Virginia Energy Policy: Electricity Production & the Renewables Option
By Joe Nash • Jan 6th, 2010 • Category: Energy, Top Story
On September 12, 2007 Governor Kaine released the Virginia Energy Plan (VEP), a proposal to promote the Commonwealth’s energy independence and to educate consumers on energy conservation and efficiency. While the VEP does not have specific goals for renewable resources, the plan mentions renewables as a source of energy. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Information Administration (EIA) states that Virginia has established a voluntary renewable portfolio goal that encourages utilities to generate 12 percent of base-year 2007 sales from renewable sources by 2022.
What are renewables? The Virginia State Corporation Commission (VSCC) defines renewable energy as: energy derived from sunlight, wind, falling water, sustainable biomass, energy from waste, wave motion, tides and geothermal power, excluding energy derived from coal, oil, natural gas or nuclear power.
Are renewables currently being produced and used in Virginia and can they be produced in the quantity and to the quality for commercial electricity production?
Commercial electricity production is composed of base-load and peak-load production. Base-load power is the power that is “always on,” and must operate continuously to meet the minimal demand created by customers. Most renewable technologies depend on weather-related phenomena and thus provide electricity intermittently. As a result, most renewable energy systems – especially wind and solar - are viewed as inappropriate for base-load applications. Peak-load power refers to those generators that are switched on during times of high demand to supplement base-load generators. Many peak-load facilities use natural gas turbines because they can be started and turned off quickly, unlike most coal-and nuclear-fueled base-load units, which require hours to start up. Peak-load power also costs more to produce, making renewable energy systems more cost competitive, so renewables may play a role here, generating electricity when customers demand exceeds base-load capacity.
In 2005, Virginia Tech’s Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research (VCCER) released a report for the Virginia Commission on Electric Utility Restructuring (CEUR) entitled A Study of Increased Use of Renewable Energy in Virginia. The study provided an initial assessment on the status and potential for renewable energy development in Virginia, evaluated costs, and detailed incentives and impediments to development; It is an excellent comprehensive study that needs to be updated at least every five years as the resource for planning and implementing the use of renewables in Virginia.
Based on 2002 data from the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the EIA Virginia had 583MW of non-hydro renewable energy capacity, including 168 MW of landfill gas and municipal solid waste generation and 415 MW of wood or waste wood-fired plants. Virginia also has 757 MW of conventional hydro and 2329 MWs of pumped storage. EIA does not track hydro under 1 MW in size and does not report any wind or solar photovoltaics (PV).
NREL estimates in the VCEER state that Virginia has the potential to develop 15,000 MW from renewable energy. However, this estimate does not consider the cost of developing these resources. VCCER presents a Black & Veatch study that estimates of this 15,000MW only 930 MW could be economically developed in the next 15 years. This analysis of costs indicates that hydro, biomass co-firing, wind and landfill gas are currently cost-competitive with fossil-fuels.
While the VCCER study covers all the VSCC renewables I will only provide comment on the three areas that may provide additional peak-load electricity production: hydro, wind, and solar.
Virginia currently has 26 hydro electric facilities that have a capacity of 2302 MWs (17 <10MW, 5 >10MW, 4 >50MW) and two pumped storage facilities with a capacity of 11.6 MW. While these plants may be updated or expanded they represent the extent of hydroelectric capacity in Virginia because many influences will prohibit any more dams.
On-shore wind energy is limited in Virginia. The DOE NREL wind map shows the vast majority of Virginia has low quality winds (less than Class 3 or 14.3 mph). That level precludes commercial production. The only exception is in Highland County where a proposed wind farm is meeting stiff local opposition.
Off-shore wind energy potential, however, is considerable. Virginia’s Class 5 and Class 6 offshore wind resources have the technical potential to support 32,000 MW of wind energy generating capacity and 1,300 MW within 20 miles of transmission (important because of cost). The major impediments are cost, environmental concerns, transmission lines and legal and regulatory issues. Additionally no off-shore wind systems have been built in the US to show commercially viability.
Virginia has moderate photovoltaic (solar) resources relative to other parts of the United States. Our geographic location provides Virginia with less than optimal hours of sun light. Estimates of potential for solar vary greatly depending on how you estimate. Some include residential and commercial roof area while others estimate land area available for solar farms. Due to the high cost of manufacturing solar panels, building transmission lines and installing smart grids the availability of solar electricity in the mid-term (15-25 years) is very low. Solar electrical systems impediments are: capital cost, intermittency, transmission lines and land intensity required for large projects.
Can renewables be produced in a quantity and quality in Virginia that can be used for commercial electricity production? The answer is a very big maybe, hinging on proof of commercial viability, cost, new smart transmission lines and acceptance by Virginians. The utilities also need to figure out how to integrate these intermittent resources to act as a peak-load resource. Given all these variables renewable resources are not a near term answer. It will take a number of years to develop a system than can integrate renewables. That number could be as little as 15 years or more than 25, but the chance that Virginia will reach a renewable portfolio goal for utilities to generate 12 percent of base-year 2007 sales from renewable sources by 2022 is zero.
Joe Nash Joe Nash has over 40 year’s experience as both a technical manager and policy analyst at EPA, DOE and the private sector. During that time he has been involved with the implementation and analysis of TSCA, FIFRA, FQPA, SDWA, CWA, CERCLA and RCRA. Mr. Nash has also provided support and policy input to five EPA projects involving rule-making on: engineered nano materials, hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), TSCA Section 8 (a) and (d), priority testing of chemicals, and the implementation of the endocrine disrupter screening program (EDSP). Mr. Nash is currently consulting with a company to develop a business plan for advising Boards of Directors and CEOs of large and mid-size companies on strategies for attaining “GREEN” company excellence using the triple bottom line (TBL) approach of economic, environmental and social value. He was, for the last four years, President of the College of William and Mary's Advisory Board for the Thomas Jefferson Program for Public Policy. He was a member of the Board of Directors for an ISO 9000 & 14000 training company from 1979 to 1999. He has been a member of the Occoquan Watershed Coalition Board of Directors since 1999 and was a founding member of the Fairfax County Environmental Quality Advisory Council.
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I do not have the expert credentials of Joe Nash but I think his pessimistic outlook on the future of renewable energy in Virginia omits some possibilities. Let me put them out there and I invite his and others thoughts.
New hydro dams definitely have drawbacks, but there are several dams in Virginia that serve other purposes and should have hydro capability added to them. I think of Lake Chesdin Dam on the Appomattox River and Flanagan Dam on the Pound River. Just downstream of Virginia on the New River is the enormous Bluestone Dam. The Town of South Hill is working to restore a small hydro generator at Whittle Dam. And if new pumped storage lakes and generators/pumps could be built, especially near Richmond or NOVA, that would help utilize intermittent solar and wind power.
Virginia is not a desert and that is good, but we do get plenty of sun. The cloudy days are neither the hottest nor the coldest, so when less solar power is available, less is needed. Solar “farms” are not a good idea in Virginia because they would take up space better used for plants. However, the area already used by buildings (especially commercial buildings, with large flat roofs and no shade trees,) parking lots, and roads and railroads should be evaluated and used to build solar thermal and photovoltaic capacity. These are already where the energy is consumed, so minimal investment need be made in new transmission lines. Plus these panels would provide useful summertime shade, reducing building cooling needs as well as making cars more comfortable to climb in on a July afternoon. As electric cars become commonplace, metered plugins could be at the parking spaces under these photovoltaic (PV) arrays.
Mr. Nash is right that wind in Virginia is a sometime thing, but that should not prevent investment in wind so we can use what we have when it is available. Mountain ridge facilities are good, and the threat to bats and to birds can be mitigated by throttling down the generator when bird and bat traffic is heavy. Migration is in fall and spring, but heaviest energy use is in summer and winter. The biggest potential for large-scale use of wind is off-shore, where the wind is much steadier and fauna flight paths can be avoided. Virginia has a good situation in that there is a large coal generator and thus distribution point in south Hampton Roads, reducing transmission infrastructure costs.
Tying in small-scale generation facilities, whether they are hydro, wind, or solar, to the grid should be done systematically. A “power module” would prevent out-of-phase electricity from being introduced to the grid. That same PM would meter the electricity coming and leaving a property. The grid’s “brain” would constantly monitor and calculate the load and supply, and using weather and demand pattern data, would figure when to bring online the pumped storage, battery banks, biofuels generators, and (until the lovely day comes when they are no longer needed) nuclear and gas plants. By the way, if the coal people want to do something useful, they could develop a coal-burning generator that would throttle up and down and turn on and off just like a car motor.
Of course all the materials for these solar panels, copper wires, wind generators, etc. are expensive and use raw materials, and the cost of that per unit of power is going to be less if the facilities are used intermittently as I suggest, but we are not now paying the true cost of fossil fuel use and any rational person needs to acknowledge that.
That is why conservation (not using electricity or fuels at all) and efficiency (doing tasks with less energy than are used now to do the same thing) are the most economical ways of solving our energy problem. Figures are thrown about how “we will need 30% more power in 20 years” or is it “40% more power in 30 years,” or whatever. The fact is that no one measures his happiness or success by the KWH consumed or gallons of fuel burned. Prior to my recent move to Richmond, my living experience in the capitol had been limited to a summertime rental on Grace Street 40 years ago. That apartment never cooled down. It was enough to make a man move to the mountains. I know this past summer was cooler than many, but my house rarely went above the mid-80’s. Of course if you go out in public make sure you bring a sweatshirt to be ready for the sometimes Arctic interiors of Richmond in July. Fans, screens, modern windows, insulation, and of course trees – not more coal or nuclear. You go around old Virginia and you see farmhouses, some falling down, surrounded by giant oaks. The developers tear the old place down and humming heat pumps power houses whose windows never open. And what about clothes? It may not be as bad as past centuries where the powdered wig or laced collar were the mark of a gentleman, but standards that call for socks, long pants, ties, and jackets when it is hot make no sense. Let your ideas, your work, and your conduct distinguish yourself, not unnecessary layers of clothes.
The USA has big problems with energy. We have built an economy based on cheap fossil fuel, and we need to change. Three wars derived from oil dependence in two decades, with another in Yemen or Iran coming maybe, blowing up mountains to run air conditioners, fracturing geological strata to squeeze more oil or gas out (and pumping in “proprietary chemicals to help the process”,) suburban sprawl, traffic jams, air pollution, waste dumps. And yes the climate is changing from the increase in CO2 from burning fossil fuels. The conventional wisdom is what can we do to preserve our “way of life.” How about changing our way of life?
A quote from W.E.B. DuBois: “We should not ask where science and technology are taking us, but rather ask how can science and technology take us where we want to go?”