What does it take to succesfully transition to a green energy economy?

[Willem]

This is an excellent summary. Here in the Netherlands, and I assume many other EU countries as well, the grid is separate from the electricity companies. The grid is either run by some private companies, or by something national entity (or a private company whose shares are state owned), but it is tightly controlled, because it is, of course, a natural monopoly. So as a consumer we pay a connection charge to cover the cost of the grid. The electricity and gas in turn are supplied by multiple private companies, and the consumer can choose between a dozen or more competing ones. These either generate (some of) their own electricty or buy it from generating companies, either in the Netherlands, or from abroad, and buy this in a competitive market where they have to bid for the lowest price. Some Americans may be surprised, but this is indeed capitalism in its pure form. These electricity companies have a problem, however, if the price they can sell their electricity for does not vary with the market at which they themselves buy, and this is now much more relevant with wind and solar energy. Dynamic pricing brings the consumer price more in line with the varying wholesale price, and hence power companies do not have to make a financial provision (i.e. an insurance) to cover the risk. As a result dynamic pricing is ultimately on average cheaper for the consumer, but there is some risk (the consumer is his own insurer). The additional advantage is that it provides an incentive to shift electricity consumption from times of high demand or limited supply to times of low demand or ample supply. Technically, this is now becoming feasible for consumers, with smart devices like smart charging posts for an electric car that charges when electricity is cheapest, or, very soon, smart washing machines or fridges. It is, therefore, also a partial contribution against the increasing problem of grid congestion. However, you do not have to contract for dynamic pricing: you can still have a monthly or yearly contract. It is up to you.

 

[EJ3]

Utilities do a very poor job communicating and providing information to their customers, so a lot of misinformation is out there, just like in audio!

At one of my homes I am on this same bill for 12 months plan. My electric provider just sent me a letter saying that they were upping the price per month from $159.00 USD a month to $256.00 USD a month.
This is in mid-contract (nothing has changed except about 6 months ago I added a couple of stand alone de-humidifiers to the place to keep it from being 90+% humidity indoors most of the time).
The AC system is capable of doing that IF I get a different thermostat & rewire the system for that. Probably would be more efficient.
But they did not say that your power usage has gone up, they said:
"Adjusting your payment now will help bring the payments closer to the actual billings anticipated through your Budget Billing plan anniversary month".
No other actual information was offered.

Yep, a very LACK of informative communication.

They could have shown me the usage for the last year & then I could determine if the cause was the humidifiers, a price increase or something else. Or a combination of all of te above.
Now, I have to do the research, when they could have just given it to me.

 

[EERecordist]

This is an excellent summary. Here in the Netherlands, and I assume many other EU countries as well, the grid is separate from the electricity companies. The grid is either run by some private companies, or by something national entity (or a private company whose shares are state owned), but it is tightly controlled, because it is, of course, a natural monopoly. So as a consumer we pay a connection charge to cover the cost of the grid. The electricity and gas in turn are supplied by multiple private companies, and the consumer can choose between a dozen or more competing ones. These either generate (some of) their own electricty or buy it from generating companies, either in the Netherlands, or from abroad, and buy this in a competitive market where they have to bid for the lowest price. Some Americans may be surprised, but this is indeed capitalism in its pure form. These electricity companies have a problem, however, if the price they can sell their electricity for does not vary with the market at which they themselves buy, and this is now much more relevant with wind and solar energy. Dynamic pricing brings the consumer price more in line with the varying wholesale price, and hence power companies do not have to make a financial provision (i.e. an insurance) to cover the risk. As a result dynamic pricing is ultimately on average cheaper for the consumer, but there is some risk (the consumer is his own insurer). The additional advantage is that it provides an incentive to shift electricity consumption from times of high demand or limited supply to times of low demand or ample supply. Technically, this is now becoming feasible for consumers, with smart devices like smart charging posts for an electric car that charges when electricity is cheapest, or, very soon, smart washing machines or fridges. It is, therefore, also a partial contribution against the increasing problem of grid congestion. However, you do not have to contract for dynamic pricing: you can still have a monthly or yearly contract. It is up to you.

Yes, thanks for that.

At one time NL had an experimental trial of small scale neighborhood peer-to-peer energy buying and selling using blockchain. The problem with microtransactions is the transaction overhead cost, so you want the parties to have sufficient cash reserves in their accounts.

Your most important note is risk cost. Most consumers are not ready for that. Utilities are. Retail choice providers are not. In Texas, from storm Uri in 2021, several retail choice billing companies declared bankruptcy and their debt was assumed by the state, bonds were issued, and the cost of the bonds was spread across all customers for 30 years.

 

[Willem]

Most consumers are not ready for that. Utilities are. Retail choice providers are not.

During the energy crisis after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a few small power companies (is that what you mean by retail providers?) had a hard time because they had sold one or even more years fix price contracts to consumers, and had not bought enough on a fixed price contract themselves. They had been prepared for some risk, but not for such a major upheaval. One or two went under, and their customers had to move to now much more expensive contracts from other power companies. The regulator has since then imposed more demanding risk management and liquidity norms.
The sad thing was and is that precisely people on the lowest incomes often live in the worst insulated homes, and hence faced the steepest bills. So the government stepped in and gave (all) households an energy subsidy, and even though that addressed the short term hardship, it is not a long term solution. It is too expensive, and removes some of the incentive to save energy, and has since been abandoned. So now the local housing associations that own a lot of the cheap rental housing are rapidly insulating their housing stock, helped by some government subsidies. That is certainly a better way to subsidize the solution to a problem that will not go away.
As for price information, if you have a dynamic price contract, you get advance pricing information, and you can already use that to charge your car if you have a smart charger. Currently protocols are being developed to do the same for household appliances and heating systems, using price input from the electricity supplier and data from your solar panels. Technically none of this is very difficult, but it demands a lot of coordination and supervision from the regulator, given our competitve energy market. In the end, it is all about creating a fully transparent competitive market, because that is the most efficient system.

 

[EERecordist]

During the energy crisis after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a few small power companies (is that what you mean by retail providers?) had a hard time because they had sold one or even more years fix price contracts to consumers, and had not bought enough on a fixed price contract themselves. They had been prepared for some risk, but not for such a major upheaval. One or two went under, and their customers had to move to now much more expensive contracts from other power companies. The regulator has since then imposed more demanding risk management and liquidity norms.

I think what you describe is like what in the US is called "retail choice." In the US it is allowed or not allowed state by state. Originally the US had "vertically integrated" electric utilities. They were encouraged to divide the business into 1. generator owners, 2. transmission owners with bulk wholesale substations, 3 balancing authorities RTO/ISO, energy market operators 4. distribution utilities with substations and wires to homes and businesses. Later retail choice added 5. retail power marketers using the wires of 2, (3) and 4.

They do exactly what you say, they buy in the market, maintain large cash deposits in their bank, sell the power to the homes and businesses, bill them for the energy, and pay the transmission and distribution costs.

In Texas, about 10% of retail choice change plans to get sign up deals, very similar to how people change cell phone plans. Personally and professionally I don't support retail choice and studies have not shown long term cost savings to the customer. To me it is a risk game for the retail choice company. Others may disagree.

The sad thing was and is that precisely people on the lowest incomes often live in the worst insulated homes, and hence faced the steepest bills. So the government stepped in and gave (all) households an energy subsidy, and even though that addressed the short term hardship, it is not a long term solution. It is too expensive, and removes some of the incentive to save energy, and has since been abandoned. So now the local housing associations that own a lot of the cheap rental housing are rapidly insulating their housing stock, helped by some government subsidies. That is certainly a better way to subsidize the solution to a problem that will not go away.

In the Northwest US we have a large nonprofit generator, transmission owner, and balancing authority Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) with about 28GW+ nameplate generation. In 1980 a friend of mine wrote the NW Energy Act. It requires BPA to do a 20 year IRP forecast every 5 years, and when adding generation, calculate the equivalent efficiency to the proposed generation, and give efficiency a 10% premium in cost over adding new generation.

As for price information, if you have a dynamic price contract, you get advance pricing information, and you can already use that to charge your car if you have a smart charger. Currently protocols are being developed to do the same for household appliances and heating systems, using price input from the electricity supplier and data from your solar panels. Technically none of this is very difficult, but it demands a lot of coordination and supervision from the regulator, given our competitve energy market. In the end, it is all about creating a fully transparent competitive market, because that is the most efficient system.

Agree...but. There are many articles and meetings on price formation in the US RTO/ISO system which require approval from FERC - the central government agency. In the US, electricity is sold roughly 3 ways. 1. Power Purchase Agreements which are private contracts between the generator and the customer. They are often 10 years, and they are not public. They are common for renewables generators and large sophisticated customers: data centers, casinos, and industrial customers. 2. Private bilateral contracts days ahead to real time. It is similar to any commodities trading and happens on platforms like the Intercontinental Exchange. 3. Organized public markets like RTO/ISO and ISO-lite EIM markets.

the way 3 works, and I believe Europe does this too, is that the generators bid in the lowest price they will sell a 5, 15, or 60 minute block of MWh at a certain time. The MWh offers are sorted from low to high. The balancing authority goes up the offer curve from low to high until it adds up enough MWh to meet the load forecast. Then it sends a dispatch signal in software to the generators, and watches them run individually to ensure they deliver.

Say 10 wind plants bid in at minus 1 penny per KWH, 20 solar plants bid in at 2 cents per KWH, some combined cycle natural gas plants which need to run continuously bid in between 3-4 cents per KWH, a coal plant which has to run continuously bids in at 4 cents per KWH, a nuclear plant has to run continuously bids in at 5, and several short term peakers bid in at 10 - 15 cents per KWH. This particular scheduling block goes up the offer curve until 11 cents. That is the price formation process.

All generators will then be paid 11 cents per KWH. They are not paid what they offered which was the target price to meet their capital costs, people operation costs, and fuel costs for fueled generators. Over the year the high price points dominate the total cost summed over the year.

If you take all the hours in a year and sort them from the highest energy price to the lowest, you get the price duration curve.

Anything you can do to lower the demand on the left side reduces overall costs for the year. Sometimes 80% of your costs are in 20% of your hours of the year.

I would like to see more power flowing through PPAs at lower than peak prices.

In the US it is recommended housing be 30% of income, and energy - dwelling heating and cooling, electricity and natural gas or bottled gas be, 3%. Above 3% is termed energy burdened.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Batteries

 

[Tinker]

It's worth keeping an eye on what China is doing. They are the current leaders. Their installation of both wind and solar is way up at an all time high.

In 2024, China installed a record-breaking 277.17 gigawatts (GW) of solar power, bring its total installed capacity to 886.66 GW.
This was a 45.48% increase from 2023.

They are building the equivalent of 5 large Nuclear power plants every week !! Using BOTH solar panels and battery storage.

According to recent reports, China has installed the world's largest solar system, a 5GW solar farm located in the Xinjiang province, which is considered the biggest solar farm globally as of June 2024; this facility is capable of powering a country like Papua New Guinea or Luxembourg with its generated electricity.

They also have installed floating power plants on water. Interesting.

(Bloomberg) -- China started generating power from its first gigawatt-level offshore solar project in the eastern province of Shandong. The massive open-sea photovoltaic plant made its first connection to the grid on Wednesday, according to its developer, a unit of China Energy Investment Corp.Nov 14, 2024

They are 6 to 7 years early, ahead of schedule. Nuclear is much too slow to build. It's takes decades and hugely more expensive. They want to ween off dirty coal. They see the end of the project as 20 plus years of free energy from the sun giving their people low cost, clean energy.

Other countries are are also going this route. Musk has talked about this many times.

China is also enertianing the idea of building a solar farm in space. Where the sun always shines. The electricity would be sent back to Earth wirelessly. Can you imagine if there was an International group effort to suppy the entire planet with electric?? Instead of Wars or building condos on Mars or just walking around on the moon.

 

[bravomail]

Hydro powerplants are most green.
Nuclear needs expensive Uranium enrichment (uses a lot of gas or electricity). Can be used to produce Plutonium - that will solve enrichment and supply problem/shortage of Uranium - world supplies are very limited, and will come to an end shortly.
Solar - needs solving a hail issue. Hail will destroy your solar. Plus - not all areas get a lot of sun.
Wind - expensive and not viable at all with current solutions, also highky volatile and unreliable. Needs rethinking.
We have vast world supplies of natural gas, which burns cleanly. Shortage speculation are from oild/gas suppliers to gauge prices. We will survive on gas as a civiliization for very long time if all other ways will fail.
There is also growing forests, using firewood - very green.
Nicola Tesla found some unorthodox ways of harvesting the energy of Earth rotation among other things. Suppressed knowledge.
There is also "zero point energy" speculation - not sure what it's all about.

 

[Timcognito]

Hydro powerplants are most green.
Nuclear needs expensive Uranium enrichment (uses a lot of gas or electricity). Can be used to produce Plutonium - that will solve enrichment and supply problem/shortage of Uranium - world supplies are very limited, and will come to an end shortly.
Solar - needs solving a hail issue. Hail will destroy your solar. Plus - not all areas get a lot of sun.
Wind - expensive and not viable at all with current solutions, also highky volatile and unreliable. Needs rethinking.
We have vast world supplies of natural gas, which burns cleanly. Shortage speculation are from oild/gas suppliers to gauge prices. We will survive on gas as a civiliization for very long time if all other ways will fail.
There is also growing forests, using firewood - very green.
Nicola Tesla found some unorthodox ways of harvesting the energy of Earth rotation among other things. Suppressed knowledge.
There is also "zero point energy" speculation - not sure what it's all about.

Nothing that has combustion can help the CO2 greenhouse problem with the exception Hydrogen. Wind and Solar problems are solved with the grid, as it windy or sunny somewhere 24/7 and replace drilling, processing, transportation and middlemen, plus CO2 removal. Reforestation is very beneficial without any burning not green.

 

[EJ3]

Batteries

Yes, excellent during hurricanes & flooding. NOT.
See what happened in Western North Carolina, Georgia & Tennessee.
And the battery debris would have been distributed throughout the environment.
I do not understand why people think that one way is good for everyone.
There are many ways & each area should do the way that works well in their area.
Combined efforts to make a difference.
Mean while, everyone is fighting for their way to be the only way...

 

[EJ3]

Nothing that has combustion can help the CO2 greenhouse problem with the exception Hydrogen. Wind and Solar problems are solved with the grid, as it windy or sunny somewhere 24/7 and replace drilling, processing, transportation and middlemen, plus CO2 removal. Reforestation is very beneficial without any burning not green.

Natural gas has less emissions than coal, so switching to it reduces the emissions. An all electric house (the high end thing in the 60's) emits a lot if it is powered by coal but a lot less if its powered by natural gas.
A transition. & as other cleaner methods become viable, work them in. In some places they are currently viable. But in many places they do their own, different environmental damage.
This is a subject where there is a big MYOPIC problem of "my way is the only way".
When, together, many ways is what it will take to solve the problem.
Go after the worst and the peculiarities that make it the best and find way's to beat what's best about it. (And, in some small zones, it may remain the best) But a heck of a difference will have been made.
When that one becomes a lesser issue, go after the new worst. And do the same.
Like a snowball coming down a hill, the successes will add up and the issues will become minimized.
It did not get like this all at once.
Same like a person who got out of shape & now wants to get back into shape. They did not be in great shape one day & wake up the next not in shape.
It took time to get out of shape to the point that they made a decision to get back in shape. And it will take time and effort to get back in shape.
Just as it will unfortunately take time for us to get the emissions down.
But, the worst part is all those creating the chaos of "mine is the only way to success".
This causes many to do nothing as they cannot decide which something to do.

 

[Devnull]

Nothing that has combustion can help the CO2 greenhouse problem with the exception Hydrogen. Wind and Solar problems are solved with the grid, as it windy or sunny somewhere 24/7 and replace drilling, processing, transportation and middlemen, plus CO2 removal. Reforestation is very beneficial without any burning not green.

So how do you move gigawatts, if not terawatts, of power around? Last time I looked the Americas are separated from the rest of the world by oceans.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Yes, excellent during hurricanes & flooding. NOT.
See what happened in Western North Carolina, Georgia & Tennessee.
And the battery debris would have been distributed throughout the environment.
I do not understand why people think that one way is good for everyone.
There are many ways & each area should do the way that works well in their area.
Combined efforts to make a difference.
Mean while, everyone is fighting for their way to be the only way...

For solar and wind there needs to be a storage option to maintain continuous power delivery.

 

[Tinker]

@bravomail Solar - needs solving a hail issue. Hail will destroy your solar. Plus - not all areas get a lot of sun.

There's no hail in space and the sun always shines bright 24/7. The suns energy is also 10 times more energy dense outside the atmoshere.

Chinese scientists have announced a plan to build an enormous, 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) wide solar power station in space that will beam continuous energy back to Earth via microwaves. "The energy collected in one year would be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth."

Known as SBSP (space based solar power) Been talked about for decades but China seems pretty serious about making it a reality.

 

[levimax]

There's no hail in space and the sun always shines bright 24/7. The suns energy is also 10 times more energy dense outside the atmoshere.

Chinese scientists have announced a plan to build an enormous, 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) wide solar power station in space that will beam continuous energy back to Earth via microwaves. "The energy collected in one year would be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth."

Known as SBSP (space based solar power) Been talked about for decades but China seems pretty serious about making it a reality.

That sounds like it could be used as a "space weapon" as well.

 

[Timcognito]

So how do you move gigawatts, if not terawatts, of power around? Last time I looked the Americas are separated from the rest of the world by oceans.

Cables. There are hundreds of projects under way.

 

[Tinker]

That sounds like it could be used as a "space weapon" as well.

Yes, that is a problem being discussed. That problem will only increase when China wants to build stations on the moon. That would give them strategic advantage. Who owns the rights to the moon or space? Who is to say you can't do it?

 

[Willem]

For solar and wind there needs to be a storage option to maintain continuous power delivery.

Variability can be addressed in a number of different ways, and not just by storage. First, solar and wind do not correlate, often not at all. The wind often blows more at night and in Winter. They are a good couple. Second, electricity can be transported and traded with other regions with different momentary supply and demand conditions. This requires a beefier long distance grid. Finally, there is the good old market. With dynamic wholesale and consumer pricing, variability will express itself in varying prices, and hence in demand adaptation with e.g. smart car chargers. And of course, on top of that there can be big batteries to stabilize the grid. Of course, this requires a lot of coordination. And very finally, as for excess solar output, our grid management can remotely turn off your solar panels to prevent grid voltage rising by too much.

 

[RandomEar]

There's no hail in space and the sun always shines bright 24/7. The suns energy is also 10 times more energy dense outside the atmoshere.

That's incorrect. The difference in power density is about 30%, see solar constant. Typical peak values on earth are around 1000 w/m².

Chinese scientists have announced a plan to build an enormous, 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) wide solar power station in space that will beam continuous energy back to Earth via microwaves. "The energy collected in one year would be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth."

Known as SBSP (space based solar power) Been talked about for decades but China seems pretty serious about making it a reality.

Electromagnetic radiation loses specific intensity with 1/distance². So high energy non-focused microwave beams from satellites would be measurable on earth, but would have irrelevant energy densities for all practical use cases. For lasers, the calculation is different but you are still limited by beam divergence and ultimately the difraction limit. I have seen no convincing calculation yet that transmitting any relevant amount of power from solar arrays in orbit is feasable.

 

[Tinker]

That's incorrect. The difference in power density is about 30%, see solar constant. Typical peak values on earth are around 1000 w/m².


Electromagnetic radiation loses specific intensity with 1/distance². So high energy non-focused microwave beams from satellites would be measurable on earth, but would have irrelevant energy densities for all practical use cases. For lasers, the calculation is different but you are still limited by beam divergence and ultimately the difraction limit. I have seen no convincing calculation yet that transmitting any relevant amount of power from solar arrays in orbit is feasable.

The MAPLE experiment was able to wirelessly transfer collected solar power to receivers in space and direct energy to Earth.

Scientists Beam Solar Power to Earth from Space for First Time Ever

The MAPLE experiment was able to wirelessly transfer collected solar power to receivers in space and direct energy to Earth

www.scientificamerican.com

These claims come from statements from China. It's a huge, diificult conceptual project. Who knows if it becomes reality. All I can see currently is their embracing of solar and wind is, so far, very successful. However, space is a whole different level.