quote:
Originally posted by jerry
According to this article there is too much power being produced. So why shut down solar? Why not a fossil fuel plant?
And where does this 10% figure come from? Spain in 2013 produced 21% from wind alone, Germany on October 3rd 2013 produced 60%.
I realize there are issues with load balancing and distribution, especially in a small grid, but these are not unsolvable problems. The real problem is political/financial.
There are several erroneous statements being made here as if they were fact.
The solar PV growth in Spain and Germany have collapsed. Both countries made a massive solar push several years ago. Now both countries are eliminating subsidies and net metering, which is being followed by large scale collapses in the industry, with large layoffs.
Also, in Germany, solar PV provided 18 TW·h (billion kilowatt-hours) of electricity in 2011, about 3% of total electricity, not anywhere near 60%, which looks like a made up number, even if it was wind and solar combined.
Solar only works in the day time (and only on nice sunny days). In Hawaii, especially Puna, there isn't any demand for peak solar power in the middle of the day. Yet, the utility is forced to buy that power at ACC rates due to the politicians. If you look at Hawaiian Electric financials, they actually had -5% growth last year. In fact, HELCO has a waste surplus at night. Hawaii island does not have any industry to use the off-hours surplus, there aren't any gigantic skyscrapers sucking up power, and even street lights are sparse.
The oil burning power plants are being gradually shut down. Energy plants are long term and expensive investments. They don't fit in the 10-second attention span of most Americans, so that creates irritation. If the Pepeekeo biomass power plant can supplement the power from PGV, then the Hilo oil burning power plant is planned to be shut down, probably at least a few years from now. The Puna oil burning plant will never be shut down. If you look at any large facility like a data center with acres of solar panels, they always have huge diesel power systems for backup.
Solar is also wildly fluctuating power. Much of the growth has been due to panels providing much more current directly but without batteries, they are unable to provide steady, continuous and clean signal power. Also on the east side, many people remember a time when the Hawaii winter meant days, weeks, months of solid rain. Maybe the trend will be to more dry winters but this winter, the solar fanatics don't seem to jumping up and down how well their solar panels are working in this rainy weather.
This is the reality check for solar. For Germany, it is shifting to burning coal.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB12...5050081615
Spain's Solar-Power Collapse Dims Subsidy Model
http://pjmedia.com/blog/unreliable-germa...coal-boom/
Unreliable German Solar and Wind Forcing New Coal Boom
http://www.dw.de/germanys-clean-energy-d...a-17345796
Germany's clean energy drive fails to curb 'dirty' coal power
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