Mass enviro piece claims offshore wind will save ratepayers $5.1 billion

Comment

Comment by Penny Gray on August 30, 2020 at 7:48pm

The Commonwealth forecasts 5.1 billion savings over 20 years from their offshore wind projects? How do they come up with that figure? We in Maine have to pay 3 times the price for off shore wind from AquaVentus?

Comment by Willem Post on August 30, 2020 at 12:58pm

"ISO-New England forecasts that between a sixth and a third of all the fossil fuel power plants in New England could retire in the next decade. As offshore wind comes online, dirty power plants will switch off, for good."

CALIZUELA been there, done that.

There were not enough generating plants to serve demand after wind and solar went AWOL

The result: Rolling blackouts.

Rolling Blackouts in California a Harbinger for New England

 

CAISO is the California Independent Systems Operator. Here’s their graph of renewables generation from the CAISO site:

 

 

Figure 1. Total generation by each type of renewables in California, August 14, 2020

 

The total of geothermal, biomass, biogas, small hydro, and wind is diddlysquat

Wind died around midday

Solar started to go to sleep around 6 pm in the evening.

Just about that time rolling blackouts started.

 

Here is a CAISO chart, showing the net demand,

Blue, traditionals + Green, renewables = Demand

Green is just a sliver at 7 pm, when peak demand occurs, and remains a sliver for until 8 am the next day, when solar starts to build up. See figure 2.

 

See figure 3 of the next day in URL.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/08/15/in-caiso-emergency-break-glass/

  

 

Figure 2. Net demand for electricity in California, split out by the type of generation of the electricity

 

California Rolling Blackouts Were Predicted

 

California has had rolling blackouts 3 times in 4 days, and likely will have more. The main problem is California’s irrational shift from natural gas.

 

About 9,000 MW of gas turbine plants, enough to power 6.8 million homes, have been shut down over the past 5 years, as the state increasingly turned to unreliable renewables. That leaves fewer options, after the sun sets and solar production decreases in the later afternoon, and the wind is not blowing as well.

 

Normally, California imports sufficient electricity from neighboring states, when its in-state generation is insufficient. But the sprawling heat wave blanketing the US southwest is pushing all power plants to near 100% capacity throughout the region.

 

California energy systems engineers have been warning this would happen for some years, so there should be no surprise it actually does happen. Let us hope New England RE dreamers will not emulate California’s foolishness.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/worst-heat-70-years-threatens-090000...

 

CAISO brags about how they “maintain reliability while maximizing clean energy sources”

 

California Unwisely Shutting Down 9,000 MW of Clean-Burning Gas Plants

 

California utilities were unwisely ordered by RE bureaucrats to shut down these plants, but they should have kept them for standby, i.e., staffed, maintained, fueled, ready to serve at a moment’s notice, in case of unreliable wind and solar not performing.

 

Batteries: Some RE bureaucrats say the rolling blackouts likely would not have happened, or would be less severe, if we had built out the planned battery systems.

 

The turnkey capital cost of 9,000 MW of batteries with a 4-hour charge is 36000 MWh x 1000 x $500/kWh = $18 billion. The batteries would need to be recharged overnight to be available the next day. Such battery systems have a 15 to 20% loss on an HV ac to HV ac basis. They last about 15 years. Where would that electricity, including losses, come from, if unreliable wind and solar were minimal?

 

Here’s the bottom line: If you add 10,000 MW of solar supply to your grid, as shown in Figure 2, you must have available about 10,000 MW of traditional fossil supply to cover times when unreliable renewables simply don’t cut it.

 

By blatantly ignoring that fact, allows RE dreamers to claim “renewables are ready for the market”.

Unreliable renewables are absolutely not ready “for the market”, without huge ongoing subsidies and full fossil backup, and in a “pinch”, they are simply not up to the job.

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/cost-shifting-is-the-na...

 

All of this is the total and complete fault of the Democrats, who have run California since forever, aided by huge influxes of mostly Hispanic immigrants, who likely vote Democrat.

A MUCH BETTER APPROACH

The gas fired turbine plants, which usually operate near 60% efficiency, need to be staffed, fueled, kept in good order, to start at a moment's notice, in case wind and solar are near zero, which happens AT RANDOM throughout the year. Such lulls may last 5 to 7 days.