Keith Tanner said:
Does the solar actually cost more? That's what I'm wondering. The price of panels has been falling fast. At least the EIS will probably be a lot cheaper :)
Googling seems to suggest that natural gas plants are ~ $800/kw while a residential solar installation is $2000/kw with lithium batteries being $140/kwh (that's for bare batteries, so you need to bump it up for charge controllers, cooling, buildings to put them in, etc)
For the sake of discussion let's assume those are correct when scaled up to power plant size (they probably aren't, but I don't have data). Let's further assume that you need 4x as much solar panel capacity to deal with sun availability, and that the battery capacity in kwh should be 2.5x the size of the total solar array in kw (ballpark numbers that I googled). So for each 1 kw of natural gas plant you need 4 kw of solar panel and 10 kwh of lithium battery. So my estimate is 1 kw of natural gas power plant construction is $800 and an equivalent amount of solar power is $10K.
Googling some more suggests 5-ish cents per kwh in natural gas fuel costs. Assuming that stays constant and that the solar equipment doesn't require any replacement gives about 21 years of fuel before the solar panels pay themselves back. Huh, I'm actually surprised my back-of-the-envelope calculations came out that close to what I've seen in other estimates.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:
The biggest flaw is the idea that if demand increases, they will make more power production. They can make even MORE money by making electricity a scarce commodity. Profit goes up without having to lift a finger.
Depends on who owns the utility. If it's the people they won't make a necessity expensive. If it's a for profit company, they will in spite of what damage it does to the economy. Steady, reliable source of energy are important for future growth.
Future growth is rarely on the priority of for profit companies.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:
Keith Tanner said:
Does the solar actually cost more? That's what I'm wondering. The price of panels has been falling fast. At least the EIS will probably be a lot cheaper :)
Googling seems to suggest that natural gas plants are ~ $800/kw while a residential solar installation is $2000/kw with lithium batteries being $140/kwh (that's for bare batteries, so you need to bump it up for charge controllers, cooling, buildings to put them in, etc)
For the sake of discussion let's assume those are correct when scaled up to power plant size (they probably aren't, but I don't have data). Let's further assume that you need 4x as much solar panel capacity to deal with sun availability, and that the battery capacity in kwh should be 2.5x the size of the total solar array in kw (ballpark numbers that I googled). So for each 1 kw of natural gas plant you need 4 kw of solar panel and 10 kwh of lithium battery. So my estimate is 1 kw of natural gas power plant construction is $800 and an equivalent amount of solar power is $10K.
Googling some more suggests 5-ish cents per kwh in natural gas fuel costs. Assuming that stays constant and that the solar equipment doesn't require any replacement gives about 21 years of fuel before the solar panels pay themselves back. Huh, I'm actually surprised my back-of-the-envelope calculations came out that close to what I've seen in other estimates.
Thanks for the math.
FYI, here's that big UT array. 80 MW, $140 million. That's $1750/KW, so that lines up with your math (based on what I've seen, your $2k/kw number for residential is for the hardware only). Expected lifespan of 30-35 years. No word on how they'll deal with snow :) No mention of storage in the article, perhaps it's mostly intended to offset AC use in the summer.
https://richfieldreaper.com/news/21226/solar-plant-near-sigurd-nearing-completion/
Edit - or maybe it's $90 million. Seems like we should be able to get a slightly more consistent estimate.
https://sanpetemessenger.com/solar-farm-by-sigurd-covers-600-acres/
ProDarwin said:
GCrites80s said:
You have to make like $93K a year to use the entire $7500 tax credit since you can't carry the remainder over into subsequent years. And that's before any other credits or deductions. $12,500 would be over $110K a year. I'm not sure how married filing jointly affects it. So raising it only helps people who make a lot of money or people in high-cost-of-living areas.
Just checking in... where did you come up with these numbers?
$93k a year for a single non-parent would be $16,341 in federal taxes.
$7500 in taxes would be $53,416 in income.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets
Obviously those numbers change if you have another credit... like child tax credit, but the child tax credit is refundable (gov. will pay you if your tax liability drops below zero)
I'm only getting $13,489 in taxes after the standard deduction for $93K income using the same site's tax calculator. I think between people no longer being able to deduct their state and local income taxes anymore and federal tax rate changes enacted in the past 2-3 years the amount of income required to take full advantage of the $7500 tax credit has indeed dropped. My numbers were outdated by 2-4 years. That switch from dependents to the child tax credit was a big change as well but not included in our calculations. Again, I'm not sure how things like mortgage interest tax credits/deductions can affect the EV tax credit.
frenchyd said:
Pete. (l33t FS) said:
The biggest flaw is the idea that if demand increases, they will make more power production. They can make even MORE money by making electricity a scarce commodity. Profit goes up without having to lift a finger.
Depends on who owns the utility. If it's the people they won't make a necessity expensive. If it's a for profit company, they will in spite of what damage it does to the economy. Steady, reliable source of energy are important for future growth.
Future growth is rarely on the priority of for profit companies.
Yes at my mom's house the electric utility is a co-op -- which means profit is not the motive -- but do they have the same access to capital for expansion that a for-profit does? The income streams' reliability are the same profit or non. Of course for-profit electric utilities have regulated profit maximums WRT to revenue on the generation (or is it transmission?) side.
In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :
The US federal government has a branch called the Energy Information Administration, and they do the research and analytics for this stuff.
Their most recent report is here:
Levelized Costs of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy Outlook 2021 (eia.gov)
Table 1b says that building a new natural gas Combined Cycle plant is going to cost a utility $37.11 for a megawatt hour of newly generated electricity.
Table 1b says that building a new onshore wind power plant is going to cost a utility $36.93 for a megawatt hour of newly generated electricity.
Table 1b says that building a new standalone solar plant is going to cost a utility $32.78 for a megawatt hour of newly generated electricity (and then a $2.35 tax savings on top).
Sure, the sun's not always shining, and the wind's not always blowing, but for baseline power generation needs (and use the existing natural gas plants for peak load) it's cheaper to put in wind turbines or solar panels.
Since the new Ford F-150 EV will operate a typical house for 3-5 days, you'll save the cost of a standby generator.
How close are we to the money we spend buying gasoline is enough to make payments on solar or wind generator?
