Electricity Price Increases

[ponytug]

Didn't Portugal and Spain just have a huge power outage when the wind dropped and it stayed cloudy for a long time?
Yes they did.

No, sorry, but the outage was caused by human incompetence in the system managers. Not surprisingly, it took them awhile to fess up.

All the best,

Peter

 

[WinterDeere]

Didn't Portugal and Spain just have a huge power outage when the wind dropped and it stayed cloudy for a long time?
Yes they did.

No. It was actually the opposite. Outage was caused by excessive voltage. There were no reports of insufficient power to the grid due to lack of supply, up to and including the time of the outage.

Bad implementation followed by bad management, not bad technology.

edit: sorry for redundant post... just saw @ponytug already posted the same.

 

[MossRoad]

Yep, read all about it.

2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Also, look at the weather there that day.... it was beautiful.

what was the weather like on the iberian peninsula On Monday, 28 April 2025 right before the blackout?


On Monday, April 28, 2025, just before the Iberian Peninsula blackout, the weather was
sunny, mild, and calm, with no extreme weather events reported. Early media speculation about a "rare atmospheric phenomenon" causing the power outage was denied by electricity officials and later attributed to a misunderstanding. The blackout was ultimately attributed to a surge in voltage within the electricity grid, not weather.

Weather before the blackout

• The blackout occurred at 12:33 CEST, or 11:33 WEST, in the early afternoon.
• The morning was described as a "normal Monday" with a "particularly nice: a sunny, mild spring" forecast.
• Reports from energy analysts confirmed that there was nothing unusual about the weather in Iberia on that day.
• A weather forecast for Monaco on April 28 described a sunny morning in the region, with afternoon thunderstorms expected in the nearby Alpes-Maritimes department of France. However, this was unrelated to the cause of the blackout in Spain and Portugal.

 

[kenmbz]

yet, from the local authorities:
Authorities have already taken steps, such as updating operational procedures to allow renewable energy sources to contribute more to voltage control, to prevent similar incidents in the future.

I love when government people contradict themselves.
They had a temperature increase the days leading up to the outage.

 

[WinterDeere]

I love when government people contradict themselves.
They had a temperature increase the days leading up to the outage.

First instinct of any government official or spokesperson is always CYA. They can adjust the facts to fit the story, later.

I'm not pretending wind is a flawless resource, but like everything else, just one more tool in the box.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

The issue isn't that wind doesn't work, it's the way it works. South Dakota is a great place for wind but when you get 39% of your power from wind that means that some of the time you get 100% from wind and other times you depend on other sources which could have operated almost 100% of the time. This means the capital cost of those other sources has to be recovered from a smaller amount of total generation, raising the overall cost of electricity. The math is pretty simple.

Natural gas is not free. Fossil fuel power eats more than it takes to build it. A wind turbine pays for itself in ~8 years. Fossil fuel power never does.

 

[WinterDeere]

The issue isn't that wind doesn't work, it's the way it works. South Dakota is a great place for wind but when you get 39% of your power from wind that means that some of the time you get 100% from wind and other times you depend on other sources which could have operated almost 100% of the time. This means the capital cost of those other sources has to be recovered from a smaller amount of total generation, raising the overall cost of electricity. The math is pretty simple.

I don’t follow the argument. Do you actually believe that any sane person has proposed getting 90% of our power from wind? Are you under some impression that we get such a large fraction of our energy from any single source, today?!?

Take anything to the point of absurdity, and you can make an argument against it, but that doesn’t make for intelligent conversation.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

Wind power, The amount of power produce by renewable energy can be approximated by percentage of available up time. Around 22% some sites have 30%
Renewables will never provide base load power.

The link below allows you to click on any power plant to see its output and percentage of uptime. Wether Hydro, nuke, gas, solar or wind.
Edit: the link is an interactive map of the US power system producers.

Experience

 

[orezok]

Fortunately, I have solar (wonderful here in the desert). I just got my bill and it was $1.71 for the last month. Thats hard to beat considering Cali’s high rates.

 

[ultrarunner]

Since my 6kW array went live my only expense is the monthy meter fee around $15

My annual True Up check covers a year’s worth of meter fees and then some.

This may change as the equity push for solar to pay impact fees gains traction.

Sister in laws brother opted out of utility electricity during the build… the cost to run PGE did not pencil out when a neighbor rescinded permission for the underground feeder line which meant on a very long underground path many many times longer.

 

[KennyG]

I don’t follow the argument. Do you actually believe that any sane person has proposed getting 90% of our power from wind? Are you under some impression that we get such a large fraction of our energy from any single source, today?!?

Take anything to the point of absurdity, and you can make an argument against it, but that doesn’t make for intelligent conversation.

I think you misunderstood the post. We often see that a certain location got 100% of it's electricity from renewables for an hour or a day. That happens. However, you will then find that that area got 30% or 40% of energy for the year from renewables. The other 60% or 70% had to come from fossil or nuclear sources that are reliably available at any time. As a result (because maintenance can be scheduled for low demand times) a mix of these fossil or nuclear sources could have provided 100% of the demand without a need for renewables. However, since they actually are allowed to produce less power, they become less economic.

Let's put it in tractor terms. Let's say you can rent a tractor for $100 a day. You can get a job that reimburses you $10 an hour for equipment use and takes 10 hours a day. However, Joe, the owners brother in law has a bulldozer and he gets to do 4 hours of the work. Now you can only get paid for only 6 hours of work and you lose money.

We often see that renewables are cheaper than other sources. However, you very seldom see any explanation of the basis for that conclusion. Windmills and solar cells are cheaper on an installed megawatt capacity basis than any other option. However, when you look at actual power generated, they only generate about 1/3 the annual production of fossil or nuclear sources. Also, inherent in installation of renewables is the need to install and maintain reliable other sources which are then underutilized. The cost of that unused backup capacity is never considered in the cost of renewable energy. In economic terms this is an externality that should be included.

 

[MossRoad]

Renewables overtake coal as world's biggest source of electricity

Developing countries lead the historic clean energy charge but the US and EU rely more on fossil fuels than before, a think tank study shows.

www.bbc.com

 

[MossRoad]

Despite what’s happening in the USA, renewables are winning globally

The world is betting on solar and wind, despite Trump’s championing of fossil fuels in the United States.

thebulletin.org

 

[ultrarunner]

There is a chill on Solar and EV coming from my state regulators…

Maybe too many converts?

 

[MossRoad]

There is a chill on Solar and EV coming from my state regulators…

Maybe too many converts?

If too many people generate their own power, the power companies don't bring in enough money to maintain the infrastructure for those that don't generate their own power.

 

[MossRoad]

Similar argument to how to make EVs pay their fair share of road tax VS gasoline tax.

 

[ponytug]

If too many people generate their own power, the power companies don't bring in enough money to maintain the infrastructure for those that don't generate their own power.

That's an increasingly frequent subject for discussion in our neck of the woods, and I think a real issue, though it isn't clear to me that there is a single solution.

If you ever want grid power, and I personally do because we can't realistically self generate enough power over a winter storm or during bad fires, then it seems to me that some sort of fee is in order for a grid interconnection. Commercially, it comes under the category of a "demand reservation charge", which is the maximum allowable amount of power that can be drawn ever. Basically, the company pays to reserve enough power "just in case". We pay one currently on an ag meter. My experience is that commercially it is priced up around the cost of leasing a standby generator, so it can get to be something of a toss up budget wise for a company.

The trend here is to raise the fixed fees, aka monthly meter charge, to pay for the costs of the transmission and distribution of electricity. So solar owners pay something towards the grid costs. Whether it is the right number is beyond what I know. An unintended consequence of raising the fixed electrical costs is that the power cost as a fraction of the bill goes down, reducing the incentive to conserve electricity. Historically, California has a trend of steadily reduced kWh/person/yr since the mid-seventies, but that has to end sooner or later. A fixed fee is also somewhat of a regressive tax, so complaints on that front are being vocalized.

If we were to add any additional solar would likely to be set up to maximize winter production, with panels much closer to the vertical than a typical roof mount solar. TBD at the moment as the utility doesn't seem to know its own mind about solar and batteries at the moment and what is or not permissible. Such is life, at least with this utility.

All the best,

Peter

 

[WM75Guy]

There is a chill on Solar and EV coming from my state regulators…

Maybe too many converts?

California has required solar power since 2020 and and now battery storage to meet 100% of the power requirements for new residential and multi-family construction. The power companies still have to provide infrastructure, without the revenue. And with the switch to EVs gas taxes go down. One of those "reap what you sow" situations.

Solar PV, Solar Ready, Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) & BESS-Ready

 

[ponytug]

California has required solar power since 2020 and and now battery storage to meet 100% of the power requirements for new residential and multi-family construction. The power companies still have to provide infrastructure, without the revenue. And with the switch to EVs gas taxes go down. One of those "reap what you sow" situations.

View attachment 4239735

Solar PV, Solar Ready, Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) & BESS-Ready

That's a requirement for some solar, not 100%, and to be battery ready. The solar installation requirement also primarily applies to large developers. The battery portion is just a requirement to be battery ready. That translates to a requirement for a main service panel with 225A busbars, allowing for a full 200A of battery/solar/load usage. The marginal cost is next to nothing, but saves a lot of grief later. Trust me. I learned that one the hard way.

Around here, battery storage system for commercially use and for multifamily buildings typically have an ROI of less than a year for most businesses. Even before the ITC solar credit expiry, many of our local solar companies were making most of their revenue and profit from commercial battery, or battery plus solar installations. High electrical cost here drive the short ROIs for solar/BESS.

It also helps the utilities out by the businesses not drawing power during the peak demand times of 4pm to 9pm, lowering costs for the utility. If you look at the distribution cost in California, you can see the peak distribution prices flattening out.

All the best, Peter

 

[ultrarunner]

Similar argument to how to make EVs pay their fair share of road tax VS gasoline tax.

Already a higher registration and weight a factor…

Now the push is a per mile tax for all…

Why not let ice pay fuel tax and mileage for EV?