Commentary
We don't need more electricity, just cleaner electricity
by John FarrellThe United States doesn't need another nuclear or coal power plant. Instead, it's time to abandon our 20th century electricity system, dominated by large, centralized utilities, for a 21st century electricity system: a network of independently owned and widely dispersed renewable energy producers.
The 20th century electricity grid was mostly a tale of "bigger is better." Utilities built ever-larger fossil fuel and nuclear power plants in pursuit of the cheapest possible electricity. For a 20th century society, it worked. But the paradigm has changed.
Since the year 2007, national electricity consumption has leveled off. In many states, it has declined. Coupled with new state policies to promote energy efficiency, it's possible to halt the growth in electricity use.
We don't need more electricity. We need cleaner electricity.
Wind and solar power are providing that clean energy. Over the past five years, wind power has made up an average of 35 percent of new power generation in the United States, 60 percent in 2009 alone. In Germany, citizens are putting enough solar on rooftops to replace a nuclear power plant every year.
Clean energy can power the grid, but only if it can connect to the grid. For years, utilities have had a "grid-lock," a near-monopoly on getting new power onto the grid. When it came to legacy power plants, the grid-lock was unimportant because few folks other than the utilities could handle the cost and complexity of building and supplying big coal, nuclear, and natural gas power plants. But unlike coal or gas, wind and solar power projects can be sized to the community, making them easier to finance, build and connect to the local grid. The community-sizing — democratizing — of energy also means more local economic benefits, especially when the community can actually own the wind turbine or solar panels.
This kind of renewable energy development — also called "distributed generation" — is good for communities, but also for the electric grid. Having many smaller power plants makes the grid more resilient than having a few large ones.
For example, 1,000 community-scale solar plants (each able to power about 100 homes, or about 500 kilowatts) dispersed across the region could have prevented the massive Northeast blackout of 2003, saving the economy $6 billion. Solar also helps utilities during so-called "peak demand," pouring out sun-provided electricity at times when hot weather (and lots of air conditioners) put stress on the grid. Wind power's higher nighttime production will provide the perfect match for fueling up our cars as we switch to driving on electricity instead of imported oil.
Despite the litany of benefits to the economy and electrical grid, utilities have used their grid-lock to restrict the ability of new wind and solar projects to plug into the grid. Antiquated rules make it hard for wind and solar projects to evaluate their chances to connect and to get loans to finance projects. Long applications and wait times string them along. For example, as many as 97 percent of renewable energy projects trying to get a contract and grid connection under California's renewable energy law fail to do so, stranding millions of dollars in development costs.
The 20th century paradigm of large, centralized power plants and utilities is dead, but utility companies are still trying to maintain their grid-lock. It's time to break that hold. Renewable energy is available everywhere, and can be cost-effectively harnessed in our communities with enormous benefits to the electric grid and local economies.
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John Farrell is a senior researcher for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which describes its mission as "to provide innovative strategies, working models and timely information to support environmentally sound and equitable community development." Farrell's report on democratizing the electricity system is available here.
Comments (14)
we already solar and wind can provide clean energy. i have talked to wind engineers at their farm and was told the problem is in the distribution system.
perhaps mr farrell can tell us how to solve that huge cash draining,labor intensive, capital expenditure problem. until that is solved all the articles of how green is good are useless.
Your math fails. An average US home uses 50 KW a day. Your mythical solar plant only produces 5 KW per home. Is that a mistake, or are you not telling people about the forced conservation your plan demands?
We need cheap energy. Market forces will provide that for us if we get government out of the way. Let's let solar and wind compete and see what happens.
I think Mr. Farrell is seeking to oversimplify the complex issues of transmission grid management by suggesting that "utilities" are seeking to "grid-lock" access to the grid.
The physics involved is very important, and simply hanging highly variable resources on a transmission or distribution grid overlooks the peril to the entire systems such an approach produces. While there is a view that monopolies are not good, grids are a monopoly based on physics, and to ignore that fact leads one to misunderstand the answers to how we transform the current electrical systems into one based on a very large percentage of renewable resources.
Note that a 500 kW array takes some space, and I wonder how one finds 1000 such spaces close to urban or suburban areas. (I use the empirically determined rule of thumb that solar PV is about 0.125 MW per covered acre, which would suggest that 1000, 4-acre areas would be required to produce 6 hours of power daily.
Moreover, the average household uses about 34 kW-hrs daily, so a 5 kW unit for about 6.5 hrs, with storage, would provide that amount, but not necessarily when needed, and losses in the energy-storage process need to be considered, thus increasing the array size.
I think that community scale units make more sense than individual rooftop installations for a variety of practical reasons, not the least of which is repair, overall cost, and grid stability.
@ George P from VA; Yes, let's have wind, solar, hydroelectric, biofuel, etc. compete w/ "conventional" energy sources, but let's make sure we include the appropriate carbon taxes & caps, long term nuclear transportation & storage costs, and remove oil & gas and agricultural tax subsidies to reflect the true cost of each. There's never going to be a true market solution to this, as the public costs and politics prevents fair and balanced comparisons. The "cheap energy" clamoring is ridiculous - no such thing.
John Farrell (no relation) is right in every detail.
My soninlaw built an efficient 3 bedroom house in Oakland with passive/active solar heat. Solar photo voltaic panels on the roof never exceeded 18kWhr/day and produced 5000kWhr in a year.
A family of 4 plus ocaisonal guests lived very comfortably on 4000kWhr. PG&E got 1000 free kWhrs because that was the law then.
I fail to see any substantiation to the claims about "grid-lock". There is no way to single out electrons produced from wind or solar, versus those produced from coal. Electricity is electricity. So the myth of such a barrier for green energy systems to overcome is really somewhat of an illusion. This is why we have renewable energy credits (bought and sold as a commodity to account for green energy on the main grid) - at least where there is deregulation like in Texas. Maybe what we need FIRST is nation-wide deregulation.
"The paradigm has changed" - ... because Mr. Farrell says so? Most rate payers and voters still want cheap electricity.
Germany going solar - because of uneconomically/ ludicrously high feed-in payments, robbing Manfred to pay Sigfried.
More resilient? - Wind and solar are intermittent, and often don't give you local power when you want it. Resilience for them comes from moving power over large distance from source to user (which requires your basic large scale projects).
Grid lock? - Why should utilities foot the bill for running a new power line 100 miles (or even 1 mile) to a wind or solar project when, as pointed out above, power demand is "not growing"? New lines are politically difficult and expensive to install for ANY reason.
Cost effective? Solar may be at peak pricing, but still has far to go to compete off-peak.
Cost effective? Not when you already have all the generators you need and you just tear them all down to start over. Who will compensate current owners for future lost profits/ lost investment? It is paying double.
Cost effective? - Reducing cost through scale is a fundamental design principle. Smaller generally costs more.
Unless you build billion-dollar factories (in China) to crank out millions of dirt cheap inverters, grid connectors, etc. small-scale WILL cost more.
As Mr. Coffey says, Mr. Farrell is oversimplifying. He would create "shocking" rate increases!
nuclear is the best technology out there
@ George - 10,000 kWh is the typical household electricity budget per year, about 27 kWh. A 5 kW solar PV array in MN will output 17 kWh per day, far from the sunniest state. With efficiency, a 5 kW array can cover most on-site electricity use.
To be clear, however, I'm not suggesting that we transform to complete energy self-sufficiency, where everyone makes their own power, but that we broaden the participation in energy generation. The size of projects mentioned in Daniel Coffey's comments are also appropriate.
@Green Guru - talk to some renewable energy developers trying to get an interconnection agreement with the utility for their wind or solar farm. It's miles from easy, especially when the utility is also a competitor.
@Daniel Coffey
CUNY just released a map showing how NYC could get 14% of its power from rooftop solar alone, no additional acreage needed. In fact, most state have sufficient sunny rooftop space to get 20% or more of their electricity from solar alone.
@Jeff
Germany also has more than 300,000 high-paying new jobs in the renewable energy industry.
As to economies of scale, I'd offer this evidence that there are limits to scale economies for renewable energy (http://energyselfreliantstates.org/content/economics-distributed-generation)
Mr. Farrell,
Perhaps you would describe your own home solar electric system to us. How much it cost in capital, how much power it generates.
And if it covers the INTEREST on the capital.
Surely you would not recommend forcing on others something you yourself have not done with your own money. Would you?
@William
If you re-read my commentary, you'll note that I am suggesting we break the monopoly hold of utilities, a far cry from "forcing" individuals into going solar. You are welcome to cling to the comfort of having your power provided for you.
What's more, I do not have a solar array, nor did I find the economics for my household attractive. That's much different from realizing that many community-scale and commercial developers can deliver solar power cost-effectively and that the current utility grid-lock is preventing them from offering cleaner power to the ratepayers.
Mr. Farrel, I agree strongly with your comments. The best option to promote solar manufacturing, installations, education, etc. is to have an independent market for clean, distributed, low impact, silent, ... solar generated power. Currently the large utilities control the market for power exchange unless you're a large purchaser and generator. Small generators such a residential scale are prevented from selling their excess power to purchasers who would pay a premium for these premium electrons. In Michigan where I have a residential scale 5kW PV system, my utility DTE pays me the same $0.106 cents for my PV produced electrons as electricity generated by coal, discounting the profound advantage in external costs. During the summer days, I produce as much excess capacity as 3000 excess watts (10-15 kWhr each day), individuals and companies would surely pay a premium for this power. However since the large utility (think AT&T during the Ma Bell days) constricts the market, they prevent the independent recognition and inventive for more of this value.
For those who think renewable energy is simply too expensive and that consumers would never consider the larger societal costs of a product, consider two apples one organically produced, one traditionally produced. Why would one pay double for organic? Caloric content, taste, color, texture?
There are a lot of statements of fact in the article without any references, such as "Over the past five years, wind power has made up an average of 35 percent of new power generation in the United States." Would be nice to know where all these facts came from.
@Jim
The wind power figure and electricity sales data are from the federal Energy Information Administration.
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