[I have long argued that we need to bypass electrical utilities if we
want to build a low carbon society.
Utilities, even if they are
publicly owned, have an inherent economic incentive to use cheap and
dirty coal or gas, as they then earn the generating revenue. With
distributed solar panels at homes and business the customer earns the
revenue and the utility becomes a dumb pipe. Heard that argument
before? Just as we had to bypass the telephone company to build the
global Internet we will need to bypass the utilities to build the future
Energy Internet.
Currently the entire electrical grid is built
around an architecture of large centralized generating stations. A low
carbon electrical grid will need an entire different architecture – and
it already exists. It is called our roadway system. With electric
vehicles we can use them as a store and forward packet technology to
deliver renewable energy from roadside solar panels or windmills. Not
only does this enable delivery of renewable energy to homes and
businesses bypassing the utilities and existing electrical grid, it also
provides a clean and efficient transportation system that complements
our western lifestyle. For more details on the Energy Internet please
see
http://green-broadband.blogspot.ca/2012/02/stanford-university-research-on-dynamic.html
–BSA]
Why generators are terrified of solar
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/why-generators-are-terrified-of-solar-44279
Here
is a pair of graphs that demonstrate most vividly the merit order
effect and the impact that solar is having on electricity prices in
Germany; and why utilities there and elsewhere are desperate to try to
reign in the growth of solar PV in Europe. It may also explain why
Australian generators are fighting so hard against the extension of
feed-in tariffs in this country.
The first graph illustrates what a
typical day on the electricity market in Germany looked like in March
four years ago; the second illustrates what is happening now, with 25GW
of solar PV installed across the country. Essentially, it means that
solar PV is not just licking the cream off the profits of the fossil
fuel generators – as happens in Australia with a more modest rollout of
PV – it is in fact eating their entire cake.
Both graphs were
published last week on the website Renewables International, and were
sourced from EPEX, the European power price exchange. The first graph,
from 2008, shows peaking power prices rising to around €60/MWh and
staying there for most of the day, with some visible peaks around noon
and the early evening – the size of which would depend on the
temperature and the usage.
The second graph shows a brief leap to
€65/MWh around 9am, before the impact of solar PV takes hold – erasing
the midday peak entirely and leaving only a smaller one in the evening.
The huge bite out of day-prices is also a bite out of fossil fuel
generators’ earnings and profits. Note that the average peak price in
the second graph is barely higher than the baseload price.
Deutsche
Bank solar analyst Vishal Shah noted in a report last month that EPEX
data was showing solar PV was cutting peak electricity prices by up to
40 per cent, a situation that utilities in Germany and elsewhere in
Europe were finding intolerable. “With Germany adopting a drastic cut,
we expect major utilities in other European countries to push for
similar cuts as well,” Shah noted.
Analysts elsewhere said one
quarter of Germany’s gas-fired capacity may be closed, because of the
impact of surging solar and wind capacity. Enel, the biggest utility in
Italy, which had the most solar PV installed in 2011, highlighted its
exposure to reduced peaking prices when it said that a €5/MWh fall in
average wholesale prices would translate into a one-third slump in
earnings from the generation division.
[…]
------
R&E Network and Green Internet Consultant.
email: Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com
twitter: BillStArnaud
blog: http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/
skype: Pocketpro
