Low wind puts Texans on high alert to conserve power

[TwoForFlinching]

The renewable technologies are still young. Solar efficiency only multiplied by a factor of +/- 3 from the time they were invented through 2015. 6% efficiency in the 60's to 22%-ish just four years ago. This same tech has doubled efficiency to almost 45% in the last four years alone.

Wind is also young in terms of power production history. As time goes on, they'll become more efficient too.

While it may seem like a waste of time, why wouldn't we invest in tech like this? What are the downsides to curbing the coke, coal, and cng powered plants?

 

[Shadowrider]

The renewable technologies are still young. Solar efficiency only multiplied by a factor of +/- 3 from the time they were invented through 2015. 6% efficiency in the 60's to 22%-ish just four years ago. This same tech has doubled efficiency to almost 45% in the last four years alone.

Wind is also young in terms of power production history. As time goes on, they'll become more efficient too.

While it may seem like a waste of time, why wouldn't we invest in tech like this? What are the downsides to curbing the coke, coal, and cng powered plants?

Read the article in the O/P.

If you can get renewables efficient enough to maintain capacity when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine, then and only then it will be prudent to rely on them.

 

[TwoForFlinching]

Maintaining is always a problem. Even in our current plants. We produce energy to a grid. I can only speak of Lawton, but there are months when PSO pleads with people to curb electrical usage during the day from 2-7pm. To meet demand, I'm guessing they have to ramp up the output. So all this power flows out and it's gone. It's a use it or lose it thing. The problem with renewables like solar is the output efficiency. While it's higher than ever, it's still low. Wind and hydro efficiency is really high to begin with. 85% give or take. Wind makes power even in the most gently breeze. The bigger problem is saving the power, coal fired or green, they produce. Our grids aren't built efficient.

 

[Shadowrider]

You can thank your corporation commission for that when it happens.
When I worked for OGE, they spent several million $ doing site surveys and getting the proper regulatory permits to build another base load plant at the Sooner power plant location south of Ponca City. The OCC shut it down and said they needed to add the megawatts by wind power.

That was quite likely from staving off the EPA depending on when it was. I remember some years back that Oklahoma was in danger of having the EPA come down on us hard for having too many days where ozone was too high. We were looking at serious upgrades to power plants, commiefornia type vehicle inspections, etc. Then it wasn't really our fault, it was blowing up from Texas, but our monitors were the ones pinged, so it was us that was going to get bent over. Texas was already dealing with it at that time.

The states are using renewables as a means to keep the EPA off their backs and it's starting to show it's ugly now. All according to the plan!

 

[dennishoddy]

PSO had to shut down a 500 MW coal burner because of Obama’s war on coal. It was an older plant but they couldn’t financially justify a retrofit to meet the new regs. The OCC required them to use wind to replace the plant, just like they did with OGE. When the wind doesn’t blow and your approaching peak load, you won’t run out of electricity.
What happens is the power company has to go out on the grid and buy commercial power at somewhere around 1/3 more money than they are charging Ok residents. The additional costs are passed on to the consumer in your monthly bill and they don’t want to do that. So they offer incentives for people that conserve power during peak load times. That’s the beauty of the smart meters. They can monitor who is saving and who is wasting, giving those that conserve some financial breaks.
The power companies in Ok do have some unregulated power that is sold on the commercial market during times when they have excess generating capacity that keeps them profitable.

 

[TwoForFlinching]

So the problem with generating power is the lack of saving that power generated for when we need it such as peak load times? As if we had a massive battery to switch on could save the power company money, and the end user too?

 

[Shadowrider]

So the problem with generating power is the lack of saving that power generated for when we need it such as peak load times? As if we had a massive battery to switch on could save the power company money, and the end user too?

I think this could be done with a different power strategy. Instead of subsidizing a power generation scheme that is not reliable all the time, in building wind farms why don't we build "NG and clean coal plant farms" instead? Subsidize that.

They could build small NG fired plants scattered around the big oil and gas plays in the country. It's a lot easier to dry, compress and pump gas to a plant a short distance away, than it is to pump it from the Bakken in North Dakota to lets say Chicago. Right now the gas is cheaper to flare than to pump it across half the country. We should build small plants, strategically located, put them on the grid, and then put the power where it's needed. Halfway across the country if needed. Build the clean coal plants in the coal producing regions.

If we want to subsidize something, let's make sure it works. We know that scheme works. I can guarantee you the producers would much prefer selling the gas, even at cost, than flaring it. With the right programs, producers, pipeline companies and power companies could partner up to achieve something that actually is useful and cost effective for everybody. Something similar would be able to happen with coal where it makes sense.

With the wind farm and solar scheme we have now, it's like we are on a highway to nowhere with the cruise set on 80 just cruising along, and the temp light just came on (the O/P's article). The wind farm and solar started out being just as you described, but now it's morphing into a problem child. Thanks Obama!

 

[TwoForFlinching]

Yeah, the current green infrastructure is a camel. But anytime you have a committee sitting around trying to design a horse, it'll be like that. Everyone wants a piece of that pie. Remember when the air filters from one cabin of the Apollo11 'ship' wouldn't fit the other necause both companies needed to justify massive costs? The grid is so efficient because it was built by a single dude. Imagine simplifying the new power generation by this method.

I see the investment in things like wind farms practical because you build and maintain it, fuel for it flows freely. It doesn't cost energy to make that energy. NG is a solid performer that is miles better than coal and coke, but it requires energy to make that energy in the processes of drilling and transporting. So much waste. It's cheap now, but won't be forever. Supply and demand will raise that cost when a bulk of plants run on it.

Solar and wind cost big up front, but pay themselves off. Solar more than anything, at least until someone designs a truly lasting wind tower transmission. You don't have to spend energy to keep generating that energy. It's efficient.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no granola eating hippie. I'd just rather extend fossil fuels intomore practical use like travel. Car manufacturers may think they can flip every car electric, though that'd be great, it's impractical until they can get 1000 miles off a charge in a pack that can last twenty years. They should focus more on fossil fuel efficiency in cars. A Jeep Wrangler overseas gets 47mpg on diesel... not available in the US. Same with Toyota pickups and countless foreign vehicle brands. Not importable either. I assume there's some kind of an oil company kickback going on in the gov...

 

[dennishoddy]

Battery technology isn’t at that level yet although there are folks working on it. Elon Musk for one I think.

Back in the 80’s and 90’s there was a push to deregulate the power generation industry starting on the west coast, eventually working its way to Oklahoma and Tx. Small natural gas merchant power plants started popping up everywhere.
California really embraced the concept. Merchant plants came on line almost daily for awhile with one big problem, Redundancy.
Anyone that has worked in a critical base load planet is familiar with quadruple redundancy to provide reliability.
If small merchant plants have a single issue, they go off line instantly making the rest of the grid pick up the load.
The average grid system that is huge will cover an outage so seamlessly that it’s undetectable except in the case of the merchant plants in Ca.
They put them up so cheaply and poorly that plants tripping off line were causing other plants to trip off line in response causing rolling blackouts that lasted quite awhile. There was some political issues among competing owners that also contributed to the blackouts.
Ca spent a ton of money getting things right.
Ok was headed down that same path but the legislature and the OCC decided to keep Ok as a regulated industry.
Best decision they ever made imho.

 

[John6185]

There is no problem with wind in Washington DC, it is windy all the time!
Didn't the media say in recent years that we have enough oil to last 200 years? The liberals don't want us to drill off shore or on Alaska's North Slope so where are they going to get their power when oil runs short? They're like the rest of us, appreciate their ac, lights etc. I'm not sure who or what they are looking our after.