Insights on Energy from 2GreenEnergy Colleague Fritz Maffry
Here’s an interesting article on the future of energy from Kansas City-based Fritz Maffry. I agree with every word, FWIW.
My associates and I take extreme exception to the KCPL (Kansas City Power and Light Company, an electric utility company serving the Kansas City metropolitan area) contention that the best way to curtail rate increases in the future is to increase scale. Renewables and battery prices are crashing in price, while utilities consistently go for rate increase after rate increase. Already, the probable future cost of distributed, independent solar is already cheaper than future costs of utility electricity. This is being recognized internationally, but so far the utilities have been able to maneuver the dialog on future energy costs so as not to accept the obvious.
We would be glad to submit graphs of rate increases, solar price declines, battery price declines, and the dramatic innovation going on in clean, independent energy. Monopoly utilities are inherently less than credible on holding down long term costs of energy, because of their conflicts of interest in that regard. Competition and independent tech lead innovation for distributed renewables is transforming both energy and transportation.
We believe the public needs to have probable future costs factored in, and enlarging a private monopoly is simply not in the best interest in terms of facilitating the great innovations that are here and coming.
It would be our pleasure to present to the relevant bodies. It should be noted that monopoly behavior in pricing is well documented by Harvard studies that have covered the issues.
Already, the undue influence of utility lobbying and influence channels sets up a dynamic that does not represent the public interest fairly. This also leads into the fundamental issue around energy reform given the fantastic changes coming from the tech community. The public should have options, and these options will drive costs down over time; that is being proven around the world.
I couldn’t agree more, the future of investment in renewable energy is for many to produce small scale local power that feeds back into the system when in excess. The power that can be used where it is produced is the best alternative.
@Fritz thanks for your comments.
The Kansas City local government like every other local/state/national government on earth have a responsibility to the broader community to expertly and dispassionately quantify, qualify, and exemplify both performance and commercial reality in all expenditure and in particular electricity provision to the community because it is a critical service commodity.
The word ‘expertly’ is an important one – it implies precisely that, and in the case of electricity generation embodies beyond generation performance other critical and socially responsible environmental considerations such as safe, clean, reliable and abundant power as the outcome, to ensure community stability, facilitate growth, and importantly be able to power new era energy intensive industries.
Renewable energy sources (wind and solar PV) individually or in a combined format, are not suitable for community baseload supply because they were not designed to deliver baseload outcomes, and cannot be simply blinked into being something that they are not.
What community policy makers around the world are now finally realising is that renewable energy (wind and solar PV) have been near hysterically “talked up” this last 10 years to runaway train proportions, by seemingly everybody – but all of the talk cannot possibly alter the intrinsic shortcoming of the technologies themselves with regards to a modern extensible and commercially viable community baseload supply.
Wind and Solar PV technologies cannot simply be redefined technically by any amount of gobbledegook zombie logic or commentary as being able to become a modern community baseload supply.
So now that the technological shortcomings are being rapidly exposed worldwide, what next can the (wind and solar PV) industries turn to; well predictably energy storage integration. Add storage and the baseload issue has been solved. Wrong.
Fritz what we are actually experiencing here are vested interest attempts by the global renewable energy industry at trying to make (wind and solar PV) fit the baseload model by any means possible, at any cost, at any degree of complexity, without regard at all to extensibility, and last but not least without regard to commercial viability at the outset or into the future.
So what is making (wind and solar PV + storage) still a topic of interest – well it’s no surprise that it is continued overly generous government taxpayer subsidies, government grants, and creative corporate accounting processes.
On the flip side – integrated Wind and Solar PV and energy storage do have a very strong future and should be the energy source of choice for those situations that are suitable candidates for these energy formats. This is the industry that I am supportive of and involved in.
But the future for global modern communities baseload supply is not (wind and solar PV + storage).
And you are well aware of these points above Fritz, but your vested interests are getting in the way of your objectivity.
Lawrence Coomber
PBS recently had a program about battery technology and developments. The program acknowledged (FINALLY!) that currently there is no battery technology available to make wind and solar power practical as a sole source of power. The program went into considerable detail on various battery technologies.
The program also made it clear that batteries for utilities and batteries for electric cars had to meet very different requirements. For electric cars, energy density is critical. For utilities, energy density is much less important. There is work being done on flow batteries which would be appropriate for utilities, partly because adding storage capacity could be done simply by adding more tank capacity. However, although that technology may succeed, there is no guarantee that it will succeed. Depending on something which may never succeed certainly seems unwise.
It may be that at a future date battery technology will be adequate to make wind and solar power practical as a sole source of power, but that time has not yet arrived and there is no guarantee that it ever will.
Of course we can keep building wind and solar systems hoping that very soon battery technology will become adequate. But if battery technology does not become adequate, then we may be in very serious trouble which could have been avoided by expanding nuclear power as fast as possible.
Lawrence-
We are not assuming an automatic changeover, but we are very cognizant of the road map of price declines for solar, battery storage, and control technologies that work with these. Right now Elon and the President are working on an “option” and it is looking like it is increasingly on track to give real rate friendly futures to the public.
Too bad the note didn’t include all the charts I am sending to public to consider, but smart money is increasingly expecting tech to make a success out of solar and electric vehicles. Coal utilities are proving unusually poor at driving innovation here, ask NRG.
McKinsey, Duetsche Bank, Goldman, pick your source, they have the charts that show more or less the same virtuous advancement curve I do. You are not measuring futures strategically, we are not talking about solar taking over the baseload immediately, don’t pretend that is what we are saying.
Are you really suggesting the utility has perpetual dominion over distributed independent solar, that is absurd.
Get a good seat for the show folks, because Elon is going to do exactly what Lawrence is suggesting we shouldn’t or can’t do.
The utility has been choking off alternatives, for a decade while playing a double game. We welcome a public review of this issue, but traditional regulatory machinery is not moving fast enough in recognizing tech innovation. Something tells me Trump might have a cure for that. We await the outcome of the rumor that Trump is readying a # to go with Carbon emissions, and to streamline regulations. Nice how you avoided the central argument, the farce that the utility getting a larger monopoly is the best thing for rate payers long term, just not so.
Lawrence,
The unfortunate thing is the charts were not included above, but we will have them be a part of the conversation. Numbers are from sources like Deutsche Bank, Goldman, McKinsey, MIT.
Elon is doing what you suggest is impossible, and much of the world is embracing what the utilities have tried to choke off here, independent solar.
Stock market already recognizing and highlighting the changes underway. We should not be distracted from the central theme though, which is long term rate payer interest is well served by a monopoly utility getting larger.
We are not suggesting a cold turkey move from monopoly utility, but a combination approach is viable, working now. When you look to long term life cycle costs of futures, it is starting to look like no contest, why are you not talking about the long term ownership costs and the real track record of utilities with rate increase after rate increase, this is factual.
We will start showing numbers on solar and battery storage, but it will surprise to the positive. The world is racing towards this, but somehow the utilities want to bottle up advancement here, saying it can’t be proven. The smart money is already staking their claim, and the tech industry track record is one of incredible, regular, advancement. The monopoly utility stifling independent solar, on the wrong side of history and the angels I am afraid.
Fritz,
You wrote, “Elon is doing what you suggest is impossible, and much of the world is embracing what the utilities have tried to choke off here, independent solar.”.
Actually, batteries suitable for electric cars are unlikely to be the most suitable type for utility storage. For electric cars, energy density is critical because it is necessary to store large amounts of energy in a small and light package. For utility usage, size and weight are not so important since the batteries are stationary.
It still has not been demonstrated practical to avoid burning ALL fossil fuel by using wind and / or solar power instead. It is possible that at some unknowable future date it might become practical, but that time has not yet been reached and may never be reached.