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207 comments on DrumBeat: February 3, 2008

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DIYer on February 3, 2008 - 10:27am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

My personal inclination (though I do not yet have solar panels on my roof) it to be a YIMBY. However, the idea that some large utility will own the wind in my neighborhood and sell it back to me as "green energy" is not the way I'd like this to break. I think the main reason renewables have been treated with such hostility by TPTB is that they are disruptive to big-business as usual.

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john15 on February 3, 2008 - 12:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Disruptive? no, profitable and growing much faster than thought.

GE Growing Their Green Side
http://climateprogress.org/2008/02/03/ge-growing-their-green-side/

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DIYer on February 3, 2008 - 2:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

GE Energy also said yesterday it’s investing in wind farm projects owned by Horizon Wind Energy LLC, a Houston-based developer that is a subsidiary of Energias de Portugal SA. The wind farms are in Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon and Texas.

As I was trying to say, I'm in favor of local, personal, home-owned renewables but regard megaprojects with faint praise. Generous Electric has been free to build windmills since the 1970's but in that time they have mostly built large gas turbines. Their primary market is big utilities and not individuals.

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john15 on February 3, 2008 - 3:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"As I was trying to say, I'm in favor of local, personal, home-owned renewables but regard megaprojects with faint praise."

why? scale is what we need and the companies like GE can deliver that. who do you think uses the power, martians? we use it. wind power hasn't seen much investment because energy prices were low. now they aren't and the magic of the magical thinking market.

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DIYer on February 3, 2008 - 8:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

When GE starts making these, you can get back to me on how green they are.

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jokuhl on February 3, 2008 - 9:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

DIYer;
It sounds like you know what to do. Do what you can to get the monkey off your back, and get set up with at least SOME of your own generation.

Getting a bit of PV and Solar Heating onto MANY private rooftops is a form of Scaling Renewables that might be invisible to John in his tunnel vision, but the Yergins and the Raymonds don't stand to profit much if you're able to go to yourself as a 'Swing Producer of last resort', and they are not going to work to convince us to get there.

Let John keep paying the big guys he loves so much. You can pay yourself first.

Bob

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elwoodelmore on February 4, 2008 - 8:06am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

the utilities have massive investments in coal, nuclear, ng (and hydro). my favorite theory is that wind power will be slow to emerge because it will take time to amortize these investments.
that doesnt prevent you from capturing the wind for your own use. the utilities control a lot of capital and individuals may have a hard time financing stable wind power.

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DaveMart on February 4, 2008 - 8:17am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

In Europe at least renewables are mandated, which effectively tends to mean wind.

The cost here, at least in the UK look horrific:

http://energy-futures.blogspot.com/2008/02/cost-of-wind-power-in-uk.html

This is according to Government figures.

Costs should be a lot lower in the US, at least where it is land-based, as you have good resources and plenty of places to put it, but if they are remotely approach ours it is an expensive option.

I like solar thermal in the South-West - that sounds the most economic option in the States for the time being.

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AlanfromBigEasy on February 4, 2008 - 9:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I like solar thermal in the South-West - that sounds the most economic option in the States for the time being.

Offshore wind in the UK is considerably cheaper /MWh than existing solar thermal power.

There is a hybrid, solar assisted natural gas generation, that (depending upon NG prices) is higher but closer to wind.

Best Hopes for MUCH more wind,

And Happy Lundi Gras

Alan

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DaveMart on February 4, 2008 - 9:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It was the new builds in solar thermal that I was referring to Alan, which I hope will be a lot cheaper.

In any case lets hope they do better than wind so far in the UK, if these figures for subsidy are anything like right:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3257728.ece

A lot of that is simply the result of very poor control of the subsidies though - our Government sets new standards for incompetence almost daily.

Good job your government guys are so efficient! ;-)

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DaveMart on February 4, 2008 - 10:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Just thought, AFAIK the £2m cost for the wind turbine does not include connection charges, which would be substantial for a distributed power source like this , or more accurately from government figures it would include only around £200,000 for connection.

This might move the date when investment is paid for if taken together with interest out by a few years, to perhaps around 8 years or so, a typical time required by industrial investment when choosing what to invest in.

It would also mean that the power is around two and a half times as expensive if subsidies are included as competitors.

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Pitt the Elder on February 5, 2008 - 2:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The cost here, at least in the UK look horrific:

The link doesn't provide a cost per kWh, which is the only sensible measure. We can estimate one from their numbers, though:

  • Capital cost: 45B
  • Financing @ 6%: 75B total cost
  • Power: 10GW (33GW @ 30% CF)
  • Hours/yr: 8,760
  • Generation: 80,000 GWh/yr
  • Lifespan: 20 years
  • Total generated: 1,600,000 GWh = 1,600,000M kWh
  • Cost per KWh: 75B / 1,600,000M = 4.7c per kWh

Compare 4.7c/kWh to a retail price of 10c/kWh; even if previous methods of generating electricity were free, wind power wouldn't even lead to a 50% increase in rates.

Far from showing the price of wind power is "horrific", the information you link to shows it's pretty reasonable.

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DaveMart on February 6, 2008 - 6:07am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

That was my own calculation - apologies if I did not make that clear.

My motivation in putting them 'out there' is precisely to draw the sort of response you have made - I am not an accountant, and have just done my best with the figures I have.

The figures you give though make no allowance for running the grid, or extending it as would be desirable to reduce intermittency.
They also make no allowance for back-up, and that would have to be substantial, although not one for one.

I was not explicit on those figures myself, but they are part of the reason I find the cost so excessive - it is a bare bones cost.

Maintenance is also not included, and in an off-shore location that is not going to be cheap.

You also amortise over 20 years, when the energy industry normally amortises over around 7 or 8 years.

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AlanfromBigEasy on February 6, 2008 - 3:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

when the energy industry normally amortises over around 7 or 8 years

Hardly !

Power plants in the USA are typically depreciated over their expected lifetime or 30 years if life is epxcted to be >30 years. Few assets are allowed lives longer than 30 years (in the USA).

EU seems to allow 40 and even 50 years depreciation.

Also, existing NG power plants can be used on cold standby for wind back-up (other than a 1% or 3% variation in unpredicted changes in wind output. For that the MASSIVE spinning reserves required for nukes can be tapped for a but of power minute by minute).

Alan

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Cid Yama on February 5, 2008 - 1:14am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I placed my solar panels in a greenhouse(glasshouse) to protect them from hail. They appear to work optimally.

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