed generation.

This also will apply to Tesla rebates ($4,000) in the State of Illinois. I don't blame them, our state is pretty f'ed up right now. Lavish pensions to state employees in an unsustainable program, along with decades of runaway spending have left the state in the worst economic condition of any state despite citizens carrying one of the largest combined tax burdens in the country. It sucks that I might have to eat the 25% incentive I was expecting, but we have to put the state on a better course than we've had over the past couple of decades.

 

[wayner]

Some of the points made in the original article are not that well thought out. Sure Japan and Europe have extensive high speed rail networks but they have a high population density that can support such trains. Here in North American the density is way lower and high speed train travel would be prohibitively expensive outside of a few corridors like Boston to Washington DC.

There is also the point made in one of the early posts - when you have to build new electrical generating capacity then it makes sense to build renewables and the econoimc breakeven is much lower. But when you have an already constructed power plant it makes much less sense to shut that plant down when it is perfectly good from an economic perspective, particularly when the generating companies are privately owned and not government owned corporations like in some of Europe and in parts of Canada.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Some of the points made in the original article are not that well thought out. Sure Japan and Europe have extensive high speed rail networks but they have a high population density that can support such trains. Here in North American the density is way lower and high speed train travel would be prohibitively expensive outside of a few corridors like Boston to Washington DC.

There is also the point made in one of the early posts - when you have to build new electrical generating capacity then it makes sense to build renewables and the econoimc breakeven is much lower. But when you have an already constructed power plant it makes much less sense to shut that plant down when it is perfectly good from an economic perspective, particularly when the generating companies are privately owned and not government owned corporations like in some of Europe and in parts of Canada.

These are both very fair observations. Regarding the trains, high-speed inter-city rail is most effective when paired with excellent intra-city public transit. When I travel for business in Europe, I rarely rent a car because all the cities have good public transit. Not so in many large US cities, like Houston and LA. Not only does good public transit in a city make it possible to get around without a car, but it also focuses development in areas served by public transit. Washington, DC is a great example of this, with mini-cities developing around many of the Metro stations. So high-speed rail without local transit still leaves many people driving, either the whole distance or renting at the destination.

Re power plant closures, I don't think anyone in the industry seriously thinks we'll be shutting down relatively new, efficient fossil-fired generation to make way for renewables. There is a LOT of older generation in the US fleet, though, that will be retiring soon for basic economic reasons: they aren't earning enough money to cover operations and maintenance, they face big capex projects to comply with new environmental regulations, or both. I know of a lot of power plants that are informally on a "run'm into the ground" mode, i.e. the owner will keep operating them until something big breaks. (Not unlike how many people treat old automobiles.) The real question is, what new power generation is replacing these retiring plants, as well as meeting growing energy demands?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Some of the points made in the original article are not that well thought out. Sure Japan and Europe have extensive high speed rail networks but they have a high population density that can support such trains. Here in North American the density is way lower and high speed train travel would be prohibitively expensive outside of a few corridors like Boston to Washington DC.

I read that often, but I think that the density argument is actually somewhat bogus. In some ways the USA is better suited to high-speed rail because it has groups of large cities that are separated by significant distances, and the cost of land between the cities can be relatively low.

What really makes high-speed rail work better in other countries is having policies, including comprehensive public transportation and fuel taxation that makes high-speed rail usable and encourages its use.

 

[FlasherZ]

Some good news today:

The Illinois Energy and Recycling Office of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (“DCEO”) has reviewed the documentation in support of your project, which you submitted for the Fiscal Year 2015 Solar and Wind Rebate Program. I am pleased to inform you that DCEO will be processing for payment the completed rebate documentation that you submitted, and the rebate will be forthcoming. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

So it appears that the state may still process the applications that it currently has, and then shut the program down. I don't know if this means that the EV rebates will be paid, but I was pleasantly surprised to see this news (otherwise, losing $10k was a big problem for me). Now I just have to hope the check clears.