Green Energy Revolution Megathread

[jimmy olsen]

Shut up, Meg.

How about you take being wrong like a man and just admit it?

[Valmy]

Wrong? Nobody has been as excited about all the green jobs as he has.

[Jacob]

Shut up, Meg.

How about you take being wrong like a man and just admit it?

He's taking being wrong like most men - bitching and whining and changing the topic.

[jimmy olsen]

Yup.

Anyways, in case Mono comes in later and says that's only the US, here's numbers to refute that.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/09/new-energy-europe-renewable-sources-2016

Renewable energy sources made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe's electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent's rapid shift away from fossil fuels.

But industry leaders said they were worried about the lack of political support beyond 2020, when binding EU renewable energy targets end.

Of the 24.5GW of new capacity built across the EU in 2016, 21.1GW – or 86% – was from wind, solar, biomass and hydro, eclipsing the previous high-water mark of 79% in 2014.

That looks like an 80% increase to my math, not more than doubling, but it's still a great increase and in total GW is 2.3 as large as the US increase.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-solar-idUSKBN15J0G7

China's installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity more than doubled last year, turning the country into the world's biggest producer of solar energy by capacity, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said on Saturday.

Installed PV capacity rose to 77.42 gigawatts at the end of 2016, with the addition of 34.54 gigawatts over the course of the year, data from the energy agency showed.

http://inhabitat.com/india-doubles-down-on-solar-power-with-huge-park-capacity-increase/

India just made a huge commitment to solar power. They're doubling the planned capacity in their solar parks program from 20 gigawatts (GW) up to 40 GW. The government has also given a green light to the program's second phase.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-14/saudis-warm-to-solar-as-opec-s-top-producer-aims-to-help-exports

Starting this year, Saudi Arabia plans to develop almost 10 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2023, starting with wind and solar plants in its vast northwestern desert. The effort could replace the equivalent of 80,000 barrels of oil a day now burned for power. Add in natural gas projects set to start later this decade, and the Saudis could quadruple that number, according to consultant Wood MacKenzie Ltd. That could supplant all the crude burned in the kingdom during its winter months.

[The Larch]

China Cancels 103 Coal Plants, Mindful of Smog and Wasted Capacity

China is canceling plans to build more than 100 coal-fired power plants, seeking to rein in runaway, wasteful investment in the sector while moving the country away from one of the dirtiest forms of electricity generation, the government announced in a directive made public this week.

The announcement, made by China's National Energy Administration, cancels 103 projects that were planned or under construction, eliminating 120 gigawatts of future coal-fired capacity. That includes dozens of projects in 13 provinces, mostly in China's coal-rich north and west, on which construction had already begun. Those projects alone would have had a combined output of 54 gigawatts, more than the entire coal-fired capacity of Germany, according to figures compiled by Greenpeace.

The cancellations make it likelier that China will meet its goal of limiting its total coal-fired power generation capacity to 1,100 gigawatts by 2020. That huge figure, three times the total coal-fired capacity in the United States, is far more than China needs. Its coal plants now run at about half of capacity, and new sources of power, like wind, solar and nuclear, are coming online at a fast clip.

Nevertheless, China's capacity would have surged well past the 1,100-gigawatt mark by 2020 had it not begun canceling coal-fired plants in the works. The new announcements are in addition to cancellations detailed last year.

"The key thing is that yes, China has a long way to go, but in the past few years China has come a very long way," said Lauri Myllyvirta, a researcher for Greenpeace in Beijing.

Electricity generated from coal is the biggest source of the greenhouse gases that lead to global warming, and pollution from such plants contributes to the miasma of smog that has blanketed much of China this winter. But despite the vast amount of capacity added in recent years, China's coal use has been on the decline since 2013.

Still, China's state-owned power companies remain politically powerful. Grid operators often favor power generated from coal plants over that made by wind and solar, and despite the cuts, China is still building far more capacity than it needs.

In contrast, utilities in the United States have only four coal-fired plants set to go online through 2020, with a combined capacity of less than 1 gigawatt, according to the Energy Information Administration. The United States retired more than 13 gigawatts of coal capacity in 2015 as the country shifted toward natural gas, wind and solar.

Despite the government announcement, it is far from clear that the Chinese jurisdictions most affected by the directive, including Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Xinjiang, will actually take the politically costly move of halting construction, laying off workers and canceling contracts, said Lin Boqiang, director of the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy at Xiamen University in southeastern China.

"Some projects might have been ongoing for 10 years, and now there's an order to stop them," he said by telephone. "It's difficult to persuade the local governments to give up on them."

But Mr. Lin and Mr. Myllyvirta said one factor that made the directive likelier to succeed was its specificity. It names each project set for cancellation, putting provincial and other local officials on the spot and making it harder to continue the projects.

[Valmy]

As I said last year, the tipping point has been reached.

In a few decades most energy in the world will be renewable.

Though the climate change people keep banging the 'OMG WE ARE ALL DOOMED RIGHT NOW' drum so maybe it will not be able to stop our imminent doom. But hey it takes time to re-engineer and recreate what took over 100 years to build.

[jimmy olsen]

Woah...if this us true than Musk might be remembered more for solarthan anything else.

https://electrek.co/2016/11/17/tesla-solar-roof-cost-less-than-regular-roof-even-before-energy-production-elon-musk/

Tesla's solar roof to cost less than a regular roof – even before energy production, says Elon Musk
Fred Lambert - Nov. 17th 2016 4:59 pm ET

Elon Musk made quite the announcement today. During the special shareholders meeting to approve the merger with SolarCity, which they approved by 85%, he said that he was coming back from a meeting with the SolarCity engineering team about the solar roof and that he now feels confident that they could deliver the product at a lower cost than a regular roof – even before energy production.

That's different from what the company was claiming before the meeting today.


And it's an incredibly bold claim since if it turns out to be true, no homeowner would have any reason not to choose a solar roof when buying a new roof.

Since unveiling the new products a few weeks ago, Musk and Tesla officials have been referring to the solar roof's price as "less than the price of a regular roof when accounting for energy generation" – meaning that it will cost less than a regular roof when you account for your savings on your electricity bills.

It made sense. Solar energy is already competitive in several markets and while the price of the solar roof could be more expensive than a regular roof as an upfront investment, those electricity savings would quickly add up and made the product competitive with normal roofing solutions.

But now claiming that it would cost even less than a regular roof upfront is a completely different game.

Musk said during the meeting earlier this afternoon:

"It's looking quite promising that a solar roof actually cost less than normal roof before you even take the value of electricity into account. So the basic proposition would be 'Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, last twice as long, cost less and by the way generates electricity' why would you get anything else."

That's including the labor costs and without subsidies for solar, Musk added.

The CEO claimed that it is achievable because the current roofing supply chain is "incredibly inefficient" – emphasizing that no one looked at the roofing supply chain for a while. He also echoed some comments made recently by Tesla CTO JB Straubel about the cost of products being linked to their weight when produced in volume.

He said that the glass developed by Tesla for the solar roof tiles weigh "a third, a quarter and sometimes even a fifth" of other current concrete and ceramic roof solutions. Musk calculated that because of the weight and fragility of the current products, logistic costs and breakage are important parts of the total cost.

Musk added that there are "huge gains" to be made by "cleaning up" that supply chain. While it remains to be proven, it has the potential to significantly accelerate the deployment of solar capacity by opening the market to homes that need to have a new roof, which is 5 million homes every year in the US alone.

The end price to the customer will obviously vary depending on the price of the house and the difficulty of the installation.

Tesla expects to start producing the solar roof in volume starting next year. The company unveiled 4 different versions of the product and it plans to release them one or two at a time starting in 2017.

[Liep]

That's pretty remarkable. How efficient are those tiles compared to regular solar panels?

[viper37]

He said that the glass developed by Tesla for the solar roof tiles weigh "a third, a quarter and sometimes even a fifth" of other current concrete and ceramic roof solutions. Musk calculated that because of the weight and fragility of the current products, logistic costs and breakage are important parts of the total cost.

I want to see how it does against conventional asphalt roofing products.  Ceramic and concrete aren't always a viable option in northern climates.

[grumbler]

He said that the glass developed by Tesla for the solar roof tiles weigh "a third, a quarter and sometimes even a fifth" of other current concrete and ceramic roof solutions. Musk calculated that because of the weight and fragility of the current products, logistic costs and breakage are important parts of the total cost.

I want to see how it does against conventional asphalt roofing products.  Ceramic and concrete aren't always a viable option in northern climates.

Ceramic and concrete are also 5 to 20 times as expensive as asphalt shingles.  https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/19/no-teslas-solar-roof-will-not-cost-the-same-as-a-t.aspx

[jimmy olsen]

FPL is constructing a further 600MW of Solar Power in the next two years.

http://www.elp.com/articles/2017/02/fpl-accelerates-solar-power-development-projects.html

Florida Power & Light Co., the largest generator of solar energy in Florida, today announced the expansion of its near-term plans for new universal solar generation.

FPL now plans to build new universal solar power plants at eight locations by early 2018 — comprising more than 2.5 million solar panels.

"We have been working hard to drive down the costs of adding solar so we can deliver even more zero-emissions energy to all of our customers. As the first company to build solar power generation cost effectively in Florida, we are proud to continue leading the advancement of affordable clean energy infrastructure. We have proven that it's possible to cut emissions and deliver reliable service while keeping electric bills low for our customers," said Eric Silagy, FPL president and CEO, during a celebration at the FPL Manatee Solar Energy Center, one of the company's three most recently completed solar power plants.

FPL consistently ranks as one of the cleanest, most reliable energy providers in the nation, and the price that FPL's typical 1,000-kWh residential customer pays for electricity continues to be less than it was more than 10 years ago and well below the latest national average. Furthering this trend, the new solar energy centers FPL plans to build are projected to be cost-effective over their operational lifetime, producing millions of dollars in long-term net savings for FPL customers.

Each of the eight new solar plants will be 74.5 megawatts in capacity for a total of nearly 600 megawatts, which is enough to power approximately 120,000 homes. The plants will be located at sites across Florida, including three previously announced locations in Alachua, Putnam and DeSoto counties. The locations of all of the new sites will be announced in the coming weeks.

Construction is expected to commence this spring. During peak construction, an estimated 200 to 250 people will be working at each site.

FPL announced its accelerated solar plans at a community event held today with hundreds of students and leaders from across the state who gathered to celebrate the company's latest completed solar power plants – FPL Manatee Solar Energy Center, FPL Citrus Solar Energy Center and FPL Babcock Ranch Solar Energy Center, all of which began powering FPL customers on Dec. 31, 2016.

"A year ago, I stood here as FPL broke ground on this solar site, marking the start of the installation of one million solar panels that are now producing zero-emissions energy," said Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon Florida, at the celebration today. "An additional eight new solar energy centers is a major step toward reducing carbon emissions and saving water, benefitting the earth and all Floridians."

Building on FPL's long-standing commitment to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education, the celebration event also included a solar-powered competition co-sponsored by the Florida Solar Energy Center. Nearly 50 teams of students in grades 4 through 12 from schools across the state participated in the competition, building solar ovens, solar race cars and other innovative projects.

FPL's approach to investing in affordable clean energy infrastructure since 2001, which includes adding advanced technologies and phasing out older coal-fired and oil-burning power plants, has saved FPL customers more than $8.6 billion in fossil fuel costs and prevented 108 million tons of carbon emissions.

Today, FPL is cleaner than the carbon emissions goal set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan for Florida to meet by 2030, while the company's typical residential customer bills are among the lowest in the nation.

FPL currently operates more than 335 megawatts of solar generating capacity, enough to power 60,000 homes. Major installations include:

·      FPL DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center, DeSoto County
·      FPL Space Coast Next Generation Solar Energy Center, Brevard County
·      FPL Martin Clean Energy Center (hybrid solar/natural gas), Martin County
·      FPL Solar Circuit at Daytona International Speedway, Volusia County
·      Solar research installation at Florida International University, Miami-Dade County
·      FPL SolarNow array at the Broward Young At Art Museum & Library, Broward County
·      FPL SolarNow array at the Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society, Palm Beach County
·      FPL SolarNow array at the Palmetto Estuary Nature Preserve, Manatee County
·      FPL Babcock Ranch Solar Energy Center, Charlotte County
·      FPL Citrus Solar Energy Center, DeSoto County
·      FPL Manatee Solar Energy Center, Manatee County

[Monoriu]

Hong Kong government has announced that we plan to have renewable energy form 3-4% of our electricity fuel mix by 2030. 

[jimmy olsen]

Holy Moley!

Click the link to look at some nice graphs.
http://www.desertsun.com/story/tech/science/energy/2017/02/20/california-senate-leaders-new-bill-100-clean-energy/98157028/

California Senate leader's new bill: 100% clean energy
Sammy Roth  , The Desert Sun 5:33 p.m. PT Feb. 20, 2017

Kevin de León has promised to lead the resistance to President Trump. A new bill could make good on that promise.

The California Senate leader has introduced legislation that would require the Golden State to get 100 percent of its electricity from climate-friendly energy sources by 2045. That's a big step up from the state's current renewable energy mandate, 50 percent by 2030 — a target that's only been on the books for a year and a half, and that California is still a long way from meeting.

Under Gov. Jerry Brown, California has become a world leader in efforts to limit global warming, which is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. De León's 100 percent clean energy proposal would up the ante considerably — and fly in the face of Donald Trump's agenda. The president has repeatedly called human-caused global warming a "hoax," despite overwhelming scientific evidence that it's real and dangerous, and has pledged to boost America's production of climate-polluting coal, oil and natural gas, which he says will create millions of high-paying jobs.

De León's bill would require California to hit 50 percent renewable energy by 2025, five years sooner than under current law, and phase out fossil fuels entirely by 2045. It's not yet clear whether the Senate leader will move forward the proposal, which he introduced before the state's bill-filing deadline on Friday, almost certainly to serve as a placeholder for more detailed legislation that could be fleshed out later.

Still, clean energy advocates celebrated the proposal. De León's legislation reflects the Golden State's "moral imperative" to slash climate pollution, said Jim Woodruff, president of the Large-scale Solar Association, a Sacramento trade group that has worked with de León on the bill.

"Whether it's a direct response to what's happening in Washington, I don't know, but it's certainly an indication that California will continue to lead in this area," said Woodruff, who is also an executive at First Solar, which has built several large solar farms in the desert Southwest. "It's the sixth-largest economy in the world. I think by putting these goals out, it's making a pretty powerful statement, not only in the U.S., but globally, that if we set out the goals and put the resources to it, those goals can be achieved."

So far only one U.S. state, Hawaii, has a law requiring 100 percent renewable energy, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Hawaii has also set a deadline of 2045.

A spokesperson for de León declined to make the senator available for an interview. But the Los Angeles Democrat has worked closely with Brown to pass other landmark climate bills, writing the 2015 law that established the 50 percent clean energy mandate. And he's made it clear he's eager to push back against the Trump administration on immigration, energy and other issues.

"California was not a part of this nation when its history began, but we are clearly now the keeper of its future," de León and state Assembly leader Anthony Rendon said in a joint statement the day after Trump's election in November.

Experts say Trump's energy plan is unrealistic, and not just because it ignores the need to reduce emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases. Trump and congressional Republicans have said they will revive the shrinking coal industry by repealing former President Barack Obama's environmental regulations, but the reality is that market forces — especially the rise of cheap natural gas, made available by the drilling technique known as fracking — have been a major cause of coal's decline. Unless Trump can limit natural gas production, coal will continue to hurt, experts say.

Meanwhile, California's plans to scale up renewable energy look increasingly realistic. The Golden State got 27 percent of its electricity from solar, wind and other clean sources in 2016, according to the California Energy Commission. The state's sprawling deserts have been an epicenter of renewable energy growth, with several huge solar farms opening in eastern Riverside County, near the Coachella Valley. The solar industry has become an economic force here, creating 100,000 jobs in California and 260,000 jobs nationally by late 2016, according to an industry-backed nonprofit.

Energy jobs by sector: Solar beating coal, gas
The solar industry ranks second in total employment among energy industries, according to a January 2017 report from the federal Department of Energy. (Note: For the purposes of its report, the Department of Energy defined workers in each of these industries as people who spend "some portion" of their time supporting that industry. That's why its employment figure for solar, 373,807, is higher than the Solar Foundation's jobs number of 260,077. The Solar Foundation only counts workers who spend at least 50 percent of their time on solar-related work.)

Getting to 100 percent renewable energy may not be simple, but experts say it can be done without significant increases to electricity rates, a concern often raised by fossil fuel supporters.

"Technically and economically, it's pretty straightforward," said Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University engineering professor who has studied the costs and benefits of phasing out fossil fuels.

The falling costs of wind and solar power are the main reason for that. Last year, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin found that wind turbines and big solar farms are already the cheapest sources of new electricity generation across much of the country — and they're still getting cheaper. In California, solar is the least expensive option for much of the state.

"The prices for renewables have come down farther and faster than anyone thought was possible," said Sonia Aggarwal, vice president of Energy Innovation, a San Francisco-based policy research group that supports clean energy development.

Increased reliance on solar and wind farms is expected to create new challenges for California, since they only generate electricity when the sun shines or the wind blows. That's already becoming a problem during the middle of the day, when solar farms sometimes generate more electricity than people can use, and in the evening, when solar farms go offline just as people get home from work.

But experts who have studied the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy say California already has most of the tools it needs to solve those problems.

Those tools could include smarter energy management, such as encouraging homes and businesses to shift their electricity use to times of day when solar panels and wind turbines are active. Some of those shifts could be automated. For instance, Aggarwal said California's 3.5 million commercial and multi-family buildings could install pre-heating and pre-cooling technology, which could be programmed to power up when electricity from solar or wind farms floods the grid. Energy prices that vary throughout the day could encourage those buildings to use electricity when the time is right.

"We like to say there are already 3.5 million batteries installed in California," Aggarwal said.

Renewable energy is booming
The United States generated 13 percent of its electricity from renewable sources in 2015, up from 8 percent in 2001, according to the Energy Information Administration. Those numbers include conventional hydroelectric power. Here's a breakdown showing how generation from four key renewable energy sources — wind, utility-scale solar, geothermal and biomass — has grown over the last 15 years. (Note: This data doesn't include electricity from rooftop solar panels, which the Energy Information Administration only started tracking recently.)

Other tools for getting to 100 percent could include new twists on old technologies, like hydropower plants that are operated so as to complement wind and solar generation, and solar plants that use molten salt or other fluids to store energy for use when the sun goes down. (One such facility, the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes solar tower, is already operating in Nevada.) California could also incentivize the development of more geothermal plants in the Imperial Valley, which are expensive to build but can generate climate-friendly electricity 24 hours a day.

Then there's Gov. Brown's controversial plan to link California's electric grid with other western states, which could make it easier for utilities here to import cheap wind energy from Wyoming and New Mexico. The plan has divided environmentalists, with supporters saying it's needed to help the state meet its renewable energy goals and detractors saying it might backfire, allowing politically conservative states like Utah and Wyoming to export their coal power to California. Whether or not Brown's grid plan comes to fruition, California is likely to get a big influx of wind from Wyoming.

It's unclear how big a role batteries will play in storing solar and wind power for later use, both for homes and for utilities. Right now batteries are still too expensive for widespread use, and experts say California can get to 100 percent without major battery breakthroughs. But if batteries follow the solar industry's cost curve, they could make the transition to clean energy even cheaper.

Jacobson, the Stanford professor, has organized some of his research into the Solutions Project, which provides a state-by-state road map for abandoning fossil fuels and outlines the costs and benefits to each state. For California, he found that transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy would actually lower the cost of electricity, saving the average Californian $161 per year by 2050.

If the cost savings from reducing climate change and hazardous air pollution — most importantly lower healthcare costs — are also taken into account, California would save an average of $7,395 per person by 2050, Jacobson found. About 12,500 fewer people would die each year as a result of air pollution.

"It's a no-brainer," Jacobson said.

[Admiral Yi]

These bills that set goals for the year 2525 are PR stunts.

[jimmy olsen]

These bills that set goals for the year 2525 are PR stunts.

California is currently at 27%. They want to get to 50% by 2025. That's well within reach given that Solar and Wind are already the cheapest options in California.