The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[lpetrich]

British Renewables Hits 42 Gigawatts & Surpasses Fossil Fuels | CleanTechnica

Pushed over the line by two coal-to-biomass conversions and continuing growth in offshore wind, the British renewable energy industry finally surpassed the capacity levels of its fossil fuel predecessors, with total capacity reaching 42 gigawatts (GW) in the third quarter, beating out the fossil fuel industry which only has 40.6 GW.

Global Floating Solar Capacity Surpasses 1 Gigawatt | CleanTechnica -- solar cells on floats.

We have been hearing about floating solar projects for a while now — and they have become particularly popular in Asia, where the local topography is more likely to provide ideal locations for the combination of water and solar. According to the new report published by the World Bank, Where Sun Meets Water, floating solar is “particularly promising” for the fast-growing economies of Asia, and interest has been high in places like China, India, and Southeast Asia.

Floating Solar Is Best Solution For Colorado Town’s High Electric Bills | CleanTechnica

Not A Fan Of Saudi Arabia's Anti-Democratic Policies? Drive Electric! | CleanTechnica

Non-Hydro Renewables To Replace Nuclear In Germany, Reaching 71.9% By 2030 | CleanTechnica
Commenter Roger Lambert:

72% RE penetration without nuclear? Why, according to the nuclear power proponents I see on the intertubes that is simply not possible.

(This is snark - I am so fed up with nuke fanboys who all (it seems) use bad data and have no clue about the costs of RE. According to them, wind/solar plus storage is fantastically expensive, nuke plants can be built for $2.5 billion a pop, nuke plants never suffer downtime, Mark Jacobson is a dishonest idiot, and the Union of Concerned Scientists are loons working for Greenpeace)

There. I feel better. Please carry on and sorry for the interruption.

China To Install 40 Gigawatts Of New Solar By The End Of 2018 Despite Cutbacks | CleanTechnica

In September, China’s NEA announced plans to phase out power generation subsidies — which have put a tremendous strain on the country’s financial resources — and will provide technological and policy support for renewable energy technologies to help them reach “grid price parity” and begin to compete against other technologies on their own. This was apparently confirmed quietly last week by the NEA which confirmed that it intends to provide policy support, which in turn helped shares in China’s solar companies to surge. Specifically, according to the official Shanghai Securities Journal, the NEA held a solar power development meeting and stressed to companies that solar remains a priority for the Chinese Government.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cleaner-cheaper-way-to-make-steel-uses-electricity/

The fires that smelt iron also heat up the planet, but researchers are working on ways to produce higher-quality metals with fewer greenhouse gas emissions, potentially giving U.S. steelmakers an edge in a competitive global market.
A report released yesterday in the journal Nature highlights a step in this direction that uses electricity instead of heat to extract iron.
...
Cost advantage for U.S. industry
These methods can help U.S. manufacturers forge a path to more energy-efficient steelmaking, creating a market advantage from higher-quality metals with smaller carbon footprints. Electrolysis could help reduce prices as well.
...

More bad news for the coal mining industry.

 

[James Brown]

Something that may help is using wind energy over a wide area, so that if some turbines are becalmed, then others may still have wind and be active.

Couldn't the same principle be applied to nuclear power plants?

"Something that may help is using [more than one nuclear power plant], so that if some plants are [offline for maintenance], then others may still...be active.

And if nuclear plants generate electricity "only" 83% of the time, then one need minimal redundancy to cover off-line periods, no?

 

[lpetrich]

Something that may help is using wind energy over a wide area, so that if some turbines are becalmed, then others may still have wind and be active.

Couldn't the same principle be applied to nuclear power plants?

That's how the electricity grid works, I'm sure. If one powerplant is down for maintenance, then others will fill in for it. Renewable-energy intermittency is already handled in that way: Renewable Energy Intermittency Explained: Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities - Scientific American Blog Network

 

[James Brown]

Then why argue that the intermittency of wind turbines is not a problem to worry about if redundancy is in use everywhere?

 

[bilby]

The Intermittency of Wind and Solar: Is It Only Intermittently a Problem? | CleanTechnica -- (2013) claims that it isn't:

Can we make the “intermittency problem” more or less vanish? Or, rather, does it even exist? Over 200 studies have shown that there will be no major costs or technical problems for the grid until the percentage of renewables has gone beyond 30% of the energy mix. Many of those studies indicate that the actual threshold is far higher. Meanwhile, in real life, by 2010, 4 states in Germany were already relying on wind power for 43 to 52% of their electric power needs without having to face any major crises, while a recent study showed that the supergrid in Europe will able to handle up to a 70% share of electrical energy from wind in spite of its minute-by-minute intermittency. So why all the fuss, then?

Clean Technica is, frankly, to be expected to make such claims. Their hand-waving is as unimpressive as it is unremarkable. Their bias in favour of wind and solar power is well established and quite blatant.

Something that may help is using wind energy over a wide area, so that if some turbines are becalmed, then others may still have wind and be active.

It may; But 'wide' is a vague term. Germany apparently isn't wide enough - according to the evidence in my link. Europe might be, but you are going to need some serious (and hugely expensive) infrastructure to get power to Eastern Europe from the North Sea, and then back again, on a variable and unreliable schedule.

Fossil-fuel and nuclear power have intermittency from maintenance:

As a result of all this downtime, nuclear plants only generate electricity 83% of the time; combined cycle natural gas plants, 86% of the time; and coal plants, 88%. Nuclear plants are even more unsound and unreliable since many of them have to be shut down prematurely and since, during their active life span, more than a quarter of them have to close down for repairs for at least a year or more at a time.

... All in all, renewable baseload is more reliable than conventional baseload during its life cycle. On average, far less downtime is required in order to do planned or unplanned maintenance and repairs on renewable baseload power plants. For instance, solar thermal plants are up and running 98% of the time; hydroelectric dams, 95% of the time; and geothermal plants, 91%.

No mention of photovoltaic-cell arrays, but their uptime is likely equally good.

PV Solar 'uptime' is at most 25%, and typically closer to 10% in places (like Germany) outside the tropics. Compare 80-95% for nuclear, 70-75% for coal.

The idea that "All in all, renewable baseload is more reliable than conventional baseload during its life cycle" is so laughably counterfactual that I am impressed they have the balls to say such a bare-faced untruth. But unfortunately, that's the standard I have come to expect from the renewables lobby - they have the devotion to truth that you might expect from a religious cult - ie, no facts can be permitted to stand in the way of their devout belief. They depend on us not noticing that renewables mostly ISN'T baseload, and ISN'T reliable AT ALL - but play a 'bait and switch' conflating hydropower and geothermal (both saturated niches) with unreliable wind and solar under the umbrella of 'renewable'.

Wind and solar have uncontrolled and unexpected downtime. Such a thing is very rare for other generation sources, where maintenance is planned well in advance, and can be postponed if unusual demand is expected, or in the event of unexpected issues elsewhere on the grid.

Weather forecasts can predict windy and sunny days; But they cannot predict to the hour or minute when a wind farm will be becalmed, or a solar array shaded by cloud.

 

[bilby]

British Renewables Hits 42 Gigawatts & Surpasses Fossil Fuels | CleanTechnica


Global Floating Solar Capacity Surpasses 1 Gigawatt | CleanTechnica -- solar cells on floats.


Floating Solar Is Best Solution For Colorado Town’s High Electric Bills | CleanTechnica

Not A Fan Of Saudi Arabia's Anti-Democratic Policies? Drive Electric! | CleanTechnica

Non-Hydro Renewables To Replace Nuclear In Germany, Reaching 71.9% By 2030 | CleanTechnica
Commenter Roger Lambert:

72% RE penetration without nuclear? Why, according to the nuclear power proponents I see on the intertubes that is simply not possible.

(This is snark - I am so fed up with nuke fanboys who all (it seems) use bad data and have no clue about the costs of RE. According to them, wind/solar plus storage is fantastically expensive, nuke plants can be built for $2.5 billion a pop, nuke plants never suffer downtime, Mark Jacobson is a dishonest idiot, and the Union of Concerned Scientists are loons working for Greenpeace)

There. I feel better. Please carry on and sorry for the interruption.

Some nice strawmen there.

What does this moron think the Germans are doing with all the brown coal they have been mining since they decided to shut down their nuclear plants? Are they eating it?

There are none so blind...

China To Install 40 Gigawatts Of New Solar By The End Of 2018 Despite Cutbacks | CleanTechnica

In September, China’s NEA announced plans to phase out power generation subsidies — which have put a tremendous strain on the country’s financial resources — and will provide technological and policy support for renewable energy technologies to help them reach “grid price parity” and begin to compete against other technologies on their own. This was apparently confirmed quietly last week by the NEA which confirmed that it intends to provide policy support, which in turn helped shares in China’s solar companies to surge. Specifically, according to the official Shanghai Securities Journal, the NEA held a solar power development meeting and stressed to companies that solar remains a priority for the Chinese Government.

Capacity isn't electricity.

1GW of nuclear capacity generates about 900MW of electricity.
1GW of wind capacity generates about 250MW of electricity.
1GW of solar PV capacity generates about 150MW of electricity.

42GW of 'renewables' capacity are equivalent to less than 10GW of nuclear power capacity.

 

[bilby]

Something that may help is using wind energy over a wide area, so that if some turbines are becalmed, then others may still have wind and be active.

Couldn't the same principle be applied to nuclear power plants?

"Something that may help is using [more than one nuclear power plant], so that if some plants are [offline for maintenance], then others may still...be active.

And if nuclear plants generate electricity "only" 83% of the time, then one need minimal redundancy to cover off-line periods, no?

Most nuclear plants have several reactors, so at worst, their production is reduced by a half or a quarter at any one time due to fueling and maintenance. And the coordination of plants at different locations on the same grid also reduces the impact. Wind turbines, on the other hand, are driven by weather systems that are much larger than most European grids - so it's all or nothing. And of course, the 'nothing' happens when it happens, with no option to take an earlier or later drop in production to avoid anticipated consumption peaks.

If demand is highest in Summer and/or Winter, nuclear plants can schedule their downtime for Spring and Autumn. Wind farms, not so much. Indeed, peak demand in Germany is when you have a big winter high pressure system over the country - everyone is running their heaters flat-out, as these systems bring cold and calm conditions. Just when they need it, the wind isn't there. For (typically) a week or so. That's a LOT of storage requirement.

 

[Rhea]

Wind turbines, on the other hand, are driven by weather systems that are much larger than most European grids - so it's all or nothing. And of course, the 'nothing' happens when it happens, with no option to take an earlier or later drop in production to avoid anticipated consumption peaks.

I’m curious about many of your statements, bilby. One exemplar of what seems like a straw-man is this one.

Are you really claiming that every part of europe has the same weather as every other part, every day?

I don’t even see identical weather patterns in my own county (collection of about 60 towns) that I can drive across in one hour. And our eastern “grid” is ;arger than most of europe.

So doesn’t a clearly false statement like this one weaken your larger case and put you on the same footing as the sources you deride?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Intermittency of Wind and Solar: Is It Only Intermittently a Problem? | CleanTechnica -- (2013) claims that it isn't:

Can we make the “intermittency problem” more or less vanish? Or, rather, does it even exist? Over 200 studies have shown that there will be no major costs or technical problems for the grid until the percentage of renewables has gone beyond 30% of the energy mix. Many of those studies indicate that the actual threshold is far higher. Meanwhile, in real life, by 2010, 4 states in Germany were already relying on wind power for 43 to 52% of their electric power needs without having to face any major crises, while a recent study showed that the supergrid in Europe will able to handle up to a 70% share of electrical energy from wind in spite of its minute-by-minute intermittency. So why all the fuss, then?

Something that may help is using wind energy over a wide area, so that if some turbines are becalmed, then others may still have wind and be active.

Fossil-fuel and nuclear power have intermittency from maintenance:

As a result of all this downtime, nuclear plants only generate electricity 83% of the time; combined cycle natural gas plants, 86% of the time; and coal plants, 88%. Nuclear plants are even more unsound and unreliable since many of them have to be shut down prematurely and since, during their active life span, more than a quarter of them have to close down for repairs for at least a year or more at a time.

... All in all, renewable baseload is more reliable than conventional baseload during its life cycle. On average, far less downtime is required in order to do planned or unplanned maintenance and repairs on renewable baseload power plants. For instance, solar thermal plants are up and running 98% of the time; hydroelectric dams, 95% of the time; and geothermal plants, 91%.

No mention of photovoltaic-cell arrays, but their uptime is likely equally good.

Uptime and producing power are two different things when talking about solar and wind.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Something that may help is using wind energy over a wide area, so that if some turbines are becalmed, then others may still have wind and be active.

Couldn't the same principle be applied to nuclear power plants?

That's how the electricity grid works, I'm sure. If one powerplant is down for maintenance, then others will fill in for it. Renewable-energy intermittency is already handled in that way: Renewable Energy Intermittency Explained: Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities - Scientific American Blog Network

With traditional power plants most downtime is scheduled. With solar an appreciable amount of downtime is unscheduled. With wind most downtime is unscheduled. You can coordinate scheduled downtime between plants, you can't coordinate unscheduled downtime.

 

[bilby]

Wind turbines, on the other hand, are driven by weather systems that are much larger than most European grids - so it's all or nothing. And of course, the 'nothing' happens when it happens, with no option to take an earlier or later drop in production to avoid anticipated consumption peaks.

I’m curious about many of your statements, bilby. One exemplar of what seems like a straw-man is this one.

Are you really claiming that every part of europe has the same weather as every other part, every day?

No, I am not.

I am saying that several times a year, large high-pressure systems cross Europe bringing widespread calm and clear conditions, that becalm wind-farms across the entire area, often for several days.

A modern society can't live without electricity for several days.

Any electricity system that has outages for days on end as a direct consequence of its design is unfit for purpose. Even if those only occur once or twice a decade. But these widespread calms are an almost monthly occurrence.

I don’t even see identical weather patterns in my own county (collection of about 60 towns) that I can drive across in one hour. And our eastern “grid” is ;arger than most of europe.

So doesn’t a clearly false statement like this one weaken your larger case and put you on the same footing as the sources you deride?

It's not a 'clearly false statement'. I apologise for not making clear exactly what I was claiming. But my statement is true, when interpreted as it was intended to be. And your interpretation of it, while it does fit my words, is so obviously false that it never occurred to me that anyone would think that's what I meant.

 

[steve_bank]

Floating solar in Colorado.

Long term energy solutions should be local first. Inbdia has a program to put small scale solor electricity in villiages providng training on mainatnence,

From a news segment it has stimulated local economies and provided power for wireless internet links providing aces for kids.

Local first. North America and western Europe are not the entire world.

The oil billionaire Pickens looked at building line of windmills north south across mid USA but it never materialized. Plenty of wind.

 

[lpetrich]

Solar panels increase grasses for sheep and cows by 90% – pv magazine USA

Researchers have determined that an Oregon solar facility altered the microclimate variables of mean air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, and soil moisture beneath itself significantly – increasing water efficiency, allowing for much greater biomass growth.

The paper (PLoS One): Remarkable agrivoltaic influence on soil moisture, micrometeorology and water-use efficiency

Power demands are set to increase by two-fold within the current century and a high fraction of that demand should be met by carbon free sources. Among the renewable energies, solar energy is among the fastest growing; therefore, a comprehensive and accurate design methodology for solar systems and how they interact with the local environment is vital. This paper addresses the environmental effects of solar panels on an unirrigated pasture that often experiences water stress. Changes to the microclimatology, soil moisture, water usage, and biomass productivity due to the presence of solar panels were quantified. The goal of this study was to show that the impacts of these factors should be considered in designing the solar farms to take advantage of potential net gains in agricultural and power production. Microclimatological stations were placed in the Rabbit Hills agrivoltaic solar arrays, located in Oregon State campus, two years after the solar array was installed. Soil moisture was quantified using neutron probe readings. Significant differences in mean air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, and soil moisture were observed. Areas under PV solar panels maintained higher soil moisture throughout the period of observation. A significant increase in late season biomass was also observed for areas under the PV panels (90% more biomass), and areas under PV panels were significantly more water efficient (328% more efficient).

That's Oregon State University in Corvallis OR US. I live near there, and the climate there is roughly a Mediterranean one: a dry summer and a wet rest of the year. During summer, grass often dries up. So those solar panels help the grass underneath them by shading it.

 

[steve_bank]

There have been issues raised with large solar voltaic pants in a desert affecting habitat and local climate. In one case the environmental study shoed an effect on a local small lizard facing extinction went against approval.

Back in the 90s LA had a memorial for something involving turning off most business lights at night. Temperature dropped.

In NYC the heat of the city affects vegetation.

 

[lpetrich]

A Green New Deal | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez includes

• 100% of national power generation from renewable sources;
• building a national, energy-efficient, “smart” grid;
• upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety;
• decarbonizing the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries;
• decarbonizing, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure;
• funding massive investment in the drawdown and capture of greenhouse gases;
• making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries transition to completely carbon neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal.

That's awfully ambitious.

 

[bilby]

A Green New Deal | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez includes

• 100% of national power generation from renewable sources;
• building a national, energy-efficient, “smart” grid;
• upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety;
• decarbonizing the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries;
• decarbonizing, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure;
• funding massive investment in the drawdown and capture of greenhouse gases;
• making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries transition to completely carbon neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal.

That's awfully ambitious.

That sounds like the kind of platform we see here from minor parties - parts are impossible to achieve, other parts would merely be extraordinarily expensive and difficult. But when you know you will never ever have the political power to actually be called upon to implement it, you can promise pretty much anything - even the physically impossible. At least this platform doesn't fall into that category. But that's not exactly impressive.

The first point is likely unaffordable, even for the USA, with current technologies and energy demand. Points 2 and 6 are probably doable (although number six depends on what is meant by 'massive'). You could probably do 50-80% of 3, 4, and 5. Number 7 would likely require a political change on the scale of a bloody revolution.

 

[lpetrich]

France Announces Cuts To Nuclear & Coal, Boost For Wind & Solar | CleanTechnica

French President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech on Tuesday in which he announced a raft of new energy policies, including a promise to close the country’s remaining four coal-fired power plants by 2022 and 14 of the country’s 900 MW first-generation nuclear reactors by 2035.

...
Macron also promised support for further renewable energy capacity additions over the coming few years, including a promise to triple the amount of onshore wind by 2030 and to increase by five times the country’s solar PV capacity. France will also seek to develop offshore wind, and over the next five years the country will commission the first fleet of turbines off Saint-Nazaire and will launch four new offshore wind tenders.

France is committing €5 billion a year to its new renewable energy plans, funds which will be entirely financed by the country’s controversial fuel tax.

A tax that has provoked riots.

Developing Nations Are Stepping Up Into Global Clean Energy Leadership | CleanTechnica

A combination of surging electricity demand, declining technology costs, and a surge in innovative policy-making have resulted in developing nations stepping up to seize the mantle of global clean energy leadership from wealthier nations, according to a comprehensive new report published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) as part of its annual Climatescope project.

...
In addition to the increasing economic viability of clean energy technologies — specifically technologies such as wind and solar — which are further bolstered by the “exceptional” natural resources boasted by many developing nations, when combined with continually declining technology equipment costs, new renewable energy projects in developing nations are regularly outcompeting new fossil fuel projects on price. This has been most evident in the 28+ GW worth of generation contracted through tenders in emerging markets in 2017.

Many such nations are near the Equator, meaning that the Sun is nearly straight upward at midday. This is good for using solar energy, for obvious reasons. Especially good are the places that are semiarid or arid -- they tend to have less cloud cover than the more humid places.

 

[lpetrich]

Australian State Election Portends National Boost To Renewable Energy Sector | CleanTechnica

The Victorian Labor Party was re-elected to power in the State’s Saturday election this past weekend in a victory that is being described as “stunning,” “a landslide,” and a “bloodbath.” In fact, the Labor Party will return to power with more seats than have been held in over 15 years, delivering the party a strong mandate that includes important policies on climate change and renewable energy.

...
As such, the past few days have signaled a potential swing away from business-as-usual policies under the current Liberal Party (which, despite its name, is not a politically liberal party at all) which prioritizes support for coal-fired power generation and extreme opposition to renewable energy sources.

So Australia is having its own "Blue Wave" and its own "Green New Deal".

Riots Erupt Over French Plan To Raise Fossil Fuel Taxes To Pay For Renewables | CleanTechnica

France last week proposed to raise taxes on diesel fuel and gasoline by an amount equivalent to 30 cents per gallon. The government thought it would use the extra revenue to support more renewable energy for the country. It actually thought the proposal would be well received by the citizenry.

It was wrong. The French people have exploded into open revolt, with rioters taking to the streets across the nation.

European Utilities Begin Investing In Energy Storage | CleanTechnica -- a good thing.

 

[bilby]

Australian State Election Portends National Boost To Renewable Energy Sector | CleanTechnica

The Victorian Labor Party was re-elected to power in the State’s Saturday election this past weekend in a victory that is being described as “stunning,” “a landslide,” and a “bloodbath.” In fact, the Labor Party will return to power with more seats than have been held in over 15 years, delivering the party a strong mandate that includes important policies on climate change and renewable energy.

...
As such, the past few days have signaled a potential swing away from business-as-usual policies under the current Liberal Party (which, despite its name, is not a politically liberal party at all) which prioritizes support for coal-fired power generation and extreme opposition to renewable energy sources.

So Australia is having its own "Blue Wave" and its own "Green New Deal".

Actually we are having a Red Wave - only the USA gets the colours the wrong way round. In metric, Red = Left Wing and Blue = Right Wing.

Green is still green, though.