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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

#201

Post by protomyth »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #151
acidburnNSA wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some did, but at least in Texas the ERCOT planners basically assume ~0 wind for some week-long periods in winter and just expected to rely on their natural gas generators. But then when 30 GW of thermal plants went offline for weather reasons (pipeline freezes, priority to heating customers, a faulty sensor on a nuclear plant, etc.), that's what really brought things offline.

I only have electric heating, this Texas disaster made me realize that I need to have gas as a backup. 10k to install a gas furnace. Lower bills, but also the damage done by burt pipes during a power failure in winter, could easily exceed that. Also thinking about all the Tesla owners, stuck in their cold houses not even be able to drive to buy groceries right now in Texas.

A proper backup generator works too. It might actually be a cheaper option and allow for added batteries later.

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

#202

Post by cbmuser »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #84
rtpg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas-based electrical generation is what are failing right now! They are failing left and right! If 100% was gas there would be more problems, not less. Wind and Solar is pulling above planned generation right now. If you believe your logic, time to go all-in on wind + solar.

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…

And nuclear is providing 100% of its installed capacity after South Texas Project 1 was offline for some hours.

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

#203

Post by akamaka »

There’s an elegant solution to all this: better energy efficiency for buildings.

It’s funny seeing people in this thread jumping right past the root cause and suggesting elaborate solutions like nuclear power. And before you say it’s not feasible to upgrade hundreds of millions of buildings in the USA, you should be aware that upgrading homes to be more energy efficient actually pays for itself (albeit in the long run, which is why most of us have not bothered doing it).

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

#204

Post by fulafel »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #74
stefan_ wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"carefully manage" aka try to retain the fossil fuel dependence at all costs. Hawaii is a microcosm of egregious mismanagement despite ideal circumstances.

I was under a similar impression, but an independent audit found that while unnecessary staffing (and associated costs) was occurring, it didn't appear that the utility was attempting to sandbag the grid transformation. There's bloat, but also legitimate progress. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/audit-of-hawaiian-electric-... > Contrary to stakeholder criticism, Hawaiian Electric's support of Hawaii's groundbreaking…

2045? A 30 year transition plan (since '15) sounds like doing nothing and branding it.

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

#205

Post by cbmuser »

rtpg wrote: post #117
acidburnNSA wrote: post #84

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…

Isn't gas also at like 50% production as well? It's also heavily knocked out? Like it's pulling a lot of weight because it's 80% of the capacity if nothing's going wrong! If it was 100% then maybe 40 GW of thermal capacity would _also_ be offline. ERCOT assumed 0% from Wind. Instead we're getting 25% They assumed 100% from gas. Instead we're getting 50% (or 70% or whatever). You look at that and tell me gas is what's…

South Texas Project 1 was already fixed and should be back online:

> https://twitter.com/Beazy_Rampezy/status/1362043827800977414

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

#206

Post by TylerE »

cbozeman wrote: post #176
lsllc wrote: 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 feel like what we need to do is dump $50 to $100 billion per year into nuclear fusion reactor research, then get them online around the world as soon as possible. If the patents are to be believed, then Lockheed-Martin's Skunkworks has developed a portable fusion reactor the size of an intermodal shipping container. I'd like to see those scaled up significantly for usage around the world, for a variety of reasons..…

Uh, last time I checked we weren't able to do above-unity sustained fusion even at the mega-project level.

Source?

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

#207

Post by chemmail »

akamaka wrote: post #203

There’s an elegant solution to all this: better energy efficiency for buildings. It’s funny seeing people in this thread jumping right past the root cause and suggesting elaborate solutions like nuclear power. And before you say it’s not feasible to upgrade hundreds of millions of buildings in the USA, you should be aware that upgrading homes to be more energy efficient actually pays for itself (albeit in the long ru…

This is what the WOZX token plans to do. If you read what website and whitepaper, you will absolutely not get what they are trying to achieve. What i think they are doing is a marketplace for people to chip in to do renovations to improve energy efficiency and then dividends of the savings be vested back into those investors. It sounds like a good place, but ultimately seems too convoluted.

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

#208

Post by cbmuser »

hristov wrote: post #122
lsllc wrote: 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…

> I don't see why we need this so called baseline. It is an outdated concept pushed by the nuclear industry.

That’s a lie spread by the renewables lobby.

Of course, there is always a certain level of electricity generation that is needed as most people like to use their fridges, AC and computers 24/7.

And then you have things like traffic infrastructure, hospitals, gas stations which operate 24/7.

I don’t know about the US, but in Germany only 25% of the electricity is consumed by private households, 75% by industry, traffic and businesses.

The result is that in Germany the demand never goes below 50 GW and normally peaks at around 75-80 GW. The demand function pretty much oscillates like a sine function.

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

#209

Post by konjin »

akamaka wrote: post #203

There’s an elegant solution to all this: better energy efficiency for buildings. It’s funny seeing people in this thread jumping right past the root cause and suggesting elaborate solutions like nuclear power. And before you say it’s not feasible to upgrade hundreds of millions of buildings in the USA, you should be aware that upgrading homes to be more energy efficient actually pays for itself (albeit in the long ru…

>It’s funny seeing people in this thread jumping right past the root cause and suggesting elaborate solutions like nuclear power.

The root cause is extreme weather events which will will get more of. Non-renewables are not affected by the wind and sun. Since we don't want to go extinct by pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere we are left with nuclear.

I don't understand how people can want to return to feudalism where land is the only way to extract energy from the sun. But given how NYC and SF treat workers perhaps I do.

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

#210

Post by dbjacobs »

ardy42 wrote: post #32
nimos wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

900/Mwh is 90c per kwh. Normal wholesale is about 5-7c. Retail national average is about 14. Higher cost states are around 20c with Hawaii near 30c.

> 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.

Actually the bulk of generation is from oil with 25% or so from renewables [1]. So our power prices is heavily influenced by oil prices.

Each island is also its own isolated electric grid, so reliability is not great and shifting renewables to other islands isn't possible currently. Unfortunately, the ocean is deep between the islands and connecting them would probably cost close to a billion dollars all in. A bit of a stretch for our small state.

[1] - https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/about-us/power-facts

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