38 thoughts on “Spain’s Solar Pullback”

  1. My favorite Spanish solar story is the large installation that got busted when someone noticed it was still producing electricity after dark. At 58 cents a kWh, they were running diesel generators and turning a huge profit.

    But I especially liked this bit in the linked article:

    It also plans to make solar power producers pay a charge on electricity they generate and use themselves, a measure that angry protesters have named the “sun tax.”

    Government in its purest form.

    2. The funny part is that the British government is now paying companies lots of money to keep diesel generators on standby for when there’s no useful (and highly subsidized) wind power.

      Government can keep finding new ways to waste money until the printing press jams.

    3. As a practical matter relying on solar and wind power means building out diesel/gas capacity, because today solar and wind can’t be relied upon.

      Solar/wind subsidies are a classic case of the government spending billions trying to solve the wrong problem. The problem isn’t solar/wind capacity. It’s not even solar/wind cost, that will respond to technological advancements quite nicely. The problem is reliability of power generation. Unless you’re in orbit you can’t rely on solar power, at 45 deg. of latitude solar power can vary by around 5:1 from summer to winter, and the duration of solar power generation during winter can be appallingly short. That means you have to build out a huge amount of excess capacity and you have to use batteries or some other storage mechanism to make it possible to provide heating and lighting in the winter for the many hours people will still be awake after dark. Wind has an even worse problem, as there can be weeks at a time where there is no power whatsoever.

      If you look at the balance sheet over a year long period then it naively appears that wind or solar are good sources of power, but when you dig into the details you find they can’t be relied on for base load power. At best they are an opportunistic hedge against running gas/diesel generators as makeup capacity.

      Realistically, if we want base load power generation that does not emit carbon the solutions in the 21st century are far more likely to be fission, fusion, and possibly even SPS than they are to be ground based solar or wind.

        1. “Germany isn’t having troubles with reliability and they are approaching 25% renewables.”

          Oh really?

          You need to get out of Mom’s basement more and take a look around:

          “The FT reports:

          Germany, which is the world’s largest brown coal miner, last year used the fuel–also known as lignite–to generate 162bn kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to EnergieBilanz, an electricity industry association. That is up from 161bn kWh in 2012 and the highest total since the 171bn kWh recorded in 1990, when east Germany’s ex-Communist plants were still in full flow.

          As far as sources of energy go, coal is about as brown as it gets—especially the variety of coal being mined and burned in Germany. It’s no surprise, then, that Berlin’s increasing reliance on it is having an effect on its overall emissions:

          Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions, which rose from 917m tonnes in 2011 to 931m tonnes in 2012, are estimated to show an increase of 20m tonnes when figures are tallied for last year.

          Let’s reflect on what Germany’s energiewende has wrought: Electricity prices are significantly higher, thanks to the costs of the feed-in tariffs Berlin enacted to help spur solar and wind energy production. Those costs are so high that Germany’s Minister of Economics is now publicly warning that the country’s energy-intensive industry might jump ship for cheaper prices (say, in shale gas-rich America) if prices climb much higher. Yet for all that expense and all of that effort, German emissions continue to climb.

          By either metric—green or economic—this energiewende has been a flop. That’s not surprising, given the costs of propping up renewables that can’t compete on price with fossil fuels, as well as the difficulty of replacing nuclear, which was effectively a zero-carbon energy source. Germany’s experience is a warning to other policymakers of the dangers of placing green dreams ahead of common sense.”

          Not so fabulous huh?

          Well you and others like you continue to ignore basic economics. As long as you do so, you will make really stupid statements like the one you made above.

          1. ” Germany, which is the world’s largest brown coal miner, last year used the fuel–also known as lignite–to generate 162bn kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to EnergieBilanz, an electricity industry association. That is up from 161bn kWh in 2012 and the highest total since the 171bn kWh recorded in 1990, ”

            1990 171 bn KWH from Brown Coal.
            2012 161 bn KWH from Brown Coal
            2013 162 bn KWH from Brown Coal

            I’m assuming you are using this article
            http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e6470600-77bf-11e3-807e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2q8DMVmCF

            Over the last 23 years, Germany’s total usage of Brown Coal has declined 9 bn KWH. that’s about 5%. If you look at 2012-2013, it’s gone up less then half a point.

            I’m going to call that noise.

            If you bother looking at the article you cited, there is a nice graph showing Brown coal consumption wandering around at 165 bn KWH, +/- 1 percent, for 25 years,
            while Renewables have risen some 800%. Brown Coal consumption would be in the dirt but, Germany post Fukushima decided to shut down half their nukes.

            It’s okay if you want to be fact free, but, i try to properly cite my work and
            show my analysis.

  2. Yeah, I was going to quote that same line, Rand.

    Sure, mortgage your house, your parents’ house, and your workshop, to put in some solar panels, because “government guarantee”. How could that possibly go wrong, especially since the “guarantee” was based on them simply giving you Other People’s Money?

    I don’t normally wish harm on the merely credulous, but Christ – I can’t help but think he’s getting exactly what he deserves.

  3. A spanish government ruled by a party with roots to the Fascists under Franco working to
    undermine renewable energy? I am not surprised.

      2. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/1011/Franco-fascism-on-the-march-in-Spain-Is-the-government-doing-enough

        “The crisis has brought an unprecedented public display of Franco nostalgia, with some public officials and members of the PP openly making the Nazi salute, displaying the former regime’s flag and other memorabilia, and posting pro-Franco messages on social media sites.

        Municipal, regional, and even country legislators have reminisced about Franco’s era, mostly subtly, though some have openly said those killed by Franco’s forces deserved it.”

        http://consortiumnews.com/2013/10/19/a-fascist-revival-stirs-in-spain/

        “And this trend is not limited to the party’s lower-level officials and the rank-and-file. As part of this effort to make fascism more palatable, the Popular Party is institutionally trying to rewrite history, blaming the civil war that started in 1936 on the defeated republican side. At least half a million people died in the war in which Franco received vital support from Adolf Hitler of Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy. More than a million fled in the aftermath to escape death squads.

        Yet, some Popular Party officials have said – and posted on social networking sites – that those killed by Franco’s forces deserved it. “

    2. Must be nice to have such simple rules for determining if something is good or bad. Just find a way to link it to something you do or do not like. Rids you of the need for such time-wasting activities as thinking.

    4. Franco’s “fascism (really Monarchist authoritarianism) was about as far from Mussolini as Hilter was, though fortunately in a far less bloodthirsty and aggressive direction.

      Yeah, those Christian Democrats in the “People’s Party” sure are “fascists”.

      Because roots and stuff.

      Show us specific policies or shut up.

      (“Renewable energy” undermines itself, jenius.

      “And that’s jenius with a j.”)

  4. Even the Fascists would note that massively subsidized solar power will mean that no, the trains will not run on time, and oh, the country will go bankrupt. The Spanish Socialist Workers Party (not to be confused with the German Socialist Workers Party, which was German and not Spanish), didn’t understand this, and was tossed out of office during the economic downturn.

  6. I wonder how this will affect the big alternate energy businesses in that part of the world, particularly, Abengoa SA. Also, the incremental and endless backpeddling on “firm” but wholly unrealistic promises is a classic scenario from Atlas Shrugged.

    1. It’s about 8.5 cents per kWh for residential here in Kentucky, and a little over 5 cents per kWh for industrial. If my utility paid .58 Euros (43 cents) per kWh to people with solar installations, I’d grab some pictures of solar cells off the net, print them on glossy paper, glue them to a piece of cardboard and stick it on my roof, then run a feed from my neighbor’s house and by her 8 cent/kWh coal-fired electricity and sell it back to the utility for a 35 cent/kWh profit. Then I’d franchise it. 🙂

      If enough people did it, of course, the utility would go bankrupt unless backed by the state, in which case the state would go bankrupt. “We sell it for 5 cents and then buy it all back for 43 cents. Even though we lose 38 cents a kilowatt hour, we make it up in volume!”

      1. That’s what I figured, greetings from the land of the carbon tax.

        Remind people of those numbers next time they start going all Elon-Musk on you and demanding a tax on carbon emissions.

    2. 14 c/kWHr is common in the flyover country. You must live in the People’s Republic of California . . .

    3. give up that nationalized health care and move to Mississippi. Cheap electricity
      and most people won’t be covered by Obamacare.

      Should be ideal for you.

      Of course you will miss that 48 C peak temperature.

      Not that Australia is warming or anything.

          1. Most of the people we let in don’t have any skills but Trent comes from a country that has too many people of the wrong skin color to get a generous immigration quota from the Democrats.

  8. I don’t know whether it would really be called irony, but it’s probably true that rural Spain is the best place in Europe for commercial solar power – cheap land and lots of sunshine for most of the year. If it can’t be made to work there, then anywhere in Europe is out of the question. The energy storage problem is of course crucial. And currently unsolved; the best current method, hydroelectric pumped storage, has limits imposed by the limited number of suitable sites.

    I’ve said for ages, and so have many others, that wind and ground solar are useless for large-scale use and always will be, unless and until technologies we have barely begun to work on come into fruition. It can’t be impossible, at least in the case of solar; the existence of complex life on Earth proves that.

    I also think that the Great White Hope, fusion, is probably useless also unless and until the approach is changed. And even if it’s possible to get tokamak fusion to work, it’s probably undesirable for various reasons. Polywell or focus fusion, on the other hand…

    1. Europe isn’t the best place for solar, most of the countries are too far north.

      spain is some 40 Degrees north.

      Wind works better in Europe.

      It’s working quite well in Denmark.

      1. “It’s working quite well in Denmark.”

        Is it now? From Forbes:

        “More traditional tools will be also be required. Western Denmark currently has an AC connector to Germany for exports of 1500 MW and imports of 950 MW of power. It also has 740 MW, and 1040 MW of DC interconnections with Sweden, and Norway respectively. Meanwhile, the eastern part of the country has a 600 MW DC connector to Germany and 1900 MW AC line to Sweden. Despite these connections, most experts believe that for the government to meet its goal of 50% wind, it will need to invest in more robust interconnections with other countries, including the Netherlands and perhaps even the UK.

        And gas-fired generation will also likely play a role, as it can be quickly ramped up and down in response to the vicissitudes of wind. For this to happen, gas generation would need to be paid a higher rate than is traditionally the case, since it would be primarily used in a back-up role. Capital costs would by definition have to be recouped over fewer kilowatt-hours of generation, so some tariff revision to allow for higher prices would likely be necessary.

        One critically important element used today is hydro storage capacity in neighboring Norway (which is supplied by 99% hydro) and Sweden (over 50% hydro), supported by robust interconnection transmission lines. When excess wind energy is generated, power is often transmitted to these neighboring countries. In turn, they simply throttle back their hydro plants and store more water behind dams for later use. When more electricity is needed, power can flow the other way. In this sense, Norway and Sweden’s hydro systems serve as large batteries in a larger interconnected system.”

        How nice to have all that cooperative fossil fuel and hydro infrastructure elsewhere.

        Do you think that if Denmark had to build all that itself things would be working as well? Note that Denmark is planning it’s own gas-fired backup generation…note the price issues.

        What about energy security? Suppose the wind farms are attacked and destroyed or a wicked storm topples/renders inoperative a large number of windmills (as has happened in the North Sea)? Then what? What if Germany goes crazy again and pulls the back-up plug?

        Lastly, what can be done for a tiny (land-wise)country with a population of 5.5 million is a lot easier than a country of 300 million with the land mass of the US.

        Denmark/s “energy independence” is a chimera.

        1. You seem very upset that Denmark is conducting rational engineering
          and using the assets they have in terms of neighbors and trade.

        2. “Lastly, what can be done for a tiny (land-wise)country with a population of 5.5 million is a lot easier than a country of 300 million with the land mass of the US.”

          The US has 30 states with populations under 5.5 million. Are you saying that Denmark is way more competent then Arizona?

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