Evidence keeps piling up that, like it or not, we are headed for a future of distributed energy generation, where small generators are contributing the major portion of new energy on to an electrical grid that must become smarter, more flexible, and a two-way system.
The “hub and spoke” model, with small numbers of huge power plants supplying most of the energy, and smaller customers dependent on giant utilities or government agencies, is going the way of typewriters and landline phones.
Here’s a sobering thought for U.S. utilities and grid planners seeking solutions for a future filled with distributed, customer-owned energy assets: that future is already here.
That’s one way to look at a striking chart presented at the DistribuTECH smart grid conference last month. It indicates that distributed energy resources (DER), far from being a tiny fraction of the country’s massive central generation fleet, may account for up to one-third of the total U.S. electricity supply by decade’s end.
But there’s a catch — this supply isn’t mostly made up of rooftop solar PV, or homes and business equipped with modern energy-saving, peak-shaving demand response technology. While those resources are growing fast, by far the biggest share of this untapped DER resource comes in the form of two decidedly un-sexy technologies: combined heat and power (CHP)systems and rarely used backup generators.
Here’s the chart, provided by former Southern California Edison smart grid chief and Cisco connected grid CTO Paul De Martini during a presentation hosted by grid software startup Bit Stew on the future of distribution grids:
More than 99 percent of new electric capacity added in the U.S. in January came from renewable energy sources, according to data released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday.
Of the 325 megawatts of new capacity installed, solar led the way with 287 megawatts added in January. That was followed by geothermal power with three new units totaling 30 megawatts, one new unit of wind energy with an installed capacity of 4 megawatts, and three new units of biomass totaling 3 megawatts. In addition, there was 1 megawatt added that FERC defined as “other.”
Despite significant gains, renewables are still a relatively small piece of the overall capacity picture in America. Renewable sources, including hydro, account for just over 16 percent of total installed operating generating capacity, according to FERC — a picture dominated by fossil fuels.
And it’s important to note the difference between capacity to generate electricity and actual generation. Capacity is the total amount of energy that can be produced, whereas generation is the total amount that is produced. Because renewable sources like wind and solar produce energy less of the time than other resources with the same amount of capacity, these two numbers can sometimes vary significantly.
Like capacity, electricity generation in America is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. As of November 2013, renewable energy sources, including hydro, accounted for about 13 percent of total net generation, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Big picture aside, the immediate renewable energy trend is clear. January’s noteworthy numbers mirror those from several months last year — in November, 100 percent of the 394 megawatts of new capacity added came from renewable sources. In October, 699 megawatts were added, 99 percent of which came from renewable sources. And in March, 100 percent of new electrical generation capacity came from solar, as seven units with a total combined capacity of 44 megawatts were added.
Clean energy advocates are pointing to recent reports on electricity use in the Midwest as clear evidence that state efficiency programs and technological advances are paying dividends in the region and fundamentally altering the landscape for utilities, regulators and consumers.
One example is a recent projection from the Midwest’s grid operator that showed electricity demand in the region is expected to decline almost 1 percent annually through 2016.
The forecast of a 0.75-percent reduction in annual electricity demand within the Midcontinent Independent System Operator Inc.’s North and Central regions represents a shift from the 0.8 percent growth rate in the organization’s previous long-term reliability assessment.
Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Policy and Law Center, a Chicago-based policy advocacy group that has pushed for energy efficiency policies across the Midwest, said the 1.55 percentage-point swing in MISO’s demand forecast is a milestone.
“This isn’t a minor difference,” Learner said. “This is a big delta. We’re dealing with a structural change that fundamentally affects the decisions for owners of power plants, state utility commissions and [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission].”
He and others also believe there’s good reason to believe the decline in electricity use will exceed the level predicted.
“The MISO data is based on their conversations with utilities, and historically, utilities have tended to aim a little high in announcing their load forecasts,” he said.
While Midwestern utilities also saw electricity demand decline in recent years, the dip was a result of the recession.
That’s no longer the case, Learner said, and evidence can be seen in reports from two of the region’s largest utilities.
Xcel Energy Inc. saw a 0.8 percent drop in weather-adjusted electric sales for its Minnesota service territory last year, the company said in its recent earnings conference call. And Exelon Corp. executives forecast a 0.2 percent drop in load growth this year for Commonwealth Edison, the utility serving the Chicago area. The projection is based on the assumption of 2.3 percent economic growth.
Learner and other policy advocates attribute the trend to improving efficiency of air conditioners, televisions, computers, and other consumer appliances and devices as well as state-level energy efficiency policies — ones his group advocated for in places like Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Michigan.
“Energy efficiency is not a sideshow anymore,” said Rebecca Stanfield, deputy director of policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Midwest Region. “It is part of the way utilities are meeting demand.”
In the meantime, the much greater amounts of distributed energy capacity represented by CHP systems and backup generators are largely lying dormant today when it comes to grid integration. That’s because these systems most often are built to supply customers with their own power independently of the grid, as part of a campus or facility-wide energy efficiency scheme in the case of CHP, or strictly for emergency power when the grid goes down, in the case of backup generators.
Even so, there are ways that CHP systems could begin to play a much more useful role as the foundations of microgrid systems, able to offer always-on power consumption flexibility to utilities and grid operators, as well as to take themselves off-grid during emergencies. Almost all the large-scale microgrid systems that kept running amidst grid outages during Hurricane Sandywere centered around CHP systems, and New York and Connecticut are looking to invest millions of dollars to create more storm-resilient microgrids.
Backup generators, in turn, make up a significant part of the portfolios of many demand response aggregators such as EnerNOC, and they account for the vast majority of national programs like the U.K.’s Short-Term Operating Reserve (STOR). The idea isn’t to run generators all the time, but rather to call them into play at moments of grid stress, local congestion or peaking energy prices.
Indeed, some utilities, such as Portland General Electric in Oregon and Madison Gas and Electric in Wisconsin, have programs that dispatch them to meet critical grid needs, De Martini noted. Demand response company Blue Pillar got its start testing the readiness of hospital backup generator systems, and has since moved into building-wide, grid-interactive energy management systems based around emergency power supplies.
How can on-site diesel-fueled generators, or even natural gas-fired microturbines, be a green alternative? De Martini noted that the latest systems from big CHP providers such as Tecogenand big backup generator companies such as Generac are able to meet stringent air-quality standards.
They can also be quite useful to mitigate the intermittency of solar and wind power as compared to conventional large-scale generation, according to the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. That’s largely because they come in bite-sized versus megawatt-scale increments, and don’t lose lots of their power to transmission and distribution line losses.
One thing’s for sure: DER is out there, it’s coming on-line at a rapid pace, and there ought to be a way to integrate it into the overall energy infrastructure, whichever forms that takes. Vanguard energy markets like California are already working on ways to integrate these grid-edge resources into their traditional grid capacity and reliability planning methods, and Japan and Germany are arguably even further ahead.
And, as De Martini told his DistribuTECH audience, “Suffice it to say, if you don’t have quality and reliable data coming out of the field, it’s going to be next to impossible to manage in this kind of domain” for utilities.
“Evidence keeps piling up that, like it or not, we are headed for a future of distributed energy generation, where small generators are contributing the major portion of new energy on to an electrical grid that must become smarter, more flexible, and a two-way system.”
Sorry – I don’t see it. Because in the future, we will need renewables to produce not just the energy we currently use for electricity, but it is also going to have to replace all fossil fuels. That means heating our homes, running our entire transportation fleet, powering all our industries.
That is a LOT more demand than what our current electricity needs meet. And as far as solar goes, most homes in the U.S. are not located in ideal geographical locations. A typical homeowner has zero chance of meeting all his energy needs with his rooftop installation.
We are going to need a huge number of larger-scale projects – millions of wind, tide, solar generators all above and beyond what can go on homeowner’s roofs.
We are going to need a mixed distribution system. Lots of homeowners, and millions of larger-scale units located in ideal locations sending power fairly long distances.
If we ever really got it together, we would be linked internationally. Our night time power needs could be addressed by Chinese solar collectors, and vice versa.
There are two basic problems with increasing the distance of electricity transmission – the efficiency decreases (loss of electricity in the transmission requires more total generation) and the cost increases (the longer the lines, the higher the cost).
Getting electricity lined to us from China would be ridiculously expensive and rife for outages. I’m doubtful it’s even possible technically (ask an engineer, ha ha).
What bothers me about this report is that it shows fossil fuel use won’t drop at all. Most of the growth is fossil fuel based.
Look at the 2013 figures in the linked FERC report. More gas came on-line in 1/2013 than the total for 1/2014.
Replacing FF burners requires generators that have similiar characteristics, just without the carbon-burning. I know that “renewables” and “soft technology” are the Green concept of paradise, but the road to paradise washed out ages ago.
“Replacing FF burners requires generators that have similiar characteristics, ”
Fallacious logic alert.
Who said distributed will replace all FF? Centralized RE won’t either. There is room for middle ground. Hydro, wind, geothermal, and biomass are not going away and they are all more centralized. That said, even wind farms are more distributed than today’s centralized FF power plants. There are reasons today’s power system is composed of a number of diverse generation sources, microgrids, CHP, etc. In the future, more of same, but much more DE. What’s wrong with that? The reason Walmart and Tesla are using their own locally generated DE is because it’s smart and saves money. If individual owners save money, why stop that?
http://corporate.walmart.com/global-responsibility/environment-sustainability/renewable-energy
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Elon-Musk-and-Tesla-Plan-Worlds-Biggest-Battery-Factory
The Tesla battery factory will propel further DE inroads.
Study the chart carefully. The large bulk of individual generation is CHP and backup generators – meaning, more natural gas and oil use. Solar PV is the tiniest fraction of that, showing roughly a doubling to 2020 (but less than 10% of total distributed growth).
I think the point to be made is that combined heat and power generation (chp)
is far more efficient than grid electricity, and pushes the implementation of smart grid infrastructure that will be necessary and useful as renewables take over in coming decades (see Elon Musks prediction)
Since efficiency is not at odds with decarbonization, is in fact the first, cheapest, and most important step in getting there, I do not see a conflict.
Solar can also do CHP.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/06/solar-chp-innovations-offer-efficiency-kick
More on solar CHP.
“U.S. single family residences were analyzed and the results clearly show that hybridizing CHP with PV can enable additional PV deployment above what is possible with a conventional centralized electric generation system.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_system
Skip to the section on hybrid systems.
It depends what you’re doing with it. For instance, a 60%-efficient CCGT system driving a heat pump with a CoP of 3 yields 1.8 BTU of heat for each BTU of gas input; a 28%-efficient CHP system with 90% overall efficiency feeding the same heat pump would produce (0.28*3+0.62)=1.46 BTU of heat per BTU of gas. The CCGT efficiency would have to fall below 49% before the CHP would provide superior overall efficiency.
If you’re feeding what amounts to resistance heaters or other loads, the CHP system is likely superior so long as the heat is required.
CHP ( or cogeneration, using electric generation waste heat for heating to increase overall efficiency) applies to CCGT as well. ( combined cycle gas turbine ) combined cycle gas turbine also uses waste heat, but uses it to create more mechanical, and thus more electrical energy. Essentially all the loss in electric generation is unused heat. Therefore, the statement “CHP is the most efficient way to convert fossil fuels and biomass into final energy (electricity and heat) ” is fundamentally inherent, not merely calculable.
http://www.iea-etsap.org/web/e-techds/pdf/e04-chp-gs-gct_adfinal.pdf
A CCGT with added CHP is by definition more efficient than a CCGT that wastes the low temperature heat.
In the sense of the examples above, it makes little sense to produce more electrical energy only to turn it back into heat, if one can merely use the heat directly. The extra cost, complexity, and expense may not be justified.
Cogeneration has been around for a while. 81 years in Duluth.
http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/12/10/duluth-seeks-to-bring-steam-plant-into-the-21st-century/
CCGT is just a more-efficient heat engine; if you had a molten-carbonate fuel cell that hit 60% efficiency and only came in 150 megawatt chunks, it would have roughly the same characteristics (you’d need a mighty big heat market to use it for CHP).
The Capstone C60 gas turbine (30% rated efficiency) is marketed for CHP, but you need to be able to use 250,000 BTU/hr or it’ll be cycling all the time. Gas turbines don’t like thermal cycling.
True. Its harder to do cogeneration with a large plant. It can be done, but a whole city like Duluth is required to soak up the thermal. Its more of an investment.
That’s an observation of what is here now. Solar is poised for explosive growth. The same observation was made about wind 10 years ago. Now it’s 25% in Iowa and still growing. It’s not hard to imagine solar PV being 25% in some states in the next 10 years.
It’s an observation of what this analysis predicts will be the case in 2020 – that less than 10% of just the growth in distributed production will be solar PV, or roughly 2.5% of total electricity production in the U.S.
I know what Musk and Kurzweil are saying. Going against their beliefs are virtually every serious energy analysis projection that I see. Wind and solar in these projections will definitely grow, and by quite a lot compared to what they are now, but they’ll still be a small fraction of total U.S. energy, and they’ll only really be a factor in the growth wedge of electricity production. Installed capacity will largely remain the same as it is now, for many decades.
This analysis doesn’t tell me anything different than that.
“Going against their beliefs are virtually every serious energy analysis projection that I see. ”
When paradigms shift, very few people get their projections right. In any case, time will tell how things play out.
As Peter pointed out, IEA projections are way off. It would be interesting to see what projections were for wind in 2000. I notice these errors in other places. For example, MISO projects very high natural gas penetration several decades hence. At today’s depletion rates it’s almost impossible. Gas prices are volatile. We have already seen that this winter. Wind and solar will play a much bigger role and utilities will see continued demand erosion. You don’t need to believe anybody. Just look at the trends.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/23/americans-keep-buying-less-electricity-thats-a-big-problem-for-utilities/
IMO, electricity use is tied to electricity prices. If you look at global electricity prices, you see the inverse correlation. US and Canada, with some of the lowest rates, have highest consumption. Germany, with higher rates, lower consumption, still with similar economic health. Looking at historical trends, electric rates have shown similar elasticity, as electric consumption per GDP has changed. The slowdown in electricity demand is bad news for utilities that depend on growth to amortize large central PP.
http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/05/10/commentary-time-to-reconsider-baseload-power/
I trust the EIA projections to 2030-2040 ( http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/early_elecgen.cfm ) only slightly more than I trust the BP projections ( http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/pdf/Energy-economics/Energy-Outlook/North_America_Energy_Outlook_2035.pdf ), which is close to not at all. But the point is that ALL the reports say pretty much the same thing. None of them are echoing anything close to what Musk or Kurzweil are pitching.
There is little historic reason to believe IEA projections. It fared badly in projections of wind from 2000.
“In 2000, IEA projected that there would be 30 gigawatts of wind power worldwide by 2010, but the estimate was off by a factor of 7. Wind power produced 200 gigawatts in 2010, an investment of approximately $400 billion.”
Sorry to steal some of your thunder, Peter, but based on a quick survey, I think you will find a cornucopia of leads on erroneous under projections of RE growth. Of note, on future scenarios, and I have no opinion on this yet,
http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv09n05supp1.html
Skip to the curves under the heading sustainable development modeling and projections.
Maybe this is one reason why. Crowd sourcing solar investment.
https://joinmosaic.com/blog/category/clean-energy/
Here are the reference to IEA and eia incorrect renewables projections.
http://fresh-energy.org/2012/06/skeptical-about-renewable-energy-predictions-you-should-be/
This reference is even more compelling on the erroneous EIA projections. They are ridiculously wrong.
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/10/horrible-eia-forecasts-letter-cleantechnica-readers/
I’m already getting a 11% unrealized gain on a solar investment (FSLR) and am hoping next time there is a market scare to open a position on (TAN) which actually pays a small dividend.
I’m still kicking myself over Solar City – I watched Google back that with venture capital $$ when it was a private company, and watched the IPO hoping for a steady, quiet entry. I lost track of it after the price fell quite a bit (around the time there were a few IPOs that were botched and things were being offered over value), then next thing i knew the price had shot up like 7 times the original offering.
I knew it was good and the market potential was huge, but when you’re dealing with other investors, a lot of which are denialists, you just don’t know if you’re falling into a value trap, where your investment never rises, or takes years to rise. Now the momentum is there. This will probably be one of the greatest growth stories of our time.
I like FSLR – their product isn’t the most efficient but it holds up to desert conditions better than the silicone based stuff.
I’m kicking myself over Tesla, then there is solar city and on…
One of the key ways that the market for electricity is changing is the evolution away from being an instantaneous market, comparable in a sense to the market for telecommunications. The traditional central wheel and spoke electric utility model has no control over or ability to modulate electricity demand, and can only monitor and forecast it.
There are two basic components to this transformation:
[1] demand modulation by residential, commercial + industrial consumers – often this is either imperceptible or at least immaterial to these customers, and is reimbursed by retail rate reduction,
[2] energy storage in all of its manifestations, historically first pumped hydro, but with developing scenarios for traditional batteries, flow batteries, parked and plugged-in electric vehicles, generation of ammonia, electrolysis for production of hydrogen, 5 minute battery storage in large wind turbines and so forth.
Minute-by-minute forecasting of the grid will be more important, not just demand but also conditions for generation by wind and photovoltaic and all other intrinsically more variable sources of power.
exactly
I second the motion, Sandy. There is no sense in viewing future energy through the eyes of the present or past. If batteries and solar cells become cheap enough, it will make more sense to have DE than centralized with transmission and distribution. Mind you, local grids, community solar for renters, and many other kinds of local can exist harmoniously in balance with larger grids and more centralized sources. It’s clear that the mix will shift towards more distributed, local grid. It’s going to become more reliable and cheaper, especially during storms, and less vulnerable to fuel price instability. This winters natural gas prices are a case in point.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101396782
40 GW of PV by 2020 is yet another serious underestimate in a long line of underestimating DGPV growth by EIA et al.
You know, it would be good to have a few posts about this. There is a lot misinformation out there about transmission of electricity. While it is true that transmission involves losses and new construction, the question is – is it worth the investment?
My understanding of transmission loses is that it is only 3% for every 1000 kilometers. That seems pretty darned efficient to me.
Gingerbaker – I stand corrected. Maybe not China to US, still, Wikipedia says
“As of 1980, the longest cost-effective distance for direct-current transmission was determined to be 7,000 km (4,300 mi). For alternating current it was 4,000 km (2,500 mi), though all transmission lines in use today are substantially shorter than this.[7”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
Skip to losses. Because power is v x I , and Loss is i squared r, loss is constant for a given I and cable resistance, length. Cables reach a maximum size and can no longer be carried overhead. That translates to loss per km per voltage.
The loss per distance is progressively smaller, the higher the transmission voltage. This is why transformers step up the voltage.
“, a 100 mile 765 kV line carrying 1000 MW of energy can have losses of 1.1% to 0.5%. A 345 kV line carrying the same load across the same distance has losses of 4.2%.” Corona losses limit efficiency at over 1200 kV. Then HVDC becomes more effective. There is a 1000 mile HVDC system from the Columbia river in Washington to LA.
We should be able to find a table that clears up loss per km per volt.
This is from the U.S. Senate, so it’s certainly open for scrutiny, and it from 2009, but look at the info around chart 1:
https://www.dpc.senate.gov/dpcdoc.cfm?doc_name=fs-111-1-34
Another look at costs:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/01/02/the-perverse-economics-of-the-electric-grid/
Cost skyrockets when lines are run underground as opposed to above ground.
On efficiency, it depends on the quality of the line itself, mostly, but the higher the quality the higher the cost.
Transmission losses in the U.S. aren’t huge. It’s about 7%:
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=105&t=3
But the general point is that the closer the end user is to the power source, the less energy is needed and the lower the total cost. T. Boone Pickens cancelled his wind farms because of transmission issues mostly – the cost of the transmission couldn’t compete with the present cost of natural gas generation.
On is it worth it, you start dealing with how this will be handled. In a purely market-driven system, as we have now, cost will be the main determinant. The morality of what is right and what is just won’t be a factor. We’re not dissimilar on what we think should happen.
T Boone was a big nat gas fan. We already see where that leads. Texas is adding grid, but it takes time. The ” national” grid, ( and I use that loosely) is badly under invested and worn out. Transmission losses are reasonable, but T and D equipment is old and badly in need of replacement. This is a legacy of the privatization of the once more public grid. I have referenced this before. Transmission losses are not high, agreed. I like your senate reference. We need a national and even supra national grid to go with a mix of generators. We need a democratically controlled government with central planning initiatives for an energy future chosen by ethics and an eye to the future, not the jumbled mess of chaotic, after the fact, reactionary fear and greed based system based on exponential growth. We have to start with what we have, but I do not see the exponential growth and consumption values based train doing anything besides sleepwalking Casey jones off a cliff.
http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv09n05supp1.html
I’m personally very worried about the rapid growth of solar PV panels made of cadmium-telluride (“cadtel” as it’s often called). I know we touched on this topic before, and the solar cheerleading squad immediately accepted two faith-based premises:
1) Cadtel will be recycled, not dumped in landfills
2) Cadtel is not as toxic as pure cadmium and tellurium, and these elements will not migrate into the environment.
I challenge number 1 above from at least once experience. A friend of mine installed a single cadtel panel on his boat. Probably due to salt spray, the panel deteriorated in just a little over one year and became useless. He threw it in the trash. Recycling it never occurred to him, and even if it had, there is no local recycling industry where I live (Taiwan) for either cadmium or tellurium.
No 2 above – I’m not a chemist or physicist, but I know very well that alloys can react. The bleak history of nickel-cadmium (nicad) batteries provides a lesson here.
It’s interesting that China – which makes most of the world’s nicad batteries and cadtel solar panels, also bans them. They are for export only.
Not mentioned in our earlier discussion was what would happen if a house with catel panels on the roof caught fire. Cadmium smoke scattered around the neighborhood – that sounds like fun.
Now don’t take all of the above as me being anti-solar. I have silicon panels on my roof. I’m not opposed to a wholesale effort to get silicon panels installed everywhere feasible. Yes, they cost more than cadmium panels. Not surprising that cadmium-based anything would be cheap, since cadmium is a toxic waste product of zinc mining. It’s always been a problem for mining companies to get rid of it – now the miners must be laughing that environmentalists (their usual enemies in numerous lawsuits) are telling everyone to buy cadmium-based solar panels.
Cadmium is the 6th most toxic heavy metal, just behind various types of nuclear waste. I see some hypocrisy by anti-nuke people who point our (correctly) that plutonium is very toxic/carcinogenic stuff that you don’t want in the environment, but they shrug off cadmium pollution because “solar is green.”
Think about it. If a few years down the road, some serious outbreaks of cadmium poisoning are traced to solar panels, that is going to devastate the solar industry. I don’t think that’s something you want to see.
Caution is always a virtue in the introduction of new technologies.
That said, I’m not clear that the technologies of today will still be the leading tech of 10 years from now – precisely because so many new materials and processes are being applied.
And THAT said, not long ago I started telling people that, just as climate deniers and the Glenn Beck crowd ran with shaky, anecdotal conspiracy theories to spread the notion of “wind turbine syndrome”, – when the solar revolution picks up steam, mark my word, we’d start hearing about “solar cell syndrome”.
This fits the bill.
I’m a little surprised by your response, GM, especially the last sentence. There is nothing new about cadmium poisoning. I didn’t invent it, nor did Glenn Beck. It’s a horrible way to die – Wikipedia has a page on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_poisoning
One of the worst outbreaks was in Japan (where it’s called itai-itai disease) in 1912:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itai-itai_disease
If solar panels could be made of plutonium, I don’t think you’d want to install them on your rooftop. Cadmium is nearly as toxic, and I don’t want it on my rooftop, or my neighbors’ either.
I can picture a situation in the future where some big building (factory, department store, whatever) puts a few hundred panels on their roof, and then there’s a fire (not caused by the panels, but the panels burn) causing hundreds of people to come down with cadmium poisoning. It would be the Chernobyl of solar, destroying people’s trust in the technology for decades. This is not a far-fetched scenario.
And the thing is, it’s not necessary. Silicon is nontoxic, and it appears to be far more durable than cadtel.
Now if somebody comes up with another better material than silicon, that’s great. But in the meantime, silicon is the best we have. Ironically, the big rush to make cheap cadtel panels may cause manufacturers of silicon-based panels out of business. That would leave us with the worst of both worlds – toxic solar panels that may suddenly be banned by governments, with no silicon panels available as an alternative.
Cadmium is not stuff you want in your breakfast cereal, Cy, but it is just one of many toxins that we are exposed to in the modern world, Pre-industrial man had problems with many of them too—remember lead and the Romans?
Google a bit and you’ll find lists like the one excerpted below:
“Heavy metals are the oldest toxins known to humans. Environmental exposure to aluminum, lead, mercury, cadmium, and manganese cause serious health problems by interaction with biological systems. We are exposed to environmental toxins every day. Below is a list of common environmental toxins”
•Heavy Metals
•PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls)
•Dioxins
•Pesticides
•Phthalates
•VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds)
•Asbestos
•Chlorine
•Chloroform
•Lead
•Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
•Arsenic
•Cadmium
•Non-metallic inorganics
•Synthetic organic chemicals (SOCs)
•Radioactive materials
•Chlorine and its by-products
•Fluoride
If you can find it, Muscle and Blood by Rachel Scott (written in the ’70’s) is an excellent read about toxics and what went on in industry—-remember beryllium and fluorescent lights? Look up “The Cats of Minimata” for a look at mercury. I also remember reading a magazine article somewhere by a writer who got the mag to pay many thousands of $$$$ for a huge battery of very sophisticated blood tests, which tests showed that he was contaminated with hundreds of chemicals, many of which did not exist 200 years ago—made for an illuminating read.
The same activities of man that have led to AGW have caused “hockey-sticks” other than atmospheric CO2, and “if the CO2 don’t get us, the toxins will” might make a good country western title.
Agreed. CdTE is less desirable because of cadmium.
“China increased market share from 8% in 2008 to over 55% in the last quarter of 2010.[25] Recently, in December 2012 the price of Chinese solar panels had dropped to $0.60/Wp (crystalline modules).[26]”
Silicon is the largest market share.
“The cadmium present in the cells would be toxic if released. However, release is impossible during normal operation of the cells and is unlikely during fires in residential roofs.[32] A square meter of CdTe contains approximately the same amount of Cd as a single C cell nickel-cadmium battery, in a more stable and less soluble form.[32]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell
Skip to the section on CdTe
That data needs to be looked at closely. The 325 MW added in 1/2014 is less than the 342 MW of gas alone added in 1/2013, and is less than 1/4 of the 1/2013 total. Dominating a month when nothing much happens is no triumph.
Average US grid load is about 450 GW. At 325 MW/month, connecting 450 GW of capacity would take 115 years… and that assumes 100% capacity factor. Triple that for most “renewables”.
It makes no sense to use most of the resources outside the heating season, and when heat is required the output will be quite inflexible. At least it will be steady, and predictable by watching ambient temperature.
Less than 2 weeks after the end of January, the NRC approved almost 100 MW(e) of “stretch uprates” at 5 nuclear plants. These will result in a similar boost in average output (roughly 90 MW, given the industry capacity factor) without a cent expended on anything except engineering time and NRC paperwork.
“At 325 MW/month, connecting 450 GW of capacity would take 115 years… and that assumes 100% capacity factor. Triple that for most “renewables”.”
This probably explains why IEA and EIA projections have gone horribly wrong. They assumed linear growth for something growing exponentially. Not too hard to see where that leads to huge errors.
That explains why grid additions were less than 1/4 of the year-ago values. Exponential… uh, contraction?
It’s funny watching you get all huffy when someone deflates an overblown claim for “renewables”. Anyone with a sense of proportion would have sent the cheerleaders home and noted “it was an awfully slow month, but here’s the interesting part…” Nothing of the sort was in evidence.
Like assuming great significance for a statistical accident. Right.
So like a denier. Looking at the noise, not the trend.
That is exactly what touting the 1/2014 “renewable triumph” is: looking at the noise.
Failing to look at the year-ago values makes you just like a denier.
This analysis sums up US energy growth, 2013.
“Impacts of Increased U.S. Primary Energy Growth in 2013 – Both Crude Oil and Wind + Solar experienced outstanding growth during 2013. Growth of Natural Gas + Liquids was not so impressive, and Other Renewables’ decline (primarily biofuels) was somewhat disappointing. Reduction in Coal and essentially no growth in Nuclear were mixed depending on the perspective of specific interest groups.”
http://theenergycollective.com/jemillerep/329676/us-2013-domestic-energy-supplies-growth-scorecard-part-1
“Overall, renewables added 5,279 MW (37.16%). Strong renewable energy growth is a testament to how competitive renewable energy sources such as solar and wind have become, but it’s worth noting that we are still in the early stages of a genuine renewable energy revolution. Much more renewable energy growth is projected for the coming years and decades. In terms of solar power, 2014 is projected to be yet another record year.”
http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/solar-power-was-2nd-largest-source-new-power-us-2013.html
“In June, the nation’s largest nuclear utility, Exelon, canceled uprate projects at plants in Pennsylvania and Illinois. (These are two of at least six uprates dropped by utilities in 2013 as of early September.) Just over a month later, the French utility Électricité de France (EDF) announced it was bowing out of a partnership with Exelon that operates nuclear plants in New York and Maryland. In fact, EDF will no longer pursue U.S. nuclear projects at all, instead focusing its U.S. efforts on renewables”
http://www.treehugger.com/energy-efficiency/us-nuclear-power-decline.html
“Nuclear power is no longer an economically viable source of new energy in the United States, the freshly-retired CEO of Exelon, America’s largest producer of nuclear power, said in Chicago Thursday.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/03/29/exelons-nuclear-guy-no-new-nukes/
How could the IEA and EIA be so wrong? The IEA has revised its wind and solar PV projections every year since 2006 and is STILL wrong. How could that be? Both EIA (US) and IEA? I have to conclude that their projections are by far the least reliable.
http://theenergycollective.com/onclimatechangepolicy/286586/why-have-iea-s-projections-renewables-growth-been-so-much-lower-out-tur
Try something like these instead.
http://www.ren21.net/REN21Activities/GlobalFuturesReport.aspx