Renewable Energy

[Sigmetnow]

More people these days are discovering that the Green choice is simply the better deal.

My Life In the Elusive Green Economy
https://www.politico.com/magazine/amp/story/2018/03/05/my-life-in-the-elusive-green-economy-217213

[Sigmetnow]

”So modern US wind [capacity] is up to 42.5 percent and natural gas is at 56 percent. The Haliade-X, according to GE, will have a capacity factor of 63 percent. That is wackadoodle, though it wouldn’t be the highest in the world — the floating offshore turbines in the Hywind Scotland project hit 65 percent recently.”

These huge new wind turbines are a marvel. They’re also the future.
The latest model has blades longer than football fields.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/8/17084158/wind-turbine-power-energy-blades

[etienne]

About cooling PV panels (to go back to a comment of last week by Jai Mitchell), there are now hybrid panels (heat and PV) which are quite interesting from a power per sqr meter point of view, but still expensive.

https://dualsun.fr/en/

The idea is that water heating cools PV components, but the issue I see is what to do with all the heat that is produced. Same thing with the idea of cooling the PV panels in the desert.

[numerobis]

http://solarwall.com/en/home.php

Click on the PVT tab. They’re doing solar thermal and PV exactly like this. The heat drawn into the building displaced heating load and simultaneously increases PV efficiency.

Wouldn’t be so useful where you don’t have a heating load, but rather a cooling load.

[etienne]

Well, during the summer, in most countries, we have a cooling load, and during the spring and fall, cooling is not as important. The idea is good, but I would mix PV thermal and PV alone. Maybe in residential building this could make more sence because of the hot sanitary water.

Etienne

[Sigmetnow]

Sunshine -> PV production and internal shade. 
No sun -> transparent window.

Solar windows get better at producing electricity – and at being a window

“And now we have what you could call the first switchable photovoltaic window where it goes from a tinted state to a transparent state and now you have a good window and a good solar cell,” said Wheeler.

When sunshine heats the window, gas molecules are released, the glass darkens and generates electricity. When the sun disappears, those molecules are reabsorbed and the window becomes transparent. You can’t do that with current silicon-based solar panels. ...

https://america.cgtn.com/2018/02/16/solar-windows-get-better-at-producing-electricity-and-at-being-a-window

[numerobis]

US electricity from 2016 to 2017 from EIA: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0?agg=2,0,1&fuel=vtvv&geo=g&sec=g&linechart=ELEC.GEN.ALL-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.COW-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.NG-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.NUC-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.HYC-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.WND-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.TSN-US-99.A~&columnchart=ELEC.GEN.ALL-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.COW-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.NG-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.NUC-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.HYC-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.WND-US-99.A&map=ELEC.GEN.ALL-US-99.A&freq=A&start=2001&end=2017&chartindexed=0&ctype=linechart&ltype=pin&rtype=s&maptype=0&rse=0&pin=

- Total electricity down by 60 TWh / -1.5%
- Coal down by 31 TWh / -2.5%
- Gas down by 105 TWh / -7.5%
- Nuclear basically unchanged.
- Hydro up by 32 TWh / +12%
- Wind up by 27 TWh / +12%
- Solar up by 22 TWh / +40%
- Everything else is rounding errors.

The total produced hasn't really changed since 2005 except for the 1-year crash in 2008. From 2001 to 2005 it was growing fast, then it stopped. It hasn't really shrunk either. As EVs roll out and heating electrifies, I'd expect electricity use to rise.

Coal is now down 40% from its 2005/2007 peak.

Natural gas also fell by similar percentages in 2012/13 and 2002/2003, but the trend is up fast since the turn of the millennium. Lots of new plants are still going in. That said, during the other two big drops, coal and oil mostly picked up the slack. This time, coal and oil fell; it's renewables that picked up the slack. And wind and solar aren't going to go down next year; they ratchet up.

Petroleum was significant in 2001 (bigger than solar is today), but it's down almost 90% from that level and continued its slide this year.

[oren]

Nice. Too slow, but a move in the right direction, more than can be said of many other parts of global civilization.

[Sigmetnow]

This would be more expensive for the government; less affordable and available to fewer homeowners.

Tesla’s virtual power plant under fire from South Australia’s new premier

Tesla’s plans of setting up a 250 MW/650 MWh virtual power plant comprised of 50,000 residential homes and Powerwall 2 units have hit a massive roadblock, with newly elected South Australia premier Steven Marshall expressing his opposition to the project. According to the premier, his government intends to replace the virtual power plant with a new initiative that involves subsidies to residents in the region. ...

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-virtual-power-plant-south-stopped-by-australia-premier/

(Australia’s “Liberal” party is actually conservative.)

[etienne]

Don't know if you already heard of Perovkite PV panels. Should be around in 3 years or so.

I received an non scientific article in french about it. It should be much cheaper than silicium panels and would be easy to produce anywhere with much less energy. They talk about an initial investment of 500'000 $ for a production chain.

Tests on roofs would be starting very soon.

The only issue, and I believe that it's a big one, is that it contains lead.

The article also says that "cheap" silicium panels are due to massive investments that have been done that create a huge production capacities, but that in around 10 years or so, these machines might be obsolete and that price would go back up. They want to be ready before new investments are done in the silicium production chain.

https://www.migrosmagazine.ch/brillant-futur-pour-l-energie-solaire

Here is also the page of the guy who leads the research at the EPFL in Switzerland.

[numerobis]

There's lots of excitement about perovskite cells, and hot on its heels, quantum dot cells. They've been close to commercialization for a while now but they seem to actually be arriving soon finally.

In your article he's implying that you can't make a profit at the current price of solar cells from China. I don't see much reason to believe that; non-Chinese manufacturers are able to meet the Chinese price. Of course if perovskite is cheaper to make then everyone will switch to that. Even if it's the same price, it'll have some advantages and thus be worth manufacturing.

His figure of 8 centimes per kWh for silicon panels seems quite high, so there's something missing. We're seeing projects bidding in at 3 US cents (which is about 3 centimes) per kWh, installed, with silicon panels in various parts of the world. The cells are less than half the cost. Maybe it's the figure for Lausanne given its cloudy weather?

[etienne]

His figure of 8 centimes per kWh for silicon panels seems quite high, so there's something missin. We're seeing projects bidding in at 3 US cents (which is about 3 centimes) per kWh, installed, with silicon panels in various parts of the world. The cells are less than half the cost. Maybe it's the figure for Lausanne given its cloudy weather?

Well, he probably talks of "normal" sized projects, I mean 30 to 200 kWp. Furthermore costs always depends of the way risks are taken into account, if you have to make a loan, which return on investment you want... The 8 cents is lower than what we have in Luxembourg on roofs even when the conditions are good (no change to be done in the infrastructure, which means transformer, cables... are all compatible with the project). Don't know about the cost on the ground, but ground is very expensive overhere.

[numerobis]

Cheaper cells does nothing at all to help with land acquisition costs or installation cost on a roof.

[Sigmetnow]

Love the used-battery repurposing, love the design.  But think about the natural cycles of living things before you boast about the possibility of lighting up the world 24 hours a day.

Nissan unveils stunning new streetlights powered by used Leaf battery packs and solar
https://electrek.co/2018/03/22/nissan-streetlights-powered-used-leaf-battery-packs/

[sidd]

Gas, coal drop in share, wind, solar ramp up in the USA:

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/eia-gas-generation-dropped-77-in-2017-while-coal-declined-25/519568/

sidd

[Sigmetnow]

Rebuilding Puerto Rico’s Power Grid: The Inside Story
Electricity may be fully restored this May—but the hard work of hurricane-proofing the grid remains

But for solar installers, the hurricane has been good for business. Garcia says there’s strong demand for solar-plus-storage systems as an alternative to the PREPA grid. “Now people are starting to talk about using PREPA as their backup,” Garcia says. “Two years ago, nobody was talking about that.”

If Puerto Rico’s grid recovery has been slow and contentious, modernizing the island’s electric system will likely take many years, billions of dollars, and a lot of creative thinking. Of the last, there is no shortage.

In December, for example, a consortium of U.S. and Puerto Rican energy labs, agencies, and utilities published “Build Back Better” [PDF], a report that lays out a sweeping decade-long plan for strengthening and hardening the island’s transmission, distribution, and generation systems. The anticipated cost, at $17.6 billion, is fairly reasonable. In New York City, for comparison, Consolidated Edison has estimated that stormproofing its distribution systems by burying its overhead lines would cost an estimated $60 billion.

The Puerto Rico report recommends commonsense moves like installing Category 4–rated poles, wires, and insulators; building flood barriers around vulnerable substations; and adding fiber-based, high-speed data links between the field and control centers.

The report also champions distributed renewable energy as well as heavy reliance on microgrids. The latter are small electricity networks that can connect to the grid and also operate in isolation, combining solar power, batteries, backup generators, and control equipment. The group identified 159 sites where microgrids could be deployed, including hospitals, fire stations, and wastewater treatment plants.

Other ideas for fortifying Puerto Rico’s grid abound. Blake Richetta, of Sonnen, suggests adding software and data systems that could turn clusters of residential solar and battery systems into “virtual power plants.” These systems could be remotely controlled to supply power to the grid when and where it’s needed most.

“All the homes work together to share energy,” Richetta explains. “It makes it so there’s no way a Category 5 hurricane could bring down the grid—and it’s carbon free.”

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/policy/rebuilding-puerto-ricos-power-grid-the-inside-story

[numerobis]

Gas, coal drop in share, wind, solar ramp up in the USA:

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/eia-gas-generation-dropped-77-in-2017-while-coal-declined-25/519568/

sidd

Awesome, I beat UtilityDive and Ars Technica's stories on this

Of course they did a better job of writing entire articles about it and then reaching a much wider audience.

[Sigmetnow]

Corporate purchases of Clean Energy Certificates lead the way to Mexico’s goal of 35% clean energy by 2024.

BNEF Predicts Mexico To Add 24 Terawatt-Hours Of Clean Energy By 2022

Bloomberg New Energy Finance has predicted that Mexico’s recent reforms to the corporate power market and the introduction of clean energy certificates will result in an addition 24 terawatt-hours of clean energy by 2022.

Writing on Monday, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) highlighted Mexico’s impending increase in clean energy, referring to its 1H 2018 Corporate Energy Market Outlook published in January. Specifically, Bloomberg highlighted Mexico’s new clean energy certificates (CEL) which will serve as the country’s primary mechanism by which it seeks to achieve its goal of securing 35% clean energy generation by 2024. Set to begin this year, a 5% CEL mandate relative to power consumption will be imposed for 2018, increasing to 13.9% by 2022.

According to BNEF, HSBC Holdings, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, and Deacero SA de CV have all already signed Power Purchase Agreements in Mexico for 272 megawatts (MW) worth of clean energy, giving them a good lead on meeting their sustainability goals in Mexico. ...

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/03/22/bnef-predicts-mexico-add-24-terawatt-hours-clean-energy-2022/

[Sigmetnow]

New paper uses 36 years of hourly weather data (1980–2015) in the US, calculates the available wind and solar power over this time period and also included the electrical demand in the US and its variation throughout the year.

Wind, solar, and storage could meet 90–100% of America’s electricity needs
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/mar/26/study-wind-and-solar-can-power-most-of-the-united-states

[Sciguy]

Another article on how solar and wind are becoming (and in some cases, already have become) cheaper than coal and gas:  https://thinkprogress.org/solar-wind-power-prices-are-beating-natural-gas-c9912054400c/

Prices for solar, wind, and battery storage are dropping so rapidly that renewables are increasingly squeezing out all forms of fossil fuel power, including natural gas.

The cost of new solar plants dropped 20 percent over the past 12 months, while onshore wind prices dropped 12 percent, according to the latest Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) report. Since 2010, the prices for lithium-ion batteries — crucial to energy storage — have plummeted a stunning 79 percent (see chart).

[Sigmetnow]

Tesla is beginning to roll out its new solar roof products.

A first look at the ‘Tesla house of the future’ with solar roof and Powerwall batteries
https://electrek.co/2018/03/29/tesla-house-of-the-future-solar-roof-powerwall/

[Sigmetnow]

Aging Wind Farms Are Repowering with Longer Blades, More Efficient Turbines
Jobs and a thriving industry are growing up around the ‘repowering’ of existing wind farms, as technology upgrades increase their renewable energy production.

Old wind farms that have towered over the same fields for more than a decade may be generating more power now than ever before.

As America's biggest wind farms age, their owners are starting to "repower" them with more efficient turbines, new electronics and longer, lighter blades that can sweep more wind with each rotation. The result is a thriving new industry, new jobs and more renewable energy.

New blades and technology updates have completely "revitalized" two Leeward Energy wind farms near Sweetwater, Texas, saving the company money and allowing the farm to generate more energy, said Leeward CEO Greg Wolf.

"In a sense, we have a whole new wind farm," he said. ...

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27032018/wind-power-blades-capacity-clean-energy-technology-jobs-ge-siemens-leeward-midamerican-repowering

[Sigmetnow]

Australia

Tesla to supply another ‘virtual power plant’ with Powerwalls at up to 1,200 homes

After Tesla’s massive plan to create a 50,000-home virtual power plant with Powerwalls being in jeopardy in Australia, another similar project is now been announced for a new ‘virtual power plant’. 

New Premier of South Australia, Steven Marshall, a member of the Liberal party who just replaced the Labor party, threw some cold water on the [earlier] project, which is so far still going forward with the first 1,100 installations, but it could face some red tapes for the other 49,000 installations.  But now the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has today announced $7.7 million in funding for Simply Energy to build a second virtual power plant across Adelaide.

Like for Tesla’s own virtual power plant, Simply Energy confirmed that it plans to use Tesla’s Powerwall 2.  They described the project in a press release today:

“The $23 million project will deliver Tesla Powerwall 2 home batteries to up to 1200 Adelaide households representing 6 MW of residential energy storage. A further 2 MW of demand response capacity will be deployed across 10 commercial businesses.”

The goal is to have it up and running by the end of 2019.  It’s on a much smaller scale than the previous project, but ARENA is treating like a pilot project.

ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said about this project:
“We think consumer energy resources have a huge role to play in Australia’s energy future, but we are still figuring out how we can orchestrate rooftop solar and home batteries to feed back into the grid. This is technically hard to do, which is why these pilot projects are so important,” he said. “This is a potential model for how distributed energy resources can be operated at large scale in the future to help reduce energy prices,”

The project has the goal to lower the energy bill of families with the batteries while also stabilizing the grid by reducing peak power demand with the large energy storage capacity. ...

https://electrek.co/2018/03/28/tesla-powerwall-virtual-power-plant/

[Sciguy]

We're nearing the tipping point now.  This article is on the Oilprice.com blog:  https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Renewables-Are-Closing-In-On-Fossil-Fuels.html

However, the economics are pretty dire for fossil fuels. The LCOE for onshore wind currently stands at about $55 per megawatt-hour (MWh), which is a global comprehensive average that incorporates equipment, construction, financing, operating and maintenance costs, and average run time. That cost is down 18 percent from the first six months of 2017, an impressive and significant decline.

Solar LCOE costs without tracking comes in at $70/MWh, which is also down 18 percent from the first half of 2017.

These averages obscure some truly low-cost wind and solar potential in certain parts of the world. BNEF says that onshore wind in India averages $39/MWh, down by nearly half from 2017. Solar PV in India only costs $41/MWh. That compares favorably to the $68/MWh for coal and $93/MWh for natural gas. In fact, clean energy is cheaper than coal and gas in both China and India.

The analysis was done by Bloomberg New Energy Finance for a report here: https://about.bnef.com/blog/tumbling-costs-wind-solar-batteries-squeezing-fossil-fuels/

With sources like Bloomberg and Oilprice.com reporting that renewables plus storage are cheaper than new fossil plants, I think the transformation of the energy supply from fossil fuels to renewables is finally on the launch pad.  Investors are going to be putting their money into renewables and batteries, not fossil fuels.  There aren't going to be many new fossil fuel plants built in the future and a lot will be prematurely retired due to their operating costs.

[numerobis]

Those numbers are quite a bit higher than what Lazard puts out, across the board. I wonder where their methodology differs.

Regardless, the consilience is a good thing.

[Archimid]

Solar power’s greatest challenge was discovered 10 years ago. It looks like a duck.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/20/17128478/solar-duck-curve-nrel-researcher

Back in 2008, a group of researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) noticed a funny-looking shape in their modeling.

They were starting to take solar photovoltaic (PV) panels seriously, running projections of what might happen if PV were deployed at scale. They noticed that large-scale deployment had a peculiar effect on the electricity “load curve,” the shape that electricity demand takes throughout the day.

[Sciguy]

Those numbers are quite a bit higher than what Lazard puts out, across the board. I wonder where their methodology differs.

Regardless, the consilience is a good thing.

They're using Leveled? Cost of Energy (LCOE), which takes into account the capacity factor and the operating and maintenance costs.  The previous numbers were the bid cost of installing the systems.

[Sciguy]

Solar power’s greatest challenge was discovered 10 years ago. It looks like a duck.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/20/17128478/solar-duck-curve-nrel-researcher

Back in 2008, a group of researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) noticed a funny-looking shape in their modeling.

They were starting to take solar photovoltaic (PV) panels seriously, running projections of what might happen if PV were deployed at scale. They noticed that large-scale deployment had a peculiar effect on the electricity “load curve,” the shape that electricity demand takes throughout the day.

That's  a variation on the "sun doesn't always shine, wind doesn't always blow" argument.  The solution is the same, storage.  From the article you linked:

The holy grail: affordable energy storage

David Roberts

It is frequently argued that a system based on wind and solar will need an enormous amount of storage — not just hourly, but daily or even seasonal storage — and that batteries aren’t up to the task. So we’ll either have to limit the scale of renewables or find some other cheap, large-scale, long-term storage. What’s your take?

Paul Denholm

We spend a huge amount of time talking about this topic here around the lunch table — a lot of calories are spent on it. So I’ll tell you what I’d say is the informal general consensus about ultra-high-penetration renewables scenarios.

The consensus is emerging that we can probably do 80 percent [renewables] with some combination of spatial diversity and short-duration storage.

We can deal with diurnal shifts with short-duration storage, and not too much of it. When we did our Renewable Electricity Future study back in 2012, we got up to 80 percent renewables with only about 100 GW of additional storage. It’s not that much.

In the US, we currently get about 19% of our electricity from nuclear and 5% from hydro-power, so we could go carbon free with battery storage, some of which could come from smart electric vehicle charging.

[numerobis]

Those numbers are quite a bit higher than what Lazard puts out, across the board. I wonder where their methodology differs.

Regardless, the consilience is a good thing.

They're using Leveled? Cost of Energy (LCOE), which takes into account the capacity factor and the operating and maintenance costs.  The previous numbers were the bid cost of installing the systems.

The numbers from Lazard are also LCOE.

Bids just for installing would normally be quoted in $/W, not $/MWh.

[Sciguy]

More money was invested in solar in 2017 than in any other energy technology.  Story here:  https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Solar-Attracted-More-Investment-Than-Any-Technology-In-2017.html

From the story:

The proportion of world electricity generated by wind, solar, biomass and waste-to-energy, geothermal, marine and small hydro in 2017 was 12.1 percent (up from 5.2 percent in 2007).

Since 2004, the world has invested $2.9 trillion in these green energy sources.

Falling costs for solar electricity, and to some extent wind power, is continuing to drive deployment, the study claims. Last year was the eighth in a row in which global investment in renewables exceeded $200 billion — and since 2004, the world has invested $2.9 trillion in these green energy sources.

[numerobis]

Still pretty expensive for home use, but getting closer. I can get solar net metering parts at a price that amounts to a six-year payoff against my subsidized electricity cost. Unsubsidized, it would be the same payoff, installed (we get electricity at about half the cost of its production).

[Sigmetnow]

Again, storage is the missing piece of the power puzzle here.

Portugal generated enough renewable energy to power the whole country in March

Portugal’s renewable electricity production exceeded monthly consumption for what is likely the first time, in March, according to the nation’s transmission system operator, REN.The average renewable generation for the month exceeded 103% of consumption, beating out the last record (99.2%), set in 2014.

It almost certainly won’t be the last time. The country is predicting that renewables will satisfy its mainland electricity needs by 2040, ultimately eliminating the electricity sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. Although most of last month’s electricity came from water and wind (link in Portuguese), the country relied on some fossil fuel and imported electricity. Water- and wind-generated power can be rather unpredictable, so even as total renewable generation exceeded Portugal’s electricity consumption for the month (as well as some exports), Portugal needed those sources to even out supply.

https://qz.com/1245048/portugal-generated-enough-renewable-energy-to-power-the-whole-country-in-march/

[numerobis]

In addition, Portugal is pretty small, geographically. If it could import renewables from Spain and Morocco that would help even things out.

Also maybe some offshore wind would help.

[Sigmetnow]

Thought for the day:

“Most of the technology we use is over 100 years old: industrial systems, the way to produce electricity, the distribution of it, lightbulbs. We want the latest iPhone, but we are laid-back on the way we get and use energy”
- Bertrand Piccard
https://mobile.twitter.com/bertrandpiccard/status/982176721859325960

[Sigmetnow]

Frequency matters.

European grid dispute resolved, lost 6 minutes returned to oven clocks
Running the continental grid at a higher frequency than normal added time to clocks.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/european-grid-dispute-resolved-lost-6-minutes-returned-to-oven-clocks/

[numerobis]

https://www.caninfra.ca/icegrid-a-renewable-energy-microgrid-for-nunavut

Here's a pitch for a competition whose prize is to get a meeting with government leaders. This one: installing batteries and wind turbines in Iqaluit.

I'm confused about the team -- they don't seem to be on the ground up here -- but whatever, if they can get the fed to care a bit more that would be nice.

[Sebastian Jones]

https://www.caninfra.ca/icegrid-a-renewable-energy-microgrid-for-nunavut

Here's a pitch for a competition whose prize is to get a meeting with government leaders. This one: installing batteries and wind turbines in Iqaluit.

I'm confused about the team -- they don't seem to be on the ground up here -- but whatever, if they can get the fed to care a bit more that would be nice.

I'm confused about these guys too. Perhaps Numerobis knows who they are?

[TerryM]

https://www.caninfra.ca/icegrid-a-renewable-energy-microgrid-for-nunavut

Here's a pitch for a competition whose prize is to get a meeting with government leaders. This one: installing batteries and wind turbines in Iqaluit.

I'm confused about the team -- they don't seem to be on the ground up here -- but whatever, if they can get the fed to care a bit more that would be nice.

I'm confused about these guys too. Perhaps Numerobis knows who they are?

BCG? I didn't even know Boston was part of Canada.
https://www.caninfra.ca/organizersandsponsors/

Terry

[Sigmetnow]

https://www.caninfra.ca/icegrid-a-renewable-energy-microgrid-for-nunavut

Here's a pitch for a competition whose prize is to get a meeting with government leaders. This one: installing batteries and wind turbines in Iqaluit.

I'm confused about the team -- they don't seem to be on the ground up here -- but whatever, if they can get the fed to care a bit more that would be nice.

I notice that among the other choices are a hyperloop system and “on-road photovoltaic solar panels for energy and road heating.”    But, particularly if all those Nunavut communities have diesel power plants that need replacing in the next five years, Wind+Batteries is a no-brainer.

[numerobis]

Sebastien: You know them as well as I do.

Sigmetnow: I don't think there's any serious consideration being given to a 100% wind-and-battery solution; diesel backup is going to be needed unless you get a *very* large battery.

Still, the battery would let you size the diesel much smaller -- and would make a far more reliable grid for when the diesel needs backing up (they fall over all the time).

[Sigmetnow]

U.S., Washington state.  Solar energy project for companies wanting to buy clean energy.

81,000 solar panels: Washington’s largest solar farm planned near Lind

A North Carolina company plans to start installing 81,000 solar panels in May near the small community about 75 miles west of Spokane.

By mid-December, the solar farm could be generating power for companies interested in low-carbon electricity.

Strata Solar will build and own the 170-acre project. Avista Corp. will buy the electricity and sell it to 40 to 80 large commercial and industrial customers. A state program will provide tax incentives to bring the cost of the solar power in line with the utility’s other rates for large electric users.
...
Strata Solar is leasing former agricultural land just north of the city limits. The project is triggering lots of talk in the town of 550 people, which is best known for its annual Combine Demolition Derby Extravaganza in June.

“It’s a big project, and it’s a big change for the area,” Michaels said. ...

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/apr/08/81000-solar-panels-washingtons-largest-solar-farm-/

[Sigmetnow]

File under:  unexpected partnerships.

Tesla deploying Powerpacks at a BP wind farm
https://electrek.co/2018/04/10/tesla-powerpack-bp-wind-farm/

[Sciguy]

Good story on renewables with battery storage here:  https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Supersized-Future-Of-Energy-Storage.html

An excerpt (note the part I bolded):

... Another project, however, is not: A British billionaire is building a 120 MW/140 MWh installation not far from Tesla’s installation in Australia.

Sanjeev Gupta, owner of Australian steelworks Whyalla, is building the battery to use both as storage for electricity produced by a solar farm, and in construction at the steelworks site. What we’re seeing there is likely just the beginning of ever-bigger battery storage systems that will accompany every large-scale solar or wind project.

A recent Moody’s report on energy storage supports this forecast. It found that investors are getting more and more interested in energy storage projects as their commercial viability improves. Moody’s calculated that a kWh of electricity from a battery storage installation currently costs around US$0.133. That’s based on a price of US$400 per kWh of storage (a high-price estimate) for a fully installed system divided by 3,000 charge/recharge cycles per battery over a lifetime of 10 years.

Now, Moody’s notes that this cost per kWh is still higher than conventional electricity, but adds that things are changing fast as batteries become cheaper and cheaper, so soon we may actually have renewable electricity that costs less than the output of fossil fuels power plants.

There is the question of battery life spans, of course, when compared to the life span of the average gas-fired power plant. Also, there are some unique challenges, Moody’s vice president and senior credit officer Rick Donner said in the report, especially with regard to operating risks. Still Donner said, on the whole, battery storage projects carry the same risks as conventional power generation projects.

Costs are falling, in the meantime. Moody’s estimates that by 2020-2022, the cost per kWh of storage will drop to US$100. This will make even bigger projects than Crimson viable. If things continue moving in the same direction as they have been for the last decade, it won’t be long before a 100 MW storage system becomes the lower end of renewable storage capacity.

[Bob Wallace]

David Roberts

It is frequently argued that a system based on wind and solar will need an enormous amount of storage — not just hourly, but daily or even seasonal storage — and that batteries aren’t up to the task. So we’ll either have to limit the scale of renewables or find some other cheap, large-scale, long-term storage. What’s your take?

David Rogers doesn't know what he's talking about.  There's no need for seasonal storage.  It will be much cheaper to simply install enough generation to cover the "neediest" weeks of the year.  Deep storage (more than 2-3 days) will be needed only a few times a year in order to cover a few days of low wind/solar input.

Part of the solution is to make grid connections robust enough to move extra power into temporarily starved locations.

[Bob Wallace]

Back to the discussion of installed solar and storage at the consumer level in Australia becoming the equivalent of a large gas or coal plant.  Part of the reason for this working out is that electricity prices can be very high in Australia due to some bad decisions made by the utility companies years back.

Some people IIRC pay as much as A$0.40/kWh.  Residential solar in AU has already become very inexpensive compared to the US.  While storage may still be on the expensive side the avoidance of high cost of electricity can easily pay for storage.

The camel will get her nose under the tent at the easiest place and then worm her way in.

[numerobis]

I costed out solar for a local company recently. Payback is 4.5 years unsubsidized if they can use their own solar (I.e if they have some load that’s always on, and they install only enough panels to meet that load, plus electronics to prevent flowing back on the grid).

Batteries slow down the payback a while, but allows far more panels to be installed.

[Bob Wallace]

I costed out solar for a local company recently. Payback is 4.5 years unsubsidized if they can use their own solar (I.e if they have some load that’s always on, and they install only enough panels to meet that load, plus electronics to prevent flowing back on the grid).

Batteries slow down the payback a while, but allows far more panels to be installed.

The critical number is whether batteries will pay for themselves plus earn a bit of money over their lifetimes.

If you're talking about a commercial installation there's a definite economic advantage to including storage.  If the grid goes down you don't have all your employees busy doing nothing and wasting the money you spend on labor.

[etienne]

I costed out solar for a local company recently. Payback is 4.5 years unsubsidized if they can use their own solar (I.e if they have some load that’s always on, and they install only enough panels to meet that load, plus electronics to prevent flowing back on the grid).

Batteries slow down the payback a while, but allows far more panels to be installed.

Does anybody has precise data about how much energy it takes just to keep batteries alive during the winter when there is no loading because PV production can be used directly ? I guess this is the main problem with batteries but am not sure. My feeling is that batteries only make sense if they are helping to balance the network.

[etienne]

Same question for a PV inverter. How much consumption when there is no PV production ?

Thanks,

Etienne

[Bob Wallace]

Unless you live close to a polar area which can have weeks/months of very little sunshine your batteries will get used.  I looked at a year's solar generation for a house in Rochester NY which is a very non-sunny place during winter months but even there there were plenty of sunny days that charged up the batteries.

Inverters have a standby setting in which they use very little electricity.  If a load appears then they become active.