In the State of Hockey - Solar Faces Off With Natural Gas

Solar will face off with natural gas for additional power generation in Minnesota.  The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is scheduled to make a decision on March 27, 2014.  In a  nutshell, Xcel Energy Inc., who serves 1.2 million customers, will be put to the test of whether its customers will be better off with $250 million in solar arrays or by adding natural gas electrical generators to one or more existing power plants.  

Here are the options:
Calpine Corp.: expand an existing natural-gas fired power plant with a second combined-cycle turbine rate at 290 megawatts,
Invenergy Thermal Development: expand an existing facility with a 179-megawatt natural gas-fired turbine,
Xcel Energy: expand/add an existing facility with a 215-megawatt natural gas-fired turbine,
Geronimo Energy: build up to 100 megawatts of solar generation using photovoltaic panels on up to 20 sites next to substations, or lastly,
Great River Energy: sell excess its capacity to Xcel.

The first question to be asked is, do we need more power generation to meet demand?  The follow up question should be does Great River Energy have enough excess power to sell?  The third question to be asked is, does that excess power meet the growth needs that Xcel and PUC envision?  The fourth question to be asked is, what function is the PUC permitted to play?  The fifth question to be asked is, what will it cost the taxpayer?

Here is a table of Xcel Energy's 2013 owned generating plants.

				Summer Net Dependable Capacity
Type	Plants	Units		Megawatts		%/Total
Coal	13	27		7,597.00		45.3%
Natural gas	27	69		6,758.00		40.3%
Nuclear	2	3		1,594.00		9.5%
Hydro	26	79		377.00		2.2%
Diesel/Oil	2	14		383.00		2.3%
Refuse-derived fuel	3	6		52.00		0.3%
Wind	3	238		42.00		0.3%
Solar	4	4		0.01		0.0%
Total	77	440		16,785.00		100.1%
Note: Net generating capcity is 327 MW for Xcel Energy owned wind energy facilities.
Summer net dependable capacity is determined to be lower because wind generation is
an intermittment resource and is only available when ambient wind conditions exist.

As can be seen by the above note on wind, a similar note is warranted for solar.  The 100 megawatts of Geronimo Energy PV solar panels would have to be calculated on the summer net dependable capacity.  That would result in a much smaller output than the nameplate.  

As the PUC are taxpayer funded and I am the tax payer, I know how I would lean on this issue and decision.  If there is excess power to be sold by Great River Energy and no capital expenditures are required, I would lean toward that solution.  Because it is already sunken costs, it would be the least expensive to the Xcel customer for dependable summer capacity.  Should Great River Energy's excess capacity be readily absorbed, then additional power generation capacity would have to be funded and constructed.  Then the decision tree analysis would point to the best bang for the buck project that meets Minnesota demand growth.

I think that as solar PV panels move towards grid parity - I am hearing that it is achievable in the next 24 months, it would work best at the residential level versus at the Xcel level.  We need Xcel to provide dependable and reliable energy, not intermittent.  The PUC should let Xcel make the optimal decision for the rate payer, but help guide policy and make it easy for residential customers to move into PV solar through tax breaks, some sort of subsidy (though at grid parity that becomes moot), or providing assistance with finding the most cost beneficial systems and installation.