Long Island Solar Farm
Photo: Brookhaven National Lab
Twenty-nine states have renewable energy mandates. California’s mandate calls for 33% renewable energy by 2020 while New York State mandates 50% of its electricity be renewable by 2030. It is one thing to set energy or electricity mandates and quite another to achieve them. New York is quite fortunate; today 26% of its electricity comes from renewable electricity sources. However, large hydroelectric facilities today provide 80% of NY’s renewable electricity and, unless more hydropower is imported from Canada, an expanded contribution from large hydropower seems unlikely. So to meet this 50% mandate, solar and wind which today produce 5.2% of NY’s renewable electricity would have to expand 462% over the next 14 years or on average, about 33% per year assuming no growth in the electricity demand over the same period. So how do states achieve these mandates recognizing that enormous growth in renewable electricity is necessary?
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Actual PV electricity production in the U.S. appears to support this approach. In 2015, utility solar produced about 2/3’rds of 1% of the nation’s electricity or about twice as much as rooftop PV. Yet states continue emphasizing policies that support residential PV to meet clean energy goals. Expanding individual electricity independence, especially as various renewable electricity subsidies are phased out, comes with a cost that may not have been fully considered.
My exhibit “Gallery of Clean Energy Inventions” is linked at my websites padrak.com/vesperman and commutefaster.com/vespermanhtml. It includes a profile of “Advanced Solar Photo-Voltaic Crystal Lattice Cells”. The text reads: The… Read more »
It may be a pipe dream, but states should adopt a neutral policy approach. If individual customers wish to pay for more expensive (rooftop solar + inverter) for resilience purposes,… Read more »
Brent’s comment has value in that such an approach might have avoided some of the conflicts we see today when Public Service Commissions have set up net energy pricing schemes… Read more »
One of the biggest cost differentials between utility scale and residential PV is the cost of permitting, which for residential, can exceed the cost of the panels themselves. State and… Read more »
Dan is correct that costs for installing residential PV are lower in Germany than in the USA. DOE’s November, 2015 ” Revolution…Now” quotes a price of $2.14/watt in Germany for… Read more »
First, Dan is right about the comparative installation costs. Panels costs have remained fairly steady recently and the drop in costs is mainly in installation costs. However, residential rooftops each… Read more »
Jane’s response is excellent. I might add that community scale solar combined with storage has other potential benefits, the most important is cyber security, in my view. A cyber attack… Read more »
Jane:
Would you provide links to the NREL, RMI, and Brattle Group reports you reference?
Many thanks,
Herschel
Glad you found my comment useful …. Here are the 3 references
NREL – http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/63892.pdf
RMI – http://www.rmi.org/Content/Files/RMI-Shine-Report-CommunityScaleSolarMarketPotential-201603-Final.pdf
Brattle Group – http://www.brattle.com/system/publications/pdfs/000/005/295/original/Well-Planned_Electric_Transmission_Saves_Customer_Costs_-_Improved_Transmission_Planning_is_Key_to_the_Transition_to_a_Carbon_Constrained_Future.pdf?1465246946
The differentiation of costs between utility-scale and user-scale solar is actually a false approach to address electricity. This sounds similar to the fight to open up the wired communications grid… Read more »
Scott’s comments seem similar to those made by Brent Nelson and I suggest that he look at my reply to Brent. All the factors that Scott lists, such as surges,… Read more »
Herschel: While you are correct that the costs of climate impacts will far outweigh the costs of trying to minimize those impacts, we still have limited resources (time, money, manufacturing… Read more »
While I support putting a price on carbon, it might not accomplish what we want in terms of limiting the damage from climate change. It is important to put a… Read more »
Herschel: In some ways, it’s simpler than you describe. The bottom line is that we need to get to zero net emissions by around 2050 and we need negative emissions… Read more »
Two quibbles. First, 99% of rooftop solar installations in this country do not contribute to “reduced consequences when the grid is disrupted from extreme weather, human error, or cyber attacks”. They’re… Read more »
Roger: Thank you for your ” quibbles”, excellent points. As to your first quibble, this is very important in an age where cyber security is of great importance. It seems… Read more »
It seems, according to a new study of the Duck Curve that a combination of distributed and utility scale solar will work better than only looking for utility scale projects.… Read more »
Jane: These conclusions are consistent with my own analyses. What I have found that centralized sources of electricity can enhance the use of distributed sources of electricity and vice-versa. We… Read more »
Interesting thoughts. I have focused on the changes we need to make for electricity and maybe I can send you back to the drawing boards to find value in wind… Read more »