I have started this post in the hope readers can dig up more information about the history, projected cost vs final cost – claimed performance at announcement vs actual performance (if you can ever find out) – for various solar electricity generating projects. Overseas examples are welcome too.
I was prompted by Canberra GreenLabor Govt announcements in last few days of two projects that will consume $Bn’s of poor old taxpayer $’s, one at Moree in NSW and the other at Chinchilla in Queensland.
Then there is Mildura – which has been planned for some years – is it coming closer ? The owners – Silex do not seem to be enjoying a rush of investors.
This Wikipedia page has a summary of Australian solar electricity projects – planned and completed – so there are some starting points for investigators.
Remember too the White Cliffs project – closed now I assume – but what did that cost over the years – for how much useful electricity ?
I expect – that like windmills – these solar schemes will all be shamelessly hyped to sell them to Govts – I expect cost over-runs and that later performance reality will not be as it was hyped – but as usual with any of these subsidised boondoggles – it will not be easy to discover hard facts.
Tony – some quotes for you.
Thus far, the US DOE, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the wind industry and other wind advocates have shown little interest in providing citizens, consumers and taxpayers with complete, objective information on true costs – possibly because such information would call into question many of their promotional activities.
The wind turbine is not cost effective over the 20 year working life of the turbine if the electricity tariff is 12c/kWh. The turbine has IRR of zero when the electricity tariff is 18.35c/kWh. This assumes annual maintenance costs of $100 and no insurance cost.
The solar PV option needs replacement of the inverters each 10 years at a cost of $1000, and tariff of 12c for the first decade and 17 c there after. Without the commonwealth subsidy it takes 63 years to pay back the initial outlay, with a depreciation rate of zero.
It seems that wind turbines are expected (hoped?) to last 20 years. The last 2 quotes are for a proposed small installation in Newcastle.
There is a lot of garbage on the net about wind “forcing down” the price of electricity. It seems that some people don’t (or won’t) understand that spot prices are the best you can get. With wind, they have to get money in when the wind blows, at the prevailing price.
The simplest answer is to tell these people that if wind power is so cheap, then there is no need for subsidies or carbon taxes.
Graeme thanks for those comments
I made a comment on CA climateaudit.org/2011/06/30/nature-on-renewables-and-natural-therapies/ referring to Tony’s post about Sen Milne’s proposal to cancel coal and turn to renewables but was knocked back on this basis
here’s a copy of my comment and reply (snip)
Warwick Hughes has had a post about renewables here:
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=1061
and here’s a copy of a comment linking one of my Aust favourite renewables experts:
TonyfromOz has another of his renewables posts here:
papundits.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/senator-christine-milnes-transition-to-renewables-at-what-cost/
(a couple of extracts)
In a media release yesterday, shown at this link, Senator Milne says that Australia needs to transition to 100% Renewables, and to do this as quickly as possible.
….
snip -politics
Sorry Tony and Graeme you deserve more exposure but I don’t know how to do it
Warwick- a little out of date (2008) and no actual figures but…
www.ucei.berkeley.edu/PDF/csemwp176.pdf
A number of previous cost-benefit analyses for solar PV have been done, but they have not incorporated adjustment for the favorable timing and location of solar PV production, and many have included hard-to-justify assumptions regarding economic discounting. Unfortunately, after adjusting for these factors, the cost of solar PV remains many times higher than the market valuation of the power it produces. …. the level of such non-market value that would be necessary to make the social cost-benefit analysis favorable. This cost-benefit gap is much greater than plausible estimates of the value of greenhouse gas reduction from solar PV generation.
Confirming your thoughts?
Val,
thanks for all your work on this.
What amazes me is that the media can report on the ‘political’ comments on this when they come from the politicians themselves, but as soon as anyone tries to point it out, it’s snipped because it has ‘political’ content.
Think about this for a minute.
When a new coal fired power plant comes on line, it has a life span of 50 years, and in the case of a lot of large scale plants, they can be relicensed out to 60 and then again to 75 years.
Both of the most recent large scale coal fired plants, Eraring and Bayswater came on line in the early and mid 80’s, so that gives them a licence to operate out to at least 2035, still 24 years out.
Part of that licence is a contract to sell its electricity to the grid. The price, (I imagine) would be negotiated every so often, but it would be a wholesale price, say around 6 cents per KWH.
So, just for the one plant, Bayswater producing 17,500GWH of electricity each year, there is a guaranteed income, with a contract, of $1.05 Billion a year.
If the intent of Bob Brown’s Greens is to shut down coal fired power, then it’s quite obvious those generator operators would be seeking compensation, and the sooner Bob wants to close them, then the greater amount that compensation would be.
The introduction of that CO2 tax also devalues the asset, the plant itself, as now, no one in their right mind would want to actually but a coal fired power plant, so the selling price is also dramatically lowered, again giving the operators cause to seek even further compensation.
Keeping that in mind, can you now see how the imposition of this CO2 tax is a cynical attempt by a government to get their hands on part of what is a guaranteed income.
Can you also see how it is a cynical attempt to use the excuse of lowering CO2 emissions from the plant, when they know full well that there will be a requirement for that existing constant supply of electricity for a long time into the future, because the renewables cannot even hope to dream they could supply that level of power.
So, when I say that no matter how many new renewable power plants are constructed, those existing large scale coal fired plants will be operating for years to come, if not decades to come, long after all this brouhaha has died down, I say that with some confidence.
Consider the case of the U.S. where there has been a huge ramping up of renewable power plant construction over the last three years.
Not one large scale coal fired power plant (1500+MW) has closed down in that time, despite the average age of all coal fired power plants in the US being in the vicinity of 48 to 49 years, the average age.
The funny thing about all the above I have just said, is that it is considered to be political content, hence no one in MSM will publish it.
You can’t even fight these people with facts.
Check out the Post at this link, again, sorry, it’s one of mine.
Coal Fired Misinformation
Tony.
Tony, I see you mentioning Eraring & Bayswater. Mt.Piper on the divide close to Portland NSW of Delta Electricity was planned (for 4 units total 2000MW?) to be completed just after Bayswater but was held back because of demand lower than expected and hook up with other states which could share load. The first two units (by then each of 660MW) were completed in 1993. These have now been upgraded to 700MW each in 2009 so the most efficient in Australia. I note (on Wiki & Sun-Herald) that in 2010 approval was given to add another 2000MW (presumably 2 units of 1000MW each)but this has not yet moved forward. I presume that concern with the carbon (dioxide) tax is holding it back. Barry O’Farrel and Tony Abbot would put the ALP into a hole if they announced backing for an expansion there (2000MW) which probably would not cost more than $400M (expansion always costs less the greenfields because infrastructure already in place). I will let you work out the equivalent cost if it could be achieved with backup (coal seam-gas fired turbines?) of so-called renewables.
Thanks cementafriend,
Greenies out there must read something like this and just fume.
True, there are plans to install 2 new generators at Mt Piper, and also 2 new generators at Bayswater.
There’s talk, (mainly political and mainly green appeasing) to try and make them natural gas fired, in this case cogeneration with heat recovery. However, the cost would be horrendous, mainly because of the construction of huge Natural Gas pipelines to both plants.
The natural option, and the cheaper option is to make them coal fired, mainly because of the on site access to the fuel, in both cases coal mines at the plant themselves.
here we have a case of reverse engineering, something I find difficult to explain, so bear with me.
The thinking is to utilise 2 generators, each producing 1000MW.
Visit the site at this link, Bayswater, and look at just one thing, the weight of the generator, 1342 tons, and producing 660MW, that immense weight rotating at 3000RPM, or 50 times a second.
The new generators, being more recent technology, will probably weigh around the same or even less than this, such has technology improved.
That’s why we have to work backwards here.
To drive that weight at that 3000RPm requires a large 3 stage turbine, also further technologically advanced than the older style ones.
It will have a better and more efficient boiler to make more high pressure steam to drive that turbine.
It will use a hypercritical furnace to make the required heat to make the steam.
The burn mechanism in the furnace is more efficient, there will be a newer technology coal crusher.
See how it all has to work backwards from that immense weight of the generator.
So, enter the greenies.
Ever wondered why they don’t just hook up one of those 1000MW generators to a Concentrating Solar Plant. (Solar Thermal)
It will never even begin to move.
They cannot make enough steam to move the turbine needed to drive that generator.
The very best they can manage is a 250MW generator, and all they can get out of that is 150MW at best, and if they divert the salts, then 50MW for a maximum 18 hours.
They actually think that theoretically, they might be able to achieve perhaps 500MW in another five to seven years, and then the plan is to jury rig two 250MW units, because the theory is not in on how to generate the steam required f to move that weight, even as generator technology improves.
So that brings us back to proposals for 2 new generators onsite at Mt Piper, and 2 at Bayswater.
The cost could be as high as $2 Billion, which, phew! is way out of the question.
Or is it.
The three most recently announced renewables, Coopers Gap Wind, and the 2 Solar Plants at Chinchilla and Moree come in at $3.35 Billion.
4 new generators at Mt Piper and Bayswater would alleviate Base Load requirements for decades to come.
For more than $1 Billion less, you will be getting an added 30,000GWH a year, provided 24/7/365, and wait for this, more power than those 3 renewables by a factor of 11.5 at only 9 hours of power a day at the absolute best.
The thing is that those 4 new generators, because of the better technology will be burning less coal than the existing generators at both sites.
Now, you tell me which plants will be getting the go ahead, and which plants will be treated as the joke?
Tony.
Nic Lewis finds another “error” in AR4 see climate etc…
judithcurry.com/2011/07/05/the-ipccs-alteration-of-forster-gregorys-model-independent-climate-sensitivity-results/
More on the costs of PV panels on individual houses at www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/article-2011540/Energy-experts-slash-estimates-household-savings-using-solar-panels.html
Key quotes:
“Which? found that homeowners can pay between £7,000 to £15,600 for them to be installed on their roof.”
“If only 25 per cent of the energy generated by the panels is used in their own home, they would save £70 a year on electricity bills — reducing their bill to £490.”
With a 25% energy use in the house, per above, it takes 100 to 223 years to pay for the initial installation costs. with 100% us in house, the numbers drop to 25 to 56 years. If the PVs last 25 to 30 years, it doesn’t make sense to install them.
I suppose that large scale PV plants, with their added costs of transmission lines, would also not be economic.
Chairman of the Productivity Commission took at swipe last week at the feedin tariffs madness.
“terminating high cost carbon abatement measures, which should be an essential adjunct to introducing a more cost-effective market-based instrument. (Indeed this is already evident in recent attempts to reform the very costly solar ‘feed in tariffs’ in NSW and the ACT.)”
He might get around to looking at the large scale solar and thermal/solar white elephants springing up over the country.
The econotariate are making disquieting noises about “proposed solutions that are not going to achieve the objectives that the group is trying to achieve”. But there is very little specific criticism. The above example is rare.
Reserve Bank Board member Professor Warwick McKibbin back in 2008 took a swipe at the debate on whether to exclude petrol from an ETS – “for us to focus on whether petrol should be in or out is the most shortsighted political discussion I could imagine”. Again, criticism is rare and often general.
re. Abengoa …
maybe mentioned here before, but prof. Barry Brook has a blogpost on it … bravenewclimate.com/2011/07/03/lacklustre-colorado-solar/ …
in the post is also a reference to the downloadable “official final report”, which has numbers in it, numbers that are mostly MIA in all things renewable …
fwiw … I’ve tried a few times here in Belgium to get some numbers from wind and solar PV projects … from the producers themselves … unfortunately those numbers are “not for public use”, “unavailable”, “not in the public domain”, “kept private for competitive reasons”, etc etc …
I have some figures for the cost of solar from the installation at Monash University which seem believable.
You will no doubt recall their announcement in Feb. 2010 of their “installation of the largest solar panel system in Australian Universities”, and how it would save 122 (or 135 depending on spin) tonnes of greenhouse gases.
System was 416 panels of 0.17KV capacity (70.7 total), and was expected to generate 100,000 KWh per annum. (24 amp @210 volt rails)
Cost was $400,000 and expected Monetary return was put at $7,000 – $100,000 per annum. (This seem so wide as to indicate that they hadn’t a clue! – especially if they thought they could get $1 per KWh.)
“Actual” annual output seems to be 74,990 KWh from the computer monitoring the panels, but that doesn’t allow for losses in the inverters, nor in distribution. Those figures from www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=performance&climate=520616424&town=Monash%20University&state=VIC&country=Australia&solarpanel=58
That indicates that the revenue (for $0.15 to $0.23 per KWh) is around $11,250 to $17,250.
(2.8 – 4.3% return, or 23 – 36 years payback time without allowing for maintenance, panel cleaning, nor replacement of inverters which have a “life” around 10 years).
One thing I haven’t got is the renewable certificate (3 per panel? or 1248 or around $25,000. Did this come off the purchase price?
If I were doing a costing for a payback time of 6 years the cost of PV power would be $1.42 per KWh.
Hope this helps.