PG&E's bankruptcy: Renewable energy costs at 800% of market rates

bripat9643

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Apr 1, 2011
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The environmental wackjobs claim that renewable costs are comparable to the cost of using fossil fuels to generate electricity. The financial reality appears to be something different.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blo...able_energy_costs_at_800_of_market_rates.html

PG&E's bankruptcy court revealed that the company may dump its state-mandated renewable energy source contracts that cost up to 800 percent more than market rates. California mandated a zero carbon emissions future by passing the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. With PG&E residential electric rates rising by 71 percent to subsidizing renewables, Northern Californians' electricity costs 19.30 cents per kilowatt-hour, or about double the 10.66 cents in Oregon and 9.46 cents in Washington.
 
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The environmental wackjobs claim that renewable costs are comparable to the cost of using fossil fuels to generate electricity. The financial reality appears to be something different.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blo...able_energy_costs_at_800_of_market_rates.html

PG&E's bankruptcy court revealed that the company may dump its state-mandated renewable energy source contracts that cost up to 800 percent more than market rates. California mandated a zero carbon emissions future by passing the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. With PG&E residential electric rates rising by 71 percent to subsidizing renewables, Northern Californians' electricity costs 19.30 cents per kilowatt-hour, or about double the 10.66 cents in Oregon and 9.46 cents in Washington.
The y must be lying...….he has a chart to prove it.....no doubt Trump told em to claim that
 
Los Angeles seeks record setting solar power price under 2¢/kWh

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) Board of Commissioners was presented with the Eland Solar & Storage Center in Kern County, California, from an LADWP internal team on June 18, 2019.

The team told the commissioners that on July 23, they plan to seek approval of a two phase 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) priced at 1.997¢/kWh for 400 MWac / 530 MWdc of solar electricity delivered at time of generation plus a adder 1.3¢/kWh for the excess electricity later delivered from a co-located 400 MW / 800 MWh energy storage system.

Screenshot-2019-06-28-at-12.09.41-AM-e1561695055286-600x583.png


Per an email from 8minute, the project will be built in two 200 MWac solar phases. There is no price escalator, and the solar portion is a record low price for the United States. It even beats out the current U.S. pricing leader – 8minute’s 2.375¢/kWh from the 300 MW Eagle Shadow Mountain solar project.

The project includes the option to add 50 MW / 200 MWh of energy storage for an additional adder of 0.665¢/kWh. It was suggested that the excess electricity will be used during the evening peak period to ease ramping, though one presenter also brought up that the morning peak was as important to consider (see analysis of this volume at end of article).
 
The environmental wackjobs claim that renewable costs are comparable to the cost of using fossil fuels to generate electricity. The financial reality appears to be something different.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blo...able_energy_costs_at_800_of_market_rates.html

PG&E's bankruptcy court revealed that the company may dump its state-mandated renewable energy source contracts that cost up to 800 percent more than market rates. California mandated a zero carbon emissions future by passing the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. With PG&E residential electric rates rising by 71 percent to subsidizing renewables, Northern Californians' electricity costs 19.30 cents per kilowatt-hour, or about double the 10.66 cents in Oregon and 9.46 cents in Washington.

In fairness, the article does mention that they are straddled with contracts that leaves them paying significantly more than competing suppliers of renewable energy.
 
Were I foolish enough to live in California I hope I'd have enough "smarts" left to buy one hell of a generator and fuel storage (filled). It's not impossible to imagine PG&E "going out of business" and leaving it to the state to confiscate its properties. In that case I'd expect the "grid" to keep going for about 1-2 weeks before collapsing.
 
Your chart is misleading because it doesn't include the cost of building backup power for solar and wind, for one thing.
Solar, with the backup that has already been contracted for, is cheaper than anything on that chart, coming in at less than $20 MW. Do try to stay current with technology.
The backup is all the fossil fuel plants in the state. They aren't accounted for in the cost per $/MWh price.
 
Highest wholesale prices in the last year were 3.6 cents per Kwh., and yes it was in Southern California. PG,&E is just another mis-managed company trying to blame the govt. for its crappy management. Solar has higher O&M costs than many other sourced, but it's tiny fraction of power generated on a utility scale, about 1.6 % of the total for all three solar sources.
 
Your chart is misleading because it doesn't include the cost of building backup power for solar and wind, for one thing.
Solar, with the backup that has already been contracted for, is cheaper than anything on that chart, coming in at less than $20 MW. Do try to stay current with technology.

Good luck with that, bripat is a Canadian paid poster.
What the fuck does "already been contracted for" mean? Can you demonstrate where anyone has paid for the true cost of building a new fossil fueled power plant?
 
Your chart is misleading because it doesn't include the cost of building backup power for solar and wind, for one thing.
Solar, with the backup that has already been contracted for, is cheaper than anything on that chart, coming in at less than $20 MW. Do try to stay current with technology.

Good luck with that, bripat is a Canadian paid poster.
Have any proof of that?
 
Your chart is misleading because it doesn't include the cost of building backup power for solar and wind, for one thing.
Solar, with the backup that has already been contracted for, is cheaper than anything on that chart, coming in at less than $20 MW. Do try to stay current with technology.

Good luck with that, bripat is a Canadian paid poster.
What the fuck does "already been contracted for" mean? Can you demonstrate where anyone has paid for the true cost of building a new fossil fueled power plant?

It is a reference to a couple contracts to build sites that allegedly can store solar generated electric during the day and put it on the grid at night or during standby needs, but they can only deliver power to a small market--like 65K houses even under the best of circumstances and it is not clear how long they can do it for on a sustained drawdown. It is still more experimental. Moving lots and lots of water uphill to generate hydro at night still seems to be the only true method to bridge the standbye alternative power issue, but that is not well suited for California that cannot even keep its water supplies high enough for normal people to have normal water usage.
 
Nobody wants to build nuclear plants anywhere on the West Coast, for good reason; sooner or later people are just going to have to grow up and accept that there are parts of the country where it's insane to keep subsidizing large masses of people in many places, you know, like unstable fault ridden earthquake zones and deserts. Southern CA. is just a giant gravel pit with a few parts of it landscaped by imported plants, most of which are yellowed and dead most of the time. Can't keep taxing the rest of the country to pay for its excessive costs of living. Reduce its population to about a third of what it is currently, and move most of them north of the Bay Area. Then you have enough to go around for the most part. Quit wasting large amounts of water on worthless crops like iceberg lettuce. The Imperial Valley is a waste of money.
 
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