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New York City Makes Net-Zero Statement Banning Natural Gas Hookups for New Construction
On December 15, 2021, the city of New York adopted a climate-change policy that will not approve future construction project plans where fossil fuels would be used for heating, electricity and cooking. This new policy will be enforced for all new construction except for hospitals and commercial kitchens starting in 2027. Why the ban? The city calculated that 40% of its carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from heating and hot water demand throughout the city. What makes New York City's announcement unique is that it is the first cold-climate city to adopt such a ban and that is also the largest city in the United States.
New York City Makes Net-Zero Statement Banning Natural Gas Hookups for New Construction
New York City moves to the electrification of multi-storey and multi-residential buildings by 2027 banning gas hookups. In addition, a $235 million contest will help stimulate new technology solutions based on electrification.
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So South Australia is basically the "Iowa" of Australia.
In the US, Iowa's tiny generation fleet has enough wind-power to "offset" 69% of local load. But they are part of the MISO regional grid (serving Iowa, Minnesota, and the Great Lakes region), which is only 11% wind powered (lbnl-2021 report). No doubt there are small towns in the US with "a few hundred percent windpower offset", by that measure; which is not very meaningful.
Similarly, South Australia averages under 2 GW of power, mostly from variable renewables, and sells into the dirty (predominantly coal-fired) National Grid, with 31 GW average production. Australian electricity is substantially dirtier than that of MISO because of the higher coal contribution (55% vs 29%). I still haven't found any good renewable success stories where variable renewables are used without a majority fossil fuel grid to smooth them out (unlike the clean energy successes via nuclear+hydro power in France, Sweden, and Switzerland).
And overall energy usage in post-child South Australia (SA) is still highly fossil fuel dominant; FYI the big renewable in Tasmania is hydro (source):
Australia is a fossil fuel exporting country. There is no way that they are or will soon become a clean energy leader.
Matt, of 187 countries Australia comes in at #13 for most expensive residential electricity. You'll notice Germany, with its Energiewende, is #1 - followed by other renewables stalwarts Denmark, Belgium, and the UK, as well as several island countries, where electricity has always been expensive.
Australia does have the dubious distinction of having cheaper electricity than Rwanda - but its per-capita carbon emissions are 168 times higher. How does that happen, with all of that cheap wind and solar?
Further context? Here you go:
Peter disingenuously cites the cost of wholesale prices - but when we add
• the cost of solar panels, wind turbines, their installation, and their maintenance
• the cost of land on which to install them
• the cost of ancillary generation necessary to stabilize grid voltage and frequency
• the cost of backup power from gas generators in spinning reserve, including the cost of natural gas
we find SA retail electricity is 60% more expensive than that in Queensland! It's a product generated by and for elite snobs, who feel the meager contribution of their wind and solar farms can erase the stain of the coal money that bought them (Australia is the second largest exporter of coal in the world).
Can we put this one to bed, Matt?
Peter, at your link, at this moment, demand is outstripping supply by 163 MW in SA. There aren't enough renewables to meet demand, driving up the price to astronomical $337.80/Mwh, or 34¢/kWh - and that's the wholesale price. Evidently you don't understand what you're seeing here, because you're proving my point..png)
Bob
Australia, like Texas operates a Power Only market with 5-minute settlement so the price is volatile. If a load, transmission, or generator is lost there are large price spikes up to a maximum of $15,600 or down to minus $1,000. This provides sufficient incentive for fast start generators and batteries to stay in the market, even if they have annual utilisation of 1~3%. It does not provide windfall profits and technological stultification that capacity markets cause. Unlike Texas, Australia has stringent generator reliability standards which must be met before a generator is allowed to connect to the grid. It also has causer pays system so that if you bid power into the market and do not provide it during a price spike you pay for the replacement energy at whatever the spot price is. That is why lost time per customer in Australia is about 1/3rd the typical US experience.
Therefore, on the link I referred you to you can get instantaneous, daily history for the last 24 hours and forecast for the next 36 or average prices by day, month, or fiscal year, July 1 to June 30 under different tabs.
Just as you posted a price unfavorable to SA the clip below shows SA customers being paid to take power..png)
Thus, to make sense of the data you need to look at the monthly or annual average price rather than instantaneous price under the first tab.
Here you see that SA is indeed much cheaper than Queensland.
.png)
I am sorry you find the modern world so hard to understand, but the reality is that SA wholesale power prices have fallen rapidly since renewables replaced gas as the major contributor to the electricity market. SA in the mainland Australian market has the lowest cost and highest reliability. Similarly, Germany now has the highest reliability and lowest cost of the major European markets.
I wish Germany had lengthened its nuclear phaseout, but it hasn't yet this year renewables will still provide about 50% of the electricity supply and in the short term it may even become a net electricity importer but over the next few years its renewable share will increase while power prices will fall further, no matter how much you rail against it. It is off to a good start with wind alone providing 56% of demand for the first 3 days, exporting more than it has imported even though nuclear output has halved and solar was negligible
"Just as you posted a price unfavorable to SA the clip below shows SA customers being paid to take power."
Peter, you have it exactly backwards - again. Negative prices do not mean SA is being paid for energy, they indicate means SA must pay other states to take its power - wind and solar are overloading the grid:
"So-called negative electricity prices usually show up in wholesale power markets, when a big electricity user like a factory or a water treatment plant is paid to consume more power. Having too much power on the line could lead to damaged equipment or even blackouts."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/business/negative-electricity-rates.html
And again - you're quoting AEMO wholesale prices. They do not take into effect the costs of integration and backup power. Which consumers are paying the highest prices?
.png)
Electricity prices per kilowatthour by state
You are trying very hard not to see the obvious: wind and solar are intermittent, expensive, unpredictable sources of energy. Designer electricity for the rich, at the expense of everyone else - and the environment.
In terms of decarbonization strategies, shifting end-use energy equipment away from fossil fuel is certainly a much better approach than supply-side strategies that cause artificial fuel shortages and drive up cost for locked-in consumers (e.g. bans on new drilling).
However, we should never ban one carrier of energy without giving people a good set of choices for what to use instead. The electric-only option is a terrible idea, in-spite of electricity's versatility. As we decarbonize our electric grids, it is inevitable that during summer and especially winter demand peaks (w/ minimal solar), electricity prices will also peak, as will emissions of CO2 and pollution from increased fossil fuel contribution. Home electric resistance heaters produce very high electricity consumption, and air-source heat pumps are very noisy and in-efficient on cold days. All electric heating types add to grid stress at the worst time (max demand), and because fossil fuel generators are dispatched onto the grid after clean energy, we can think of the added load from electric heaters on the coldest days as being essentially 100% fossil fuel powered.
We should be replacing fossil fuel heating in northern cities with district heat networks, using (extremely safe) hot water as the energy carrier. Heat networks can use any primary heat sources, including the cheapest of all: waste heat from industrial processes and thermal electricity generation; they can also employ low-cost insulated storage tanks or covered ponds and utilize off-peak electricity via industrial sized water-source heat pumps.
Locations that are pro-nuclear are having a much easier time moving away from fossil fuel heating. Here and here are Chinese examples, a Russian example, and a Finnish example.
As noted here, district heat networks powered by nuclear waste-heat are also being pitched for the UK. And their heat demand is quite substantial compared to electrical demand.
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