Home » Posts tagged 'renewable energy' (Page 13)

Tag Archives: renewable energy

In 4Q 2018 Gorona del Viento (GdV) supplied only 27.7 % of El Hierro’s electricity and 6.4% of its total energy consumption, down by a factor of almost three from the 74.2% and 17.1% recorded in 3Q 2018. Since project startup in June 2015 GdV has supplied 45.2.% of El Hierro’s electricity and 10.4% of its energy. During 2018 it supplied 56.6% of El Hierro’s electricity and 13.0% of its energy, up from 46.3% and 10.6% in 2017. Whether this is a result of improved practices or stronger winds in 2018 is unclear at this time. There is an ongoing labor dispute at the Llanos Blancos diesel plant, where workers are demanding more money because their work load has quadrupled since GdV came on line.

Performance since project start-up

Figure 1 shows daily mean percent renewables generation since full operations began on June 27, 2015. The data are from Red Eléctrica de España (REE):

Figure 1: Daily average percentages of diesel & renewables (wind plus hydro) sent to the El Hierro grid since startup. The black lozenges show monthly means.

The Table below updates the monthly grid statistics since project startup on June 27, 2015 through December 31, 2018:

Fourth Quarter 2018 performance

Figure 2 plots the REE 10-minute generation data for October, November and December 2018:

Figure 2: Total generation by source, 4Q 2018, ten-minute REE data

During 4Q 2018 the 11.5 MW wind farm generated a total of 4,053 MWh, representing a capacity factor of 16.0%. But because of inadequate storage coupled with the tendency of the wind to blow in gusts only 64% (2,597 MWh) of this generation was delivered to the grid. The remainder was consumed in uphill pumping. Figure 3 shows total wind generation (wind to grid plus wind to pumping) during the quarter. There is no evidence for any significant curtailment of turbine output. The bimodal distribution of wind generation (either “on” or “off”) discussed in the previous report is again evident.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Carbon Crossroads: Can Germany Revive Its Stalled Energy Transition?

December 24, 2018

A wind turbine operating next to the Niederaussem coal-fired power plant near Bergheim, Germany. LUKAS SCHULZE/GETTY IMAGES

Carbon Crossroads: Can Germany Revive Its Stalled Energy Transition?

Although Germany has been a global leader in moving to decarbonize its massive economy, the country’s ambitious clean-energy transformation is faltering. Now, a broad spectrum of energy experts are working to revitalize the effort to make Germany nearly carbon-free by mid-century.

Northern Germany, from the Polish borderlands in the east to the Netherlands in the west, is the stronghold of Germany’s muscular onshore wind power industry. This is where the lion’s share of the country’s nearly 30,000 wind turbines are sited, a combined force equal to the power generation of about 10 nuclear reactors. Where Germany’s northernmost tip abuts Denmark, soaring turbines crowd the horizon as far as the eye can see. And many more are coming as Germany strives to go carbon neutral by 2050.

Yet despite their impressive might, the north’s wind parks are a reminder not only of how much has been accomplished in Germany’s Energiewende, or clean energy transition, but also of what remains to be done. Although the country has made a Herculean effort to shift to a clean energy economy — in just the past five years government support and costs to consumers have totaled an estimated 160 billioneuros ($181 billion) — Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions have not declined as rapidly as expected in response to the vigorous expansion of renewable energy, which now generates 40 percent of the country’s electricity. Germany’s politicians are even resigned to falling significantly short of the country’s 2020 goal of reducing emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels.

Germany’s failings have come as a vexing shock to its environmentally conscious citizenry. While Germans still overwhelmingly back the energy transition — for years polls showed support in excess of 90 percent — about three-quarters say the government is not doing enough to slow global warming.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We Don’t Mine Enough Rare Earth Metals to Replace Fossil Fuels With Renewable Energy

December 24, 2018

We Don’t Mine Enough Rare Earth Metals to Replace Fossil Fuels With Renewable Energy

Rare earth metals are used in solar panels and wind turbines—as well as electric cars and consumer electronics. We don’t recycle them, and there’s not enough to meet growing demand.

Image: Shutterstock

A new scientific study supported by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure warns that the renewable energy industry could be about to face a fundamental obstacle: shortages in the supply of rare metals.

To meet greenhouse gas emission reduction targets under the Paris Agreement, renewable energy production has to scale up fast. This means that global production of several rare earth minerals used in solar panels and wind turbines—especially neodymium, terbium, indium, dysprosium, and praseodymium—must grow twelvefold by 2050.

Fig 1. Graph depicting global critical metal demand for wind and solar panels, between 2020 and 2050, compared with the 2017 level of annual metal production (2017 = 1).

But according to the new study by Dutch energy systems company Metabolic, the “current global supply of several critical metals is insufficient to transition to a renewable energy system.”

The study focuses on demand for rare metals in the Netherlands and extrapolates this to develop a picture of how global trends are likely to develop.

“If the rest of the world would develop renewable electricity capacity at a comparable pace with the Netherlands, a considerable shortage would arise,” the study finds. This doesn’t include other applications of rare earth metals in other electronics industries (rare earth metals are widely used in smartphones, for example). “When other applications (such as electric vehicles) are also taken into consideration, the required amount of certain metals would further increase.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Energy Transition Under Fire As Power Bills Soar

December 20, 2018

Energy Transition Under Fire As Power Bills Soar

For a long period of time, the energy transition was primarily a technical topic concerning the transformation of the energy grid. Technological developments and the decreasing costs of renewables have made it a viable alternative to fossil fuels. The integration, however, of these new systems requires considerable investments meaning money that directly or indirectly will be provided by ordinary citizens through taxes or their energy bill.

In most parts of Europe, the energy transition is in full swing for a carbon neutral future. The EU has set itself the goal of fulfilling at least 20 percent of its total energy needs with renewables in 2020. Currently, the percentage of renewables in the overall energy production differs between member states such as 10 percent in Malta and 49 percent in Sweden.

Denmark was one of the first countries in the EU to seriously start planning for the energy transition. Early planning, broad societal support, and political will have fostered a strong domestic energy industry. Danish company Vestas is the largest wind turbine producer in the world with approximately 16 percent of the global market share. The energy transition is not cheap which requires the allocation of precious resources that could be spent otherwise. The rising energy bill, however, threatens to derail the process in several countries.

In recent weeks, France was shaken up by major demonstrations led by the so-called ‘yellow vests’ movement which was triggered by the rising costs of living. The French government intended to raise taxes for transportation fuels in order to discourage car usage and pay for the energy transition. The protests escalated into a nationwide movement that eventually forced the government to backtrack on the intended tax hikes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Race Is On: Big Oil Rushes To Supply The 1 Billion Disconnected

December 17, 2018

The Race Is On: Big Oil Rushes To Supply The 1 Billion Disconnected

Supermajors are taking on more renewable energy commitments lately as they prepare for a less carbon-intensive future. Some of them are going a step further, coupling these green commitments with humanist causes such as providing access to energy to part of the one billion people all over the world who have no electricity.

Power for All director William Brent reviewed in a recent story this push that will see Shell, Total, French Engie, Schneider Electric and others of their caliber, build electricity supply from clean sources for 200 million of this one billion within the next ten years. Shell is the most ambitious, aiming to provide access to electricity for 100 million, and Total plans to provide 25 million people in Africa with solar energy derived power within the next two years.

Others are also catching up with the green agenda. Exxon recently announced it had inked a 12-year deal with Danish renewable energy company Orsted to buy 500 MW of electricity produced by solar and wind farms to power its oil production in the Permian. The deal reflects falling renewable energy prices, which is making renewable energy a lot more competitive with fossil fuels, not to mention the reputational effect its deployment would have on Big Oil– and Big Oil is in serious need of news that is good for its reputation. Even with a redoubling of efforts to move more quickly into renewable energy territory, challenges remain, however.

Shell and BP, for instance, are being pressured by activist shareholders into doing more to lower their carbon footprint. One such activist shareholder, Dutch group Follow This, has been actively pressuring the companies it holds shares in to be more active in carbon footprint reduction work.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Powering the Tesla Gigafactory

December 13, 2018

Powering the Tesla Gigafactory

Tesla has repeatedly claimed in publications, articles and tweets from Elon Musk that its Reno, Nevada Gigafactory will be powered 100% by renewables. Specifics on exactly how Tesla plans to do this are sparse, but the data that are available suggest that Tesla’s 70MW rooftop solar array won’t come close to supplying the Gigafactory’s needs and that the other options that Tesla is now or has been considering (more solar, possibly wind, battery storage) will not bridge the gap. As a result the Gigafactory will probably end up obtaining most of its electricity from the Nevada grid, 75% of which is presently generated by fossil fuels.

Lest there be any doubt about Tesla’s claim that the Gigafactory will be powered with 100% renewables, here are some tweets from Mr Musk:

July 27, 2016: Should mention that Gigafactory will be fully powered by clean energy when complete

June 8, 2018: Gigafactory should be on 100% renewable energy (primarily solar with some wind) by next year. Rollout of solar has already begun

August 25, 2018: Tesla’s Gigafactory will be 100% renewable powered (by Tesla Solar) by end of next year

Plus this excerpt from the January 2016 Gigafactory tour handout:

(The Gigafactory) is an all-electric factory with no fossil fuels (natural gas or petroleum) directly consumed. We will be using 100% sustainable energy through a combination of a 70 MW solar rooftop array and solar ground installations.

Plus this one from Tesla’s “press kit”:

The Gigafactory is designed to be a net-zero energy factory upon completion. It will not consume any fossil fuels – there is no natural gas piped to the site nor are there permanent diesel generators being used to provide power … The entire roof of the Gigafactory will be covered in solar array, and installation is already underway. Power not consumed during the day will be stored via Tesla Powerpacks for use when needed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Now Spain proposes to go 100% renewable

November 28, 2018

Now Spain proposes to go 100% renewable

The list of countries, states, cities and towns that have announced ambitious plans to go 100% renewable continues to grow. The latest entrant is Spain, which according to the Guardian plans to switch to 100% renewable electricity by 2050 and aims to fully decarbonize the country’s economy shortly after. Evaluating the full decarbonization option is beyond the scope of a blog post, so here I give Spain the routine Energy Matters treatment to see whether it has any chance of converting its electricity sector to 100% renewables by 2050.

A couple of observations to begin with. First, Spain’s plans are set forth in a draft Climate Change and Energy Transition Law that has yet to pass Congress. The recently installed Sánchez government has a shaky hold on power and will need support from other parties to make it official. But which politician these days can resist the magic catch-phrase “100% renewables”? Even Conservative MPs in the UK are now calling for it.

Second, the data presented here are for the Spanish “Peninsula” – i.e. mainland – only. The Balearic and Canary Islands are ignored.

The table below summarizes Spain’s generation capacity at the end of 2017. The data are from the Red Eléctrica de España (REE) Statistical data of electrical system report 2017:

Two more comments are in order here. First, REE conveniently segregates generation sources into renewable and non-renewable categories as follows:

NON-RENEWABLE ENERGIES: Includes pumped storage, nuclear, fuel/gas, combined cycle, cogeneration and renewable waste.
RENEWABLE ENERGY: Includes hydro, hydro-wind, wind, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, biogas, biomass, marine-hydro, geothermal and renewable waste.

Segregating the results in accordance with these definitions shows that renewables supplied about a third of Spain’s electricity in 2017. It’s not clear whether distributed generation is included in REE’s numbers, but word searches for “distributed”, “embedded” and “rooftop” yielded zero hits.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The limits of renewable energy and the case for degrowth

November 21, 2018

The limits of renewable energy and the case for degrowth

Photo from Pixabay

The energy transition is the focus of much discussion. To read the accounts in the mainstream media, one gets the impression that renewable energy is being rolled out quickly and is on its way to replacing fossil fuels without much ado, while generating new green jobs. If the claims of Jeremy Rifkin are to be believed, renewable energy will become cheaper and cheaper, on the model of computers and telecommunications.

But what is the current combined share of solar photovoltaic energy and solar thermal energy, wind and tidal energy, and geothermal energy? (I am not including hydroelectric power and biomass here. While they are arguably forms of renewable energy, they are typically looked at separately because, having reached maturity, they have limited potential for expansion, unlike solar and wind power which remain underexploited.) People tend to think it constitutes 5, 10 or even 20 per cent of total energy production. The figure is actually much smaller: a mere 1.5 per cent. That’s the net result of the last 45 years of progress on the energy transition, according to the official figures of the International Energy Agency.

To break it down, from 1973 to 2015:

The share of petroleum in the global energy mix decreased from 46 per cent to 32 per cent
Coal’s share grew from 25 per cent to 28 per cent
Natural gas’s share grew from 16 per cent to 22 per cent
Nuclear’s share grew from 1 to 5 per cent
Hydroelectricity’s share grew from 2 to 3 per cent
The combined share of biofuels, wood and waste decreased from 11 per cent to 10 per cent
And renewable energy’s share grew by a factor of 15, from 0.1 per cent to 1.5 per cent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Gas companies face Californian wipe-out, say S&P, Moody’s

November 3, 2018

Gas companies face Californian wipe-out, say S&P, Moody’s

Ratings agencies say the state’s bid to go 100% renewable poses a ‘significant threat’ to gas generators’ credit stability

Newport Wedge, California (Photo: Tom Walker/Flickr)

Gas companies in California face credit downgrades, ratings agencies say, after the state pledged to get all of its power from renewable sources by 2045.

On 10 September, California governor Jerry Brown signed a bill which would require 100% of the state electricity’s to come from carbon-free sources.

That would have no immediate effect on most gas generators, according to a report by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) analyst Michael Ferguson this month. However, he said: “We believe that over the long term, with the growth of renewable energy, these utilities face a significant threat to their market position, finances, and credit stability.”

Within a fortnight of the California bill, S&P had revised its ratings outlook for Middle River Power, an equity firm backing a natural gas-fired plant providing electricity for 500,000 people in San Berdinado, from stable to negative. On top of increased competition from renewables, the credit agency cited “a more challenging (…) regulatory environment for natural gas-fired assets over the long term because of aggressive renewable energy goal”.

“This gas plant is going to have to be refinanced,” Ferguson told Climate Home News, “and it’s going to get more and more difficult to refinance over the long-term because they are going to be facing increasing renewable penetration… Longer-term the prospects for [all] gas generation are going to be weaker.”

S&P’s report largely echoes an assessment by its rival Moody’s, released in September. According to Moody’s, the state’s new legislation was “credit negative” for companies Calpine Corporation, NRG Energy, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), Southern California Edison Company, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Scotland’s wind exports to England and the myth of a 100% renewable Scotland

October 31, 2018

Scotland’s wind exports to England and the myth of a 100% renewable Scotland

Well over half of Scotland’s wind generation between January 12, 2018 and the present was exported to England and not consumed in Scotland. Euan Mearns reached substantially the same conclusion in his review of January and February 2016 data. Scotland’s government nevertheless assumes that all of Scotland’s wind generation is consumed in Scotland, that intermittency is not an issue, and that Scotland is therefore on track to meet its target of obtaining 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. The chances that Scotland will meet this target are of course zero, and Scotland’s government is pulling the wool over the public’s eyes by pretending otherwise.

[Inset image: Stirling Castle with environmentally enhanced scenery in the background.]

This post is an update of a number of posts Euan Mearns has written since 2015, with the most recent being Scotland-England electricity transfers and the perfect storm in March 2017. It uses five-minute Scotland-England transfer data between January 12 and October 23, 2018 that are now publically available on Leo Smith’s Gridwatch site. Gridwatch, however, does not break out any other grid data for Scotland, meaning that some assumptions have had to be made. These were:

1. Scotland’s wind generation. According to BEIS data UK wind generation totalled 50,004 MWh in 2017 and Scotland’s wind generation totalled 17,063 MWh, 33.5% of total UK generation. In the first two quarters of 2018 UK wind generation totalled 27,802 MWh and Scotland’s wind generation totalled 9,121 MWh, 32.8% of total UK generation. In both cases Scotland’s wind generation amounts to about a third of total UK generation, so it was simulated by dividing the Gridwatch 5-minute UK grid values by three. This conversion assumes that variations in wind generation were the same in Scotland as they were in the UK as a whole.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

An update on the King Island Renewable Energy Integration Project

October 17, 2018

An update on the King Island Renewable Energy Integration Project

A number of operating small-scale renewables plants provide advance warning of the potential problems involved in transitioning the world to renewable energy, but only two of them – Gorona del Viento in the Canary Islands (GdV) and King Island, Tasmania (KI) – provide grid data that allow their performance to be checked. In this post I summarize the results of another batch of KI data covering the period from July 15 through September 30, 2018. Over this period KI generated about 60% of its electricity from renewables, effectively the same estimate as I made for October and November 2017 in this earlier post. Like GdV, however, KI will always need fossil fuel backup to fill in gaps when the wind does not blow.

There are three problems with the KI grid data. First, they are available only though KI’s live data site, which because it changes the readings once every two or three seconds leads to huge data volumes (a month generates over a million lines). Second, the site has recently been down for almost half the time. But two Energy Matters stalwarts, Rainer Strassburger and Thinks Too Much, continue to download what they can, and T2M has succeeded in condensing some of the data down to manageable 1-minute intervals, no mean feat. So a hat-tip to these gentlemen.

The third problem is that KI, despite strenuous efforts on my part, have once again refused to send me their data. They claim a) that they can’t release the data to just anybody and b) that they don’t have the time anyway.

A quick refresher on KI. First a location map:

Figure 1: King Island location map

Installed capacity at KI amounts to approximately 9MW. It consists of:

four diesel generators (6.00 MW)
five wind turbines (2.45 MW)
a solar array (0.1 MW); and
domestic solar (approximately 0.5 MW)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IEA: Renewables Set For Explosive Growth

October 8, 2018

IEA: Renewables Set For Explosive Growth

Renewable energy is growing at a blistering rate, but clean energy is also nowhere near what is needed to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change, according to a series of new monumental reports on the global energy system.

Renewable energy accounted for half of the increase in new electricity generation in 2017, a remarkable feat, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). By 2023, renewables will account for 12.4 percent of total global energy demand (not just for electricity), a sign that the adoption of wind and solar around the world is gaining steam. In the transport sector, electric vehicles and electric buses triple over the next few years.

Solar and wind are the cheapest option in a growing number of places around the world and EV sales are skyrocketing.

Here are a few more staggering statistics. Between 2017 and 2023, renewables will cover a full 40 percent of the additional growth in energy consumption. And by 2023, renewables will account for nearly a third of total electricity generation worldwide.

Solar PV will move front and center over the next few years, the IEA argues. Solar PV is expected to grow by 600 gigawatts through 2023, having already jumped by 97 GW last year. That 600 GW is equivalent to twice the size of Japan’s entire capacity.

Within the solar sector, distributed solar “makes the difference,” the IEA says. Without the distributed solar projects, solar’s expansion would be equal that of wind. But a growing number of commercial, industrial and residential applications are putting more solar panels at the local level.

Behind this explosive growth for renewables is the dramatic cost declines that make renewables increasingly the cheapest option. “For the first time, more than half of renewable electricity capacity is expected to be commissioned through competitive auctions, which continue to slash wind and solar PV bid prices to between USD 20 per megawatt hour (MWh) and USD 50/MWh,” the IEA wrote.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The impacts of electrification – the example of France

September 28, 2018

The impacts of electrification – the example of France

A number of “100% renewable” studies foresee wholesale electrification as the best way to cut emissions. In this post I compare load curves from three European countries where electric heating is not widely used (Spain, Germany and Poland) with one where it is (France). The annual load curves for Spain, Germany and Poland do not show large seasonal load variations or high winter peak loads, but because of electric heating the load curve for France shows both large seasonal variations and a strong winter peak. France’s electric heaters will therefore have offset a substantial tonnage of CO2 emissions at the expense of making the grid more difficult to manage. Considerations such as the performance of France’s nuclear fleet and the impact of France’s electric heaters on “demand response” are also discussed.

Figure 1 shows the locations of the four countries considered. They have a combined population of 235 million, a combined GDP of $8.1 trillion and cover an area of 1.8 million square kilometers:

Figure 1: Country locations

A few basic statistics are listed in Table 1 for reference:

As discussed in numerous previous posts, matching electricity supply to demand (load) 24/365 in a country where a high fraction of generation is provided by intermittent renewables is problematic if not impossible. Regardless of the generation mix, however, the problem will usually be lessened if the annual load curve does not show significant seasonal variations. Three of the four countries considered, Poland, Spain and Germany, show no large seasonal variations except during the Christmas/New Year holiday season in Germany. (All the data used in this post are from the P-F Bach hourly data for 2015except where otherwise specified:)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Assembly Bill 100 and a 100% renewable California

September 12, 2018

Assembly Bill 100 and a 100% renewable California

The California legislature just passed Assembly Bill 100 (AB100), which according to the inset calls for “100% clean energy by 2045”. The brief review presented in this post shows that AB100, which targets electricity, not energy, will cut California’s greenhouse gas emissions by only about 16% even in the unlikely event its target is met. Its main impact will be to add to the regulatory overload from which California’s electricity providers already suffer. The fact that the bill was passed at all indicates that California legislators, as well as being unable to tell the difference between megawatts and megawatt-hours, are also unable to tell the difference between electricity and energy.

AB100 (Senate version SB100) is California’s latest attempt to convert its dream of a 100% clean, renewable and sustainable energy future into reality. Media outlets were near-unanimous in concluding that it finally commits California to 100% renewable energy:

Los Angeles Times: The bill …. would require California to obtain 100% of its power from clean sources by 2045

Forbes: California has approved a measure requiring all energy used in the sunshine state to be from renewable sources by 2045

ZME Science: Last week, California’s legislators passed Senate Bill 100, a bill to power the state exclusively on clean energy

Even Senator Kevin de León, who introduced the bill, claims on his website that AB100 will power the state on “100% clean, renewable energy”. California Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) on Tuesday introduced Senate Bill 100, The California Clean Energy Act of 2017, which puts the state on the path to 100 percent clean, renewable energy by 2045. If the politician responsible for drafting AB100 believes this we can assume that the 42 other California legislators who voted for it don’t understand the difference between electricity and energy either.

Here is what AB100 actually says. The text from which the following extracts are taken is here:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Renewable Energy As Clean As We Think?

August 24, 2018

Is Renewable Energy As Clean As We Think?

Fossil fuel energy has understandably become the clay pigeon of environmentalists in the past decades – with oil & gas companies having lied too often about the impact of their activities on climate change or environmental pollution for the public to ignore. Oil spills have destroyed many a habitat both onshore and offshore, with an immeasurable number of animals and humans having suffered. But it is important to acknowledge that oil and gas companies are not the only guilty parties, with all types of energy production leading to environmental harm in one way or another. The ‘clean’ energy narrative that is so frequently pushed by renewable advocates may not be quite as clean as you think.

This is not a rallying cry against renewable energy, the energy community needs renewables, it needs various regions specializing in different forms of energy in order to provide for the seamless coexistence of fossil and non-fossil energy sources. Nevertheless, it seems strange that so little progress has been made in identifying and dealing with the environmental risks of renewables.

Wind energy is considered to be the renewable energy source which is the most commercially attractive under current market conditions – in fact, it is so attractive that since 2012 more GW of wind power were installed in the United States than of any other resource, including fossil fuels. It is common enough to hear that wind farms are a blight on the landscape, but that complaint doesn’t carry any environmental significance. Noise, on the other hand, can have a tangible impact on the environment.

Wind plants reach a sound pressure level of 90-100 decibels, with scientific studies suggesting that exposure to such a level of noise will lead to annoyance, sleep disturbances, headaches, anxiety, depression and cognitive dysfunction.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: renewable energy

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts