The Arizona Corporation Commission has imposed a renewable energy mandate that requires electric utilities to produce 15% of electricity from renewable resources by 2025.  In Arizona the utilities are turning mainly to solar power to meet the requirement.  That policy means that the cost of generating electricity and our electric bills will soar.  Who benefits?

The graph below shows the relative costs of producing electricity by various means.  The data are from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook for 2011. (Link).  The data were graphed by Willis Eschenbach.  The costs are in cents per kilowatt hour. The blue part represents capital and transmission costs; the red part represents fuel, operation, and maintenance costs.

As you can plainly see, solar energy is much more expensive and would not be considered for utility-scale electricity generation were it not for government mandates and subsidies.  Another problem with solar generation is that it requires backup power because even in Arizona, the sun doesn’t shine all the time.  Solar plants typically produce just a fraction of their rated capacity.  For instance, TEP operates one of the largest solar PV arrays in the United States, a 5-MW system. But over two years of operation, the capacity factor for that generator has averaged 19%, meaning it produced only 19% of its rated capacity most of the time.

One of the rationales for using solar (and wind) energy is that it is supposed to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions, but that isn’t necessarily so if the backup generation comes from fossil-fuel powered plants.  A study in the Netherlands shows that the intermittent generation by wind actually increases carbon dioxide emissions because the fossil fuel-run backup generators have to cycle up and down constantly rather than being run efficiently at a constant output.  That cycling uses more fuel. (Note, the study was specific to wind power, but it could be applied to intermittent solar power also due to variable generation on cloudy days.)

Some may argue that the cost of solar cells is rapidly falling.  But, the cost of the cells themselves is a small part of what goes into a utility scale power plant.

Our modern society depends upon having a reliable source of electricity.  Wind and solar generation are not reliable.  As we increase our dependence of these unreliable sources we increase the risk of electrical brownouts or blackouts which disrupt vital services and commerce.

Perhaps our corporation commissioners think they are doing the right thing for the planet, but their benighted mandate may actually be doing the opposite because it ties up money and resources that could perhaps be put to better use to help solve real problems.  Again, who benefits?

Our state legislators should repeal the renewable energy standards mandate and let the utility companies produce electricity by less expensive and more reliable means.

Then we will see whether or not the utilities employ solar energy voluntarily.

See also:

APS wants electric energy efficiency to cost more

Arizona Corporation Commission May Ration Electricity

Smart Grid may ration electricity

Will you let the power company control your air conditioner?

The headline of this post is the headline of a Department of Energy press release.  Gila Bend, Arizona is a town with a population of about 2,000 and given to growing cotton and alfalfa.

Currently First Solar (Paloma project) and Cotton Center have solar plants under construction that will provide Arizona Public Service with enough electricity to power 9,000 homes so they claim.  Several other companies have permit applications pending.

According to the article, “the town government [is expediting] the speed at which solar companies’ construction plans could get approved. Processes that usually take at least a year, and often several years, can now go through public hearings, citizen review sessions, planning and zoning commissions hearings, publication in a newspaper, and council approval in as little as four weeks.” See complete press release here.

First Solar, a Tempe manufacturer of solar panels,  is one of the companies that received loan guarantees just one day before the federal program expired.  Cotton Center is getting its solar panels from Solon Corp. in Tucson.

These two photovoltaic plants join the Solana plant which is a concentrating thermal solar facility that broke ground near Gila Bend in December, 2010, aided by a $1.45 billion federal loan guarantee.

This boomlet of solar installation is funded by taxpayer subsidies and is a result of the state’s renewable energy standards mandate that require electric utilities to produce at least 15% of their electricity from renewable resources by 2025.

In general, electricity production from solar power is much more expensive than from coal or natural-gas fired plants . (see National Renewable Energy Standard Will Mean Higher Electricity Bills).  Already I can see extra fee charges on my electric bill from Tucson Electric Power.

I first wrote about solar towers in August, 2009. Now, Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA) says they have agreed to buy power from two 2,500-foot towers to be built between the towns of Parker and Quartzsite in La Paz County, Arizona, with construction to start in 2012.

Each tower will be surrounded by a mile-wide greenhouse designed to heat air, which will then rise through the tower after passing through turbines. The rated peak capacity will be 200 megawatts for each tower.

According to SCPPA, “The Solar Tower facility is anticipated to generate more than 1,000,000 MWhs of renewable energy per year.” The towers were developed and will be built by an Australian company, EnviroMission. I could not find figures on the exact cost, but an October, 2010, estimate by Phoenix Business Journal puts the figure at somewhere between $700 million and $1 Billion. In December, 2010, the Arizona Republic put the cost at $750 million for one tower. That capital cost works out to about $3,750 per Kwh capacity. To put that in perspective, coal plants cost abut $3,167 per Kwh, natural gas plants cost about $1,003 per Kwh, and solar voltaic plants cost about $4,755 per Kwh according to the Energy Information Administration. So far there are no data on how much of the peak capacity will actually be available. Availability is generally near 90% for fossil fuel plants and less than 25% for solar voltaic plants.

If built, the towers will be the tallest structures in the U.S. and second only to the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai.