Report Confirms Renewable Energy Costs Soar

[longknife]

Hydro bills would jump 46 per cent over five years

Liberal government's 2010 fall economic update:

By News on the Net (Bio and Archives) Friday, April 19, 2013

So, this is a Canadian report – what does it have to do with us? It is but an example of what the results of this stupid rush towards “renewable energy” is going to do to us.

NORTH BAY – A recent study done for the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) confirms huge costs from heavily-subsidized renewable energy are being added to Ontario hydro bills.

It suggests renewable energy makes up 17 per cent of the Global Adjustment charge (Toronto Star, April 19, 2013.)

Read more @ Report Confirms Renewable Energy Costs Soar

 

[Old Rocks]

I suggest you read the current Scientific Amercan article on ROEI concerning the differance between renewables and fossil fuels.

 

[waltky]

Granny says Uncle Ferd always tiltin' at windmills...

Wind Passes Water as US Renewable Energy Source
February 09, 2017 - Wind energy has surpassed hydropower as the biggest source of renewable electricity in the United States following the sector’s second-biggest quarter ever for new installations, a wind industry trade group said Thursday.

Wind installations totaled 82,183 megawatts at the end of 2016, enough to power 24 million homes, the American Wind Energy Association said in its fourth-quarter market report. By comparison, U.S. hydroelectric capacity is about 80,000 megawatts, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

Big fourth quarter for wind

Wind installations soared to 6,478 MW in the fourth quarter, accounting for nearly 80 percent of all of last year’s wind installations. The fourth quarter was the industry’s largest for installed capacity since the fourth quarter of 2012. The 8,303 MW added for the year represented more than $13.8 billion in investment. Just three turbine makers — General Electric Co, Vestas Wind Systems A/S and Siemens AG — accounted for up to 95 percent of the U.S. turbine market in 2016.

A wind turbine farm owned by PacifiCorp near Glenrock, Wyoming, produces electricity​

Texas has more than 20 MW of installed wind capacity, or nearly a quarter of the market. Iowa is the second-biggest wind state, and Oklahoma overtook California for third place at the end of 2016. The first offshore wind project in the United States also came online in the fourth quarter, the 30 MW Block Island wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island.

More wind power coming

More than 10,000 MW of wind is under construction in the United States, about half of which is in Texas. New Mexico’s wind industry is growing rapidly, with 1,300 MW under construction. Once completed, those projects will double the size of New Mexico’s installed wind capacity. Corporations and others outside the utility industry have become major purchasers of wind energy, accounting for 39 percent of capacity contracted in 2016. Projects for Google, Amazon and General Motors were completed in the fourth quarter.

Wind Passes Water as US Renewable Energy Source

 

[elektra]

With four years of Trump we will see Renewables drop to their proper place. Hopefully zero funding by the Federal Government.

We can not afford $44 Trillion dollars on failed junk.

 

[Old Rocks]

1. Wind & Solar Are Cheaper (Without Subsidies) Than Dirty Energy
The first point is the very basic fact that new wind power and/or solar power plants are typically cheaper than new coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants — even without any governmental support for solar or wind.

Not only are they typically cheaper — they’re much cheaper in many cases.

2. Wind & Solar Are Actually Even Much Cheaper Than Dirty Energy (More So Than Lazard Shows)
The estimates above are supposedly “unsubsidized,” but if you include social externalities as societal subsidies (I do), the estimated costs of fossil fuels and nuclear energy are hugely subsidized in those charts.

A study led by the former head of the Harvard Medical School found that coal cost the US $500 billion per year in extra health and environmental costs — approximately 9¢/kWh ($90/MWh) to 27¢/kWh ($270/MWh) more than the price we pay directly. To fool yourself into thinking these are not real costs is to assume that cancer, heart disease, asthma, and early death are not real.

The air, water, and climate effects of natural gas are not pretty either. On the nuclear front, the decommissioning and insurance costs of nuclear power — unaccounted for above — would also put nuclear off the chart.

On the renewable front, costs to overcome intermittency of renewable energy sources (basically, presuming a very high penetration of renewables on the grid) are also not included. Once that is a significant issue (at which point solar and wind will be even cheaper), low-cost demand response solutions, greater grid integration, and storage will be key solutions to integrating these lower-cost renewable sources to a high degree.

Back to Lazard’s assumptions, note that the IGCC and coal cost estimates do not include the costs of transportation and storage.

Given these assumptions unrealistically favoring fossil fuels and nuclear energy, including subsidies for solar and wind is actually an even better way to look at costs of these electricity options. However, if you included historical subsidies as well — coal, natural gas, and nuclear have received a ton (well, many, many tons of subsidies) — dirty energy options would again look worse. In any case, here’s Lazard’s cost comparisons with current subsidies:

Low Costs of Solar Power & Wind Power Crush Coal, Crush Nuclear, & Beat Natural Gas

Even without subsidies, the renewables are going to beat coal, nuclear, and even natural gas.

 

[Old Rocks]

3. Solar & Wind Became Much Cheaper In The Past 7 Years (85% and 66%, Respectively)
No, wind and solar costs didn’t roll off a cliff because of Obama, but his staff did help to hasten the roll to some degree. Programs like SunShot have helped to bring down costs even faster than they were coming down anyway, as did greater deployment of renewables — with greater production and deployment, costs come down almost automatically.



4. The Lowest Solar Costs Shown In The Lazard Report Are Considerably Higher Than Globally Recorded Low-Price Bids
I won’t go into much detail right now, but I will update this article as more record-low prices for solar power and wind power are reported. For now, though, note that we’ve seen solar project bids for under 3¢/kWh in the UAE and well under 4¢/kWh in Mexico — prices that are well below the Lazard’s low-end estimates for the US.

5. People Can Get Lower Prices But More Jobs With Solar & Wind
Whether American, British, Canadian, Australian, Indian, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, or [fill in the blank], solar and wind power don’t just mean lower prices — they also typically mean more jobs. Much of the price of dirty energy power plants is in the fossil fuel — the physical resource. When we buy that fuel, much of the money goes to the billionaires and multimillionaires who “own” the fuel — the coal mines and the natural gas wells.

Sunshine and wind, of course, are free, but distributed solar and wind power plants have to get built and installed — those are things humans do. When we pay for solar and wind power plants, we pay for human labor, and often help create or support local jobs.

We don’t actually have to choose between low prices or jobs or protecting our air, water, and climate — we get all of those things with renewable energy options like solar and wind energy.

Low Costs of Solar Power & Wind Power Crush Coal, Crush Nuclear, & Beat Natural Gas

The renewables now beat coal, gas, and nuclear on all the important aspects of generation.