Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Solarchaser

Martyn1981 said:

Solarchaser said:

Surprised home owners are only seeing a 20% drop in bills with solar plus power wall.
I wonder if they only get the benefit of the solar, and the grid uses all of the powerwall

Great point, bit annoyed that that didn't jump out at me too.

So, I've done some extensive research (OK, I clicked on the first link in the article and got lucky), and the older article states:

Households participating in the Phase 2 trial are charged electricity rates more than 20 per cent better than the Default Market Offer introduced on 1 July 2019.

So it would seem (suggest) that the installs are free, and a bit like the US lease model for PV rooves, where the homeowner then gets a discounted leccy price. Or at least that's the way I read it. So cheaper leccy and PV rooves on 'poorer' homes, with a company model that then benefits from the leccy generation and frequency regulation side.

So the houses get a discount on leccy, but no use of the solar or batteries.
Hmm.
Maybe I'm alone here, but that feels like a solution that more affluent people/homes would reject because its not enough of a gain for the upheaval/ unsightly wires/batteries etc.
Whereas poorer folks will be just told they are getting it, most likely. 

I'm reaching obviously, as I don't know,  but to me that looks like more of a great business opportunity,  free property to mount your business on, and only paying a 20%bill reduction.... not so much as a great thing for the tenant's/owner's. 

I'd like to see government's invest in solar plus batteries for those in council owned homes (no ownership questions) to help the poorest with energy bills, and if the batteries were big enough capacity, then they could be used for grid balancing like the power vault, and the house occupant able to receive a further energy bill discount (or FIT type thing)
Add in a government backed agile type tariff where the grid pays these hundreds of thousands of homes to take the excess wind overnight, and everyone wins... but especially the poorest.

Levelling up eh...

**steps back down off his high horse**

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 said:

Carbon Commentary newsletter extracts:
[Item 2 is a 'shocker', didn't see that one coming. We'll have to find out more, but describing it as expensive, probably means, very expensive, €60k-€90k!]

2, Home hydrogen. A Berlin company offers a residential system for using excess summer solar power to make hydrogen for a fuel cell that will generate electricity for the house in winter. This is an expensive product that may only have a very small market but is, I think, the first home system that provides substantial storage –  of up to about 2,500 kWh – for seasonal use. (Thanks to Raymond Betz).

 

Sooooooooooo, I've been having a nose through the link and its attached links, and this is a fascinating product. Incredibly expensive, and I'm sure better handled by DNO's*, but fascinating.

From reading the product info you get everything (except the PV (I think)) to store 25kWh's of leccy in a battery, then excess goes via the fuel cell to hydrogen storage, and heat production (waste) from the FC goes to a 500lt hot water tank, also a heat pump and ventilation system. The site / links seem to suggest a variety of long term storage figures, one says 'at least 300kWh', another states useable seasonal storage as 1,000kWh to 2,500kWh, and another (subject to highly questionable German interpretation (by myself)) seems to say 600-3,000kWh.

Quick ponder for my circumstances, in the bottom 4 months, leccy consumption (including BEV and some ASHP) would be around 1,800kWh (~450kWh/pm). And generation around 450kWh, so we'd need ~1,350kWh of storage, so perhaps closer to the €60k price end.

Fascinating yes, but I think it's a no from me.

*Edit - Seems to me that incorporating additional types of RE, such as wind, would reduce the total amount of storage necessary, and even the charge/discharge rates of the kit (per house), hence why I'd suggest/guess that larger, but still decentralised, deployments of technology like this, would make better economic sense ...... possibly .... maybe?

michaels

You'd think the incremental cost of scaling up the hydrogen fuel cell bit would be much smaller than the initial set up cost so as you say, one system that stored all the excess solar generated by the whole street sounds more sensible.

Two way ground source heat pump is an alternative storage medium that might work out cheaper.  I suggested a massive insulated underground water tank as a heat store but people poo-pood my maths.

Martyn1981

And on the subject of large(r) scale storage, at least on the kWh side, if not the kW's, then we can consider flow batteries, which get cheaper as you go bigger, since the leccy is stored in ever larger tanks without the need to change the 'clever' bit. Also they have close to negligible degradation rates.

How Low Can Energy Storage Go? Lots & Lots Lower!

More & Better Energy Storage For Renewable Energy

The new Loker Institute research involves flow batteries. That’s an area of particular interest for wind and solar fans, due to its potential for rendering utility-scale energy storage at a relatively low cost.
Flow batteries are based on the chemistry that produces electricity when two specialized liquids flow next to each other, separated only by a thin membrane.

Orchestrating the interaction is more complicated than it may seem, but there is a huge energy storage payoff for whoever can figure it out. Flow batteries can be recharged without degrading the way conventional batteries do. They can also provide energy storage over long periods of time, because the two liquids can be stored indefinitely in their own tanks until somebody needs electricity.

Coastalwatch

How Rick Perry bucked Congress’s clean energy mandate!

Just how did he get away with it!!!! One for the voters to consider at their next election perhaps!

As energy secretary, Rick Perry regularly told lawmakers that he favored an all-encompassing energy policy that supported wind and solar as well as fossil fuels. But during his nearly three-year tenure, the Energy Department repeatedly hamstrung bipartisan efforts to boost spending on clean energy technology. The Energy Department under Perry delayed clean energy grants, slow-walked hiring and left staffing levels in the nation’s clean energy programs far below what they were at the end of the Obama administration, according to government records. One program went unfunded for so long that the Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency, told the department to release the money or risk violating federal law. Source: Houston Chronicle

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/04/14/morning-brief-rick-perry-bucked-congresss-clean-energy-mandate-world-record-47-1-efficient-solar-cell/?utm_source=pv+magazine+USA&utm_campaign=86ba861f51-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_80e0d17bb8-86ba861f51-159341337

On the other hand!

How a conservative coal county built the biggest community solar energy project in East Kentucky:

In Letcher County, Ky., where coal mines once boomed and talk about the “war on coal” is commonplace, environmentalism isn’t particularly popular. But last year, our county’s grassroots groups ( a collective network known as the Letcher County Culture Hub) completed the biggest nonindustrial alternative energy project in the history of the east Kentucky coalfields. After three years of organizing, the network successfully secured an investment of half a million dollars in four solar-powered community buildings. It would have been easy to assume “the community” would oppose the project—except for the fact that the community was the one running it.  Source: Brookings

Hope as yet then for the future of a clean environment!

Coastalwatch

I'm well aware we are leaving the EU but they share a huge combined economy so any move towards a green recovery should be welcomed by those of us seeking to combat AGW at a greater rate than appeared to be happening prior to C-19!

European leaders push ‘Green Recovery’ plan for post-Covid economy

Political support for the idea of linking Covid-19 exit strategies to green policy appears to be mounting in EU institutions. Easter, appropriately enough, may have injected new life into the idea.

Will the trillions of euros needed to get the EU back on its feet after the Covid-19 fallout consign the bloc’s climate change policies to history, as an expensive luxury, or will the European Green Deal supply the jobs and economic stimulus to bring Europe back to life?

Some 13 EU member state ministers tasked by their voters with combating climate change and protecting the environment have signed an open letter to the European Commission calling for the European Green Deal announced just as the Covid-19 wave broke in the West to be the cornerstone of the fiscal response to the public health crisis.

And today, 79 MEPs, the chief executives of 37 European-headquartered corporations and a bevy of industry and NGO representatives issued their own demands for a “green recovery.”

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/14/european-leaders-push-green-recovery-plan-for-post-covid-economy/

Martyn1981

I don't think this will surprise anyone, but spending more and sooner to reduce emissions, actually works out better not only for the environment, but economically too.

Strengthen worldwide climate commitments to improve economy, study finds

Every country in the world would be economically better off if all could agree to strengthen their commitments on the climate crisis through international cooperation, new research has found.
But if countries go no further than their current CO2 pledges – which are too weak to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, and would lead to dangerous levels of global heating – then they face steep economic losses.
The global economy would lose out by as much as $600tn (£476tn) by the end of the century, on current emissions targets, compared with its likely growth if countries meet the Paris goals, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Communications.
If countries fail even to implement their current plans – which would lead to an estimated 3C (5.4F) of heating, far beyond the 2C or 1.5C settled on as the limit of safety in the 2015 Paris agreement – then the outlook is even worse, with losses of up to $800tn by 2100, according to the report from a group of scientists from the Beijing Institute of Technology and other mainly Chinese institutions.

“And it’s the kind of expenditure that repays multiple benefits and should really be seen as a smart investment. As if stopping climate change isn’t enough, it will deliver a better quality of life for more people around the world, faster.”
The economic benefits of curbing greenhouse gas emissions, compared with the high costs of reneging, should spur governments to act on the climate, according to the Nature study’s authors. However, investments are needed to realise these gains, particularly from developed countries. The outlay would amount to between $5tn and $33tn for the US, and between $16tn and $105tn for the G20 countries as a whole.
The study said: “Early and quick action will provide a better chance to close the widening emissions gap, even though a large amount of abatement cost would occur in the short term.”

Coastalwatch

Against a backdrop of the anti renewables stance by the Australian government some positive news from on the proposed future of their grid encouraging a variety of storage solutions to cope during periods of peak demand. I wonder what chance it has of being adopted!

‘Super-peak’ firming contracts open up new opportunities for battery storage

A new ‘super-peak’ contract that is designed to cover demand during the high-priced morning and evening shoulder periods, when solar output is low, has been hailed a new era for renewables, opening up multiple opportunities for on-demand energy resources. The growth in these new kinds of financial products is expected to provide new incentives for market players to seek out assets – such as batteries, hydropower, and other balancing resources – that can firm up intermittent renewables.

According to Renewable Energy Hub’s Head of Markets Chris Halliwell, these ‘super peak’ periods are becoming more pronounced in the National Electricity Market (NEM) as the rapidly growing solar fleet suppresses net demand and prices during the middle of the day, only for demand and prices to ramp up rapidly as the Sun sets.

“This new hedge contract enables market participants to manage the risk of very high prices during these periods,” said Halliwell. “Importantly, it also gives renewable energy generators like Snowy Hydro access to new markets, and encourages new forms of supply into the grid to improve energy security.”

https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/04/15/super-peak-firming-contracts-open-up-new-opportunities-for-battery-storage/?utm_source=pv+magazine+USA&utm_campaign=fe9a81a900-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_80e0d17bb8-fe9a81a900-159341337

Coastalwatch

Covid-19 daily bulletin: Renewables squeezing out fossil fuels as energy demand plunges

U.S.-owned analyst Wood Mackenzie today reported declines in European gas and coal generation have been driven by the recent grid connection of renewable plants in combination with Covid-19 dampening energy demand. High volumes of solar power generated in Germany over the weekend squeezed the business case for fossil fuels even further, WoodMac reported in its weekly Covid-19 round-up, although a recovery in the energy price did restore margins for gas plants in Germany, Italy and Spain this week.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/15/covid-19-daily-bulletin-renewables-squeezing-out-fossil-fuels-as-energy-demand-plunges/

Martyn1981

Couple of articles on Canadian tar sands oil. The industry is struggling, has been getting support/bailouts for years, and has paid very little into clean up funds as it was expected (hoped) to be around (and profitable) for decades. Also the pipeline taking the oil across the US is running into more legal problems.

A Tale Of Two Cleanups: Oil Sands Vs Mining

The fading of the industry is something I’ve assessed and published on regularly. Most recently, it was the fiscal implications of a stock market subject to the fragile and volatile commodity prices of oil and gas. Much of the recent loss of the Dow Jones Index was from that sector, a trend which started in roughly 2015, and is just exacerbated by the pandemic. The industry is rife with debt and bloated executive compensation packages, which combined with the projected reductions in future demand is leading major global banks to pull financing and seize assets, not giving fossil fuel companies the opportunity to shift assets around under cover of bankruptcy.

The particulars of Alberta’s cleanup mess was an other subject of assessment. As I wrote at the beginning of the year, the industry’s cleanup liabilities are close to a quarter of a trillion dollars in that province alone, and they’ve set aside less than 10% of that, something mirrored more than not globally. Canada’s ‘ethical oil’ doesn’t look that ethical in light of the toxic mess it will leave behind. As I said then, the cleanup would end up being a Canadian federally funded ongoing project, like Superfund sites in the US. And it’s coming to pass.

Alberta oil sands cleanup plans were a Ponzi scheme. They were going to use future high-priced oil profits to pay for future cleanup. But Canada’s crude was selling recently for $5 per barrel, well under the cost of extraction. It’s never going to be high enough to pay for any cleanup again.

This will end with Canada shouldering the burden of cleanup, just as Trudeau and the Liberals are projecting for future budgets. This has been clear to many for a decade. But it’s a unique problem for Alberta’s oil sands in terms of how huge the liability is and how they’ve been allowed to get away with it by bad financing and governmental laxness. That time is over.

Major blow to Keystone XL pipeline as judge revokes key permit

The controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has been dealt a major setback, after a judge revoked a key permit issued by the US Army Corps of Engineers without properly assessing the impact on endangered species.

The Keystone XL pipeline was approved in 2010 by the Canadian national energy board, but suspended in 2015 after Barack Obama refused to grant the required presidential permits amid growing public outcry from a coalition of Native Americans, First Nations, ranchers and farmers, and environmentalists.

Donald Trump issued the permits within days of taking office, stipulating only that American steel be used in the work.