plug-in states and ghg

Yep that is pretty much it. The utility does a long term contract to build a batch before it is sold. Customers lock in the price of the construction, but pay for grid and maintenance of wind and other power plants. When a batch is sold, then another one is built. My batch came with a 10 year contract that fixes the price, and since prices have gone up, I'm paying less than a new batch, or even regular power. The new ones only come with a 5 year contract. As people roll off their contracts this wind will get sold again, sometimes to the old buyer. The city always has more wind than has been sold, and every batch purchased adds more wind to the grid.

Solar is quite different. Austin Energy needs to get 3% solar by 2020, and it appears batches are more expesive than people are willing to pay. If they go unsold then the solar gets used by a normal grid customer and rates go up. People adding solar to their homes usually take the rebate from Austin energy, and this is counted against the 3%. In the current term that means it doesn't really add any marginal solar to the grid, but rebates are high and it locks you in to the price for as long as your pv is good, while wind gets at most a 5 year contract. As John mentioned in a different thread though, you can decide not to take austin energy money, and then your solar would not be counted against that 3% and would add real renewables to the grid.

 

That is against the green choice rules to sell it as renewable. They can buy other wind on the spot market, but that isn't sold as renewable. We have rules to protect consumers here. Almost all of texas wind is built under contract. I don't understand compete on price with cheaper dirty fuels. Wind is less expensive during peak, but often not available. The price of maintenance is low. It is construction costs that are expensive. If wind turbines are already present it can be sold easily at less than it costs to produce.

 

Oh, yes they can. I believe they did a 30 year contract to build my batch. Yes once the contract is up they can sell to someone else. or charge more. Just because my contract is up doesn't mean the utilities contract is up with the wind farm they paid to build. If austin energy raises the price too high to sell the batches to sell, then they will stop building more. In today's market though, they have buyers and build more with green choice.

When those contracts to build the wind are up, that is when there will no longer be a one to one correspondence. By 2025 Texas should be about 20% renewable and many contracts with utilities will be done. Most will be able to choose to pay more for wind, but green choice programs won't work well anymore.

 

I think you are intentionally missing the point.

Cars charge on the local grid not the national one. If you weight the local grids by the number of kwh that are actually going to charge the cars you will get a different answer than if you weight the grid by how much each sector produces power.

When you look where the cars are charging, they will as a collection much better than your naive national estimate.

If someone is concerned about your own ghg footprint, and are in a place with a good renewable program, you can further reduce the greenhouse gas impact of a plug-in.

No one was talking about buying green energy in other states.

 

This has gone far afield of topic.

Again my point was where these vehicles are selling as a group they lower ghg. It is only by a small amount. YMMV

I think your problem was with the second part, that many can buy renewable energy, and this further reduces that carbon footprint for the individual.

Now some renewable programs are good and some are bad, and not all green choice is the same. The Austin Energy program has paid to build the most renewables of any of the programs. The City of Palo Alto (CA) has the highest participation rate. All of them are different. Austin Energy serves around 1 Million people and many businesses like Whole Foods and the city government are now on Green Choice.

All the City of Austin green choice rules are of public record and vary from batch to batch. The first batch has now expired. Each new batch is a new contract to build a wind farm, or group of farms. When a batch is sold a new batch is created. Green Choice in Austin has done its job and new batches may end soon, as there are already 493 MW of wind electricity built, close to the goal. This compares to 400 MW of nuclear power.

Here are the guidelines
http://www.austinenergy.com/Energy%20Efficiency/Programs/Green%20Choice/programdetails.pdf
The city in 2011 went renewable at about 2.5 cents more than the current fuel surcharge with a 10 year contract.
Individuals and busineses can buy batch 6 for 2.1 cents more than current fuel surcharge with a 5 year contract
I'm paying about 1 cent less than current fuel surcharge but nearing the end of my 10 year contract.

If history has anything to say the city will be paying less for electricity than current rates by the end of the contract. This is a city owned utility, and it does not participate in the state of the Texas RPS, but follows state rules. People that created Green Choice in Austin were instrumental in getting the states program in place - there is a political edge to our local program. There is no profit motive to not build the renewables. Any costs are passed along to utility customers. Texas rules separate new power built from existing power.

Austin Energy also has put out 200 public charging stations that John was talking about, fueled with renewables, with a charge of $30 for a 6 month period. The federal government payed part of the costs of installation, but utility customers end up paying the rest on our bills.

 

The EPA already knows what I've been saying. Its not as if this is something new or I came up with it. Remember YMMV and this is even more so with a PHEV The DOE makes you put in a zip in fueleconomy.gov they do keep the national average grid for reference, but that is just to sh0w how your region - they don't go down to your municipal utilities - is doing versus the nation. This can help people that are concerned about ghg to think about buying green power.
Beyond Tailpipe Emissions: Results

Just about any PHEV or BEV will reduce ghg out of the box, for the group of users - other than the karma. Even the karma likely reduces it versus the vehicle the owner wold likely buy. One size does not fit all. It is good that there are choices out there. The prius phv, if it were bulletproof, and leagues above the competition, it would not need the fairly heavy discounts to sell. These vehicles are in their infancy, and we should not pretend that 4.4kwh is optimal for anything except a few of toyota's target customers. There are mearly engineering trade offs. GHG is really near the bottom of the list of what makes one plug-in better than another. If you don't use renewables they all are very very close.

There is so much wrong here, that I don't want to get diverted. Even if people are not buying green power the fleet of volts will likely produce less ghg than the fleet of prii proportional to mileage (prii ghg * volt miles/prii miles. In 5 years as the grid gets cleaner and the cars get older, the prii will produce more green house than today with dirtier oil, and the volts will produce less. But the numbers are quite insignificant compared to the car fleet. To really reduce ghg from the fleet, a much higher percentage needs to purchase phevs. IF you restrict the contries choices to just prii, we will never get above 4%.

But really if your guy in DC really is worried about ghg they will say f&*k it, I'm not buying a phev, I can just ride the metro and my bikes. Lots of folks in the DC area may buy phevs though because they want to drive but use less gas. They aren't solely focused on the tiny ghg difference between vehicles and don't want to change their lifestyle. Of course there is not a place in this country where you are forced to buy 100% oil electricity if you have a house. The high oil place is hawaii and solar there is a great option.

That seems quite strange. I expect the next prius phv to have more range because that is what the market is asking for in the US. I don't think it will grow a bigger battery to reduce ghg. Most that buy the car and are not buying renewables will pobably not care at all about a 5 or 10 gram reduction. You are focusing on your individual wants, but not the market. You are also assuming cars will be shipped to places disproportional compared to market forcasts.

 

They are higher in your fictional washington DC with those oil things. Isn't that the land that you think most people buy phevs. Even if you pop that sucker in real west virginia its about 220 versus 222 today, and remember your idea is the grids not getting cleaner. When you add in the extra ghg to produce the batteries and disposae of them your likely increasing it versus the Prius. I bet that prius phv gets a sticker, proud to drive on US coal.

Now of course that guy buying a prius instead of a volt in NYC is a big polluter since the volt is 190 versus the prius 222.

lol.
Just because someone has poor reasoning, doesn't mean you should give bad advice.

I assume you are mainly talking to people that want to reduce gasoline usage and depending on driving cycles that may be the best. The more plug-ins on the road the faster we decrease oil use.