Solar now accounts for over 50% of new electricity capacity added to the U.S. grid

And Biden has a lot to do with it.

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/03...w-electricity-capacity-added-to-the-u-s-grid/

When President Biden signed the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act into law in August 2022, the U.S. solar industry was given the green light for takeoff, and it has shattered records—adding 32.4 GW of new electric generating capacity last year, or 51% since 2022.

 

Since you have a BS in Electrical Engineering I'm sure you're familiar with the fact that 151% of 0 is still zero, so it might be helpful to know what the full electric generating capacity of the US actually is for a useful comparison.

And since Biden's Inflation Reduction Act was just a massive spending bill, it would also be helpful to know how much pork taxpayers like myself are on the hook for to pay for this increase.

And finally, again because of your BS in Electrical Engineering, you might be able to tell us how much of the normal fossil fueled baseload electrical generating capacity did this solar pork allow to be permanently retired. Or is this just duplicating existing systems and raising rates for consumers?

 

I'm not going to do a lot of research for you, but I can say this off the top of my head. The 32.4 GW of added solar capacity that are mentioned is the equivalent of over 5 of the largest nuclear plants in the world.

 

Again, a thoroughly useless statistic. No tie to actual reality.

I take that as just more pandering fan boy media hype.

 

Sure don't have anything constructive to say. No links or statistics to back up anything that is said.

 

Been in this business for a long time. I know what media liars look like.

 

Yeah, if everybody took your word, we'd be a better country

 

We would, actually.

 

No kidding? So nowadays, we just say that others are lying (power statistics, etc) without any proof, and that gets popular support.

 

No, nowadays I say that others are lying when the story they're pushing doesn't add up.

 

Any claim about solar or wind power that does not include the cost of dispatchable back-up is, itself, a lie.

 

Not true at all. Iowa, for example, gets 45% of it's power from wind power. They have a wind-first philosophy, and use natural gas fired plants as backup. So when the rest of the states are up to 45%, then maybe your statement might have an iota of merit.

 

And Iowa's cost figures for their wind power do not include the cost of that natural gas back-up, which must run continuously in order to be available (dispatchable) when needed. That omission is the lie.

 

That is not true. Natural gas turbines can be phased on and ramped up rather quickly. If hydroelectric is involved, it can be ramped up and adjusted immediately.

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries...as-in-the-move-to-cleaner-more-reliable-power

Across all scenarios, however, gas-fired power generation will play an important role: in a “less-renewables” scenario, gas-fired generation will be needed to meet higher electricity demand as renewables scale up; in a “more-renewables” scenario, gas-fired power generation can provide affordable and dispatchable power supply to balance out the intermittency of renewables....
Natural gas generation is known as a “dispatchable” energy source, meaning that the facilities for natural gas generation can be switched on or off depending on need—demonstrating its suitability as a security supply for the grid.

Note the verbage in that last paragraph - "can be switched on or off depending on need". This company, McKinsey Industries, knows how to work with renewables in a tag-team effort. They are making a difference.

 

The major cost increment does not come from mere power generation, but rather from the investment and supply required to guarantee the required capacity is available. From your link:
"To ensure that dispatchable gas-fired power generation can be used to complement renewables, the supply of natural gas to power plants must be robust enough to meet demand on peak days—occurring when solar and wind generation are low for multiple consecutive days."

 

Yes that's true, but that's not what you said earlier. You said "must run continuously"

 

Indeed, it must run continuously just to keep the system functional, but not at load when not called upon. Even a gas power plant can never really be "switched off" if it is to ramp up on short notice.

 

I worked as Utility Engineer for a Fortune 500 company. There are virtually no power plants that totally shut down. For example, they may have six turbines that stage ON per demand. Under that scenario, if renewables are producing actively, they may be down to 1 or 2 turbines running. Others are all "switched off". It's a power management scenario, and a good Utility operator manages this very effectively. Big dollars are involved in this "staging management". As mentioned, Iowa gets 45% of it's power from wind, the highest percentage in the nation, and they manage this quite well with natural gas backup.

 

Thank you for making my point.
The cost to sustain that natural gas back-up is not included in cost claims for wind power.

 

Nice try at deception. No cost. It's running anyway.

 

There's no deception; the system must be maintained. And the build-out of wind & solar will require building more back-up capacity.

 

Iowa still uses a boatload of natural gas, particularly for drying corn.

 

He doesn't understand that his precious wind and solar doesn't replace the existing high mass power generation because they have to continue to exist to back up the low mass irregular wind and solar power generation.

 

Climate nutters are sitting there at their computer sipping a high fructose corn syrup drink and munching corn chips thinking “what the &$:& is drying corn?”

 

There are big changes going on in this arena as well. With this method, the air doesn't have to be heated. Also, I just realized that I misspoke earlier. Instead of getting 45% of its power from wind, Iowa now gets 60% of its power.

https://extension.umn.edu/corn-harvest/natural-air-corn-drying#how-it-works-1197361