Solar Electricity in Alberta - Howell
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41 m2 7 kW solar electricity Calgary 700 m2 100 kW solar electricity Switzerland Solar Electricity in Alberta Alberta Organic Producers Association National Farmer’s Union 33 m2 5.6 kW solar electricity Devon 2010 February 08 Gordon Howell, P.Eng. Edmonton ©2006-2010 78,000 m2 11,000 kW solar electricity Germany Intro: My Presentation… Solar electricity – What is it? – How does it work? – What are its economics? 6,000 kW 30,000 solar PV-electric modules Germany Feed-in tariffs – What are they? – How do they work in Alberta? 20 m2 3 kW solar electricity on each house Premier Gardens, California Alberta Organic Producers Association 2 Intro: Me… I am a professional engineer (electrical) We are solar electric system project developers We design, supply and commission solar electric systems We participate in provincial, national and international standards development committees We have no vested interests in any one solar technology My interest is that you choose wisely – with your eyes wide open – based on the facts and whether it is right for you or not. my house 20 m2 2.3 kW 1995, Edmonton Alberta Organic Producers Association 100% solar electricity 3 400 Alberta: The Solar Province 700 – Our Most Abundant Energy Resource Solar energy falling on Alberta’s surface area = 3000 EJ per year Usable energy services from solar energy = 26 EJ per year (with practical systems in practical locations) 350 300 400 300 200 150 170 Coal, oil, natural gas, tar sands removed from the ground = ~12 EJ per year, 4.7 EJ used in Alberta (61% is exported) Energy services required in Alberta = 2.2 EJ per year (47% is wasted as heat due to inefficiencies) Electrical energy in Alberta = 0.23 EJ generated per year, 0.20 EJ used per year Alberta Organic Producers Association 4 Context: Alberta’s Present Electrical Efficiency Because renewable energy supplants fossil fuels in supplying useful energy, then a much larger amount of fossil fuel is not needed as primary energy… Renewable energy replaces useful energy… In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only Baba Dioum Association what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught. Alberta Organic Producers Environmentalist 5 Solar Energy – where can it be used – Photo Credit: Gordon Howell Okotoks swimming pool solar heating Photo Credit: SPS Energy Anything that needs electricity Cochrane High School solar electricity Anything that needs heat – Space heating – Water heating – for domestic water, pools – Industrial and commercial process heating – Cooking Best Western Hotel Kelowna Anything that needs illumination – in the daytime Photo Credit: Swiss Solar Tech Red Deer's net zero electricity home Producers Association Alberta Organic Photo Credit: Gordon Howell 6 Context: Energy Efficiency vs. Adding Energy… Solar electricity option: – Does NOT reduce your electricity consumption! – Instead it substitutes your electricity source from coal and natural gas over to the sun… Energy efficiency option: – This is the cheapest, most important and shortest payback option… – but it is emotionally boring Solar electricity has much higher costs and longer paybacks than energy efficiency – It is exciting and something you can brag about to your friends… Efficiency can save 75 percent of our electricity at a lower cost than making it at existing electricity generating plants. Amory Lovins, 2006 Alberta Organic Producers Association Rocky Mountain Institute 7 Context: Challenges with Solar Electricity… Purchase costs are high, though typically falling by 10% to 15% per year Not a lot of broad-based experience in Canada – Supply and installation chain is growing in its experience and depth – Much training needed for design professionals, financiers, and installers Has to compete with highly subsidized coal- and natural gas-electricity – fossil fuel industries know how to lobby the government to obtain favourable policies and many types of incentives Previously, little interest by governments in developing policies and programmes that facilitate it – Ontario, Saskatchewan and Medicine Hat now have incentive programmes for solar (Nova Scotia is coming) – Canada and Alberta instead have incentive programmes for coal, oil, gas, tar sands and nuclear (because these energy sources need heavy subsidies in order to remain viable in the face of clean energy sources) Money talks, and until it starts telling the truth about the consequences of fossil fuels, Albertaclimate Organicchange. Producers Association we're kidding ourselves that we can make any significant headway against 8 Next… Solar Systems and Components Try not to become a man of success but a man of value. Alberta Organic Albert Producers Association Einstein 9 Where Can Solar Be Connected? Can be connected anywhere in the electric system, from transmission lines to the home, business, or farm. Solar or Wind Electric Customers House voltages: 240 and 120 V Transformer and electrical delivery pole Electrical substation Electricity generating plants Transmission grid from 25,000 volts to 250,000 volts High voltage transmission tower Delivery grid 25,000 volts and lower Alberta Organic Producers Association 10 Solar heating and solar electricity are NOT the same… Solar heating – A dark surface sitting in the sun light – Water or air flows past the solar-heated surface carrying heat away. Solar electricity – A semiconductor device like a computer chip – Photons bump electrons out of an atom. 11 – Wires carry the electrons away. Alberta Organic Producers Association Solar PV Electricity The technology is called "photovoltaics", but we only call it "PV". Solar PV Cell Solar PV Module PV can generate any amount of electricity. Large PV systems = more PV modules. Solar PV Array 170,000 modules (200 W ea.) 34,000 kW PV array 5,000 modules 1000 kW PV Terms 30,000 modules, 6000 kW Alberta Organic Producers Association 12 Solar Electricity – used everywhere! Photo Credit: Ralph Cartar From calculators and watches to large generating stations. 1. Off-grid stand-alone 2. Off-grid hybrid, combined with generator or wind 3. Grid-connected Alberta Organic Producers Association 13 Solar Electricity – major components… Solar PV module …to generate DC electricity Solar battery …to store DC electricity maybe… Solar inverter …to convert to AC electricity Service to others… is the rent you pay for your room here on earth. Alberta Organic Producers Association Muhammad Ali 14 Grid-Dependent PV System 4 major components: – – – – PV array DC disconnect Solar inverter AC disconnect No energy storage Most common grid-connected configuration (95%) 500 in Canada ??? 120 in Alberta ??? 5 million around the world… 1 Solar PV Array 3 2 4 Alberta Organic Producers Association 15 Electric Wires Company’s electrical distribution grid Import meter Export meter kWh 1 Solar electric array kWh kWh DC 2 3 How can you generate solar electricity into a house and also back into the grid? Inverter 4 AC z z All electrical circuits in a house or building Sells to the grid when there is a site surplus. Buys from the grid when there is a site shortage. ©1995-2010 Solar energy is the ultimate in wireless nuclear fusion Alberta Organic Producers Association … where the fusion generator is very safely stored 150,000,000 km away! 16 Buildings are becoming Solar-Electric Plants! Aachen, Germany 1000 kW, Munich 8 kW, Red Deer Alberta Organic Producers 6 000 Association kW, Germany17 Neighbourhoods are becoming Solar-Electric Plants! 1000 kW community PV project on 500 houses in the Netherlands Japan California Alberta Organic Producers Association 18 Cities are becoming Solar-Electric Plants Ota City, Japan 2200 kW, 500 homes Alberta Organic Producers Association 19 340 kW California Parking lots are becoming Solar-Electric! Alberta Organic Producers Association 20 Fields are becoming Solar-Electric Plants Geiseltalsee Solarpark Germany 4000 kW, 24 864 PV modules Alberta Organic Producers Association 21 Context: World Solar PV Market Annual World-wide PV Market Total PV Capacity Installed World-Wide 8,000 7,000 MW of rated capacity 6,000 5,000 4,000 45% growth per year over the last 15 years Equivalent of the energy supply for 1,000,000 homes added in 2008 alone Equivalent of 2,300,000 homes are now supplied with energy. $30+ billion per year market… 100,000 jobs 3,000 2,000 1,000 0 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Alberta Organic Producers Association 22 Context: Canadian Solar PV Market Annual Canadian PV Market Total PV Capacity Installed in Canada 30 23% growth per year over the last 15 years Est. 500+ grid-connected PV systems in Canada Est. 120 grid-connected PV systems in Alberta plus thousands of off-grid systems 1370 jobs MW of rated capacity 25 20 15 10 5 0 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Alberta Organic Producers Association 23 Next… Economics in Alberta – where are we going? People who inspire others Alberta ...are those who can see invisible bridges at the end of dead endOrganic streetsProducers Association 24 Background: Energy vs. Power 3.5 Electric companies need to design and build their electricity generating, transmitting and delivery systems to generate and deliver this much electrical power… 3.0 Power [kW] 2.5 3.0 BUT they only get paid for delivering this much electrical energy 2.0 1.5 1.4 1.5 Area of brown bars = total energy = 18 kWh/day = 6600 kWh/year 1.2 1.1 1.0 1.0 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.7 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.75 0.5 0.3 0.0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Alberta Organic Producers Association Time of Day [hour] Avg 25 From where does Alberta’s electrical energy come? Energy supply Coal 74% Natural gas 17% Hydro 4% Wind 2% Biomass and other 1% Imports from BC and SK 2% Ability to generate 49% 39% 7% 4% 2% 8% Keephills Coal-Electric Plant Wabamun coalAssociation mines Alberta Organic Producers 26 Alberta’s Energy Needs Total energy consumption: ~2.2 EJ per year Heating: space, water, processes Transportation Electricity (as of 2006) (0.20 EJ/year) – Farm – Domestic 3% 16% – Unaccounted for losses ~3%? – Commercial 25% – Transmission line losses ~8%? – Industrial – Distribution line losses 56% Only those who will risk going too far… can possibly find out how far one can go. ~8%? Alberta Organic Producers Association T.S. Elliot 27 How Does Net Billing Work? Energy Retailer, Electric Wires Company Electricity is delivered to your neighbours by your Electric Wires Company for their normal delivery fee. 3 1 kWh 1 kWh 1 kWh 1 2 Electricity paid in full 10 ¢ /kWh Import kWh Electrical energy credit Electricity paid in full ~8.5 ¢ /kWh 10 ¢ /kWh Energy Retailer sells your energy to your neighbour for full retail price. kWh Export Bidirectional kWh meter 4 Electricity distribution wires Ordinary kWh meter Net billing allows exported electricity to be valued at any price, such as: - a discounted wholesale price, - a price equal to the import price, or Neighbour - a premium feed-in (green) price. PV system owner 1 kWh supplied, 1 kWh paid for ©1995-2010 Alberta Organic Producers Association 28 PV Economics …1 At $6.50/W, a 6 kW system installed cost = $39,000 Will generate $600 per year of electricity in Edmonton at 10 ¢/kWh Price of solar electricity = 25 ¢/kWh Simple payback = 66 years Return on purchase = 1.5% Grid parity never reached But this ignores – Costs of financing and maintenance – Increases in grid-electricity prices – Benefits to the environment, infrastructure and society – Competing against subsidised electricity prices In many ways our future is passing us by, Gary Lamphier Alberta Organic Producers … and our energy riches may one day look like fool's gold. EdmontonAssociation Journal 29 PV-Electric Grid Economics …2 If you consider: – Costs of financing at 0% using your own money – Inflation at 2% per year – 4% increases in grid-electricity prices = 13 ¢/kWh on average Then: – solar PV parity with the grid is reached in 20 years – payback in 46 years, ROI = 1.9% per year In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy. John C. Sawhill Alberta Organic Producers Association 30 PV-Electric Grid Economics …3 If you add: – GHG emission fees at $15/tonne now and going to $100/t by 2017 – then the average price of grid electricity = 18.5 ¢/kWh Then: – solar PV parity with the grid is reached in 12 years – payback in 36 years, ROI = 2.7% per year It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could Elizabeth Kolbert Alberta Organic Producers Association choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing. New Yorker 31 PV-Electric Grid Economics …3 If you add: – carbon capture fees at 3 ¢/kWh starting in 2015 – transmission line costs of $14 billion amortised over 9 years – then the average price of grid electricity = 21.4 ¢/kWh Then: – solar PV parity with the grid is reached in 7 years – payback in 32 years, ROI = 3.2% per year We harm the planet because we don't feel a connection between our actions and the environmental impact. Alberta Organic Producers Association David Gottfried 32 PV-Electric Grid Economics …5 If you add: – continuing reduction in solar PV costs, down to $5.50/W for homeowners by next year – then the price of solar electricity = 21.1 ¢/kWh compared to the average price of grid electricity at 21.4 ¢/kWh Then: – solar PV parity with the grid is reached in 2 years (by 2012) – payback in 27 years, ROI = 3.8% per year Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. Alberta Organic Producers William Butler Association Yeats 33 Declining Solar PV Prices, Increasing Grid Prices 85 ¢/kWh (solar PV, using 5% bank money) Solar PV Electricity Price unsubsidized no environmental side-effects Grid-Electricity Price 25 ¢/kWh (solar PV, using your own money) ~10 ¢/kWh (2009 grid price in Edmonton) Grid parity: Utility Solar Assessment Study www.cleanedge.com, www.solarcatalyst.org huge environmental effects highly subsidized fossil fuelled electricity does not Grid Parity pay for the damage it causes to the environment and to our health care 2009 2011…? budgets 2014…? 34 Alberta Organic Producers Association Key Issues for Alberta's Solar Electricity How to store energy? – from day to night, from summer to winter – to provide firm “dispatchable” electrical power (not electrical energy) – Society needs massive energy storage technologies already regardless of solar and wind energy (to shave the peaks and fill in the troughs, to avoid brownouts, blackouts, vast new transmission lines and large additional generating plants) How to obtain the equivalent public subsidies as do fossil fuels? If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. Marion Alberta Organic Producers You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time. WrightAssociation Edelman 35 How do we want to organise ourselves? Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism is heading in the direction of collapsing because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth. Øystein Dahle Exxon Norway Where there is a will, there is a way… It's not about economics. It is about a will. Alberta Organic Producers Association 36 …we hold the future in our hands Download this presentation and others from www.hme.ca /presentations We welcome any feedback, questions, suggestions, comments and challenges to anything we present. Photo credits: Gordon Howell and several others Gordon Howell, P.Eng. Howell-Mayhew Engineering Edmonton Phone: +1 780 484 0476 E-mail: ghowell@hme.ca Alberta Organic Producers Association 37 ©1995-2010 Alberta Organic Producers Association 38 Government Policies – where policies need to facilitate change instead of blocking change… Mandate full-cost economic and environmental accounting for all energy sources Remove fossil fuel subsidies Require fossil fuels to pay for their environmental damage Provide ultra-low interest green loans for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects Alberta Organic Producers Association 39 Policy Contrasts… In contrast to Canada and Alberta… billions are being spent in other industrialized countries to develop their solar energy sector: Industrial capacity Manufacturing processes Regulations Products Infrastructure integration World market development… • Research • Infrastructure • Services • Applications "We don't know what to do about solar energy because we don't know how to tax it." Alberta Energy in 2003 June Alberta Organic Producers Association 40 Effect of System Price on PV Energy Pricing 130 P V E lectricity P rice ¢/kW h 110 Ways to bring down the energy price: - Increase market size - “feed-in tariff” - “buy-down” programmes PV energy price [¢/kWh] at 0% interest rate PV energy price [¢/kWh] at 5% interest rate 120 ¢/kWh 90 70 14 ¢/kWh 50 30 Grid = 13.7 10 ¢/kWh -10 $3.00 $3.50 $4.00 $4.50 $5.00 $5.50 $6.00 $6.50 $7.00 $7.50 $8.00 $8.50 $9.00 $9.50 $10.00 $10.50 $11.00 $11.50 $12.00 Installed Cost $/W Alberta Organic Producers Association 41 Sources of Alberta’s electrical energy 74% coal 17% natural gas 4% hydro 2% wind 2% imports from BC and SK Reported on Page 31 of the 2007 AESO annual report (see reports at www.hme.ca/reports) Keephills Coal-Electric Plant Wabamun Alberta Alberta Organic Producers Association 42 What are the real costs of electricity? The Ontario Ministry of Energy and the Ontario Medical Association says: – the air pollution in Ontario caused by coal-fired electricity generation kills 688 people, causes 1100 emergency room visits, and more than 300,000 minor illnesses per year. – The pollution includes mercury, NOx, SOx, acid rain, particulates… They are saying that this is an epidemic. Our lakes are being closed to fishing because of mercury… So who pays for this now? (see reports at www.hme.ca/reports) Alberta Organic Producers Association 43 What are the real costs of electricity? Average consumer price of electrical energy in Calgary in 2008: 13.7 ¢/kWh. Ontario Ministry of Energy says that the medical care damage caused by coal electricity is around 13 ¢/kWh – equivalent to 9.6 ¢/kWh pro-rated for Alberta – we need to double our electrical energy prices to pay for this! Cost of damage to our medical care caused by an average homeowner’s electricity consumption in Calgary is $722 per year! So who pays for this now? Ontario Ministry of Energy. Cost Benefit Analysis: Replacing Ontario's CoalFired Electricity Generation. 93 pp. See pdf file pages 3, 49, and 59. Prepared by DSS Management Consultants, RWDI Air. 2005 April. download from www.hme.ca/reports Alberta Organic Producers Association 44 Feed-in Tariffs ¢/kWh Region PV Wind Austria 96 12.5 California 67 France 88 13.5 Germany 92 14 Italy 80 Spain 67 Portugal 46 South Australia 44 Ontario 44 to 80 10 Hydro 12 10 Biomass 18.5 10 Contract Length First Introduced 13 1994 3 1983 15 2000 20 1992 29 1992 >25 1998 12 1998 2008 13 to 19 13 12 20 2006 Alberta Organic Producers Association 45 Need for Green Loans Interest rates very significantly increase the price of PV electricity. 90 Low-interest green loans are required to reduce the price of PV energy. 5% interest rate: PV = 85 ¢/kWh 80 74 70 65 ¢ /k W h 60 50 85 56 0% interest rate: PV = 25 ¢/kWh 49 43 38 40 34 31 30 Grid = 13.7 ¢/kWh 25 27 20 10 0 0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% Interest Rate [% per year] 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0% Alberta Organic Producers Association 46
