WE Energies to Squash Distributed Renewables with their latest rate case.

[J.P.M.]

Greens beat the drum for news they think is "suitable".

It would seem that objectivity without agenda is still in short supply pretty much regardless of persuasion. Perhaps another example of why I suggest questioning everything everyone says ?

[russ]

Thanks for checking and confirming what I posted. It is sad that Germany gets a lot of good press using solar but very little press about increasing thier coal use.

I get a number of emails with news articles covering renewable energy and solar. Funny how a lot of bad press is not made public concerning the issues some areas are having with the increase of solar installations and not upgrading the grid to meet the new "power flow" dynamics.

Greens beat the drum for news they think is "suitable".

[SunEagle]

hmmm... it would appear that an initial glance at the empirical data would back that contention up too. Germany is tossing coal online to make up for the lost nukes and their carbon footprint is up 1.5 - 3% over the last two years.

Thanks for checking and confirming what I posted. It is sad that Germany gets a lot of good press using solar but very little press about increasing thier coal use.

I get a number of emails with news articles covering renewable energy and solar. Funny how a lot of bad press is not made public concerning the issues some areas are having with the increase of solar installations and not upgrading the grid to meet the new "power flow" dynamics.

[kwilcox]

Damn, I love learning new stuff! Mike Holt is one of the best too. Thanks for that great post ChrisOlson!

Let me see if I've got this right as it applies to DER. Right now, on a cool fall morning in WI, my NEV (just measured it) is about .5 volts. It is changing too due to changing demand just as Mike Holt explained. However, on a hot summer afternoon when everybody has their AC cranked up to full and the POCO has all of their Peak generators running flat out, I'd expect my NEV to be much higher because the current flow to the distribution facility is much higher.

Enter my DER PV system. Hot Sunny days means that PV based RE generators are directly offsetting local load so net current to the distribution facility drops, which in turn lowers NEV. I wonder if that drop is dramatic downstream of my local step-down transformer or if it is a result of net DER generation?

[ChrisOlson]

Aside from revenue issues for a moment, part of the challenge POCO's have with distributed, non steady generation is that not only is it mostly not controllable, it's also unpredictable. That raises all kinds of problems in keeping the grid steady, reliable and workable

Distributed generation is the only answer in the long term, whether the utilities want to admit it or not. The grid is not steady, reliable or workable in the long term. Watch this video by Mike Holt that explains the basic problems with stray voltages on your modern grid system. Dairy farmers fought this problem for the last 30 years and the utilities always claimed grounding was the answer. However, we could do a standby generator installation on a large dairy farm and when the generator is running on utility peak load reduction program with the utility neutral disconnected - voila! Stray voltage is gone. It's only in the last 10 years that the problem has become really understood, and yet the utilities still deny it. Except today at large dairies that are multi-million dollar businesses, when there's a stray voltage problem the utility shows up pronto and installs a neutral isolator. So they know what the problem is, but they still won't admit it or fix it on the grid scale:

Just a couple days ago in Michigan a kid got killed on a football field due to a 60 volt stray voltage potential in a chain link fence. It is a widespread problem that is largely swept under the rug by the power utilities:

http://www.zitopartners.com/exclusive-potentially-deadly-electrical-charges-found-on-city-streets

In the end, change is going to have to come one way or another and the utilities are going to fight it tooth and nail. But the system they have set up is prohibitively expensive to maintain in the long term, and it is not safe or reliable. And as it ages, it's going to get worse. The problem today is that people in the electrical utility business will deny it, swearing on a stack of bibles that it isn't so. But those of us who have worked with standby power and distributed generation systems for over 20 years know better.

[russ]

So you are saying that Germany is polluting more now than they were before they brought all that Solar online? The way I'm reading this thread, according to Sunking/russ, that answer is yes.

Of course yes - removing the nukes was a stupid but necessary political move.

[kwilcox]

hmmm... it would appear that an initial glance at the empirical data would back that contention up too. Germany is tossing coal online to make up for the lost nukes and their carbon footprint is up 1.5 - 3% over the last two years.

[kwilcox]

That is because you have to understand the limitations of power generation. You can't start up a generator cold to make up for a drop in generation when the RE stops. If you tried there would be power outages until the fossil fuel generator comes on line. So you have to have that generator running all the time and ready to ramp up. When they run below peak efficiency they use more fuel.

Sure they now have fast starting peaker generators that can add to the grid very quickly. Although that still requires an excess of power being generated when RE is up so it can quickly take up the slack when the RE is lost long enough for the peakers to come on line.

While those peakers are fast they are fuel hogs and consume a lot more than a standard fossil fuel generator running.

So in a sense you have more power being generated when RE is running so it can quickly fill in the void when RE stops. And running that excess generation is costly in fuel and dirty unless it is Nuclear generation.

Something I read a couple days ago about Germany. As they slowly shut down their Nuclear generators they are ramping up their coal fired plants to provide power when their solar panels are not. So here is a country that has gone head of heels with solar pv generation and they are shutting down their non fossil fuel generating plants to run their COAL fired plants.

Sounds Green to me.

So you are saying that Germany is polluting more now than they were before they brought all that Solar online? The way I'm reading this thread, according to Sunking/russ, that answer is yes.

[kwilcox]

I'm going to fact check you guys with the person who was in charge of SE WI power plants during the late 90s. He's retired now, but in his day he managed Oak Creek, the Valley plant, and the two Nukes off Point beach. I'm not prepared to believe that a watt shared by RE/peakers on a peak demand day pollutes more than that same watt delivered by conventional generation (pretty much peakers alone) over that same demand period, especially after hearing Dave's stories about the issues they faced during peak demand on hot summer days.

[russ]

Yup, that's what he's been saying forever and no, it doesn't make sense.

Ian - that is because you are too busy polishing those green turds to think about it.

[russ]

Agree with the first sentence but the rest doesn't' make sense to me. Turning your sentence around: That same watt would be running 7X24 if there wasn't an RE watt to back it (and for PV based RE this is during peak demand times). Are you saying that standby generation + RE for 1 watt pollutes more then would baseline generation producing that entire watt?

HTF can an interuptible source back up anything? It does not and can not.

[SunEagle]

Yup, that's what he's been saying forever and no, it doesn't make sense.

That is because you have to understand the limitations of power generation. You can't start up a generator cold to make up for a drop in generation when the RE stops. If you tried there would be power outages until the fossil fuel generator comes on line. So you have to have that generator running all the time and ready to ramp up. When they run below peak efficiency they use more fuel.

Sure they now have fast starting peaker generators that can add to the grid very quickly. Although that still requires an excess of power being generated when RE is up so it can quickly take up the slack when the RE is lost long enough for the peakers to come on line.

While those peakers are fast they are fuel hogs and consume a lot more than a standard fossil fuel generator running.

So in a sense you have more power being generated when RE is running so it can quickly fill in the void when RE stops. And running that excess generation is costly in fuel and dirty unless it is Nuclear generation.

Something I read a couple days ago about Germany. As they slowly shut down their Nuclear generators they are ramping up their coal fired plants to provide power when their solar panels are not. So here is a country that has gone head of heels with solar pv generation and they are shutting down their non fossil fuel generating plants to run their COAL fired plants.

Sounds Green to me.

[Ian S]

Agree with the first sentence but the rest doesn't' make sense to me. Turning your sentence around: That same watt would be running 7X24 if there wasn't an RE watt to back it (and for PV based RE this is during peak demand times). Are you saying that standby generation + RE for 1 watt pollutes more then would baseline generation producing that entire watt?

Yup, that's what he's been saying forever and no, it doesn't make sense.

[kwilcox]

For every watt of of RE out there must be a conventional generation watt standing by ready to replace it on a moments notice. What does that mean? You have no carbon emission offset or added capacity, exact opposite is true, you generate more emissions...

Agree with the first sentence but the rest doesn't' make sense to me. Turning your sentence around: That same watt would be running 7X24 if there wasn't an RE watt to back it (and for PV based RE this is during peak demand times). Are you saying that standby generation + RE for 1 watt pollutes more then would baseline generation producing that entire watt?

[Sunking]

Aside from revenue issues for a moment, part of the challenge POCO's have with distributed, non steady generation is that not only is it mostly not controllable, it's also unpredictable. That raises all kinds of problems in keeping the grid steady, reliable and workable.

Ding ding ding. Winner winner chicken dinner. This is where the public has been brainwashed. For every watt of of RE out there must be a conventional generation watt standing by ready to replace it on a moments notice. What does that mean? You have no carbon emission offset or added capacity, exact opposite is true, you generate more emissions, and pay for it twice without a capacity gain. Now the Greens will scream bloody murder and try to convince you that is not true because they do not want the public to know the truth. Either that or they drank the Kool Aide and just ignorant and don't want to know the facts.

So if you were a biz trying to make a living why on earth would you sell your product for the same price it cost you to make? Basically the public has not given the utility a choice. Co-Generation exist by private companies called Peaker Plants, and th eenergy generated is sold on the open market by Bid/Ask process. Co-generators Ask for say $50/Mwh, and utilities bid $49 to $50, highest bidder and users win the bid. With solar they are forced to pay $110 or higher. No money to be made and losses are passed onto the customer. That is just stupid policy.