{"id":6008,"date":"2013-10-13T11:35:58","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T15:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=6008"},"modified":"2013-10-13T11:42:17","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T15:42:17","slug":"european-utilities-scared-of-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/european-utilities-scared-of-renewable-energy.html","title":{"rendered":"European utilities scared of renewable energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nAnother reason\r\n\r\nSouthern Company needs to get on with<\/a> a smart grid,\r\nusing its\r\n\r\nbiggest private R&D outfit in the U.S.<\/a>\r\nNow that \r\n\r\nsolar has reached grid parity<\/a> with everything\r\nincluding\r\n\r\nnatural gas<\/a>\r\n(and years since\r\n\r\nit passed nuclear<\/a>), if the utilities\r\ndon’t get out in front, they’re going to be left behind.\r\n

\r\nDerek Mead wrote for Motherboard yesterday,\r\n\r\nEuropean Utilities Say They Can’t Make Money Because There’s Too Much Renewable Energy<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nRenewable energy has been on a tear the past few years<\/a>, with growth in many countries<\/a> spurred by subsidies for\r\nwind and solar power. Now the heads of 10 European utility companies\r\nsay EU subsidies should end, because they've got more renewable\r\nenergy than they know what to do with.<\/p>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe 10 CEOs in question, who refer to themselves as the Magritte\r\ngroup because they first met in an art gallery, represent companies\r\nthat control about half the power capacity of Europe. The group gave\r\na press conference today—\r\n\r\nReuters says<\/a> that 10 such executives\r\ngiving a joint public statement is “unprecedented”—to hammer\r\nhome a message they’ve been trumpeting ahead of an EU energy summit\r\nin 2014: There’s too much energy capacity, which has driven prices\r\ndown so far that they can’t make any money.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nAs long as there are nukes or coal plants, there’s too much capacity.\r\nEuropean utilities need to get on with things like\r\n\r\nconnecting north German wind generation<\/a> with south Germany\r\nor making better deals with nearby countries such as Poland,\r\nwhile working up wave and tide generation in the Baltic, North Sea,\r\nAtlantic, and Mediterranean.\r\nAdd\r\n\r\nlinks to sunny and windy north Africa and middle East<\/a>, and problem solved.\r\nThis Magritte group can accomplish that if it wants to lead\r\ninstead of going Luddite.\r\n

\r\nWho are the Magritte group?\r\nEurActiv.com posted 11 October 2013,\r\n\r\nEnergy CEOs call for end to renewable subsidies<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe group — which includes top utilities such as France’s GDF\r\nSuez, Germany’s E.ON, Spain’s Iberdrola and Italy’s Enel — has\r\nmade an impact, as several countries, including Spain, Germany and\r\nFrance, have reviewed or are reviewing support schemes for renewable\r\nenergy….\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe group—which also includes Germany’s RWE, Italy’s Eni,\r\nSpain’s Gas Natural, Sweden’s Vattenfall, Czech CEZ and Dutch\r\nGasTerra—calls on the EU to set up capacity remuneration\r\nsystems that would pay utilities for standby capacity.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe Motherboard story goes on with the utilities’ weepy complaint that solar and\r\nwind are subsidized yet they have to keep their old-style nukes and natural\r\ngas plants running for when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine.\r\nExcess capacity, boo hoo.\r\n\r\nGeorgia Power keeps raising rates here\r\n\r\nfor natural gas and nukes<\/a>\r\nwhile wallowing in\r\n\r\nstate and federal nuclear subsidies<\/a>\r\nand\r\n\r\ntrying to charge us more for solar power<\/a>.\r\nUtilities love subsidies, as long as they prop up guaranteed monopoly profits!\r\nSorry, utilities,\r\nas\r\n\r\nEdison Electric Institute has warned you<\/a>,\r\nyour cozy century-long centralized baseload business model is being busted<\/a>\r\nby rooftop solar.\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n\r\nSolar stocks are beating fossil fuel stocks<\/a> for a reason,\r\nand that reason is\r\n\r\nMoore’s Law for solar<\/a>: solar PV prices keep falling every year,\r\npushing solar deployments up every year like compound interest.\r\nThat’s is going to leave fossilized utility execs out of work like\r\n\r\nSteve Ballmer of Microsoft because of Apple’s iPhone<\/a>,\r\nand he went from laughing to fired in only six years.\r\n

\r\n\r\nSolar power\r\n\r\nwill win like the Internet did<\/a>,\r\nand there’s nothing the traditional utilities can do that will stop it.\r\n<\/a>\r\nThey can slow it down (expect artificial blackouts soon),\r\nbut it’s going to happen.\r\nUtilities can get out in front and lead, or get left behind\r\nin their coal smoke as the sun rises.\r\nPut that in your pipe and smoke it, Magritte group,\r\nwhile you still have smoking pipes left.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another reason Southern Company needs to get on with a smart grid, using its biggest private R&D outfit in the U.S. Now that solar has reached grid parity with everything including natural gas (and years since it passed nuclear), if the utilities don’t get out in front, they’re going to be left behind. Derek Mead […]","protected":false},"author":3,"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":[216,18,6124,104,23,24,36],"tags":[2500,7054,8753,7053,315,2242,7050,4913,3031,426,7051,7055,6344,8701,8708,8781,397,2243,393,8702,12,7,562,6949,8737,107,6631,8713,7049,1135,8714,108,564,3340,6,7052,8716],"class_list":["post-6008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-georgia-power","category-natural-gas-2","category-nuclear","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-wind","tag-capacity","tag-cez","tag-coal","tag-czech","tag-e-on","tag-enel","tag-eni","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-gas-natural","tag-gasterra","tag-gdf-suez","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-germany","tag-grid","tag-iberdrola","tag-italy","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-netherlands","tag-nuclear","tag-plant-vogtle","tag-rd","tag-renewable-energy","tag-rwe","tag-smart-grid","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-spain","tag-sweden","tag-valdosta","tag-vattenfall","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1yU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6008"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6014,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008\/revisions\/6014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}