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> …and even undercut fossil fuels on price with the addition of energy storage, in some cases. We should try to do apples to apples here. To match the reliabil

> …and even undercut fossil fuels on price with the addition of energy storage, in some cases. We should try to do apples to apples here. To match the reliability provided by traditional sources, we need storage. Any comparison between intermittent and base load generation should always include the cost to make wind/solar reliable.

_aavaa_ 2y ago
Fossil fuel plants are less reliable then they would have you believe. See for example: https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/new-ucs-issue-brief-examines-reliability-gas-power-plants https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/new-ucs-issue-brief-examin...
- icegreentea2 2y ago
  This article and blog series appears to primarily focus on fossil fuel plants failing in extreme weather events (which are growing more frequent). This is an important dimension to track, but isn't directly comparable to "normal" reliability - ie, how much storage do you need to keep your 100% wind+solar+hydro mix providing all your typical energy needs through a typical night (for example). Also, I don't particularly think these articles make great arguments. For example, "Similarly, 56% of the generating capacity knocked offline came from gas plants during Winter Storm Uri". Texas' overall energy capacity mix is ~40% gas. So while yes, it is disproportionate, I don't think it's hugely so, especially without taking into account other factors - for example, typical solar capacity in winter. The blog post that actually starts digging at some numbers (https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/how-reliable-are-gas-power-plants-what-icap-ucap-and-elcc-tell-us/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/how-reliable-are-gas-pow...) indicates that we might expect gas plants to have a reliability of ~70-80%. From another blogpost from them, we can find a very rough estimate of solar/onland wind reliability of ~30-40% (measured in ELCC, same as the 70-80% figure above) https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/elcc-explained-the-critical-renewable-energy-concept-youve-never-heard-of/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/elcc-explained-the-criti... So it's important to take into account the reliability derating of gas plants, but it doesn't really change the fact that solar/wind are in a significantly different class of reliability compared to gas plants.
  - _aavaa_ 2y ago
    > So while yes, it is disproportionate, I don't think it's hugely so, especially without taking into account other factors - for example, typical solar capacity in winter. I would say that it is an important point, don't know if I'd go so far as to say huge. The argument that gas plants are a stable baseload which cannot be supplanted by renewables is undermined if they're disproportionately affected by such events. I agree that they're in a different class, but I don't think that reliability is the right word. I think dispatchable is much closer to the way I understand you using it. Solar and wind don't have a capacity factor of 100% since they harvest energy rather than produce it from fuel, so as the trite meme goes "the sun doesn't shine at night" so you'll need some sort of plan for how to handle the lower output during the winter and at night (i.e. storage, overbuilding, larger grids). Fossil fuel plants for the most part (they can become bottelnecked by gas pipeline capacity if all your heating is all off natural gas) has a lower capacity factor due to malfunctions or maintenance. All that to say, I agree with you that wind and solar are not a 1-1 replacement for fossil fuels. I believe that the future is going to leverage their cheap costs when their available[0] rather than try to re-create the current system which evolved due to different constraints. [0]: Different time of using pricing, larger and more responsive grids, and energy/heat storage (Rondo Energy).
- fwungy 2y ago
  I've lived in California for my whole life. A blackout in the 80's was an anomaly. They were so rare that I remember them as being fun, a little adventure, because they were very rare. In current year California I experience them on a regular enough basis that they are an genuine annoyance, especially because they are most common in the high heat of Summer. It's bad enough that I have invested in backup batteries for my home so I don't lose my refridgerated food and other essentials. One can blame PG&E, Wall Street, whomever, and they certainly bear fault, but what's changed is the Federal and California energy policy. They shut down the nuclear pathway and pushed "renewables". It became a religious issue in which simply questioning the notion that we can derive all our energy needs from "clean energy" makes you a bad person. So now California has extremely expensive energy and poor reliability. It's a mess. But you don't live in California so it's OK right, no, not really, California is where they prototype these policies and you can see them being pushed to other countries and the rest of the US. It really comes down to the old saw that doing dumb things is ultimately bad for you, no matter how good the intentions. Now we're in the retcon phase of this process where the apologists and beneficiaries of these policies try to gaslight us into believing that it was always this bad, and that things are actually getting better instead of worse.
  - rini17 2y ago
    UK has similar share of renewables as California, yet no such regular blackouts. So now who is retconning what here :D
    - fwungy 2y ago
      Just wait. California is where they start this stuff. California was an amazing place to live not too long ago. Good schools, affordable housing, (so) no major homeless issues, one of the most innovative and productive places in the entire world. But thanks to the policies we're now on our way down. Human degradation is the norm here in our cities. Take a walk through any of California's major city downtowns. They're broken. The suburbs can still sort of pretend it's all fine though. Don't say California voted for this, because in fact California has voted against the worst of these policies when they had the chance, only to be overturned by judges. Prop 187, which excluded undocumented people from the public benefits system is a prime example. Californians, probably wisely, decided they didn't want to create an incentive system for undocumented persons to come, and federal courts overturned it. It was one of many moves that changed the face of California and led us into a general decline. Now entire nations have taken to non-prosecution and even incentivization of extra-legal immigration that they have not proven ready to absorb, including the USA itself. UK is now experiencing some political turmoil around unrestricted immigration, as are many other European countries (note that unrestricted immigration is most harmful to marginalized communities including POC, LGTBQ, and women). So if the UK isn't getting as many blackouts as California is now, you just give need to give it a little more time. /rant
nasmorn 2y ago
A lot of things are going to be chasing intermittent power once it is basically free at peak solar output. Prices are going to heavily reflect that in the future.
skitout 2y ago
I agree... but it all depend on the situation. For example, existing power grid, including conventional power plant can take 20% or 30% of intermittent power with close to no extra cost... And the energy mix, the interconnections, the location, the consumption habits all have an impact on the price. Simulation at a grid level, including demand response, thermal storage... can give some precise ideas. Note that for doing apple to apple we should also include positive and negative externalities
8note 2y ago
More than that, they should include the opportunity cost of setting aside that much land to be a polluted or sunless wasteland, fairly close to population centers. Something like nuclear puts the large wasteland far away from dense populations, with only the small reactor close by

_aavaa_ 2y ago

Fossil fuel plants are less reliable then they would have you believe. See for example: https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/new-ucs-issue-brief-examines-reliability-gas-power-plants https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/new-ucs-issue-brief-examin...

icegreentea2 2y ago
This article and blog series appears to primarily focus on fossil fuel plants failing in extreme weather events (which are growing more frequent). This is an important dimension to track, but isn't directly comparable to "normal" reliability - ie, how much storage do you need to keep your 100% wind+solar+hydro mix providing all your typical energy needs through a typical night (for example). Also, I don't particularly think these articles make great arguments. For example, "Similarly, 56% of the generating capacity knocked offline came from gas plants during Winter Storm Uri". Texas' overall energy capacity mix is ~40% gas. So while yes, it is disproportionate, I don't think it's hugely so, especially without taking into account other factors - for example, typical solar capacity in winter. The blog post that actually starts digging at some numbers (https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/how-reliable-are-gas-power-plants-what-icap-ucap-and-elcc-tell-us/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/how-reliable-are-gas-pow...) indicates that we might expect gas plants to have a reliability of ~70-80%. From another blogpost from them, we can find a very rough estimate of solar/onland wind reliability of ~30-40% (measured in ELCC, same as the 70-80% figure above) https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/elcc-explained-the-critical-renewable-energy-concept-youve-never-heard-of/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/mark-specht/elcc-explained-the-criti... So it's important to take into account the reliability derating of gas plants, but it doesn't really change the fact that solar/wind are in a significantly different class of reliability compared to gas plants.
- _aavaa_ 2y ago
  > So while yes, it is disproportionate, I don't think it's hugely so, especially without taking into account other factors - for example, typical solar capacity in winter. I would say that it is an important point, don't know if I'd go so far as to say huge. The argument that gas plants are a stable baseload which cannot be supplanted by renewables is undermined if they're disproportionately affected by such events. I agree that they're in a different class, but I don't think that reliability is the right word. I think dispatchable is much closer to the way I understand you using it. Solar and wind don't have a capacity factor of 100% since they harvest energy rather than produce it from fuel, so as the trite meme goes "the sun doesn't shine at night" so you'll need some sort of plan for how to handle the lower output during the winter and at night (i.e. storage, overbuilding, larger grids). Fossil fuel plants for the most part (they can become bottelnecked by gas pipeline capacity if all your heating is all off natural gas) has a lower capacity factor due to malfunctions or maintenance. All that to say, I agree with you that wind and solar are not a 1-1 replacement for fossil fuels. I believe that the future is going to leverage their cheap costs when their available[0] rather than try to re-create the current system which evolved due to different constraints. [0]: Different time of using pricing, larger and more responsive grids, and energy/heat storage (Rondo Energy).
fwungy 2y ago
I've lived in California for my whole life. A blackout in the 80's was an anomaly. They were so rare that I remember them as being fun, a little adventure, because they were very rare. In current year California I experience them on a regular enough basis that they are an genuine annoyance, especially because they are most common in the high heat of Summer. It's bad enough that I have invested in backup batteries for my home so I don't lose my refridgerated food and other essentials. One can blame PG&E, Wall Street, whomever, and they certainly bear fault, but what's changed is the Federal and California energy policy. They shut down the nuclear pathway and pushed "renewables". It became a religious issue in which simply questioning the notion that we can derive all our energy needs from "clean energy" makes you a bad person. So now California has extremely expensive energy and poor reliability. It's a mess. But you don't live in California so it's OK right, no, not really, California is where they prototype these policies and you can see them being pushed to other countries and the rest of the US. It really comes down to the old saw that doing dumb things is ultimately bad for you, no matter how good the intentions. Now we're in the retcon phase of this process where the apologists and beneficiaries of these policies try to gaslight us into believing that it was always this bad, and that things are actually getting better instead of worse.
- rini17 2y ago
  UK has similar share of renewables as California, yet no such regular blackouts. So now who is retconning what here :D
  - fwungy 2y ago
    Just wait. California is where they start this stuff. California was an amazing place to live not too long ago. Good schools, affordable housing, (so) no major homeless issues, one of the most innovative and productive places in the entire world. But thanks to the policies we're now on our way down. Human degradation is the norm here in our cities. Take a walk through any of California's major city downtowns. They're broken. The suburbs can still sort of pretend it's all fine though. Don't say California voted for this, because in fact California has voted against the worst of these policies when they had the chance, only to be overturned by judges. Prop 187, which excluded undocumented people from the public benefits system is a prime example. Californians, probably wisely, decided they didn't want to create an incentive system for undocumented persons to come, and federal courts overturned it. It was one of many moves that changed the face of California and led us into a general decline. Now entire nations have taken to non-prosecution and even incentivization of extra-legal immigration that they have not proven ready to absorb, including the USA itself. UK is now experiencing some political turmoil around unrestricted immigration, as are many other European countries (note that unrestricted immigration is most harmful to marginalized communities including POC, LGTBQ, and women). So if the UK isn't getting as many blackouts as California is now, you just give need to give it a little more time. /rant

nasmorn 2y ago

A lot of things are going to be chasing intermittent power once it is basically free at peak solar output. Prices are going to heavily reflect that in the future.

skitout 2y ago

I agree... but it all depend on the situation. For example, existing power grid, including conventional power plant can take 20% or 30% of intermittent power with close to no extra cost... And the energy mix, the interconnections, the location, the consumption habits all have an impact on the price. Simulation at a grid level, including demand response, thermal storage... can give some precise ideas. Note that for doing apple to apple we should also include positive and negative externalities

8note 2y ago

More than that, they should include the opportunity cost of setting aside that much land to be a polluted or sunless wasteland, fairly close to population centers. Something like nuclear puts the large wasteland far away from dense populations, with only the small reactor close by