Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
I know this is one old post but it's nice to update old posts, you know so you can see how things played out.
This happened after new mexicos out of cycle "blue wave".
https://www.heartland.org/news-opini...energy-mandate
Now PNM is approved for a 7% rate increase. They wanted 14.4% and they are still going to fight for it. And here it is straight from the horses mouth pnm dot com.
https://www.pnm.com/0115-ew-rate-increase-request
Yeah so it looks like renewable aren't always cheaper. Yes hydro electric geothermal always wins. It appears the first 15% to 20% of wind power capacity makes your power cheaper especially when you get a large share of your power from coal and natural gas, but anything more than 25% wind power appears to always be a liability. And generally solar is always more expensive, it's only cheaper like wind with in a certain set of parameters. If your load always peaks during the day, all 12 months a year, then yeah solar is the answer, above 10% it's definitely a liability. In a California I believe they call it the "swan curve" phenomenon. Where demand for the day picks up before the sun is up then all the south facing grid tied arrays roar to life as the sun comes up causing generation demand to dive. |
there's also the option of putting in so much solar that you curtail it most of the time, negating the need for daylight-hour storage. look at it like a solar peaker plant with high capital cost and no fuel cost.