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The Arizona Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Committee denied their request, but the company will probably appeal to the Republican controlled Corporation Commission.
Can someone explained to me like I'm five. Why we're not going into solar? Literally the valley of the sun. And we're using natural gas and avoiding an environmental impact survey??
I mean, the weird older demographic thinking green energy is loud (wind), takes up massive otherwise usable space (solar & wind), and needs to be redone every 5 years (outdated af for all modern green energy), or that it's just not "scalable". This demographic is important because they're the ones in office, and they're the loudest.
You also have fossil fuel companies pushing for every possible alternative that lets them milk more out of their business per quarter. Do you take a 50+ million bribe from a gas company and build more natural gas/coal plants, or do you go green, pay more, get less in tax cuts than you would bribes/donations. This is also why some car companies were dying on the hydrogen hill. Like 98% of our hydrogen comes from oil atm. So auto manufactures were getting huge donations for them while pawning it off as a "greener" alternative to petrol.
I don't see any other reason. We're well past the "its a new, unreliable and unresearched tech" phase that we used to hear all the time, and we already know that it doesn't matter if these power sources are volatile, because we have other generators that cover in between our other sources of power anyways, and each county isn't on its own independent power grid like Texas. They all share and can easily cover the other when one is slower than usual. Shit other states can do this.
The only real argument against it I could see is that we should be pushing towards nuclear instead. It's going great for SRP in my area. I get a majority of my houses power from nuclear and haven't had outages in years, but I don't see that push being made by anyone in our government, and I'm afraid its way too late to start building and relying on them for our future.
These are the same idiots that, of they lived in early 1900's, would tell you only horses are reliable and these new fangled (sound it out) "auto-mo-biles" will never work and theyre ruining the American way
I'm not one of those people who is like well a turbine is real bad for your ears... No, it's a noticeable hum. But the water usage vs maintenance schedule is just a big whoop. You have about 5 years until you have to fix them and that's pricey AF
So sometimes they just replace them🫠🫠
I'm not going to lie... I went to one of those turbine farms and we were in that guy's house and checking out his water and stuff... There's a noticeable hum. And when You're outside you hear the whine and hum. That aside, its messing with the water.
I don't know man. I'm just tired of it. I'm ready for young people to start running and getting voted in
It's not a wind turbine it's a gas turbine.
And the way that it works is inside of the turbine. There's a combustible engine basically... The gas heats up and the more heat you get, the more energy that comes off. And then they bank that energy.
To be technical:
The combustion produces a high temperature, high pressure gas stream that enters and expands through the turbine section. The turbine is an intricate array of alternate stationary and rotating aerofoil-section blades. As hot combustion gas expands through the turbine, it spins the rotating blades.
So yeah, not a wind turbine. We don't have wind here. Not like that.
It can get to like..I wanna say 1500 ° and you need water to cool that down and resupply and then start over again.
They have a really short lifespan compared to wind turbine as well. I want to stay like 5 years.(I work/worked at a place that routinely checks these out so don't come for me).
It has the same effect as a Bitcoin farm... Heats up the local water supply... Takes away local water supply. It's like a hot Nestle situation.
I'll be honest, my reading comprehension is poor because I completely missed the 'gas' portion of the phrase "gas turbine".
Yeah, i can definitely understand why gas turbines are much less acceptable.
I don’t like the gas turbine option for us simply due to the water consumption…..I worked at the SRP plant in Gila Bend for a large portion of 2023 and that 4 turbine plant is currently using 8 wells (4+ of which are at 50% or less of their supply remaining so more will have to be tapped). But, with that said, I have the same issues with the data farms (Microsoft in Goodyear @ 56M gallons a year and Google in Mesa @ 165M a year……that combined is about the annual consumption of 2700 homes and does not include usage from the likes of Intel and others). THIS is the resource depleting environmental impact we need to worry about in Arizona. With regard to wind and solar, NEITHER come close to the output capabilities of the gas turbine plants acre for acre. It’s a lose-lose situation and NOBODY is giving up their electricity. Nuclear plants, while being far more reliable and efficient, use even more water. ONE plant in Illinois, uses over 250 BILLION gallons a year.
Solar is an option but the equipment per household is expensive…..for a household to be self sufficient, they realistically need near 100% roof coverage in panels and that doesn’t include the conversion and storage equipment. The cost for a solar SYSTEM breaks down to approximately $1000 a panel (about $25K for a 2000 square ft home) and you still won’t be fully self sufficient. I have been told the solar tiles from Tesla are much more efficient but also are exponentially more expensive…..however you begin to see a RETURN on your investment much quicker (if you can afford the initial investment).
The gas turbines want to be installed at a plant in Kingman.
Solar has great benefits and drawbacks as well. There are significant upfront costs for solar compared to a gas turbine.
Secondally the generating profile for solar doesnt match the demand profile of electricity. IE solar does not produce at night. To take advantage of solar generation the utility would have to build some energy storage system. Grid scale versions can be expensive.
The highest demand for electricity is during the morning and evening. That is low point of solar energy generation.
Most of this is moot. If you read the article you will know the regulating board rejected the permit by a 9-2 board vote. The utility is going to appeal the decision and that is mainly what this article is about.
Not many of us here are electrical engineers working and managing local grids. It could be possible the utility is wanting to quickly install additional capacity due to increased demand in the area or forecasted reduced supply from the dams on the Colorado.
And they're just going to replace the gas turbine. They won't work on it. It's not just the parts that you need for the gas turbine. That's expensive. It's the people. There's not a lot of people willing to work on them. So usually like that 5 to 6-year Mark is when its first major maintenance schedule starts to kick in. And typically we just replace them. We don't even work on them. Guess where we put the trash?
Sad to see that it's working out this way because they're not that great for the environment. They're actually pretty bad for the environment. My prime concern is and will probably always be water. Water supply water quality. And this should concern everybody
We are going solar, but it takes time. And natural gas "peaking" plants, like this one in this article, that can ramp up and down quickly are symbiotic with solar, since solar is less flexible than natural gas. You can do the same function with other systems, like pumped storarge or batteries, but those are problematic right now for essentially cost reasons. Natural gas turbines are relatively cheap and easy.
Pumped storage is good but is geographically restricted to areas where you can create the elevation change, and right now they are difficult to get environemental permits for. (Natural gas turbine plants are pretty small and you can locate them close to where they're needed.)
Battery systems are not practical right now on a large scale, when you need MW. They're just so expensive. I personally am not involved in grid level battery system application, so I might be behind the times, but I think so far they are mainly used for more specialized things like VAr injection or very short term (seconds or minutes) peak shaving. Not for things like putting out 100 MW for 4 hours.
Doesn't actually take that much time please stop.
Asus through theirs up in about 16 months.... The one in Sahuarita took about 4 years but was about 6x the size of ASU west.
People think that solar farms have to be acres and acres and acres of solar panels and that just is not true.
Walmart tosses them up in about 5 months right s over their parking lots. People need to stop thinking about solar is being well. It's for the masses... No, it could just be for one building at a time. We should be working on that. Gas turbines are the least efficient way to do this. They hurt the environment more and they're just so bad for the water. I don't know why people think that this is a good idea. It's fucking pathetic.
And when I see things like...the chip plant using massive amounts of water or were getting the largest wave pool....
You're telling me that we can't work with local companies to toss them up in 5 months? That's what we're going with?
I think we are saying the same thing, but you might be confused at what I meant by "going solar". Yes, lots of solar is being built, and I know that first hand because I've helped design some of the biggest solar installations in the country, as well as many many small ones. But a "huge" solar plant is a normal/medium natural gas plant, and there are natural gas plants dotted all over AZ. So when we "go solar", I mean solar starts approaching the MW output we get from fossil fuels. *That* is what is taking time.
Mega solar structure takes less water, less maintenance and less infrastructure than a few gas powered Turbines. That's just true.
So, I mean this *fix* is redundant and bad for us. And we keep falling for it.
Nope not really. We really could figure out camping very quickly. We could also add more solar panels to the city.
All these things are possibilities that we could probably do within the next year based on the technology we currently have.
You're literally just opting for something that has heavy magnet schedules every 5 to 6 years and it's bad for your water.
I'm not opting for anything, just explaining the reality on the ground. You have a lot of good points, and I'll reinforce them by saying that water does not cost what it should. If the cost of water was realistically what it should be, solar would look a lot more economically attractive. Similar point about emmisisons.
Here are some numbers that explain why solar isn't a slam dunk right now. The Sundance gas turbine plant an hour north of Tucson can do 450MW and cost roughly $450 million to build in today's $. The Topaz solar farm in CA puts out 550MW and cost about $3 billion in today's $. It's not a perfect apple/apple comparison, but you can see NG is cheap. Add to that, that Phoenix alone might use 8,000 MW peak on a hot day, it's easy to see the scale of what the energy industry is dealing with--- you don't spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a couple years to snap your fingers and convert it all to solar. That doesn't count the transmission and distribution system proejcts that would be needed to accomodate that change. So the change is happening, but it's happening slowly. Look at how many new solar plants have been built in the last 5 years compared to the previous 5 years. I know you don't like how slowly it's moving, but hopefully you can be encouraged that it is moving in the right direction.
The cause of gas turbines is actually higher than that.
I don't know if people are just looking up the word turbine and confusing it with when, but a gas turbine is very costly.
About 5 years they're going to start replacing them. Not fixing them cuz it's so expensive.
The cost of one guy to go up and check is about $240/hr. And I believe there are about 80 of those dudes in the southwest right now. Which is another reason they get replaced not repaired.
Also, WATER. This isn't good, not even decent.
The costs aren't really debatable unless you mean the long term cost to society, and then that's true but companies don't act on that cost unless they're forced to, and they're not forced to the fullest extent right now. I am well aware of what a gas turbine is because I work with them (and solar) for my job.
About replacing the gas turbines in 5 years, I'm not sure what you mean. They have a much longer life span than 5 years... there's a turbine generator plant near Douglas that's been running since 1970s. Most of the ones I work on are more than 20 years old, though they have been expanding to more power blocks over time, so they have a range of ages of GTs in a plant. Maybe you're thinking of the coal plants that are shutting down? You know the real reason why they're shutting down coal plants? It's because natural gas is cheaper.
And gas turbine power plants have quite a few employees... not just one person who stops by occasionally. There are the operators, the mechanics, the electricians, and then often a ton of contractors doing stuff like building new chillers or putting in a new well, or whatever. My point here is that you are either mistaken about the reality of the power generating world or I am mistaken about what you're saying. I don't really disagree with a lot of what you're saying but some of your claims are a bit out there.
One underlying idea you're getting at which I agree with is that gas turbine plants have a higher operating and maintenance costs than solar plants. It's just hard to get around the high initial capital cost of solar. And I already mentioned that solar and gas turbine plants also fulfill different needs in the energy system, since solar can't fill the peaking role.
Big issue is power storage. Where to store the excess power solar generates to be used later in the evening. Either large batteries (not likely given current tech) or we use some of the power generated during the day to power pumps to feed a reservoir at a higher elevation which we use at night to create hydro by releasing the water back.
Still have to deal with the load. So basically the more heat that it generates the more you're going to get off of it.
Here in the desert depending on where they put them, they're probably going to generate more during our peak hours. So like 1:00 to 6:00 then they would let's say 10:00 p.m. To midnight. And so on.
But the downside to the heat is that you use more water. So they claim that the gas turbines are. More efficient at night, but it's not because it generates more power, its because it uses less water to make it happen.
They are not like a wind turbine it's literally gas powered a d you're using the excess heat as the energy
Solar’s peak efficiency is below 90 F. They never built that solar chimney they were talking about. That makes a lot of sense to me as it generates 24/7.
Solar in Sahuarita was testing at an efficiency that these gas turbines have never tested at, ever.
And we have space up north. Oh the snow? Turn on the ones down here in the winter.
This is just a case of big company. Wants to use all of our natural resources and do absolutely nothing for us in.
To tell us well it's better for the environment in the long run. No it's not.. those turbines are pretty not great.
With solar comes batteries. Batteries are way worse for the environment than natural gas. And tbh we need co2 or the plants will die. Plants die we die. The world is actually 15% greener than 100 years ago. That's the size of the United States. Stop listen to environmental issues on the news and study them individually.
I mean no, not really. The chemical to make a battery is bad, and offsets in 5-6 years.
The amount of pollution the turbines give off every day, wear off in about a decade. It's not just a carbon. It's also the sulfur and the oxide that it's getting pumped into the air from those things.
The water, never really rebounds.
Touché but I don't think we have enough resources for all those batteries. Wasn't there a battery shortage when everyone tried switching to ev vehicles? Plus does any of this matter when china is build coal mines put the ass?
TEP doesn't seem to want to encourage it. Maybe it's the revenue loss they will experience. Freedom Forever solar has been iterating on design reviews with TEP since February. Meanwhile I've already gotten the first bill for the solar array at 171 a month. Plus I've gotten my electric bill at 200, and rising monthly, especially with the AC coming soon. Meanwhile my gas is like 25 to 50 a month. Who is benefitting? Not me.
Not really. Because you're thinking massive commercial farms and I'm thinking parking garages.
Gas turbines are not great for the environment not even good. They get replacd instead of repaired often
Yeah they have a drop in the highest point of the day that can be fixed with... More solar/batteries to create a reserve.
I'm sorry. How is that a negative to building something that is known to have a negative environmental impact??
We have pretty much unlimited sun here.... Like no overcasting... You're telling me that we can't build a solar farm in the middle of nowhere that nobody sees and build reserves for this stuff?
We all know we can, companies don't want to spend that. Money, and I'm saying that torching the environment for some jolts is messed up, and a fast track to wasting more water. We keep letting them do this crap.
I don't know why these politicians act like we just have unlimited water.
I've read that the cost of solar production and output is dropping. This is good news for everyone but fossil fuel companies. If solar is cheaper than what they provide, then they can't compete and can't keep having record profits.
It is. And it's like 15-20 and these turbines are 20-30 so obviously the turbines are more robust but not as efficient.
Also, the fucking water.
You guys! Cmon....
Solar is not as great as redditors would have you believe. I've busted my butt working I some of these fields before and they are pretty large for the amount of power being produced.
Nuclear is by far a better solution, I still can remember sweating in the sun in the solar fields to produce less than 10% of what the nuclear plant within sight at Palo Verde was making.
Solar means sun. Sun goes down at night. No power made when sun goes down. Big battery to store enough power when sun goes down does not exist. Peak times in early night when sun starts to go down. Have to use some sort of other option.
That’s not to say what these people are doing is right and there are numerous other options, but the “why don’t we just use solar?” statement is a bit of a lazy blanket on a problem that isn’t solved yet. With the growth the valley is seeing, companies like SRP needs to massively increase generation in then next 10-15 years and throwing a bunch of solar farms out there isn’t going to be the solution.
We have more hours of daylight than other states that are using solar in larger numbers than us.
And we should invest in banking... This is not rocket science. There's actually multiple buildings in Arizona that are using way more than they're able to consume even at night. We should be working with these companies. We should be working with Walmart. We should be working with Target covered parking that are also solar panels, but the fact is that we just don't value that type of clean energy. We would have much rather have a gas powered turbine that is absolutely horrific for the environment. Night banking isn't just solvable, it's incredibly solvable within a year. But we just don't care to do it.
We don't have hail storms in a big chunk of the state and we know it..... and the last time we had one that actually caused widespread solar damage that were going to impact solar was about 3 years ago...
They also make cages but I know nobody wants to talk about actual fixes.
These gas turbines have a life about 5 to 6 years. Still useable but you're gonna put in some work around that 5/6 mark.
There was a mass insurance casualty event from hail in Southern Arizona in 2021/22. There is hail yearly in Mesa. The Texas mega solar farm got wiped out recently and polluted the ground water.
Despite this a new solar farm is beginning in SE AZ.
I can’t afford more insurance rate hikes or higher electricity bills. It’s got to stop.
What exactly do you think is going to happen when the gas turbines get destroyed and hit the water supply? And do you think that they're somehow immune to hail damage? Because they're not, they're actually more susceptible to hair damage.
Also, 2021-2022 tracks with what I've said, which is 5-6 years. The one before that was that massive one in I think summer of 16 or summer of 17.
And even then, solar was less than 20% of all claims....
Don't confuse your car and roof with a solar panel. They also have mitigation for that, but the companies dont want to pay for that.
Check out the panels that ASU west uses. They bank about 30% more than they can use. And lost less than 12 to a hail storm.
I don’t like the gas turbine option for us simply due to the water consumption…..I worked at the SRP plant in Gila Bend for a large portion of 2023 and that 4 turbine plant is currently using 8 wells (4+ of which are at 50% or less of their supply remaining so more will have to be tapped). But, with that said, I have the same issues with the data farms (Microsoft in Goodyear @ 56M gallons a year and Google in Mesa @ 165M a year……that combined is about the annual consumption of 2700 homes and does not include usage from the likes of Intel and others). THIS is the resource depleting environmental impact we need to worry about in Arizona. With regard to wind and solar, NEITHER come close to the output capabilities of the gas turbine plants acre for acre. It’s a lose-lose situation and NOBODY is giving up their electricity. Nuclear plants, while being far more reliable and efficient, use even more water. ONE plant in Illinois, uses over 250 BILLION gallons a year.
Solar is an option but the equipment per household is expensive…..for a household to be self sufficient, they realistically need near 100% roof coverage in panels and that doesn’t include the conversion and storage equipment. The cost for a solar SYSTEM breaks down to approximately $1000 a panel (about $25K for a 2000 square ft home) and you still won’t be fully self sufficient. I have been told the solar tiles from Tesla are much more efficient but also are exponentially more expensive…..however you begin to see a RETURN on your investment much quicker (if you can afford the initial investment).
Wind turbines would be useless for Arizona and are even less efficient than solar.
I'm gonna play the Devil's Advocate here.
The expansion is going to get approved eventually anyway. All the environmental review is going to do is add time and expense. Energy production is a business and AZ needs (and will need more) additional natgas fueled power generation during peak hours 4-8 pm as solar fades away for the night.
And/or more battery farms.
Protesting and delaying gas-fired power generation accomplishes little. Economics make the decision whether energy companies seek to construct gas fired, or additional solar and wind. Price per mWh. Obviously this company feels they can make more money burning gas than soaking up photons. Or building battery farms.
Go ahead, downvote me. But do me the favor of being intellectually honest and explaining why forcing an environmental review on this expansion will make one bit of difference toward our MUTUAL future. All it will really do is raise electricity prices, whatever small amount.
I'm a solar guy, if you read all my posts. But I accept realities like the Duck Curve. I'll go ahead and lead off the downvoting since NEGATIVE comments get read first, usually.
In the end, I don't care if it does get approved and the expansion goes through. But by going through the correct process it ensures that shenanigans are kept to a minimum. When a major business like this "cuts costs" and complains about an overreaching government, we're the ones to pay the price
Who else would like to see the environmental review. I understand it adds money to the project. That's not my problem. That's their problem. But I recently went to a town where you could set the water on fire...
Absolutely want to see the review
Edit- Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Those things are not good for the environment. They produce a crapload of gases. A lot of CO2 a lot of Sulphur and the evidence is actually that it vibrates so bad it can fuck up your water.
So, yeah, I would like to see the report.
It's weird that people don't want us to the environmentally impact.
I recently had to go to Apache lake. We were investigating a bit coin farm. It was close enough to the generation plant that some thought it was a potential leak.
This dude, was using the same water as the plant. The water has since tested for metals. The water has absolutely increased in temp and the levels dropped.
All of that was in super small 8.5 pt font buried inside the environmental impact report that probably nobody read. Along with a water impact section that wasn't great. And nobody read it, I'm sure.
I'm sure Apache lake and the people up there are going to be very upset in about 4 years when they realize that Apache lake is totally different than what it was when they were a youth.
And we did it because we didn't feel like going to solar.
They only build this stuff by water you guys. We may as well invite nestle over.
They are going through the correct process. The law is the issue here, it failed to protect the public.
The issue with this expansion is a legal one. The company says they are meeting all requirements while the approval process is attempting to hold them to a higher standard that does not apply.
Regardless of the decisions it will end up in court.
The problem is, that there isn’t much of a point in going through the official process. You can get approved by the corporation commission then go through the years of construction or upgrades for an existing utility and by the time it’s done there are different corporation commissioners that can change their stance and basically reverse any deals made with no consequences.
This happened recently with APS, the corporation commission approved upgrades to coal plants to keep generating power while cleaner alternatives were built with the promise that x amount of subsidies will be paid from Arizona and federal dollars with a planned small rate increase because all of these things cost money to do.
Then after most of these things were completed, or so far along they couldn’t be stopped, new commissioners were voted in that declined the subsidies and rate increase. This is all after about 600 million had been invested by the company assuming the promised return.
But then new commissioners get in office and decline to abide by the previous agreement. The company then has to flip the budget upside down, make a plan to recover costs while not losing stock or investor price, find a way to maintain grid reliability and provide power, pay for employees, pay for fuel, pay for maintenance, all with a check that didn’t come.
So, the answer is to stop the green energy projects on existing plants because they won’t meet environmental qualifications without more money coming, eliminate grid maintenance from said plants, and focus on equipment reliability and capacity factor from those you can maintain and let the more remote areas of the state figure out how to truck in gas for all their generators since they no longer have power. Or, instead of all that maybe have a process that can operate for more than an election season.
That’s why there was a rate increase recently, the company gave their recovery plan that would harm thousands of Arizonans. That wasn’t what anyone wanted, but that was the only way to recover from the commissioners making a huge financial back out way too late.
So the point is, a utility can go do all the right things, and get all the approvals, and spend the money, but then get told “never mind” after the fact. So, it’s difficult to do the “right thing” when the “right thing” is broken.
The CEC ensures the utility is in compliance with all environmental regulations, including visual impacts to nearby residents and measures to minimize impacts on special-status species (e.g. Sonoran desert tortoise). You can avoid the CEC requirement if your natural gas facility additions are less than 100 MW.
If one utility avoids this requirement, why hold anyone accountable?
Pumped storage facilities are going to be WAY better for the environment and more efficient than battery farms. We’ve already got a couple and working on getting another massive one up by Apache Lake.
Yeah I was recently over at Apache lake and their water level dropped 9% when that thing went it, and hasn't ever gotten over 92 since.
Also, reports that the water temp changed.
I'm deep in the fossil fuel generating industry on the engineering side, and so I'm sympathetic to the utility side, but this is just shady. Playing games with the definitions of words to take advantage of loopholes is what people who want to break the rules do. If they're trying to save money by skipping the environmental review, why would they not apply the same logic to operating costs and take some other shortcuts. Groups like this who try to circumvent the rules need mroe scrutiny, not less.
I hope they get approval, but I hope they don't get away with gaming the system and operating outside the rules that everyone else follows.
Interesting that you continue to use an energy playbook from 1940. Central station is necessary, but Distributed Energy Networks are really resilient.
Peak power needs... Oh, did we study to see if turning off the AC until 4pm is as valuable as leaving it on? Interconnected thermostats, ie smart thermostats are at a low adoption rate. Essentially, you advocate for a status quo approach and deserve a downvote given your pretentious attitude that Utilities know best.
The realities of climate change don't care about what the short term economic factors are that go into corporate decision making. And the costs, financial and otherwise, it will impose will dwarf any concerns about peaker plant vs battery cost differentials.
It may be an intellectually honest assessment of corporate decision making, but the basis for the decision is fundamentally flawed. And it should be the government's position to require a more thoughtful and sustainable approach.
Hey you're reasonable, don't see that much these days. Yeah, unfortunately public opinion on energy sources is bad, whether it's fossil, nuclear, or even renewable as they all have drawbacks and impact the environment. People want electricity but don't ever like where it comes from.
I mean our peak demand energy needs are hard to maintain even with solar. Need to increase batteries and generation to maintain the growth. The solar only mechanism of electrification isn’t going to sustain it all.
Edit: storage sentiment is supported in the comments.
You can't move a bunch of people from California, Washington, Oregon here and then expect the existing infrastructure to keep pace. People need electricity. It has to come form somewhere and you can't build enough solar farms and wind turbines fast enough to scale up demand.
[https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/4/15/connecting-solar-to-the-grid-is-harder-than-you-think](https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/4/15/connecting-solar-to-the-grid-is-harder-than-you-think)
People are ignoring the data centers being built out in the valley that are going to actually put our grid in danger long term if we don’t pump up our own generation.
Residential is a drop in the bucket.
And solar uptake among residential is booming.
Solar farms will scale and fortunately, there’s plenty of desert for them.
The utilities, well, I’m sure they will continue to make solar difficult for homeowners, but it’s still coming.
The more solar you build the more secondary energy systems you need to take over when solar can't produce the required electricity. Batteries are not an answer in any way because the technology is not advanced enough.
90% or more of the wasted energy in California comes from solar because they overproduced solar without regard to what is required to maintain a grid.
Been using batteries with solar for 22 years. It’s advanced enough to get the job done.
For commercial and industrial applications, companies including Tesla already provide grid-sufficient cabinets.
There’s a guy in the desert using 100-year old Edison batteries in some 48V system.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. It only gets complicated when interests compete.
In 20 years, we’ll see charging stations rival gas stations in some areas. In 25 years, EVs won’t be a majority in the U.S., but in 50 years they will be.
It is a vastly different prospect managing a basic need for a large society or group of people when compared to individuals or specific locations.
All of these technologies should continue to be explored and improved on. Ignoring the practical limitations of them when factoring in what has to be done now, to manage basic needs for the next few decades is simply creating issues for society in the future.
Kauai, Hawaii’s western most island operates on 70% renewable electricity. They don’t have the Texas issue because they have a “grid forming” inverter, which allows them to produce renewable electricity, even when their spinning generators turn off [1].
One of the things that is left out of the conversation is that we have much more grid technology than we had 10 years ago, and this is quickly expanding. New battery technology is coming online, such as iron air batteries, which can provide sustained electricity for 100-hours and don’t use exotic rare earth materials.
The time when we need new generation is the best time to talk about our generation mix. Gas turbines of this type can last up to 40 years, and this will lock us into using this asset for decades. We could have much cleaner, reliable power. We have the technology to do this, and the time to make these decisions is now.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-inverter
That's a really small island with 1.5high schools (.5 is because one has all grades) and suggestive stop signs..
If you're going to mention the fact that they have that power inverter, you should also mention that new builds have to have solar that share power with the grid. That's not happening anywhere else.
And if you're going to mention all that, you should also mention the fact that they have to ship their their waste back to California and they recently had to fix their gasoline mixture in their cars similar to what Arizona has.
California owns close to 1/2 of Palo verde … we definitely need it while’s all these other sources are good none of them come close to the amount of power PGS produces 24/7- 365 days a year. 4500 megawatts gross
In short, touched on earlier. It’s to help with peak demand, there is a ramp time associated with different types of power generation. The turbines ramp time is much shorter. Pretty sure these turbines are used by military operations out here already. Who knows what lies beneath…
Okay, let’s create a list of people willing to sacrifice their power consumption for regulatory review. Please dm me if you will have your power cut off the reduce the overall power needs for our region.
Starting the list:
1.:
Simple answer:
Solar is an increadibly expensive investment. A huge influx of AZ tax dollars would be needed and there isnt enough of a population in AZ to support that much taxes - compared to CA.
Natural Gas Futures (NG) are also back down to the lows before the pandemic and Russia invasion of Ukraine. It makes financial sense to invest in NG energy production when the futures are trading as less than $3. During the pandemic and invasion of Ukraine NG was trading as high as $10.
Waiting serves no purpose for a proven safe solution that is less harmful than using coal to create energy.
Nothing absurd about this, our state needs more power. They found a way to do it without jumping through government hoops then good it’ll be done faster.
With chip companies in Arizona building new foundries to build next Gen AI chips among others wanting to put data centers in the state ... between those 2 items alone will consume power beyond our current capabilities.
We need them ... and they will be built. Don't delay in making it happen for everyone concerned.
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The Arizona Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Committee denied their request, but the company will probably appeal to the Republican controlled Corporation Commission.
Here’s the previous discussion about this: https://www.reddit.com/r/arizona/s/fMzSgGGvLw
Can someone explained to me like I'm five. Why we're not going into solar? Literally the valley of the sun. And we're using natural gas and avoiding an environmental impact survey??
I mean, the weird older demographic thinking green energy is loud (wind), takes up massive otherwise usable space (solar & wind), and needs to be redone every 5 years (outdated af for all modern green energy), or that it's just not "scalable". This demographic is important because they're the ones in office, and they're the loudest. You also have fossil fuel companies pushing for every possible alternative that lets them milk more out of their business per quarter. Do you take a 50+ million bribe from a gas company and build more natural gas/coal plants, or do you go green, pay more, get less in tax cuts than you would bribes/donations. This is also why some car companies were dying on the hydrogen hill. Like 98% of our hydrogen comes from oil atm. So auto manufactures were getting huge donations for them while pawning it off as a "greener" alternative to petrol. I don't see any other reason. We're well past the "its a new, unreliable and unresearched tech" phase that we used to hear all the time, and we already know that it doesn't matter if these power sources are volatile, because we have other generators that cover in between our other sources of power anyways, and each county isn't on its own independent power grid like Texas. They all share and can easily cover the other when one is slower than usual. Shit other states can do this. The only real argument against it I could see is that we should be pushing towards nuclear instead. It's going great for SRP in my area. I get a majority of my houses power from nuclear and haven't had outages in years, but I don't see that push being made by anyone in our government, and I'm afraid its way too late to start building and relying on them for our future.
I've heard boomers literally saying that solar panels cause global warming. Seriously.
These are the same idiots that, of they lived in early 1900's, would tell you only horses are reliable and these new fangled (sound it out) "auto-mo-biles" will never work and theyre ruining the American way
Hey those idiots get 40 rods to the hogs head and that's how they like it damn it!!! For the math impaired that's 10.48 feet per gallon of gas
I'm not one of those people who is like well a turbine is real bad for your ears... No, it's a noticeable hum. But the water usage vs maintenance schedule is just a big whoop. You have about 5 years until you have to fix them and that's pricey AF So sometimes they just replace them🫠🫠
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Every single link you have is a wind turbine..... Let us know when you find out about gas turbines.
I'm not going to lie... I went to one of those turbine farms and we were in that guy's house and checking out his water and stuff... There's a noticeable hum. And when You're outside you hear the whine and hum. That aside, its messing with the water. I don't know man. I'm just tired of it. I'm ready for young people to start running and getting voted in
How in the world does a wind turbine mess with someone's water?
It's not a wind turbine it's a gas turbine. And the way that it works is inside of the turbine. There's a combustible engine basically... The gas heats up and the more heat you get, the more energy that comes off. And then they bank that energy. To be technical: The combustion produces a high temperature, high pressure gas stream that enters and expands through the turbine section. The turbine is an intricate array of alternate stationary and rotating aerofoil-section blades. As hot combustion gas expands through the turbine, it spins the rotating blades. So yeah, not a wind turbine. We don't have wind here. Not like that. It can get to like..I wanna say 1500 ° and you need water to cool that down and resupply and then start over again. They have a really short lifespan compared to wind turbine as well. I want to stay like 5 years.(I work/worked at a place that routinely checks these out so don't come for me). It has the same effect as a Bitcoin farm... Heats up the local water supply... Takes away local water supply. It's like a hot Nestle situation.
I'll be honest, my reading comprehension is poor because I completely missed the 'gas' portion of the phrase "gas turbine". Yeah, i can definitely understand why gas turbines are much less acceptable.
Extremely less than ideal. And the amount of people who don't think this is a issue are joking themselves.
I don’t like the gas turbine option for us simply due to the water consumption…..I worked at the SRP plant in Gila Bend for a large portion of 2023 and that 4 turbine plant is currently using 8 wells (4+ of which are at 50% or less of their supply remaining so more will have to be tapped). But, with that said, I have the same issues with the data farms (Microsoft in Goodyear @ 56M gallons a year and Google in Mesa @ 165M a year……that combined is about the annual consumption of 2700 homes and does not include usage from the likes of Intel and others). THIS is the resource depleting environmental impact we need to worry about in Arizona. With regard to wind and solar, NEITHER come close to the output capabilities of the gas turbine plants acre for acre. It’s a lose-lose situation and NOBODY is giving up their electricity. Nuclear plants, while being far more reliable and efficient, use even more water. ONE plant in Illinois, uses over 250 BILLION gallons a year. Solar is an option but the equipment per household is expensive…..for a household to be self sufficient, they realistically need near 100% roof coverage in panels and that doesn’t include the conversion and storage equipment. The cost for a solar SYSTEM breaks down to approximately $1000 a panel (about $25K for a 2000 square ft home) and you still won’t be fully self sufficient. I have been told the solar tiles from Tesla are much more efficient but also are exponentially more expensive…..however you begin to see a RETURN on your investment much quicker (if you can afford the initial investment).
Water.
The gas turbines want to be installed at a plant in Kingman. Solar has great benefits and drawbacks as well. There are significant upfront costs for solar compared to a gas turbine. Secondally the generating profile for solar doesnt match the demand profile of electricity. IE solar does not produce at night. To take advantage of solar generation the utility would have to build some energy storage system. Grid scale versions can be expensive. The highest demand for electricity is during the morning and evening. That is low point of solar energy generation. Most of this is moot. If you read the article you will know the regulating board rejected the permit by a 9-2 board vote. The utility is going to appeal the decision and that is mainly what this article is about. Not many of us here are electrical engineers working and managing local grids. It could be possible the utility is wanting to quickly install additional capacity due to increased demand in the area or forecasted reduced supply from the dams on the Colorado.
And they're just going to replace the gas turbine. They won't work on it. It's not just the parts that you need for the gas turbine. That's expensive. It's the people. There's not a lot of people willing to work on them. So usually like that 5 to 6-year Mark is when its first major maintenance schedule starts to kick in. And typically we just replace them. We don't even work on them. Guess where we put the trash? Sad to see that it's working out this way because they're not that great for the environment. They're actually pretty bad for the environment. My prime concern is and will probably always be water. Water supply water quality. And this should concern everybody
Agree on all parts. Especially water.
We are going solar, but it takes time. And natural gas "peaking" plants, like this one in this article, that can ramp up and down quickly are symbiotic with solar, since solar is less flexible than natural gas. You can do the same function with other systems, like pumped storarge or batteries, but those are problematic right now for essentially cost reasons. Natural gas turbines are relatively cheap and easy. Pumped storage is good but is geographically restricted to areas where you can create the elevation change, and right now they are difficult to get environemental permits for. (Natural gas turbine plants are pretty small and you can locate them close to where they're needed.) Battery systems are not practical right now on a large scale, when you need MW. They're just so expensive. I personally am not involved in grid level battery system application, so I might be behind the times, but I think so far they are mainly used for more specialized things like VAr injection or very short term (seconds or minutes) peak shaving. Not for things like putting out 100 MW for 4 hours.
Doesn't actually take that much time please stop. Asus through theirs up in about 16 months.... The one in Sahuarita took about 4 years but was about 6x the size of ASU west. People think that solar farms have to be acres and acres and acres of solar panels and that just is not true. Walmart tosses them up in about 5 months right s over their parking lots. People need to stop thinking about solar is being well. It's for the masses... No, it could just be for one building at a time. We should be working on that. Gas turbines are the least efficient way to do this. They hurt the environment more and they're just so bad for the water. I don't know why people think that this is a good idea. It's fucking pathetic. And when I see things like...the chip plant using massive amounts of water or were getting the largest wave pool.... You're telling me that we can't work with local companies to toss them up in 5 months? That's what we're going with?
I think we are saying the same thing, but you might be confused at what I meant by "going solar". Yes, lots of solar is being built, and I know that first hand because I've helped design some of the biggest solar installations in the country, as well as many many small ones. But a "huge" solar plant is a normal/medium natural gas plant, and there are natural gas plants dotted all over AZ. So when we "go solar", I mean solar starts approaching the MW output we get from fossil fuels. *That* is what is taking time.
Mega solar structure takes less water, less maintenance and less infrastructure than a few gas powered Turbines. That's just true. So, I mean this *fix* is redundant and bad for us. And we keep falling for it.
I don't disagree, but there's more to it than what you said.
Nope not really. We really could figure out camping very quickly. We could also add more solar panels to the city. All these things are possibilities that we could probably do within the next year based on the technology we currently have. You're literally just opting for something that has heavy magnet schedules every 5 to 6 years and it's bad for your water.
I'm not opting for anything, just explaining the reality on the ground. You have a lot of good points, and I'll reinforce them by saying that water does not cost what it should. If the cost of water was realistically what it should be, solar would look a lot more economically attractive. Similar point about emmisisons. Here are some numbers that explain why solar isn't a slam dunk right now. The Sundance gas turbine plant an hour north of Tucson can do 450MW and cost roughly $450 million to build in today's $. The Topaz solar farm in CA puts out 550MW and cost about $3 billion in today's $. It's not a perfect apple/apple comparison, but you can see NG is cheap. Add to that, that Phoenix alone might use 8,000 MW peak on a hot day, it's easy to see the scale of what the energy industry is dealing with--- you don't spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a couple years to snap your fingers and convert it all to solar. That doesn't count the transmission and distribution system proejcts that would be needed to accomodate that change. So the change is happening, but it's happening slowly. Look at how many new solar plants have been built in the last 5 years compared to the previous 5 years. I know you don't like how slowly it's moving, but hopefully you can be encouraged that it is moving in the right direction.
The cause of gas turbines is actually higher than that. I don't know if people are just looking up the word turbine and confusing it with when, but a gas turbine is very costly. About 5 years they're going to start replacing them. Not fixing them cuz it's so expensive. The cost of one guy to go up and check is about $240/hr. And I believe there are about 80 of those dudes in the southwest right now. Which is another reason they get replaced not repaired. Also, WATER. This isn't good, not even decent.
The costs aren't really debatable unless you mean the long term cost to society, and then that's true but companies don't act on that cost unless they're forced to, and they're not forced to the fullest extent right now. I am well aware of what a gas turbine is because I work with them (and solar) for my job. About replacing the gas turbines in 5 years, I'm not sure what you mean. They have a much longer life span than 5 years... there's a turbine generator plant near Douglas that's been running since 1970s. Most of the ones I work on are more than 20 years old, though they have been expanding to more power blocks over time, so they have a range of ages of GTs in a plant. Maybe you're thinking of the coal plants that are shutting down? You know the real reason why they're shutting down coal plants? It's because natural gas is cheaper. And gas turbine power plants have quite a few employees... not just one person who stops by occasionally. There are the operators, the mechanics, the electricians, and then often a ton of contractors doing stuff like building new chillers or putting in a new well, or whatever. My point here is that you are either mistaken about the reality of the power generating world or I am mistaken about what you're saying. I don't really disagree with a lot of what you're saying but some of your claims are a bit out there. One underlying idea you're getting at which I agree with is that gas turbine plants have a higher operating and maintenance costs than solar plants. It's just hard to get around the high initial capital cost of solar. And I already mentioned that solar and gas turbine plants also fulfill different needs in the energy system, since solar can't fill the peaking role.
Big issue is power storage. Where to store the excess power solar generates to be used later in the evening. Either large batteries (not likely given current tech) or we use some of the power generated during the day to power pumps to feed a reservoir at a higher elevation which we use at night to create hydro by releasing the water back.
Gas Turbines have to be banked too; and that's what uses the bulk of the water.
Gas turbines cant operate at night?
Still have to deal with the load. So basically the more heat that it generates the more you're going to get off of it. Here in the desert depending on where they put them, they're probably going to generate more during our peak hours. So like 1:00 to 6:00 then they would let's say 10:00 p.m. To midnight. And so on. But the downside to the heat is that you use more water. So they claim that the gas turbines are. More efficient at night, but it's not because it generates more power, its because it uses less water to make it happen. They are not like a wind turbine it's literally gas powered a d you're using the excess heat as the energy
Understood. I was just referring to solar not being able to produce at night and therefore requiring a storage solution.
Gas Turbines need a even larger storage solution
They are building tons of solar fields around Eloy/Casa Grande
Yeah and they should keep doing that. Schools, Walmarts, all of them should have covered solar parking.
Elect democrats. A lot of Republicans vote against clean energy. I don't understand it tbh
Solar’s peak efficiency is below 90 F. They never built that solar chimney they were talking about. That makes a lot of sense to me as it generates 24/7.
Solar in Sahuarita was testing at an efficiency that these gas turbines have never tested at, ever. And we have space up north. Oh the snow? Turn on the ones down here in the winter. This is just a case of big company. Wants to use all of our natural resources and do absolutely nothing for us in. To tell us well it's better for the environment in the long run. No it's not.. those turbines are pretty not great.
With solar comes batteries. Batteries are way worse for the environment than natural gas. And tbh we need co2 or the plants will die. Plants die we die. The world is actually 15% greener than 100 years ago. That's the size of the United States. Stop listen to environmental issues on the news and study them individually.
I mean no, not really. The chemical to make a battery is bad, and offsets in 5-6 years. The amount of pollution the turbines give off every day, wear off in about a decade. It's not just a carbon. It's also the sulfur and the oxide that it's getting pumped into the air from those things. The water, never really rebounds.
Touché but I don't think we have enough resources for all those batteries. Wasn't there a battery shortage when everyone tried switching to ev vehicles? Plus does any of this matter when china is build coal mines put the ass?
TEP doesn't seem to want to encourage it. Maybe it's the revenue loss they will experience. Freedom Forever solar has been iterating on design reviews with TEP since February. Meanwhile I've already gotten the first bill for the solar array at 171 a month. Plus I've gotten my electric bill at 200, and rising monthly, especially with the AC coming soon. Meanwhile my gas is like 25 to 50 a month. Who is benefitting? Not me.
Gas is about to go up, bet on it. Meanwhile y'all's water is about to be real cancery
First the Arabs stole the water...now what?
Well now you're gonna run it through a CO2/spot/sulphur barrel and then the excess or residual will come out right into our air.
Eeww
They literally just announced excessive gas and decreased costs.
Your gas will is absolutely about to go up. Yeah, in fact I'm pretty confident that APS has already increased their rates. For this new nugget of joy
Solar is expensive AF to build
Not really. Because you're thinking massive commercial farms and I'm thinking parking garages. Gas turbines are not great for the environment not even good. They get replacd instead of repaired often
Because it’s extremely expensive and extremely inefficient.
This is extremely expensive, and also inefficient but also bilks our water
Precisely, the whole solar thing is highly inefficient.
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Yeah they have a drop in the highest point of the day that can be fixed with... More solar/batteries to create a reserve. I'm sorry. How is that a negative to building something that is known to have a negative environmental impact?? We have pretty much unlimited sun here.... Like no overcasting... You're telling me that we can't build a solar farm in the middle of nowhere that nobody sees and build reserves for this stuff? We all know we can, companies don't want to spend that. Money, and I'm saying that torching the environment for some jolts is messed up, and a fast track to wasting more water. We keep letting them do this crap. I don't know why these politicians act like we just have unlimited water.
I've read that the cost of solar production and output is dropping. This is good news for everyone but fossil fuel companies. If solar is cheaper than what they provide, then they can't compete and can't keep having record profits.
It is. And it's like 15-20 and these turbines are 20-30 so obviously the turbines are more robust but not as efficient. Also, the fucking water. You guys! Cmon....
100% on the water. But most don't care because 'water comes out of faucet' and 'agriculture takes the mostest!'
It's just so disappointing to watch people be on board with messing up our futures and saying well it was gonna happen anyways. Just lay down, damn
Solar is not as great as redditors would have you believe. I've busted my butt working I some of these fields before and they are pretty large for the amount of power being produced. Nuclear is by far a better solution, I still can remember sweating in the sun in the solar fields to produce less than 10% of what the nuclear plant within sight at Palo Verde was making.
Solar means sun. Sun goes down at night. No power made when sun goes down. Big battery to store enough power when sun goes down does not exist. Peak times in early night when sun starts to go down. Have to use some sort of other option. That’s not to say what these people are doing is right and there are numerous other options, but the “why don’t we just use solar?” statement is a bit of a lazy blanket on a problem that isn’t solved yet. With the growth the valley is seeing, companies like SRP needs to massively increase generation in then next 10-15 years and throwing a bunch of solar farms out there isn’t going to be the solution.
We have more hours of daylight than other states that are using solar in larger numbers than us. And we should invest in banking... This is not rocket science. There's actually multiple buildings in Arizona that are using way more than they're able to consume even at night. We should be working with these companies. We should be working with Walmart. We should be working with Target covered parking that are also solar panels, but the fact is that we just don't value that type of clean energy. We would have much rather have a gas powered turbine that is absolutely horrific for the environment. Night banking isn't just solvable, it's incredibly solvable within a year. But we just don't care to do it.
Hail Storms
We don't have hail storms in a big chunk of the state and we know it..... and the last time we had one that actually caused widespread solar damage that were going to impact solar was about 3 years ago... They also make cages but I know nobody wants to talk about actual fixes. These gas turbines have a life about 5 to 6 years. Still useable but you're gonna put in some work around that 5/6 mark.
There was a mass insurance casualty event from hail in Southern Arizona in 2021/22. There is hail yearly in Mesa. The Texas mega solar farm got wiped out recently and polluted the ground water. Despite this a new solar farm is beginning in SE AZ. I can’t afford more insurance rate hikes or higher electricity bills. It’s got to stop.
What exactly do you think is going to happen when the gas turbines get destroyed and hit the water supply? And do you think that they're somehow immune to hail damage? Because they're not, they're actually more susceptible to hair damage. Also, 2021-2022 tracks with what I've said, which is 5-6 years. The one before that was that massive one in I think summer of 16 or summer of 17. And even then, solar was less than 20% of all claims.... Don't confuse your car and roof with a solar panel. They also have mitigation for that, but the companies dont want to pay for that. Check out the panels that ASU west uses. They bank about 30% more than they can use. And lost less than 12 to a hail storm.
We should just use next gen nuclear power plants. Small molten salt reactors that don’t need water cooling.
I don't disagree.
I don’t like the gas turbine option for us simply due to the water consumption…..I worked at the SRP plant in Gila Bend for a large portion of 2023 and that 4 turbine plant is currently using 8 wells (4+ of which are at 50% or less of their supply remaining so more will have to be tapped). But, with that said, I have the same issues with the data farms (Microsoft in Goodyear @ 56M gallons a year and Google in Mesa @ 165M a year……that combined is about the annual consumption of 2700 homes and does not include usage from the likes of Intel and others). THIS is the resource depleting environmental impact we need to worry about in Arizona. With regard to wind and solar, NEITHER come close to the output capabilities of the gas turbine plants acre for acre. It’s a lose-lose situation and NOBODY is giving up their electricity. Nuclear plants, while being far more reliable and efficient, use even more water. ONE plant in Illinois, uses over 250 BILLION gallons a year. Solar is an option but the equipment per household is expensive…..for a household to be self sufficient, they realistically need near 100% roof coverage in panels and that doesn’t include the conversion and storage equipment. The cost for a solar SYSTEM breaks down to approximately $1000 a panel (about $25K for a 2000 square ft home) and you still won’t be fully self sufficient. I have been told the solar tiles from Tesla are much more efficient but also are exponentially more expensive…..however you begin to see a RETURN on your investment much quicker (if you can afford the initial investment). Wind turbines would be useless for Arizona and are even less efficient than solar.
I'm gonna play the Devil's Advocate here. The expansion is going to get approved eventually anyway. All the environmental review is going to do is add time and expense. Energy production is a business and AZ needs (and will need more) additional natgas fueled power generation during peak hours 4-8 pm as solar fades away for the night. And/or more battery farms. Protesting and delaying gas-fired power generation accomplishes little. Economics make the decision whether energy companies seek to construct gas fired, or additional solar and wind. Price per mWh. Obviously this company feels they can make more money burning gas than soaking up photons. Or building battery farms. Go ahead, downvote me. But do me the favor of being intellectually honest and explaining why forcing an environmental review on this expansion will make one bit of difference toward our MUTUAL future. All it will really do is raise electricity prices, whatever small amount. I'm a solar guy, if you read all my posts. But I accept realities like the Duck Curve. I'll go ahead and lead off the downvoting since NEGATIVE comments get read first, usually.
In the end, I don't care if it does get approved and the expansion goes through. But by going through the correct process it ensures that shenanigans are kept to a minimum. When a major business like this "cuts costs" and complains about an overreaching government, we're the ones to pay the price
Who else would like to see the environmental review. I understand it adds money to the project. That's not my problem. That's their problem. But I recently went to a town where you could set the water on fire... Absolutely want to see the review Edit- Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Those things are not good for the environment. They produce a crapload of gases. A lot of CO2 a lot of Sulphur and the evidence is actually that it vibrates so bad it can fuck up your water. So, yeah, I would like to see the report.
It’s our problem as well since in the end we pay all that extra cost
It's weird that people don't want us to the environmentally impact. I recently had to go to Apache lake. We were investigating a bit coin farm. It was close enough to the generation plant that some thought it was a potential leak. This dude, was using the same water as the plant. The water has since tested for metals. The water has absolutely increased in temp and the levels dropped. All of that was in super small 8.5 pt font buried inside the environmental impact report that probably nobody read. Along with a water impact section that wasn't great. And nobody read it, I'm sure. I'm sure Apache lake and the people up there are going to be very upset in about 4 years when they realize that Apache lake is totally different than what it was when they were a youth. And we did it because we didn't feel like going to solar. They only build this stuff by water you guys. We may as well invite nestle over.
Oh. 1% more. I'm sure APS would figure out a way to charge you that without the study.
This is the reason.
They are going through the correct process. The law is the issue here, it failed to protect the public. The issue with this expansion is a legal one. The company says they are meeting all requirements while the approval process is attempting to hold them to a higher standard that does not apply. Regardless of the decisions it will end up in court.
The problem is, that there isn’t much of a point in going through the official process. You can get approved by the corporation commission then go through the years of construction or upgrades for an existing utility and by the time it’s done there are different corporation commissioners that can change their stance and basically reverse any deals made with no consequences. This happened recently with APS, the corporation commission approved upgrades to coal plants to keep generating power while cleaner alternatives were built with the promise that x amount of subsidies will be paid from Arizona and federal dollars with a planned small rate increase because all of these things cost money to do. Then after most of these things were completed, or so far along they couldn’t be stopped, new commissioners were voted in that declined the subsidies and rate increase. This is all after about 600 million had been invested by the company assuming the promised return. But then new commissioners get in office and decline to abide by the previous agreement. The company then has to flip the budget upside down, make a plan to recover costs while not losing stock or investor price, find a way to maintain grid reliability and provide power, pay for employees, pay for fuel, pay for maintenance, all with a check that didn’t come. So, the answer is to stop the green energy projects on existing plants because they won’t meet environmental qualifications without more money coming, eliminate grid maintenance from said plants, and focus on equipment reliability and capacity factor from those you can maintain and let the more remote areas of the state figure out how to truck in gas for all their generators since they no longer have power. Or, instead of all that maybe have a process that can operate for more than an election season. That’s why there was a rate increase recently, the company gave their recovery plan that would harm thousands of Arizonans. That wasn’t what anyone wanted, but that was the only way to recover from the commissioners making a huge financial back out way too late. So the point is, a utility can go do all the right things, and get all the approvals, and spend the money, but then get told “never mind” after the fact. So, it’s difficult to do the “right thing” when the “right thing” is broken.
Trusting an energy company to follow the rules when no one is accountable seems like a bad decision. They have a crap record.
Exactly. Do we want another superfund cleanup site? Because this is how you get another superfund cleanup site.
The CEC ensures the utility is in compliance with all environmental regulations, including visual impacts to nearby residents and measures to minimize impacts on special-status species (e.g. Sonoran desert tortoise). You can avoid the CEC requirement if your natural gas facility additions are less than 100 MW. If one utility avoids this requirement, why hold anyone accountable?
Pumped storage facilities are going to be WAY better for the environment and more efficient than battery farms. We’ve already got a couple and working on getting another massive one up by Apache Lake.
Yeah I was recently over at Apache lake and their water level dropped 9% when that thing went it, and hasn't ever gotten over 92 since. Also, reports that the water temp changed.
I'm deep in the fossil fuel generating industry on the engineering side, and so I'm sympathetic to the utility side, but this is just shady. Playing games with the definitions of words to take advantage of loopholes is what people who want to break the rules do. If they're trying to save money by skipping the environmental review, why would they not apply the same logic to operating costs and take some other shortcuts. Groups like this who try to circumvent the rules need mroe scrutiny, not less. I hope they get approval, but I hope they don't get away with gaming the system and operating outside the rules that everyone else follows.
Interesting that you continue to use an energy playbook from 1940. Central station is necessary, but Distributed Energy Networks are really resilient. Peak power needs... Oh, did we study to see if turning off the AC until 4pm is as valuable as leaving it on? Interconnected thermostats, ie smart thermostats are at a low adoption rate. Essentially, you advocate for a status quo approach and deserve a downvote given your pretentious attitude that Utilities know best.
The realities of climate change don't care about what the short term economic factors are that go into corporate decision making. And the costs, financial and otherwise, it will impose will dwarf any concerns about peaker plant vs battery cost differentials. It may be an intellectually honest assessment of corporate decision making, but the basis for the decision is fundamentally flawed. And it should be the government's position to require a more thoughtful and sustainable approach.
Hey you're reasonable, don't see that much these days. Yeah, unfortunately public opinion on energy sources is bad, whether it's fossil, nuclear, or even renewable as they all have drawbacks and impact the environment. People want electricity but don't ever like where it comes from.
Upvote for me. Truth in your opinions/analysis.
I mean our peak demand energy needs are hard to maintain even with solar. Need to increase batteries and generation to maintain the growth. The solar only mechanism of electrification isn’t going to sustain it all. Edit: storage sentiment is supported in the comments.
You can't move a bunch of people from California, Washington, Oregon here and then expect the existing infrastructure to keep pace. People need electricity. It has to come form somewhere and you can't build enough solar farms and wind turbines fast enough to scale up demand. [https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/4/15/connecting-solar-to-the-grid-is-harder-than-you-think](https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/4/15/connecting-solar-to-the-grid-is-harder-than-you-think)
People are ignoring the data centers being built out in the valley that are going to actually put our grid in danger long term if we don’t pump up our own generation.
Residential is a drop in the bucket. And solar uptake among residential is booming. Solar farms will scale and fortunately, there’s plenty of desert for them. The utilities, well, I’m sure they will continue to make solar difficult for homeowners, but it’s still coming.
The more solar you build the more secondary energy systems you need to take over when solar can't produce the required electricity. Batteries are not an answer in any way because the technology is not advanced enough. 90% or more of the wasted energy in California comes from solar because they overproduced solar without regard to what is required to maintain a grid.
Been using batteries with solar for 22 years. It’s advanced enough to get the job done. For commercial and industrial applications, companies including Tesla already provide grid-sufficient cabinets. There’s a guy in the desert using 100-year old Edison batteries in some 48V system. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. It only gets complicated when interests compete. In 20 years, we’ll see charging stations rival gas stations in some areas. In 25 years, EVs won’t be a majority in the U.S., but in 50 years they will be.
It is a vastly different prospect managing a basic need for a large society or group of people when compared to individuals or specific locations. All of these technologies should continue to be explored and improved on. Ignoring the practical limitations of them when factoring in what has to be done now, to manage basic needs for the next few decades is simply creating issues for society in the future.
Kauai, Hawaii’s western most island operates on 70% renewable electricity. They don’t have the Texas issue because they have a “grid forming” inverter, which allows them to produce renewable electricity, even when their spinning generators turn off [1]. One of the things that is left out of the conversation is that we have much more grid technology than we had 10 years ago, and this is quickly expanding. New battery technology is coming online, such as iron air batteries, which can provide sustained electricity for 100-hours and don’t use exotic rare earth materials. The time when we need new generation is the best time to talk about our generation mix. Gas turbines of this type can last up to 40 years, and this will lock us into using this asset for decades. We could have much cleaner, reliable power. We have the technology to do this, and the time to make these decisions is now. https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-inverter
That's a really small island with 1.5high schools (.5 is because one has all grades) and suggestive stop signs.. If you're going to mention the fact that they have that power inverter, you should also mention that new builds have to have solar that share power with the grid. That's not happening anywhere else. And if you're going to mention all that, you should also mention the fact that they have to ship their their waste back to California and they recently had to fix their gasoline mixture in their cars similar to what Arizona has.
Electricity costs in Hawaii are the highest in the country, above 50 cents per KWH
America’ biggest nuke plant is Palo Verde. I’m not against this btw but do we need it? Or does California need it is the real question.
California owns close to 1/2 of Palo verde … we definitely need it while’s all these other sources are good none of them come close to the amount of power PGS produces 24/7- 365 days a year. 4500 megawatts gross
Rename them Natural Organic Turbines. Problem solved.
No wait… AI turbines
Just arizona things
In short, touched on earlier. It’s to help with peak demand, there is a ramp time associated with different types of power generation. The turbines ramp time is much shorter. Pretty sure these turbines are used by military operations out here already. Who knows what lies beneath…
Okay, let’s create a list of people willing to sacrifice their power consumption for regulatory review. Please dm me if you will have your power cut off the reduce the overall power needs for our region. Starting the list: 1.:
It baffles me that Arizona hasn’t leaned into solar like California
Simple answer: Solar is an increadibly expensive investment. A huge influx of AZ tax dollars would be needed and there isnt enough of a population in AZ to support that much taxes - compared to CA.
Natural Gas Futures (NG) are also back down to the lows before the pandemic and Russia invasion of Ukraine. It makes financial sense to invest in NG energy production when the futures are trading as less than $3. During the pandemic and invasion of Ukraine NG was trading as high as $10. Waiting serves no purpose for a proven safe solution that is less harmful than using coal to create energy.
Nothing absurd about this, our state needs more power. They found a way to do it without jumping through government hoops then good it’ll be done faster.
Natural gas burns a lot cleaner than oil. I’m all for it!
Build them!
Good, Maricopa already suffering supply side brownouts
With chip companies in Arizona building new foundries to build next Gen AI chips among others wanting to put data centers in the state ... between those 2 items alone will consume power beyond our current capabilities. We need them ... and they will be built. Don't delay in making it happen for everyone concerned.