Dimitar's Comments

As prefersolar in comment #64 noted:

Solar is cheaper than nuclear and is PV keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.

Why keep arguing? Economically solar will throw out of the market all base load power plants including nuclear.

With PV cheaper than nuclear soon during the day 100% of the load will come from PV. And than nuclear plants will have to close because they wont make any profit.

Q. E. D.

Focus on economical arguments not safety, proliferation, etc.

DrAlexC

Imagine Italy having 75 GWp (with 7+GWp installed in 2011, this can easily be true by year 2020-2025).

I'm looking for a site like this one:

http://www.transparency.eex.com/en

about Italy but cant find.

75 GWp means that at noon Italy can get 100% of it electricity from PV alone. And keeping in mind that the installation cost of PV keeps falling - What would the base load plants do than?

Let me repeat - base load plants - any kind - do not have future. They are obsolete. As we install more and more wind, photovoltaics and other renewables this is what is going to happen in Western EU:

First (5-10 years) Wind + Solar will become more than the load. Which means that there will be increasingly more days when it is so sunny and windy that 75%+ of the load will come from renewables. The prove of that is this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/utilities-giving-away-power-as-wind-sun-flood-european-grid.html

Next step (10-20 years, sunnier countries Italy, Spain, Greece, France - first) is only photovoltaics to become more than the load. This means that in the more sunny days at noon some parts of EU will be 100% renewable.

This will happen without subsidies just following buisness-as-usual installation cost decrementation.

In tha light of this - we dont need any base load. Scratch that - all base load will close because they will not be able to sell their electricity.

Nuclear power owners do not have a winning move - they wont be able to sell as low as renewables and if they do they will have to increase the price of electricity for the times when there are no wind or solar but this means that even more Grid Energy Storage will be installed and at the end nuclear plants wont be able to sell anything.

The main issue with base load plants is that they are obsolete. We do not need them anymore.

Soon (5-10 (maximum 15) years) Italy and France will have more solar than the load. Than during noobn they will be 100%+ solar. What will the nuclear plants do than? They will wither have to sell at loss or close and soon shut down.

http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/ElectricPower/8452007

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/04/02/april-1st-in-germany-happy-birthday-renewable-energy-sources-act/

@Anonimous #2

In fact the cheapest option for the people in question is Renewables.

Just for the sake of the argument imagine building coal or nuclear or gas plant in Chad, Niger, Mali or Burkina Faso(over 55 million people combined). Questions as this arise:

Who will work in those plants?
How will you build them?
Who will build them?
Do you have infrastructure to transport the fuel?
What are the security issues of transporting the fuel?
Do you have the infrastructure to transport the electricity to the people?
Who will build the infrastructure if it is not present?
How will you secure it?
etc etc etc

You get the point.

Believe me for these people the decentralized renewables are the ONLY option.

Anonimous #56 writes:


'Mark: Coal plants are being replaced by Natural Gas, not wind and solar.'

Yet EIA own statistics show a very different picture. Here is an analysis from cleantechnica.com :

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/04/02/natural-gas-vs-renewable-energy-growth/

And I quote:

Here are some 2011 stats (again, actually from the EIA's own March 2012 monthly report):

Coal decreased 113,025,000 MWH in 2011 (1,847,290K in 2010 to 1,724,265K in 2011)
Nuclear decreased 16,743,000 MWh in 2011 (806,968K in 2010 to 790,225K in 2011)
Natural gas increased 28,898,000 MWh in 2011 (987,697K in 2010 to 1,016,595K in 2011)
Renewable energy increased 92,791,000 MWh in 2011 (427,276K in 2010 to 520,067K in 2011)

And again, probably:

A significant share of generation from biomass and solar photovoltaic resources occurs in the end-use industrial, residential, and commercial sectors and is not included in the utility-scale electric power data presented here.

@ Anonimous #49

writes 'I see no progress in the last 10 years.'

Well, according to EIA:

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=5750

Non-hydroelectric renewable generation has increased in many states over the past decade

I believe we can call this 'a progress'.

Edit: I forgot to quote this from the EIA link:

A significant share of generation from biomass and solar photovoltaic resources occurs in the end-use industrial, residential, and commercial sectors and is not included in the utility-scale electric power data presented here.

which I think is very important too.

EU is clearly the leader.

@ #11 Anonymous

"Instead of continuing to waste billions on clean-tech subsidies, how about we find a solution first?"

Yet you dont find any need to discontinue to waste billions on NON-clean-tech subsidies.

jontynought

"So what has gone wrong with this group of should be thriving green businesses that should be saving the planet?"

Another such group took their place and is thriving green businesses that is saving the planet.

@rolf

Internalize all negative externalities of Coal, Gas and Nuclear energy and their business goes as dark as PV panels at night or when they are covered with dirt or snow.

I think you must be aware of that.

100% renewable-sourced electricity supply aligns with the resent estimations of 100 GWp home installations and another 100 GWp potential in Germany.

Google: Germany: 200 GW PV potential

Steven

I think you are missing a very important point - there is a huge support for closing the nuclear reactors in Germany and a huge support for even more renewables. It's what people want and its what people will vote for even if it costs them more. That's why Merkel changed her mind about nuclear power.

I believe in 5-6 years the FIT will end or will cost soo little like 5 eurocents per kWh that they wont matter at all. And in 15-20 years FITs will end and Germany will have a huge renewable industry and energy independence.

QUOTE: "I think a funding mechanism that forces pensioners in apartments to subsidize PV systems on the roofs of large land owners is deeply flawed."

I believe in time the Germans will find a way to offset their electricity usage by owning renewable installations elsewhere. The more the domestic electricity price goes up the more people invent new ways to be efficient and new ways to install renewables. If they cant put PV on the roof of their apartments they will put it somewhere else.

Maybe I'm too optimistic about this but in medium to long term the FITs contracts will end and PV will cost virtually nothing thanks to the FITs.

Steven
The original article states that the industry is benefiting from the reduced spot prices and thus buys cheaper electricity so here goes the argument that the industry is suffering from the renewables.

Electricity price for households on the other hand is getting more expensive. But this is another stimulus for the people to install even more renewables and go even more efficient. Not to mention that the German people are not against paying more when the "more" comes from renewables.


Germany FITs will get reduced big time in the next 2-3 years so probably their impact on the electricity bill will get lesser. An interesting point is that the FITs are not adjusted for inflation thus in 10 years they will actually cost much less. Which will not be true for fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Here are the calculations on how much the electricity cost from PV depending on the cost per kWp and the yearly kWh produced:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaik#Stromgestehungskosten

Steven

It's not all about quantity. Germany may import energy because it is cheaper than making it domestically.

Also:

Solar PV Reducing Price of Electricity in Germany

a recent study by Germany's Institute for Future Energy Systems (IZES), conducted on behalf of of the German Solar Industry Association (BSW-Solar), has found that, on average, solar power has reduced the price of electricity 10% in Germany (on the EPEX exchange). It reduces prices up to 40% in the early afternoon, when electricity demand is peaking and electricity typically costs the most.

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/09/solar-pv-reducing-price-of-electricity-in-germany/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IM-cleantechnica+%28CleanTechnica%29