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Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

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Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#121
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average price paid for residential^W power in California last year was 16 cents, not 30, not 40.

We paid 33 cents / kWh on the bay area last year. Not sure how the rest of CA is doing.

> We paid 33 cents / kWh on the bay area last year. Not sure how the rest of CA is doing.

Forget “the rest of California”, that's extremely high for the Bay Area. Last year, SF Area average retail electricity prices by month ranged between 22.9 ¢/kW and 24.0 ¢/kW.

https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/averageenergyp...

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#122
post #71

I'm a big fan of renewables, solar/wind/hydro. But we still need that baseline generating capacity for these dark icy winter days. It's clear now that coal/oil isn't it (pollution) and we should reserve natural gas supply for home heating (because it's efficient and "relatively" clean) and spot-demand generators. So that leaves Nuclear. But we just need to get it right this time -- i.e. don't build them near earthqua…

I don't see why we need this so called baseline. It is an outdated concept pushed by the nuclear industry. We need (i) to harness the cheap energy coming from the sun and the wind and (ii) another source of energy to make up shortages when solar and wind are unavailable.

The source (ii) should be able to be ramped up and shut down quickly, which is a requirement where nuclear flat out fails.

The baseline concept of a power source that is steady and cannot be quickly shut down or ramped up (i.e., nuclear or coal) really does not make sense in a world where you have access to very cheap but somewhat unpredictable sources of energy.

Ideally, source (ii) would be electricity storage. This is not available now at the necessary scale (but it is getting closer and closer to reality). So the other alternatives are hydro (ideal if available in your environment, but not always available) and gas.

Nuclear doesn't enter into it. Starting up and stopping nuclear reactors is a difficult time consuming process that cannot be done on demand.

And yes Gas is falling on its face right now, but that is not due to any fundamental limitations of gas. It is because a lot of the US nat gas is mined and transported in Texas and the Texans did not winterize their equipment.

I expect renewables will keep increasing in combination with gas, until power storage becomes available.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#124

I track my electricity in Chicago pretty regularly and we’ve been seeing between 5x and 100x ‘normal’ pricing all week. For scale, at this time of night I’d expect my power to be priced at ~ 0.8 c/Kwh. Right now we are sitting at 15 c/Kwh.

Here in CA we pay 24c / Kwh on a regular basis. Why is it your power can be 0.8c/Kwh?, that seems really really low.

I live in VA. At least if you purchase your generation through the main electric utility, Dominion Energy, there are fixed rates. What these rates are depend upon how much you use per month and the time of year. For rates the year is broken into 2 periods. October - May and June - September. Rates are in general highest for use over 800kWh in a month between June & September since it is the highest usage period statewide. My last bill the average rate was about .11 c/kWh. I used 915 kWh. Last July I used 672 kWh and my rate was about .12 c/kWh.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#125
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 900/Mwh is 90c per kwh, national average is about 14. Higher cost states are around 20c with Hawaii near 30c. And IIRC, electricity in Hawaii is so expensive because they generate most of it with diesel.

I'm surprised by this. I would have guessed lots of solar there and potentially wind.

Lots of answers about various renewables, no one addressing why diesel, so let me throw that in:

Everything comes to Hawaii by boat or plane, and boats run on diesel. So our power plants burn diesel, instead of coal, because coal, while cheaper per unit energy, would be a whole additional supply chain just for power plants.

And yeah, there's more solar and wind every year, but not nearly enough to provide the overprovisioning and storage necessary to use it for baseline power.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind and solar are above planned generation right now, which was 0. In ERCOT wind has been making less than 6 GW out of 33 GW installed for over 7 days straight [1]. Natural gas is pulling almost all the weight right now, as you can see. So no, not time to go all in on wind + solar. [1] https://i.imgur.com/EEbf5lM.png (screenshot from EIA, original data here: https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard…

You're correct that, "30 GW of thermal capacity is offline for various weather-related reasons is the primary reason the power is out." I think wind can play a huge role in fixing this. Check out: https://www.windy.com/?37.539,-94.134,4 And you've got plenty of massive offshore wind resources on both sides of the continent that are blowing right now (Feb 17th 7:49pm PDT) if we had installed capacity. We need to keep…

Transmission lines aren't so easy, for example the Northern Pass project to bring power from Quebec Hydro into New England failed due to local opposition:

https://www.vnews.com/northern-pass-eversource-hydroquebec-2...

I do like the idea (from the linked tweet) of underground transmission lines (underground alongside railroads is probably mitigates the NIMBY objections):

https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind and solar are above planned generation right now, which was 0. In ERCOT wind has been making less than 6 GW out of 33 GW installed for over 7 days straight [1]. Natural gas is pulling almost all the weight right now, as you can see. So no, not time to go all in on wind + solar. [1] https://i.imgur.com/EEbf5lM.png (screenshot from EIA, original data here: https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard…

You're correct that, "30 GW of thermal capacity is offline for various weather-related reasons is the primary reason the power is out." I think wind can play a huge role in fixing this. Check out: https://www.windy.com/?37.539,-94.134,4 And you've got plenty of massive offshore wind resources on both sides of the continent that are blowing right now (Feb 17th 7:49pm PDT) if we had installed capacity. We need to keep…

Ask anyone who has planned and installed a long-haul transmission line in the past 40 years and they'll tell you that that's gonna be extremely hard. It's simple technically, as is building a lot of a standardized nuclear plant, but it's not easy and will be hit by massive amounts of NIMBY.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is a much more modern, cost effective, and scalable tech today than it was in the 70's as well. France has one of the highest levels of nuclear utilization, and one of the lowest energy costs in europe

The costs are all hidden. Removal and dismantling of nuclear waste and the decommissioning power plants is ridiculously expensive in places like the UK. When you factor that in also, nuclear ain't so cheap at all. Those costs only rise also.

The cost of dismantling and recycling solar panels, wind turbines, etc. is also hidden, using that same logic. And will present a huge problem in 20-30 years. We've already had 50 years experience decommissioning poorly designed reactors. We should know how to do it at least slightly better in the year 2021

The costs also do not rise per unit power. As with anything, the more you install, the cheaper it gets to install them.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#130
post #71

I'm a big fan of renewables, solar/wind/hydro. But we still need that baseline generating capacity for these dark icy winter days. It's clear now that coal/oil isn't it (pollution) and we should reserve natural gas supply for home heating (because it's efficient and "relatively" clean) and spot-demand generators. So that leaves Nuclear. But we just need to get it right this time -- i.e. don't build them near earthqua…

Renewables are very reliable if you winter-proof them, the same as other sources. The problem at the moment is that none of the sources for Texas was prepared for a cold winter, renewable or otherwise. Quebec is 99% renewable[0] (95% hydro, 4% wind) and runs through the coldest of winter just fine! > With over 40 853 MW of installed capacity, hydroelectric stations generate about 95% of Quebec’s electricity. > Wind i…

Also fair to note that fossil fuel plants also froze and were unable to operate. It's not even a renewable or not question. It's just whether your grid has been properly hardened against the elements.
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