Comment by ceejayoz
1 year ago
An honest discussion of that should probably include the ecological and health impacts of coal, and the ongoing dramatic decline in cost to add new solar/wind capacity. It's cheaper even factoring in variable production, and this battery project is part of how you address intermittency.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:3-Learning-curves-fo...
I don't know where that linked dataset is from, but almost every claim I've seen for the LCoE of wind/solar being lower than any fossil fuel source excludes the cost of energy storage. Latest estimates[0] put solar and wind roughly at par with combined-cycle gas plants, but without the cost of addressing intermittency.
Plus, it would be probably unwise to extrapolate the current downward trend in costs for the relatively new technology (meaning early in its marginal cost curve) of utility-scale solar and wind that it would continue to get much cheaper.
The two factors combined would suggest that current energy policy in Hawaii is likely to result in increased costs for the consumer down the line.
[0]: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....
Lazard LCOE 2023 puts solar PV including storage as cost competitive with natural gas CC plants.
The very first chart puts solar+storage at $46-102/MWh, with gas at $42-101/MWh.
https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost...
And hidden away in the footnotes, they hide the fact that they are modeling 4 hours of storage.
It is so blatantly dishonest.
> I don't know where that linked dataset is from
Scroll down a bit under the graphic. https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth (which has some more dramatic charts, and a lot of explanation)
2019 numbers: https://www.nrel.gov/news/video/lcoss-text.html
California has contracts with 8 Minute Energy to buy energy from their solar+storage plants for 4 cents per kWh.
That system has 4 hours of storage. It is extremely disingenuous to compare that to fossil fuels.
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