Ed M,

 

Good stuff…Like Ned Ford keeps saying, efficiency with distributed renewables, are competitive now.  Good stuff.

 

Get efficient, build distributed renewables, and bankrupt fossil.  Money’s like calories, and so are Killowatts.  Control the money, control the kws, and control the polluting industries.   Frank Morris

 

 

Solar panel prices have decreased by about 40% in just the past couple years, a trend that is continuing. Doesn't this call into question outdated assumptions about natural gas being the Club's go-to "transition" or "bridge" fuel? Can NG be a "bridge" to anywhere once it becomes ever more costly (levelized) than renewables? And note how small renewable projects in many cases can now come on stream faster than large central-station, environmentally impactful desert projects. That these small solar projects in California have now broken through the discriminatory (in favor of natural gas) "market price referent" barrier under a "renewable standard contract" is highly significant. -- Ed M.

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SCE Buys 20 Years of Solar Power for Less than Natural Gas
1 comment
February 1, 2011 in Solar Energy

Southern California Edison has selected 250 MW worth of solar bids from companies able to produce solar electricity for 20 years for less money annually than the 20 year levelized cost of energy of a combined-cycle natural gas turbine power plant.

SCE’s bidding process for smaller renewable projects is smart. These small projects do not face the multi-year bureaucratic delays for extensive reviews, like most utility-scale solar, so each small unit can be built as quickly as normal commercial rooftop solar projects. They are made up of multiple distributed solar installations of under 20 MW, which in combination total a power plant-sized 250 MW.

The utility already gets more than 19% of its electricity from renewable sources, placing it in the lead between California’s three big utilities to reach the Renewable Energy Standard requirement to get 20% of its electricity from renewables (which excludes large hydro and nuclear) by 2013.

This year SCE had put out a request for bids to get 250 MW of just solar power, made up of multiple smaller rooftop arrays. Fremont-based Solyndra was one of the early bidders to be accepted. Solyndra will supply 20 years of power , with its unique cylindrical solar panels, to be installed by its subsidiary, Photon Solar.

With a bidding process, SCE can save money by making renewable energy companies compete to offer the lowest price for supplying the utility some of its electricity through its Renewable Standard Contract

The requirement is that the renewable energy has to be priced to cost no more than the Market Price Referent (MPR) – which is an annual calculation of the 20 year levelized cost of energy of a combined cycle gas turbine.

This year, the solar bids are below the MPR, meaning that they cost less than the annual cost of getting the same amount of electricity from natural gas over the same time period.

Even more interesting, SCE says that they received over 2.5 GW – 2,500 MW – of offers from solar companies eager and apparently able to supply solar power for less than the cost of gas.  I was not able to locate that price in their detailed filing with the California Public Utilites Comission (PDF), a hefty tome. but the MPR for 2010 appears to be in the 11 cent range.

According to Adam Browning at Vote Solar, “prices are kept confidential for something like 3 years. All we know is whether it is above or below MPR—and the advice letter says it is below”.

Susan Kraemer @Twitter