Energy Storage Replace Gas Plants

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

41 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

The NPV calculations I did tell the truth. Solar is nowhere near competitive with gas if you give them the same electric rate.

How much do they mark their power up by exactly? I'd like to do another calculation where we give solar an electric rate advantage. It's still going to lose.. but by how much I wonder? 

Cool, here is a California PPA from last year:

Edited May 8, 2020 by Jay McKinsey

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

2 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Not only this, but the government cuts the cost by 22% in the form of tax credits.

Oh okay.

 

2 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

The capacity factor for solar was built into my number which I got via NREL's solar calculator: https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/

Are you saying you agreed to a 100% capacity factor for solar?!? I'd take that but it would be dishonest. I make no claims about solar effectiveness at night. 😀 

That's true, reading too fast.

2 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

You found a lower capital cost but how does it earn more revenue? Further profit is what matters not revenue. $250 million in decreased profit each year is $5 billion over the life of the project. That seems rather significant.

No, it earns $50 million more in revenue according to you, while having a lower capital cost than traditional plants. Lower capital + higher revenue = guaranteed net positive.

Okay Jay, are we going to get somewhere finally? You gave me the figures, I did the calculations with a traditional plant vs a solar plant. Do we need to do it again? Should I compare it to a CCGP with capacity factor? I'm tired of this so let's get to an objectively proven conclusion. 

This is what monk put in. Doesn't help you at all. 

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by KeyboardWarrior

[Monk + 14]

1 minute ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Of course, if capacity factor is less than 30%. Maybe you should put out the NPV calculations because I'm honestly pretty tired of searching for figures only to face more conclusion dodging. 

EIA in its document has estimated some of the calculations in the link to the document that I did provide in my previous post: They have two tables weighted average, along with regional min and max in the tables below:

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf

Some excerpts:

 

These above are all average values and have significant variability from from region to region like this below from table 2 of the above link

 

Doing it correctly, requires allocating revenue split between capacity, energy, frequency and ancillary market revenues, costs include fixed and variable operational costs, fuel costs and fuel cost hedging, transmission congestion costs and the capacity factor at which the plant can operate in a given market.

All these vary by region significantly for all types of generation be it natural gas, coal, solar or wind or battery. 

Included in these is locational marginal pricing that a plant can expect in its region of operation.  That price can be in negative dollars like the recent oil price (i.e, the generator pays you to take the power away) to 9000$/MWh (yes it is real, see for ex below). The revenue estimation requires estimating the expected futures revenues based on curves likes these.  and Yes these curves are different for CAISO vs ERCOT vs PJM or any other region you may think of because of many factors besides the market design itself.  

ERCOT pricing curves by no of hours.

 

 

 

[markslawson + 1,057]

22 hours ago, Wombat said:

That is because we do not yet have enough solar and wind generation, let alone storage capacity. Snowy hydro 2.0 will fix this.

You've misunderstood the problem. This is just more of the fantasy that permeates all discussions of renewable energy. At present the existing grid has been so distorted by the introduction of wind/solar that it cannot deliver all that it is supposed when it is supposed to. More renewables will make this worse, not better, as it further distorts the grid and when wind is down its down over very large areas as they have discovered.  If and when Snowy 2.0 is completed at vast cost and filled with precious fresh water it may help. But to make the grid work with so much low value energy capacity on it you would need maybe, what? ten or 12 such projects. Not sure that would be enough. Anyway, I've had my fill of fantasy..  

[Zak Pol + 14]

Coffeeguyzz,

I just want to add to your argument, that the only GREEN in this renewable Global SCAM is the GREEN AMERICAN $$$$.

Mr. McKinsey.

I have read few pages of this thread and it's just amazing, how many of you seem to be very smart people and have bought into the scam that the world can have 100% renewable energy. Mr. Jay McKinsey the author of this thread started with some "very nice" picture of the solar battery farm trying to show us how the new era of energy wind, solar, and battery storage is going to deliver on his "pipe dream" of 100% renewable. I do not know Mr. McKinsey credentials (I am retired comp. tech), but it seems he gets a lot of support from the anti-oil like-minded individuals on this forum, who are for some reason still snooping on oilprice.com and trying to say that oil & gas energy sector is doomed and that the only solution is renewable energy. Are you guys lost all ganging up on the wrong site?

IMO just want to say this is total garbage and a SCAM.

Question to the PRO renewable crowd. Can the renewable exist without Oil & GAS and COAL???

The obvious answer is NO.

For every 1 MW of renewable power we must have 1-2 MW of base load power from coal, or gas, or nuclear, or hydro backup. How wasteful is that? This must have a massive effect on our high energy bills to be even higher. How much more expensive should electricity get Mr. McKinsey, before people start screaming and throwing the baby together with the bath water? California socialist experiment. Is this sounds familiar?

How much mining resources of quartz and COAL goes into production of SOLAR PANELS? How much energy is used, and yes this bad, bad CO2 :)) is emitted in the production process?

How does this "green" process of building, and setting the wind turbines looks like for you, when you have to pour tons of hundreds of cement, concrete and use tons of hundreds of steel and plastics. Again lots of use of coal, oil & gas, metals and this bad CO2:)) emissions, and massive energy usage (fossil fuels).

 - 1 MW of wind turbine capacity requires ~230 tons of coal for the steel

 - 1 MW of wind turbine capacity requires 61 tonnes of coal for the concrete.

  - 800 yd^3 concrete ~60 truckloads of concrete per 1MW wind turbine to settle.

To produce 100 MW of solar, what is the LAND BASE required, and what is the cost of this land? Aren't we going to run out of arable land mass to deliver on your renewable wind farms and solar farms dream? We can go into the desert of course, or ocean you will say. Sure, why not to the Mars or Moon? The efficiency of the panels is ~8-10%, and more expensive ones are ~20%. Then comes the battery storage. How much mining and processing of lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, copper is needed? Again lots of energy is required from COAL or GAS and emissions of this bad, bad, bad CO2:))? Here again, what is the land base needed for the battery system to support a town of 200K people for a 1 week let's say? Can it be done without the base load power sitting idle (and yes, you still pay for it) while you use your CLEAN and GREEN energy? The simple answer is NO, NO, NO.

Next thing, what is the life exp. of your GREEN POWER assets? 10-20 years may be. What then? TEAR-DOWN.

How do you recycle, and dispose used batteries from cars and battery farms, or old wind turbines and solar panels? What are the costs, and who pays for it??? Do you reclaim the land or leave and get the TAXPAYER take care of the costs?

So, Mr. McKinsey please stop spewing this GREEN B$ SCAM, because without the OIL and GAS, your wind, and solar, and storage is pure fantasy. By the way, are you on the receiving end of the BOAT LOAD of our TAX$$$ while preaching your religion? Yes, it looks like it. Because without these GREEN,GREEN $$$$ your climate change, global warming, 100% renewables agenda would not hold the water.

When about 200 ducks landed in Canadian Syncrude tailing ponds the whole world was in uproar. When hundreds of thousands of birds gets killed by wind turbines, or gets fried in the solar farm collectors nobody says a BOO. How is that for enviro-accountabillity?

Until all facets of your renewable energy pipe dream starting with mining thru processing, production, installation, land usage, maintenance, and tear-down, recycling, are 100% renewable, and they are not on life support thru our GREEN TAX $$$ you have no ground to stand on.

Coal and resource mining, oil & gas upstream and downstream industries have always been the places of great jobs until greenies and do-gooders started to fix them and apply their holly religion of first global warming, and when that would not go too good for them, then came climate change. Their fix is 100% renewable dream. Their ambassadors are Greta Thunberg, Leo DiCapprio, David Suzuki, Al Gore and even Pope Francis. How DARE YOU not to believe in this RELIGION???

By the way Mr.McKinsey, did you watch a movie Planet of the Humans? or Global Warning? This is just the start to get off your addiction.

Thank you.

 

 

                                               

 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

@Monk

Can you show me specifically what the net earnings after 20 years are for these systems? Let's say we're in Georgia. 

[Coffeeguyzz + 454]

Mr. Monk

Regarding your comment about the high ($9,000/Mwh) pricing from ERCOT, South Australia has repeatedly priced their electricity at the $14,000/Mw cap when their wind production dies off and alternative sources are unavailable.

(On another thread, a poster claimed the Musk battery system installed there as backup has already been paid for.  While I literally busted out laughing when I read that, further musings - I no longer closely monitor  Oz's happenings - led me to conclude that, yes, it MAY be possible to quickly pay off a backup system ... if one can charge $14,000/Mwh).

Whatevuh.

People can learn a lot about these matters by having both a healthy dose of skepticism vis a vis the objectivity of their sources of info and by plunging into the realms of the Dreaded "Other"  for some further education.

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

I wonder how much of this green stuff I'll have to listen to in college. 

[Coffeeguyzz + 454]

KW

Unfortunately, it may be quite a bit, absent some dramatic change in direction of the collectectivist-inclined, Marxist atmosphere that permeates most US universities ... the faculties/administrations being the obvious hotbeds of this world view.

 

Mr. Kirkman had posted weeks ago an outstanding graphic that noted several long-ignored techniques invoved in Debating/Rhetoric that may provide solace to Eternal Truth Seekers. Strawmen, ad hominem, logical fallacies ... are absolutely rife in these affairs and - if my undergraduate years be any guide - the passion strenuously projected by young adults on any given topic is only exceeded by the ignorance of same.

 

Continuously buttressing (or refuting) your own beliefs via constant open mindedness combined with insatiable curiousity may be beneficial, but that approach ABSOLUTELY will not sway others who simply choose to Disbelieve.

Good luck.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Coffeeguyzz

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

43 minutes ago, Coffeeguyzz said:

the passion strenuously projected by young adults on any given topic is only exceeded by the ignorance of same.

Yea... even if my opinion on this matter is correct I make errors left and right from getting excited. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

I think it would be fun to get a bunch of these guys in a discord call. PM me if you A: Have discord and B: want my tag. 

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/8/2020 at 3:06 AM, KeyboardWarrior said:

This is absurd. You can't seem to understand that the profits from gas are far higher than from solar. Solar has a long payoff because it simply doesn't earn anything. Too far beneath 10% returns; and if you're going by Buffet's advice on value investing, then trash this investment and buy some indexes.

Btw, solar isn't "7-8 years". You should consider 15 yeas to be a good payoff for solar. 

Let me spell this out for you. $1B in solar = under $100 M per annum. $1B in gas = $200 M per annum. 

Crap. As I said, "garbage in = garbage out"! Solar cost 2c/kwh, gas 6c/kwh, which is more profitable?

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 5/8/2020 at 12:42 PM, ronwagn said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_present_value If you are referring to this NPV please explain. You are over my head. Thanks

It is actually quite simple Ron, NPV just try to take account of inflation, otherwise known as "the time value of money". Don't be fooled by Keyboard Warrior, he has no clue what he talkin about. All u need know, is that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow, bit like a bird in the hand worth 2 in the bush. Just try remember what a house cost 30 years ago, but what ur wage was back then, and u got the picture! Ur mortgage 30 years ago was maybe $30K, nothing now? Half a years wage? Inflation eats debt fast, deflation makes it harder to pay off. That why ur Fed printing lots of moola.

[Wombat + 1,028]

20 hours ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Holy shit it gets even better!

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31912

"Nearly 75% of the natural gas capacity installed in 2015 were combined-cycle units, which had an average installed cost of $614/kW"

I wonder what the cost is now!

Do you people have any idea how big of an issue this is for solar? These plants not only use half the fuel of traditional plants, but their capital cost is literally 3/4 of traditional models. 

Let's do another NPV for a 1000 MW gas plant, because apparently that's the way to go.

Combined cycle earns $400 per annum at $3 per mmBtu since its fuel cost goes from $400 to $200 million.

[($400,000,000 * 20)  ((1 + 0.05)^20)] - $650,000,000 = $2.3 B present value in twenty years. 

Give up. I've had it with this dishonesty. 

But solar only has installed cost of $300/kW, HALF THAT OF CCGT, DON'T U GET IT?????????????????

[Wombat + 1,028]

20 hours ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Holy shit it gets even better!

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31912

"Nearly 75% of the natural gas capacity installed in 2015 were combined-cycle units, which had an average installed cost of $614/kW"

I wonder what the cost is now!

Do you people have any idea how big of an issue this is for solar? These plants not only use half the fuel of traditional plants, but their capital cost is literally 3/4 of traditional models. 

Let's do another NPV for a 1000 MW gas plant, because apparently that's the way to go.

Combined cycle earns $400 per annum at $3 per mmBtu since its fuel cost goes from $400 to $200 million.

[($400,000,000 * 20)  ((1 + 0.05)^20)] - $650,000,000 = $2.3 B present value in twenty years. 

Give up. I've had it with this dishonesty. 

U clearly never went to Uni and studied Business Finance? 

[Wombat + 1,028]

13 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Cool, here is a California PPA from last year:

U twit, you don't even know how to do a NPV calculation! How about you buy a financial calculator first?????? I am sure the result will be dramatically different to your pathetic assumptions.

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

48 minutes ago, Wombat said:

U clearly never went to Uni and studied Business Finance? 

Nope, I’m 19, and yet I seem to be better at this than you are. That’s kind of embarrassing if you ask me. 

Go ahead and give the side by side NPV. I can’t wait to see the figures you’ll pull out of your ass. $.30 per Watt maybe for CAPEX?

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

1 hour ago, Wombat said:

Crap. As I said, "garbage in = garbage out"! Solar cost 2c/kwh, gas 6c/kwh, which is more profitable?

That’s correct! Solar earnings are garbage and can’t justify their initial investment. Sure it has no operating cost, but that’s akin to saying “spend a billion and get one dollar of pure profit every year!”

Edited May 9, 2020 by KeyboardWarrior

[Wombat + 1,028]

2 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Nope, I’m 19, and yet I seem to be better at this than you are. That’s kind of embarrassing if you ask me. 

Go ahead and give the side by side NPV. I can’t wait to see the figures you’ll pull out of your ass. $.30 per Watt maybe for CAPEX?

You are a very arrogant little c***! You don't have a clue what you are talkin about and I suspect u never will coz u think u know everything. The whole point of NPV calculation is that cost in todays dollars changes every year u stupid wanker. F*** OFF and stop wasting my time!

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

4 minutes ago, Wombat said:

You are a very arrogant little c***! You don't have a clue what you are talkin about and I suspect u never will coz u think u know everything. The whole point of NPV calculation is that cost in todays dollars changes every year u stupid wanker. F*** OFF and stop wasting my time!

Yep, just what I expected. 

Now provide your own calculations and prove yourself wrong. 

Edited May 9, 2020 by KeyboardWarrior

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

@Wombat

I appreciate people like you. You make the arguments for my case. 

[Wombat + 1,028]

37 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

@Wombat

I appreciate people like you. You make the arguments for my case. 

No. You just need to grow some pubic hair before you even start to have a case.

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

5 minutes ago, Wombat said:

No. You just need to grow some pubic hair before you even start to have a case.

Calculations, dipshit. 

Go on. I suspect that you know the conclusions. 

Which project delivers a greater return? 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

@Wombat is proof of Charlie Munger's comments on corporate finance. That it's "at least 50% twaddle".

Though Wombat doesn't even seem to be capable of doing the math, given the fact that he still hasn't provided any calculations.

It's not often that I get to put an oldhead in their place. If my industry competition consists of individuals like Wombat, I have a bright future indeed! 

 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

@Jay McKinsey Where are you my friend?

Did you do your own set of calculations like I requested? 

Don't let wombat irritate you. That odd symbol just means "sum", and you can ignore it if you keep the cash flow constant for each year. 

Of course you could take my approach and calculate actual returns.. you know, the stuff that intelligent investors are concerned with? 

Edited May 9, 2020 by KeyboardWarrior