Solar energy initiative for Gore, WF and Belleayre

I have been in the electric motor biz for over 20 years.  Pumps are a big market for motors.  What are you qualifications or sources?

Even the best pump combining its electrical and hydro effic is maybe 60 efficient.  Ie you lose 40 watts for every 100 you put in.  That doesn't even account for the losses in generation of the power for the pump and its transmission.  There is no way you can make up for the lost energy required to pump the water uphill when it comes back down and then encounters other inefficiencies in generation.  Efficiency is calculated by multiplying a fraction against a fraction not adding always resulting in more and more losses.   You can play on the pricing differential but that this concept costs more energy than it creates makes it decidedly not green though it may be classified this way by govt weenies.

The fuel cost for wind and solar is ZERO.
Run the whole system on wind, solar (or even nuclear) and storage, the fuel cost for the whole system is ZERO.
It doesn't matter what the thermal and mechanical efficiencies are, the fuel cost and carbon emissions are still ZERO.

OR if I pump at 2 cents/kWh and release at 8 cents I still make money if the overall efficiency is 25%.  Those are realistic average wholesale prices. Last winter there were hours when the wholesale price was over $1, so I could really get well those hours.  When the price is $1 (or more), inefficient gas turbines are burning jet fuel, which is a s bad or worse than coal for emissions.  When the price is 2 cents, it's all hydro,nuclear, wind and solar.  Low prices means less fuel and less carbon.  

If you want more solar and wind, you're gonna need a way to deal with the intermittent nature of it. That means more spinning reserves and/or storage.    

I make a nice living doing this stuff part-time.

MM

Milo is pretty much correct. You've got to think about pump storage as a big battery. Batteries are also not completely efficient but they allow you to balance the load and that is essentially what he is saying. Pump storage allows you to take advantage of unpredictable renewables like wind and solar and better utilize base load power like Nukes and Combined cycle plants (which is the most efficient fossil fuel plant out there).

Has NY maxed out it's hydro - I don't think so. We have not even begun to tap small privately owned hydro generators: http://www.brownellmicrohydro.com/
Imagine a few of these in the back yards of the homes on flowing streams in the Adirondacks. You don't need to block the stream, just divert some of the flow.

You are still talking prices and not  true costs to pump that water uphill.  There is a huge investment to make solar or wind happen from an capex standpoint.  It's not free.  

What you seem to be saying is use solar or wind to pump the water uphill and then use it as a kinetic energy bank for later.  But the reality is you still lose more watts getting it up hill than it creates going down.

I've agreed with you that you can make money on the the pricing spread.  But my point that you keep ignoring is that it's a business ploy not a green energy because it is ineffient as heck.  The green focus needs to on efficiency regardless of where the energy comes from.  You can't spend yourself rich but you can save yourself there.  The problem is liberals only understand spending and not saving.

Coach Z wrote

You are still talking prices and not  true costs to pump that water uphill.  There is a huge investment to make solar or wind happen from an capex standpoint.  It's not free.  

What you seem to be saying is use solar or wind to pump the water uphill and then use it as a kinetic energy bank for later.  But the reality is you still lose more watts getting it up hill than it creates going down.

I've agreed with you that you can make money on the the pricing spread.  But my point that you keep ignoring is that it's a business ploy not a green energy because it is ineffient as heck.  The green focus needs to on efficiency regardless of where the energy comes from.  You can't spend yourself rich but you can save yourself there.  The problem is liberals only understand spending and not saving.

The way the NY energy market works, if you are reducing costs then you are almost always reducing emissions of all kinds.  That's because the the price is set by the most costly generator operating in the hour, and that one is the least fuel efficient generator, and almost by definition the one with the greatest emissions.  It doesn't matter if it takes 1000 kWh to pump and release to generate 500 kWh, if you are making or saving money you are also reducing emissions by displacing an inefficient generator.  That's why NRDC and most of the other environmental groups have supported the NY market design.

But you are right.  All carbon free energy sources are costly to build.  We will not soon see another pumped storage plant in NY, but there may be other places where they make a lot of sense.

MM  

PeeTex wrote

Has NY maxed out it's hydro - I don't think so. We have not even begun to tap small privately owned hydro generators: http://www.brownellmicrohydro.com/
Imagine a few of these in the back yards of the homes on flowing streams in the Adirondacks. You don't need to block the stream, just divert some of the flow.

Those generators are "up to 1500 watts," so it would take about 10,000 of them to run Gore Mountain, or 30,000 to replace a single small utility generator.  They also require anywhere from 20 to 300 feet of head to do that. Do you know anyone who has a property with moving water like that?  Me neither.  

MM

Check out what they claim to be the world's first solar-powered lift, in operation at the Swiss ski area Tenna:
http://www.alpinforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=50694

It's relatively small (450 vertical feet/1,500 feet long/three minutes of lift time) and generates a maximum of 60kW. The OP mentions that the day he was there, the 82 panels created 47kW of electricity and that the lift only needed 15kW. I wonder what happens on cloudy days (grid backup?). Over the course of the winter, it allegedly created 13 times as much energy as the lift required.

To see it in action, there's a video at the bottom.

Milo Maltbie wrote

PeeTex wrote

Has NY maxed out it's hydro - I don't think so. We have not even begun to tap small privately owned hydro generators: http://www.brownellmicrohydro.com/
Imagine a few of these in the back yards of the homes on flowing streams in the Adirondacks. You don't need to block the stream, just divert some of the flow.

Those generators are "up to 1500 watts," so it would take about 10,000 of them to run Gore Mountain, or 30,000 to replace a single small utility generator.  They also require anywhere from 20 to 300 feet of head to do that. Do you know anyone who has a property with moving water like that?  Me neither.  

MM

Certainly they won't provide enough power to run Gore - never said that. But they could help a home owner get free of the grid, and yes - I know quite a few people with enough vertical drop to warrant it's use and I also know a number of ski areas with more than enough vertical drop and lots of spring runoff - think of all the man made snow as "pump storage".  Residential Solar is not eligible for net metering in NYS, which means that the utilities do not have to buy the solar power you produce, however with micro-hydro they do as long as you are under 25KWh, this was written into law about 3 years ago. A good micro-hydro setup will pay for itself in 3 to 5 years with no subsidies - but as you say, you need the right piece of property.

You keep talking pricing.  

My point you keep ignoring is that pumped hydro takes more watts  in pumping  the water up hill than the watts it creates coming down hill.  By definition that is inefficient.

Coach Z wrote

You keep talking pricing.  

My point you keep ignoring is that pumped hydro takes more watts  in pumping  the water up hill than the watts it creates coming down hill.  By definition that is inefficient.

I'm not ignoring anything.  You are focusing on one part of the operation and I'm looking at the whole system.

What if I owned a pumped storage plant and didn't care about money at all, and only operated it to reduce air pollution?  I would only pump water when I could use solar or imported hydro or nuclear or some other zero carbon source of power, and I would only generate power when it would prevent the system operators from starting up another dirty plant to meet the system load.  If I did that, that would reduce air pollution regardless of the efficiencies of the whole process.

If a guy across town had an identical plant, and operated by price to maximize profit, his schedule would be about the same as mine.  That's because (at least in NY), the market determines the price mostly by the amount of fuel used by the marginal generator, so the price is high when you inefficient plants to meet the load, and the price is low when you can meet load with only hydro and nuclear.  That's why environmental groups have supported market pricing for wholesale electricity.

MM

PeeTex wrote

Milo Maltbie wrote

PeeTex wrote

Has NY maxed out it's hydro - I don't think so. We have not even begun to tap small privately owned hydro generators: http://www.brownellmicrohydro.com/
Imagine a few of these in the back yards of the homes on flowing streams in the Adirondacks. You don't need to block the stream, just divert some of the flow.

Those generators are "up to 1500 watts," so it would take about 10,000 of them to run Gore Mountain, or 30,000 to replace a single small utility generator.  They also require anywhere from 20 to 300 feet of head to do that. Do you know anyone who has a property with moving water like that?  Me neither.  

MM

Certainly they won't provide enough power to run Gore - never said that. But they could help a home owner get free of the grid, and yes - I know quite a few people with enough vertical drop to warrant it's use and I also know a number of ski areas with more than enough vertical drop and lots of spring runoff - think of all the man made snow as "pump storage".  Residential Solar is not eligible for net metering in NYS, which means that the utilities do not have to buy the solar power you produce, however with micro-hydro they do as long as you are under 25KWh, this was written into law about 3 years ago. A good micro-hydro setup will pay for itself in 3 to 5 years with no subsidies - but as you say, you need the right piece of property.

A 1500 watt generator won't support a hair dryer and a 100 watt light bulb at the same time.  And you only get 1500 watts if you have 300 feet of head. It would take 10 years to pay off the cost of the permits for the dam you need, if you can even get a permit.  
Those things might be useful for some isolated spots where there is no other source of power, but no one who can connect to a utility is going off the grid with those.  They will have no noticeable effect on the overall electric system.  

MM

First of all, output power from hydro is both head and flow rate, there are quite a few hydro plants along the Mohawk generating a lot of power on less than 100 ft of head. Secondly, if I use 750kWhr per month or about $50/month on average worth of supply which would equate to about an average of $125/month bill than all I need to generate is 1kWhr 24-7 to be from a cost stand point, off the grid, when you consider net metering. I don't need a dam, I do need a diverted and a pipe and I only need to divert some of the flow. Such a system if it were home built would be paid for in a few years.

As an example, the power station at lock 7 only has 27ft of elevation and that power station restarted the grid back in the big blackout about 10 years ago.

You seem to want to argue in circles trying to make points to one person and ignoring those same points here.

Milo is to Hydro what Snoloco is to LIfts though sno seems to know way more about lifts than this guy knows about energy.    They are both the Cliff Claven of partial and useless info.

I think he is bored and wants some controversy.
For all I know he may have blood coming out of his where ever.

Really?  That's all you got? Personal attacks as a substitute for critical thinking?

Coach Z wrote

You are still talking prices and not  true costs to pump that water uphill.  There is a huge investment to make solar or wind happen from an capex standpoint.  It's not free.  

What you seem to be saying is use solar or wind to pump the water uphill and then use it as a kinetic energy bank for later.  But the reality is you still lose more watts getting it up hill than it creates going down.

I've agreed with you that you can make money on the the pricing spread.  But my point that you keep ignoring is that it's a business ploy not a green energy because it is ineffient as heck.  The green focus needs to on efficiency regardless of where the energy comes from.  You can't spend yourself rich but you can save yourself there.  The problem is liberals only understand spending and not saving.

You are looking at this from the wrong point of view. In the days of big coal electrical power generation, the plants could take hours and sometimes days to get up to optimum temps. Once they were at optimum temps, they could not be turned off during low demand (like at night). This sometimes created situations of excess power at night and incredibly cheap power at night. This is how you could create water pump up reservoirs and make money. In the 1990s I was involved with a coal plant that was giving away the overnight power for free as part of a contract. Newer coal plants now have the capability to be "turned off" during low demand.

There is a new nighttime source of power that is causing some problems with low demand grid situations - wind power. The daily temp fluctuations create wind at night, just when there is less demand. Figuring out a way to store the electricity without shutting down what the turbines are producing is another example of why a pump up system could still work despite the inefficiency of the system.

Your comments about capital expenditures are a meaningless point. A coal plant has the same capex issues as a wind farm. Once they are built the electricity they produce needs to be bought by somebody. These are just money calculations that use all the available resources to create profit.

The building and maintenance costs of coal and gas plants are known.    I fear with all the subsidies and favorable or forced contracts in solar and wind, these are hidden or will not be known for years.   Example: what will be the cost of replacing a wind turbine after 30 yrs, by then subsidies will be gone and environmentalists will demand no truck traffic, dirt roads and their mountain tops back. Ooops.All that work for nil

I:)skiing wrote

The building and maintenance costs of coal and gas plants are known.    I fear with all the subsidies and favorable or forced contracts in solar and wind, these are hidden or will not be known for years.   Example: what will be the cost of replacing a wind turbine after 30 yrs, by then subsidies will be gone and environmentalists will demand no truck traffic, dirt roads and their mountain tops back. Ooops.All that work for nil

There's two reasons solar energy needs subsidies. The first is that it's a new technology that needs to prove its value before private markets will finance it, and that requires a pretty significant volume of projects need to be built before it is accepted by the financial markets.  The other reason is that (at least in States that have market priced wholesale energy) adding new supply sources causes prices to decline EVEN IF the new source requires costly investments.  Fuel prices follow electricity down, and somebody somewhere is going to burn that cheap fuel. The market will never support both renewable power and high fuel prices at the same time. That's why environmentalists support RGGI and other measures to add to the cost of using fuel. If you want to remove carbon from the system, somebody has got too increase the cost of burning fossil fuel or subsidize the cost of renewables.  

Cost of removal has always been an issue for utilities, but I'm betting that the cost of removal of a wind farm or solar plant will be a fraction of the cost of removal of a boiler plant.

MM