6 Questions You Asked Yourself about Solar
- How fast will it take over,
- how fast are costs shrinking,
- why is it so cheap,
- what industries will it birth,
- how much surface will it take up, and
- where will it appear first?
U.S. Approves Billions in Aid to Restart Michigan Nuclear Plant
EcoTech Note: Here’s an example of a subsidy operating on the supply side of a market. The federal guarantee on an otherwise private loan makes it less risky … so the interest rate will be lower …. which makes the final cost of the electricity from this nuclear plant cheaper. The direct GRANT also radically lowers the cost of using the plant to generate electricity.
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
The Energy Department said on Monday that it had finalized a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to help a company restart a shuttered nuclear plant in Michigan — the latest sign of rising government support for nuclear power.
Two rural electricity providers that planned to buy power from the reactor would also receive $1.3 billion in federal grants under a program approved by Congress to help rural communities tackle climate change.
Microsoft may pay a premium in Three Mile Island power agreement
EcoTech Note: Here is a great example of a “Green Premium” being paid by a company desperate for clean power a) to meet their need to power a data center and b) to meet their “net-zero by 2035” commitment:
“Jefferies estimated that Microsoft might pay Constellation about $110-$115 per megawatt hour (MWh) as part of the 20-year-long fixed price PPA. The brokerage’s analysts said the estimated cost represents a significant premium to market expectations, which are in the low $100 per MWh for a collocated deal.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
‘Three New York Cities’ Worth of Power: AI Is Stressing the Grid
EcoTech Note: When demand surges far ahead of supply, the market adjusts either by raising prices or by rationing supply, e.g, by allocations or waiting lists.. The recent surge in demand for electricity is driven by AI, EVs, data centers, etc. This article quantifies the demand and the backlogs, now stretching into the 2030s.
This problem does create some good news though: first, businesses will press for permitting reform to speed up access to more electricity. Second, creditworthy corporations like Microsoft and Google are entering into power purchase agreements to help new clean energy generators get financed and built, even paying a “Green Premium” e.g., Microsoft reopening Three Mile Island and Google backing Fervo’s geothermal plant in northern Nevada.
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
What Will We Do With Our Free Power?
EcoTech Note: Here is another great example of how humans cannot easily grok how prices declining owing to the “learning curve” create astonishing, geometric growth. “In 2023, the world installed 444 gigawatts of new solar photovoltaic capacity, an 80 percent year-on-year jump and more than was cumulatively installed between the invention of the solar cell in 1954 and 2017. Although solar power still provides just under 6 percent of global electricity, its share has nearly quadrupled since 2018, an exponential curve that is expected to continue for some time.”
The Economist magazine observes ‘The next tenfold increase [in solar capacity] will be equivalent to multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight in less than the time it typically takes to build just a single one of them.’ By the 2030s — not very long from now — solar power will most likely be the largest source of electricity on the planet.”
The knock-on implications of cheap solar are staggering — from high-volumne desalination, to making green cement, to electrolyzing hydrogen from water, and even to powering Casey Handmer’s dream of making synthetic fuels solely from the air!
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
Google funds clean energy with upfront capital and “offtake agreements.”
EcoTech Note: Here’s an example of a corporation meeting its commitment to using only “carbon free energy” by supporting new CleanTech generation facilities with upfront investment and an “offtake agreement” — which is a long term contract to buy the electricity created at a pre-set price that allows the investment to be profitable. #Green_Premium #learning_curve
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
In order to help overcome these challenges, and deliver 24/7 carbon-free energy onto the grid where these data centers operate, we’ve worked with Energix Renewables on an investment framework that allows us to invest in, and buy power from, a 1.5 gigawatt (GW) portfolio of new solar projects throughout the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) grid over the next three years. By providing both investment capital and energy offtake, these projects have a clearer path to construction, bringing the planned construction start of 150 MW of queue backlog from 2025 ahead to 2024.
Nevada utility awarded over $80M to create new solar plant in Pahrump
A Southern Nevada utility has been awarded $80.3 million to build a new solar generating and storage plant in Pahrump.
Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada, announced in a joint statement that Valley Electric Association will receive the grant.
Funding from the U.S. Agriculture Department will go toward installing a 37-megawatt solar power generation and storage system serving Pahrump and the Fish Lake Valley Region.
Exowatt Unveils Pioneering Modular Energy Platform
EcoTech Note: New solar-thermal modular system fits in a standard 40′ container, and operates without much maintenance for 4 cents/kwh. Just raised $20m from leading VCs.
Exowatt has a backlog of demand of over 1.2 gigawatts for data centers across the U.S. and plans to begin deployments later this year. The Exowatt P3 modules can be deployed rapidly and cost-effectively on both small and large commercial and industrial projects. As the technology scales, Exowatt says it expects to be able to offer electricity for as low as $0.01 per kilowatt-hour, making it more affordable than fossil fuels and other renewable energy alternatives.
[Notice that no mention is made of the upfront capital cost yet; it’s probably pretty high.]
Rooftop Solar Costs Decline as Efficiency Improves
EcoTech Note: “OK, let’s rise above principle, now, and talk about money,” my teacher once presciently said. “That explains more.” I think of that whenever I read this newsletter, which gets into the nitty gritty – like these points:
- Lawrence Berkeley Lab published its annual “Tracking the Sun” report on customer-owned solar. The report shows continued growth of panel efficiency, a drop in prices and an increase in solar systems that are paired with battery storage.
- The report is based on a sample of 3.7 million customer-owned solar systems, about three-quarters of the total installed in the United States. Installed cost/watt is $4.20 nationally, with wide variation by state, mostly driven by “soft costs” like labor, financing and permits. (Nevada is at $3.40/watt and Utah is at $5.20.)
Hungry for Clean Energy, Facebook Looks to a New Type of Geothermal
EcoTech Note: Here’s a good example of a “power purchasing agreement,” probably at above-market rates, whereby Facebook (Meta, Inc.) will buy power from Sage Power in Texas. Sage uses the same “enhanced geothermal” technology, borrowed from the fracking used in oil-and-gas drilling, that is used by Fervo, which is doing something similar in Nevada. These new projects are bringing down the Green Premium, with a “levelized cost of energy” (LCOE) of about $0.06/kwh. See also the promise of even better geothermal in the Quaise project in California.
Big tech companies across the United States are struggling to find enough clean energy to power all the data centers they plan to build.
Now, some firms are betting on ….
Germany shows how permitting reform works
EcoTech Note: Here’s a mangled meme — “Necessity is a mother.” Germany faced an energy crisis after the Russia-Ukraine war interrupted their supply of natural gas. Needing more energy, fast, they reformed their permitting process … and, predictably, clean energy supplies poured onto their grid.
In the Fall, we in the US have a similar opportunity. See Big News: Bipartisan Permitting Reform Legislation Is Moving!
Talk to renewable-energy executives for long enough and almost everyone will complain about the time it takes to get government permits to build their power plants. Unless you’re operating in Germany these days.
“We’re quite pleased,” said Karsten Brüggemann, vice president of Nordex, which manufactures wind turbines. Particularly since 2022, he said, Nordex has seen a rapid rise in the number of turbines deployed and future wind farms permitted.
Finalized federal plan outlines future of Nevada, Western solar development
Nearly one-fifth of Nevada’s public lands could open up to utility-scale solar development under the Bureau of Land Management’s final Western Solar Plan — drawing the support of solar developers and the ire of conservationists.
The document released Thursday designates about 18,000 square miles or 11.8 million acres — roughly 17 percent — of the state’s public lands for possible large-scale solar projects, identified as 5 megawatts and larger.
Currently, only about 15 percent of the state’s BLM-administered land is available for possible solar development. In addition to calling for nearly 12 million acres in Nevada to be open to solar development, the final plan increases the total acreage available across the West from 22 million to 31 million acres.