Roger Pilke, Jr – Bullish on Solar

I have great admiration for Roger Pielke, Jr and his work on addressing climate change.  However, his recent post explaining why he is bullish on solar does not stand up to his usual standards.  This post explains why I disagree with his optimism for solar in the context of New York’s net-zero transition.

I have followed the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (CLCPA) since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the CLCPA implementation plan, and have written over 400 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. I am convinced that the CLCPA will adversely affect affordability, reliability, and that the environmental impacts of the proposed transition are greater than the possible impacts of climate change.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Overview

The CLCPA established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050.  It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. The CLCPAion Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible using zero-emissions electricity. The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan outline of strategies.  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations were supposed to be implemented through regulation, PSC orders, and legislation. 

I have documented issues with New York’s solar energy rollout and its issues.  The Scoping Plan uses unrealistic estimates of the energy that can be produced by solar in New York so the estimate that New York will need 18.9 GW in 2030 and 43.4 GW in 2040 of solar capacity are too low.  There is no policy in place to protect prime farmland from utility-scale solar development and over 8,000 acres of prime farmland have been lost.  The last cumulative environmental impact assessment did not address the total solar capacity that is now expected.

Bullish on Solar

Pielke’s blog post gave three reasons why he is “very bullish on solar energy technologies — solar is scalable, solar is cheap and getting cheaper, and solar is safe, simple, and popular.”  I am not bullish on solar for reasons that Pielke mentioned but did not follow through on.  Importantly my primary concern is New York’s Climate Act net-zero transition and some of his caveats are inapplicable to New York.  Pielke does not quality his bullishness relative to any geographical limitations. 

First, I want to explain my overarching concern.  My Climate Act issues are related reliability when the system depends on weather-related wind and solar for most of the electric power generation as outlined in the Scoping Plan.  Electric system resource adequacy planning must address the worst-case conditions and this challenge is made more difficult when intermittent wind and solar resources are used.  While Pielke recognizes the challenge of extended periods of low solar availability, I do not think Pielke’s enthusiasm for solar considers this challenge enough.

Scalable Solar

Pielke argues that solar can be installed incrementally from rooftops to massive utility-scale arrays.  He points out that “in the U.S., the Energy Information Agency (EIA) reports that about one third of solar generation comes from small-scale solar (defined as less than 1 MW capacity)”.   This gives unquestioned flexibility for the development of resource capacity but that comes at a system reliability cost.

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) is responsible for matching generation with load.  Small-scale solar is “behind the meter” and cannot be controlled by the electric system operator.  Instead, they analyze its capacity to reduce the load from those locations that have solar installations.  The problem is that this capability fluctuates and cannot be always relied on.  For example, roof top arrays can be affected by accumulated snow and the NYISO has no idea how much that will affect load in the winter.

The other scalability issue is that solar resource value is geographically limited.  What works in low-latitudes and “sunshine” states will not work as well in New York’s high latitudes and cloudy regions downwind of the Great Lakes.  In the worst case a solar array above the Arctic Circle may work well in the summer but is useless in the winter.  New York is not as bad but, in the winter, the solar resource is much reduced and the NYISO does not count on any solar for the diurnal peak.

Solar Affordability

I am a big fan of Pielke’s work and have included his Iron Law of Climate Policy as one of my pragmatic environmentalist principles.  He argues that it is appropriate relative to solar energy:

The Iron Law of climate policy means that it is difficult to motivate an energy transition by intentionally making types of energy appreciably more expensive. But is also means that when clean energy becomes cheaper, it readily gobbles up market share, eventually displacing dirtier and more expensive energy.

He includes a graph of the cost of solar modules with time that shows the module costs have declined 99.6% since 1976.  Not mentioned is that solar modules lose efficiency over time and that their expected lifetimes are half those of conventional fossil plants.  Pielke argues:

The low costs of solar energy, which are positioned to drop even further, has led some in the U.S. to question — quite fairly — why federal subsidies for wind energy are necessary today and far into the future. With or without U.S. subsidies, solar costs should be expected to continue to drop, motivating further deployment, which will lead to greater reductions in costs — a virtuous cycle.

I am worried about how solar energy can be used for the New York Climate Act net-zero transition, specifically the intermittency.   Pielke acknowledges the issue:

Even if solar were free, the technology will always have an intermittency problem when the sun doesn’t shine. The New York Times explained last week that massive battery storage can smooth over demand, but it cannot address intermittency with today’s technologies:

Today’s lithium-ion batteries typically only deliver power for two to four hours before needing to recharge. If costs keep falling, battery companies might be able to extend that to eight or ten hours (it’s a matter of adding more battery packs) but it may not be economical to go far beyond that, said Nate Blair, an energy storage expert at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

That means additional long-duration storage technologies could be needed. If California wants to rely largely on renewable energy, it will have to handle weeklong periods where there’s no wind and little sun. Another challenge: There’s far more solar power available in summer than in winter, and no battery today can store electricity for months to manage those seasonal disparities.

I have three problems with claiming that solar is cheap and getting cheaper while ignoring the storage costs.  Storage for solar is needed on different scales.  As noted, there is a difference between summer and winter but there is even a daily difference.  The expected annual output of solar is on the order of 25% of the total which means that a system to provide 100 MW of constant energy would need to overbuild solar to 400MW of capacity and roughly 300 MW of storage.  That is the average annual need and when the worst-case long duration solar drought is considered energy storage becomes impracticable so a new dispatchable emissions-free resource is needed. In the real world, it is even more complicated, and every complication adds more capacity requirements.  All these considerations add to the costs and are not considered by Pielke.

My second problem is that as Pielke notes today’s technology cannot address intermittency.  His solution is pragmatic but not applicable to the Climate Act transition to zero-emissions electricity:

As solar gets cheaper, it will see continued expansion, but accompanying that expansion will be the associated costs of reliable back-up generation, which today means natural gas. Even though natural gas is a fossil fuel, the expanded use of solar backed up by gas has considerable potential to reduce emissions, especially in places where that combo displaces coal generation. The low costs of solar mean that we should expect to see more such displacement.

The third problem is that solar and energy storage are inverter-based resources.  It turns out that solar, energy storage, and wind do not provide ancillary services needed to maintain the electric grid.  If you have no idea what I am talking about I recommend the Practical Engineering  You Tube channel video Connecting Solar to the Grid is Harder than You Think

New York’s aspirational goal is to eliminate fossil-fueled generation so natural gas backup is off the table.  Even if natural gas backup were a potential solution, cost projections should consider all the costs of solar plus energy storage versus just using natural gas and nuclear.  At some point a solar plus natural gas backup system will need new fossil generating units.  That approach would necessitate over-built solar, energy storage, ancillary support services, and backup natural gas resources.  If you just used natural gas you eliminate all those other components.  However, using natural gas for baseload electricity is a waste of this valuable resource.  Nuclear is a great zero-emissions baseload resource but has some deficiencies that are best resolved using natural gas units.  In my opinion, a full life cycle analysis that incorporates the life expectancies of the resources would show that renewables would be the more expensive option and also require development of new resources.

Solar is Safe, Simple, and Popular.

Pielke’s argument for safety relies on a review by Our World in Data that finds that the safest source of energy production, as measured by deaths per terawatt-hour of production is solar.  His arguments for simple and popular follow:

Searching Google Scholar, I have not been able to find a single paper addressing fears of solar energy. There are of course concerns about solar supply chains, solar waste, and risks to solar installations but these issues are common across all energy technologies.

A 2023 survey by Glocalities of 21,000+ people in 21 countries found solar energy to be the most favored energy technology, and overwhelmingly so, with 68% favoring solar over other technologies, as shown in the figure below.

The strong public support for solar and lack of public fears mean that among energy technologies, solar has strong political tailwinds that are unique in the energy space. Correspondingly, the ongoing expansion of solar generation will face much less opposition than proposed new wind and nuclear.  Of course, the fact that effective solar deployment also means more gas back-up may result in greater opposition in the future from those who believe that we can just stop fossil fuel use.

Compared to solar energy technologies, wind technologies appear like a convoluted series of Rube Goldberg devices. To be sure, modern wind turbines are a testament to human ingenuity and technological prowess. But they are also massive installations with many moving parts often exposed to harsh conditions — offshore wind in particular. Solar technologies are elegantly simple in comparison.

I cannot document anything different.  Anecdotally however, the “not in my backyard” folks are not enamored when a utility-scale solar development is built nearby.  Given the space requirements for solar energy that is no small consideration.  I do not disagree that in comparison to wind technologies solar is simpler but the additional technologies necessary to integrate solar to the grid are anything but simple and untested at commercial scale to boot.

Discussion

After years of research and study of the challenges of wind, solar, and energy storage I have evolved away from any support for those technologies in anything but niche applications.  Ultimately, relying upon weather-dependent resources necessitates unacceptable risk.  The weeklong periods where there’s no wind and little sun  mentioned earlier introduces tradeoffs not present in the existing electric system.  After decades of experience with the components of the existing electric system the electric planners at the NYISO and other regional operators have a very good understanding of resource availability.  The key point is that they do not have to worry about correlated outages across the electric system.  In the future, relying on wind and solar means that there will be correlated periods across vast areas when wind and solar resources are low.  Furthermore, those periods correspond to the highest load demands at the same time the Climate Act wants to electrify everything possible. 

The proposals for electric system resources in New York call for enormous additions of wind, solar, energy storage, and the as yet unidentified dispatchable emissions free resource.  Just building it is an enormous challenge.  The video Connecting Solar to the Grid is Harder than You Think notes that there are poorly understood aspects of the inverter-based resources on the grid.  Despite my admiration for the capabilities of the electric planning community, the fact is that they will be in a steep learning curve and the odds favor learning by experience.  That experience means blackouts.

That is not the worst of it.  It is well recognized now that the long duration wind and solar droughts is a massive problem.  However, what is not clear to many is the scale of the problem.  In my opinion, the most dangerous future period will be an immense polar vortex that covers most of the North American Interconnect.  In that case there will be no imports from where the wind is blowing, or the sun is shining.  The problem is that you cannot build an electric system based on a one in fifty-year return period because the resources can never be paid off.  But it will happen and when it does electricity will run out.  Inevitably there will be a massive blackout that endangers the health and safety of millions of people. 

I believe that the pursuit of zero-emissions electricity is a mirage.  To justify this transition imaginary benefits are conjured up but the immense costs of trying to do it will be real.  The conjured health benefits will be dwarfed by real deaths when there is no heat, no transportation, and no lights during the coldest period of the year.

Conclusion

Pielke’s optimism for solar neglects key considerations.  There are geographical areas and niche applications where it may make sense to rely on solar.  New York’s high latitude and cloudiness is one location where it does not.  I do not disagree that it is scalable and safe.  His arguments for solar cheapness ignore the expensive challenge to integrate solar energy into the electric grid when and where it is needed.  Full consideration of the ancillary services requirements suggests that it will not be simple either.  When enormous tracts of land are covered up with solar panels I think that its popularity will wane.  I am not a New York solar energy optimist.