Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
That underscores my point, that Hawaii should have the cheapest electricity in the US, not the most expensive.
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No it doesn't underscore your point. When Hawaii built out most of their generating capacity wind and solar wasn't cheaper so they built out fossil plants. Now they are stuck with those decisions.
Public utilities are given monopolies and in exchange they have to have their budgets and rates approved. No utility board is going to approve massive capital spending plans and the debt and rate increases required to scrap functional generating plants to replace them with wind and solar with battery back-up. That doesn't mean that wind and solar aren't cheaper to build out for new capacity.
When it comes time to replace existing capacity or add new generating capacity utilities and utility boards that approve their capital budgets only care about the actual costs to build out that new equipment and run it. In the real world they don't pretend that their existing generating capacity doesn't exist.
As it stands today coal isn't even in the running when utilities are looking to add capacity. It costs roughly 4x more to build out vs a natural gas plant of the same size, takes longer to build, and is less flexible than a gas plant.
Cheap natural gas made possible by fracking is killing coal in the USA. 15 years ago coal was king. In 2007 the US 2,016 billion kWh from Coal and 897 billion kWh from Natural Gas. In 2021 that flipped with 899 billion kWh from Coal and 1,575 billion kWh from Natural Gas.