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description=5 posts published by scienceofdoom during September 2015;

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in, renewables, costs, articles, this, series, and, conclusion, references, science, of, cost, wind, transmission, notes, doom, climate, baseload, gas, vs, nationalism, pages, recent, subscribe, by, route, 66, relocation, the, evaluating, explaining, archive, for, september, 2015, xii, windpower, as, supergrids, xi, plants, farms, inter, ix, onshore, viii, outsourcing, renewable, generation, posts, comments, categories, websites, key, rss, email, archives, meta, recap, power, super, grids, discussion, comparing, combined, cycle, with, running, capital, semi, we, re, not, kansas, anymore, basics, data,

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the (590), and (257), wind (226), for (147), power (129), cost (124), costs (123), #renewables (113), you (113), this (96), that (84), gas (77), energy (72), with (71), are (70), can (67), from (58), but (58), have (56), more (56), not (51), mwh (51), transmission (50), will (45), capacity (45), grid (42), plant (40), year (40), one (36), capital (36), per (35), might (34), some (32), renewable (31), farms (31), they (31), get (31), see (30), our (30), has (29), what (29), years (29), which (28), over (27), factor (27), about (26), solar (26), than (26), there (26), output (26), plants (25), figure (25), nameplate (24), other (23), climate (23), when (23), price (23), around (23), much (23), report (22), high (22), given (22), 2015 (21), want (21), all (21), would (21), then (21), like (21), average (21), capex (21), generation (20), demand (20), germany (20), turbine (20), need (19), example (19), was (19), just (19), these (19), data (19), any (19), look (19), time (19), baseload 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h more expensive 25 9 but with our cor blimey what are those europeans doing opex adder of 54 mwh wind is now 29 mwh cheaper 25 54 than gas and last but not least who s the buyer route 66 if we have a local buyer for this 1gw of power we are in good shape although the current low us gas prices still make wind a little more expensive than gas in the oklahoma example recent history might make a wind power entrepreneur feel positive but suppose our customers are in new york it s about 1 000km in old money to get from windy oklahoma to new york we have a 2 5gw nameplate wind farm so during windy periods we are producing 2 5gw now we need to get it 1000km according to our calculations in viii transmission costs and outsourcing renewable generation this will cost around 2 5bn give or take a little or maybe a lot so we have almost doubled our capex price possible we have moved in the wrong direction past our european example to a worse cost base at our benchmark 8 20 year lifetime we are at capex approaching 70 mwh add in opex of 14 mwh 84 mwh so we are way more pricey than gas if we want to supply new york of course we can redo our calculations for a wind farm closer to new york and on the minus side we might have a lower capacity factor for wind but on the plus side maybe we can connect to a nearby under capacity transmission line or worst case we might need to build a transmission line but it will be a lot shorter the gas plant has a constraint too building gas pipelines aren t cheap i forget the numbers i learnt but they might be in the same order of magnitude as power transmission lines for similar gw however the gas plant entrepreneur is lucky they can look at a map of gas pipelines and a map of power transmission lines and pick the optimized spot it s quite likely they will be able to tap off an existing gas pipeline and connect to an existing transmission line the benefit of incumbency and decades of infrastructure that they don t have to pay for conclusion a bewildering array of numbers if you want to get your hands around the problem it takes a little work but it s not so hard gas plants are cheap to build by comparison with the fuel costs the fuel costs dominate wind farms are very expensive to build have no fuel costs but still cost a bit to look after gas plants can mostly be cited where you want so you choose close to pipelines and close to transmission lines wind farms are often but not always subject to more location constraints what you gain in better capacity factor more wind you might lose in building expensive transmission which is cheaper per mwh of energy delivered to the customer it depends so many cheerleaders with so many confident answers and yet the right answer depends on the situation the gas price the cost of capital the current capital cost of wind turbines and most of all where you are citing the wind farm and where your customers will be if there s a lesson it s that turning a complex problem into one number doesn t reduce confusion it increases it what s the average age of the population of japan compared with the usa the comparison can be a useful one still it would be nice to see the demographic bulge the graph of population vs age is much more useful than one number what s the average weight of the population of germany vs mexico now we are really getting to a useless number don t we want to know the proportion of under 10s and over 70s before we draw any conclusions and the average height of mexicans vs germans if you add a carbon price to gas wind will look better you can easily do that yourself with the numbers in the article for people convinced that decarbonization is urgent any extra cost of wind is of no issue for people convinced that decarbonization is a total or partial waste of time any extra cost of wind just illustrates how pointless the exercise is i make no comment on those points i simply wanted to get an understanding of the cost comparison here s hoping i didn t miss a factor of 1000 in one of my calculations if you want to figure out how to get to 50 renewables of electricity production none of these numbers help baseload power and messianic storage have not yet been covered that s still a mystery articles in this series renewable energy i introduction renewables ii solar and free lunches solar power renewables iii us grid operators opinions the grid operators concerns renewables iv wind forecast horizon backups some more detail about wind power what do we do when the wind goes on vacation renewables v grid stability as wind power penetration increases renewables vi report says 100 renewables by 2030 or 2050 renewables vii feasibility and reality geothermal example renewables viii transmission costs and outsourcing renewable generation renewables ix onshore wind costs renewables x nationalism vs inter nationalism renewables xi cost of gas plants vs wind farms renewables xii windpower as baseload and supergrids renewables xiii one of wind s hidden costs renewables xiv minimized cost of 99 9 renewable study renewables xv offshore wind costs renewables xvi jp morgan advises renewables xvii demand management 1 renewables xviii demand management levelized cost renewables xix behind the executive summary and reality vs dreams references combined cycle gas and steam turbine power plants 3rd edition rolf kehlhofer et al pennwell 2009 notes construction times their lcoe calculations breakdown of the plant costs for interest read full post renewables x nationalism vs inter nationalism posted in renewables on september 9 2015 38 comments in 2014 germany produced 56 twh of electricity by wind power bp statistical review of world energy june 2015 over the last 10 years germany produced 422 twh by wind power at the end of 2014 the country had 39 2gw installed nameplate capacity ewea wind in power 2014 european statistics which looks like a capacity factor of 16 this understates the factor as the wind power installed in december 2014 can t contribute very much if instead we use installed capacity at end 2013 34 3gw this gives a capacity factor in 2014 of 19 so the correct value is in the range of 16 19 if this windpower replaced coal fired power stations at about 900g kwh of co2 this last 10 years of wind has reduced germany s co2 emissions by 380m tonnes co2 and over the next 20 years assuming 17 5 capacity factor this installed base will produce 1 200 twh reducing co2 emission compared with coal of 1080m tonnes co2 at current costs see last article which understates the country s expense germany has spent a capital cost of 39bn plus some considerable o m costs as wind power increases in grid penetration the benefits reduce a little basically you will be ramping up and down conventional generation more as windpower gets priority this ramping up and down reduces efficiency how much is a question we will look at in another article even though germany has about a 10 average penetration of windpower at peak windiness times wind power might easily be over 50 of the power in the network leading in fact to curtailment at certain times see v grid stability as wind power penetration increases so well done germany however co2 is a well mixed ghg so co2 emissions from germany are exactly the same as co2 emissions from the us that is whether the us or germany reduced their emissions by 380m tonnes of co2 over 10 years makes zero difference to the climate suppose germany had installed this 39gw of nameplate capacity in the mid west of the us from osmani at al 2013 figure 1 the average capacity factor in oklahoma in 2011 2012 was over 41 let s assume that the capital costs outside of buying the turbine are the same grid connection land cost access roads regulatory compliance etc in that case german windpower investment of 39 2gw of nameplate could have produced 2 3x the energy 41 17 5 instead of reducing co2 emissions by 380m tonnes co2 to date and a potential 1 080m tonnes over the next 20 years the reduction would have been 870m tonnes to date and 2 500m tonnes over the next 20 years why not just add a page to the national energy production figures which shows the benefit it s not hard to understand i don t want to pick on germany but it s a nice concrete example when you spend over 40bn on something it s no longer a hobby why not get two and half times the environmental benefit it s a serious question articles in this series renewable energy i introduction renewables ii solar and free lunches solar power renewables iii us grid operators opinions the grid operators concerns renewables iv wind forecast horizon backups some more detail about wind power what do we do when the wind goes on vacation renewables v grid stability as wind power penetration increases renewables vi report says 100 renewables by 2030 or 2050 renewables vii feasibility and reality geothermal example renewables viii transmission costs and outsourcing renewable generation renewables ix onshore wind costs renewables x nationalism vs inter nationalism renewables xi cost of gas plants vs wind farms renewables xii windpower as baseload and supergrids renewables xiii one of wind s hidden costs renewables xiv minimized cost of 99 9 renewable study renewables xv offshore wind costs renewables xvi jp morgan advises renewables xvii demand management 1 renewables xviii demand management levelized cost renewables xix behind the executive summary and reality vs dreams read full post renewables ix onshore wind costs posted in renewables on september 7 2015 68 comments onshore wind seems to be the lowest cost renewable energy source perhaps excluding hydro i haven t looked into the costs of hydro because it is mostly tapped out in developed countries wind power onshore is a mature technology when you buy a wind turbine and install it you know it s going to work and you can have some expectation at least across a wind farm of many turbines of your o m costs you can have a reasonable expectation that it will run for perhaps 20 years of course you can t have certainty on any item like lifetime or o m costs but this is true of any piece of equipment you also know based on meterological data for the location roughly how much energy it will produce this is the capacity factor the percentage of energy produced vs the nameplate value the nameplate tells you the output if the wind is blowing at the maximum value so if you install a 2mw turbine in some parts of the uk or ireland or coastal regions of europe you might get 30 of that as annual output 2000kw x 8760 hours x 30 5 3m kwh written another way 5 3 gwh annually if you install the same turbine in some parts of europe or other parts of the uk you might get a little over half that 3m kwh 3gwh you can have some confidence in the annual energy production in advance depending on the regulatory structure in the country state in question you can have a reasonable idea of how long the process of approvals will take and the grid connection costs we ll come back to grid connection later if we compare this with building a gas plant or a coal fired or nuclear power station then wind is more modular and there is a lot less project risk if you want to produce say 500 mw annually 4 380 gwh from a given technology then you could build a 550 mw gas plant expecting certain downtime each year from design through to startup might take a few years and there are all kinds of little problems that can cause significant delays all of these can be mitigated one way or another but many plants are late it s just the reality of complex projects and by the time of startup the gas price your fuel might have doubled in cost from when the design commenced also it might have halved most expert predictions of future gas and oil price ranges are only accurate when the price doesn t change much so large fluctuations are difficult to deal with it s a bit like predicting the weather tomorrow will be same as today you are mostly right but how useful is that prediction to get the same output of 4 400 gwh from wind farms you need to install around 1 000 2mw wind turbines depending on location this calculation assumes 25 average output 2gw x 8 760 x 0 25 you don t have to wait 5 years before your investment starts producing energy that you can charge for you can install around 20 a month for 4 years and be producing energy from month 1 so there are a lot of project benefits for wind on the downside for wind you have to stump up most of your cash at the start so you are a little more dependent on interest rate risk than a gas plant builder there are three main downsides to wind it s not dispatchable so it doesn t create baseload power another way to say this is that wind power at significant grid penetrations gets very little capacity credit something needs to provide power when the wind is not blowing or not blowing much we looked at this in iv wind forecast horizon backups and in renewable energy i a lot of places where you might want to install wind farms there is no transmission grid so there is a cost which is not usually factored in to wind power costs building transmission grids is expensive viii transmission costs and outsourcing renewable generation another way to look at it is you are constrained to put the wind farms where the wind blows best rather than at a convenient point on the grid the same is true of nuclear power of course for reasons that are unclear to me they are mostly get built a long way from big cities gas and coal power stations can have more flexibility but the ideal place for a wind farm is often on top of an inaccessible hill with no transmission line for 100km wind has a very low energy density so requires a lot of land we will come back to this important point in a future article this is why europe has high projections for offshore wind despite major problems with offshore in places with high wind and low population density like say oklahoma this is not so much of an issue of course many people don t like wind farms cluttering up the countryside but i m just going to ignore that many people don t like roads or telegraph poles or coal fired power stations or nuclear power stations or changing the color of phone boxes what are they or the large quantity of birds killed each year by cats this series is about more practical energy considerations like how a grid works how much power can be produced what it costs and so on not hurting peoples feelings is for another series costs this numbers i ve extracted come with quite a margin of error if you buy one 2mw wind turbine you might pay x if you buy 10 you might get a 5 discount if you buy 500 you might only pay 75 of x per turbine one year the prices will be lower because of exchange rate fluctuations and raw material costs the next year they will be higher if you negotiate better you might pay 15 less than the next guy for the same quantity in the same month and so on this is true for all purchasing there is no one price in real life for most items here i...