We Could Start Saving the Planet Today
Last week, I attended the Western Governors’ Association meeting, a non partisan gathering of state governors, staff and industry focused on improving how the west collaborates on regional problems. Several speaker panels focused on how best to make progress in generating energy from renewable sources.
It’s frustrating. Almost all of the conversations focused on how to deploy more transmission facilities to move electricity from far away generation facilities to heavy demand areas (think Montana wind powering Arizona homes). States pointing fingers at each other, NIMBY, environmental concerns, financing, lack of certainty, litigation and unwieldy approval processes, etc., etc. Somehow every conversation about renewable energy generation gets mired down in the seemingly endless issues associated with building new transmission facilities.
But all renewables are not created equal. Solar photovoltaics (PV) can be deployed today without major new transmission facilities. Right now. At heavy load centers near you and me. And, I don’t mean just a few panels on your rooftop. Wholesale distributed generation from solar PV (solar farms ranging from 10-20 megawatts (MW)) is deployable today on land located near existing transmission facilities. Those solar farms could be scattered across the grid, powering 4,400-8,800 homes each during peak hours. How do I know? The California PUC said so in its report analyzing ways to meet the proposed 33% RPS goal for 2020. The report determines that large amounts of distributed generation (solar PV) could accelerate California’s achievement of its 2020 RPS goal. It also located over 2.2 gigawatts (GW) of ground-mounted appropriate locations that could be easily (read: quickly and cheaply) deployed. That’s more than six times the total solar PV deployed today in the US — with zero new transmission.
We all understand new transmission facilities must be part of our long term solution to cleaner energy generation, but that shouldn’t prevent us from making meaningful progress with solar right now!
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Comments
All renewables are not created equal, indeed.
PV solar is one of the most expensive source of electricity (renewable or otherwise) at today's prices (on LCOE basis), thus deploying it today leads to enormous waste of productive resources. Of course, Applied can change that. All Applied needs to do is to start using its manufacturing equipment to actually produce PV panels, right now, and give the panels away for free. Then all-in systems costs may have a chance of going below $1 per Watt, and grid parity could arrive. So, Applied, why not stop selling equipment and start giving away PV for free? Right now! We could start saving the planet today! Or is Applied more interested in siphoning taxpayer money under false pretenses rather than in saving the planet?
Sorry for being slow to
Sorry for being slow to respond to your post – I took some time off for the holidays.
The cost of solar PV has historically been its Achilles’ heel, but the reality is that solar PV is cost competitive today with other renewables (like wind and solar thermal), and less expensive than conventional generation from gas peaking or gas combined cycle. A Lazard Capital Markets 2009 study that compares levelized cost per megawatt hour of electricity generated concluded that wind generation ranges from $56-$113/MWh, solar thermal is $106-204/MWh and Solar PV can be delivered for $86-194/MWh – all in same range. And the cost of solar thermal and wind don’t take into account the cost (and time delay) associated with building out the new transmission facilities necessary to deliver the energy generated to the places that needs it (the topic of my original post). Furthermore, solar PV has a proven, consistent cost reduction track record – for every doubling of capacity, the cost of solar PV decreases by 20%.
As a global society, we need to make serious and massive changes toward reducing energy consumption and generating cleaner energy. That’s going to require a cornucopia of solutions – wind, solar, nuclear, biomass, etc. There is no magic bullet and the changes required won’t be quick or easy…but the clock is ticking. Because solar PV can be rapidly and economically deployed without constructing major new transmission facilities, solar PV is both a smart and economical choice.
Your post offers up a unique business model for Applied, but I’m sure I speak for my fellow shareholders when I say that what Applied can do best is what it has done for the computer chip and flat panel display industries. With a relentless focus on technology, Applied was instrumental in helping decrease the cost of transistors by 20 million times over a 40 year period. Over the last 20 years, Applied has driven down the cost of flat panel displays by 20 times. As the technology and manufacturing prowess for these products improved, the cost fell -- unleashing huge consumer demand and transforming markets. Applied is committed to doing the same for solar PV. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
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