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CA: Utilities' renewable energy pacts expensive
SFGate.com ^ | 2/19/11 | David R. Baker

Posted on 02/19/2011 2:09:22 PM PST by NormsRevenge

Since 2002, California's utilities have committed to spend about $6 billion more on renewable power contracts than they would have paid to buy the electricity from new power plants burning natural gas, ..

The report, from a division of the California Public Utilities Commission, examines the costs of a state law that required the utilities to get 20 percent of their power from renewable sources such as the sun and the wind by the end of 2010.

Since the law was passed, 59 percent of the contracts the utilities have signed with renewable power developers have been more expensive than the levelized price of electricity from a new natural gas plant. ..

The renewable contracts that topped the levelized price of power from a gas-fired plant did so, on average, by 15 percent.

"The thrust of the message is, we need some kind of cost containment," said Yuliya Shmidt, a regulatory analyst with the commission's Division of Ratepayer Advocates.

The report, which Shmidt co-wrote, suggests that the utilities commission set a contract price limit for each utility that would be kept confidential and revised year by year. .. also recommended that the commission give some contracts more scrutiny than they now receive.

Renewable power technologies tend to be an expensive way to generate power, when compared with fossil fuels. But that isn't uniformly true. For example, geothermal energy - using Earth's heat to generate electricity - can cost 36 percent less than power from a natural gas plant, according to data from the California Energy Commission. Wind power also can beat a natural gas plant's prices.

For years, California's big, investor-owned utilities were frantically signing renewable power contracts, trying to meet the state's 2010 deadline. All of them missed it, but the law gives them until 2013 to comply. ..

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; cpuc; expensive; renewableenergy; utilities

1 posted on 02/19/2011 2:09:26 PM PST by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge

Who cares? It’s not their money.


2 posted on 02/19/2011 2:16:04 PM PST by Steely Tom (Obama goes on long after the thrill of Obama is gone)
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To: Steely Tom
The thing that should concern everyone is the fact that as the politicians push for renewable the independent power plants fired from natural gas are losing their contracts and shutting down, additional natural gas power plants are not being built, and qualified people to run them are moving out of state.
Renewable power is the biggest scam ever and will lead to higher consumer prices and power shortages, which will be blamed on the producers and not the politicians.
3 posted on 02/19/2011 2:25:22 PM PST by Wooly
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To: Wooly
Renewable power is the biggest scam ever and will lead to higher consumer prices and power shortages, which will be blamed on the producers and not the politicians.

I agree, but they can "blame" all they like and it's not going to make electricity flow out of the wall socket at a price ordinary people can afford. Power's one of those things where distance between "effect" and "cause" is very small. Politicians and lawyers can flap their gums till kingdom come, but end of the day you've got to plug your flat screen TV or microwave in, and the meter goes round and round.

4 posted on 02/19/2011 2:30:27 PM PST by Steely Tom (Obama goes on long after the thrill of Obama is gone)
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To: NormsRevenge
Very soon the last thing that CA politicians will be worried about will be windmills and green energy crapola. Their whole ship of state is rapidly sinking and they'd better concentrate on fixing the leaks.
5 posted on 02/19/2011 2:39:58 PM PST by JPG (As WI goes, so goes the nation. Thank you, Gov Walker.)
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To: NormsRevenge
"The thrust of the message is, we need some kind of cost containment," said Yuliya Shmidt

Ya think?

6 posted on 02/19/2011 3:24:46 PM PST by calcowgirl ("Sapere Aude!" --Immanuel Kant)
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To: JPG; NormsRevenge; steelyourfaith; neverdem

I wonder which “editorial” writer/editor/assistant global warmer denier added in that little bit about wind power being less expensive than natural gas?

In the real world, wind power is about 70% more expensive to build and hook up to the grid, and even then - after it is built - it is on average only available 23% of the time.

(Geothermal IS less expensive than natural gas - IF (big IF!) you can install the geothermal power plant above a volcanic fault line where active lava is close to the surface and also close to available and permitted cooling waters. And IF - another big “IF” there - your neighbors can tolerate the drilling mess, surface contamination from the drilling and cooling water, and the poisonous sulfuric acid odors leaking out of the drill hole and evirons.)


7 posted on 02/19/2011 4:01:37 PM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE
"wind power being less expensive than natural gas"

That all depends on the price of natural gas. For several years after Katrina, windpower was much less than power produced with nat gas.

You also have to look at the conventional wisdom on the domestic gas supply and price that had been place for many, many years. That although the domestic supply of gas was more than adequate to supply the traditional uses of natural gas, as more and more gas was used to produce electricity, the domestic supply would be inadequate and the US would have to turn to imported LNG and it was thought that under those conditions, nat gas prices would be $7.50/mcf. Windpower competes very well when gas is $7.50.

The nat gas shortages in 2000-2001 spiking at $17/mcf pulled the trigger. That led to the many deals made on importing LNG, developent of the Burgos field in Mexico, and Congress passing the Alaska Nat Gasline Act of 2004.

Then along came Katrina in 2005 and prices went back up and stayed up until the economy collapsed and shale gas kicked in.

There were a lot of windmills installed during that period of time.

8 posted on 02/19/2011 5:11:56 PM PST by Ben Ficklin
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To: NormsRevenge
levelized price

The leftists have invented a new word, and that can't be good. You can't level the price between wind power and natural gas power without first consuming powerful pharmaceuticals.

9 posted on 02/19/2011 5:42:56 PM PST by Reeses
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To: Ben Ficklin
Windpower competes very well when gas is $7.50.

It doesn't compete at all when the wind isn't blowing.

10 posted on 02/19/2011 6:21:03 PM PST by Reeses
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To: Reeses
I noticed where New Jersey's renewable portfolio standard is 22.5% by 2021.

Don't worry, Texas can sell that to NJ.

11 posted on 02/19/2011 6:45:36 PM PST by Ben Ficklin
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To: NormsRevenge
Since 2002, California's utilities residents have committed to spend about $6 billion more on renewable power contracts...

There, fixed it.

12 posted on 02/19/2011 7:03:36 PM PST by Mike Darancette (The heresy of heresies was common sense - Orwell)
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To: Ben Ficklin

NJ gets 50% of its power from nuclear. Although the wind is blowing hard here tonight, it’s nothing that can be counted on.


13 posted on 02/19/2011 7:16:46 PM PST by Reeses
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