

Repowering California for all purposes with wind, water, and sunlight [pdf] - ejr
http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CaliforniaWWS.pdf

======
beloch
This paper proposes converting California's power generation over to wind and
solar, with electric vehicles and electrically generated hydrogen vehicles
replacing all others. All use of fossil fuels and nuclear power is to be
phased out. Notably, it suggests that hydroelectric power should be used to
balance loads. i.e. It proposes that California's power grid be stabilized
with only hydroelectric power as an on-demand source of generation.

Firstly, in 2013 California imported 32.7% of it's electricity. California has
little control over how this is generated. Of the power used by California,
40.8% is from Natural Gas, 8.1% is hydroelectric, 6.0% is Nuclear, 4.3% is
from wind power, 4.2% is geothermal, 2.1% is from biomass, and 1.4% is
solar[1].

Natural Gas and Nuclear power are both excellent on-demand sources of power,
and currently meet 46.8% of California's electricity requirements. If these
power sources are to be phased out, they must be replaced with energy sources
that are on-demand. Wind and solar do not fit this description. Hydro does,
but quintupling California's hydroelectric capacity will have a huge impact on
the environment. This paper greatly underestimates how much on-demand power
generation capacity a power grid needs in order to be stable.

Side note: California currently derives little of it's electricity from wind
or solar power. Electric vehicle batteries carry a high environmental cost to
produce, so it is imperative that the energy they are charged with be of
renewable origin for any net environmental benefits to be reaped. Given that
40.8% of California's electricity currently comes from natural gas, it's clear
that anyone plugging their EV's into California's grid is doing the
environment no favors.

[1][http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_gen_1983...](http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_gen_1983-2013.xls)

~~~
Brakenshire
I'm not sure why you'd discuss this without mentioning the section of the
linked article which addresses exactly this issue (maintaining a stable grid
with 100% renewables, and current levels of hydroelectric power):

> Here, we do not model the reliability of an optimized future California grid
> but discuss a recent optimization study in which 100% WWS in the California
> grid was modeled for two years. Hart and Jacobson[30] used a stochastic
> optimization model of system operation combined with a deterministic
> renewable portfolio planning module to simulate the impact of a 100% WWS
> penetration for California every hour of 2005 and 2006. They assumed near-
> current hydroelectric and geothermal but increased geographically-dispersed
> time-dependent wind, solar PV, and CSP with 3-h storage. They constrained
> the system to a loss of load of no more than 1 day in 10 years and used both
> meteorological and load forecasts to reduce reserve requirements. They found
> that, under these conditions, 99.8% of delivered electricity could be
> produced carbon-free with WWS during 2005/2006

> The result of Hart and Jacobson[30] suggests that, for California, a large
> part of the intermittency problem of wind and solar can be addressed not
> only by combining the two, but also by using hydroelectric and CSP with 3-h
> storage to fill in gaps. The remaining differences between supply and demand
> can likely be addressed with the inclusion of demand-response management;
> energy efficiency measures, CSP with storage longer than 3 h, additional
> pumped hydroelectric storage, distributed or large-scale battery storage,
> compressed-air storage, flywheels, seasonal heat storage in soil, out-of-
> state WWS resources, the addition of flexible loads such as electric
> vehicles, vehicle-to-grid methods, and oversizing the number of WWS
> generators to simplify matching power demand with supply while using excess
> electricity for district heat or hydrogen production.

If you want to refute this, you need to start with Hart and Jacobsen, and work
from there.

~~~
Ntrails
Perhaps I am misreading, but are they including in their estimates on changed
behaviour in the population resulting in the energy efficiency savings?

~~~
Brakenshire
I don't think so, I think they are only looking at balancing the supply side
(making calculations using the demand patterns from 2005/06), demand-
management is then another possibility that goes on top of that.

------
schainks
I'm seeing a lot of misinformation on this thread, and I think it would be
useful to point hacker news at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI),
which is a cited source in this paper. They are an engineering-based,
independent, non-profit research company. And their headquarters is in the
"heart" of Silicon Valley next to Xerox...

[http://www.epri.com/](http://www.epri.com/)

Full disclosure: I am not an EPRI employee, but I've read a lot of their
papers and presentations. Their research is original and unbaised. Their
engineering is pragmatic and chocked full of raw 100% reality. I wish some of
the websites people are citing here were talking to places like EPRI first,
but instead write sensationalist headlines that hide details and misinform,
making sane, coordinated discussion difficult.

I suggest hacker news check them out and maybe send some emails to get better
information about this proposal and learn more how the grid truly functions
politically, economically, and technically.

~~~
spenrose
EPRIs Board of Directors appears to be dominated by executives from large
power monopolies: [http://www.epri.com/About-Us/Pages/Board-of-
Directors.aspx](http://www.epri.com/About-Us/Pages/Board-of-Directors.aspx)

Yes, there are other members, but PG&E does not join groups which accelerate
the rollout of renewables (especially distributed renewables); it focuses on
slowing them. So your "independent" and "unbiased" assertions are quite
misleading.

------
timthorn
David MacKay's "Without Hot Air" is an excellent investigation of what needs
to be done to power the UK.
[http://www.withouthotair.com/](http://www.withouthotair.com/)

------
dredmorbius
The California state plan proposal has been getting discussed recently: "How
to power California with wind, water and sun (Jacobson and Delucchi)"
([http://www.reddit.com/r/RenewableTech/comments/2btow7/how_to...](http://www.reddit.com/r/RenewableTech/comments/2btow7/how_to_power_california_with_wind_water_and_sun/)).

J&D's proposal for a US national wind, water, and sun energy system:
([http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/sad11...](http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/sad1109Jaco5p.indd.pdf))
is one of the more complete such prosals around. See more links on their
website:

[http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/susen...](http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/susenergy2030.html)

Recently they've been providing proposals for each of the 50 states:

[http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/WWS-5...](http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/WWS-50-USState-
plans.html).

David McKay's _Without the Hot Air_
([http://www.withouthotair.com/](http://www.withouthotair.com/)) is one of the
few comparable efforts I'm aware of, though RMI/Amory Lovins _Reinventing
Fire_
([http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781603585385-0](http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781603585385-0))
probably belongs in the mix.

Also being discussed on reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/RenewableTech/comments/2d8ptl/a_road...](http://www.reddit.com/r/RenewableTech/comments/2d8ptl/a_roadmap_for_repowering_california_for_all/)

(Disclaimer: I'm a moderator of that sub).

------
schainks
I'd like to take a moment to point out another really great "renewable"
technology that is a clever arbitrage hack using power prices: Compressed Air
Energy Storage.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAES](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAES))

To me, this is "Grid 2.0" technology. You are moving energy from times where
you have cheap excess and placing it on the grid in times of expensive need.
If we are going to move to a grid with a lot of renewables, technologies like
CAES and pumped hydro ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-
storage_hydroelectricit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-
storage_hydroelectricity)) are two necessary ingredients.

The primary difference between CAES and pumped hydro is that CAES is cost
effective for both medium (50+MW) and large (500+MW) installations, while
pumped hydro is cost effective only at large scale (500MW+) installations.

~~~
dredmorbius
CAES works, but has some challenges, most notably the Ideal Gas law: PV = nRT

That means that as you increase (or decrease) pressure, you increase (or
decrease) heat.

This affects CAES two ways.

On storing high-pressure gas (usually air), you're creating significant heat
of compression. In thin-walled structures (e.g., compressed air tanks), this
is generally wasted to the environment. In subterranean storage, often in
largely spent (but not fully exhausted) natural gas reservoirs (proven high-
pressure gas capacity), you risk explosions within the storage reservoir as
hot gas enters.

On energy recovery, you've got the reverse problem: the expanding air cools
rapidly. In most CAES systems, apparently, the solution is to create a
combined-form recovery, in which both expanding gas _and_ natural gas
combustion (to raise the gas temperature) are used, so recovery isn't fully
from the compressed air storage itself.

That said: it is among the more promising options, others being pumped hydro
(including sea-based pumped hydro), thermal storage, and seawater-based
Fischer-Tropsch fuel synthesis (low round-trip efficiency, but excellent
scalability and very long-term storage).

See:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28nqoz/electric...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28nqoz/electrical_fuel_synthesis_from_seawater_older/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/RenewableTech/comments/29t6t7/seawat...](http://www.reddit.com/r/RenewableTech/comments/29t6t7/seawater_pumped_hydro_storage/)

(Disclaimer: I'm mod of those subs).

------
leccine
You still need a base power plant and few others for controlling the amount of
energy in the system. Using only renewable is kind o hard. If we can figure
out a way to store energy the way we can access it very quickly with arbitrary
output, we could move on to renewables exclusively.

~~~
jerven
No we need to be able to shed unwanted power. Generation using renewable
sources can be over provisioned, and still be economically feasible. Power
usage fluctuations are thé key issue to manage. As wind is a very good base
load provider.

Don't look at capacity factor that is very misleading.

~~~
schainks
> As wind is a very good base load provider.

What? Please show us where the wind blows 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,
every year.

Not being a nay-sayer, but your comment is very misleading.

"Good base load provider" means high availability - reliable enough so the
lights don't go out. When's the last time you remember a power outage in the
US that did not make the news? Yeah, that kind of availability. Outages are
rare enough that they make the news when they do happen. Right now, wind
cannot provide this kind of "base load" guarantee unless we overbuild a huge
amount of capacity and implement a very sophisticated real-time system to
manage all the inputs/outputs, and even then you'll be lucky to generate
stable baseline load. China's trying right now and having a very difficult
time both delivering stable power, and making money doing it[1].

[1] [http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1171987/analysis---
c...](http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1171987/analysis---chinese-wind-
curtailments-double-2012)

~~~
jerven
What is base load? Its the minimum load required in a network or is it those
plants for whom it is uneconomical to go below a certain output.

For the first no power plant is truly base load as all plants must shutdown
sometimes. So you need to look at a system. So taking into account that in a
large area like California it always blows some where, can wind generate the
minimal base load at any time. For wind the law of large numbers eventually
means that given a per wind turbine capacity factor of 36% a pure wind net
achieves 36% capacity factor. If the 36% is the day peak load, then at 18% you
are at night low load, considering that wind can be base load.

On the second base load is pump it when you got it e.g. because it costs to
much to ramp down (coal, nuclear) or because you got the power anyway (wind,
day/noon solar) then yes wind is base load.

Single wind turbines are not base load power plants, but when you have
thousands of them over a large area they start to guarantee with high accuracy
a minimal load with very good prediction properties.

Of course this ignores economic efficiency, but that depends very much on oil
prizes.

e.g. The us uses 18 million barrels of oil a day. That means the yearly oil
consumption of the US is very roughly equivalent to the volume of oil required
to flood Rhode island state one foot deep. Which on the face of it does not
seem economically efficient but at the moment it is.

------
naland
no need to think about wind, water, and sunlight, first break great suckers
—intel and ms.

