Wind & Photo voltaic, However What Else? — India Version Transcript

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Underneath the auspices of the India Sensible Grid Discussion board, the assume tank based as an umbrella group over India’s 28 state utilities to supply thought management, share main practices, and produce worldwide insights to India, I’m delivering bi-weekly webinars framed by the Brief Listing of Local weather Actions That Will Work. With the glories of on-line recordings and AI transcription instruments, it’s comparatively straightforward to share each the transcript, and likewise the slides that I used, so I’m making a behavior of it.

Most lately, I delivered a chat and held a Q&A session masking my tackle the top recreation for electrical technology applied sciences, which is able to dominate, which will likely be a rounding error, and which gained’t exist in any respect. For many who desire talk-talk to read-read, right here’s the recorded video of the presentation and dialogue.

Thanks, Reji and the assembled ISGF staff. Howdy to all people, wherever you might be on the earth, no matter time zone you’re in. So, initially, I had assembled this specific set of fabric for a worldwide funding financial institution, one of many bigger ones. They requested me to talk to a worldwide set of institutional traders who have been attempting to determine the sign from the noise about what kinds of technology would present up on grids and what percentages, in order that they might begin pondering strategically about their portfolios, what elements of their portfolio are in danger, what elements of their portfolio technique and funding theses ought to they begin leaning into, and it stays helpful for this context.

So, with out additional ado, I’m going to begin by way of this. I’ll undergo an entire bunch of various applied sciences and discuss what they’re helpful for, how huge they’ll be in the long run recreation, no matter how huge they’re now and what that seemingly means.

Let’s begin with the fundamentals. Hydroelectric. We’ve been doing it for a very long time. Sooner or later, it’s going to be about 10% of all vitality, and let’s begin there.

Electrical energy goes to be the premise of all vitality sooner or later. We gained’t be burning stuff, we gained’t be digging up fossil fuels. We’re in all probability not going to creating loads of biofuels, apart from lengthy haul aviation and lengthy haul transport. All the pieces else will simply electrify.

Hydroelectric goes to stay a helpful set of that seize bag, regardless that it’s challenged by adjustments in precipitation. A part of the rationale why coal went up final yr was as a result of there was a drought in western China, the place the Three Gorges Dam is, and they also needed to burn extra coal to accommodate for the discount in hydro technology.

However, you realize, if we expect the Three Gorges dam is huge, properly, China’s constructing a dam 3 times the dimensions within the mountains to the west of there. We’re nonetheless constructing loads of hydroelectric now, capability adjustments loads.

These tables keep the identical by way of the presentation.

It has capability. It has a distance from demand facilities, which turns into essential as we take into consideration the place to place stuff. Era kind synchronous versus asynchronous. Synchronous allows us to maintain the grid on a gentle heartbeat at regular hertz. Asynchronous gives us extra flexibility and a smoother ramp up and ramp down curve. Synchronous, we are likely to need on excessive voltage alternating present. Asynchronous might be on HVAC or HVDC.

Then we’ve flexibility. Flexibility is a big element as of late of what we’d like on grids. We’d like agency and versatile. We don’t really want baseload. We’d like agency and versatile technology as a result of wind and photo voltaic are intermittent. Hydro can do base load and peaking.

Then there’s co-benefits, such because the voltage and frequency regulation, which I discussed, which tends to be on the excessive voltage, alternating present grid. However that’s replicable with electronics as of late. We additionally get recreation, irrigation, we even get a fishing trade on among the huge hydro dams. However there are the constraints. Seasonality of it’s one. It tends to be extra sturdy as a type of technology within the springtime. In loads of geographies, that balances properly with wind being extra sturdy within the fall time. That turns into essential as we begin enthusiastic about balancing the curves throughout time.

Personally, I feel loads of hydroelectric technology is simply going to finish up as passive batteries. We’ll let nature fill it up for us, and we’ll draw it down as required, relying upon lulls and different stuff. So it’ll be much less of one thing we use on a regular basis, and extra of one thing we use, like fashionable fuel and coal crops for peaking technology.

Subsequent we get to coal technology. No shock, I venture zero room for coal in the way forward for the technology grid.

It’s pretty rigid. It must be gigawatt scale for thermal technology.

The fascinating factor proper now could be that as I look the world over’s coal crops, I see considerably declining capability elements. Whereas they’re designed to run at 90% plus capability elements as baseload technology for probably the most half, if we take China’s coal, whereas they’ve all these permitted crops, they usually have 1.1 terawatt of energy capability of crops in operation, there are two issues which can be essential to notice. One is that the capability issue of their coal crops is lower than 50%. It’s virtually precisely the identical capability because the United State’s pure fuel crops. In different phrases, they’re working it as peak demand energy, not baseload energy, for his or her nation.

The nuance there’s that as an increasing number of renewables get constructed, and clearly China is constructing monumental quantities of renewables, that’s going to say no even additional. There comes some extent the place the crops will not be worthwhile. Knowledge out of the finance trade of China signifies that whereas there are loads of crops which were permitted, monetary establishments are very leery about really financing them.

Whereas coal crops in China are getting all of the information for permits, they’re not getting cash they usually’re not getting constructed. Whereas I mentioned there was 1.1 terawatts of energy capability there, they’ve additionally shut down 775 gigawatts of energy capability. That’s two thirds of what they’ve working. They’ve both shut down operational crops, the older, worst ones, or they’ve eliminated the permits as a result of they stopped making sense. They shelved them, they mothballed them, they totally decommissioned crops.

There are some benefits there and a few disadvantages from a constraint. All thermal technology crops, the legacy ones, a lot of them are being challenged by the requirement for cooling water. The thermal design was required for the water to be a sure temperature, in order that it could really cool all the pieces down appropriately. However now the water is loads hotter, they usually’re stepping into challenges, and steadily the water is simply not there, to allow them to’t cool in any respect. Local weather change is impacting loads of the legacy coal technology crops and making allowing of recent ones clearly extra problematic.

Subsequent we get to pure fuel sooner or later, 1%, which could shock some individuals, however let’s put that in context. Pure fuel, or methane no less than, is a helpful endgame strategic reserve of electrical energy for actually bizarre lulls, like those that happen each ten to 50 years the place there’s an extended interval with out the solar shining or the wind blowing, and a necessity for one thing else as a strategic reserve.

However pure fuel technology can be biomethane technology. I venture a future the place strategic reserves of electrical energy will likely be supplied by capturing the methane that’s baking off our dairy barns, our landfills, our different sources of anthropogenic methane and put into strategic reserves as a substitute of pure fuel. We’ll be capturing a local weather downside and storing it to resolve an vitality problem, as a substitute of simply letting it leak to the environment and be a local weather downside.

Pure fuel technology, particularly mixed cycle, is fairly versatile and it may be fairly near human beings. It has excessive nitrous oxide emissions, precursor to smog that causes bronchial asthma in kids, so not nice to have proper beside rising households, but it surely doesn’t must be. It’s not practically as dangerous as coal from a well being affect perspective. And it has vital flexibility. It’s a synchronous technology, so it’s a must to spool it up.

There aren’t any co advantages. You don’t get voltage and frequency management. Particularly previously three or 4 years globally, what we’ve seen is very large fuel worth fluctuations structurally. This began in 2019, when the debt laden US shale trade and fracking trade began hitting roadblocks. Their projections of size of service, of fracked and unconventional oil wells have been off. They have been working about, they have been working a few third the size that they’d projected of their prospectuses, and in consequence, they have been going bankrupt. What we’ve is a state of affairs the place fuel worth fluctuations began being baked in. Then there was the Saudi Arabian, Russian oil warfare that was attacking unconventional oil extraction in 2021. That was impacting American shale oil as properly, which is the place they bought 70% of their pure fuel. That was all structurally inflicting challenges traditionally with pure fuel costs that had been secure for about 18 years. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and the world’s fuel costs simply spiked.

As we transfer ahead, the precise value of fuel technology goes to proceed to be structurally risky. As we mannequin out the price of that vitality, it’s really costlier than we thought.

Then, in fact, there’s the issue that methane alongside its distribution channel leaks. Whereas the USA claims to have performed a terrific job at lowering their carbon dioxide, their fracking and shale oil trade has elevated methane emissions a lot, they’ve worn out their greenhouse fuel beneficial properties from carbon dioxide. Pure fuel was thought-about a bridge gasoline. Properly, it seems the bridge is to nowhere.

We additionally use pure fuel in loads of locations the place we’d like warmth and energy. Airports are a traditional instance. There are loads of airports which have pure fuel crops that present electrical energy for the services, that are pretty electrical energy demanding, but additionally warmth for the terminal.

How a lot of that’s going to proceed? My projection a pure fuel cogeneration goes to vanish. There are a number of locations the place pure fuel cogeneration is used. There are district heating techniques, steam assisted gravity drainage within the oil sands, there are airports and several other different use instances. That’s going to all go away, partly as a result of warmth pumps work rather more effectively for heating and cooling and we’re going to have renewables.

It doesn’t make sense to do cogeneration and create greenhouse fuel emissions. As soon as once more, the fuel worth fluctuations are altering the economics.

One other huge chunk that’s used that lots of people are contemplating is biomass. That is huge in northern Europe for legacy historic causes, reducing down outdated progress forests and burning them for warmth or energy is taken into account to be local weather impartial, besides they’re destroying a biomass sink. It is a actually bizarre factor out of northern Europe, the place they really, in northern Germany and Denmark, what they’re doing is that they’re having outdated forests in Finland and northern Sweden or in Canada or the USA minimize down, pelletized into effectively burning wooden chunks, which suggests it’s not scrap wooden, after which trucked or shipped throughout oceans, in lots of instances to be burned in Europe. And they’re pretending that it’s local weather impartial. I don’t purchase it personally, and I feel they’ll come to get a way of actuality on that.

However nonetheless, there’s loads of scrap biomass out of the timber trade. We’re not going to show all of the scrap into biofuels, though that’s a wholly viable pathway. Some biomass for electrical energy will likely be on the grid someplace. I feel it’ll be smaller, it’ll be pretty small crops the place there occurs to be a giant provide of timber or one thing like that, which in all fairness dry.

And the constraints there are apparent. It solely is sensible if you’ve bought a co profit of warmth and the constraints. We actually shouldn’t be reducing down forests until they’re going to be sturdy wooden merchandise. The truth that we’re reducing down the lungs of our planet to make chopsticks that we throw away as soon as, or paper towels, it’s not a terrific concept. We’re going to begin seeing extra preservation of forests and fewer of a give attention to biomass. It’s simply not as smart a pathway as many individuals imagine it.

Now, there’s an fascinating edge case in agriculture, the place biomass waste biomass is used for course of warmth, for meals, for sure lessons of meals preparation, like for instance, chili peppers. Most of these instances might be handled by warmth pumps, but when they’ve an area provide of waste warmth or waste biomass that will in any other case rots in middens and turns into methane due to anaerobic digestion, it’s cheap to make use of it for course of warmth in that area, however you will have watch out with that as a result of the air air pollution out of biomass is kind of excessive.

I at all times prefer to say that the worst type of heating for human well being is respiratory the smoke from a lifeless tree. The quantity of poisons that come out in wooden smoke is exceptional.

India has loads of nuclear, loads of CANDU reactors. I seemed on the fleet. Most of them are within the 300 megawatt vary. So arguably, India was constructing small modular nuclear reactors earlier than small modular nuclear reactors have been a factor. Now, in recent times, India has realized the identical factor that everyone else realized, which is that small reactors aren’t financial. It is sensible to get them as much as the gigawatt scale. And so India has been constructing gigawatt scale reactors, and sooner or later, we’re going to have nuclear technology.

I simply don’t assume we’re going to have practically as a lot of it as many individuals assume. I feel it’s going to be below 5% of the worldwide vitality provide, which is greater than it’s by way of absolute numbers, however a decrease proportion {of electrical} technology in relative numbers. And the rationale for that’s fairly easy. The graph on the left of the chart is a dataset I’ve been monitoring of a pure experiment in China of nuclear technology deployments versus renewables deployments.

In 2014. Someone mentioned to me, properly, clearly nuclear can scale and renewables can’t. I mentioned, that doesn’t make any sense. We’ve bought extremely manufacturable gadgets in wind and photo voltaic, wind generators and photo voltaic panels that may have a large world provide chain with low safety dangers and massively parallelized deployment. On the nuclear facet, we’ve gigawatt scale megaprojects that may’t be manufactured and put in transport containers and shipped to the opposite facet of the world and turned on with semi expert labor. It didn’t make sense to me that will be the case.

I seemed round for a geography the place the query could possibly be answered by taking a look at what they’re doing. All the explanations that individuals within the West say that nuclear can’t develop largely don’t apply to China. It ought to have been ready attainable to create all of the circumstances for fulfillment akin to a long run stability of governance, which allows the nuclear packages to proceed no matter electoral adjustments within the west, for instance, the place nuclear is usually part of the wedge politics. It has a nationwide scale program for deployment as a nationwide strategic requirement, has alignment with the event and upkeep of nuclear weapon functionality, has the power to do a nationwide program for human sources, and it ought to have had the power to choose a single design or two of know-how to allow it to duplicate its studying throughout all of its websites.

They might have had all of the circumstances of success. Nevertheless, China is, rather more than India, an export pushed nation. Its technique relies on that. As a substitute they constructed one in every of each nuclear know-how and design to allow them to export something any buyer anyplace on the earth needs. Because of this, their nuclear program is languishing badly.

I nonetheless assume it wouldn’t have scaled practically as shortly as renewables did. That white line is extra terawatt hours of precise technology with capability issue added annually. As you may see, that’s nonetheless an accelerating curve. It’s going to speed up for the subsequent ten or 15 years as properly. In the meantime, nuclear peaked in 2016 and 2018 with about seven gigawatts of capability, and it’s been including a lot much less capability since then. Final yr, it solely added 1.2 gigawatts of recent capability.

The query for India, as a result of I’m certain this debate is robust within the nation is, if China can’t obtain the circumstances for fulfillment for nuclear and renewables are really easy to construct, which one ought to India be specializing in within the subsequent few years? I definitely know which method I’m betting, and I’m not betting for nuclear.

Right here’s the place we get into the large wedges. Onshore wind farms, they want robust winds they usually want a grid. About 30% of all vitality for the world in my projection will come from onshore windfarms, and a few of them are fairly honking huge. We’re attending to the purpose now the place I’m seeing fairly massive wind generators on land. I feel we’re peaking at about 5 MW capability for a person turbine. After we energy outdated wind farms we’re getting much more energy with loads fewer wind generators, getting greater capability elements.

The technology is asynchronous. There was an experiment with synchronous wind generators again within the seventies in the USA, which failed miserably. They ramp up and ramp down. As I mentioned within the Electrify all the pieces all over the place, unexpectedly dialogue and different earlier discussions, one of many issues that individuals don’t understand about wind vitality is that it’s really accessible about 85% of the time.

It solely has a capability issue of maybe 40%, which suggests if we think about the wind blowing at excellent velocity all yr lengthy, that’s 100%. The wind doesn’t blow on the excellent velocity all yr lengthy, so the precise technology is 40% of the optimum technology. However the wind really blows between the startup velocity and the cutoff velocity 85% of the yr. Even on the sting days, we’re nonetheless getting loads of electrical energy from wind.

One of many issues that’s within the brief record is overbuild wind and photo voltaic. And the rationale for that’s that 85% and the roughly half of a day, on common, that photo voltaic is doing one thing. As we add up these 50% of some technology from photo voltaic, and 85% from wind from when these curves begin overlapping.

Now we have constructed extra of each type of technology, apart from nuclear, than we might presumably. Then we’ve underused them, like coal crops working at below 50%, and loads of pure fuel peaker crops working at below 10%.

We don’t have an issue with overbuilding technology and underutilizing it, and we’re not going to have that downside with wind or photo voltaic as properly, particularly as a result of it’s cheaper than them. One of many good issues about wind and photo voltaic, they’re grime low cost.

The co advantages are fascinating. From a flexibility perspective, wind generators are very easy to show off, they usually’re very easy to run beneath optimum and switch up. Easy SCADA instructions from centralized grid administration techniques can simply handle wind belongings to scale back their technology after we want rather less on the grid, but additionally to run them at 90% of their optimum, after which have 10% in reserve to pop them up as wanted.

That co profit comes with a reserve for voltage and frequency energy administration options which can be on wind farms as properly. Proper now, we’re getting voltage and frequency help from huge hunking, spinning chunks of metallic in steam coal plant generators and hydroelectric dams, and in nuclear crops, however we began requiring wind and photo voltaic farms to placed on energy administration as a result of they have been so huge that to ensure that them to be properly managed individuals within the grid, we would have liked them to duplicate these ancillary companies.

More and more, we’re going to have the ability to get the co advantages of voltage and frequency for the grid from wind farms, that are asynchronous however we’re utilizing electronics to do this in order that they develop into rather more versatile individuals within the grid.

Keep in mind, they’re working 85% of the time, slightly below most. We will run them at 90% of what the climate circumstances may allow them which supplies us speedy free backup that may be turned on electronically. That is only a market requirement.

The constraints are wind, and wind circumstances do change over the yr and over the day, and that varies loads by geography. It’s not a slam dunk. It’s a terrific participant within the grid, however it’s not the one participant within the grid.

Offshore wind has some benefits that onshore wind doesn’t. The winds are loads steadier, they usually’re loads firmer nearer to the water, so the masts don’t must be as tall. The logistics offshore means wind generators might be large. China’s putting in, I feel it’s a 20 or 21 GW single turbine this yr. Generators began out properly below a megawatt. An over 20 megawatt single turbine is an astounding factor.

Logistics are straightforward as a result of we will put them on ships. We don’t must drive them alongside highways and get them below bridges and stuff like that. You may put them on ships the place there’s many fewer logistical constraints.

Offshore wind has the identical benefits as onshore wind, in that they’re asynchronous and simply feathered.

One of many constraints is subsea transmission, however we’ve solved that downside. Excessive voltage direct present interlinks at the moment are often performed all over the place on the earth for offshore wind. The break even level is 50 km for prime voltage direct present versus excessive voltage alternating present because of the traits of the facility administration resolution.

One of many good issues about offshore winds is that steadily they are often put loads nearer to main demand facilities. America has very particular constraints on its offshore wind due to the Jones Act that stops maritime transport from being sensibly managed for historic causes. They’re actually constrained by way of placing offshore wind in there, they usually’ve bought billionaires with compounds who simply don’t need to have a touch of a wind turbine on the horizon. Now we have a few headwinds there.

If they might put offshore wind off of New York state, they could possibly be offering monumental quantities of electrical energy at instances when it’s demanded for his or her greatest demand heart of inhabitants. That’s why they maintain attempting regardless of the headwinds.

Offshore wind goes to be huge. Its potential is simple. If we have a look at Japan, it really has very vital offshore wind capabilities, it’s simply not constructing them sensibly. It’s doing foolish stuff. It’s speaking about importing ammonia and co burning it with coal, which goes to be 9 instances the price of vitality. It should bankrupt their financial system if they really persist in taking place that pathway.

Then, in fact, photo voltaic farms, utility scale photo voltaic farms. My projection, 35%, the largest single type of electrical technology. Ten years in the past, I assumed that wind may need the sting on photo voltaic. Now, I do know that from the proof of the previous decade we put photo voltaic panels in containers, we ship them around the globe, they usually’re straightforward to put in.

There’s this nice video out of China of heavy carry drones plucking large photo voltaic panels off a stack and flying them autonomously all the way down to their location on a hillside photo voltaic farm. It’s astounding to observe. The dimensions of photo voltaic panels is correct for human interplay. Containerization is a powerful profit.

Photo voltaic has all the benefits of wind. In New Delhi, the place lots of the individuals are right now, it’s about 12 hours of sunshine a day, which suggests 12 hours of photo voltaic technology, simply not at peak. If there’s extra photo voltaic farms, you get extra electrical energy within the edge circumstances, and it’s simply turned off. We will flip off strings of photo voltaic panels in a photo voltaic farm as soon as once more with the identical SCADA instructions that we use for wind generators.

We will run photo voltaic farms suboptimally and activate capability if we’ve overbuilt photo voltaic or we will do issues the place we will really load stability for placing warmth into warmth storage, and doing a little industrial processes that require a lot of electrical energy in the appropriate time, when peak photo voltaic is completed.

There may be nice flexibility with photo voltaic and wind that doesn’t exist with nuclear or coal which is underestimated as a bonus. After all, if it’s cloudy, we get much less electrical energy. If it’s nighttime, we get no electrical energy. So what? All the pieces has some constraints.

Business photo voltaic goes to be a giant factor. Each nation has huge field warehouses. It has distribution facilities for a contemporary distribution based mostly financial system. These issues have huge flat roofs. Conference facilities steadily have huge, flat roofs. There are many business buildings the place there’s a lot of rooftops accessible for slapping on photo voltaic.

North America particularly has huge expanses round malls in the place there ought to be photo voltaic canopies defending the automobiles from daylight and, oh, by the way in which, producing the electrical energy that goes into the automobiles. It’s going to be two to three% of the worldwide technology combine, in my estimation, as a result of it places electrical technology the place there’s vital demand. Distribution facilities are more and more going to have electrical vehicles rolling out and in.

They’re going to wish huge batteries. What’s going to feed the large batteries that buffer that stuff? Properly, loads of that’s going to be rooftop photo voltaic. We don’t want practically as a lot grid if we’ve ot extra demand facilities coated in photo voltaic panels.

That’s a giant wedge and it’s an apparent one. I’ve handled quite a lot of business photo voltaic builders who do very properly for themselves due to this, and due to the the autumn in photo voltaic panel costs as of late, globally, it’s a no brainer.

Residential photo voltaic is a special story, 2% to three%. I’ve had this debate with Mark Zed Johnson Jacobson out of Stanford. He and his staff for the reason that early 2000s, have been growing a mannequin for 100% renewables by 2050. He’s one of the vital influential individuals talking about what the grid will seem like sooner or later. And I disagree on some stuff, however largely it’s issues of diploma, not of variety. Mark thinks that rooftop photo voltaic between business and residential will likely be 15% of vitality sooner or later. I feel it’s going to be 5% to eight% between them for a easy cause. We’re not going to mandate that everyone has photo voltaic on their roofs. It doesn’t make loads of sense to do this. There’s loads of rooftops which can be shaded. There’s loads of rooftops that aren’t aligned properly with the solar. There’s loads of rooftops that individuals simply don’t need photo voltaic on.

To be clear, Mark is a superb, nice man. I’ve loads of time for him. Now we have spent loads of time collectively. However he lives within the suburbs of prosperous California, in a ranch house with an enormous roof in a sunshine state. His perspective is certain by his circumstances. I’ve spent much more time in Asia and in Latin America with my management roles in São Paulo and Singapore, and I traveled extensively round Asia and Latin America.

Most individuals don’t dwell in suburban ranch properties with large roofs for a household of three or 4. In Asia, 90% of individuals dwell in multi unit residential buildings, and people have a lot much less capacity to place photo voltaic on the rooftop to supply the facility for the residents of the multi unit residential constructing.

I dwell extra like an Asian individual. I’m in a 19 story rental constructing with 233 models, in all probability 400 residents. That’s rather more Asian than North American, so I are likely to have a special perspective

I like to explain geothermal as an answer that’s actually helpful if you’re in fixed risk of getting your nation destroyed by earthquakes or volcanoes akin to New Zealand or Iceland. I spent six weeks in New Zealand final yr. I describe them as collections of volcanoes which can be briefly dormant. In some unspecified time in the future, they’re simply going to be worn out by the equal of Krakatoa, however within the meantime, they’ve bought nice entry to geothermal electrical energy.

The constraints of geothermal, I feel, are going to depart it at about 1% of worldwide vitality technology. There are locations like Japan, which ought to be leveraging their geothermal, and British Columbia, the place I dwell, that ought to be leveraging geothermal the place completely different preconditions means we aren’t. In Japan, the onsen tradition means scorching springs are sacrosanct of their tradition, and you may’t contact them for a geothermal technology. In British Columbia, we’ve only a few individuals. Now we have heaps and many hydroelectricity, so we don’t really want to do geothermal.

We ought to be doing extra of it. And so I don’t assume it’s going to be an enormous factor. I’m not that huge on deep geothermal. There are development dangers there that I feel are underappreciated.

Tidal electrical energy, there’s going to be some technology, but it surely’s going to be lower than a thousandth of worldwide vitality wants. Folks don’t recognize how arduous it’s to maintain one thing working underwater with shifting elements offshore. Wind works nice as a result of there’s no shifting elements underwater. All the pieces that’s underwater is only a wire, concrete or metal, and it’s coated metal, so it doesn’t corrode, it simply accrues minerals and wildlife.

I’m together with tidal right here for completeness.

Just about all the pieces goes to be grid tied, so the grid can act as a battery, a requirement heart, and a provide heart no less than a part of the time. Lots of technology that’s on the grid is there to produce the electrical energy that the grid wants. The rooftop photo voltaic and business photo voltaic that’s not on rooftops continues to be going to be virtually fully grid tied. It doesn’t make sense to not have it grid tied. You get loads of advantages from the grid, like voltage and frequency management and backup that you just don’t get when you’re not connected to the grid.

The grid stays an integral element of this. One of many challenges round technology is all people appears to assume that the wires don’t matter and that they don’t should be paid for. That’s simply not the case. Utilities have a objective, and that objective is to keep up the wires and the wires should be paid for.

There’s a totally unreasonable dialog the place individuals say, properly, it’s a must to do away with the utilities. I simply sort of scratch my head and assume, have you ever ever really seemed on the method that electrical energy will get round?

Mining is an exception. Lots of mining is in distant areas the place it doesn’t make sense to string a wire 1000 km. It is sensible to place up a six gigawatt photo voltaic farm all through the mine after which rip the photo voltaic farm down and put it up subsequent to the subsequent mine, which is what’s occurring in Australia. And in loads of these locations, they’ve a lot of room for wind. I labored on an engagement briefly the place they have been placing three huge wind generators up in northern Quebec on a mining website in Raglan. It made loads of sense. It avoids having to ship in loads of diesel or different vitality.

The mining giants have all agreed on this. Rio TinTo, Fortescue BHP and Vale have all mentioned they’re going to affect their mines, that it’s the pathway to the longer term. They’re going to construct loads of renewables near the mines the place it’s viable. They’re going to run transmission to the mines. It simply is sensible. It’s probably the most environment friendly option to do it and it’s more and more probably the most economically viable one.

The following one is grid storage. We simply have a lot of locations we’re going to place grid storage and grid storage might be anyplace that it is sensible. One of many coming lectures on this seminar sequence is simply all about storage and a dialogue of India the place there’s much more capability for closed loop off river storage than the Indian outlook seems to imagine, and I’m curious to discover that.

Battery storage has plummeted in worth a lot, they’re displaying up on micro grids. They’re displaying up in business services and distribution facilities. They’re displaying up in locations the place as a substitute of strengthening the wires, the transmission or distribution, it is sensible to place a buffering battery at both finish to optimize that bodily asset of the wire. And so we’re seeing loads of that stuff, and it more and more might be regarded as a type of technology as a result of it gives so many various items of capability.

Warmth pumps, whether or not floor supply, air supply or water supply, are shifting models of vitality out of the surroundings into the locations we’d like them. They’re utilizing electrical energy to do this, however the effectivity is astounding. We find yourself with the power to make use of loads much less vitality for a similar worth proposition, so we don’t must generate practically as a lot electrical energy. There’s loads of thermal storage that may stability vitality inside a 24 hours interval. There are some vital benefits to pondering of environmental warmth as an vitality supply on this context.

All of this technology is working on the grid, more and more on excessive voltage direct present transmission. Now we’ve reconductoring as properly. I’ll be speaking about reconductoring and Heimdahl sensible balls and excessive voltage direct present in one other seminar within the sequence.

All grids are going to have loads of several types of technology, and this isn’t a reliability challenge. The grids on the earth with the best penetration of renewables, like Germany and Denmark, for instance, are extra dependable, with round 13 minutes of common outages per buyer per yr. Germany is an industrialized nation, it’s a excessive demand nation, and it will get 60% of its electrical energy from renewables.

German greenhouse fuel emissions have minimize by 10% over the previous couple of years, and it’s accelerating decarbonization with cheaper electrical energy. Their wholesale electrical energy costs are among the many lowest in Europe. They keep artificially excessive electrical energy costs simply as they keep artificially excessive fossil gasoline costs to incentivize effectivity. It really works, however now they must tweak that, make electrical energy cheaper and fossil gasoline costlier to allow them to get extra individuals to affect.

That’s the slides. Reji, I hand it over to you to reasonable the Q&A.

Query

One is about he’s saying there’s a lot of funding performed already on the coal crops, so why don’t we focus extra on making the coal vitality cleaner?

Reply

There have been loads of makes an attempt to attempt to faux that coal might be clear. All coal might be is much less filthy.

If we take the consideration of supercritical coal crops burning excessive grade washed coal and low sulfur coal, they’ll get all the way down to the purpose the place they’re solely killing 40 or so individuals a yr per plant. They will get all the way down to the purpose the place they’re solely inflicting vital well being degradation in a smaller portion of the inhabitants, versus we’re seeing 7.5 to 12 million individuals a yr having considerably degraded high quality of life, productiveness and lifespan.

A part of the rationale that China is so centered on renewables and clear vitality, and has shut down so many coal crops, is as a result of they have been seeing in northern China, twelve yr reductions in lifespan. Their life expectancy was being degraded by coal technology.

And that’s why once I discuss China and coal, I say, properly, they’ve changed loads of their brown coal crops that have been working in simply crappy methods. They’ve changed them with supercritical crops, with low sulfur, washed coal which can be working very effectively. However nonetheless, that’s taking, from a local weather perspective, 1,400 kilograms, 1.4 tons per megawatt hour of carbon dioxide from the worst coal crops, solely all the way down to about 800 tons from one of many new supercritical coal crops.

It’s not clear, not low carbon. It’s not a pathway to the longer term.

The brand new supercritical crops are barely extra versatile, to allow them to be handled extra as peak regeneration. And that’s in all probability crucial. However there’s no option to make coal clear or low carbon. It’s principally carbon wealthy grime with mercury and different hint components that find yourself within the surroundings and find yourself in our youngsters, and find yourself within the biosphere, and find yourself in bioaccumulating crops and animals.

It’s actually arduous to truly bolt carbon seize onto an present coal plant to take care of this. Boundary Dam in Saskatchewan tried to bolt a carbon seize and sequestration resolution onto their present coal plant. After a number of years of operation, they discovered a number of issues. One is, for lots of the years, they’d solely achieved 40% seize, properly beneath the expectation. Second, they have been utilizing the carbon captured for enhanced oil restoration, pumping it down into tapped out oil wells to liquefy the sludge that’s left over, pressurize it, and allow it to be sucked out after which burned. Each time you pump a ton of carbon dioxide into an oil properly for that objective, you get about 0.2 to at least one tons of recent petroleum, which if you burn it, negates the advantages of sequestering CO2.

Factor three is what they discovered is it made the electrical energy from Boundary Dam extremely costly. It was $140 per megawatt hour for coal technology, which is meant to be low cost. What Saskatchewan did after that wxperiment was say, okay, we’ve tried it, it doesn’t work economically, and we’re not going to ever do it once more.

The Petra Nova coal plant within the southern United States tried one thing related. That they had twelve technology models in a large coal facility. They bolted on carbon seize to one in every of them. They needed to construct a pure fuel plant to energy the carbon seize, as a result of the auxiliary energy drain of carbon seize compression and coping with the carbon dioxide, which within the case of coal is over 3 times the mass of the coal.

It was a really huge drain. The carbon seize and sequestration neighborhood claimed that was a hit. They managed to stand up to 93% seize for one month, however largely, like Boundary Dam, it failed miserably to attain its carbon seize aims. It made the electrical energy extremely costly they usually needed to construct a pure fuel plant to supply the facility with the appropriate traits to run carbon seize. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s only a declining pathway to thermodynamic, financial and local weather idiocy.

I don’t have any temperament that permits me to assume that making coal cleaner is an answer. Utilizing coal crops much less is an answer if coal is required. Changing your worst coal crops with a supercritical coal plant with low sulfur, washed, excessive grade coal is an answer, as you’d scale back the capability issue of your coal crops.

The true reply is to not construct extra coal, if in any respect attainable. And so for India, the query is, what’s that slender pathway? If we consider the information rails, how do you get as near no coal? What’s the minimal coal that you may handle to construct and handle to function?

There are such a lot of well being impacts to your residents, there are such a lot of productiveness impacts from the well being impacts. You want a productive labor drive, you want a wholesome surroundings to your individuals to dwell in.

Coal does none of that. It kills individuals.

It generates electrical energy within the absence of anything. Coal is healthier than nothing else. However we’ve alternate options now they usually’re cheaper.

Addition by Reji

In case you are performed. Again to the questions. So India’s coal has excessive sulfur content material, it’s not appropriate for even carbon seize and storage even when the know-how has matured. A desulfurization unit was permitted by our central regulator and several other individuals calculated completely different numbers. Simply earlier than COVID somebody calculated {that a} plant which generates electrical energy at two or two and a half rupees, the desulfurization unit will add one other 40 to 45. No person was prepared to purchase into that. It was a 20% to 25% enhance within the worth of energy. Nothing has been performed to this point.

Now that battery storage has develop into less expensive in comparison with many different applied sciences, the final two years the ISGF has been arguing that we should always not spend that a lot billions of {dollars} putting in desulfurization models on thermal energy stations which we’re going to retire after some years. As a substitute we should always make investments that cash into constructing distributed storage on the grid by which we will combine extra photo voltaic and wind.

Query

35% of that world energy combine will likely be photo voltaic. With a lot uncertainty in regards to the sunshine, how can we be so certain that 35% contribution of complete energy in future will likely be from solar energy?

Reply

Two or three issues associated to this query. Sure, photo voltaic doesn’t work at evening, and in heavy night hundreds, there isn’t solar energy. Properly, time shifting photo voltaic a number of hours is straightforward, utilizing two completely different easy frequent applied sciences. India is, whereas not one of many greatest international locations, it’s not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not the USA, it’s nonetheless the seventh greatest nation on the earth, and that features east to west. So sunshine that’s hitting the west coast of India in a low demand interval might be transmitted throughout India to excessive demand facilities within the east. And equally, you might be in a geography the place you even have neighbors, and transmission can circulate to your neighbors, so you may really be transmitting peak photo voltaic throughout larger geographical distances. You’re already doing a few of that. That’s going to develop.

The second factor is it’s straightforward to place loads of photo voltaic vitality into more and more low cost batteries and shift the electrical energy a number of hours into the night. We’re seeing that more and more happen in prosperous international locations and battery costs are plummeting. It’s even shocked me. Everyone’s being shocked by how a lot battery costs are taking place. I’ve been saying that in 2020s, not betting on batteries is like round 2000, not betting on fiber optics and knowledge availability, or wi-fi and knowledge availability, it’s an identical sort of constraint. The constraint is a short lived one based mostly upon an obvious lag. Proper now, we’re seeing CATL projecting supply of batteries at $56 per kilowatt hour of capability. That’s a worth level that wasn’t anticipated to be achieved till 2030 by people who find themselves really optimistic about batteries.

Then there’s the opposite types of grid storage. I’ll be speaking extra about each grid storage and transmission in subsequent lectures. The sunshine hours availability, as I mentioned in New Delhi, it’s 12 hours of technology. If we overbuild 25%, that really accommodates most of our shoulder wants, and we will transfer the height of sunshine a bit and really then collaborate with wind and the opposite types of technology which can be on the grid to supply that energy that we’d like. It’s not that onerous.

Query

What’s the optimum mixture of sustainable vitality capability and know-how deployment in a rustic like India.

Reply

There are individuals who’ve performed this sort of work and there are many completely different eventualities. I encourage individuals to go to discover the Mark Z. Jacobson, which has a perspective on India. As mentioned, he leans too closely into rooftop photo voltaic from my perspective, however he’s within the ballpark. So you may have a look at his projections of transmission, wind, photo voltaic and water and get a reasonably good reply there. It’s Mark Z. Jacobson, Stanford College 100% renewables by 2050. His fashions now lengthen to, I feel it’s 145 international locations globally as a result of he reruns them with CIA factbook knowledge for each nation. It’s not excellent, but it surely’s a believable state of affairs that’s price taking a look at.

India has additionally has a future oriented grid technique that it’s articulated. I disagree with features of it. It’s a bit too heavy on hydrogen, which is a lifeless finish, and we’ll be discussing why. There’s a bit an excessive amount of give attention to nuclear and there’s an excessive amount of of a reliance on fossil fuels. There’s an underappreciation of the worth propositions of renewable vitality, which is pretty typical for a few of these legacy issues.

Expertise failed at this level, so the final couple of questions don’t seem within the transcript.