Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

billvon said:

Institurional /corporate investors do not expect to have a 30 year return on their capital.

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Correct. Fortunately, payback times for solar are now below that, as I demonstrated above.

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i think i corrected your figures bill.
do you dispute the build cost of $385m ?
do you dispute the income/turnover of $15m ? ( before costs)

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/after-the-flashy-announcement-heres-whats-next-for-the-snowy-hydro-expansion-20170426-gvsil2.html

All very exciting and a great way to store energy at a grid-scale.

Dont you just love it when our Politicians and "spokesmen" jump on a project..
A 2GW pumped hydro plant for $2bn Au and some "energy Advisor spokesman" says..

.....According to Price, an energy advisor to the South Australian government, the sums still don't add up. He says Lithium-ion and other emerging battery technologies lose only a fraction as much energy as pumped hydro, cost less, are scalable and can be located wherever they're needed. T

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..do you think he knows the cost of an equivalent 2 GW (output power) of battery for say 10 hrs of capacity, ??

meanwhile...sad news for another option...

...Roughly 1 per cent of Australia's geothermal energy, which is shallower than five kilometres and hotter than 150 degrees, could supply the nation's total energy requirements for 26,000 years, government estimates reveal.
..OR
..The Centre for International Economics, meanwhile, reports that Australia has sufficient geothermal potential to generate electricity for 450 years.

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But...

Geothermal power project closes in SA as technology deemed not financially viable.
.....Energy company Geodynamics closed and remediated the sites of several test wells and generation plants in the Cooper Basin after deciding they were not financially viable.

Before the closure, the company had managed to extract super-heated water from five kilometres below the earth's surface and use it to generate small amounts of electricity.

"The technology worked but unfortunately the cost of implementing the technology and also the cost of delivering the electricity that was produced to a market was just greater than the revenue stream that we could create," Geodynamics chief executive Chris Murray said..

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-30/geothermal-power-plant-closes-deemed-not-financially-viable/7798962
which i find odd as GT is often sighted as the cheapest renewable (??) energy source for power generation.

I think more is known about the use, application and economics of battery storage than geothermal in this country TBH...

Typical stuff ABC Australia put out now, ABC have been slowly over the years being getting more intense on their climate change stuff, I am totally sick of them constantly telling me solar is cheaper than coal but it seems they are taking it up to a new level with climate chance scientists, these "scientists" that are being paid a lot of money to do their work seem to me to appear insecure about keeping their jobs considering the way they talk about "backup moving to cooler region plans" etc, to me its kind of funny..
https://youtu.be/hTkBg7JJBo0

[youtube]hTkBg7JJBo0[/youtube]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-27/climate-scientists-speak-of-their-worst-fears/8631368

South Australia get a lot of days over 40c in summer so its natural they believe climate change doom and the need to do something "now" instead of waiting for a Bill Gates nuclear reactor etc way more then other folks so its a great way to get a window into the future for other states/countries (and have highest power bills in the world).
South Australia will have highest power prices in the world
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/south-australia-will-have-highest-power-prices-in-the-world-after-july-1-increases/news-story/876f9f6cefce23c62395085c6fe0fd9f
Funny thing about the ABC (actually what I enjoy the most about the ABC these days) is they sometimes with great relucantance tell the truth about SA having the most expensive power in the world etc.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-28/sa-has-most-expensive-power-prices-in-the-world/8658434
According to ABC its the fault of just about everything else other than their high use of wind farms, what an amazing coicidence! To think that out of all the states and countries in the world the one with the highest use of wind farms has the highest electricty prices in the world, but its not their fault, amazing coincidences these days in the world of climate change..

The fruits of ABC's effort on all this scare mongering are coming for SA at last (highest power bills isnt enough), as they look at leasing a mega diesel power-station-on-a-boat to get through the summer. Because SA is highly depended on the wind they get most of their electricty via the interstate connector grid via Victorias remaining coal power-stations but its believed there wont be enough to go around this coming summer...
A large-scale temporary power solution is being considered, as South Australia struggles to ensure its energy security.

A 250 MW ship-based power station is under consideration as a solution to the crisis for the Australian state, which has seen a lot of investment in renewable power over recent years, while old fossil stations were retired.
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2017/06/turkish-power-ship-proposed-for-adelaide.html

Its a perfect setup for SA as they can continue to claim how much energy they get just from wind in their state as this boat will technically not be on land so it can't be counted as fossil fuel energy from the state which seems to be a common trick for states that claim high renewable-energy usage.
Queue the political tribe for their baloney point of view on it all! https://youtu.be/S74C-XF9kYY

jonescg said:

I think more is known about the use, application and economics of battery storage than geothermal in this country TBH...

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If. "Mr Price" ..that SA energy advisor,...is any indicator of that knowledge, we are f-*ked !
If we had GT to produce power, we wouldnt need batteries at all.
Batteries may be a tempoart fix, but they are not the permanent solution.

http://ieefa.org/ieefa-asia-indias-electricity-sector-transformation-happening-now/

Just in May 2017 over 18GW of coal generation construction cancelled. Also has some further detail about 'stranded assets', lots of GW scale generation that is no longer capable of the financial returns it was built based on.

TheBeastie said:

I am totally sick of them constantly telling me solar is cheaper than coal

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Terribly sorry reality offends you. SA may very well have the most expensive power, however that's nothing to do with the use of renewables - it's due to a complete lack of vision on the part of your leadership.

Coal is being taxed out of existence like Obama said you can have coal power stations if you like but you will have to pay more tax per Mw to the goverment than what it costs on solar so that's the current trend we see its not what's best truly it's what suits the wallet best, coal is a dying dog as we use it today but there's no reason we can not refine anthracite into graphite then make graphene from it on a micro scale for capacitors and then use more advance methods down the line.
I don't think solar is as clean as we believe or as efficient and capable as lead to believe even though it's a massive improvement over solar of 20 years ago it still requires massive land space, China has built the first solar sea farm and they truly lead the way these days the rest of us are to busy doting the I's and crossing the T's while grumbling with one and other rather than productively learning what the tech really has to offer or what or goverment do to make things more favorable with incentives in their back pocket whether we like it or not or if it is even implementable or not only time will tell what some have said all along we need a mixed bag of fruit and the calorific value of each fruit with it's strengths and weaknesses should always be assessed and considered.

what TheBeastie was sick of was not the retail costs, but the frequent quoting of low "generation" costs for solar power compared to other sources. ( 2-3 C/kWh)
most of those low costs are from project "bids" or proposals such as those in India (4 C/kWh) or Middle East. (2.4 C/kWh)
Whilst actual data from working projects always puts the cost much higher at 10 -15 C/kWh
i have seen no cost analysis that could achieve a cost as low as 2 -3 C/kWh without some serious subsidies being factored in.

With retail prices of solar panels reaching down into the $1.00/watt range, and a watt of panel being able to generate 2000 watt-hours/year in a sunny climate, if the panel lasts 10 years, that's $0.05/kWh generated over that time period. Retail. For a homeowner. Maybe on an industrial scale, specific costs won't be less than half as much, but why would industrial scale installations cost any more per kWh than they'd cost a homeowner? Common sense says they would cost much less.

Hillhater said:

most of those low costs are from project "bids" or proposals such as those in India (4 C/kWh) or Middle East. (2.4 C/kWh)
Whilst actual data from working projects always puts the cost much higher at 10 -15 C/kWh

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Sounds likely you're comparing what the cost was to build a plant in a first world country several years ago to what the projected cost is to build one in a second-world country a few years in the future. Labour rates and infrastructure costs will be different and also given the continuing steep drop in PV panel costs you've probably looking at ~5 years worth of difference in panel cost.

There is plenty of data around for both existing installations and proposed projects ( links in previous posts). But the current base line for utility scale solar is approx $1.30/W , with some projects in cheap labour areas closer to $1.10./W.
That is similar to Chalos figures, and would imply the2-3 C/Wh could recover the initial cost if spread over a 20 yr working life.
BUT... That is not a viable financial investment proposition..! Why would anyone invest ?
A GW plant is going to mean a billion dollar investment. And a simple 5% pa return...less costs , which are not insignificant.
That is not the way commercial investors use their money.. ( think what the same 1 bn in a 5% bond is worth in 20 yrs!)
I suspect utility scale solar is a higher $/W to build than domestic due to ..
Land /site costs ...huge areas of flat land, miles of fencing, access roads, service infrastructure.
Supporting structures , buildings, and foundations needed
Complex controls and high voltage inverters and transformers etc (110 kV distribution ?)

Ianhill said:

even though it's a massive improvement over solar of 20 years ago it still requires massive land space

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Yes, it does. Fortunately it only requires exposure to sunlight. Which means that buildings can be covered with solar with no loss of habitat. Heck, you could cover a small percentage of the roads in the US with a solar roof and reduce accidents and generate all the energy we need. (If that's our goal, which it should not be.)

China has built the first solar sea farm and they truly lead the way these days the rest of us are to busy doting the I's and crossing the T's while grumbling with one and other rather than productively learning what the tech really has to offer . . . .

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?? There are a huge number of trade shows and conferences where solar installers, equipment manufacturers, smart grid experts and utilities come together to productively learn what the tech has to offer. I was just at one such show in San Diego.

or what or goverment do to make things more favorable with incentives in their back pocket whether we like it or not or if it is even implementable or not only time will tell

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Time is telling. In March the US generated 10 percent of its electrical power from wind and solar. California is now generating so much solar that it is giving away the excess to other states.

what some have said all along we need a mixed bag of fruit and the calorific value of each fruit with it's strengths and weaknesses should always be assessed and considered.

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Definitely.

billvon said:

Ianhill said:

China has built the first solar sea farm and they truly lead the way these days the rest of us are to busy doting the I's and crossing the T's while grumbling with one and other rather than productively learning what the tech really has to offer . . . .

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?? There are a huge number of trade shows and conferences where solar installers, equipment manufacturers, smart grid experts and utilities come together to productively learn what the tech has to offer. I was just at one such show in San Diego.

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And all those trade shows have conference sessions on '. . . .Doting the I's and crossing the T's.' That's an enormous part of the offerings. Service companies promising 'TTiitiiiiiT is our middle name.' Which is not to say that the Chinese won't discover that they actually did it all wrong and our slower approach might lead us to learn the lessons cheaply. How much did it cost to build magnetic railways? How much did China spend imitating it? But the more bureaucracy takes charge the less we'll succeed with what we do learn.

billvon said:

Ianhill said:

or what our government do to make things more favorable with incentives in their back pocket whether we like it or not or if it is even implementable or not only time will tell

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Time is telling. In March the US generated 10 percent of its electrical power from wind and solar. California is now generating so much solar that it is giving away the excess to other states.

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Still, the fat lady hasn't sung on all that. To paraphrase John Kerry, 'We actually didn't have the final answer until we did.' So show some respect for the fact that Chaos Theory hasn't even rendered an opinion yet.

Chalo said:

Common sense says they would cost much less.

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But "Common Sense" is just another word for "Unfounded Opinion." Common sense told the colonists that tomatoes grown in the new world would be poisonous and would kill you if you ate one. A man stood in front of a crowd and started eating one he'd grown, women were screaming. . . .

Closer to home, those idiots in 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' insisted in front of the camera that the EV1 would have been cheaper to mass produce, oh of course commons sense told them that. Common sense has no brain, the cost of building them as fast as they did was already well into diminishing returns, building more would have moved them into decay.

If you want to guarantee failure, just use common sense. Works every time.

Uk today was lovely weather and at 8pm well past peak we are using 34gwh with 1gwh solar and 1/2gwh wind and damn do we have some wind turbines lying about so it proves to power the uk with such a dense population renewables alone won't cut it even if every building is draped in solar and wind turbines where it's viable we still would need a top up of some sort for still summer days and short winter months storage will help but there has to be some form of gwh generation that's maintainable for long periods of time.
I hear of a smart grid improving efficency and let's be honest we are very wasteful in many ways but I can't get away from a future powered by fusion that gives us mass energy to see the stars from the most abundant element.
I know many will day been there tryed that failed on a large scale with billions in the bin, but that research has led us to today with small micro reactors working on the boundary of the science and these prototypes are very near working models with testing going on so solar phhhh see you in ten years time when the big boys got serious power to offer and everyone is jumping on that bandwagon.

Dauntless said:

And all those trade shows have conference sessions on '. . . .Doting the I's and crossing the T's.' That's an enormous part of the offerings.

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Less than 25% at the last conference I was at.

At SEIA coming up in September, here's the workshop list:

Quantifying uncertainty in solar radiation measurements
Large-scale PV: Design Considerations and Case Studies
NEC Update
PV System operations and maintenance
Streamlining and Standardizing Due Diligence to Ensure Quality of Pv Power Plants
Expanding Solar Deployment Opportunities in the C&I Sector
Grid Modernization and Solar: What Are the Implications for the Future of Net Metering, Speedier Interconnection, and the Risk of Solar Fees?
Fundamentals of Residential Solar Sales: The Economics and Financial Opportunities
Inspecting PV Systems
The Future of Grid-connected PV: Regulatory Changes
Solar Codes & Standards Annual Workshop

So 11 workshops, 3 of which were regulatory (i.e. "dotting the I's and crossing the T's.") 27%. Hardly "enormous."

Which is not to say that the Chinese won't discover that they actually did it all wrong and our slower approach might lead us to learn the lessons cheaply.

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Yep. Costs are declining and will continue to decline as we learn the lessons that come with building out solar. And those lessons will be promulgated at conferences like the one above.

Still, the fat lady hasn't sung on all that.

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Oh, I'd say she has sung on whether solar (and renewable energy in general) is affordable or not. It is now a significant part of our generation. It will continue to expand.

But "Common Sense" is just another word for "Unfounded Opinion."

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Nope, it's common sense - something a sad number of people lack. It's why the news is full of people doing very stupid things and injuring or killing themselves, for example.

Dauntless said:

Chalo said:

Common sense says they would cost much less.

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But "Common Sense" is just another word for "Unfounded Opinion."

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In this case, it's simply an extension of the observable principle of economy of scale. As Hillhater points out, rent seeking by capitalists might negate whatever savings are to be had through economy of scale.

I'm sorry you're so full of crap that you can't get out of your own way. It must be inconvenient.

At SEIA coming up in September, here's the workshop list:....

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certainly an interesting set of topics, ..are there any reports to be seen after the event ?
Costs :.. Panel/ hardware costs can still reduce, but we have long picked the "low hanging fruit" on that.
A panel spot price of $0.44 C/W was reported earlier with a total installed Utility scale cost of $1.10,.
So ~60% is other costs such as site, labour, construction, etc.
But in our Western world ,.. i dont see lower labour costs being a realistic expectation.
Prices have definitely reduced over the last few years, but i still cannot accept something like the 550MW Topaz plant could be reproduced today for $600m compared to the $2.5 bn it cost in 2014, .!

Hillhater said:

what TheBeastie was sick of was not the retail costs, but the frequent quoting of low "generation" costs for solar power compared to other sources. ( 2-3 C/kWh)
most of those low costs are from project "bids" or proposals such as those in India (4 C/kWh) or Middle East. (2.4 C/kWh)
Whilst actual data from working projects always puts the cost much higher at 10 -15 C/kWh
i have seen no cost analysis that could achieve a cost as low as 2 -3 C/kWh without some serious subsidies being factored in.

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Incorrect, those prices quoted are agreed contracted rates for 20 years (with inflation adjustments included). That figure is what the company bidding be paid for each kwh of power produced from them constructing and maintaining a specific nominal power plant. E.g they're bidding on a 250mw contract, they must build 250mw and must run that with their only income being from the power it produces. Your disbelief of easily verifiable facts doesn't make them untrue. These plants are being constructed now or have already been constructed (this doesn't take many years unlike conventional powers sources). This is not an isolated trend, it's not limited to one specific project or country, it's happening in multiple places and will continue to accelerate for the foreseeable future because we have hit a critical inflection point in a disruptive change. All of the subsidies and preferential treatment for renewable energy up till this point were expressely because of this. With scale comes economy, with economy comes scale until it's self sustaining and exponential in growth. This has taken place many times before with disruptive technological shift.

IN ADDITION to the above dramatic decrease in solar costs, you're going to be seeing dramatic INCREASES in cost base for incumbent producers. Carbon tax, increase in total effective price of coal, direct taxation on pollution produced, societal pressures on removing emitters from occupied areas etc. A lot of these same influence will progressively begin to hit on natural gas as well.

Chalo said:

I'm sorry you're so full of crap that you can't get out of your own way. It must be inconvenient.

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Hey, you're bigger than me, therefore, FULLER. Why would I want to get out of my own way? Noone else does. People have to begged, ORDERED to put me on ignore, but I STILL can't catch up with you and all your volunteers in that regard. When I think of how PROUD you must be. . . .

The basic concept under which we have Economies of Scale also includes DISeconomies of scale. Costs rise at higher volume, for various reasons.

Yeah, I know, common sense tells you that you only need to fling insults and you can defeat the truth. That you'll never be embarrassed by the truth, because you'll just fling more insults. The real life results have really proven the meaning of diseconomy of scale, haven't they?

billvon said:

There are a huge number of trade shows and conferences. . . .

Dauntless said:

And all those trade shows have conference sessions on '. . . .Doting the I's and crossing the T's.' That's an enormous part of the offerings.

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Less than 25% at the last conference I was at.

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25%. That's huge. HUUUUUUUUUUGE!

[youtube]k_mpaF5-SlU[/youtube]

Hillhater said:

A panel spot price of $0.44 C/W was reported earlier with a total installed Utility scale cost of $1.10,.
So ~60% is other costs such as site, labour, construction, etc.

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That seems like it should justify a shift in strategy for solar, from large centralized facilities that must be built from the ground up, to distributed generation from arrays mounted on existing structures. Imagine if it were a condition for permission to build a flat-top big-box store, warehouse, or light industrial building, that the roof have a certain percentage of its area devoted to PV panels. Or if surface level covered parking could only be covered with PVs. Or if, as Mr. Musk suggests, new home construction switches from asphalt shingles to PV tiles. The buildings would be there already, so the net cost for structural support of the panels is taken care of.

Gas turbine generators, diesel generators, etc., tend to be more efficient as they get bigger. But there's no such efficiency benefit for large PV installations, though there are significant transmission losses. It seems obvious to stack solar power collection on top of things we already have, that we don't need the tops of.

Ohbse said:

Hillhater said:

what TheBeastie was sick of was not the retail costs, but the frequent quoting of low "generation" costs for solar power compared to other sources. ( 2-3 C/kWh)
most of those low costs are from project "bids" or proposals such as those in India (4 C/kWh) or Middle East. (2.4 C/kWh)
Whilst actual data from working projects always puts the cost much higher at 10 -15 C/kWh
i have seen no cost analysis that could achieve a cost as low as 2 -3 C/kWh without some serious subsidies being factored in.

Click to expand...

Incorrect, those prices quoted are agreed contracted rates for 20 years (with inflation adjustments included). That figure is what the company bidding be paid for each kwh of power produced from them constructing and maintaining a specific nominal power plant. E.g they're bidding on a 250mw contract, they must build 250mw and must run that with their only income being from the power it produces. Your disbelief of easily verifiable facts doesn't make them untrue. These plants are being constructed now or have already been constructed (this doesn't take many years unlike conventional powers sources). This is not an isolated trend, it's not limited to one specific project or country, it's happening in multiple places and will continue to accelerate for the foreseeable future because we have hit a critical inflection point in a disruptive change. All of the subsidies and preferential treatment for renewable energy up till this point were expressely because of this. With scale comes economy, with economy comes scale until it's self sustaining and exponential in growth. This has taken place many times before with disruptive technological shift.

IN ADDITION to the above dramatic decrease in solar costs, you're going to be seeing dramatic INCREASES in cost base for incumbent producers. Carbon tax, increase in total effective price of coal, direct taxation on pollution produced, societal pressures on removing emitters from occupied areas etc. A lot of these same influence will progressively begin to hit on natural gas as well.

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You have said nothing we did not already know.
What you have not said is who/why is going to invest in these plants with NO return on the capital ? ..
.. they are not charity"s , they are commercial operators using investor money.

Hillhater said:

What you have not said is who/why is going to invest in these plants with NO return on the capital ? ..
.. they are not charity"s , they are commercial operators using investor money.

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Public utilities. They have a mandate to provide power; they are not private investors.

Yes bill, that would be understandable, but all the projects quoted and proposed so far have been independent commercial proposals , not public utilities.