This should be an annual or two year redo on a regular basis. Would be fun to watch the solution evolve.

One thing that may have changed in addition to cost is the number of hours that wind provides. I’m seeing higher CF numbers and I suspect some of that may come from later model turbines being able to pull power out of low speed wind. That would mean more hours covered with less storage.

Agree on EVs feeding back to the grid. Utilities are going to be able to find cheaper storage than renting EV batteries at the retail level.

“But they also did not factor in the likely replacement of ICEVs with EVs and EVs serving as dispatchable load.”

They did in fact model vehicle-to-grid energy storage, which would include EVs as dispatchable load and EVs as dispatchable supply. I just went & looked again and couldn’t tell whether V2G was included in their final model. My own feeling is that EVs as dispatchable load is eminently doable, but EV’s drivers aren’t going to want to feed power back to the grid unless paid rather well for it, so it wouldn’t be the least cost solution.

In any case, the study is already starting to be out of date, because of changes in the relative cost of wind, solar, and storage. The optimum solution based on 2014 prices would be different than the optimum they arrived at in 2012. Things are changing just that fast!

Buduschak, et al. used capital cost from other published papers.

They assumed PV solar in 2030 at $1,958/kW. At the end of 2013 it was already $1,960 with expectations of dropping at least 50% over the next few years.

They assumed onshore wind at $960/kW and offshore wind at $1,886.

And battery storage at $503/kW with 81% efficiency. We’ve already passed the $400/kW price point with Eos Systems claiming $160/kW at 75% for their zinc-air batteries.

They used a 3x overbuild for wind and solar. But they also did not factor in the likely replacement of ICEVs with EVs and EVs serving as dispatchable load. This means that EVs can drop off charging during peak demand hours, freeing up all generation for other loads and then utilize supply at other times to charge.

And they did not include power swaps with other grids, something that should also cut the need for overbuilding/storage.

I hope a similar team reruns the study in two or three years. By then solar and wind prices may be down so much that renewables will be head-smackingly cheaper than fossil fuel power.

Because of that the utility company was able to get the price of electricity jacked up before they started working on the reactors. They “collected contributions” from their customers to help them pay for their new builds.

After the reactors go on line the electricity they produce will likely be more expensive than other sources of electricity so the state will let them jack prices up again. Enough to cover their additional costs and to make sure the owners make a nice profit.
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As for the project start date, it was certainly years earlier. It takes years to design and review plans for a new reactor.

And site preparation was done earlier when the project received initial permission to push dirt around, build roads, etc. Actual construction began in March of this year.

Georgia’s residential electricity rate ($0.1217) is just below the national average ($0.1254). Taking it up a bit higher is likely to drive a lot of people to solar.

Certainly before 2008… In 2008, construction at Vogtle Electric Generating Plant began for two new nuclear power units and related facilities…

http://www.cbi.com/project-profiles/vogtle-electric-generating-plant-units-3-and-4 According to this brochure they were originally planned but then cancelled in the 1970’s http://www.gpb.org/files/pdfs/georgiagazette/Plant_Vogtle_Brochure.pdf

Looks like the owners will most likely end up with buyers’ remorse.

By June 2013, construction schedule has slipped 14 months.

“On July 18, 2013 the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) held the first of two scheduled hearings on Georgia Power’s request to pass 381 million dollars in cost overruns, in connection with the construction of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, onto ratepayers, in the form of higher electricity bills.

Georgia Power had also asked the PSC to change the certified cost, or budget, to complete the project from 6.11 billion dollars to 6.85 billion dollars, adding another 737 million to the current, or first amended, budget for the new reactors.”

http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/interspire/news/2013/08/02/advocates-ratepayers-oppose-paying-for-vogtle%E2%80%99s-cost-overruns-%28update-1%29.html

Charlie let’s Lucy hold the ball one more time….

In evidence I give you Southern Company currently building two new reactors at their Vogtle plant in Georgia.

Just about everything I read uses costs normalized to a specific year.

OTOH, someone did make a simple conversion error and crash a lander into Mars….

(Heck, even at 3% inflation you’d expect prices to double in roughly 24 years… )

Clearly it’s going to take a lot of investment in storage or generation to fill in when solar and wind drop out. The question will be one of amounts, whether it is cheaper to install extra generation or storage and that question will be answered later as we develop more storage options and determine their price.

If you look at the Budischak, et al. study they overbuilt wind and solar generation in order cut storage requirements. The cost of wind and solar has dropped below the numbers they used so a “right now” real world grid might build even a higher proportion of wind and storage. But if a cheap storage option appears the ratio of generation to storage could flip in the other direction.

Twenty years of solar panels will be paid off and they will continue to give electricity for another 20+ years. Once we get all our solar in place we’ll have electricity from them at ~6c/kWh for the first 20 years and for ~1c/kWh for 20+ more. At any one time we should be about half “6c” and half “1c” as we do a slow turnover of panels.

Our first generation turbines at Altamont Pass are now being replaced after 30 years, newer tech should last even longer. Plus, we’re seeing turbines taken down after a couple of decades, refurbished and reinstalled in less developed parts of the world. Our current turbines could have 50 year lives with only minimal parts replacements.

We’ll be adding storage before 2030. Pump-up hydro is not a 20 year system. It’s a 100+ (?) year system. Flow batteries (and liquid metal batteries) should be doing storage work for decades.

The large transmission lines we’ll need to bring wind to market will likely be in place long before 2050.

Unlike fossil and nuclear plants which still have significant operating expenses after their capex and finex have been retired, renewables, storage and transmission generally don’t.