California Governor Jerry Brown Calls for 50% Renewables by 2030

Why would anyone consider going from 33% to 50% renewable power an ambitious goal? It’s only 17% in 15 years, or one percentage point per year. Those 17% closely match the generation of Californian nuclear power before the SONGS plant was closed two years ago. The other plant is to be closed in the mid 20-ies, so we can pretty much call 2010-2030 two lost decades in electricity generation, climate-wise.

Ambitious would be if California, like little UAE is doing now, started one new reactor build per year. The yearly effect would be three times as great!

Jesper, it’s worse than two lost decades because it’s a shell game – we’re just shipping our emissions elsewhere. But it makes solar enthusiasts feel like they’ve accomplished something, and thus important for their self-esteem:

Originally, California’s climate-change policies included a provision that would have demanded utility executives swear under penalty of perjury that the actions they took to reduce emissions would not result in a spike in greenhouse gases someplace else.

But federal officials warned Gov. Jerry Brown that too aggressive an effort to control emissions across state lines would risk disrupting the complex interstate electricity system.

In the end, the California Air Resources Board — which oversees the state’s 2006 climate-change law — allowed utilities a dozen “safe harbor” conditions under which electricity companies would be permitted to shift emissions to nearby states.

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-climate-shell-game-20141026-story.h...

“Why would anyone consider going from 33% to 50% renewable power an ambitious goal?”

Because, absent some major advance in the economics of renewable energy technology (e.g. geothermal, storage), or a change in CA and US policy on the like of large hydro,  a major increase in electricity sourced by renewables is likely impossible without a larger still jump in the price of CA electricity. A deeper look at CA’ electricity picture shows why this is so.

The breakdown of California’s 2013 domestic renewable mix of 30% is as follows:

• large hydro: 35%
• small hydro 6%
• biomass: 11%
• Geothermal: 20%
• solar: 7%
• wind: 21%

Thus after the years of CA energy incentives, two-thirds of CA’s renewable energy comes from hydro, biomass and geothermal. California’s recent policy history shows that it would rather decrease its 262 hydro plants (large and small), not increase them.  Economic geothermal is dependent on geology.  Biomass (i.e. wood) has its obvious limits, especially in a state that has already tightly restricted logging.  This leaves the intermittents solar and wind.  Clearly these can be increased, but not economically unless they *retire* another power source (e.g. coal, nuclear, gas), and not merely reduce a plants usage.  Retirement of the thermal fleet is not feasible absent the development of economic storage tech for intermittents. 

First of all, the sponsor of California Assembly Bill 327 had to remove the provision about 50% renewable energy by 2030 due to opposition by regulated electric utilities and ratepayer advocacy associations.  

Second, Brown’s 50% Renewable Energy Portrolio standard is not politically sustainable or green.  

A 50% renewable energy portfolio for California would require 22,500 miles of new 500 kV transmission lines most of it in the surrounding western states to ship exported power to Los Angeles (using data from electric transmission line engineer Eugene G. Preston, PhD, P.E.).  This would require 1,500 miles of new transmission lines be built each year over the next 15 years. Totally unrealistic. 

Stanford University’s Mark Jacobson of the Tom Steyer backed Presourt Institute for Energy has estimated that 100% renwable energy for Calfiornia would entail 123,000 mW of concentrated solar power.  it has been estimated that 1 mW of solar power takes 2 million gallons of water per year to rinse the dust off the panels in desert locations.  It would take all the water in Lake Tahoe to rinse solar panels each year.  Once again, not realistic. 

Right now California has had to create a whole new energy balancing market to import cheap hydropower into California to bailout solar power when it ramps down at sunset each day.  The big question is will other western states continue to send their valuable hydropower to Los Angeles each day when the amount of the hydropower needed will grow by 50% by 2030 (not considering population growth)?  I doubt that other states are going to send their hydropower to California no matter the price. 

California learned this lesson with water where it was able to capture Colorado River water for decades only to have it rolled back in the famous court case of Arizona vs. California.  Nevadans and Arizonans wanted their share of the river water.  The same will happen with hydropower.  Thus, Brown’s proposal is not politically sustainable.  

It is amazing how such goals as Gov. Brown’s are propounded on this website uncritically and without understanding how unrealistic they are economically, enviornmentally, and politically. 

Why the limitation that all the renewables have to be imported hydro? Why not more rooftop solar and batteries? Why not use natural gas as the backup instead of hydro?

And please don’t quote me a cost based on past technologies. The new generation of solar is about 25% more efficient than the installed base, new Li batteries have improved, and Tesla’s Gigafactory will reduce the cost.

And of course the cheapest way to get to 50% renewable is to use efficiency to cut the current non-renewable usage in half. The newest air conditioning units are much more efficient than the old ones; I installed a new one a few years ago and cut my summer electric bill in half.

Hops, you know the answer to your question of “why not use natural gas as the backup”.

What’s amazing to me is how comfortable renewables advocates get with fossil fuels when both face an existential threat. It wasn’t too long ago, in another post on TEC, Bas Gresnigt was actually hyping clean coal.

Such an awesome diffuse and intermittant energy scenario must be backed by an equally awesome Carbon Dioxide Removal scenario – which requires the awesome power of advanced nuclear. Besides, solar energy can not charge electric cars at night.

“Why the limitation that all the renewables have to be imported hydro? Why not more rooftop solar and batteries? Why not use natural gas as the backup instead of hydro?

And please don’t quote me a cost based on past technologies. “

Hops, 

Whatever the future price of PV, using gas plants at a lower utitlization of course drives up the LCOE from those plants. This point has been made frequently on TEC by others.  For example,  if the idea is to cut gas generation to, say, half, in its role as backup for solar then even if fuel costs are also halfed (unlikely), then the LCOE unit of generation goes up by something 2/3, at least.   More spinning standby, decreases in efficiency, and smaller scale fuel buys all mean the drop in fuel costs would be something less than half.  Then, for solar penetration that large,  some hourly battery backup has to be priced in as you suggest regardless of how much gas backup is available. 

“Always with the negative waves.”

Here’s where things will stand in CA by 2030 – with or without Jerry’s help.

– Renewable energy will easily surpass the 50% goal. Easily.

– LA will have moved from imported coal electricity to imported solar and wind – maybe some nat gas and hydro as well.

– The absolute amount of electricity sold by utilities in 2030 will be less than it is today. Perhaps substantially less. 

– The average electricty bill for a CA household will be near or below the national average.

– If new nuclear technology proves itself both technically and financially in other states then CA will have a couple of nuclear plants in planning process. This will help state move to 80% carbon-free electricity by 2040. I am thinking Central Valley for location of nuke plants.

– By 2030 – most other Western states will have eliminated coal. There will much more sharing of resources across the area. Renewables will soar in Nevada, Arizona and Utah. 

Like your optimism, but how do you suspect that we’ll use less electricity? Electric cars will lower overall primary energy consumption, but will require more electricity, much more than say, merely the difference saved by replacing all lighting with 200 lumen/watt Cree leds. There should be more demand for air conditioning as well, if more people move to California (and if humanity doesn’t enact carbon dioxide removal).

I still don’t think that utility scale electrical storage will compete with NG because politics doesn’t do what’s right – create a path to advance machine automation of all the parts. I also don’t think advanced nuclear will be backing renewables either (like it really should already be doing).

I don’t believe it can be done – economically, because the same governor is spending 68 (or more) BILLION DOLLARS for a joyride for rich people (that’ll most probably be damaged in an earthquake before completion in 2030). Instead, this train money should’ve been allocated for creating a path for automation of RE collection and storage parts (for cheap) and for advanced nuclear.

Edit (many days later):

All the advanced nuclear and machine automation, etc might have been put second place to a fast train, but it is still not too late to save the biosphere. The Shuiling report states that the industrial activity to sequester the excess CO2 will only emit about 1/20th of what it sequesters!

Diesel will ultimately save the biosphere – just add a small gas tax for olivine extraction!

“– Renewable energy will easily surpass the 50% goal. Easily. …

– The average electricty bill for a CA household will be near or below the national average.”

What source do you expect will carry the majority share of that 50%, given:

• The current residential electricity price in CA is 40% above the national average
• Two-thirds of CA renewable electricity comes from hydro, geothermal, and biomass. Of these three only biomass is growing, but is unlikely to grow much more.  Hydro and geothermal (Geysers) are likely to decrease a little. 
• A third of CA electric generation is currently imported

“Like your optimism, but how do you suspect that we’ll use less electricity?”

US electricity generation has been flat to slightly down since 2006.  In addition to lighting that you mention, refrigerators have become four times as efficient since the 70’s, air conditioners and heat pumps have seen similar improvements.  So too washer/dryers/dishwashers.  Some of that improvement may be given back via more consumption as you suggest by some kind of Jevons effect, but I see no evidence of that much of rebound. 

As for transportation electrification, a total switch over of all US vehicle miles driven per year (also flat and slowly declining BTW) is a load of ~100 GWe, a quarter of the current average load.  But a full switch over of all 200 million vehicles must be much futher away than 2030 (if ever).

• The current residential electricity price in CA is 40% above the national average

I did not say “electricity price”… I said electricity bill.

• A third of CA electric generation is currently imported

Yep and a good chunk  of it currenty comes from coal in Utah and Arizona. This will be stopping. Imported renewables will definitely be part of the 50%.

• Two-thirds of CA renewable electricity comes from hydro, geothermal, and biomass. Of these three only biomass is growing, but is unlikely to grow much more.  Hydro and geothermal (Geysers) are likely to decrease a little. 

Old data – things are changing fast. Also data does not include energy from sources smaller than 1MW.(rooftops for instance)

 I absolutely agree with your line of reasoning regarding electric vehicles.

I don’t think we will use less energy. Not what I said… I said utilities will sell less energy. 

By the way , new standards just went into effect for air conditioners. So my guess is that while we will have more demand the incresed efficiency will make it negate that. In other words, a wash.

We already have NG peaking plants to meet peak demand due to AC on hot days. If solar peaks during AC demand, then the existing plants can be used at night during lower demand. 

It’s not my field, but I understand NG plants are relatively inexpensive, which is why NG is rapidly displacing coal.

The subject of this article is getting to 50% renewables. And as has been discussed previously, there are and will be sources of methane other than fossil.

Hops, that may be the subject of the article, but by any rational assessment 50% carbon-free energy is not good enough.

We could also achieve 50% carbon-free energy by burning coal with renewables. So-called ‘RNG’ might be able to contribute 10% of our gas needs by 2030. How do we generate the other ~46% cleanly?

Well, the discussion is about getting to 50% renewables by a certain date. I didn’t say that was the end game. 

‘Yep and a good chunk  of it currenty comes from coal in Utah and Arizona. This will be stopping. Imported renewables will definitely be part of the 50%”

Why must that be so? Utah and Arizona are installing some wind and solar, but they don’t have California-like 50% goals. Assuming for a moment the UT and AZ coal switches to solar, how does such provide a needed import to CA?  CA peak load is ~6-7pm, and ostensibly UT and AZ would need the power for themselves.

“Old data – things are changing fast. Also data does not include energy from sources smaller than 1MW.(rooftops for instance)”

2013 data.  Yes,  only 1MW+ sources  as you say.  Hydro generation for 2013 was down by 10 GWhrs from nominal due to the drought.  When hydro rebounds the hydro/biomass/geo share would jump to over 70%, despite more solar. 

“And as has been discussed previously, there are and will be sources of methane other than fossil”

Hops, 

One could argue that some RNG pilot projects might come about in/near California, but there’s no feasibility of supplying sufficient RNG to replace any significant fraction of CA gas use by 2030. 

“Why must that be so? “

Not exactly sure what you are asking here…

Imported renewables are already part of the mix and this will continue into the future. Your link to 2013 data shows that we were getting renewable imports in 2013. This increased substantially in 2014.

Developers in western states will continue to build renewable projects in the future and sign PPAs with  CA utilities because they will make more money selling to CA utility vs. selling to an in-state utility.   

LAWPD will undoubtedly buy some renewable projects from Utah and Arizona because there are existing transmission lines. There could also be more deals from sites in NV and Pacific Northwest.

“When hydro rebounds the hydro/biomass/geo share would jump to over 70%, despite more solar. “

By end of 2016 Solar will provide about 8-10% of CA electricity. I hope Hydro rebounds as well. But, I don’t think your 2/3 ratio for hydro/biomass/geo renewable share will keep holding.  Would be really nice if it did… 

“By end of 2016 Solar will provide about 8-10% of CA electricity.”

The solar share in CA at the end of 2013 per the almanac was less than 2%.  To get another 8% of CA’s 300 TWh annual load,  CA or its import sources have to install almost 14 GW nameplate solar operating at 20% CF.  Also recognize that, by 2030, the first wave of installed solar will be declining and due for replacement.  Given the entire US currently installs solar at the rate of  ~4.7 GW nameplate per year, how likely is your 2016 prediction?

“I don’t think your 2/3 ratio for hydro/biomass/geo renewable share will keep holding.  Would be really nice if it did… “

The point of referencing the 2/3 share for hydro/biomass/geo is that those sources can not grow in output significantly in the near term, say 10 years (biomass wood can grow some, but shouldn’t).    If they (h/b/g) can’t grow, and they retain 2/3 share, then CA can’t reach 50% renewable at the current level of consumption.

That’s a cool page! The pie chart suggests that an all electric transportaion sector could be even less than a quarter of the electrical sector (thanks)! And the other one (at the same Wiki page) states that oil consumption is almost twice that of coal.

Let’s see if I can contribute something positive to the above discussions. 

The California Energy Balancing Market is a market constructed across time zones in the Western U.S. 

Time zones serve as substitutes for battery storage.  The 2 to 3 hour time difference between time zones makes wind energy viable because it mostly blows at night.  So, say, if wind farms are blowing in West Texas at, say, 9 pm, theoretically that power could be shipped to California to balance its imbalance at 7 pm (called the Duck Chart problem). So time zones are proxies for battery storage.  

But because wind is so, so very variable, there must be redundancy built into the balancing market. That means something like, what, four or maybe ten times the solar farms have to be built to provide reliability of delivering power to Los Angeles between Duck Chart hours of 3 pm to 7 pm.  This redundancy is VERY EXPENSIVE.  It means that four (or maybe ten) wind turbines need to be built to provide the reliable power for each active turbine that is generating power at any one time.  

This is what makes the claims of renewable energy industry advocates that wind and solar power are now cheaper than Natural Gas fired power so specious. They don’t include the amount of redundancy (or inefficiency) in their claims that wind and solar power can compete as to price with Nat Gas fired power.  

What is the price of, say, four wind turbines, one of which is spinning and three of which are dormant? Neither “Cost Installed” or “Levelized Cost” seems to totally capture up the redundancy cost. 

This is why California’s Energy Balancing Market will entail tens of thousands of miles of new electrical transmission lines as well.  

“Let’s be conservative and say 1-2% of state’s electricity is produced by under 1MW installations”

As solar for 1MW and up installations is already 1.8% of all CA consumption (2013), for your assumption of another 2% produced by small solar to be correct, the small must be collectively about the same size as the large.  In other words, about 4GW(p) above 1 MW and another ~4GW(p) below, cumulative for all time. That’s the equivalent of 800,000 rooftops with 5KW(p) arrays.  Does that sound right for CA?

‘From now on, solar electricity production in CA will increase by at LEAST 1% per year.”

For a couple years, sure.  Experience elsewhere indicates that it is indeed not so difficult to rapidly install solar up to 6% or so of total generation. After that, the install rate has fallen off even with very low installation costs per Watt and a guaranteed $0.17/kWh (FIT)

Germany, solar generation share of total generation, all sources.

• 2005: 0.1%
• 2010: 2.5%
• 2011: 4.1%
• 2012: 5.8%
• 2013: 6.2%
• 2014: 6.8%  (solar generation increased only 7% over 2013)

http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/renewable-energy-data/electricity-produc...

Solar growth has been exponential. However, with mandates and subsidies (which was good at the start). If it keeps growing, there will not be enough money for its subsidy (imagine “everybody” cashing in on the solar deal). Therefore, subsidy MUST be placed for the advanced machine automation (to make it almost free) and for the making of utility scale batteries (again, for almost free since they would actually be the 4/5ths of the operation due to solar’s low 20% capacity factor).

And what do we get? Less CO2 emissions in a world that already has too much. What is even more important than advanced nuclear, solar, wind, batteries, etc is the ability to clean up the excess CO2. Please read the following report…

http://www.innovationconcepts.eu/res/literatuurSchuiling/olivineagainstclimatechange23.pdf .

“Solar growth has been exponential. “

For a time, and then like every other physical aspect of reality it turns logistic.  The question is whether or not during its boom years the new phenomenon scales to become predominate.  There’s no guarantee of this based on early observations of growth.

Installed German solar per year: link

Joe, given your numbers for CA in-state capacity and generation, capacity factor plummeted from 18.2% in 2012 to 9.6% for new capacity added 2012-2014.

I’m not particularly surprised. Everyone around me, whether their roof is shaded by trees or not, is taking advantage of the 30% federal handout and promises of net metering to come. The bottom line however:

• New solar in California returns less than one-tenth its advertised capacity factor in actual energy
• That’s less than the international average, including cloudy Germany, of 12%
• Taxpayers are now getting half the value in carbon-free energy they were three years ago

This is including improvements in solar cell quality and efficiency after 2012.

Overall, what we have is a truly dismal return on our investment. Isn’t it time we reëxamined whether the solar charade is delivering on its lofty promises (by the way, I consider abandoning bad ideas not a negative, but a profoundly positive endeavor)?

Bob,

A few comments:

“Joe,given your numbers for CA in-state capacity and generation, capacity factor plummeted from 18.2% in 2012 to 9.6% for new capacity added 2012-2014.”

First, not my numbers. I provided all sources. (EIA, CAISO, etc..)

Second, would love to see how you calculated the capacity factor. In particular, woud be interested to hear how you came up with a weighted capacity for each of the years. It’s pretty tough in a market that is growing this fast and where you don’t know the project installation dates. My estimate shows that capacity factor has actually increased over the last 3 years.

Third, I am assuming your comment on “half-value in carbon-free energy” is related to closing of Rancho Seco.  I agree that CA took a step backwards by closing that plant.  I am also guessing that CA will take another big step backwards by closing Diablo Canyon within the next 10-15 years. 

There are only two real possibilities for additional nuclear in CA –

1) work to get more nuclear plants built out of state(maybe Arizona or Utah) and sign a deal to purchase some or most of that energy. Similar to what is done with Palos Verde in AZ now.

2) Get some advanced nuclear designs up and running in other states and “convince” public in CA of the value and safety of these new designs.  Build these plants in Central Valley(nearer to new electricty demand and away from most fault lines)

Neither 1 or 2 is going to happen before 2030. 

Solar is working. It is getting cheaper every year. Technology is improving every year. The ITC will be expiring in a couple of years – so no more use of “handout”.  Solar will provide at least 30% of CA electricity by 2030. 

Hopefully by 2030, someone will have figured out how to make nuclear work in US and we can bring some back to CA by 2040.

Glad to hear that all your neighbors are installing solar.  Still millions of sites available.

I agree that solar is good if the subsidy proves to make it cheap enough not to need subsidy in the future, however, it’s no good (not good enough) if the neighbor’s trees are in the way.

Hopefully, by 2030, we will have started removing most of the excess CO2 via extraction and distribution of olivine type material for mineral sequestration. 

You are comparing CA to Germany for solar… really? 

Mark,

Again this is really not that difficult. Not sure why you insist on banging your head into a brick wall.

Your comment: “As solar for 1MW and up installations is already 1.8% of all CA consumption (2013), for your assumption of another 2% produced by small solar to be correct, the small must be collectively about the same size as the large”

First, as I showed above the current(2014) total solar production in CA for measured large scale solar is at least 4-5% so I am not saying that small solar production is the same as large. It is only 20-40% of the large installations. Do you disagree with EIA and CAISO for current data on large scale production?? 

Also, it appears that you are assuming only residential rooftops. What about all the commercial, industrial and government installations?

Like the 130 Walmart rooftops that have solar installed?

http://www.sbsun.com/environment-and-nature/20140527/walmart-to-double-number-of-solar-projects

“Each store has an average of about 1,600 solar panels, at 380 kilowatts at each location offsetting 10 to 20 percent of the electrical usage of the store.”

What about all the schools that have solar installed on both rooftops and parking lots? There are hundreds if not thousands of installations? Here is one example with 19 sites and 5MW installed.

http://www.cusd.com/facilities/documents/CommunityOutreachPP10.22.12ClovisWestArea-WEB.pdf

I already mentioned the Riverside County installations in previous comment – 10 installations with a total capacity of  12.25 MW. 

http://www.pe.com/articles/county-757013-solar-systems.html

There are thousands of non-residential(commercail and government) installations in CA. There will be a huge increase in these in the coming years.

Finally, I’d like to point you to some new research that just came out.

http://www.solarserver.com/solar-magazine/solar-news/current/2015/kw02/ihs-technology-analysts-predict-global-solar-pv-demand-to-grow-by-up-to-25-percent-in-2015.html

Here are a couple of comments from that report:

“The U.S. is also expected to install more than 2.2 GW of DPV in 2015, as net-metering and third-party ownership models continue to drive this market.”

“California in 2015 will become global leader in solar power penetration

IHS expects that by the end of 2015, California – the largest renewable power market in the United States – will attain worldwide leadership in market share of annual power generation received from solar PV. Following another year of strong utility-scale and DPV additions, solar power is expected to provide more than 10 percent of California’s annual power generation in 2015. This penetration level would push California above other leading global solar markets, such as Germany and Italy, in terms of the share of total power generation sourced from solar PV.”

Interesting a year earlier than I was saying. I guess I am too conservative.

I would think that as soon as the subsidies stop, the growth (almost) stops. This is why I place emphasis on improving machine automation. Even then, it might not be possible due to the large scale up required to get prices (of solar and batteries) cheap enough to displace a large percentage of fossil fuels.

No, that’s all German data. It shows that it didn’t maintain continued exponential growth. Thus, in CA, the same trend is likely to happen. I assume CA to do better than Germany, though (until subsidies stop).

Joe – long post. Reposting at top of thread.

@Joe, I didn’t do any weighting on my calculation, meaning it would be perfectly valid if all 2012-2014 solar in California was installed on January 1, 2012. I’m pretty sure that’s not the case – thanks for the correction.

Oddly, though, capacity factor for all of California – including behind-the-meter – now seems too good to be true, and I’m not sure it isn’t. Note the disclaimer on your Almanac link:

Total system power is defined as the annual total energy requirement for all load serving entities with end-use loads in California, including self-generation supply for combined heat and power, and other non-utility served loads from power plants that are 1 megawatt and larger in nameplate capacity.

The good news is that total solar generation is probably significantly larger than the amount they quote; the bad news is capacity factor is probably significantly worse.

This discussion is ringing a bell about one I had a while ago here on TEC, when I went hunting for official (non-industry) figures for California residential solar. EIA claims they do estimates, but it was unclear as to whether those estimates were included in their published figures. So I wrote to them, response below. Warning: the links which supposedly show residential solar lead to a rabbit hole of Excel files which only seem to show utility solar (>1MW). The one exception is net metering. I did a sum on the Excel rows for California and wound up with 734MW of net-metered solar for the year 2012. The file gives no estimate of total generation, only power sold back to utilities.

Dear Mr. Bob Meinetz:

Thank you for your inquiry to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) concerning data on generation capacity and generation with solar energy.
 
I am only aware that we are publishing estimates “nonutility-scale” (aka “behind the meter) solar electricity generators in our EIA-861 database: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861/index.html

See file descriptions for Net Metering and Distributed Generation at left, and the MS word file “Layout…” when you download a year’s database; the latter contains a key to the codes/abbreviations used in the data files.

For additional reference to what that data actually includes, see the survey form and instructions at:
http://www.eia.gov/survey/form/eia_861/form.pdf
http://www.eia.gov/survey/form/eia_861/instructions.pdf

I believe that those data are not included in our electricity data reports where we publish state-level capacity and generation data.
 
Send an email to the following address for confirmation: InfoElectrict@eia.gov
 
We have model-based estimates and projections for end-use sector generation with solar for “California” in our Annual Energy Outlook: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er

Specifically, at: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/tables_ref.cfm

scroll down that page to find the “Supplemental tables for regional detail,” “Renewable Energy Capacity, Generation, and Consumption by Fuel and Electricity Region,” and see Table 117.

“Solar will provide at least 30% of CA electricity by 2030.”

That fraction requires about ~57 GW(p) of solar assuming CA’s current load (300,000 GWh/yr load, 0.18 CF solar), and also requires solar more than 20 years old at the point to begin replacement in addition to the new 57 GW.  

Several countries have extended solar percentage of total generation above 1%.  But nothing remotely like that high a percentage has occured for any country in the world despite much higher incentives.  There’s yet no economic answer energy storage at those power levels, or the total energy storage for days long or even seasonal outages.   So, I’m curious. Why don’t you feel the need for a more rigourous support for such a forecast?  

Bob,

Thanks for all the information…

“This discussion is ringing a bell about one I had a while ago here on TEC, when I went hunting for official (non-industry) figures for California residential solar.”

I am pretty sure you had this discussion with me – 12 -18 months ago. What goes around comes around. I haven’t been on here much lately.

Your comment on 734MW of “behind the meter” solar in 2012 sounds about right. I have heard estimates of between 2,500 – 3,500 MW as of end of 2014. Here is one CA gov site with their estimate –http://www.californiasolarstatistics.ca.gov   

Obviously, a lot of estimating going on here. Will be interesting to see if anyone steps forward to improve collection of this data in future.

This report – http://www.solarserver.com/solar-magazine/solar-news/current/2015/kw02/ihs-technology-analysts-predict-global-solar-pv-demand-to-grow-by-up-to-25-percent-in-2015.html

is calling for 2,200 of Distibuted solar in US for 2015.  Probably, pretty safe to assume that 1/2 to 2/3 of that will go to CA. So add another 1,100 – 1,400 MW of added DG generation to CA total for 2015. Probably, the same or slightly more for 2016.

That would give CA an estimated 4,000 – 6,000 MW of in-state DG solar by end of 2016.

Obviously, the big question is what happens after ITC credit expires @ end of 2016?

Thanks Ike for your comments. 

California’s Duck Chart problem is about a 3-hour window of time when solar power fades out and Nat Gas fired power has to ramp up quickly.  So the 2 to 3 hour time difference between time zones is crucial in California’s Duck Chart hours.  

California is in the process of adding some grid-level battery storage. But most of the municipal water and power companies have refused to provide grid-level battery storage because of prohibitive cost.  Only the Los Angeles DWP and the Big 3 regulated electric utilities (PG&E, Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric) have ventured into battery storage as pilot projects. 

Another unaddressed issue with battery storage is that in-line batteries would have to be placed near their customers which means possibly dangerous batteries near residential properties and public schools.  Municipal fire departments have expressed reservations about having such batteries located proximate to residential neighborhoods because battery fires can’t be suppressed with only water.  And they become targets for all kinds of mischief. 

“ The average electricty bill for a CA household will be near or below the national average. [by 2030]”

I don’t believe that.  I believe California will achieve high renewable energy penetration due to their resolve (but may not beat the states in the windy central plains).  But they’ll do it with very expensive technology, likely grid energy storage (which works better with the California sun than it does in Germany) and long distance transmission.  All of those Californians with solar panels on their roofs currently who enjoy zero net electricity bills will have to help pay for that energy storage.  Net-metering is a dinosaur that can’t survive in a world of high solar penetration. 

Also notice that right now most of California’s solar capacity is utility scale, and most of their power is from regulated utilities.  That means that unlike Germany, there won’t be any utility death spirals.  If California home owners want to generate their own solar power, great, but daytime power prices will be very low and they’ll all have time-of-day pricing:  they’ll sell power into the grid for 4 ¢/kWh during the day and buy it back at night for 20 ¢/kWh.

If they do move their nuclear generation from the coastal sites to inland locations, lack of water cooling will make power 15% or so more expensive (maybe only 5-10% more with advanced designs).  Also, the transmission will make power 10% more expensive.  After bullying the San Onofre nuclear plant into closing, they’ll have to offer generous terms to investors to get the next plant built.

California may have clean energy in a few decades, but I don’t see any way for them to have cheap (or even average cost) electricity (unless a neighboring state embraces fossil fuel with CC&S and is successful at lowering cost).

Mark,

I am going to follow Bob’s lead and put my reply up top.

Mark,

My Comment: “Solar will provide at least 30% of CA electricity by 2030.”

Your reply:

“That fraction requires about ~57 GW(p) of solar assuming CA’s current load (300,000 GWh/yr load, 0.18 CF solar), and also requires solar more than 20 years old at the point to begin replacement in addition to the new 57 GW.  

Several countries have extended solar percentage of total generation above 1%.  But nothing remotely like that high a percentage has occured for any country in the world despite much higher incentives.  There’s yet no economic answer energy storage at those power levels, or the total energy storage for days long or even seasonal outages.   So, I’m curious. Why don’t you feel the need for a more rigourous support for such a forecast? “

My reply to your reply.

Not sure how “rigorous” this is but here is one scenario – again pretty simple math. 

I guess my first comment – I wonder where you get the 18% CF from? But let’s go with that and assume that we need about 47GW of new solar installation. You said 57GW new  – but since we already have 10GW installed ( about 9GW in CA and 1GW from installations in AZ and NV that are exporting to CA) we really only need 47GW. 

Looking at the above chart (from SEIA) you can see that the US is forecast to have 20GW of solar installed over the next two years. Assume that 10GW of that goes to CA (either installed in CA or in projects in other states and production shipped to CA) So by end of 2016 we have 20GW of installed solar available to CA.

I would assume a drop-off after the ITC expires @ end of 2016. I think in 2017 there might be only 1GW of new solar made available, because so many projects will have been “pushed forward” to take advantage of tax. 

This will recover to 2GW per year in 2018 and be up to 3GW per year by 2020 and continue at that level till 2030. Multiply that out and you get to the 47GW of new capacity needed.  Obviously, this is just one scenario to get to your required totals – but I think a very feasible one. I could come up with other ones as well.

In the outer years of this forecast – 2025-2030 – the technology will have improved. For instance, Sunpower will be selling panels rated @450 W vs. the 340W panels they sell today. So,we will see more generation from the same space vs installations today. Also,over this time the price will have continued dropping.  There will be $Billions in financing available to homeowners who want to borrow to add solar to rooftops. All new homes built in CA during this time will have solar installed as the default.  Parking lots across the state will install solar as shade. Every large warehouse will install solar on their rooftops. Medium-sized solar will be installed on dairy farms and wineries throughout the state….etc.

Comparing solar installations in CA in 2030 to other countries today makes no sense.

The storage discussion would require a much longer comment. 

Yes, the storage part of it is what makes me think “impossible” (for 50%). Their capacity factors are much less than that.

Nuclear offers far less CO2 emissions, and storage only need to be large enough to bridge the gap for times of high demand, assuming that an all out overbuild of nuclear is rejected (waste heat could be used to make water and fuel).

We’re still using 1960’s era reactor designs, thanks to fossil fuels and humanity’s reluctance to realize that every decade is getting hotter.

If we would just get over the “let the enviro’s cut nuclear because, somehow, we’ll figure out the solar/storage thing” mentality, then we would be able to scale up a meltdown proof, modular, non-high pressure, old wastes consuming, closed cycle and load following (to some degree) unlimited power source capable of powering tens of billions of Tesla type cars, and tens of billions of people efficiently living at undreamed of high standards – for literally centuries. The only constraint: the ability to extract enough phosphorous from this most resource abundant planet in the cosmos. Surely, we will have figured out something better by that time. And the wastes from the closed cycle only remain radioactive for just about 1/1,000ths of the time (about 300-400 years, most of which decays much faster yet) than conventional unburned LWR wastes.

It must be some nasty stuff to vitrify, however, the volume of closed cycle wastes is very trivial.

We’ll need lots of energy to make DME fuel from air and water. We’ll need lots of extra diesel for vast amounts of industrial equipment/trucks, etc, necessary to sequester the excess CO2 via mineral carbonates. The Schuiling report states that the CO2 emissions from the industrial activity required to sequester humanity’s excess CO2 will be far less than that sequestered. But we can’t just keep on dumping carbonate material across the globe. We need to tell all environmentalist to think twice before even considering the option to constrain energy. Every decade is getting hotter, and that trend is only going to accelerate until we expend the effort and energy to stop it.

We have over 7 billion people with different energy preferences. I’m sure we must figure out how to integrate all the clean sources, including a few minutes worth of grid scale batteries and even demand response/V2G, if needed.

Do we want an ultimate future complete with the energy affordable option of space travel for the common man, or do we want a future that is all about struggling to do the juggling act (with much less energy)? Solar and wind are good for making nuclear engineers design a load following reactor per the above specs. However, limiting any of the clean energy choices will tend to limit other, unthought of spin off technologies, as well (yes, I like wind and solar, too)…

Nathan,

Thanks for the comments.   

Couple of follow-ups – CA already imports about 1/3 of its electricity – currently a good chunk of this comes from coal plants in AZ and UT. So, there are already some transmission lines in place which will have capacity once the coal is shutdown. Agree that more may be needed.

Agreed that most solar capacity now is utility scale. However, the residential market is just starting to scale up. There have been number of financing deals for distributed solar in the past few weeks. I think this is going to explode.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-08/investec-arranges-195-million-in-financing-for-sunrun-solar.html

http://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/SolarCity+(SCTY)+Announces+$350M+Residential+Solar+Projects+Financing+Fund/10144591.html

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/23/why-wall-street-is-learning-to-love-solar-energy.aspx

Regarding Nuclear:

My assumption on inland nuclear plants is that they would be much smaller than current active nuclear projects. Let’s say 500MW. This might make financing more palatable.

On the water cooling – do you know if power from Palo Verde in AZ is more expensive? They use recycled water from local sewage systems.

“the residential market is just starting to scale up. …distributed solar …. going to explode.”

Well that could be, but again, it won’t make the average electricity bill any lower, since it makes the average cost of electricity go up.  Residential solar can only explode if the cost continues to be shifted to other electricity users (tax subsidies help too, but net-metering is the big one.)

I’m not familiar with Palo Verde’s costs.  I was simply referring to data I’d see on light water reactors (such as the B&W mPower) which showed that dry cooling made electricity which was 15% more expensive than water-cooling.

Good points about the potential to import power using existing transmission and the financing advantages of smaller plants.

It’s gonna have to ramp up like 13 GW in three hours if solar continues its growth!

I think the electric car to grid (V2G) thing will work like this: Millions of EV’s will charge at night (presumably with advanced nuclear) but when there is fast variability in grid load, like when solar is down and the nuclear baseload isn’t enough then millions of EV’s discharge like just 1 or 2% into the grid to balance the load until it winds down to the baseload level. That shouldn’t cause any problems with the batpack. It will wind down further, except that the cars will need charging, hence the necessity to keep (advanced nuclear or other clean energy) baseload. So, they would be just a quick balancing act.

I doubt they will work much in the day, unless most all places of work install smart charging outlets. If so, a subsantial increase of cheap solar coverage can power all daytime needs and EV’s. But this cuts the ability for baseload to continue operating in the day (once solar meets the entire demand). If non load following, such baseload must either dump its energy or sell cheap to make fuel (from air and water) and desalinated water. I seriously doubt that millions of EV’s will be able to provide “the baseload” for hours – unless they all had oversized batteries and were paid hansomely to discharge almost completely.

If I remember right, overall primary energy for transportation is only just over half of that for the electrical sector (in today’s fossil fueled U.S). With efficiency, the electrical will decrease slightly (leds and a few more efficient appliances countered by more large TV’s), whereas the transportation will decrease by about 3 (being that EV’s are that much more efficient). Thus, the entire “carload” should not be able to compensate – unless they all had really cheap oversized batteries made just for this setup.

It would seem cheaper for the utilities to pay for dirt cheap (and very heavy stationary) batteries than for (part of) all those ultra efficient nimble car batteries.

Of course, the world will demand about five times the (net) energy as it does now for all the sectors as it develops up to the western standard and that this will require lots of land aside from “all the rooftops”. And we need even more energy for the removal of excess CO2, space programs, thrill ride parks, etc.