Willem Post's Blog (689)

Most people, including myself, really have no clear idea regarding the various subsidies required to attract capital for the build-outs of solar systems. Relatively few insiders, such as some legislators, the Vermont Department of Public Service and the Vermont Public Utilities Commission, likely are intimately familiar with all the detailed ins and outs.

The Vermont Public Utilities Commission administers the Vermont Standard Offer Program that promotes and subsidizes the…

PV Solar Output Variability During variable Cloudy Weather

Clouds are the main reason PV solar generation experiences intermittency (excluding the normal night-time disappearance).

PV solar generation can rapidly decrease by 60% within seconds, due to a cloud passing over the solar panels causing a reduction in solar insolation.

The time taken for the cloud to pass is dependent upon cloud height, sun elevation and wind speed. These factors need…

The Hornsdale Power Reserve, HPR, battery system, 100 MW/129 MWh, in Australia, was the largest battery in the world in 2017. It is located near a 315-MW, French-owned wind turbine plant.

In 2017, various capital costs of the system were mentioned. About 1.5 y later, documents revealed the turnkey capital cost was about 56 million euros, about US$ 66 million, or 66 million/129,000 =…

In view of the grave concerns raised by 5 to 17 year old children on the impact of CO2 on the Earth’s climate, the government will introduce legislation to address the most pressing issue of our times, namely CO2 emissions and the ensuing climate mayhem that they cause. See Appendix 1.

CO2 has risen to record levels from 0.0280% (pre-industrial) to 0.0405% today. See Appendix 2.

The policy, inspired by the GND, has four main aspects, for…

ABSTRACT OF ARTICLE 

In this article it was assumed all New England fossil and nuclear plants would be closed down, and the 2017 capacities, MW, of wind and solar would be increased 22 times, to offset the electricity shortfall of the closed plants. It was assumed the load (electricity fed to grid) on the NE grid increased from about 123 TWh/y in 2018 to about 175 TWh/y in 2050, mostly due to electric vehicles and heat pumps. See tables 1 and…

The main purpose of this article is to determine how much AC electricity has to be drawn from the wall socket to have one kWh of DC in the battery. This appears straightforward, but it is not, because it takes energy to convert from AC to DC and to overcome the internal resistance of the battery.

Also, once the electricity is in the battery, it is used to operate the vehicle’s systems, whether in motion or not, such as heating/cooling the cabin and battery. That electricity…

IRE proponents want to “electrify” the Vermont transportation sector. That means:

- Much less consumption of gasoline and diesel fuel and much more generation of electricity.

- This article deals only with gasoline replacement.

- Internal combustion vehicles using gasoline, hereafter called E10 (a blend of 90% gasoline/10% ethanol from corn), would be replaced with plug-in electric vehicles.

Vermont had 2985 registered plug-in hybrids, and plug-in…

At present, gas turbine plants perform most of the peaking, filling-in and balancing services for the New England electric grid. Diesel plants also are used. If fossil fuel and nuclear plants were shut down, mostly hydro plants and battery systems would have to perform those services.

Projected Load on NE Grid 

Table 1 shows the energy sources of the NE grid in 2018, and the likely energy sources in 2050, with fossil and nuclear plants shut…

The Green New Deal, GND, to be implemented by 2030, appears to be an accelerated version of the wind, water, sun, (WWS) Plan by Jacobson, published in 2015, which is aiming to be implemented by 2050.

The GND Plan is more extensive in scope and has a shorter timetable than the WWS Plan. Here are some quotes from the GND Plan:

- “Upgrade and/or replace every building in America”

- “Replace every internal combustible engine vehicle”

- “Connect every…

The US/Canada became the "Middle East of Trees" for the British Empire, BE, after the British chased France out of North America at the end of the Seven Year War, 1756 - 1763, also called French and Indian War.

https://wou.edu/history/files/2015/08/Melby-Patrick.pdf

By controlling access to the trees, France, Spain, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, even in combination, could never build fleets of…

Vermonters use low sulfur No.2 fuel oil, propane, natural gas and wood for space and domestic hot water heating. Such heating contributes about 28% of total Vermont emissions of about 10 million metric ton in 2015 (latest numbers!).

No.2 fuel oil and propane are about 75% of heating emissions, pipeline and compressed natural gas about 22% and wood about 3%.

FURNACE EFFICIENCIES

The standard efficiency rating for residential heating…

The rewrite of this article was prompted by an EIA report titled:

Utility-Scale Battery Storage Costs Decreased Nearly 70% Between 2015 and 2018.

The graph shows average values and ranges.

The graph shows the minimum cost trending towards $500/kWh, and the maximum cost trending towards $1000/kWh, within about 5 years. See notes.

The values are for custom-engineered, site-specific, utility-scale battery systems, i.e., greater than 2…

World Fossil Fuel Percentage Unchanged for Over 43 years

 In the 1970s the big worry was fossil fuels would soon run out, and so we should “use them wisely”. But in the 1980s the risk changed to one of an overheating planet, and so we should “leave them in the ground.”

This article shows unchanged fossil energy use from 1970 to 2013, a period of 43 years. See URL…

From 24 December, 2017 to 8 January, 2018, New England was gripped by cold weather stretch of cold weather, with all major cities in New England averaging temperatures below normal for 16 consecutive days, including 10 days with average temperatures more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit below normal. This cold spell resulted in a temporary spike in the price of natural gas in New England, which in turn triggered heavy use of oil for electricity production and high…

Synapse Energy Economics prepared an analysis and report of state energy policy impacts on future natural gas consumption in New England’s electric sector.

http://www.synapse-energy.com/sites/default/files/New-Englands-Shrinking-Need-for-Natural-Gas-16-109.pdf

"First, with or without a new pipeline, existing laws and regulations will cumulatively…

The areas occupied by power systems for electricity generation by various energy sources for 60 years are shown in table 1. Wind and solar have short lives, i.e., 20 to 25 years, but nuclear has a life of about 60 years. Any large-scale build-out of wind and solar would have a much larger “footprint” area than nuclear.

- Nuclear produces 84 times more electricity per acre than solar during 60 years.

- Nuclear produces 612 times more electricity per acre than onshore…

Consumers should know the facts when it comes to buying a Cold Climate Heat Pump (HP) and whether it will help save money heating their house. See Appendix and URLs.

http://vermontfuel.com/heatpump/…

On December 18, 2018, a coalition of nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia announced their intent to design a new regional low-carbon transportation policy proposal that would cap and reduce carbon emissions from the combustion of transportation fuels, and invest funds (taxes, fees and surcharges imposed by the program) into low-carbon and more resilient transportation infrastructure.

Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey,…

The Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan, CEP, projects to install about 35,000 cold-climate heat pumps, ccHPs, by 2025 to begin the transformation of about 63% of building heating to renewable electricity by 2050. About 34% would be by biomass (wood burning) and bio liquids, and only about 3% would be by fossil fuels. See page 8 of URL…