{"id":1826,"date":"2011-06-30T08:42:30","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T12:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/solar-jobs-leadership-grid-independence-and-health.html"},"modified":"2011-06-30T08:42:30","modified_gmt":"2011-06-30T12:42:30","slug":"solar-jobs-leadership-grid-independence-and-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/solar-jobs-leadership-grid-independence-and-health.html","title":{"rendered":"Solar: jobs, leadership, grid, independence, and health"},"content":{"rendered":"Peak power when you need it: solar.\nSomebody has been studying it, and addressing problems\nlocal decisionmakers right here in south Georgia have been raising.\n

\n\nSolar\u00a0Power\u00a0Generation\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0US:\nToo\u00a0expensive,\u00a0or\u00a0a\u00a0bargain?<\/a>\nby\nRichard\u00a0Perez,\u00a0ASRC,\u00a0University\u00a0at\u00a0Albany,\nKen\u00a0Zweibel,\u00a0GW\u00a0Solar\u00a0Institute,\u00a0George\u00a0Washington\u00a0University,\nThomas\u00a0E.\u00a0Hoff,\u00a0Clean\u00a0Power\u00a0Research.\nThat’s Albany, New York, but it applies even more to Albany, Georgia\nand Lowndes County, Georgia, since we’re so much farther south,\nwith much more sun.\n

\nLet’s cut to the chase:\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThe fuel of heat waves is the sun; a heat wave cannot take place without a\nmassive local solar energy influx. The bottom part of Figure 2 illustrates\nan example of a heat wave in the southeastern US in the spring of 2010\nand the top part of the figure shows the cloud cover at the same time:\nthe qualitative agreement between solar availability and the regional\nheat wave is striking. Quantitative evidence has also shown that the\nmean availability of solar generation during the largest heat wave\ndriven rolling blackouts in the US was nearly 90% ideal (Letendre et\nal. 2006). One of the most convincing examples, however, is the August\n2003 Northeast blackout that lasted several days and cost nearly $8\nbillion region wide (Perez et al., 2004). The blackout was indirectly\ncaused by high demand, fueled by a regional heat wave3. As little as 500\nMW of distributed PV region wide would have kept every single cascading\nfailure from feeding into one another and precipitating the outage. The\nanalysis of a similar subcontinental scale blackout in the Western US\na few years before that led to nearly identical conclusions (Perez et\nal., 1997).\n

\nIn essence, the peak load driver, the sun via heat waves and A\/C demand,\nis also the fuel powering solar electric technologies. Because of this\nnatural synergy, the solar technologies deliver hard wired peak shaving\ncapability for the locations\/regions with the appropriate demand mix\npeak loads driven by commercial\/industrial A\/C that is to say, much\nof America. This capability remains significant up to 30% capacity\npenetration (Perez et al., 2010), representing a deployment potential\nof nearly 375 GW in the US.\n<\/blockquote>\nThe sun supplies solar power when you need it:\nat the same time the sun drives heat waves.\n

\nThe paper identifies the problem I’ve encountered talking to local\npolicy makers, especially ones associated with power companies:\n\n\n

\nA mix of federal and state incentives, whether tax based, or ratepayers\nlevied, can make solar an attractive investment in many parts of the US;\nfeed in tariffs (FITs) have been particularly effective in Europe and\nAsia. Without incentives, however, the needed revenue stream for solar\ngeneration is still considerably higher than the least expensive way\nto generate electricity today, i.e., via unregulated, mine mouth coal\ngeneration. This large apparent grid parity gap can hinder constructive\ndialogue with key decision makers and constitutes a powerful argument to\nweaken political support for solar incentives, especially during tight\nbudgetary times.\n<\/blockquote>\nYep, they’d rather keep buying coal. And financially they need incentives\nnot to.\n

\nSo what’s their solution?\n

\nIn this paper, we approach the apparent grid parity gap question on the\nbasis of the full value delivered by solar power generation. We argue that\nthe real parity gap i.e., the difference between this value and the cost\nto deploy the resource is considerably smaller than the apparent gap,\nand that it may well have already been bridged in several parts of the\nUS. This argumentation is substantiated and quantified by focusing on\nthe case of PV deployment in the greater New York City area. Since this\nis not one of the sunniest places in the US, this paper should serve as\nan applicable case to other regions and\/or solar technologies.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s right: if it works in New York City, it should work much farther\nand sunnier south.\n

\nOK, but coal isn’t all power companies use.\nWhat do they use for peak load?\n

\n
    Built in peak load reduction capability:<\/u>\n
    \nFor a utility company, Combined\nCycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) are an ideal source of variable power generation\nbecause they are modular, can be quickly ramped up or down and answer\nthe question: is power available at will? As such CCGT have a high\ncapacity value.\n

    \nSolar generators, distributed PV in particular, are not available at\nwill2<\/sup><\/small>, but they often answer a similar question: is power available when\nneeded? and as such can capture substantial effective capacity value\n(Perez et al., 2009b). This is because peak electrical demand is driven\nby commercial daytime air conditioning (A\/C) in much of the US.\n<\/blockquote>\nRight.\nAnd that air conditioning is on high when there’s a heat wave,\nwhich is when solar power generates the most.\n

    \nAll this and what other power source pays for itself after a few years\nand then keeps producing profit with no fuel?\nOK, wind, wave, and tide.\nBut not coal or gas.\nAnd which power source can generate the most power?\nThe one that powers the entire planet: the sun.\nWithout generating any more CO2<\/sup<\/small>.\nAnd without generating any more heat that was already falling\non the planet.\n

    \nSo what to do about the cost\/value question?\nLook beyond just the investors in and builders of solar plants.\nLook beyond the power purchasers, that is, the utility companies.\nAlso look at the society at large that benefits,\nand consider the value to the taxpayers of public R&D and\ntax-based incentives.\nIt’s not just the investors and buildrs who benefit.\n

    \nThe utilities get locally-generated energy, at peak demand,\ndistributed near where it’s used, so little need for new lines.\nThat plus known prices not affected by commodity fossil fuel prices.\n

    \nThe public gets more reliable energy, since solar produces at peak load\nand is distributed so it’s unlikely to all fail at once.\n(Add on wind off the Georgia coast and you’d get generation during\nstorms and other cloudy days.)\nPublic health is enhanced by not adding more dirty coal plants\nor depending on overaged and decaying nuclear plants.\nInstalling new solar is much less costly to the public\nthan installing new nuclear: witness Georgia Power has already\nraised rates to pay for its two new nukes, even though they\nare nowhere near ready.\nBetter national security through less dependence on fossil\nfuel sources that either degrade local environments or\nhave to be shipped from overseas.\nFinally: jobs, jobs, jobs!\n

    \nThe paper summarizes all this in text and a table,\nand concludes that with conservative estimates of benefits,\nthat solar is cost-effective right now when you take into account\nnot just the direct costs and benefits to investors and developers\nbut also the costs and benefits to utilities and the the tax-paying public.\nJobs right now, leadership in a solar economy, a more dependable grid,\nless dependence on variable fossil fuel prices, and public health.\nWin, win, win!\n

    \n-jsq\n

    \nPS: Found this paper on Hannah Solar’s facebook page.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peak power when you need it: solar. Somebody has been studying it, and addressing problems local decisionmakers right here in south Georgia have been raising. Solar\u00a0Power\u00a0Generation\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0US: Too\u00a0expensive,\u00a0or\u00a0a\u00a0bargain? by Richard\u00a0Perez,\u00a0ASRC,\u00a0University\u00a0at\u00a0Albany, Ken\u00a0Zweibel,\u00a0GW\u00a0Solar\u00a0Institute,\u00a0George\u00a0Washington\u00a0University, Thomas\u00a0E.\u00a0Hoff,\u00a0Clean\u00a0Power\u00a0Research. That’s Albany, New York, but it applies even more to Albany, Georgia and Lowndes County, Georgia, since we’re so much farther south, with much […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,556,47,141,216,14,265,16,18,2,3252,41,21,22,32,23,73,289,74,24,36],"tags":[2864,2452,4200,4204,4203,8745,8753,28,1037,860,397,876,4201,847,4198,2793,4202,4205,2421,562,4206,8715,1879,4197,8714,4199],"class_list":["post-1826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-air","category-climate-change","category-co2","category-coal","category-economy","category-energy-efficiency","category-environment","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-hannah-solar","category-health-care","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-safety","category-science","category-security","category-solar","category-wind","tag-peak-load","tag-analysis","tag-benefit","tag-ccgt","tag-cicle-gas-turbine","tag-co2","tag-coal","tag-cost","tag-distributed","tag-gas","tag-grid","tag-health","tag-independence","tag-jobs","tag-ken-zweibel","tag-leadership","tag-lng","tag-modular","tag-national-security","tag-natural-gas","tag-peak-generation","tag-pollution","tag-power","tag-richard-perez","tag-solar","tag-thomas-e-hoff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-ts","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}