Dirty energy is not only dirty, it is very expensive for an island. Nuclear power is expensive everywhere. Neither are resilient to extreme disaster.
Renewables are fast, clean, resilient, cheap — and getting cheaper every year. They are exactly what Puerto Rico’s grid needs.
Trump officials have no clue how to rebuild Puerto Rico’s grid. But we do.http://reneweconomy.com.au/trump-officials-no-clue-rebuild-puerto-ricos-grid-66781/, By Joe Romm on 29 September 2017 Think Progress With Puerto Rico’s dirty, costly electric grid wiped out by Hurricane Maria, now is the time for a clean power rebuild.
Microgrids built around cheap renewable power and battery storage are now the fastest and cheapest way to restore power — while at the same time building resilience into the grid against the next disaster.
That’s been proven by Florida after Hurricane Irma, Japan after the tsunami that caused the Fukushima meltdown, and India after recent monsoons.
Unfortunately, the anti-renewable Trump administration appears unlikely to pursue this winning strategy. Indeed, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Tuesday that small nuclear power plants being researched at national labs are the kind of “innovation” he’d like to “expedite” for Puerto Rico’s rebuild.
“Wouldn’t it make abundant good sense if we had small modular reactors that literally you could put in the back of C-17 [military cargo] aircraft, transport it to an area like Puerto Rico, and push it out the back end, crank it up, and plug it in?” he said at an event in Washington, D.C. for National Clean Energy Week. “Hopefully, we can expedite that.”
It would be quite an effort of expedition. Such small nuclear power plants are not expected to be commercialized until the mid-2020s, and even if they are, they are projected to be wildly expensive — just like current reactors — and not that small (650 tons). Nobody’s going to be “literally” putting one in a C-17 and pushing it out the back end on a small island ready to go.
The U.S. territory doesn’t have time for such political pipe dreams.
Right now, Puerto Rico’s desperate lack of power — for hospitals, water and sewage facilities, and air-conditioning in the sweltering heat — is at the center of the ongoing humanitarian crisis for the 3.4 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico.
Hurricane Maria destroyed 55 percent of the transmission towers that support high-voltage power lines and wrecked 90 percent of the distribution network, according to utility experts who have assessed the damage, Reuters reported.
Reuters put together this remarkable graphic on “power restoration after major U.S. hurricanes.”
But this tragedy does open an opportunity. The old grid was an antiquated, expensive, polluting disaster. Mired in debt, the local utility declared bankruptcy in July. (For a useful history, see the Huffington Post’s “Puerto Rico’s Colonial Legacy Doomed It To Dirty Electricity — And Now Darkness.”)
Only 2 percent of the sunny and windy Caribbean island’s electricity comes from renewables, while all the rest comes from fossil fuels. In 2016, an astounding 47 percent of electricity came from petroleum, especially from dirty, inefficient diesel generators. By comparison, the U.S. as a whole generates under 1 percent of its power from petroleum and 15 percent from renewables.
Bringing fuel to an island is expensive. The commercial price of electricity on Puerto Rico is an astounding 21.4 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to 11 ¢/kwh for the mainland. The industrial price of electricity on the island is an unheard of 18 ¢/kwh, compared to 7 ¢/kwh for the mainland.
No wonder the utility is bankrupt, and the island is economically uncompetitive.
In terms of speed of recovery, nothing beats solar with storage. As Inside Climate News reported, Florida homes with solar panels and batteries that lost power from Irma in the early hours of Monday, September 11 were able to restore power in a few hours when the sun came up. Long before others, they could use lights, refrigerators, and wifi.
Coral Springs Florida used solar plus batteries to quickly restore 13 major traffic lights. Although it’s worth noting that solar homes without storage are out of luck in Florida. The utility, FPL, does not allow grid-connected systems without batteries to be used during an outage. And the state coderequires you to be connected to the grid even if you could be grid free.
Case studies from Japan, India, and Hawaii also make clear the only technologies that can simultaneously deliver the fastest, cheapest, cleanest, and most disaster-resilient rebuild possible are micro-grids built around renewables and storage.
When northeast India was ravaged by an unprecedented deluge this summer, causing widespread blackouts, buildings with solar roofs were able to keep the lights on, even after the sun set. DESI Power has been installing the solar across the region. Panels are mounted either on the roof or a few feet off the ground so they can survive flooding. The battery box is typically portable, so it can be can be moved in case of flood. “Despite the heavy flooding, we were pleasantly surprised to find that nearly 75 percent of our power systems remained functional,” DESI’s chief operating officer told NexusMedia.
In less than a decade, more than half a million people in India who had lacked electricity now have off-grid solar. As one expert on distributed solar in the region said, “Solar power has changed people’s lives, improved their health and enhanced their livelihood opportunities while benefiting the environment.”
Japan has gone even further following the 2011 tsunami that caused the Fukushima meltdown. In what Reuters described last week as a “quiet energy revolution,” dozens of cities have gone off grid or built renewable micro-grids with the help of Japan’s “National Resilience Program,” which had $33 billion in funding this year.
Higashi Matsushima, a city of 40,000 that lost 75 percent of its homes and 1,100 people in the 2011 catastrophe, built microgrids and decentralized its power generation “to create a self-sustaining system” that can meet a quarter of its electricity demand.
Such a micro-grid can allow basic needs to be met even if the region suffers a cascading grid failure. The city “built its own independent transmission grid and solar generating panels as well as batteries to store power that can keep the city running for at least three days.”
As for cost, the Hawaiian island of Kauai now produces some 90 percent of its midday peak power from only solar and batteries. Tesla has a 20-year contractwith the island’s utility to provide power at 13.9 ¢/kwh. That compares with the utility’s electricity cost for diesel power of 15.5 ¢/kwh — and it’s nearly half the 27.7 ¢/kwh that Hawaiians paid last December for electricity.
Dirty energy is not only dirty, it is very expensive for an island. Nuclear power is expensive everywhere. Neither are resilient to extreme disaster.
Renewables are fast, clean, resilient, cheap — and getting cheaper every year. They are exactly what Puerto Rico’s grid needs.
September 30, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
renewable, USA |
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Above – solar rooftop keep power going, in flooded Indian city
In Maria’s Wake, Could Puerto Rico Go Totally Green?, Progressive, by Harvey Wasserman, September 28, 2017 The ecological and humanitarian destruction of Puerto Rico has left the world aghast. But there is a hopeful green-powered opportunity in this disaster that could vastly improve the island’s future while offering the world a critical showcase for a sane energy future.
By all accounts Hurricane Maria has leveled much of the island, and literally left it in the dark. Puerto Rico’s electrical grid has been extensively damaged, with no prospects for a return to conventionally generated and distributed power for months to come.
In response Donald Trump has scolded the island for it’s massive debt, and waited a full week after the storm hit to lift a shipping restriction requiring all incoming goods to be carried on US-flagged ships. (That restriction is largely responsible for the island’s economic problems in the first place.)
The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is a state-owned operation that hosts a number of solar and wind farms, as well as a network of hydroelectric dams. But the bulk of its energy supply has come from heavy industrial oil, diesel and gas burners. It also burns coal imported from Colombia at a plant in Guyama.
The fossil burners themselves apparently were left mostly undamaged by Maria. But the delivery system, a traditional network of above-ground poles and wires, has essentially been obliterated……..
With solar panels and battery backups, every one of those hospitals could be energy self-sufficient. Throughout the U.S. such technology is now being applied at medical facilities, data processing and storage facilities, and other critical units.
According to Mark Sommer, a California-based energy expert, Puerto Rico could safeguard such critical facilities and far more quickly restore its power by letting go of the old paradigm of central-generated and distributed electricity, and moving instead to a decentralized network of green-based micro-grids.
Micro-grids are community-based networks that power smaller geographic and consumer areas than the big central grids like the one that served Puerto Rico. Mostly they are based on decentralized generation, including networks of roof-top solar panels. As Sommer puts it: “renewably powered microgrids are a relatively simple and already mature technology that can be deployed in months rather than years and once the initial investment is recovered deliver dramatically lower energy bills.”
Because Puerto Rico is mountainous and hosts many small, remote villages, the island’s best hope for a manageable energy future is with decentralized power production in self-sustaining neighborhoods. Built around small-scale wind and solar arrays, with battery backups protected from inevitable floods and hurricanes, Puerto Rico could protect its electricity supply from the next natural disaster while building up a healthy, low-cost energy economy……
Puerto Rico’s best hope for a safe, prosperous, sustainable energy future is to take control of its power supply with a mix of renewable generation, protected backup storage, and a decentralized, local-based network of community-owned microgrids. http://progressive.org/dispatches/could-puerto-rico-go-totally-green/
September 30, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, renewable, USA |
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Cheap Offshore Wind Won’t Make UK Give Up on Nuclear, Nukes to play “an important role for many years to come,” says the government. Greentech Media, by Jason Deign September 29, 2017 A pricing record for offshore wind this month won’t change Britain’s nuclear plans, government sources confirmed.
“We need a diverse energy mix to ensure that demand for energy can always be met, and both nuclear and renewables will play an important role in this for many years to come,” a spokesperson for the U.K. Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said.
The statement follows widespread speculation about the future of the U.K.’s new nuclear program in the wake of an auction that saw offshore wind prices drop to just £57.50 (USD $76.34) per megawatt-hour.
That’s almost 38 percent below what the U.K. government has agreed to pay for nuclear generation at Hinkley Point C, a contentious 3.2-gigawatt plant slated for construction in Somerset, southwest England.
The project, which has already been criticized for increasing costs, was called into question after the renewables auction result, which awarded 11 competitive projects that ranged from offshore wind to waste-to-energy conversion.
As renewable energy becomes more affordable, the government’s decision on the new nuclear project may come under additional scrutiny,” Bloomberg reported.
Since Hinkley Point C was approved in September 2015, developer Électricité de France has increased the cost estimate for the project from £18 billion ($24 billion) to more than £20 billion ($27 billion), said Bloomberg.
In contrast, said Giles Dickson, CEO of industry body WindEurope: “Offshore wind has now shown it provides excellent value for taxpayers’ money.”
“In light of these latest price reductions, we call on the U.K. and other European governments to make ambitious commitments on future deployment volumes for offshore wind. To sustain these cost reductions, the industry needs to be able to plan ahead,” said Dickson.
Caught off-guard by the auction result, the nuclear industry hit back against the narrative…….
It remains to be seen whether Hinkley Point C will make it into that [energy] mix. The project, based on a French design which has seen cost and schedule overruns in France and Finland, has been beset by other problems.
This month, workers threatened to walk out over a pay dispute. And the BBC slammed plans to dump potentially radioactive waste from dredging works near Hinkley Point’s two existing reactors. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/cheap-offshore-wind-wont-make-uk-give-up-on-nuclear#gs.ThDT6VE
September 30, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, ENERGY, politics, UK |
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European Commission 28th Sept 2017, The European Commission has approved an investment package of €222
million from the EU budget to support Europe’s transition to more
sustainable and low-carbon future under the LIFE programme for the
Environment and Climate Action. The EU funding will mobilise additional
investments leading to a total of €379 million going towards 139 new
projects in 20 Member States.
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-3429_en.htm
September 30, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
EUROPE, renewable |
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Independent 28th Sept 2017, Nearly a third of all UK electricity came from renewable sources in the
second three months of this year, setting a new record for clean energy
generation, the Government has revealed. Wind, solar and other forms of
low-carbon power were responsible for 29.8 per cent of the total amount of
electricity generated in the UK, beating the previous record of 26.9 per
cent set in the first three months of 2017.
In a statement, the Government said: “Renewables’ share of electricity generation was a record 29.8
per cent in [the second quarter of] 2017, up 4.4 percentage points on the
share in [the second quarter of] 2016, reflecting both increased wind
capacity and wind speeds, as well as lower overall electricity generation.
“Onshore wind generation increased by 50 per cent, the highest increase
across the technologies, … while offshore wind rose by 22 per cent.
“Generation from biodegradable waste was up 30 per cent, due to much
increased capacity.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/renewable-energy-electricity-new-record-uk-wind-solar-a7972266.html
September 30, 2017
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renewable, UK |
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Reuters Staff, PARIS (Reuters) 27 Sept 17, – The French government plans to invest 20 billion euros in an energy transition plan, including 9 billion euros towards improved energy efficiency, 7 billion for renewables and 4 billion to precipitate the switch to cleaner vehicles.
The environment-related investments, drafted by economist Jean Pisani-Ferry and presented by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Monday, are part of a 57 billion-euro investment plan to run from 2018 to 2022.
Buildings are responsible for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, so the government plans a 9 billion-euro thermal insulation programme that will focus on low-income housing and government buildings, the government said in a statement.
“The number of badly insulated low-income housing and social housing will be divided by two, and a quarter of government buildings will be renovated in line with environmental norms,” it said.
The programme aims at financing the renovation of 75,000 dwellings per year, or 375,000 over the government’s five-year term.
The government will also invest 7 billion euros ($8.31 billion) to boost the growth of French renewable energies by 70 percent over the next five years.
Investments will include research and innovation to combat climate change, and will speed up France’s transition to low carbon and greater energy efficiency…… https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-renewables-investments/france-to-invest-20-billion-euros-in-energy-transition-idUSKCN1C027P
September 30, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
France, politics, renewable |
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Times 26th Sept 2017,In rural Bedfordshire today, Claire Perry, the climate change minister,
will open the first solar farm in Britain to sell power to the grid without
a direct subsidy.
It will perform this trick thanks partly to banks of
batteries that enable it to transmit electricity even when the sun is not
shining, and partly to the plummeting price of both batteries and solar
panels in recent years. Clayhill Farm is a landmark achievement. It will
provide power for 2,500 homes without pumping out any pollution, making any
noise or killing any birds. It will come onstream less than a month after
an auction for wholesale energy contracts in which wind power operators
underbid even gas-fired energy producers for the first time.
And it was built in 12 weeks flat. A renewable energy revolution is gathering steam,
so to speak, but Clayhill Farm poses a troubling question for government
and the rest of the British solar industry.
Why is it, so far, alone? There are three reasons.
First, one of the biggest obstacles to setting up a new
solar farm is securing a connection to the grid, and Clayhill has been able
to piggyback on a neighbouring facility whose connection is already in
place.
Second, few sites in Britain are so lucky, because solar power
installation slumped when subsidies were withdrawn two years ago while
still being available for wind.
Thirdly, Britain is not very sunny. The
Clayhill project shows that solar power has a future here despite
everything. Moreover, battery and solar panel prices are expected to keep
falling thanks to a global glut created by China. This oversupply is a
result of mass Chinese production initially to meet subsidised German
demand in the 1990s, and later to meet domestic Chinese demand. Beijing now
dreams of building and controlling a global solar-powered grid. If Britain
wants its own, the time to build is now.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/sun-trap-hppsxdcsp
September 30, 2017
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renewable, UK |
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– the energy revolution is happening, Guardian, John Sauven, 27 Sept 17 Far-sighted government policy means the cost of offshore wind energy has halved. The benefits in terms of climate change and UK jobs will be enormous “…….. the price of offshore wind energy has dropped by half in less than two years. By the 2020s, it will be as cheap or cheaper than any other form of power generation. It’s just become much cheaper than nuclear, even taking into account the additional costs associated with the wind’s intermittency. And in any case, this is less of an issue at sea where the winds are more constant……on the cusp of a quiet revolution. From being the most expensive form of renewable energy, offshore wind was fast becoming the cheapest form of large-scale, low-carbon generation bar none. ……..
This month’s contracts for the next round of offshore wind farms to be built in the North Sea should have the champagne corks popping in No 10. They mean billions more in foreign investment coming into the UK. They will be playing a major role in regenerating regions in the north-east of the country. And they will create a thriving export market in contracts for offshore wind developments. But we at Greenpeace are not sure the government has noticed the full potential that their policies have created.
To bring it to their attention, some of the world’s biggest players, including Vattenfall and General Electric, have come together alongside environmental organisations including WWF and the Marine Conservation Society. A campaign is being launched today at Westminster with the help of creative agency Mother, which is working pro bono. They explained to us that when you’re selling the future of energy generation at 50% off, all you really need to do is get this fact in front of your customers. MPs using Westminster tube station will find it hard to miss.
The UK needs affordable and secure energy. We have to replace our obsolete power stations and meet growing demand from the electric vehicle revolution. Offshore wind, alongside a smart energy system including storage and interconnectors, should be the backbone of how the UK generates its power in future. Short term, as part of the transition, gas back up might be required (but only when needed, unless it’s green like biogas). Such a system could help us meet our climate change commitments and speed up the move to a low-carbon economy. It could provide jobs and regional regeneration as well as provide export markets. It could be the cheapest form of large-scale power available. It’s shown to be wildly popular in all opinion surveys. We urge the government to come clean on this issue and publicly admit that they got this right! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/26/offshore-wind-power-energy-price-climate-change
September 29, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
renewable, UK |
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Quiet energy revolution underway in Japan as dozens of towns go off the grid, Japan Times BY AARON SHELDRICK AND OSAMU TSUKIMORI REUTERS, 24 Sept 17, HIGASHIMATSUSHIMA, MIYAGI PREF. – A Miyagi city’s efforts to rebuild its electrical power system after 3/11 mark a quiet shift away from Japan’s old utility model and toward self-reliant, local generation and transmission.
After losing three-quarters of its homes and 1,100 people in the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the city of Higashimatsushima in Miyagi Prefecture turned to the government’s “national resilience program,” with ¥3.72 trillion in funding for this fiscal year, to rebuild.
The city of 40,000 chose to construct microgrids and decentralized renewable power generation to create a self-sustaining system in Tohoku capable of producing an average of 25 percent of its electricity without the need of the region’s power utility.
The city’s steps illustrate a massive yet little known effort to take dozens of the nation’s towns and communities off the power grid and make them partly self-sufficient in generating electricity…….https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/09/24/national/quiet-energy-revolution-underway-japan-dozens-towns-go-off-grid/#.Wcg4L_MjHGh
September 25, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
decentralised, Japan |
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Nuclear plans ‘should be rethought after fall in offshore windfarm costs’
Lib Dems and green groups say reduced price of state support should sound death knell for plants such as Hinkley Point C, Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 12 Sept 17 The government is under pressure to reconsider its commitment to a new generation of nuclear power stations after the cost of offshore wind power reached a record low.
Experts said green energy had reached a tipping point in the UK after two windfarms secured a state-backed price for their output that was nearly half the level awarded last year to Britain’s first new nuclear power site in a generation, Hinkley Point C.
Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the breakthrough should prompt a rethink of the government’s energy plans, which have pencilled in atomic plants at Wylffa in Wales, Sizewell in Suffolk and Bradwell in Essex.
“The spectacular drop in the cost of offshore wind is extremely encouraging and shows the need for a radical reappraisal by government of the UK’s energy provision,” he said.
The government spending watchdog this year described Hinkley as a “risky and expensive” project that generations of British consumers will have to pay for through electricity bills. Experts hailed Monday’s auction results, for a group of windfarms that will open early in the next decade, as evidence that large scale renewable projects had come of age in Britain.
“The epoch of renewables as the most cost competitive technology has arrived,” said energy analysts Cornwall Insight, while the Economist Intelligence Unit said they showed “the trajectory of cheaper renewable technologies is irreversible”.
Ministers said the multimillion-pound pot of subsidies would generate clean power for 3.6m homes. Two windfarms – the Hornsea 2 project off the Yorkshire coast and the Moray offshore windfarm in Scotland – secured a guaranteed price for their power of £57.50 per megawatt hour (MWh) from the government. This is far below the £92.50 awarded to Hinkley last year.
Richard Harrington, the energy minister, said: “The offshore wind sector alone will invest £17.5bn in the UK up to 2021 and thousands of new jobs in British businesses will be created by the projects announced today.”………https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/11/huge-boost-renewable-power-offshore-windfarm-costs-fall-record-low?CMP=share_btn_tw
September 16, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
renewable, UK |
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German nuclear damage shows atomic and renewable power are unhappy bedfellows https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/german-nuclear-damage-shows-atomic-and-renewable-power-are-unhappy-bedfellows/,By Dagmar Dehmer | Der Tagesspiegel | translated by Sam MorganJul 26, 2017, A Germany nuclear plant was damaged because its operators increased and decreased its output to respond to energy grid fluctuations. The incident supports the theory that nuclear and renewable energy generation are incompatible. EURACTIV’s partner Der Tagesspiegel reports.
The Brokdorf nuclear power station, located in northern Germany, was taken offline in February after maintenance showed its reactor’s fuel rods had begun to unexpectedly oxidise.
A regional nuclear supervisory body has now ruled that the plant can be booted back up but only in “safe mode”, according to Schleswig-Holstein’s energy transition minister.
State Minister for Energy Robert Habeck (Greens) added that the power plant’s output should not be increased or decreased at short notice to adapt to the supply of renewable energies on the electricity grid. The minister warned that “atomic energy is not a bridging technology”.
A 2011 study by Greenpeace also concluded that renewables and nuclear are not compatible and that fuel rod damage is a possible consequence.
Kiel’s nuclear supervisory authority explained that the corrosion of Brokdorf’s fuel rods was a result of the reactor’s capacity being increased from 1,440 MW to 1,480 MW in 2006.
The investigation also concluded that the decision to run the plant as a load-following power station, where output was tailored to grid fluctuations, contributed to the damage.
“According to our findings, this stress has contributed to the unexpected oxidisation of the upper parts of some of the fuel rods,” Habeck explained.
The practice of quickly increasing or decreasing electricity generation to compensate for excessive or reduced renewable output has been particularly prevalent since 2015.
In 2015, the cost of switching off wind turbines in the northern German region, when electricity networks had reached their capacity, was particularly high.
The damage at Brokdorf was discovered in February when the plant was shut down for an inspection. Oxidisation that exceeded safety levels was recorded on ten fuel rods across three fuel elements. However, evidence of increased corrosion has been present since 2011, according to Habeck’s ministry.
Brokdorf’s period of inactivity has cost plant owner EON more than €100 million, according to reports by Bloomberg.
The shutdown came at a delicate time for the company, which at the beginning of this month transferred €24 billion to the German government, as part of an agreed contribution to decommissioning costs for the country’s nuclear plants.
Operating company PreussenElektra has a soft spot for Brokdorf, which was brought online in 1986, and its website boasts that up to 90% of Schleswig-Holstein’s electricity demands can be met by the nuclear plant. Brokdorf is due to be decommissioned in 2021 as part of Germany’s divorce from atom smashing.
The operator’s own investigation suggested that the material sheathing the fuel rods could have contributed to the oxidisation problem. But the supervisory body’s report dismissed these findings. The German Greens’ nuclear policy spokesperson, Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, warned that Berlin’s environment ministry should share the findings from Brokdorf with the Swiss nuclear authority.
Switzerland’s Leibstadt facility is located on the German border and reportedly has the same problems as its northern German cousin. Kotting-Uhl accused Bern of “closing its eyes and leaving Leibstadt on, even though the problems are not solved”.
The German lawmaker insisted that the Swiss power plant is temporarily switched off “until complete clarity prevails”.
The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster prompted Germany to announce it will phase out nuclear power by 2022. Berlin has so far shut down eight of its 17 reactors.
As a result, Germany has moved to secure its energy security by prioritising capacity mechanisms, in order to take advantage of its large-scale renewable generation capabilities.
However, in April 2017, the European Commission started an investigation into whether Berlin’s plans to set up an electricity capacity reserve comply with EU state aid rules.
September 14, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, Germany, renewable |
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Solar grid keeps harvests high, hospitals lit in parched rural Zimbabwe, by Tonderayi Mukeredzi | Thomson Reuters Foundation, 11 September 2017, With worsening droughts drying fields and hydropower, solar energy is providing a way forward in rural areas MASHABA, – Until recently, farmers in this town in southern Zimbabwe struggled to water their crops, frustrated by poor rainfall and the regular breakdown of the diesel engines that powered their irrigation systems.
As in most areas of rural Zimbabwe, rain-fed agriculture provides most of the jobs in this part of Gwanda district, some 130km (80 miles) southeast of Bulawayo.
But sparse rains over the last decade, a worsening problem associated with climate change, have caused many harvests to fail, and cut into the country’s generation of hydropower, which provides much of its electricity.
In Mashaba, however, the community’s luck is turning. In 2015, the town installed a solar mini-grid power station that has helped green the hot, arid area transform into a hive of entrepreneurial activity. The off-grid power system, with 400 solar panels that provide nearly 100 kilowatts of reliable power, has made it possible to effectively irrigate crops, boosting farming yields and fuelling economic growth. Local leaders say schools have become more productive and medical facilities safer.
The $3.2 million mini-grid was funded by the European Union, the OPEC Fund for International Development and the Global Environment Facility as part of a drive to promote universal access to modern energy in rural areas. Its construction was overseen by Practical Action Southern Africa, a development charity.
The plant powers the Mankonkoni and Rustlers Gorge irrigation schemes, which cover 32 hectares (79 acres) and 42 hectares (104 acres) respectively; the Mashaba Primary School; a business centre with three shops; the Mashaba Clinic; and the Masendani Business Centre, which has four shops and an energy kiosk.
A board of trustees selected by the community is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the mini-grid, and community members have been trained to maintain and operate it.
The mini-grid will be co-owned by an independent power producer and the community through the trust…….http://news.trust.org/item/20170911111952-ei8xq/
September 14, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AFRICA, renewable |
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Hinkley nuclear power is being priced out by renewables https://www.theguardian.com/environment/nils-pratley-on-finance/2017/sep/11/hinkley-nuclear-power-no-match-for-renewables, Nils Pratley
The UK should concentrate on wind- and gas-fired stations, and involve nuclear only if it can vaguely compete on price Reuters 12 September 2017
Hinkley Point C nuclear power station was conceived in the days when offshore wind cost £150 per megawatt hour and a few misguided souls, some of them government ministers, thought a barrel of oil was heading towards $200.
Successive governments swallowed the line that Hinkley represented a plausible answer to the UK’s threefold energy conundrum – keeping the lights on, reducing carbon emissions and producing the juice at affordable prices for consumers and business.
Hinkley still scores on reliability and low carbon (if one ignores the effect of spoiling the Somerset countryside with so much concrete), but the extent to which its costs are obscene is now plainer than ever. In Monday’s capacity auction, two big offshore wind farms came in at £57.50 per megawatt hour and a third at £74.75. These “strike prices” – a guaranteed price for the electricity generated – are expressed in 2012 figures, as is Hinkley’s £92.50 so the comparison is fair.
The dramatic improvement in offshore wind’s competitiveness is easy to explain because it was predicted. The turbines have become bigger and more efficient, installation costs have fallen and operators are able to use existing infrastructure. Even the post-Brexit fall in sterling has not altered the script because more of the equipment is produced in the UK these days.
By contrast, nuclear – a technology that has been around for half a century – seems to only become more expensive in a world of tighter safety regulation. Hinkley Point’s construction tripled between conception and contract, remember.
As for the argument that we must pay up for reliable baseload supplies, there ought to be limits to how far it can be pushed. A nuclear premium of some level might be justified, but Hinkley lives in a financial world of its own, even before battery technology (possibly) shifts the economics further in favour of renewables. A credible energy strategy would concentrate on wind- and gas-fired stations, and invite nuclear to the game only if it can vaguely compete on price.
The government should draw the obvious conclusion from Monday’s successful auction. One Hinkley is bad enough; a series of follow-on white elephants would be a disgrace.
September 13, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
renewable, UK |
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Solar Energy Capacity Could Outpace Nuclear by the End of Year https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/solar-power-more-energy-than-nuclear-power/ Solar is still marginal in terms of how much it actually powers. By Joe McCarthy , 10 Sept 17, From giant floating farms to solo rooftop installations, solar power is growing in both scale and potential each year.
September 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, renewable |
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Why Nuclear Energy May Not Be Our Best Alternative Option To Fossil Fuel, Forbes, 9 Sept 17 , Michael Barnard, low-carbon innovation analyst, on Quora: “…..Nuclear ….environmentalists aren’t nuclear power’s problem.
Its first problem is that it keeps getting more expensive while alternatives keep getting cheaper. It was in global decline in terms of absolute and relative generation since 2005, with a small uptick last year due to China’s deployment. That’s because it’s expensive compared to alternatives. Until recently it was fiscally challenged by natural gas generation. A handful of years ago it stopped being competitive with onshore wind. Now it’s not cost competitive with utility scale solar. Depending on the forecast, it’s either not competitive with offshore wind today or in the next two years.
Efforts to make nuclear cheaper, like CCS, have failed. The Toshiba Westinghouse AP1000 was supposed to be a standard, easy to build, cheaper option. It’s turned out to be incredibly expensive in reality and Toshiba Westinghouse has entered bankruptcy. A recent US report on next generation fission technologies found that roughly $2 billion had been spent with no progress. Fusion’s best hope is the ITER Tokamak which is expected to go live in prototype with no generation in 2040, meaning that if it works, some commercializable technology might be contributing by 2070.
The second problem is that nuclear is an inflexible form of generation. Some of that is the technology, but regardless of that, the business case requires about 90% capacity factor for nuclear in order to make money due to the extraordinary capital cost of the technology. That’s just the reality. And inflexible generation doesn’t work with intermittent renewables. If you can’t scale the various technologies up and down cost effectively, then there’s a problem. Ontario has been a bellwether in this regard with its surplus baseload generation problems of the past few years. While people tried to blame this on wind energy, what’s really happening is that the nuclear fleet is too big and can’t be turned off, so Ontario has been paying neighbouring jurisdictions to take the excess electricity. California built a lot of pumped storage to give nuclear something to do at night. France built expensive follow-the-load nuclear which basically wastes all of the generated heat without generating electricity. As France’s new President Macron has said, he used to run that ministry and even he doesn’t know how much they spent on nuclear or how much it costs.
The third problem is that nuclear is a geographically limited solution to a global problem. There are only 30 countries with nuclear today and we mostly don’t want to expand that number for reasonable geopolitical concerns related to radioactive material supply chain security, nuclear waste security and expansion of uranium enrichment technologies which happen in many cases to be useful directly for creating nuclear weapon’s grade uranium or masking the purchase of that enrichment technology. Dirty bombs anyone? A new nuclear bomb owning dictator anyone?……
Nuclear power is a 1970’s solution and hasn’t aged well. It hasn’t become cheaper, more flexible or more ubiquitous and it won’t. It’s failing in the marketplace, not due to environmentalists. …… Should we pay much attention to expanding nuclear? No. Why bother wasting breath on something that doesn’t have a business case…….
Renewables are the answer because they are massively scalable, cheap and solving the problems of renewables is easier than solving the problems of nuclear that is down the road.
The big kerfuffle recently about whether we can get to 100% renewables by 2050 or not was very interesting for one reason. Everyone involved agreed we could easily get to 80%. The question was how hard the last 20% would be.
But getting to 80% globally is a huge advance and is much cheaper to achieve than trying to ride the dead horses of nuclear and carbon capture on fossil fuels. We have to find ways to take carbon out of the atmosphere, likely soil carbon capture with global transformation of agricultural approaches, but it can’t be considered a successful part of the solution to get our emissions to zero. https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/09/why-nuclear-energy-may-not-be-our-best-alternative-option-to-fossil-fuel/#25ec6e8375d0
September 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, ENERGY |
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