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77 comments on The 2008 IEA WEO - Renewable Energy

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Will Stewart on December 3, 2008 - 11:10am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

I found the following IEA comment rather odd "Energy storage is rarely the cheapest way of dealing with variability of wind and solar power"; I wonder what they believe the cheapest way is?

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DaveMart on December 3, 2008 - 11:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Burning natural gas.

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enemy of state on December 3, 2008 - 11:30am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I found the following IEA comment rather odd "Energy storage is rarely the cheapest way of dealing with variability of wind and solar power"; I wonder what they believe the cheapest way is?

DaveMart say's burning NG. I say, demand management :turning off/down low value-added-per KWhr uses when the power isn't available.

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DaveMart on December 3, 2008 - 11:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I was simply saying that the low cost alternative referred to in the report will be burning natural gas, and that is what is used at the moment instead of storage, in large part, although it is supplemented somewhat by pumped storage and so on, and extensively in some countries such as Sweden by hydropower.

Ugo Bardi has informed us that in Italy usage per house is limited to 3kw at any one time, and in practice around 2kw.

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Will Stewart on December 3, 2008 - 12:29pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Your both right, of course, though it seems natural gas generation is the most widely used trough-filler at the moment where hydro isn't available. I'm a major supporter of demand side management, energy storage, renewables, etc as a part of a national smart grid infrastructure upgrade.

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Neil1947 on December 3, 2008 - 12:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Dave,
It seems to trouble people to think that NG would be backing up renewable energy. Even now many NG peak plants are only used at <10% capacity, so we may have a situation with expanding NG peak capacity but less NG being used for both heating and electricity generation. Some coal fired electricity rather than being retired may also be kept in reserve as back-up for example for peak summer demand.

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Will Stewart on December 3, 2008 - 12:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Any realistic transition roadmap would read just so. For example, in the US Southeast, little renewable energy is available in the summer when A/C is running flat out, so while some renewable can be shipped in, coal plants would likely be needed unless supplanted by nuclear.

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drillo on December 10, 2008 - 5:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Of course there is: plenty of sunshine.
Especially during noon peak hours this may produce plenty of photovoltaic electricity. Or the solar heat may be converted directly to cold for air conditioning using sorption technology.
The problem is not the technology - nor the economical viability as soon as prices went down due to mass production. The problem is the same that the IEA is complaining about oil production: lacking investment.

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drillo on December 10, 2008 - 5:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Of course there is: plenty of sunshine.
Especially during noon peak hours this may produce plenty of photovoltaic electricity. Or the solar heat may be converted directly to cold for air conditioning using sorption technology.
The problem is not the technology - nor the economical viability as soon as prices went down due to mass production. The problem is the same that the IEA is complaining about oil production: lacking investment.

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Termoil on December 3, 2008 - 7:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Biogas?

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robert2734 on December 3, 2008 - 1:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

For places that have summer peaking, the cheapest way to deal with solar power variability is to ignore it. It works in your favor. For solar power <10% total power.

Places with winter peaking are not good solar sites but government subsidies can distort the market.

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MrMambo on December 3, 2008 - 8:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It says dealing with..

and potentially that could be one of the following or even other options

1) Direct storage in some energy storage system such as pumped hydro or compressed air
2) Production of replacement power if there is a shortfall using such things as Natural Gass
3) Transmission by cables over loooooong distances. Say the winds slacks down on location X, then often the wind will pick up on location Y wich is 500 km away. So it could be a matter of just sending power back and forth across electric cables so that areas with temporary surplus can supply energy to areas with temporary shortfalls.

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FiniteQuantity on December 3, 2008 - 10:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I found the following IEA comment rather odd "Energy storage is rarely the cheapest way of dealing with variability of wind and solar power"; I wonder what they believe the cheapest way is?

I think they are saying it is cheaper to increase electricity generation from other means to make up for the wind/solar down times.

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drillo on December 10, 2008 - 5:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think the answer is simple:
As far as I know the IEA they are not really the best experts in renewables nor in energy efficiency measures. Until recently they more or less dismissed renewables, now they are inertly switching to the learning mode. So you shouldn't take them too seriously when they talk about alternative solutions.

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77 comments on The 2008 IEA WEO - Renewable Energy

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