When is a battery cheaper than a power plant?

[russ]

Also, I'm not sure where you're getting 0.36% of Hawaii's electric generation from solar. According to the EIA data, in 2014 Hawaii got 0.48% of its utility-generated power from solar, excluding residential solar and commercial installations under 1MW.

Wow! 0.48% or an increase of 0.12% - still insignificant.

[J.P.M.]

If you go back to the beginning of the thread you will find links to a couple of studies looking at the economics of grid storage in California and Texas.

SunEagle wondered if the economic analysis would be comparable in Hawaii.

And that is why we are comparing Hawaii to Texas.

Also, I'm not sure where you're getting 0.36% of Hawaii's electric generation from solar. According to the EIA data, in 2014 Hawaii got 0.48% of its utility-generated power from solar, excluding residential solar and commercial installations under 1MW.

0.36% to 0.48% could be different years or simply an error. Either way, bringing it up seems about equal to, and about as productive as trying to separating fly crap from pepper.

[SunEagle]

Wow! 0.48% or an increase of 0.12% - still insignificant.

I believe that overall figure of 0.48% is for all of the Hawaiian islands but in some communities the amount of home installed PV has increased the generation to 50% which is why the POCO's had put a stop to all new installations.

Now the news I read last week states that all of the PV install requests in the backlog will be approved (or at least reviewed again) by the end of April. Part of the HECO decisions to move forward to allow home pv systems has to do with local energy storage being more practical and with Smart Meters allow HECO to keep the voltage and frequency on a feeder more in balance.

[Sunking]

Also, I'm not sure where you're getting 0.36% of Hawaii's electric generation from solar. According to the EIA data, in 2014 Hawaii got 0.48% of its utility-generated power from solar

You are joking right? What difference is .48 to .36% It means the exact same thing that solar does not have any significant contribution. FWIW I got the info from Hawaii Electric Light Fuel Mix

[inetdog]

You are joking right? What difference is .48 to .36% It means the exact same thing that solar does not have any significant contribution. FWIW I got the info from Hawaii Electric Light Fuel Mix

If you look at the footnote to the asterisk in the last table, it is clear that the solar contribution is ONLY the solar generation by independent suppliers of power under contract and probably does not include residential solar.
If you instead assume that the number used includes residential solar under net metering, you still find that the ONLY contribution that can be captured is the aggregate sell back from the residence, the time when the meter is actually running backwards. (Unless all HI installations are required to have a production meter too).

For any area (island or community) where there is high residential PV participation that PV will not show up entirely as production but will instead in large part simply reduce the measured demand.
That means that (just picking unrealistic hypothetical numbers) that if the baseline consumption (load, not metered) was X and 50% of that demand was supplied locally by PV
but no sell back occurred, the measure used in the table would show 0% solar RE contribution but a fortuitous 50% decrease in demand.
The web page does not to into nearly enough detail to allow us to determine what is actually happening.

Now if residential load is only 1% of the total power consumption on the island, then you can say that 100% residential participation at 100% offset is still negligible in the big picture.
And that as far as that portion of the grid serving residential areas goes it is critical!. The generating plant may not feel the effects, but the distribution network surely will.
Several years ago a member, I believe in Puerto Rico, described how the voltage at his home (and all of the surrounding area) changed from 5% below nominal to 10% or more above nominal when the sun was full over the nearby Coast Guard base, which had a massive solar PV system. Some home equipment shut down from overvoltage.

[SmartElectric]

Very ignorant statement....Any reactor can be throttled or else they go into thermal runaway

Fact : Nuclear power is the least flexible power source on the grid and only serves as baseload power. Here in Ontario, the Bruce Nuclear plant can provide a flexibility via boiling steam bypass which means the fuel is still being used to produce heat, but that heat is not spinning turbines. So, we pay money so the plant can waste energy into the atmosphere all because the overnight period has far lower energy consumption than the day time peaks. Meanwhile, the other nuclear plants in Ontario do not have this capability, so when their power is not needed, they go through a multi-hour procedure to throttle down, and this also needs to be matched by the opposite procedure to power up.

nuclear power is the only real answer to electric generation

Wow, just wow. You are in denial. When you do any amount of research on this topic, you will see that renewable power is the lowest cost and quickest to deploy power production technology available right now. Matching this to demand/response programs where big industry has incentives to shift load to off-peak periods, and when battery storage comes within cost over the next 5-10 years, the end of "base load" power will be abrupt.

Ontario turned off it's last coal plant last year. We also decided not to spend tens of billions on inflexible and costly new nuclear power. We currently have 50%+ nuclear base load, so much power, than overnight, we have to sell power at a loss to NY just to avoid throttling the nuclear plants!

[inetdog]

Very ignorant statement. That is why people are so scared about nuclear power is they are completely ignorant and have been fed disinformation by the likes of people like you aka Fear Mongers.

If you cannot control the reaction it is called a BOMB and goes BOOM. Any reactor can be throttled or else they go into thermal runaway. You guys may not like it but nuclear power is the only real answer to electric generation. Just a matter of short time before generation capacity hits a wall creating a crisis, laws change, and we start building plant as fast as we can.

Perfectly correct with conditions.
It is possible to completely halt the nuclear chain reaction using the normal control rods or the emergency shutdown rods (for a reactor design that uses control rods). But shutting down the fission process does not immediately halt heat production. Some of the fission energy is released as heat by secondary reactions with time constants on the order of minutes or hours.
What that means is that regulating the amount of steam being generated by the cooling system cannot be done rapidly except inside the limits imposed by the primary versus secondary reaction balance. Unless, as stated, there is also a way to keep the cooling system running without running the steam through a turbine. There will also be a short term time constant for the reaction heat to work its way through the core material to the cooling system.

[Sunking]

Fact : Nuclear power is the least flexible power source on the grid and only serves as baseload power. Here in Ontario, the Bruce Nuclear plant can provide a flexibility via boiling steam bypass which means the fuel is still being used to produce heat, but that heat is not spinning turbines. So, we pay money so the plant can waste energy into the atmosphere all because the overnight period has far lower energy consumption than the day time peaks.

Hold the bus there my friend, I never said it can ramp up or down quickly. As for wasting money not so much, as they are just dumping steam. NG and coal also have the same issue, just doe snot take as long to heat and cool. A reactor has one heck of a lot of thermal mass.

New reactor designs going forward can ramp up/down as fact as any NG plant.

Wow, just wow. You are in denial.

Hog wash I have been in power generation as a PE for 35 years. How many years experience do you have in power generation. FWIW it is Base Load the utilities in the USA have ran out of. Right now they are not building many plants, just too expensive to and long to fight all the obstructionist and crushing regulations. In the mean time they will sit back and wait for the shoe to drop when Uncle Sam will clear out the obstructionist and relax regulations. So for now they are taking expenditure capital from profits and paying dividends to stockholders.

[russ]

When you do any amount of research on this topic, you will see that renewable power is the lowest cost and quickest to deploy power production technology available right now. Matching this to demand/response programs where big industry has incentives to shift load to off-peak periods, and when battery storage comes within cost over the next 5-10 years, the end of "base load" power will be abrupt.

Ontario turned off it's last coal plant last year. We also decided not to spend tens of billions on inflexible and costly new nuclear power. We currently have 50%+ nuclear base load, so much power, than overnight, we have to sell power at a loss to NY just to avoid throttling the nuclear plants!

You are really chattering about a topic where you have zero knowledge - maybe you learned it from bar buddies? Or the barber?

RE is the highest cost and least flexible of all.

Batteries in 5 years - foolish and incorrect statement.

"We" are selling power to NY at a loss you claim? You are not selling anything - the utility is and they know their economics.

Time shifting industrial loads is generally not possible. A real dumb statement! Sounds cool on green sites though I suppose.

[SunEagle]

Wow, just wow. You are in denial. When you do any amount of research on this topic, you will see that renewable power is the lowest cost and quickest to deploy power production technology available right now. Matching this to demand/response programs where big industry has incentives to shift load to off-peak periods, and when battery storage comes within cost over the next 5-10 years, the end of "base load" power will be abrupt.

I see 3 assumptions on your part that are wrong or maybe from some incorrect research on your part.

RE does not have the lowest cost to generate electricity. If it was the Utilities would be falling all over themselves to install it. Right now the major reason you see more PV installations is because of a state mandate requiring the POCO's to meet a % of RE for all power generated. They are not doing it to save or make money.

Most major industries run a 24/7 operation with a pretty constant load so moving usage to off-peak will not happen unless they only run one shift for 5 days a week.

As of today cost effective battery or "energy" storage is still well beyond 5 years and even when it starts to be rolled out "base load" requirements will continue for decades after. It comes down to what the Utilities want to spend to provide power to their customers. That will cost 100's of billions so it will not happen quickly.

[J.P.M.]

I see 3 assumptions on your part that are wrong or maybe from some incorrect research on your part.

RE does not have the lowest cost to generate electricity. If it was the Utilities would be falling all over themselves to install it. Right now the major reason you see more PV installations is because of a state mandate requiring the POCO's to meet a % of RE for all power generated. They are not doing it to save or make money.

Most major industries run a 24/7 operation with a pretty constant load so moving usage to off-peak will not happen unless they only run one shift for 5 days a week.

As of today cost effective battery or "energy" storage is still well beyond 5 years and even when it starts to be rolled out "base load" requirements will continue for decades after. It comes down to what the Utilities want to spend to provide power to their customers. That will cost 100's of billions so it will not happen quickly.

Mostly +1. I would however have a slightly different take on POCO spending, particularly the words "want to spend". They will spend partly as a function of their revenue. Most of that revenue comes from buyers of their product. If users don't like the price, they'll use less/bitch/push back. So, what the POCOs have avail. to spend is in some ways determined by the buyers of their product - the users will tolerate as a price.

On the expense side, gov. mandated spending may/may not be a good thing, but still a fact of life. Mandates may force POCOs to do things that a lot of us feel are to the benefit of the public welfare/society in general, or they may be crap/boondoggle/white collar welfare. Either way, chances are the POCOs wouldn't do those things on their own because they usually hurt the bottom line - force the POCO to spend $$ in ways they don't want to spend. That causes prices to go up - for reasons that we may not all think are always good.

I'm not a big fan of POCOs, but IMO, they're not a bunch of the evil ogres out to murder the planet. It seems to me they're sort of between a rock and a hard place in the court of public opinion: Public opinion has been manipulated, for better or worse, to want cleaner power via more alt. energy, and less (perceived) damage to the planet via better (again, perceived) environmental controls, and other measures. At the same time, most of those who push the hardest for those things are often the most profligate users of the product the POCOs produce, and, to my perception at least, usually bitch/whine the most about their bills (which they usually can't even take the time to understand).

Also, and still my perception only, it seems that those who bitch the loudest have a very low level of understanding of what they're bitching about. I'm about half on their side, but their efforts seem mostly counterproductive and hypocritical.

Perhaps a buffer in the rock/hard place might be a way to help folks understand and internalize the idea that you can't have it both ways - If you want something, someone has to pay for it. In this case, we all pay for mandated changes, whether we agree with those changes or think they make sense or not, via higher rates.

[SunEagle]

Mostly +1. I would however have a slightly different take on POCO spending, particularly the words "want to spend". They will spend partly as a function of their revenue. Most of that revenue comes from buyers of their product. If users don't like the price, they'll use less/bitch/push back. So, what the POCOs have avail. to spend is in some ways determined by the buyers of their product - the users will tolerate as a price.

On the expense side, gov. mandated spending may/may not be a good thing, but still a fact of life. Mandates may force POCOs to do things that a lot of us feel are to the benefit of the public welfare/society in general, or they may be crap/boondoggle/white collar welfare. Either way, chances are the POCOs wouldn't do those things on their own because they usually hurt the bottom line - force the POCO to spend $$ in ways they don't want to spend. That causes prices to go up - for reasons that we may not all think are always good.

I'm not a big fan of POCOs, but IMO, they're not a bunch of the evil ogres out to murder the planet. It seems to me they're sort of between a rock and a hard place in the court of public opinion: Public opinion has been manipulated, for better or worse, to want cleaner power via more alt. energy, and less (perceived) damage to the planet via better (again, perceived) environmental controls, and other measures. At the same time, most of those who push the hardest for those things are often the most profligate users of the product the POCOs produce, and, to my perception at least, usually bitch/whine the most about their bills (which they usually can't even take the time to understand).

Also, and still my perception only, it seems that those who bitch the loudest have a very low level of understanding of what they're bitching about. I'm about half on their side, but their efforts seem mostly counterproductive and hypocritical.

Perhaps a buffer in the rock/hard place might be a way to help folks understand and internalize the idea that you can't have it both ways - If you want something, someone has to pay for it. In this case, we all pay for mandated changes, whether we agree with those changes or think they make sense or not, via higher rates.

I agree with you. I am do not feel the POCO's are bad and I am not angry with mine (just a little confused how they operate sometimes). They are a business and like all businesses they need to make sure their investors are happy which requires them to make some type of profit.

What I was trying to explain to SmartElectric was that most if not all POCO's do not feel RE is a cheaper way to produce energy and the main reason they have spent a lot to build pv arrays is not to make a profit but to meet a mandate. In turn while they have to meet this mandate doesn't mean they shouldn't find ways to not lose money. How they do that is what a lot of people get upset about when their bills start to increase or if new "solar" tariffs are added.

Instead of complaining, people should at least try to understand that electricity from RE costs more (in $$) then from conventional fossil fuel generating plants even though the side affects from pollution (not CO2) can create costs in a different sector the first area of costs is what the business "bottom line" is calculated on.

[J.P.M.]

I agree with you. I am do not feel the POCO's are bad and I am not angry with mine (just a little confused how they operate sometimes). They are a business and like all businesses they need to make sure their investors are happy which requires them to make some type of profit.

What I was trying to explain to SmartElectric was that most if not all POCO's do not feel RE is a cheaper way to produce energy and the main reason they have spent a lot to build pv arrays is not to make a profit but to meet a mandate. In turn while they have to meet this mandate doesn't mean they shouldn't find ways to not lose money. How they do that is what a lot of people get upset about when their bills start to increase or if new "solar" tariffs are added.

Instead of complaining, people should at least try to understand that electricity from RE costs more (in $$) then from conventional fossil fuel generating plants even though the side affects from pollution (not CO2) can create costs in a different sector the first area of costs is what the business "bottom line" is calculated on.

We're in substantial agreement.

[donald]

Very ignorant statement. That is why people are so scared about nuclear power is they are completely ignorant and have been fed disinformation by the likes of people like you aka Fear Mongers.

If you cannot control the reaction it is called a BOMB and goes BOOM. Any reactor can be throttled or else they go into thermal runaway. You guys may not like it but nuclear power is the only real answer to electric generation. Just a matter of short time before generation capacity hits a wall creating a crisis, laws change, and we start building plant as fast as we can.

I'm not necessarily anti-nuclear. For one thing I have too many nuclear engineers in my family to take a hard line. Are you saying old nuke plants are throttled at night? Because I don't believe they are. My point was that in some areas the over capacity at night makes for some great car charging rates.

[Sunking]

I'm not necessarily anti-nuclear. For one thing I have too many nuclear engineers in my family to take a hard line. Are you saying old nuke plants are throttled at night? Because I don't believe they are.

WW-II modles are not easy to throttle and easier to vent steam.

My point was that in some areas the over capacity at night makes for some great car charging rates.

That has always been a problem even with NG and Coal boilers.

But this is a point the public completely over looks. They think solar is saving CO2 emissions but it is not. Those plants in the daytime still are burning just as much fuel whether solar is on line or not. It has to be able to pick up load when clouds pass by. You have to have a conventional source ready to go at a moments notice when the RE fails.