Minnesota’s Solar Pathway
By Paul Homewood
A reader sent me this recent study, claiming to show how a high level of wind and solar generation could be integrated into Minnesota’s grid.
http://mnsolarpathways.org/spa/#finding1
Its main finding was that solar and wind could supply 70% of Minnesota’s electricity by 2050, and at a cost comparable to natural gas:
I was expecting some technically sophisticated solutions, but there is actually very little new in it.
Having said that though, the authors have developed a clever toolkit for analysing hourly generation and demand patterns, to test out various scenarios.
But to put the above numbers into perspective, we need to look at Minnesota’s current demand load:
Below is Figure 8 from the report. Ignore the red line for the moment, it is the black line which denotes demand:
What we see is that for most of the year, demand hovers around 10 GW, except for summer, presumably when air con kicks in. Even in summer, it only occasionally gets anywhere near 15 GW.
This raises an interesting question right away – what do Minnesotans do for heating in winter? I presume most must use gas or oil. If Minnesota wants to do away with fossil fuels, how will they replace these from the electrical grid, particularly when solar generation peaks in summer?
Now let’s look again at that earlier chart:
Relying on so much wind and solar only works by retaining enough standby capacity from reliable sources to cover virtually all of the demand profile.
The summer time peaks can be catered for, because of the higher solar generation then. Night time demand in summer is partly met battery storage.
There is however another aspect to note. To get to the 70% solar/wind target, the plan calls for massive overengineering of solar and wind capacity, so that even on calm, winter days there is still a reasonable amount of generation. The plan calls this “Additional Capacity”
This however causes a fresh set of problems. For much of the time, solar and wind generation will be much more than total demand. So what do you do with the surplus?
The answer is to throw it away, or as the plan calls it “curtail”.
Of course, if you don’t use all of the generation from wind and solar, the unit cost of what you do use rises considerably. Optimistically, the plan says this is still economical, because wind and solar will be so cheap by then.
I remember hearing similarly optimistic claims about nuclear power in the 1950s!
In fact, the plan assumes massive cost reductions from current costs, down to a level of $20/MWh. And it is on these cost assumptions that they claim solar and wind can match the cost of new gas generation. Without such reductions, the whole plan falls apart.
Whether such reductions are feasible in the long run, I have no idea. But the whole question is immaterial anyway.
If the costs come down sufficiently by 2050, the market will take over. Generators will quickly react by building solar and wind farms, if it is economic for them to do so.
What you most definitely don’t do is start working towards a new power mix on the basis that costs might fall in the future.
In summary then, Minnesota can only run on a high level of wind and solar power if it retains on standby enough dispatchable power to supply demand at all but peak periods.
And it can only run the system economically as long as the cost of wind and solar power falls drastically from current levels.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
It doesn’t matter about the facts, The decision-makers will be fooled and go ahead with building all that wind and solar capacity and all that storage. Will it be pumped storage, that is the question, or will they buy the total world’s supply of batteries?
The vast majority of Minnesotans heat with natural gas (methane) in cities and towns, and most folks outside the natural gas grid use propane.
Relying on solar power is probably the biggest mistake of our generation. This link is about the changes in the axis of Earth. If you also look up Professor Valentina Zharkova she says the same, the Solar Minimum is upon us and the earth’s axis changes during deep minimums. We have just entered the beginning of a Super Grand Minimum and not all of us will survive this. Our descendents will need survival skills and the ability to retreat underground. We need to be asking who knows this already and where does all the money go that we are churning out?
The best use of the overproduced electricity is to use it rather than just curtail it.
Even if it is only used for something like cracking a non non time critical gas it would be better than wasting it.
It does not fail just on the cost of production. It fails at every measure.
1. It’s Ok to have a few unreliable citizens in a country, or a few unreliable workers in a business, and a few unreliable sources of energy in a grid.
However, no one in their right mind would suggest that is what we need to build any system (country, business, or energy grid) around.
2. The costs of a decentralized grid are never included. Land cost, high power lines and easements, and access roadways within and connecting every wind and solar farm.
3. High maintenance cost and a short lifespan kill the amortization.
4. These systems require 10-100 times the amount of concrete, steel, and rare earth mining which will, in the short term, expend far more CO2 than the systems they are replacing.
5. Even ignoring the above points, it still won’t make the planet ‘cooler’, or greener, or cleaner.
Are you stating your opinions?
10-100 is a nice range….
The greenies say that one of the selling points of renewables is that it will take five to ten times as much labor to develop and deliver it. It is an employment bonanza in their view because it is so labor intensive.
I’ve never understood how they can freely acknowledge how labor intensive it is and still say it can be delivered below conventional source costs. It is not as if doesn’t require at least as much infrastructure spread over a much larger area.
This article is yet another sad pointer to the necessity of running a parallel fossil fuel system as backup, only doing it in the most inefficient and expensive way possible.
How can you use a solar capacity to heat your home at night?
These are greens we’re talking about. You don’t ask them if they’ve thought about anything at all, because they’ll accuse you of being a disbeliever.
These fantasies are all slightly reminiscent of a cartoon I saw some years ago. A scientist has laid out on a blackboard a number of steps to achieve some goal. One of the audience has his finger on some obscure squiggles and is asking “What is this?” to which the answer being given is “That is when the miracle happens!”
Minnesota gets a lot of sub-zero weather, so solar panels could easily become covered in snow or ice during 3 or more months of the year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Minnesota
In any case, short daylight hours mean that solar is of little use for about a third of the year, at the time when the coldest weather is around.
My state of New York is similar to Minnesota in that most residences are heated with natural gas, oil or bio-mass. It worries me that the folks who want us to stop using fossil fuel claim that conversions to air-source heat pumps are appropriate. The problem in both states is that they work until it really gets cold then you need an alternative. If they convert home heating to electric then the winter peak will outstrip the summer peak. Given that solar is mostly worthless in the winter then the plan for an all renewable electric grid is going to fail big time.
This raises an interesting question right away – what do Minnesotans do for heating in winter?
This is a bit old, but may help:
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/03/09/states-fight-to-keep-wood-fires-burning
“The largest amount of wood that’s burned for heating occurs in greater Minnesota, and that pattern is reversed when you look at the metro area . . .”
Per capita emissions from residential wood burning
1. Vermont: 22.80
2. Wisconsin: 11.53
3. Minnesota: 11.22
4. New Hampshire: 9.85
5. Maine: 9.51
6. Michigan: 8.04
7. Oregon: 7.77
8. Idaho: 5.63
9. Washington: 5.00
10. Iowa: 3.77
It doesn’t matter how many windmills you install, as we’ve seen in the UK – zero is zero – they can all be becalmed.
Triple O/T.
(1) BBC and AAAS being willfully blind –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47267081
No mention of its use in climate science!
(2) What’s going on in the SST anomaly charts – there is a developing cold feature from central America, doesn’t look like the evolution of a typical la nina?
(3) Flybmi collapses citing fuel and carbon costs (Brexit thrown in as usual!). If Brexit is an act of economic self harm, climate obsession and policies are an act of economic suicide.
‘Relying on so much wind and solar only works by retaining enough standby capacity from reliable sources to cover virtually all of the demand profile.’
Exactly. The capacity numbers from solar/wind/batteries greatly exceeds ‘other generation.’ ‘Other generation’ capacity MUST meet demand. But by about 30% penetration by weather dependent renewables, ‘other generation’ becomes financially unfeasible. I.e., at 70%, there will be no ‘other generation.’
And wind/solar are financially unfeasible as well, or they wouldn’t need any subsidies.
I live in Minnesota west of Minneapolis. There are thousands of formerly tillable farm acres covered with solar collectors around my area. ALL of these solar collectors are covered with snow and have been covered for at least the last 10 days.
It is such an aggravating waste of land and tax dollars.
You cannot run a grid on nonsynchronous generation , [ Wind & Solar ] without 100% conventional generation backup .
Not easy to explain , but any variations in suppy , [ like wind does all of the time ] will lead to a frequency instability which means that it has to be shut down within a few seconds .
http://notrickszone.com/2017/07/05/new-study-concludes-europe-will-always-require-100-back-up-by-conventional-energy/
Like South Australia , which closed down a lot of its coal & gas generation to just use wind & solar for about 30% of its total needs , and has now become the blackout capital of the world .
And S Aus , just like Germany which uses a lot of wind & solar , now has the highest electricity prices in the world .
Come on, Real World. You act like giving people electricity all the time is important.