Well new mexico governor decided to make electricity unaffordable

[SageBrush]

A 7.5 cent per kwh plant couldn't stay open

Trumpers beg to differ ... at least if the plant is burning coal

[GRA]

Big difference between 100% and "near 100%".

.
What is the "big" difference ?

That you've got to keep the fossil fuel plants around, man and maintain them even though it gets little use, which boosts the system costs well above what the PV/Wind/Battery electricity alone costs. Working from memory so don't hold me to exact values, but as part of the Energiewende Germany added something like 60 GW of renewable generating capacity over about 10 years (IIRR 80-90% increase over their existing capacity at the time), but decreased their fossil fuel capacity essentially not at all - IIRR, they actually decreased the % of NG generation and boosted their coal generation, in particular their brown coal (lignite), the dirtiest coal there is. Actual generation only increased by around 9% over that period - all the renewables still had to be backed up by fossil fuels when the sun didn't shine and the wind didn't blow. which is the main reason why the average German household paid 29.16 Eurocents/kWh in 2018 (some of that due to excessive renewable feed-in tariffs that have since been reduced for new construction). And Germany has excellent interconnections already, something that the U.S. lacks and will have to pay for.

So, until renewables can cover 100% of the demand 100% of the time, which will require cheap mass storage, you've still got to keep the dirty plants around (and pay to keep them operable). We can certainly reduce the amount of time they're operating and reduce emissions, but as long as they're needed for backup we've still got to pay for them, and the less they're used the more each kWh they generate costs. We still want to get rid of them, but it won't be cheaper, until mass storage is.

[SageBrush]

^^ The German experience is a straw man argument because the causes for keeping the fossils open was mostly related to shuttering the nuclear plants.

You are correct that reserves have maintenance costs but the actual costs are hard to pin down. Mostly what you hear are plant owners trying to guarantee a nice ROI.

[GRA]

^^ The German experience is a straw man argument because the causes for keeping the fossils open was mostly related to shuttering the nuclear plants.

You are correct that reserves have maintenance costs but the actual costs are hard to pin down. Mostly what you hear are plant owners trying to guarantee a nice ROI.

I agree that the increase in coal use was due to the IMO stupid decision to shut down the nukes early (the decrease in NG usage was due to it being imported and expensive, while the coal was indigenous and cheap), but backup plants have to be manned, and someone (the customers) has to pay for it. Alternatively, they can accept that the electricity will be off fairly regularly for periods that may extend from several days to a week or more, and that's not going to fly. Building interconnects will help, but that only reduces the problem rather than solving it.

[SageBrush]

backup plants have to be manned, and someone (the customers) has to pay for it.

It is nothing new about having power plants in reserve. All through the 100% fossil era a whole fleet of plants were kept that had capacity factors in the 5% range.

While most fossils will shut down now, for all I know the ones that remain will end up being more profitable than before. The smart game plan is to shut 50% - 90% of fossils in the next couple of years so that enough carbon budget remains to run what is left until cheaper clean alternatives for the last fraction are available.

[iPlug]

California is a much better example than Germany. No coal, lots of renewables, nuclear mostly gone and forecast completely gone in 2025, and becoming less and less reliant on natural gas.

Here is the largest utility in California (PG&E-owned generation and power purchases):



https://www.pge.com/pge_global/common/p ... ontent.pdf

I've started a thread on the next phase, a harbinger of the future, with what Berkeley is up to.

[SageBrush]

^^ Brilliant !!!

[Oilpan4]

Right now we have effectively 100% power grid reliably. Maybe something like 99.99% reliably where over the course of a year the power is out for around an hour on average.
If it drops to say 99.9 then it's a lot closer to an hour per month.
I have a whole home generator setup and the coal furnace will run for 2 or 3 hours off the UPS so I won't get really annoyed until it hits 99% or so.

I'm good with shutting down 90% of fossil fuel as long as it doesn't cost more.

[Tortoisehead77]

California is a much better example than Germany. No coal, lots of renewables, nuclear mostly gone and forecast completely gone in 2025, and becoming less and less reliant on natural gas.

Here is the largest utility in California (PG&E-owned generation and power purchases):



https://www.pge.com/pge_global/common/p ... ontent.pdf

I've started a thread on the next phase, a harbinger of the future, with what Berkeley is up to.

You’re right about PG&E, but incorrect about California. Non-PG&E customers (PacificCorp) get power purchased from states that generate from coal power.

[iPlug]

Still correct about California. As I also posted the source data in the Berkeley thread from earlier today, California's coal mix is decreasing and only 3.30% (and essentially all of that is imported). ~0% in state coal generation in CA (0.15% precisely).

https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic. ... 36#p565436