There has been discussion this week about the government re-thinking the Feed-in-Tariff system (FIT) in electricity supply, which was intended to boost the amount of renewable energy added to the electricity mix in Japan.
The FIT system forces utilities to buy all the electricity produced by solar energy suppliers, regardless of how convenient it is and at a significant premium in price, which is then passed on to consumers.
In September, Kyushu electric and 5 other utilities announced they would no longer be purchasing electricity under the FIT system, citing the need to prevent blackouts from overloaded transmission systems.
An Advisory Panel for the Industry Ministry is considering how to deal with the issue.
The problem is that solar electricity is inherently unreliable. Production ranges from 0% to a capacity able to swamp transmission systems. Solar power cannot be stored, so must be used or lost. If utilities want the capacity to deal with these surges, more money has to be spent on the infrastructure - to deal with power that works about 35% of the time, and delivers absolutely nothing for about 12 hours a day.
There may be a place for solar power in the grid, but the weakness of a power source that cannot provide reliable baseload power is obvious. Every single watt producible by solar power must be backed-up 100% by another power source - and in Japan at the moment, that means fossil fuels with their associated massive environmental costs.
Solar power cannot be stored - yet. Battery storage technology is improving by orders of magnitude every few years and already in Australia there are systems available although the costs outweigh the benefits of going 'off-grid' and anyone choosing to do so is doing it for altruistic reasons.
ReplyDeleteThe real problems are the billions of dollars invested in existing electricity networks that would be wasted if a truly distributed network were to eventuate. Ultimately what will work is a mix of distributed (renewable), micro (mostly renewable) and central grids (a mix) to back it up with flexible innovative power purchase plans similar to phone networks and plans. This will save the networks, give consumers choice (ie power) and save the planet.
Thank you for your feedback.
ReplyDeleteI can't really comment on the idea of a 'distributed network' except to say that I'd like to know more. However, if it implies that there is no need for baseload power then I would have very serious doubts about it.
The claim that battery storage is improving by orders of magnitude every few years just cries out for evidence, especially since the more sober information I have read is not nearly so sanguine. Battery storage suffers from many problems including outrageous cost, inability to work at the scales required and being very damaging environmentally.
See this critical assessment:http://www.thingsworsethannuclearpower.com/2013/03/batterystorage.html
I know next to nothing about how phone networks and plans work but I recommend looking critically at exactly where the power is coming from in the system you describe. You seem to have 3 levels of power, two of which are completely renewable and thus unreliable, and a central grid which is a 'mix' - of what?
But thanks again, I think I'll come back to this topic in another post.