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National Electricity Grid Sources

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by iplug, Jul 9, 2015.

  1. usbseawolf2000

    usbseawolf2000 HSD PhD

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    Any forecast on the price of CA electricity? I believe it is already one of the highest in the nation.
     
  2. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    I think you're right that CA is one of the highest - if not the highest. That's the price for getting rid of coal and other co2 / fossil fuels - and it's the price of having some of the highest salaries and "perks" for utility company executives;
    http://turn.org/issues/energy/item/626-edison-executives-secret-spending.html
    ..... and those money #'s are low, compared to 4 years later - now. The reports show salary earners as executive #1 or executive #2, never saying who they are as its a secretive revelation. Yes, you don't want to open that giant can of worms.
    .
     
    #22 hill, Aug 14, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2015
  3. Jeff N

    Jeff N The answer is 0042

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    Somewhere I recently saw a table of average electricity prices per kWh in the 50 U.S. states. I recall it listed California's average price as $0.135 per kWh. I don't remember the numbers for other states offhand.

    California pricing is more variable than many other states because it is priced at different marginal tiers so that higher usage results in more expensive pricing in order to encourage conservation. Recently a new EV rate was introduced that is Time of Use with no tiers. So, overnight and weekend morning off-peak use is always about $0.10 per kWh.

    Of course, regular daytime and on-peak use is priced higher so it all depends on your usage pattern. If you are not home during the day or live in a cooler summer climate like a coastal area then overall electricity pricing can be reasonable even with substantial charging of electric cars.

    I haven't seen future pricing predictions although it tends to be less volatile than gasoline pricing in general.
     
  4. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Here you go a quick google for the 2014 numbers
    Annual Electricity Price Comparison by State
    California is number 44. Not a good place to be. I can't say its because of lack of coal or renewables though. 49 and 50 are alaska and hawaii, those don't really count as their are transportation issues making them high, which are not solvable. Worse than California are Connecticut, New York, Road Island, Massachusetts, and new Hampshire. None of them have much solar and wind.

    Washington is number 1 the lowest price. Lots of cheap hydro.
    The coal states West Virgina, Wyoming, and Kentucky are 2, 3, and 8. But Texas isn't far behind at 17, only $0.0135 more than West Virginia despite a lot of wind, and a growing population that just had the highest demand for power in ercot's history.

    Really you deserve a big salery as a reward for botching maintenance on a nuclear power plant. The California PUC granted SCE extra cash for that mistake, one reason california's rates are so high. PG&E and san diago electric are responsable and problems go back to Pete Wilson and Grey Davis, its a lot of bad regulation and public risk, with private profit. One risk is underbuilding the infrastructure, but don't worry, the big california utilities got bailed out of bankrupcy and all sorts of mistakes. Wind and roof top solar are probably less expensive than the costs today. CHeapest way to lower costs and add reliablity is to build new ccgt, but the utilties like to keep there less efficient steam plants, and the PUC says rate players can pay for grid storage instead of much cheaper cycling power.
     
  5. Jeff N

    Jeff N The answer is 0042

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  6. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    same list. The site I linked simply grabbed the 2014 figures from eia, you have 2013. EIA will put their figures in that pretty format in October. Only difference in 2014 is prices have gone up a little, and now California has fallen behind NJ, they were cheaper in 2013.

    I stand by the assesment though, that the california energy prices have more to do with regulations, underbuilding, and utiltity costs, then renewables and natural gas. CCGT is not much different in cost than coal, but the old steam plants are less efficient and more expensive to maintain. California had 12% solar and wind, texas 10% in 2014 but texas renewable for customers that buy them are cheaper than california's average rate. I would think if the PUC did it in a good way california could add a lot of wind and roof top solar without rates going up, that CSP solar was expensive though.
     
    #26 austingreen, Aug 14, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2015
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  7. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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  8. iplug

    iplug Senior Member

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  9. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    +1
    Those figures look low, they may be leaving some costs out, but the trend is pretty clear. PV is less expensive than CSP, and becuase it can be built in smaller projects, environmental concerns are much smaller, and corporations and individuals can take on projects not just major utilities. PV costs have been falling fairly fast, and post 2020 should not be much more than ccgt, or even less in some areas. New ccgt is less than new coal, which means 5%-10% solar won't add much to utility bills in 2030.
     
  10. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    Looking at the report, the notable lack of "economy of scale" really stood out.
     
  11. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I looked at the slides yesterday. IMHO its common sense that there would be diseconomies of scale on the mega projects. The lowest cost projects are 5MW-10MW. from the bullet point on the sides.

    Think about it. If you want to build a 10 MW system, you have a lot of examples to look at, and can build the best project. Cost of materials will be about the same per MW as a 100 MW system. Dealing with the state and PUC will be much easier. Labor much easier to hire, and when the project is over you can probably move the same crew to the next project. Build 100 MW+ and you are talking vast areas of land, a much bigger crew that is harder to manage, and multi-year. Of course you could get the land and plop 10 MW modules on one or two at a time ;-) and make each one a smaller easier project with each one possibly gaining from experience and better hardware. Our local solar 35 MW (DC) took 280 acres I would think it would be easier to find and build on 100 acre blocks.
     
    #31 austingreen, Oct 5, 2015
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2015
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  12. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    Good points. Especially about the serial use of trained labor that had not occurred to me. The other point was the collocation of generation and load (and storage?). This would make grid upgrades more reasonable. Another hidden advantage is cloud degradation would be more stochastic with widely distributed collection points.
     
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  13. iplug

    iplug Senior Member

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    It's been another year, so time to take another look at the EIA's latest data on national sources of electricity by year and recent months:

    http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_6.pdf


    Updating the original post:
    (please note units in Energy, not percent total):

    -coal reached a minor trough in 2012 after peaking in 2007 and is now falling significantly, falling through lows not seen since the early 1980s
    -natural gas is largely picking up the slack
    -nuclear source output remains quite stable for many years
    -geothermal source output has been growing (slowly) for years
    -solar PV had been increasing an annual rate well into the double digit range for several years, and though slowing down, is still growing quite briskly
    -wind source output gains continue, but continues to slow
    -grid production had not grown in almost 10 years and now shows signs of decreasing for the first quarter of 2016
     
  14. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    Sooner or later, utility scale storage needs to become a core factor. A whole lot of power balancing and increased efficiencies can take the place of burning fuel.
     
  15. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    We have a lot in Virginia in the form of pumped water storage.
    It's used mostly for the nuclear though.
     
  16. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    for the life of me I don't know why, but it seems like Mr Musk is way more interested in storing utility grid power (& PV via the power wall app) than the utility is.
    .
     
    #36 hill, Jul 11, 2016
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2016
  17. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    simple reason

    musk thinks regulation will force people to buy way to expensive stored power. The utility doesn't want this
     
  18. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    cool update
    fossil fuel in 2007 was 71.8% of the grid with coal at 49.9% and
    in 2015 it was down to 66.4% with coal dropping to 34.2%

    in 2007 wind was growing fast, but was still only 0.9% of the grid, and solar really was tiny. By 2015 wind was 4.9% and solar 0.7% of the grid.

    The clean power plan should reinforce the direction. Economically though it starts getting tough to go bellow 25% coal or more than 10% wind without more severe and restrictive government regulations. Perhaps that should be the aim right now 25% coal 10% wind, 5% solar, add some biomass and biogass, keep hydro where it is, let nuclear fall off a little (let's kill those few unsafe plants) and modernize natural gas without increasing the burn.
     
  19. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    When we say 5% wind is that installed capacity or actual % of electron pool? I never know if people are talking actual generation (which of course is lower than installed capacity).
     
  20. iplug

    iplug Senior Member

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    5% wind is actual production, rather than installed capacity. The linked EIA site reports net generation.
     
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