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Depending on how capital intensive the plant is, this might still be cost competitive with intermittent low, zero or negatively priced green electricity.
by markvdb 7y ago
Depending on how capital intensive the plant is, this might still be cost competitive with intermittent low, zero or negatively priced green electricity.
- jblow 7y agoAlso ... renewables are always going through cycles of high and low availability. Prices vary across these cycles. If you make your fuel only at the time during the day when there is the highest delta between supply and demand, then you pay the minimum electricity cost, and the utilities are glad to have you there to balance the load.
- ThrustVectoring 7y agoNote that this economic strategy is already in place in other industries where electricity price is a large component of the final cost of goods sold. Aluminum smelting is a huge example of this.
- happosai 7y agoLarge-scale Negative, zero or below-cost renewables only happen if someone else foots the bill. And that usually means tax-payer funded subsidies. I mean sure, there will be some hours during exceptionally sunny/windy days when price is less than the production cost, but don't bet your business on it. What does work is building the plant in a wind/solar abudant location and co-siting with large, behind-the-meter wind/solar plant. Not only do you get electricity at cost, but you cut the grid costs and taxes away too.