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Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

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Re: Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

#121

Post by Analemma_ »

beat wrote: post #109
omarhaneef wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we are seeing very low bids. $26-$30/MWh for solar doesn't even turn heads anymore. And battery costs are coming down too, and I think that curve looks more linear, but its coming down. One of the issues is that these costs are so capital intensive that the financing costs drive a lot of the price drop. With near zero or negative rates in so much of the world, I think its hard to tell what the real rates would b…

Capital costs are a legit concern. If something happens in international markets that causes interest rates to spike globally, it will set back the pace of conversion tremendously.

“Fortunately” we appear to be heading into a recession, so I doubt high interest rates are on the way any time soon.

Re: Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

#122

Post by heyflyguy »

When I see studies of this nature I always think that it is such beautiful idea to be living in a clean world. To be clear, I work in the petroleum industry; so this would most certainly be an obvious end to my line of work. I will hopefully be living in the keys by 2035.

At the rate our world population is expanding, I have to wonder if there is simply enough surface area we can turn over to power generation and lose it to things such as farming and other agriculture.

We are learning to farm land previously thought too arid for non-hearty crops.

Re: Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

#123

Post by [deleted] »

generatorguy wrote: post #106
Faark wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many people will refrain from charging because it is going to cost you $50 instead of $10? [..] Given that traffic never gets better I would say none! Are you honestly trying to argue it doesn't have any effect? "What day of the week is best to fill your tank" is like an age-old question. Obviously within reason. Not if your tank is empty and you have to be somewhere. Less so for people who think this to be ben…

Do people with electric cars only charge once per week? I concede There could be some demand response if people could know that they can charge for less every Sunday night. But as you say when you are empty you are a price taker. I live near Vancouver which features the most expensive gas in North America, and decent public transportation, and I believe traffic is the only thing that keeps people from driving more, n…

[deleted]

Re: Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

#124

Post by rgbrenner »

perfunctory wrote: post #40

Some time, in not so distant future, we will have abundant, almost infinite, almost free, renewable energy. We will forget what an energy bill is, because administration overhead will be higher than the price of the energy itself. It will just be an inconspicuous tiny item on the city taxes. And we won't think it's amazing. We'll take it for granted. It will become new normal. Just like now we don't remember any more…

That's fantasy land. Half of the cost of your electricity bill is the cost to deliver it to your house. The grid costs as much as the electricity generation.

So even if it were free to generate electricity--solar panels and batteries were free--you would only see a 40-45% decrease in your electricity bill.

Re: Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

#125

Post by 52-6F-62 »

mruts wrote: post #99
52-6F-62 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahaha. Maybe by that time we will take it so for granted that time-out periods so we can see the stars better will be socialized. I still remember the blackout of 2003 rather fondly... Probably not, though...

I live in a 3rd world country and had to go to hospital with no power and no lights. It was chaos, amputations by flashlight, doctors unable to see where to hook up IVs, etc etc. How could you honestly think that the power going off would be anything except a horrible horrible thing?

Edited to preface: my intention certainly wasn’t to dredge up any terrible memories. I’m sorry if it did so. It was more a remark on North American “go-go-go” culture that was forced to take a pause for a day or so.

In this part of the world many critical services like hospitals run on back up generators if the main grid goes down. It was part of the main grid that went down

There was surely chaos some places where traffic lights weren’t on backup power, but otherwise the worst things that would happen were maybe you have to close up the office or the worksite for the day. Transit was down but not much else could be done anyway.

It was bittersweet. I’m sure there were problems. I’m also sure that many people who’d never seen a star in their lives saw the sky unfolded like they might never again. It was a stark reminder how much we’ve drowned out with things that “matter”

Re: Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

#126

Post by beat »

thfuran wrote: post #116
beat wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wind-based grid, at scale, is actually a reliable baseline. We have over a decade of solid data on it now, from Iowa and Texas. Wind is much more reliable than you think.

Just how reliable are we talking? The odds of being unable to fully service demand for even a single day should be really, really low for infrastructure like electrical or water supply.

Reliable enough to say "Wind will provide at least this much power, even on a "non-windy" day.

Also, keep in mind that wind is much, much steadier 200 feet in the air than it is on the ground, where it's subject to all sorts of disruptions and irregularities.

Re: Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

#127

Post by beat »

fromthestart wrote: post #111
beat wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not forcing... just having market forces encourage good behavior, instead of hiding the underlying cost pressures from them. Look at it this way. With enough variation over the day, you create a market for storage. Let's say stored electricity costs twice as much as direct, but the price of direct varies by 3x over the course of the day. You've now created an arbitrage market for buying cheap electricity during the d…

I understand your point, but GP is talking about avoiding the need for batteries by pricing people out of the market instead. If you're not using batteries, supply during dark or windless hours is inelastic, because there's nothing being generated - in other words you're not solving the problem and you can't really charge anyone anyway because there's nothing to deliver.

"Windless" is greatly overrated, for two reasons. First, utility-scale wind is built hundreds of feet in the air, not on the ground. Wind is much steadier there. And it's built in carefully selected locations for steady behavior.

Second, it's not a single location. Wind may be lower in one location, but strong in another location 50 miles away. The idea that wind goes completely dead all at once across statewide areas is not how wind actually works.

Re: Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

#128

Post by fingerlocks »

beat wrote: post #92
batmansmk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are totally correct. US, France, Japan and UK all decided to extend the filetime of their nuclear power plants. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclearpower/u-s-to-e... Wind is cheap because when the wind blows, everybody is trying to sell their wind produced energy at the same time and the country often overproduces. In Germany, we even see negative prices when the wind blows; The price is low not because…

Negative prices? You'll pay me to take electricity off your hands that I can sell later? That's the best argument for the battery storage market I've seen yet... (And really, it makes sense. Generate surplus when the sun is shining or wind is especially strong, run from storage when demand exceeds supply, build both until there's enough. As long as the costs are less than current baseline systems, which seems possibl…

Negative prices are not uncommon. Happens nearly every spring in the Pacific Northwest when the mountain snowpack melts, flooding the rivers and surging the output of many hydroelectric dams. The negative prices are factored into the annual revenue, and consumer prices are sort-of averaged over the year which is why you never see it on your electric bill.

Re: Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

#129

Post by jgalt212 »

WalterBright wrote: post #89
batmansmk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get fooled by simple price comparison. It's comparing apples and oranges. Gas, nuclear, coal, reversible dams, geothermy... are all controllable energy sources: they produce when we need it. Wind and solar are intermittent. Equip fully the world with solar and wind and the trains will have to leave their stations when the wind blows and not at any other moment. What's happening is that countries migrating towar…

I suspect that if variable electricity pricing for consumers, a great deal of the need for "batteries" will evaporate. Heavy consumer electric uses (charging the car, HVAC, hot water) can easily be time shifted. It isn't time shifted today because consumer electricity rates are constant 24/7.

> HVAC

Yes, the demand for HVAC is very high when the winds are low.

Re: Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035: Study

#130

Post by wahern »

beat wrote: post #78
flyinglizard wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so simple, because energy consumption is restrained by its cost. There are also grids that will need expansion and maintenance, and both solar and winds need either baseline energy backing (such as nuclear or gas) and/or storage.

A wind-based grid, at scale, is actually a reliable baseline. We have over a decade of solid data on it now, from Iowa and Texas. Wind is much more reliable than you think.

You have links to any published research? Is it published separately or as part of larger studies? I'm having trouble finding simple numbers.

Such numbers would be useful for determining a theoretical floor for gas, nuclear, etc providing baseline capacity.

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