Willem Post's Blog (685)

“NextEra may produce wind energy, but its real business is subsidy mining,” said Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and an expert on the energy sector. “Renewables need subsidies because they aren’t economic in the free market. By subsidizing renewables, the wholesale power markets across the country are getting more and more distorted."…

During the past 10 years, solar systems, large and small, have been installed in many areas of the world, especially in southern Germany and southern California. With many small solar systems connected to a distribution system, the passing of clouds causes their output to become highly irregular. When there were few solar systems this was not a problem, but not so with many systems.

Increasingly, battery systems are added to such distribution grids for regulation, i.e.,…

New England has clean energy generation alternatives, other than variable wind and solar energy, which requires the inefficient operation of gas turbines for peaking, filling-in and balancing, and tree burning, which wastes at least 5 out of 6 trees.

NOTE: Wood Source Energy Factor: Losses = Upstream (harvest, chipping, transport, about 2.5%) + Conversion to electricity, including self-use for entire site (about 75%) + Transmission and distribution (about 7%) =…

Some Vermont renewable energy proponents have a fanciful notion of “Making Vermont Energy Independent”. Some legislators repeat it as part of their RE rhetoric and talking points. There is an organization “Energy Independent Vermont”, sponsored by VPIRG that espouses this independence movement, along with a tax on carbon. One such carbon tax envisions raising $520 million per year by 2026.

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Hawaii has increased its PV solar systems in recent years. The energy is generated mostly between 10 am and 2 pm, whereas peak demand is later in the evening. Battery systems have been installed to shift a part of the solar energy to peak hours.

https://hawaiienergy.com/about/get-the-facts

Here is a description of a PV solar/Battery system combo.

In Kauai, Hawaii, there is a 52 MWh of battery…

This article shows a method of calculating the CO2 associated with electricity consumption of any state in New England. In this case it was applied to Vermont. At the end of the article is a list of references.

The Energy Information Agency, EIA, calculates CO2 emissions based on in-state fossil fuel electricity generation; Vermont has very little of such generation, i.e., according to the EIA Vermont has a small quantity of CO2 emissions relating to electricity. It is…

WIND, SOLAR AND HYDRO ELECTRICITY COSTS

If massive build-outs of heavily subsidized wind and solar were to occur (at great expense and environmental damage), which would have upstream CO2 emissions, electric grids would gradually become “cleaner”, i.e., have less CO2/kWh.

That approach would take decades, plus the variable, intermittent, grid disturbing, electricity from:

1) Large-scale, ridge-line wind…

This article deals with the energy from source to electrical energy user. The complete pathway must be used to enable evaluation of one energy pathway versus another. First some definitions:

- Source energy is the energy taken from coal mines, oil and gas wells, and forests for conversion to electricity and heat.

- Primary energy = source energy - energy used for exploration, extraction, processing and transport of fuels (coal, oil, gas, biofuels, wastes, etc.) to…

As part of the quest of having energy sources that produce near-zero CO2 emissions, energy systems analysts have looked at hydrogen as one such source. They see hydrogen as a possible fuel for transportation.

In California, the hydrogen economy movement has received support, in the form of subsidies and demonstration projects, from the state government and environmental groups, often supported and financed by prominent Hollywood actors.

Current…

The Block Island Wind Farm, after many years of dithering, became operational in late 2016. It is located 3.8 miles east of Block Island, Rhode Island. It has five wind turbines, each with a capacity of 6 megawatt. Each turbine is about 589 feet tall.

The annual wind electricity production would be about 105,000 MWh/y, if the capacity factor were 0.40. 

The estimated useful service life would be about 20 years, based on about 20 years of European offshore…

Five years ago, Gov. Shumlin declared Vermont’s energy goal to be "90% renewable energy by 2050". The General Assembly has never enacted this declaration, but it did establish a Renewable Portfolio Standard, RPS, requiring 55% of retail electricity sales to be from renewable sources by 2017; 75% by 2032, per Act 56.

Renewable Portfolio Standards: Renewable portfolio standards require utilities to have a percentage of their electricity supply from renewable sources. Two…

Germany had an installed capacity of 39,612 MW at the end of 2014. During 2014, the output varied from 29,687 MW (74.9% of capacity briefly during December) to 24 MW (0.06%). The average output was 5,868 MW (14.8% = the capacity factor). The production was 51,405.8 GWh.

Output was between 0 to 10% of capacity for 45.5% of the time (3986.75 h)

Output was in excess of 50% of capacity for 5.2% of the time (460.75 h)

A graph of wind output during 2014, does…

Electricity Mix Based on Power Purchase Agreements: There are non-technical people talking about the “Vermont electricity mix” or the “New Hampshire electricity mix”. That mix exists only on paper, because it is based on power purchase agreements, PPAs, between utilities and owners of electricity generators. A utility may claim it is 100% renewable. This means the utility has PPAs with owners of renewable generators, i.e. wind, solar, biomass, hydro, etc. That mix has…

The Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan, CEP, goal aims to “transform” the Vermont economy. It would require investments of about $33.3 billion, about $1 billion per year for 33 years, during the 2017 - 2050 period, per Vermont Energy Action Network 2015 Annual Report. The CEP could not be implemented without a very high carbon tax and other taxes, surcharges and fees of at least $970 million per year for 33 years.…

The variable outputs of heavily-subsidized wind and solar are totally unusable, could not be fed into the grid, without the presence of a fleet of quick-reacting power plants, such as CCGTs, to counteract to ups and downs of these outputs, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, year after year.

The more wind and solar systems tied to the grid, the larger the fleet of…

Almost immediately after the funds of the American Recovery and Reconstruction Act, ARRA, became available, many states, including Vermont, distributed some of the funds to a number of government and private renewable energy entities. Government programs with federal and state subsidies were created to attract in-state and out-of-state investments in renewable energy projects to create jobs and boost the economy.

In Vermont, the media were enlisted to build up an image of…

The General Assembly enacted a Renewable Portfolio Standard, RPS, mandate requiring 55% of utility retail electricity supplies to be from renewable sources by 2017, and 75% by 2032, per Act 56. 

On a contracted and self-production basis, GMP’s RE was about 34.7 + 5.6 +18.1 = 58.4% of its retail electricity supplies in 2016, of which RECs were retained or sold. GMP’s electricity mix was about as follows:

The main purpose of this article is to show a large quantity of hydro energy can be obtained from Canada at much less cost and environmental damage to the New England economy and environment than building out wind energy on ridgelines. In this article, I assumed the ISO-NE energy from wind would be either 100% on shore, or 50% offshore and 50% onshore.

Most New England coal, oil, and nuclear plants likely would be phased out over the next 20 - 30 years. Those 3 sources were…

ECONOMICS OF BATTERIES FOR STABILIZING AND STORAGE ON DISTRIBUTION GRIDS

It appears the world has ample fossil fuels for at least the next 100 years, even with a growing gross world product and population. A worldwide, full-scale transition away from fossil fuels likely would take at least 100 years. It would not be wise to subsidize the build-out of technologies that have very little potential to provide the world with abundant, low-cost…

In violation of the spirit of Act 250, VT has been shamelessly trashing its pristine ridge lines with 500-ft tall, environmentally destructive, noise-making, property-value-reducing, health-damaging industrial wind turbine power plants that produce unsteady, grid-disturbing, variable, intermittent (i.e., non-dispatchable) energy at a cost of about 10 c/kWh (with subsidies), and about 15 c/kWh (without subsidies); NE average wholesale prices have been about 4.5 – 5.0 c/kWh for the past 5…