Have you heard how renewables cost a lot to add to the grid?

[kristopher]

Don't believe it.

Grid Integration of Wind and Solar Is Cheap
For 50 cents per megawatt-hour, you get strong wind penetration—and the grid holds up just fine.

HERMAN K. TRABISH: MARCH 18, 2013

The latest numbers on the wind industry show wind energy generating an increasingly significant portion of U.S. electricity.

Wind became, for the first time, the biggest source of new generating capacity in 2012, at 42 percent. That pushed the renewables’ total share of new U.S. generating capacity last year up to over 55 percent, according to American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) industry statistics.

In two states, wind provided almost a quarter of all electricity (Iowa, 24.5 percent, and South Dakota, 23.9 percent, by in-state-generated megawatt-hours). For nine states, wind provided more than 10 percent of the in-state-generated megawatt-hours and, in fourteen states, more than 5 percent.

Because the windiest states are among the less populated, the national number is at 3.5 percent. But that figure is big and growing rapidly in populous places like California, Texas, Minnesota, Colorado and Illinois.

The U.S. wind energy industry leveraged a $25 billion private investment to build a record-breaking 13,124 megawatts in 2012, bringing the nation’s installed capacity to over 60 gigawatts...

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Grid-Integration-of-Wind-and-Solar-is-Cheap?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=headline&utm_campaign=GTMDaily


The upshot is that it is substantial real world data showing a cost of less than $0.50 per MWh.

[TheBlackAdder]

1. Good post. k&r

[zbdent]

2. Here, I'll beat the RWer trolls to the punch (forgetting the fact that they elected

a multi-times failed oilman who couldn't find oil in Texas and failed in every business endeavor he was involved in, including the TANG):

SOLYNDRA! SOLYNDRA! SOLYNDRA! SOLYNDRA! SOLYNDRA! SOLYNDRA! SOLYNDRA!

[Marie Marie]

5. You are right. But the sad thing is that,

if these morons hadn't heard this repeated over and over again as a talking point on Fox, they would not even begin to know how to pronounce Solyndra. And spelling it... fuh get about it! And yet I am still wishing that they would learn the back story of Solyndra and other subsidized renewable energy start-ups. Guess that makes me an even bigger moron!

[kristopher]

9. The company may be defunct...

But I'm confident we'll see a return of Solyndra's technology. Someone bought the intellectual property rights, and the system itself has unquestioned advantages over flat panels. Once the field matures and market saturation begins to shift the economics of competition, the advantages of Solyndra's technology will probably provide some company with a way to positively distinguish themselves from their competitors.

[Warpy]

3. While we have wind farms, it's the desert so it's going mostly solar

and you see empty lots with 40-100 small free standing solar panels, presumably generating electricity and revenue for the land owners. It seems to be a good deal because the local electric company isn't screaming for rate hikes twice a year, it's about every other year now.

Solar is great since it generates peak power at peak usage times when businesses are open and air conditioning is being used.

When enough of a surplus is being generated, maybe we can start thinking about electrolysis/fuel cell systems for night power. It could work. And it doesn't stink up the joint.

[kristopher]

10. Desert locations usually have exceptionally good wind resources also.

In fact, (my favorite state) New Mexico specifically has an outstanding wind regime:




More on that at: http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_resource_maps.asp?stateab=nm

My ass might be in Delaware but my heart will always be in New Mexico.

[Warpy]

11. That's where most of the wind farms are

out in the Llano Estacado, east of the mountains. Winds whistling through the high passes can be hurricane force out here when a front comes through.

[Flatulo]

4. Unfortunately, we still don't have an industrial policy regarding wind, and the world market

continues to go to state-owned Chinese enterprises. The largest turbine manufacturer, Denmark's Vestas, had a terrible year because so many projects dried up for lack of funding. They laid-off over 2,000 R&D people in the US due to lack of orders.

If ever there was a good time to subsidize wind, it's now, before the Chinese realize such economies of scale that we'll never be able to compete. As it is, they've procured about 90% of the world's supply of the rare earth neodymium, needed to produce the high-energy magnets used in wind turbine generators. That puts us at a terrible cost disadvantage in generator development.

[Blue State Bandit]

6. The reason it's expensive is...

because utilities tend to shift transformer installation costs to all utility scale r/e projects which can add an additional $1 mill per megawatt to total about $9 mill per.

On the other hand, I regularly install 6 kW residential PV systems on a 15 yr lease with micro-inverters for about $66 a month and no installation cost (unless you need trenching).

[kristopher]

7. Did you ever do that TenK system?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=14004

[Blue State Bandit]

12. TenK is best for commercial/utility scale.

I did a carport design with them last year. Two of the best innovations I've seen yet. The reflective film reduces heat by focusing on the specific usable wavelengths, and the RAID cell config is like Micro-Inverter shade efficiency with the upkeep of a DC to central inverter.

Good system.

[cprise]

8. K&R