Discussion on:

Designing the grid for renewables

loving design

Nobody, least of all power utilities, has ever said that you have to have 100% conventional power as backup for renewables. In fact, most utilities believe that you can get by with about 20% renewables without having to maintain a lot of idle conventional capacity. They can do this using the excess production capacity they already have for plants going down, peak demand periods, etc. Beyond that, you have to start paying for keeping conventional power plants idle as backup. So the real argument isn't that you can't run your economy on 100% renewables at least part of the time, but at what cost.

Mr. Neider's article points out that Germany is around 14% renewables. In fact, 29 US states such as California (33% by 2020) and Colorado (30% by 2020) are currently under state-imposed mandates to provide a certain minimum of renewables. Xcel even believes that they are ahead of schedule in Colorado (see http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_18061499 ).

With current technology, providing renewable power at these levels will require maintaining a lot of idle conventional power as backup. This means added expense, which will be charged to customers. On top of that, new transmission lines must be run to wind and PV sites. And there's the simple fact that renewables still cost more per KWH than natural gas. The current Federal subsidy for wind, around 2.2 cents per KWH, is about what it costs to produce a KWH with natural gas (this doesn't include transmission and other overhead). It's so bad that in 2010, states with renewable mandates have electric costs that are 32% higher than non-renewable states (see the Manhattan Institute study referenced below).

In Colorado, Xcel lets customers choose to go on 100% wind if they want. The cost? In 2010, it was 2.16 cents per KWH -- ABOVE the full retail rate ( http://www.xcelenergy.com/Save_Money_&_Energy/For_Your_Home/Windsource/Windsource_for_Residences_-_CO_-_Pricing_Terms_and_Conditions ). Of course, the full retail rate in Colorado already includes the price of meeting the 2020 renewable mandate.

Mr. Neider optimistically says that somehow we will figure out grid optimization and storage issues. But while the power industry is hard at work on these issues, they still have no satisfactory answers. We still have no cheap way to store intermittent power from renewables, for example. Because electric generation is so critical to our economy, it would be folly to bet our future on technologies that have yet to invented.

The study by the Manhattan Institute provides details ( http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/eper_10.htm ). I should point out that while they compare renewables to coal, the country is moving to natural gas which is now even cheaper than coal.

Those are like comparing apples to oranges. We have states that are nearly as large and far more complex than the EU countries. An outage incidence per square mile/kilometer comparison or per line length would be appropriate.

... that as many states are making their plans to mandate renewable usage, many of America's "visionary" corporate leaders are planning for self-contained redundant power supplies for their facilities. Clearly, they don't have as much confidence in this paradigm as Chris does.

As I've said before, we're putting the cart before the ox; we need to be investing in R&D on storage technologies before plunging large portions of our country into darkness.

In land area, Germany is slightly smaller than Montana. 137,847 square miles compared to 147,046 square miles. Population Germany = 81.1 million. US population = 311 million.

Land area entire EU = 1,707,787 sq miles. US = 3,618,780 sq miles.

Many of the prime areas for wind and solar power generation in the US are farther away from the population centers than any situation Germany or the entire EU would ever encounter.

The level of difficulty with renewable power grid logistics encountered in Germany or the entire EU has little to compare with the US.

http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2011/01/27/the-economics-of-wind-power/

Here is a simple yes or no question for Chris Nelder and Craig Morris - is Germany building a fleet of new coal fired powered plants or not?

Here in the USA, new coal plants are essentially DOA - killed by cleaner, cheaper, fracked shale gas. In Europe, where they refuse to frack the shale (apparently because of a scary HBO movie) they have no cheap shale gas. Thus, their choice seems to be nuclear (France) or coal (Germany).

I would be a lot more impressed by Germany if they truly were replacing nuclear with renewables. But that doesn't appear to be what they are doing at all. Instead, they are replacing nuclear with coal. How do we know this? Because they are engaging in a massive build out of coal fired plants.

That was the gist of James Conca's article. He was lamenting the idiocy of Germany's great leap backward, to the fuel of the 19th century - coal.

Perhaps Craig Morris and Chris Nelder should visit the new coal fired plant near Cologne. It seems these two gentlemen believe this plant doesn't exist, or that it is merely emitting aromatic fragrances.

Solar PV and windmills are nice enough, but if they could get the job done, than Germany wouldn't be building coal plants. Germany is an abject example of the failure of the Green movement, not of it's success, and the new coal fleet coming on-line is proof of this.

There are Gas Fracking pilots in the UK near Blackpool. Unfortunately they made an arse of it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17726538

it's not really an environmentally responsible technology, but it's cheap so bugger the environment.

yep, a few pilots, that will get your natural gas prices below $4.

I like Europe, but high oil and gas prices are a big part of her problem, and they're not going to fix themselves.

A back-of-an-envelope calculation indicates that if just 16-18% of U.S. homes were energy independent-generating their own power in sufficient quantity for personal use-(equivalent to 10 times ALL the presently installed PV systems in the U.S.-that their "grid feedback" -the redistribution of excess solar and wind power from home-based systems during periods of excess production over consumption- would supply a lot of daytime peak-commercial and government needs. As home-office-based telecommuting continues to grow, this will become less true,but then the power consumption needs of the homes, including home offices, would be mostly self-supplied. This also makes it even more important to rethink and rebuild the energy infrastructure to move the power transmission infrastructure underground, saving transmission losses everyday, but saving also much of the downtime incurred from weather-driven grid interruptions, some $71 Billion (up to $250 Billion by some estimates). By some other estimates doing the same thing for 20% of the roof space of commercial, retail, and government structures would add to capacity, without additional power-generation plant structures.

I despair at people in Texas whining about how much it costs to power their A/C, whilst the sun beats down at 100F+ on the roof of their house without any Solar panels.

One could easily power the other.

Ikea and Walmart are doing it, as reported on this site.....

I live in Europe, and is this article all wrong. Manufacturing companies are installing generators to run full time because of the instability of the grid, power fluxes causes machinery to shut down ruining what ever product is being produced, such as rolled aluminum. \the \north \sea wind generators are not connected to the shore, apparently a problem needed to be solved by the government. The grid in Germany does not have enough capacity to carry the electricity from the North Sea area to southern Germany, the major manufacturing area. Where will the money come from to upgrade the system? Do more research when you write an article, info is available in English from German magazines.

Do you have some links for this?

It's sad to see the Greens destroy the economy of Europe. It is a fun place, I hope the turn to reason before it's too late.

Questionable assertion they it 'reduces costs'.

In the UK there is a levy on every electric bill which is converted into a subsidy for Wind/Wave/Tidal/Solar/Hydro/Geothermal schemes. Most of which due to the variable nature of them, are unable to supply a base load, or generate at the wrong time.

Wind - Only when it blows, and overnight generated electricity is not really needed much and is wasted
Solar - UK not a great place for Sun - It's not Texas ! It will only ever be small scale here
Wave - Due to government policies previously, under exploited
Tidal - Due to government policies previously, under exploited
Geothermal - Due to government policies, under exploited, though not as suited as say Iceland to this
Hydro - Ideally suited to the UK, but the greens don;t like as destroys large area's for the reservoirs. Indeed Wind and Hydro could work very well together with wasted overnight wind re-pumping water back into the reservoir for re-generation in the day.


As all Carbon sources burn and generate CO2, and carbon capture is crackpot mad scientist territory/technology, this is not a go-er.

Renewable do have their place, but extra safe modern Nuclear is the only solution which can provide the huge base-load without costly carbon based fuels fuel, and generating CO2 - though off-setting CO2 emissions with trillions of tree's being planted (Nature's Carbon Capture device) seems conspicuously absent as a solution

Tidal - Yes
Wave - Limited
Wind - Limited, where windy
Hydro - Yes
Nuclear - Yes, as base load
Carbon fueled oil/gas/coal - Yes, with Carbon capture via tree's

Don;t forget global energy demands will vastly increase over the next few decades, so merely replacing current consumption with Renewable s does not answer this problem - Why China is building a new Coal-fired power station every month, according to reports.

I think some commenters wish to discredit the Germans. I'll be visiting Dusseldorf again next month. On my visit last year, I rode by an inoperative windwill . When I asked why it wasn't spinning, my 19 year old guide's answer was precise and simple, "we don't need the extra capacity now, so they turn them off to save mechanical wear on the turbine". I have never experienced lights dimming or an outage during a half dozen stays in Germany. They are not asleep at the wheel like our average consumer citizen. The Germans aren't waiting for our approval but taking action while we talk about it.

In the US, my vote is for self containment, self sustainability and shared overcapacity. I foresee 180 Million 20KV cells adding to the big NATIONAL battery. Series or Parallel combinations anyone? Ooops! Need to replace an inverter. No Worries. Run a cord over to Neighbor Bob's Inverter.

Profit and Greed supersede intelligence in this country of well oiled marketing machines and PACs. Look to Iceland for permanent sustainability. They survived the Great Financial Crisis. They generate their hot water and electricity from geothermal. Pretty good tasting water too!

The 12.3 Km deep bore hole in Russia yielded a temperature of 356 degrees F. I assume that's a constant being so close to the mantle. Now, if memory serves, water boils at 212 F. Ethyl or Methyl Alcohol at about room temperature. Too bad the clowns at NASA or EIA-DOE haven't created a down-hole, self contained, liquid to-gas-to-liquid tethered AC generator unit to power the crib with. Mine that heat Baby! There's enough to go around.

So it's not the grid nor the technology. It's the peoples' thinking that has got to change.

Be sure to visit that new coal plant near Cologne. Let us know how it smells.

"we don't need the extra capacity now, so they turn them off to save mechanical wear on the turbine".

So they build these complex and expensive machines, and yet they still rely upon the old technology unless it's a peak load situation. That's completely ass-backwards from what it should be.

It's another example of how deploying windmills and solar is a waste until we have a storage technology to accommodate them.

It is a mad world when idle infrastructure is taken as a sign positive sign.

The point of the windmill is for it to generate electricity. Apparently they are so difficult to integrate they often sit idle ... and essentially become expensive modern art. You get the eyesore but not the electricity.

The point of the windmill is to generate "green" energy, and yet it sits idle while the traditional "brown" infrastructure continues to do the real work.

Epic fail.

The public, like me, is mostly agnostic about where the energy comes from. There is a fair bit of agreement that coal fired power is truly odious, and should be phased out.

And yet, here is Germany embarking on a program to build a new fleet of coal fired power plants! And here is Mr. Nelder (and his, gratefully dwindling, entourage) cheerleading Germany, because they have a large fleet of mostly idle windmills greenwashing their newfound love of coal!

It is all too absurd to figure out exactly how bad it is. Like the song from the Sopranos says, "it's bad, you know".

..."It's better to look good that the feel good".

That is what the bulk of our green policy is.

Every time Chris Nelder makes a post out come the naysayers who say "Ooh, it's too expensive" or "It can't work in the real world". If we only listened to people like that there would never be any progress in the world. Rather than live in the past we should look to the future and figure out what we can do to transform our civilization into something that isn't eating up the world at an unsustainable rate that will impoverish our posterity.

When Henry Ford was puttering around in his first horseless carriage, we didn't have a government proposing to fund and build an interstate highway system or gas stations on every corner. That didn't happen until the technology was proven and accepted.

Yes, and there were people like McMurtry around saying it would never work and it scared the horses and it was too expensive.

Renewable power, particularly solar and wind are proven technologies. They are a bit expensive compared to fossil fuel power sources as long as you ignore the cost of pollution and environmental degradation from their acquisition and use. How long did it take to build out the current power supply system? Won't it take a similar amount of time to build out the renewable power supply system?

Expensive windmills sitting idle while the old grid continues does the real work?

Epic fail.