Utility-Scale Wind and Natural Gas Volatility: Uncovering the Hedge Value of Wind for Utilities and Their Customers

This paper explores methods of quantifying natural gas volatility by examining theoretical models as well as case studies of utility hedging strategies. Including these volatility risk premiums in the price of natural gas establishes a basis for even comparison with utility-­scale wind contracts, which enables smarter decision analysis by regulatory agencies, utilities, and ratepayers.

 

2010 Micropower Database (May)

2010 (May) Edition: The purpose of the micropower database is to present a clear, rigorous, and independent assessment of the global capacity and electrical output of micropower (all renewables, except large hydro, and cogeneration), showing its development over time and documenting all data and assumptions. With minor exceptions, this information is based on bottom-up, transaction-by-transaction equipment counts reported by the relevant suppliers and operators, cross-checked against assessments by reputable governmental and intergovernmental technical agencies. For most technologies, historic data from 1990 through 2008 or 2009 is available, as well as forecasts through 2013. Available information includes global annual capacity additions and output, global cumulative capacity, and capacity factor. The Micropower Database Methodology is also included here. The 2008 Micropower Database (RMI ID E05-04) is also available.

Note: A more recent version of The Micropower Database from September 2010 (RMI ID 2010-14) is now available. This update to the database incorporates recently released data that change the total installed micropower capacity by 2.9%.

 

2010 Micropower Database (September)

2010 (September) Edition: The purpose of the micropower database is to present a clear, rigorous, and independent assessment of the global capacity and electrical output of micropower (all renewables, except large hydro, and cogeneration), showing its development over time and documenting all data and assumptions. With minor exceptions, this information is based on bottom-up, transaction-by-transaction equipment counts reported by the relevant suppliers and operators, cross-checked against assessments by reputable governmental and intergovernmental technical agencies. For most technologies, historic data from 1990 through 2008 or 2009 is available, as well as forecasts through 2013. Available information includes global annual capacity additions and output, global cumulative capacity, and capacity factor. The Micropower Database Methodology is also included here. The 2008 Micropower Database (RMI ID E05-04) and the 2010 (May) Edition (RMI ID 2010-06) are also available.

Note: This update to the database incorporates recently released data that change the total installed micropower capacity by 2.9%.

 

Keeping the Lights on While Transforming Electric Utilities

This article discusses the new electricity paradigm required of electric utilities in the face of climate change, energy security concerns, and disruptive technologies. The new paradigm for utilities is based on energy efficiency, demand response, renewables, energy storage, and distributed generation.

 

Nuclear Power's Competitive Landscape

A hotly debated topic, the present and future state of nuclear power and its competitors are the subject of this presentation by Amory Lovins at RMI2009. This presentation was part of a plenary debate with Robert Rosner entitled, "Nuclear: Fix or Folly?". The accompanying video of the entire debate is available at RMI's Video page.

 

Nuclear Power: Climate Fix or Folly?

This semi-technical article, summarizing a detailed and documented technical paper (see "The Nuclear Illusion" (2008)), compares the cost, climate protection potential, reliability, financial risk, market success, deployment speed, and energy contribution of new nuclear power with those of its low- or no-carbon competitors.

 

Intermittent Renewables in the Next Generation Utility

This paper, presented at PowerGenRE2008, evaluates the potential reduction in variability of intermittent renewables due to the geographical dispersion of wind resources across large geographic areas.

 

Forget Nuclear

This article compares the cost, climate protection potential, reliability, financial risk, market success, deployment speed, and energy contribution of new nuclear power with those of its low- or no-carbon competitors.

 

Spatial and Temporal Interactions of Wind and Solar in the Next Generation Utility: Expanded Analysis

This paper, originally presented at WINDPOWER 2008, argues that the “next generation” electric utility must incorporate variable renewable resources, including wind and solar, in much larger quantities than conventionally thought possible. This analysis expands previous studies on reducing the variability of renewable resources through optimized geographic distribution.

 

Spatial and Temporal Interactions of Solar and Wind Resources in the Next Generation Utility

The “next generation” electric utility must incorporate variable renewable resources, including wind and solar, in much larger quantities than conventionally thought possible. While resource variability presents a challenge, it should be possible to reduce and manage that variability by geographically distributing renewables, combining them with different renewables, and having more dynamic control of electric loads. This study shows that interconnecting individual solar generation sites into geographically diverse arrays can reduce power output variability, and that including solar generation sites in arrays of geographically diverse wind sites can further reduce the total variability beyond what is possible for either resource type alone. Specifically, optimized portfolios offer an average decrease in variability of 55% below the average of all individual sites. Finally, it was observed that, in the modeled system, only a small subset of the potential sites in an interconnected array need to be included to achieve these variability reductions.

 

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