NY Times reports on long delays when solar or wind energy projects apply to connect to the grid. While they look at only a few of the US regional grids, several year delays appear common. The permitting process for grid tie-in was scaled to deal with a few big natural gas (etc) power stations every year and is overloaded by the requests of thousands of smaller, distributed energy sources.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/climate/renewable-energy-us-electrical-grid.html
or https://archive.is/AngvN
Plans to install 3,000 acres of solar panels in Kentucky and Virginia are delayed for years. Wind farms in Minnesota and North Dakota have been abruptly canceled. And programs to encourage Massachusetts and Maine residents to adopt solar power are faltering.
The energy transition poised for takeoff in the United States amid record investment in wind, solar and other low-carbon technologies is facing a serious obstacle: The volume of projects has overwhelmed the nation's antiquated systems to connect new sources of electricity to homes and businesses.
So many projects are trying to squeeze through the approval process that delays can drag on for years, leaving some developers to throw up their hands and walk away.More than 8,100 energy projects — the vast majority of them wind, solar and batteries — were waiting for permission to connect to electric grids at the end of 2021, up from 5,600 the year before, jamming the system known as interconnection.
Much more detail and additional problems described in tfl. For example, as currently arranged, if you want to tie in a big solar farm, you may need to pay for grid upgrades...which are then available for free (if I read correctly) to additional solar projects. Thus, many projects will wait to see who jumps first. And these upgrades may not even be in your local area, the grid upgrade may be needed elsewhere.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 26, @04:50PM (3 children)
Land in West Nebraska seemed prime for investment as windfarm sites, $250 per acre and high annual average wind capacity suitable for power generation.
Many barriers to entry in the (non-irrigated) field... a big one was "spinning fees" which basically amounted to payola given to the local hookup point so you could sell your power into the grid, and the price of these spinning fees seemed to amount to: whatever the market will bear. The final analysis came down to: you could finance the operation, but you couldn't make a profit unless you took on significant uninsured risk. To make it work, you'd have to negotiate hard with the locals to get workable spinning fees, cheap labor, and with the insurers and financiers to basically take a lot of risk with the investment capital, so everybody would be happy with their slice of the profits and figure out who's going to be happy enough to take the fall in the event of a rare loss event.
T. Boone Pickens made it work in that era simply by being his own bank and insurance, cutting them out of the profit sharing and accepting the risk for himself (and he's got so damn much money he'd be hard pressed to lose it all before he dies...)
I still should have bought that land, it inflated ~10x in value in the subsequent 2-3 years due to the ethanol in gasoline mandate which converted "worthless" dry crop land into workable non-irrigated cropland for growing fermentation stocks. Main thing that kept me from acting on the impulse to acquire the land was: West Nebraska is not the greatest place to travel to-from, nor to spend a lot of time in, IMO. Unfair, I never did end up going there - maybe the people are wonderful and make up for the bleak windblown landscape, sparse infrastructure, etc. but, judging from the local newspaper dramas I read... probably not.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 26, @04:58PM (2 children)
Errata:
"On July 8, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that Pickens postponed plans to build his Texas wind farm. He said the project was stopped partly because the existing transmission line capacity wasn't available. His company had planned to build new lines, but couldn't get financing. On the same date, The New York Times, reported that Pickens was committed to purchasing 667 wind turbines and would develop wind projects for them. On his Mesa Power Group website, Pickens said he expected to continue the development of the Pampa project, but not at the pace originally expected.
On December 15, 2010, Nathanael Baker, in an article for www.theenergycollective.com, wrote that Pickens has scrapped plans for wind farms and will instead focus exclusively on natural gas. "
So, last I checked on Mr. Pickens' wind farms was probably in the 2008 era. I do remember flying over the Amarillo Texas area in that era and seeing hundreds upon hundreds of wind turbines, not sure what projects they were connected to.
And, even though he clearly has the money to burn if he so chooses, he let "financing" be the death of his wind farm project, much like I did years earlier.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday February 28, @03:41PM (1 child)
Unless the bill of materials is much cheaper than solar, wind, will always lose. Moving parts always introduce a certain amount of maintenance fees. Sure, solar may need a certain amount of maintenance, but the setup that I've seen in use for near 10 years, hasn't needed much in the way of maintenance and has continued to be functional and a net benefit. It's not as full of roses and sunshine as promised, but as far as I can tell, it's just worked.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 28, @04:25PM
A lot depends on environment. Dust can be annoying for solar. Wind can generate some serious power on certain sites, far in excess of what solar might.
I was primarily looking for a land investment play, ultimately decided we'd be happiest investing in land we can spend time on - and, so, we have an acre around our home in a low density neighborhood situated in a large city with all the large city services easily available. Far more beneficial than having 100 acres that's a pain to travel to/from.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Barenflimski on Sunday February 26, @05:26PM
Sounds like a business opportunity to me.
Costs:
2 hired lobbyists to 'advertise' to those congress critters that might care, to get funds
1 team to write the software to make this work
Free software to the government for the first year, subscription $80 bagillion dollars year over year to the government
In 4 years, claim the software is out of date, and charge them to rewrite it.
Problem solved.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Sunday February 26, @05:26PM (5 children)
This is just like widening a stretch of freeway. There's also a national security issue to keep these lines operational and secure. The chances of the US government nationalizing the transmission network is precisely 0, but it's the best solution.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday February 26, @09:52PM (3 children)
As best as I can tell, Americans like having a system of unaccountable businesses colluding with mostly-unaccountable politicians to pass the public's money back and forth between them.
For example, in my state, the various power companies spent about $60 million in bribes for the state legislature's majority party, got the $4 billion or so in state government subsidies they wanted, then turned around and convinced the public utilities commission to raise rates to cover the same costs for them. Oh, and then for good measure they also included changes to make it even harder for residents to switch to having their own wind or solar setups, and make it completely impossible to do net metering or anything like that ever. (Some of the people involved in all of this are likely to be fined, but I doubt any of them will see a jail cell and most made out handsomely on the deal.)
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 27, @01:23PM (2 children)
Is this Florida? If not, we have similar stories, including a 90% monopoly electric power provider.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday February 27, @05:11PM (1 child)
Nope, Ohio, where the rail company that just wrecked a town has suspiciously close ties to a governor who is doing everything he can to help that rail company avoid any consequences at all for their actions.
Oh, and for those around in 2003, this was the same state and power company whose skimping on maintenance and general incompetence led to the 2003 Northeast Blackout that shut down electrical power for 55 million people and killed a few hundred, all because they couldn't be bothered to trim trees away from their power lines, upgrade their equipment, and test their software like they were supposed to.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 27, @09:26PM
Yeah, FP&L is actually pretty good at maintenance, but they are harsh when it comes to owning the legislature, preventing competitors and homeowners from running solar power generation in the state, etc.
We're actually served by one of the few competitors to FP&L: JEA, JEA has been notorious for milking the construction of the Vogtle nuclear generation station in Georgia for every fraud, graft and kickback possible. I think the worst of them still escaped jail time, but there have been a few big scandals involving hundreds of millions...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Informative) by higuita on Monday February 27, @12:29AM
That is what happen in Portugal and Spain. Both had state run power companies, but then they sold then and open the market to every company... but not the grid, that one is state owned and controlled.
When planing for renewable energies, both countries upgraded their grid to make it smarter, flexible and with good interconnect between both countries. Then they promoted renewable (wind first, as solar was at that time much more expensive, both are now betting much more in solar) and the grid was ready to receive power from many different places and transfer power for one country to another. Portugal have some good hidro-storage power setup, can take Spanish solar energy during day and then produce power and send to Spain during peak hours. All this was possible only because there was a plan to prepare the grid for this. If the grid was broken in multiple companies, it would be impossible, why spend millions on some redundant connections and high power lines for regions with few people. There is no profit in that... unless there is if they work together and define stable conditions and prices... very hard to do with multiple companies, but easy to do in state controlled infra.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by XivLacuna on Sunday February 26, @05:42PM (6 children)
Chances are the energy you are using is coming from a local baseload power plant like coal, nuclear, or hydroelectric, with some local peaker plants to deal with any changes in the load. Paying for electricity to be generated in the middle of nowhere is yet another feel good practice that just makes problems worse.
We lack a superconductor grid that'll make it reasonable for energy to be generated out in the middle of nowhere and be used several states away. The cost of building and upkeep of such a system isn't practical.
This is probably why local grids drag their feet over connecting these renewable power sources to the grid. They don't need them locally.
No one wants to live near wind farms because they have an awful noise when they are working. The turbine blades are made out of fiberglass and resin and can't easily be recycled so they end up being buried in landfills after their lifespan is up.
If we want to be effective at improving air quality, we need to get nuclear power's costs down and have the power plants located as close as possible to the consumers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26, @06:25PM (1 child)
I'm still waiting for the box-sized thorium reactor that can be buried in the basement, that we were promised years ago. Wake me up when it arrives.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 26, @07:29PM
Thorium lacks boom potential, and the infrastructure that boom potential nuclear devices have.
We can't even get Vogtle https://www.georgiapower.com/company/plant-vogtle.html [georgiapower.com] online, the political unreality of developing a Thorium program to the point it generates power in your backyard... maybe if MIB mind wipe tech comes out we might pull it off...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 26, @07:27PM (2 children)
We shall overcome:
https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/carbon-rivers-makes-wind-turbine-blade-recycling-and-upcycling-reality-support [energy.gov]
https://www.showmetech.com.br/en/toroidal-helices-meet-silent-propellers/ [showmetech.com.br]
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday February 27, @10:09AM (1 child)
Neat propellor.
Problem with wind-turbines is the whump-whump-whump noise made as the blades pass the support column, not the vortices shed by the blades from their tips. It is a low frequency periodic sound that carries a long way and is very, very irritating.
Vertical helical blades don't have this problem, but are less efficient. Any new blade/aerofoil profile will have to be at least as efficient as the current ones, and that is a hard target to hit.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 27, @01:20PM
In some circumstances, a less efficient but quieter turbine / blade might be the solution to placement of generators in closer proximity to the power users - efficiency of transmission making up for the less efficient turbine.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Interesting) by higuita on Monday February 27, @01:06AM
if you are talking about trans-state energy distribution, yes, you need either superconductor OR energy storage and transfer (say green hydrogen+ pipelines , hidro-storage and pipe, methane or ammonia)
but that is thinking too big, even nuclear, trans-state powering is hard, specially with the aged US electric distribution. There are higher efficiency high voltage cabling that can help, but the idea is to get energy generation highly distributed, not centrally produced.
Go check this tool, Spain today had most of its energy generated by wind and solar during the day, and still send a good chunk to both Portugal (that had less little wind) and France AND store in hidro-storage.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/ES [electricitymaps.com]
Spain is big enough already and yes, you still need backup power, but this is FAR from a feel good practice. Specially when Spain (and Portugal) was 30 years ago energy dependent, as they have little coal, no gas, petroleum and most of the older damns where more for flood control and irrigation, not energy production
Again, the idea is to get the system highly distributed, with the current gas and nuclear as backup and filling the gaps. Superconductor would be great but still with the current tools it can be very helpfull... you just need a proper grid with many and good interconnects... not many "star like" networks with a nuclear and coal plant in the middle