Is Europe Wasting a Fortune with the Poor Siting of Clean Energy Projects?
Here’s an article from SmartGridNews that raises an interesting and important question about the siting of renewable energy projects. Siemens is asserting that the large European governments are in the process of wasting 45 billion Euros by not properly thinking through the consequences of its siting decisions.
No one likes to waste money, especially not tens of billions of Euros. But this is tricky business for several reasons, like the opportunity cost of waiting while various forces argue the merits of different alternatives. This, btw, is exactly what the Nature Conservancy wants to do here in the U.S., i.e., take as long as required to find the perfect spot for solar panels – one that has exactly zero impact on natural systems.
In case it’s not obvious, I believe that there is a real cost to this behavior, and that making a few compromises in the name of expediting the build-up of renewables is acceptable.
I don’t think you’re comparing apples to apples here.
Europe is a big place, and the EU has authority over a region that is roughly the size of the continental U.S.
If someone (me) were to state that the federal government was being foolish in offering the same level of subsidies for solar whether the panels were put up in NJ or AZ, or the same subsidies for a wind farm in Eastern MI as is offered in the Dakotas…that person would be right. That wouldn’t be a question of finding areas that have no tortoises, that would be a question of one area generating more than three times as much carbon neutral energy as the other with the same size/cost installation:
One area representing a good investment and the other representing a poor investment.
Putting money into the poor investments would only serve to waste money and make renewables vulnerable to conservative attacks about being poor investments.
I haven’t read the Siemens report, but I suspect their criticism would fall upon those lines, and if so I agree with them.
One thing I did want to mention about the Siemens report that was highlit within the article you linked:
The forth recommendation – that of switching to electric heat from natural gas – is an incredibly poor choice. The best CCGT in the world (from Siemens) has a maximum efficiency of 61% if it’s run at optimum power with no load variation.
Combusting NG for heat is ~100% efficient.
There’s no reason to suggest switching to electric heat until the European grid has spare renewable capacity, which it’s not even remotely close to achieving anytime soon.