The affordability debate needs less ideology and more math. Wind and solar can indeed lower wholesale costs in the right geographies, but without firm, clean power to back them up, consumers end up paying more for storage, gas peakers, and grid redundancy. Germany’s experience proves that sequencing matters: retiring nuclear before fossil fuels locked in higher prices and emissions, besides causing unnecessary deaths. The cheapest electricity systems over time will be those that pair renewables and nuclear to drive fossil fuels off the grid—reliably and permanently.
Also, we do need to start having more concrete conversations about electricty: How much electricity ? For what? The energy requirements for smelting aluminum are very different than those of street lights and for lamps for domestic users.
A thought provoking article, So here's a couple of thoughts.
If your high tech computerized solid state energy system, is Stupider than a Lump of Rotating Iron, you're doing it wrong. Solar, wind and grid support equipment are technically capable of turning on a dime, accessing information from far off realms, using all the calculus and math known to man and AI. Yet they are making the grid more fragile and expensive for rate payers. What's up?
Stop writing Paeans to the Altar of the Wise Spinning Generator! A ton of steel on bearings is not the smartest thing ever.
There are companies like Apparent.com in California, which have demonstrated the tech to make solar and battery systems, even houses and VTG, actively support grid stability. 10,000 solar panels can pretend to be a spinning generator, and allow a grid operator to control them to protect the grid thru SCADA, just like grandpa's giant spinning generator. These solid state technologies are proven and installed spottily throughout California, Hawaii and Texas, and provide economic value to their owners. But they have been blocked from widespread adoption across the grid, because that would save billions per month to ratepayers, costing utilities some fraction of that. Moving money uphill to Wall Street is the system's default goal, absent leadership that could somehow overpower lobbying.
The utility industry says "We can't afford that-- it's Too Cheap!", and our captured regulatory system says "Yes Sir! Please keep that revolving door spinning, Sir.".
The fossil fuel cartel makes a couple of questionable claims. "We are the free market! Don't mess with the free market! We will optimize you!" Sounds nice but it's a bit naive. A cartel is the opposite of a free market. Wall Street's speculators optimize for their short term gain. Rent takers all over the system get govt protection as they divert activity to their properties. That's why a train that would cost $6 Billion in northern Europe, or $8 Billion in mountainous Taiwan, is slated to cost $125 Billion in California. Rent-takers and their Regulators Rejoice!
California has a casino called CAISO where speculators gather every afternoon to bet on when clouds will quench wind and solar farms. Frackers sell wee bits of gas at fabulous prices when Solar takes the day off around 4:20 pm, saving us from the manufactured emergency. You can watch the excitement on the App, "Iso Today", which shows spot prices at every big substation in California, real time. Unfortunately they omit Nuclear, the Party Pooper. Speculators can't bet against nuclear's 95% availability, downtime scheduled years in advance. Nuclear energy cuts down costs for consumers but is bad for fossil generators and utilities.
Never assume you can judge the value of a technology by what our Wall Street driven system decides to do with it. With leadership, advanced grid controls and nuclear would be widely implemented.
Don't assume the "Grid Modelers" hired by well-endowed institutions will ever like the look of something that would damage revenue for their employers. They are paid the big bucks to keep the profits stable, not the power grid. To actually fix our grid we should have more smart adaptive controls. Unfortunately no one can predict what happens in a complex system. If we insist on calculus models predicting what might happen, we will not advance beyond 1970's linear technology that could plausibly be modeled. We need less prophecy. More engineering! More adaptive system!
Great discussion. I have one demurrer: you say, "Increased spending on distribution, unlike increased spending on transmission, is not plausibly related to increases in utility-scale renewable share generation". However, in New York, nearly every large-scale renewable energy project requires the local utility to upgrade distribution lines, often a major source of delay in reaching the operational phase. In notices to ratepayers regarding requested rate increases, utilities consistently cite these costs as a substantial component of the increase. Indeed, these notices have spurred a backlash against large-scale renewables in New York that is broader (and different) than local opposition to siting projects.
Great job pointing out many of the factors contributing to cost. Would be interested to understand how how subsidies (taxpayer cost), operating costs/lifetime, and externalities such as land use add to costs (among others). Getting to accurate net cost is truly a challenge.
Good to see studies that attempt to include all the many contributions to electricity costs. I would like to see the above analysis applied to European countries and the high costs of electricity for countries like Germany and Britain that have mandated and employed renewables, increasing electricity costs and hurting their manufacturing competitiveness. What might be the solution to their high costs of electricity.
The affordability debate needs less ideology and more math. Wind and solar can indeed lower wholesale costs in the right geographies, but without firm, clean power to back them up, consumers end up paying more for storage, gas peakers, and grid redundancy. Germany’s experience proves that sequencing matters: retiring nuclear before fossil fuels locked in higher prices and emissions, besides causing unnecessary deaths. The cheapest electricity systems over time will be those that pair renewables and nuclear to drive fossil fuels off the grid—reliably and permanently.
Also, we do need to start having more concrete conversations about electricty: How much electricity ? For what? The energy requirements for smelting aluminum are very different than those of street lights and for lamps for domestic users.
A thought provoking article, So here's a couple of thoughts.
If your high tech computerized solid state energy system, is Stupider than a Lump of Rotating Iron, you're doing it wrong. Solar, wind and grid support equipment are technically capable of turning on a dime, accessing information from far off realms, using all the calculus and math known to man and AI. Yet they are making the grid more fragile and expensive for rate payers. What's up?
Stop writing Paeans to the Altar of the Wise Spinning Generator! A ton of steel on bearings is not the smartest thing ever.
There are companies like Apparent.com in California, which have demonstrated the tech to make solar and battery systems, even houses and VTG, actively support grid stability. 10,000 solar panels can pretend to be a spinning generator, and allow a grid operator to control them to protect the grid thru SCADA, just like grandpa's giant spinning generator. These solid state technologies are proven and installed spottily throughout California, Hawaii and Texas, and provide economic value to their owners. But they have been blocked from widespread adoption across the grid, because that would save billions per month to ratepayers, costing utilities some fraction of that. Moving money uphill to Wall Street is the system's default goal, absent leadership that could somehow overpower lobbying.
The utility industry says "We can't afford that-- it's Too Cheap!", and our captured regulatory system says "Yes Sir! Please keep that revolving door spinning, Sir.".
The fossil fuel cartel makes a couple of questionable claims. "We are the free market! Don't mess with the free market! We will optimize you!" Sounds nice but it's a bit naive. A cartel is the opposite of a free market. Wall Street's speculators optimize for their short term gain. Rent takers all over the system get govt protection as they divert activity to their properties. That's why a train that would cost $6 Billion in northern Europe, or $8 Billion in mountainous Taiwan, is slated to cost $125 Billion in California. Rent-takers and their Regulators Rejoice!
California has a casino called CAISO where speculators gather every afternoon to bet on when clouds will quench wind and solar farms. Frackers sell wee bits of gas at fabulous prices when Solar takes the day off around 4:20 pm, saving us from the manufactured emergency. You can watch the excitement on the App, "Iso Today", which shows spot prices at every big substation in California, real time. Unfortunately they omit Nuclear, the Party Pooper. Speculators can't bet against nuclear's 95% availability, downtime scheduled years in advance. Nuclear energy cuts down costs for consumers but is bad for fossil generators and utilities.
Never assume you can judge the value of a technology by what our Wall Street driven system decides to do with it. With leadership, advanced grid controls and nuclear would be widely implemented.
Don't assume the "Grid Modelers" hired by well-endowed institutions will ever like the look of something that would damage revenue for their employers. They are paid the big bucks to keep the profits stable, not the power grid. To actually fix our grid we should have more smart adaptive controls. Unfortunately no one can predict what happens in a complex system. If we insist on calculus models predicting what might happen, we will not advance beyond 1970's linear technology that could plausibly be modeled. We need less prophecy. More engineering! More adaptive system!
Great discussion. I have one demurrer: you say, "Increased spending on distribution, unlike increased spending on transmission, is not plausibly related to increases in utility-scale renewable share generation". However, in New York, nearly every large-scale renewable energy project requires the local utility to upgrade distribution lines, often a major source of delay in reaching the operational phase. In notices to ratepayers regarding requested rate increases, utilities consistently cite these costs as a substantial component of the increase. Indeed, these notices have spurred a backlash against large-scale renewables in New York that is broader (and different) than local opposition to siting projects.
Great job pointing out many of the factors contributing to cost. Would be interested to understand how how subsidies (taxpayer cost), operating costs/lifetime, and externalities such as land use add to costs (among others). Getting to accurate net cost is truly a challenge.
Good to see studies that attempt to include all the many contributions to electricity costs. I would like to see the above analysis applied to European countries and the high costs of electricity for countries like Germany and Britain that have mandated and employed renewables, increasing electricity costs and hurting their manufacturing competitiveness. What might be the solution to their high costs of electricity.