Vancouver Power Grid Thread

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by Changing City

What's large scale? FortisBC is partnering with the Upper Nicola Band and Okanagan Nation Alliance on a 15 MW solar project project that will sell electricity to BC Hydro. That will have 4,032,000 panels costing an estimated $30 million on 200 hectares on the Quilchena reserve.

Next door, in Alberta, there's already a 1,335 hectare 465 MW solar farm at Travers that cost $700m, and there are several more projects in development.

Well, that’s awful to hear.

Unless they plan to build that above the grassland tree lines to avoid habitat loss of the grasslands.

Please quote all I wrote. My main concern is the loss of our limited remaining grassland ecosystems and all the red and blue listed species that live within them.

These areas still only receive around 2000 bright hours of sunshine a year, not terrible, but coupled with our northern latitude not that great for solar energy production.

By sunk energy cost, that includes all the mining and use of rare earth elements in solar panels and their eventual disposal as well. So the net carbon benefit of solar panels in BC is very very minor at best, and especially when coupled with the habitat loss in our most endangered ecosystems, they become a net loss environmentally IMO.

BC should focus on hydro in the north, and wind power, along with LNG.

Solar in Alberta is far more feasible due to the higher amount of sunshine (up to 2500 hours) and the far more vast stretches of open land.

Even then, solar projects should be concentrated on brown fields (not green fields) and on rooftops, such as on top of big box stores, to reduce environmental habitat loss.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Aaaaand we've just used the second-last Peace River location in BC. Pretty sure that after Site E, it's either dams on the Fraser (probably not happening) or some other large power source.

Offshore wind is pretty useful - especially for Vancouver Island - but those sites are few and far between, and onshore wind isn't as productive. And albedo and cloud cover mean that solar in Canada only has 2/5ths the capacity factor as our neighbours down south; ran the numbers in another thread a while back, and you'd need enough panels to cover the entire Site C reservoir to match its output. A few sites in the Okanagan and pumped storage for the dams would take pressure off the main grid for sure, but staking everything on those sounds like the Energiewende all over again. Geothermal so far has been a crapshoot.

I think we went over this a while ago.

https://www.futureenergysystems.ca/p...ocuments/70220
Pretty important source for reference.


The only other big power source other than run-of-river and big hydro good for BC are geothermal (but there's only a few good sites in BC, and only 1 (Pemberton) near anything), and wind (on the border with Alberta, on the far side of the Rockies, as well as offshore.)

However, I think we're going to see a ton of more large hydro.
We'll either be forced to build pumped-hydro due to wind generation , or just build large hydro.
Just build large hydro.

There's a reason Ontario is revisiting large hydro in Northern Ontario, despite the massive cost overruns with other Canadian large Hydro.


BC Hydro has shown you can make a ton of money from 'exporting' power while being a net energy importer if you have flexible generation capacity (ie. NOT solar or wind).


Also, despite the cost, Site C's still cheaper than the previous IPP-contracts.

Site C was also massively hampered by activists going insane over the relatively meager flooding created.
Apparently, they forgot about the massive amount of toxic waste generated by EV batteries, old solar panels and wind turbines that's very difficult to recycle.


Here's a list of site being considered in the '70s, back when we still dreamed big:

All the projects on the Columbia Basin and Peace River (minus Site E) were built after this report was made, except one, which is being built by IPPs right now (Murphy Creek, 250MW).


Moran Dam (11) is DOA. We can safely remove that one from consideration.

Other than the 'System E (Upper Fraser)' and Site E Peace, all the other sites remaining would requite massive amounts of new infrastructure to be built to bring power south.

Liard is somehow the most well-studied of these (other than Site E.)


IPPs at this point are probably being pursued more due to politics (want to avoid another major lighting rod for activists to rally around and for them to tie themselves to backhoes to) than actual cost-benefit.

Small Hydro is already lower cost-benefit than large hydro, and all the IPPs did was add another layer of middlemen.
IPPs under Campbell were a good experiment, but ultimately ended up just increasing energy prices.


Also, side note- Concord Pacific Energy (yes, that Concord Pacific)'s been trying to build a hydro power plant on the Peace in Alberta...
---

Also, this won't generate that much power, but installing generation turbines on the watershed dams would produce a bit of power, and would be a good idea when we're expanding them later in the century.

[Migrant_Coconut]

I'd say that solar's future in BC is likely confined to communities of 2k or less (which is what the Quilchena reserve is), or scattered on top of major cities as a peak demand solution. 1 MW is about 400-800 homes and 200 hectares is 2 square km, so not great for the environment, but not terrible; one could argue that habitat fragmentation from adding more power lines across the whole province is equally devastating or worse. Now if we were building a 1 GW farm in the Okanagan, then yes, that would be stupid.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

1 MW is about 400-800 homes, and 200 hectares is 2 square km; not great for the environment, but not terrible, and one could argue that habitat fragmentation from adding more power lines from the Peace River to Vancouver is equally devastating or worse.

I'd say that solar's future in BC is likely confined to communities of 2k or less (which is what the Quilchena reserve is), or scattered on top of major cities as a peak demand solution. Now if we were building a 1 GW farm in the Okanagan, then yes, that would be stupid.

I will be in that area this August, there are power lines there, and the impacts of those power lines to the grasslands below them are essentially none. It doesn’t fragment the grasslands.

Now, two square kilometers of solar panels does remove two square kilometers of habitat.

Sure, only one such project isn’t a big deal, but then there will be another, and another, and additions, etc… so it will become a big deal.

Again, the benefit doesn’t outweigh the loss regarding solar farms in BC’s limited interior grasslands IMO.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I'd say that solar's future in BC is likely confined to communities of 2k or less (which is what the Quilchena reserve is), or scattered on top of major cities as a peak demand solution. 1 MW is about 400-800 homes and 200 hectares is 2 square km, so not great for the environment, but not terrible; one could argue that habitat fragmentation from adding more power lines across the whole province is equally devastating or worse. Now if we were building a 1 GW farm in the Okanagan, then yes, that would be stupid.

I agree, I don't think we'll see Alberta-scale projects here (and Ontario generates far more solar electricity). The Quilchena project will be much bigger than the band will ever need - it's mostly going into the grid, and presumably will get used in Merritt (in terms of the nearest concentration of electrical demand).

I think the other potential in BC is for individual building roof arrays. A 16 panel arrangement in Victoria already has a 17 year payback, and as prices continue to fall (and electricity prices continue to rise - partly to pay for Site C) it will shorten that. Coupled with a powerwall more isolated properties can easily be off the grid these days.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Changing City

I agree, I don't think we'll see Alberta-scale projects here (and Ontario generates far more solar electricity). The Quilchena project will be much bigger than the band will ever need - it's mostly going into the grid, and presumably will get used in Merritt (in terms of the nearest concentration of electrical demand).

I think the other potential in BC is for individual building roof arrays. A 16 panel arrangement in Victoria already has a 17 year payback, and as prices continue to fall (and electricity prices continue to rise - partly to pay for Site C) it will shorten that. Coupled with a powerwall more isolated properties can easily be off the grid these days.

17- year payback sucks, considering warranties by manufacturers tap out at 25 years.
(They usually last longer, but still.)

Also, toxic waste, and the costs of manufacture make it really bad for solar here.



Anything yellow and below is uneconomical.
It's from 2016, but this still largely applies.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by fredinno

17- year payback sucks, considering warranties by manufacturers tap out at 25 years.
(They usually last longer, but still.)

Also, toxic waste, and the costs of manufacture make it really bad for solar here.

Anything yellow and below is uneconomical.
It's from 2016, but this still largely applies.

They usually last longer. So still worth considering.

There are already some recycling programs, and as more panels reach the end of their life there will be more incentive for companies to develop better systems for extracting and recycling materials. New designs of panels are being developed that use less toxic materials.

A world map from 2016 is pretty useless. A fair amount of BC has sufficient radiation to make solar viable, as you can see here. New designs are making panels more efficient (and cheaper), and that'll only improve the economics.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Changing City

They usually last longer. So still worth considering.

There are already some recycling programs, and as more panels reach the end of their life there will be more incentive for companies to develop better systems for extracting and recycling materials. New designs of panels are being developed that use less toxic materials.

A world map from 2016 is pretty useless. A fair amount of BC has sufficient radiation to make solar viable, as you can see here. New designs are making panels more efficient (and cheaper), and that'll only improve the economics.

Well, if you want to be more green, I guess. There's not going to be many takers unless you subsidize it, and there are better things to subsidize.

In 2016, Zeihan was saying on the red was economically worth it, orange is maybe worth it ecologically, and yellow is DOA.


Also, PV Solar has mostly gotten cheaper, not more efficient, as single-junction cells max out at 33% (you can get more efficient, but by adding more and more layers to get all the different wavelengths, which increases costs.)


Solar Cells are inherently difficult to recycle- and recycling itself is already iffy for things we do have a lot of (like e-waste, which is most comparable to solar cells)- only 17% of e-waste was recycled in 2020, and a lot of that was not really recycled...properly.

No reason to increase the amount of solar panel waste if it's already marginal anyways.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Power grid storage in the future is likely going to be cryogenic or thermal. Li-ion doesn't scale up well enough.

[WarrenC12]

Utility scale battery backup can be made from used EV batteries as well.