Curt: In OR most of the bulk of the power is already from hydroelectric, and a rather wind farm just went online in southern OR late this year. It doesn't take much "extra" to offset the fraction contributed by gas-fired peakers. SFAIK there never was much fossil-fired capacity built in any part of OR/WA. You can argue how "green" damming the Columbia River was from a water resource and ecosystems point of view, but it's a whole lot o' zero-emissions power, at a marginal per kwh cost lower than no fossil fired plant can compete with. (I'm sure the mark up for green power is a bit more than that in FL, eh? :-) )

Agreed, most power generation in OR/WA has been hydroelectric. However,our hydroelectric is slowly getting replaced with wind which doesn't come close to providing the same economics. Wind systems are far more complicated and less reliable than hydroelectric, and air is significantly less dense than water so you have to capture a lot of air too...but our fish will be much happier. On the east coast power generation options have always been fairly limited and distributed PV does have merit. I recall a place in northern NJ when I was a kid (Blairstown area I think) where they pumped water up into a lake during the night time and then used it for hydroelectric during the day time... So, if you have customers willing and able to pay for expensive power, you can and will build systems to provide it.

Posted By engineer on 02 Dec 2012 08:46 PM
Hmm...I wonder just how green power can be for just 50 cents extra per month. That sounds like just enough to print the bill on green paper and stuff it into a green envelope.

Actually it is pretty green, 

http://www.tristategt.org/greenpower/cimarron.cfm

The 50 cent green power is here in Colorado, where we are now.  Can't tell you why it is so cheap, but once again, it is from a Member owner Utility (non Profit)

Posted By sailawayrb on 03 Dec 2012 06:02 PM
Agreed, most power generation in OR/WA has been hydroelectric. However,our hydroelectric is slowly getting replaced with wind which doesn't come close to providing the same economics. Wind systems are far more complicated and less reliable than hydroelectric, and air is significantly less dense than water so you have to capture a lot of air too...but our fish will be much happier. On the east coast power generation options have always been fairly limited and distributed PV does have merit. I recall a place in northern NJ when I was a kid (Blairstown area I think) where they pumped water up into a lake during the night time and then used it for hydroelectric during the day time... So, if you have customers willing and able to pay for expensive power, you can and will build systems to provide it.

The "economics" of the BPA & TVA project output is largely due to MASSIVE federal subsidies during the construction phases.  Were wind to be subsidized as massively as hydro was it wouldn't be that far off the mark.

The cost of new-wind continues decline at a predictable ~3-5% per year, and is already cheaper than gas-fired peaker-power, and within striking distance of the projected lifecyle costs of combined cycle gas power.  Since the vast majority of the cost of wind power is in the financing costs, it's overall lifecycle cost is more predictable than combined cycle gas, which has a significant fuel cost component.  But those costs are still way above the cost per marginal kwh from legacy hydroelectric, even with the production tax credit for wind and record low fuel pricing for combined-cycle gas.  Over the past 5 years cc gas and wind power have pretty much split the lions share of all new generating capacity in the US, and both have a strong future, with or without subsidy. But the rate at which wind power gets built out changes with the amount of subsidy, and that's a policy decision of some contention, even within the Republican caucus (less so amongst the Dems), recent campaign rhetoric notwithstanding.

Fish may prefer wind...but birds prefer dams.

I'll cheerfully eat either, broiled, baked, or fried.

I like big hydro, moderate wind, and small to moderate solar as well as anything that contributes to divorcing our energy and economy from climate change and the Mid-East quagmire.

With PV systems, the low end of the cost is using the cheapest of subsidized chinese panels. I know a company here that assembles a panel for a chinese company for sale in the US. The frame is quite wimpy compared to ones of European, Japanese or North American origin (or the best Chinese panels which cost almost the same as ours). The backsheets and EVA are not as high a quality as we get from the Dupont and European products.

The labour is more organized in Germany and there installation tools there that just are not available here so prices can be less expensive when you are doing 1-2 installs a day. It bugs me that we look at no name products on fleabay with the same eye as brand name ones without an eye on the 25 year longevity that makes PV economical in the long run. Lowest first cost is not always best.

In the US the soft costs currently exceed the panel costs, independent of the panel quality. The panels are typically about a third of the total cost, and all hardware (including inverters & racking & panels) are a bit less than half the total cost. The rest is tied up in design, permitting, overhead, labor, & profit:

http://www.greentechmedia.com/content/images/articles/3softcost1.jpg

What magic installation tooling is available in Germany but not the US that reduces the labor by 90%?

http://www.greentechmedia.com/content/images/articles/2softArdani.jpg

I agree Dana, the acquisition costs of legacy hydroelectric was close to zero...the good old days... Nevertheless, I don't believe the operational cost of wind will ever come close to low operational cost of hydroelectric. Wind is much more complicated with the associated increased maintenance cost. You also require many more wind systems to equate to a single large hydroelectric system...more means more maintenance cost too. I think wind has only become an option because large hydroelectric and nuclear have largely become extinct. I believe solar has much more promise, at least for a distributed household approach. So when are the super efficient and low cost panels that we keep hearing about actually going to arrive? Sort of reminds me of the promise of TVs that you could hang on your wall...seems like they finally arrived about 20 years after they were forecast...

Posted By sailawayrb on 06 Dec 2012 09:03 PM
I agree Dana, the acquisition costs of legacy hydroelectric was close to zero...the good old days... Nevertheless, I don't believe the operational cost of wind will ever come close to low operational cost of hydroelectric. Wind is much more complicated with the associated increased maintenance cost. You also require many more wind systems to equate to a single large hydroelectric system...more means more maintenance cost too. I think wind has only become an option because large hydroelectric and nuclear have largely become extinct. I believe solar has much more promise, at least for a distributed household approach. So when are the super efficient and low cost panels that we keep hearing about actually going to arrive? Sort of reminds me of the promise of TVs that you could hang on your wall...seems like they finally arrived about 20 years after they were forecast...

Even 3x nuthin' is still nuthin'.  The marginal cost per kwh for wind (including all maintenance & operation) is widely regarded to be less than a penny per kwh.  It's still all in the capitalization cost, which is now hitting around  5cents/kwh lifecycle costs for the 2MW & larger turbines in a 30% capacity factor site.  Adding in the maintenance & operation it's 6 cents. But the marginal costs are still extremely low- low enough that it simply doesn't matter.

The marginal cost of nukes per kwh is still higher than that of wind, and the capitalization costs of new-nukes are much higher than wind by most analyst's metrics (controversial only amongst the strongly pro-nuke crowd.)  Nuke operators are only $0 bidders in the day ahead market because it's low enough cost to compete with any fossil plants, but they still operate at a loss during off-peak, even dumping power into cooling systems overnight so they don't have to throttle back and miss the demand market profits, since ramping back up after cutting back takes days, not hours.

New large-hydro would be extremely expensive to capitalize, and the number of places left in the lower-48 where it's even technically (if not politically or economically) possible are VERY few.   If the ratepayers had had to bear the full capitalization cost of even the legacy TVA & BPA capital costs directly it might be on par with new-wind, but not necessarily. (I'll leave that to the ecomomists to parse- it's not a simple model.)

The cheap PV panels are already here!

Panel costs for PV are something like 1/4 of the total system costs for small-scale PV in the US. The balance of system and soft-costs dominate the $4-5/peak-watt numbers here. In Germany the raw unsubsidized cost for small scale rooftop using the same panels, inverters & racking systems are about $2.25USD (2011 numbers) and falling.  Even if the panels were free, the US average system cost to the end buy would still exceed the system costs in Germany.  It's a standardization of permitting and streamlining of installation issue here in the US.  Panel costs in 5kw-pk quantities in the US are currently running at or under a buck a watt for even for the better name-brand Japanese, European, & US manufacturers, under 75cents/watt for some of the flimsier versions.  It's no longer the panels that drive system costs in the US.

I agree, in a system I'm working on, shifting load to occur during sun hours (to reduce battery costs) is looking more important than absolute usage (adding more panels is cheap). The electronics costs are significant too.

Dana, I reckon your definition of cheap is much higher $$$ than mine. If an alternative household power system break even point is more than 5 years using available commercial utility rates as the baseline, it's not cheap enough for me and fails my Return on Investment test...but that's just me. I figure 5 years is the average time a family stays in one home before moving to another home. If I purchased a home with an alternative power system, I certainly wouldn't pay anything close to what the system is worth relative to the remaining amortized acquisition cost...just like I wouldn't pay $3K for a 3 year old 60" flat screen TV when I can get better technology for less $$$ now...but again, that's just me and my point being that one should perhaps NOT expect to get more than a small percentage of what they initially spent on their PV system back if they sell their home. It sounds like it isn't the panel cost that's creating the PV ROI problem, but the other 2/3 of the cost associated with actually bringing the panels online...which does seem like a very high markup for a system that should be essentially plug & play.

Posted By sailawayrb on 07 Dec 2012 09:36 PM
Dana, I reckon your definition of cheap is much higher $$$ than mine. If an alternative household power system break even point is more than 5 years using available commercial utility rates as the baseline, it's not cheap enough for me and fails my Return on Investment test...but that's just me. I figure 5 years is the average time a family stays in one home before moving to another home. If I purchased a home with an alternative power system, I certainly wouldn't pay anything close to what the system is worth relative to the remaining amortized acquisition cost...just like I wouldn't pay $3K for a 3 year old 60" flat screen TV when I can get better technology for less $$$ now...but again, that's just me and my point being that one should perhaps NOT expect to get more than a small percentage of what they initially spent on their PV system back if they sell their home. It sounds like it isn't the panel cost that's creating the PV ROI problem, but the other 2/3 of the cost associated with actually bringing the panels online...which does seem like a very high markup for a system that should be essentially plug & play.

If it breaks even in 5 years and you move in three, there is still significant residual value in the nearly new PV array that even the modest increase in home-selling price would likely more than cover the remainder that hasn't been paid back.  PV arrays are not flat-screen TVs, even if the cost of installation comes down to meet German levels.

Yes, it SHOULD be pretty much plug & play, but if you think it'll be dramatically cheaper to install the same system in 5 years than Germany's 2012 rates you have a lot more confidence than I do in the ability for both the US regulators & installers to get their acts ironed out than I do.  Prices of PV are coming down, but not nearly as quickly as consumer electronic junk, and the efficiencies are taking huge strides either.  

We should be SO LUCKY if the installed cost of PV in 2017-2018 were so low as to make it cheaper than any other type of roofing! (That's where it would be if it followed flat-screen TV price trends from five years ago to now.)  PV is a fairly mature and none-too-trendy technology.  It will continue to get cheaper, but the price decay has a long time constant.  When the cost was primarily panel costs the installed price was has fallen by half every 10-15 years.  But now that most of the installed is in the balance of system hardware, installation labor, and contractor margins it isn't likely to have the same time constant of decay, even as the installers become better skilled & tooled.  PV & inverters & racks would have to be free in 10-15 years (or maybe the labor would) for that trend to continue. We'll see.  Thin silicon is coming soon, for lower weight and more flexible panels allowing for simpler-lighter racking etc., so maybe it's possible, but it's not as assured.  This isn't as rapidly evolving as digital cellular networks, etc..

An average of  only 5 years between moves may have been true in 1980, but the fraction of the population that moves in any calendar year has been trending slowly downward since 1950, and those who BUY rather than RENT have even longer average tenures.  To make a financial case for the burden of buying and selling demands it, in the absence of a strongly up-trending home prices (bubble, mayhaps?).  My gut tells me that in the present flat to deflationary state of the housing market staying only 5 years is more likely to mean you were foreclosed on, and that if you intend to only stay 5 years it's financially better to rent in most markets.  Something like half the single-family homes in the US have been lived in by the homeowners for more than 10 years, more than a quarter have been held for 20 years or more.

So even if the average tenure of ownership is 6 years, and the average buyer has no business investing in PV,  at least a quarter to half of all home owners may have reason to go there.   When comparing PV to other investments it's important to note that the utility savings come without tax penalty, yet utility payements are made with after-tax dollars.

You make a good case Dana and clearly have researched this subject well. I may someday add solar PV to my grid, hydroelectric, and vegetable oil fueled diesel engine power generation capability. I would personally never put the panels on my roof...I would want low altitude access to the panels and I would not be willing to limit access to my roof to address a leak, etc. However, I can certainly understand why folks would go the roof route if they didn't have the acreage to do otherwise. I think solar PV makes great sense if you have an offgrid site like my friend has:

http://www.docbryner.com/mossy_hollow/Off-grid.html

I much prefer the solar array approach.

Ground mounting is usually cheaper than roof mounting, and easier to clean & maintain, but requires the real-estate to be able to pull off. (In some parts of New England low pole-mounted grid-tied non-tracking arrays are currently going for <$4/watt, unsubsidized.)

Battery storage and charge controllers add a lot of cost to the system compared to grid-tied, but in many cases it's now cheaper to do an off-grid system than to tie into the grid if the nearest grid access is more than 1/4 mile away.