In one of the US's hottest deserts, utilities push gas rather than solar

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/23/gas-peaker-plant-republicans-fort-mohave-arizona

by PaulHoule • 2 years ago

47 82 2 years ago

theguardian.com

butler14• 2 years ago

Don’t care about it until it’s in their backyard

doublepg23• 2 years ago

Having tariffs on Chinese solar panels should help this calculus I’m sure.

namibj• 2 years ago

That said, it does leave more/cheaper for Europe.

YWall39• 2 years ago

we dont have these tariffs in europe, and still the sunnyest place in europe, the Canary Islands, make 85% of their electricity with oil. Always wonder why they dont have more solar panels.

whimsicalism6• 2 years ago

i don't think Europe nowadays is that useful of a case to reason from for macroeconomics in the US

derbOac• 2 years ago

I have family who lived in Arizona for awhile, and I visited them. I was always confused why everything in Arizona wasn't covered in solar panels, because it seemed like ideal solar energy scenario. Of course, with these kinds of things there's often some thing you don't think of at first but it just seemed like every single parking shade and roof could be covered in solar and it would work very very well. Not only is solar radiation intense there, but it's a daily expectation, and the trees to the extent they exist (mostly mesquite) generally don't grow higher than the surrounding buildings.

PaulDavisThe1st7• 2 years ago

It's mostly the capital expense of setting it all up.

And about 50% of that expense these days are labor costs.

And finding enough labor to do what you're describing is currently challenging.

reducesuffering• 2 years ago

California did way more installation with higher labor costs and lower solar potential though.

hedora• 2 years ago

You're talking about a part of the country with chronic job shortages. Concretely, they have a low employment rate and a high number of unemployed people.

black_puppydog• 2 years ago

Solar is being built quite quickly these days, and in areas that have much less expected solar influx. So labor isn't it.

onlyrealcuzzo2• 2 years ago

Per MWh in a place with the solar radiation of Arizona, the labor cost is lower for solar than a new gas peaker.

secabeen3• 2 years ago

A big factor is that battery storage wasn't there technologically until recently. You could cover Arizona in solar, but that just pushes the price of power down during daytime hours to $0. It doesn't help during the pinch times of late afternoon through sundown, when everything is still really hot, but solar produces significantly less. We need tons of batteries to store the excess solar from mid-day until the evening. Those batteries are being built very fast, but at the scale we need them, it will still take years.

This story is also a good illustration of why local government matters. National races get most of the media attention, but your personal day-to-day is more affected by your local government.

toomuchtodo3• 2 years ago

It's politics [1] [2].

Republicans expanded their majority on the utility commission to 4-1 in 2022 and have taken steps since then to reverse clean energy mandates. Most recently, the panel voted 4-1 to sunset rules that required regulated utilities to set energy efficiency requirements and get 15 percent of their energy from renewable resources by 2025.
This story is also a good illustration of why local government matters. National races get most of the media attention, but your personal day-to-day is more affected by your local government.

Arizona is getting what it voted for. At the generation capacity amounts needed to replace fossil generation (a handful of GWs, 15k-20k acres of leased land assuming ~4.5k-5k acres per GW of solar capacity) [3], this is simply a lack of desire and will. Someone else in the thread mentioned peaker plants; utility scale batteries are cheaper than peakers in most (but not all) cases [4] [5].

[1] https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2024/02/12...

[2] https://www.eenews.net/articles/can-arizona-revive-its-bipar...

[3] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-SW-AZPS?wind=false&s...

[4] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/12/battery-storage-syste...

[5] https://www.cesa.org/replacing-fossil-fueled-peaker-power-pl...

londons_explore• 2 years ago

If the majority of electricity use is air conditioning systems (at 6pm on a hot day, it is), then you're better off to have some chunk of users with thermal storage instead.

Thermal storage systems have a big chunk of concrete or tank of water under the house which can be cooled or heated by the air conditioning system. Then, at peak power demand times, that hot or cold is transferred to the living space of the house.

It effectively allows time-shifting of power use. It also lets you buy a smaller AC unit, since the AC unit can be operating 20+ hours a day, yet providing more cooling in the daytime and less at night when the need is lower.

Currently such systems cost more due to their novelty, but I am reasonably confident that if hour by hour electricity pricing becomes common, they will soon be widespread (in new builds at least, probably not worth retrofitting).

More complex versions of the same system allow many sources and sinks of heat - eg. they can heat/cool waste water, heat/cool the roof, heat/cool the ground under the house, heat/cool the outsides of the walls or the air outside the house. That means clever software can maximize efficiency - for example by radiating heat to the sky at night, dumping heat into north-facing walls in the daytime. Then, in the winter when it's cold it can scavenge heat from south facing walls.

greenthrow• 2 years ago

Pushing the cost of power to $0 during the day seems worthwhile still. And panels keep making power until the sun is very low. LFP batteries have been around for morr than a decade. We just foolishly haven't pursued it in the US due to the fossil fuel industry's grip on our government and much of this country's misinformed populace.

ip26• 2 years ago

If power prices were negative at 5pm, I’d be pre-cooling my house like mad before the sun went down… in other words, demand can shift and houses can act as energy storage.

Suppafly• 2 years ago

They are part of the nationwide grid right? They don't really need to store it, just put solar everywhere, dump the excess into the grid and purchase from the grid when solar isn't available.

tbrownaw• 2 years ago

just seemed like every single parking shade and roof could be covered in solar

Climbing around putting panels on top of everything is a lot more work than just putting them in a big field on the ground.

PaulHoule2• 2 years ago

Could be less environmental impact to install on land that is already used. The desert is habitat for all sorts of species of various level of endangerment.

ein0p• 2 years ago

And then cleaning them every once in a while. That’s why I don’t have any - cleaning the gutters on my house is $400 nowadays ($300 before Biden). Cleaning solar is probably twice that, and it’d need to be done every year - there’s a lot of vegetation around and everything is covered with pollen every spring and with leaves every fall. Even once-a-year cleaning would be like half of my yearly electricity bill.

onlypassingthru• 2 years ago

Just having rooftop solar panels on a building actually passively cools the roof underneath since you're basically building a shade structure for the building. The initial install is certainly more work than putting the panels in a field but the bonus cooling from the free shade may offset or negate the additional expense.

photochemsyn• 2 years ago

The explanation for this is simple and has been true for decades: the major investors in utility corporations have huge holdings in fossil fuels. So if you own the electric utility and are trading gas futures and hold many shares in gas producers, then a transition to solar - while good for the customers and for the utility's balance sheets - hurts the investor's other larger interests.

It's comparable to kerosene lamp manufacturers and kerosene producers trying to block rural electrification because people would use electric lights if they only could get access to them.

Of course, this is why the US government - whose politicians are little more than middle managers for the investment capitalism system - implemented huge tariffs on Chinese monocrystalline silicon PV panels.

soco• 2 years ago

Now if only some of those tariffs money would be used to promote the local production of solar cells...

nradov• 2 years ago

What an odd, off-topic comment. The utility companies in this article, Mohave Electric Cooperative (MEC) and Arizona Electric Power Cooperative (Aepco), aren't investor owned. Have you considered looking into what's actually happening instead of inventing imaginary conspiracies?

whimsicalism6• 2 years ago

We still do need base & peak load and batteries are not sufficient currently.

These plants currently do have to be in someone’s backyard.

If we really care about transitioning as fast as possible, we should probably end our trade war with China over solar panels and EVs. “Buy America” requirements for green products will hamstring us.

CPLX4• 2 years ago

Not being able to produce the core technology we depend has hamstrung us.

whimsicalism6• 2 years ago

Comparative advantage is a feature of the world.

Rage against it as much as you want, it’ll only delay the green transition

rqtwteye• 2 years ago

When you drive through California, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico it's surprising that not every house has solar plants and the deserts isn't full of large solar plants. If there ever has been an area that's perfect for solar, it's the southwest of the US.

whimsicalism6• 2 years ago

Because of a lack of transmission lines and storage.

pfdietz• 2 years ago

Or, because it's much cheaper per watt to put PV in large utility-scale fields than on millions of fiddly roofs.

throwup238• 2 years ago

Renters won’t pay for solar panels the landlord gets to keep and the landlords don’t pay the power bills so they don’t care.

aendruk• 2 years ago

Seattle has a program to reimburse landlords for installing EV chargers. Used EVs are affordable now so I asked my landlord to take advantage of the program; it sounds like a win for everyone.

They couldn’t be bothered.

blackoil• 2 years ago

Shouldn't rent increase proportionally to savings on electricity bill?

AnimalMuppet• 2 years ago

If renters pay the power bills, then renters should in fact care about solar, in a way that a landlord can charge more for.

boc• 2 years ago

The issue is that solar is produced when energy is cheapest during the day, and during the night when everyone returns home energy surges.[1] This means that the grid has to include non-solar backup generation that can exceed the peak generation of all the solar on the grid.

The real breakthrough for solar will have to come from energy storage advancements, such as cheap neighborhood-scale batteries. This will allow the energy created during the day by solar to be used at night when demand peaks.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

PaulHoule2• 2 years ago

Transmission in space is important too. It is a long haul to the demand center of Southern California and it may make sense to build closer and not have to build new power lines which take about as long as a nuclear power plant.

otherme123• 2 years ago

Energy is cheapest during the day because solar is producing. In my country what happened is that hidro now works as a "battery": it's not used while the sun shines compared to what happened ten years ago, and it enters the grid inbthe afternoon. Despite not being connected like reversible dams, it allows the regular dams to save water and work paired.

amluto3• 2 years ago

This whole article seems light on nuance. The plant in question is a peaker plant. The entire point is to run it as little as practical. It's not being built to satisfy base load or to produce enormous amounts of total energy -- it's being build to supply capacity to the grid. Unlike solar or wind or even a battery system of any reasonable size, it can be run when needed and turned off when needed. It's entirely reasonable to build a sustainable grid based on lots of renewables and gas-fired peaker plants to keep everything working reliably under adverse conditions.

So surely the article should talk about the economics (to the grid operator and to the rate-payers) and how it, or a plant like it, affects the average emissions per unit energy supplied by the grid.

The next someone gets excited about installing a shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold (which includes parts of Arizona!), remember that its coefficient of performance can get quite low on a cold winter night, that it's really nice to keep one's house warm, that the sun won't be shining when this happens, and that the worst-case grid capacity has to come from somewhere. And, as some Texans can remind you, it really sucks when that energy fails to show up when needed. (Not to mention that parts of Arizona get very very hot and surprisingly humid, too, and the capaity needed for cooling and dehumidification on the worst days also has to come from somewhere.)

To be clear, I'm entirely in favor of calmly and carefully phasing out residential natural gas, but doing so is not at all a free lunch. In places where gas infrastructure already exists, and to the extent that leaks can be controlled adequately, an efficient, low-emission natural gas boiler/furnace is a very nice way to produce efficient heat in very cold weather, and it is just as efficient in very cold weather as it is in more mild weather. Unlike, say, a heat pump. Far too many people who want to phase natural gas out quickly don't consider the tradeoffs.

no_wizard2• 2 years ago

Edit: I got load following and peaker plants mixed up. Nuclear Powered Load Following Plants[0] are a thing, but strictly speaking, peaker plants are not. This is my error.

Edit 2: There are some interesting developments with Gen 4 reactors[1] and hydrogen production, which could theoretically mean during non peak load you could store energy in the form of hydrogen to be burned later, which may make gas fired peaker plants green, but its entirely theoretical right now

[0] https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12...

[1] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-nuclear-power-plants-ge...

natnat• 2 years ago

Nuclear is really terrible at peak loads; it's a very reliable base load. It's basically impossible to quickly increase or decrease the output of a nuclear plant.

mistrial9• 2 years ago

very cold

it does take some special point of view to assert that!

lacks nuance

yes true, but the topic is valid and widely applicable. The journalist did a bad job of an engineering problem, but maybe an OK job of casting light on this subject.

as some Texans can remind you, it really sucks when that energy fails to show up when needed.

it is hard to express the irony of the free state of Texas, their impact on economy and their impact on global climate catastrophe, in a few short words. Way to go to paint it in the most myopic terms. Of course you are also right because every life is a personal life, too.

Far too many people who want to phase natural gas out quickly don't consider the tradeoffs

this is a political situation and a political moment. All things considered, globally, yes it is time for a political change.

bbarn• 2 years ago

I work in this industry, and you have it right. Peaker plants are still valuable and serve a different need than solar. We might one day get to a point where batteries are the better option, but for now it's still just not economically sound.

This about it ruining their view and lowering market value of what should be the last house they live in.

On a side note - I am very excited about the cost lowering for whole house battery systems. In places like Arizona, and California where I live, we get enough sun that 2 of those can almost ensure the ability to not even need the grid for most people that have space to install the panels.

devbent• 2 years ago

The next someone gets excited about installing a shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold (which includes parts of Arizona!), remember that its coefficient of performance can get quite low on a cold winter night,

Ground loop heat pumps are efficient in nearly any climate short of perma-frost. They do cost a lot and I imagine they aren't exactly cost efficient in Arizona, but the technology means heat pumps are viable even in places where the temperature drops below 0 degrees fahrenheit.

The other solution is good insulation so the house doesn't need a ton of heating at night.

Log_out_• 2 years ago

A horizontal self drilling loop would be worth millions as a cheap technology.

nielsbot2• 2 years ago

Unlike solar or wind or even a battery system of any reasonable size, it can be run when needed and turned off when needed

Wind is available at night. Solar + battery is available whenever. Battery storage can replace gas peaker plants

keep everything working reliably under adverse conditions

What adverse conditions are you imagining?

So surely the article should talk about the economics (to the grid operator and to the rate-payers)

Are renewables + storage not cheaper than gas plants?

shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold

https://www.wired.com/story/myth-heat-pumps-cold-weather-fre...

amluto3• 2 years ago

> shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold
https://www.wired.com/story/https://www.wired.com/story/myth...

Which doesn't invalidate the point. If the desired indoor-outdoor temperature difference doubles (say 68F indoors, 30F outdoors changes to 68F indoors, -8F outdoors), then a gas furnace uses gas at about twice the rate (as the heat loss in a house is roughly proportional to temperature difference). And natural gas is easy to store. But a heat pump needs twice the output and its COP drops, so maybe you need 3-4x as much electric power, and electric power is not easy to store. But you can still store gas, and you can connect a peaker plant to the grid, and it all works out, and you might not even need to run that peaker plant very much.

LikeBeans• 2 years ago

I have a feeling that someday people are going to realize that the 1 or 2 EVs (with bidirectional power) in their home garage can handle most of the rooftop power storage needs. This would greatly remove the utilities out of the picture.

PaulDavisThe1st7• 2 years ago

Not if you heat with electricity, even with electric air-source heat pumps, and live in a moderately to notably cold climate.

taxicabjesus• 2 years ago

This part of Arizona is just north of Lake Havasu (a reservoir on the Colorado River). Summer highs average 109 degrees (hottest days are 120+), nighttime lows average 85 degrees - so people need to run their air conditioning units after the sun goes down. Adding to the duck curve with more solar panels won't provide power for overnight use of AC systems.

The proposed gas plant is a 98MW gas peaker turbine. The alternative to gas peaker plants for this part of Arizona are pumped hydro and 'cold storage', where AC systems are run during off-peak hours to build up a reservoir of cold.

The Salt River Project (Arizona water/power company) is building a new pumped hydro facility, with a new reservoir uphill from Apache Lake (east of Phoenix): https://www.srpnet.com/grid-water-management/grid-management...

Downtown Phoenix has an 'ice storage' system that generates cold water using off-peak power, and uses this to cool ~40 buildings during the hottest part of the day: https://kjzz.org/content/527332/district-energy-system-under... / https://www.nrg.com/insights/innovation/nrg-energy-center-ph...

Surely there's an opportunity for pumped storage somewhere on the Central Arizona Project, which starts at Lake Havasu (738' elevation) and deposits its water at Lake Pleasant (1700' elevation): https://www.cap-az.com/

ipqk• 2 years ago

10-1 odds they’ll still vote for Trump and republicans in November.

tromp• 2 years ago

lawmakers and commissioners who are ideologically anti-clean energy

I don't believe anyone is actually pro pollution. More likely they stand to benefit financially from prolonged use of fossil fuels before it inevitably gets phased out.

HelloMcFly• 2 years ago

De facto pro-pollution, then.

nfriedly• 2 years ago

This seems more reasonable than I expected from the headline. They already have a solar farm, they're looking to add a gas-fired peaker plant right next to it to handle spikes in demand. It won't run 24/7.

It's not great, but it's probably less bad than a coal-fired plant which is what they imply is used to meet the demand currently. And it's probably significantly cheaper than deploying enough battery storage to meet the demand.

There's also complaints about the location and about the plant being just under the size that would require an environmental review. Those are fair, but the utility is working withing the rules, so folks should really be taking those complaints to their legislature if they want the rules changed.

jmclnx• 2 years ago

Well as they say "You get what you vote for". I am sure these people will continue to vote against their own and the world's long term interests even after the plant is build :(

llsf2• 2 years ago

Putting on the side the shady tactics that the energy company used to get a gas peaker close to houses...

For context:

"Arizona households use 66 million Btu of energy per home, 26% less than the U.S. average.

The combination of lower than average site consumption of all energy, but above average electricity which is relatively expensive, results in Arizona households spending 3% less for energy than the U.S. average."

source: https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/reports/2009/sta...

So people in Arizona are using a lot less energy than the rest of the country, and only pay marginally less. Someone is making even more money on the energy bill.

And yes, solar is not perfect, and sometimes one needs some extra electricity on the grid (peakers). For a 16,000 household community, maybe batteries should be considered ? It is not like they have an heavy industry requiring high energy consumption 24/7. It is a small community (houses, and RV parks).

For instance, a Tesla Megapack 2 costs $1.5M and delivers 3.854 MWh so to replace the 98MWh gas peaker, we would need 25 x Megabuck 2, for a cost of $37.5M. How much the gas peaker is going to cost ? We can run the cost on maintenance too, which I suspect would also favor the battery solution.

alfiopuglisi2• 2 years ago

A Tesla Megapack 2 can provide about 2MW of power, so you need 50 of them to replace the gas peaker. And since they have a 3.8MWh capacity, they only go for about two hours before being depleted, so if you want to cover the whole night when solar is not producing, you need 6x more, or 300 in total.

llsf2• 2 years ago

We are talking about 16,000 residential town in Arizona, with no heavy industry, I doubt they would need full capacity for 12hrs straight at night. But in any case, it seems appropriate to compare to the cost and maintenance of 98MWh gas peaker.

In one of the US's hottest deserts, utilities push gas rather than solar

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