Site C

[hobbyguy]

MJ - go to page 55 and tell me what you see. http://www.brattle.com/system/publications/pdfs/000/005/348/original/Retail_Costing_and_Pricing_of_Electricity.pdf?1471279927

Do you understand the implications of what it shows there??

[Smurf]

maryjane48 wrote:

it is a flawed study as theres no mention of people supplng their own power . . it is a model based on letting the energy robber barrons to keep on fleecing everyone. tsktsk. facts are wont be long till folks can go buy a unit . plug it in. make their own power .

I'm going to throw your on words back at you. you can just take out the bclib supporters and replace it with ndp/green supporters.

maryjane48 wrote:

your not a expert on electrical generation as is any of your gang of bclib supporters . you are in no position to even comment short of talking points .

Since you want to set a standard, please tell us what qualifications you have to even comment.

[butcher99]

This is what technology does. Solar continues to fall in price. Now noticeable less than Site C. This is without investment tax credit incentives.
From the story.
"wrote that, compared to the first quarter in 2016, the first quarter in 2017 saw a 29-percent decline in installed cost for utility-scale solar, which was attributed to lower photovoltaic module and inverter prices, better panel efficiency, and reduced labor costs"

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09 ... y-3-years/

[butcher99]

I'm going to throw your on words back at you. you can just take out the bclib supporters and replace it with ndp/green supporters.

Not really. I will admit when the NDP makes a mistake. For instance, taking the toll completely off the bridges before they address the extra tax the Liberals kept adding to our healthcare fees.
Not stopping site C while the needed investigation into it proceeds.

[hobbyguy]

butcher - you don't get it. Solar and wind don't work for grids if you want affordable and reliable electricity. The incremental costs of PVs are completely irrelevant. That has virtually zero effect on the end user cost.

http://www.brattle.com/system/publications/pdfs/000/005/348/original/Retail_Costing_and_Pricing_of_Electricity.pdf?1471279927

Go to page 55 and tell me what you see. That's what is actually driving up total electricity costs in California.

Do you understand the destructive ramifications of solar in particular?

One of them is from page 53 of that report:

"Customers who don’t (or can’t) make these investments, particularly low
income customers, subsidize those who do"

California, with all its solar and wind, has super high electricity costs, and they are getting worse. California has the by far the highest rates of energy poverty in the western US.

Why on earth would you want to condemn the people of BC to such nonsense??

[erinmore3775]

I often wonder if some contributors actually read the entire article they post or do they only read the headline?

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/solar-now-costs-6-per-kilowatt-hour-beating-government-goal-by-3-years/

If you read beyond the headline and examine the referenced material within the article you will see that benchmarks for utility grade installations hover between $1.03 and $1.11 (100MW) US dollars.
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/68580.pdf (see pages 8 & 9 of PDF)

These figures compare very favourably to the cost figures I previously cited from the US and Germany and the figures cited below.

https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/25/cost-of-solar-power-vs-cost-of-wind-power-coal-nuclear-natural-gas/

This December CleanTechnica article compares in US dollars the cost of SWEG production to all other forms of electrical energy production except hydroelectric. The article bases its comparisons on Lizard’s Levelized Cost of Energy, Version 10.0. This analysis indicates the median cost of community solar is $106 US ($130 CDN)MWh. without subsidies for the BEST American geographic locations... The projected cost of solar production outlined in the 2014 Sustainable Energy Association paper was a median of $90 CDN based on Lazard calculations. That is a 17% increase over the 2014 cost.

What I want to point out is that accurate cost projections are hard to make. It is interesting to note that from the 2014 paper “BCSEA recognizes that BC Hydro has demonstrated a need for more electrical power over the next twenty years. We recognize that Site C would be able to meet this need effectively and without significantly increasing BC’s greenhouse gas emissions. We also recognize that Site C offers a valuable power product, with dispatchable capacity to meet peak loads, to firm up intermittent sources of generation, and to profit from trading opportunities.” What they questioned was the cost. However, if you use the current Lazard solar cost figures, there is no cost advantage to replacing the 1,100MW of Site C power with solar.

BCSEA has highlighted the importance of dispatchable capacity. “BCSEA accepts that BC Hydro will need to procure additional capacity resources by some time around 2020, with or without the addition of liquefied natural gas loads to BC Hydro’s system…Site C would help to address the upcoming need for additional capacity. It offers 1,100 MW of a superior power product, with a large amount of reliable and dispatchable capacity, which can be used to meet peak system demands, to firm up intermittent sources of generation, and to profit from trading opportunities. The location of Site C downstream from the Williston Reservoir means that Site C would benefit from BC Hydro’s carefully optimized release of water from that reservoir, and would be operated in a coordinated manner with the other two generating facilities on the Peace River, the G.M. Shrum Generating Station and the Peace Canyon Project.” While BCSEA indicates that Demand Side Management (Energy Conservation programs like Power Smart) could meet part of this demand, they are not dispatchable.

http://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/opinion-bcuc-must-consider-dispatchability-in-site-c-review

Mark Jaccard points out that “In its rush review of B.C. Hydro’s Site C project, the B.C. Utilities Commission must address the widespread assumption that the dam’s economic value has declined relative to its renewable competitors, especially wind and solar. As I frequently hear and read, “the falling cost of wind and solar is eroding the economic justification for Site C.”
This sounds logical. But it isn’t. To see why, I must explain a key term from the worlds of emergency services and electricity system operations — “dispatchability.”

"Renewable electricity generated by wind or solar or run-of-river hydro (no reservoir) is non-dispatchable. It is produced only when there is wind or sunshine or high runoff in the spring. On a winter afternoon, when Hydro’s electricity demand peaks, these non-dispatchable sources may produce nothing.” Dispatchable generation sources have been referred to on this forum as synchronous and non-dispatachable sources as non-synchronous. Jaccard also points out “…there are options other than large hydro for managing the unreliability of non-dispatchable renewables. For example, we can store energy in batteries, including the batteries of electric cars connected to the grid, or we can provide preferential rates for customers willing to cut their demand at critical times. So far, however, these options cost a lot more than a large hydro reservoir.”

What it boils down to is ideology and politics. BCSEA acknowledges the need for the power necessary from a project like Site C. They suggest that SWEG may be an alternative. Yet when the lifespan replacement costs of SWEG are added to the "cost" of integration of SWEG with the current grid, Site C comes out on top. BCSEA acknowledges that SWEG is non-dispatchable (non-synchronous) power that needs a dispatchable (synchronous) backbone to operate seamlessly and reliably. No matter what some contributors say, the cost of SWEG are currently more than the costs of Site C based on recently published and verifiable research. Therefore, it seems to me, that with the money spent already on Site C, the alternate cost of mothballing the project or replacing it with SWEG, the only logical choice is to proceed with the completion of the project.

[hobbyguy]

Fundamentally, intermittent and non synchronous in a grid context are "junk" power.

Rooftop solar:

Essentially it boils down to this, if you want to go "off grid", do it! But please don't expect everyone else to help you pay for doing so.

The only people who can actually make use of rooftop solar:

1. Firstly, single family home owners.
2. Secondly, single family home owners that can afford $20,000 plus to have a proper system installed

So what does that mean? http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/housing-characteristics-fact-sheet.pdf

62% of homes in Vancouver are apartments
Only 15% of homes in Vancouver are single family detached houses.
Of that 15% that are single family homes, a portion are rented homes, and many homes have secondary suites not included in the apartment total.

So maybe 12% of Vancouver homes can really take advantage of rooftop solar. Now you have to figure that a fair number of those homes don't have the right orientations or big mortgages that mean the owners don't have extra cash to buy a solar system.

So reality is that only the the top 5-10% of Vancouver residents by wealth can take advantage of solar rooftop - if they want to.

Every time a solar rooftop system gets hooked into the system, it costs BC Hydro money - on an ongoing basis. That pushes up rates for everyone.

So everyone else in Vancouver pays extra so the wealthiest 5-10% can reduce their hydro bills with rooftop solar. That's a wealth transfer from the bottom and middle to the top. That wealthiest top 5-10% can avoid doing that by paying extra for a couple of Tesla powerwalls, and a back up generator. Probably push their cost up to $35,000? Fine if they want to do that - completely disconnect from the grid.

What isn't fine is the rest of us paying extra so that the wealthiest can avoid hydro bills!

Rooftop solar, where widely adopted due to soaring electricity prices, is hitting the wall in some placeshttp://reneweconomy.com.au/utilities-move-to-kick-rooftop-solar-off-the-grid-15250/

Arizona and other states are chopping the net metering rate for rooftop solar AND imposing transmission charges on what excess is allowed to sold.

So the big subsidies for rooftop solar are going away slowly, and when the subsidies disappear, installations plummet - because on their own, solar rooftop only makes sense for grid customers if the grid rates are very high - or the rest of us pay out for subsidies.

Commercial scale solar:

Commercial scale solar only produces at capacity in good weather, in the right seasons, and during daylight hours. That creates a "hole" in the electricity markets for other producers every day.

It also means that commercial scale solar is unable to supply electricity for peak evening demands, as solar ramps down to nothing during the evening just as demand is ramping up.

That mean that for the peak demand you have to turn either to other sources, or provide massive amounts of storage.

So what?

Firstly, if you go storage, that storage is costly to build, and costly to maintain. That storage also comes with efficiency losses. The most cost effective mass storage is pumped hydro - and it is only 80% efficient. Battery storage on the necessary scale is hugely expensive to build and very costly to maintain, and even less efficient. (Anybody ever had a battery that lasts forever??) If you are going to go pumped hydro (the most effective route) with its dam and reservoirs - and you have option of hydro electric facilities, why bother with all that nonsense in the first place? No matter how you slice it, the storage option is going to cost big money and add capital, financing, transmission, and operating costs.

Secondly, if you decide to go with other sources - best is a natural gas turbine generation facility - to ramp up peak demand supply, commercial scale solar has destroyed the base economics of that facility.

If you invest, say $200 million in a natural gas electricity plant, you will have a lot of fixed cost. In order to ensure that you can meet spikes and peaks in demand, you will need to staff it 24/7. The least efficient part of your generation cycle will be starting it up, and it costs money to shut it down as well.

Ideally NG plant want to sell as much electricity as you can to offset those costs. Now because of commercial solar, you are shut out of 1/2 to 2/3 of the market every day. That means you are going to have to get your ROI from about 40% of your potential. The only way you can achieve that is to up the price for the electricity you do get to sell. 100/40 = 2.5... so now that means instead of say $60/MWh, you need to charge $150/MWh. (That's assuming you don't have the double whammy of wind power to complicate things, what if the wind happens to be blowing during your short window of peak demand sales? It will further diminish your available market share. That has a big further effect. If that wind blowing chops your potential to 30% of the market, then the number is 100/30 = 3.333 x $60 = $200/MWh).

That gets further exacerbated seasonal factors. http://www.brattle.com/system/publications/pdfs/000/005/348/original/Retail_Costing_and_Pricing_of_Electricity.pdf?1471279927 see page 34 for California seasonal variation.

So what happens with commercial solar is that it can not supply peak demand, and also ruins the basic economics of other sources (just as wind does).

So when you need that alternative source to cover the inability of solar (and wind) to meet peak demand - the alternative source becomes hugely expensive. That's why Costa Rica sees very reasonable and affordable electricity prices during the day, but a nasty $.36/kWh during peak evening hours.

This is an interesting calculation that puts the real world economics into perspective: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/01/a-solar-power-plant-vs-a-natural-gas-power-plant-capital-cost-apples-to-apples/

Wind power is somewhat less problematic, because sometimes the wind blows during peak demand periods - but certainly not reliably, nor predictably. It has the same economically destructive effects that drive up grid costs and cause all sorts of problems - and needs the same two potential solutions of either costly storage or high costs for alternate sources.

In the end, a predictable, renewable and reliable source like site C is far, far and away superior to wind and solar in a grid context.

[butcher99]

*removed*

[Merry]

Is there any evidence to show that wind and solar can provide enough energy to meet peak power needs? Because we sure don't want the rolling brownouts that California and other places have experienced.

And if BC were to subsidize wind and solar to the point where we had enough to replace Site C, would we end up with the same unaffordable high Hydro costs they're currently experiencing in Ontario? Because the size of their Hydro Bills is scary.

Rich folk can afford to pay through the nose for their Hydro; but the rest of us can't.

[butcher99]

Is there any evidence to show that wind and solar can provide enough energy to meet peak power needs? Because we sure don't want the rolling brownouts that California and other places have experienced.

And if BC were to subsidize wind and solar to the point where we had enough to replace Site C, would we end up with the same unaffordable high Hydro costs they're currently experiencing in Ontario? Because the size of their Hydro Bills is scary.

Rich folk can afford to pay through the nose for their Hydro; but the rest of us can't.

Wind and solar continue to drop in price as they get more efficient and improve technologically.
Site C now costs more than either. You want to pay more? Site C is your baby. Life expectancy of 70 years and 70 years to pay it off.
There is lots of evidence to show wind and solar can provide all the power we need.

Ontario has such high power bills because they did the same as the Liberals did here. Pay too much for power from for profit outfits. Ontarios low rate is comparable to our rates. They have dual rates where you pay more for power used in peak times. Probably a better system than what we have if you want to save power.

Current rates in Ontario are 6.5c kwh, low time 9.5c mid and 13.2 c per kwh high times.
Compare to Fortis at 10.11 for the first tier then 15.6 for the second
BC Hydro 8.58 and 12.87.
Suddenly Ontarios hydro does not look all that bad. You want a lower power bill in Ontario you just turn down the electric heat during the high times or don't use the dish washer. Run it later.
BTW, Ontario just lowered its rates. BC is set to raise the rates substantially. And then again to pay for site C.

[Urban Cowboy]

There is lots of evidence to show wind and solar can provide all the power we need.

There's also lots of evidence that wind and solar are completely unreliable during peak load times, but you tend to ignore that little tidbit, just as all of you on the windy/solar bandwagon ignore our location, and the poor results solar gives here compared to California.

You're also complaining about a dam lasting 70yrs (actually they last a lot longer than that) yet say nothing of the massive amount of maintenance solar requires due to the complexity, nor the fact that those precious solar panels will be pretty much junk in just 20 years.

[The Green Barbarian]

Site C now costs more than either. .

This just isn't true. And will never ever be true.

[butcher99]

*removed*

[Urban Cowboy]

*removed*

[LordEd]

https://www.bchydro.com/news/press_cent ... ite-c.html

For a long-term public asset like Site C that will last more than 100 years, the 70-year economic life reflects the weighted average depreciation term of the asset. Asset depreciation periods are based on standard accounting practice and the methodology is applied to other large hydro projects and approved by the BCUC. This amortization period also means that the costs for Site C are paid for by the ratepayers who are benefiting from the project.