Los Angeles Burb Says No to Natural Gas, Yes to Renewables and Energy Storage–Saves a Cool $125 Million
Southern California’s City of Glendale, just northeast of downtown Los Angeles, has scrapped plans for a $500 million 262 MW gas peaker plant in lieu of an array of clean energy alternatives that include battery energy storage that when implemented, this integrated solution will save ratepayers $125 million compared to the initial plan. Glendale Water & Power’s General Manager Steve Zurn notes that this is all about the evolution of energy storage technology. “At that point in time (at which the NG plan was originally conceived), thinking about reliability, the storage market was still very much in its infancy and still very expensive.”
Since then, large-scale batteries have become competitive, but so have networks of small-scale energy devices located in homes and businesses.
From the article linked above: The final portfolio, proposed in Glendale Water & Power’s new integrated resource plan, would repower the Grayson Power Plant with a 75-megawatt/300-megawatt-hour Tesla battery installation and up to 93 megawatts of fast-ramping Wärtsilä engines. Customer-focused resources will add another 50 megawatts, including 12.8 megawatts from home solar and batteries installed by Sunrun, 10.5 megawatts of demand response by Franklin Energy and 20.4 megawatts of energy efficiency and demand response from Lime Energy Services. That demand reduction constitutes about 14 percent of the utility’s roughly 350-megawatt peak load.
This is all interesting, particularly in that the major complaint I receive from the pro-nuke (anti-renewables) people is that more solar and wind means more natural gas, since the former are variable resources that need back-up in order to provide dispatchable power, and natural gas has horrendous and sometimes undisclosed leakages. Here’s a solution that not only doesn’t use NG, it replaces it.
Craig,
Sadly, many Californian cities have followed the same delusional path as Germany.
In California’s case, especially the City of Glendale, have been scammed. There are no “savings”, the figures are to say the least distorted and “elastic”.
The City of Glendale consists of 200,167 residents with little or no heavy industry. Power consumption is many residential or retail type commercial customers,(shopping malls etc).
Even so, Glendale Water & Power’s proposal is astonishingly optimistic and the economics rely upon a combinations of government subsidies and dubious predictions.
I see no cause for unbridled celebration.
Meanwhile, I nearly fell of my chair in disbelief when reading an article in the Guardian headlined, “The uncomfortable truth? Baltimore has problems. And Democrats are to blame “.
Naturally, being the Guardian, it lambasted the President’s remarks but also observed ” the city’s poverty and crime are real, and liberals should shoulder the blame”.
The Guardian also tentatively raised the issue of excusing corruption or incompetence by black city officials and politicians and labeling all negative criticism as “racist”.
The article pointed to the City’s unsolved murder rate of over 50%. ( Baltimore saw 341 homicides in 2017; to put that into comparison, the city of New York, which has 14 times the population, had 290 murders the same year).
What is amazing is the Guardian contributor is hardly a Trump supporter! Zaid Jilani is a “Bridging the Divides” writing fellow at the University of California at Berkeley’s Greater Good magazine.
His observation “If Democrats don’t want the president to insult Baltimore, perhaps they could inoculate it from criticism by turning it into the safe, prosperous city it deserves to be – where every child has a decent chance to fulfill their potential. After decades of Democratic rule, it is anything but that”, is hard to refute.
But in contrast the NYT, CNN etc condemns the President for Baltimore’s ills, and staunchly backs the cries of “racist” and outrage.
Baltimore Mayor Bernard Young met with sympathy from CNN and MSNBC who nodded in agreement at his response to why his City is such a poverty trap after 75 years of Democrat rule.
Mayor Young : ” The President should stop tweeting and send federal help and federal resources to the city of Baltimore” ……Baltimore’s problems are caused by Trump using his bully pulpit to belittle minorities, policies have to be in it. He just attacked four minority women. Now he attacked Elijah Cummings, an African-American male…..”
Mayor Young continued his rant, egged on by sympathetic media hosts. Not once did he even admit the problem. Not once did he accept responsibility for the City’s dire condition. He was angered by the President’s “outrageous sexist racism” by claiming corruption against black Democrat officials.
Yet, Mayor after Mayor, democrat politicians after Democrat politician, (many female) Police commissioners, and hundreds of Civic officials have been arrested (usually by State or Federal investigators) on charges Dixon involving felonies, racketeering, perjury, theft, misconduct, sex crimes, rape and a wide range of misdemeanors.
Mayor Young’s three immediate predecessors were all female, all black, all democrat and all resigned in disgrace facing investigations and multiple charges.
The problems of Baltimore are self-inflicted. This is what happens when any society loses discipline, respect and cohesion. Bernie Saunders is right, the City is suffering from a disease often observed in third world countries.
The City doesn’t need federal money, it needs resolve and honest government.
Craig,
Leaving my city office I found myself caught up in a demonstration of workers from the Victorian (Australia) industry protesting the slowdown in the solar industry caused by the lessening of the hugely generous government subsidies, and the non-arrival of the federal government subsidies promised by the Labour Party who were expected to win government, but failed.
Two large scale Solar generation plants have been shelved as independent auditing revealed huge discrepancies in the proposals.
All in all, the Solar Industry workers, unions, installers and contractors are complaining without changes in sight to the current “Solar Homes scheme”, the solar business in Victoria will collapse.
In an emotionally charged speech the leader of the Green Party told demonstrators outside Parliament House in Victoria, of the discontent and distress the scheme is causing is causing businesses and families. The Smart Energy Council also admitted with heavy subsidies, people just wouldn’t buy Solar.
Smart Energy Council CEO, John Grimes stated: “For the past three months Solar businesses have had no income because the phones have stopped ringing. Why buy solar if the government will give you $4225 toward the cost of installation ? “No one is buying, but wages still have to be paid, as do rents and bills.”
“Some businesses have recorded a 95 per cent drop in activity. Companies are being put into liquidation, That means people are out of work. The government must drop quota’s and fund Solar installations by 120%.
The industry also demanded the government stop any audit by both government or private organization into the effectiveness and life expectancy of Solar Installations, for fear this would allow information to be used to destroy confidence in the industry.
The more radical demonstrators cheered this resolution, demanding also Jemena Power Company immediately be prevented from proceeding with Jemena’s Western Sydney Green Gas project.
Jemena Co has created a subsidiary in NSW, Hydrogen Australia, to build world’s first large scale (500kw) electrolyser using solar and wind power to create carbon-neutral hydrogen gas that will be stored in Jemena’s old disused gas network. The energy infrastructure will be located in Western Sydney and use a percentage renewable energy to produce ‘green gas.
The technology which has been developed in partnership with Belgian and Canadian companies, achieves economic reality by co-mingling, storage and distribution of hydrogen and natural gas within an existing network. The storage capacity is the equivalent of 8 million Powerwall batteries units.
The cost of the project is relatively economical. The total capital commitment of a mere $15 million.
Jemena is not alone. Japanese and South Koren Investors have been actively approaching Australian and NZ gas utility companies with an eye to mini- hydrogen plant capable of large scale production and storage in old networks. The economics are very favourable in most Australian cities as much of the huge network of early Coal gas facilities remain unused and in excellent condition for refurbishment.
The Demonstrators were particularly enraged by Jemena Energy’s pledge to continue working with councils, partners and stakeholders to ensure public and private transport fleets can access hydrogen for use in fuel cell electric vehicles.
The demonstration timed to disrupt rush hour Tram and Train services, (without any clear objective) left most by-standers angry and bemused. (Why NSW should listen to Victoria wasn’t made clear).
The “all night vigil” dissipated in the bitter cold an rain, and the demonstrators decamped to the pub to console one another.
The Victoria cupboard is bare. Taxpayers will no longer support such schemes and the Federal government is less interested.
In the dying days of the last Australian Federal Labor Party government, the Energy minister allowed the State Grid Corporation of China to acquire a 60% stake in Jemena. That decision is no under review and with most contracts and licences coming up for renewal, as change of ownership may occur with South Korean corporations keen to replace the PRC as investors.
Hydrogen Technology may yet be the savior of the Solar industry.