Renewable energy is economic in some situations.

Reader comment on: Myhrvold on Alternative Energy

Submitted by Lyle (United States), Nov 28, 2011 17:02

1 if you electricity is generated by diesel engines, such as on the out islands of Hawaii, and in the Caribbean, where costs can be greater that $.4/kwh. So they're substituting as much as possible.

2 due to the wonderful electric market Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling gave the world at times of overall network shortage power can go up to $1/kwh or greater. If the sun is shining solar power is economical at these times, (perhaps 120 hours/year when the ac units are working hard and the sun is bright in Tx). Its interesting that the wind tends to blow in tx in the winter and at night in the summer, so wind and solar to at least some extent play off each other.

3 you have to think of renewables as peaking power not base load power. On the Texas grid power loads vary from around 30 gw at 4 am to 65 or so GW at 5 pm. Given this variation then looking at renewables as peaking power makes sense. Unfortunately where its wet in Tx there are few hills and where there are hills there is no water otherwise pumped storage would make sense, as is done in NC to keep the load on the nuclear power plants up at night.

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