Lipp REACH Presentation.Item 18Thoughts on REACH
“The world has just over a decade to get
climate change under control”
U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
REACH would increase Energy Consumption
–Where would that energy come from?
CAISO
NG Base
Load Plants
95%
<30% efficiency
40%
Non Carbon Energy
Today’s Electrical Grid
NG Peaker
Plants
CAISO
NG Base
Load Plants
NG Peaker
Plants
Current Trend without REACH by 2030
CAISO
NG Base
Load Plants
NG Peaker
Plants
Consequences of Implementing REACH
Electric Stove Demand
Added REACH
Demand
CAISO
NG Base
Load Plants
NG Peaker
Plants
Purchasing 100% Green is only Paperwork Transaction
Electric Stove Demand
Energy Myths
Electricity is Green & Clean
Can Purchase 100% Green Energy
Electricity More Efficient than NG
Electricity costs comparable to NG
Energy Truths
Electricity is Green & Clean CA Electricity is only 30% Renewables
Can Purchase 100% Green Energy
Electricity More Efficient than NG
Electricity costs comparable to NG
Energy Truths
Electricity is Green & Clean CA Electricity is only 30% Renewables
Can Purchase 100% Green Energy Can’t Get It Delivered to Our Homes
Electricity More Efficient than NG
Electricity costs comparable to NG
Energy Truths
Electricity is Green & Clean CA Electricity is only 30% Renewables
Can Purchase 100% Green Energy Can’t Get It Delivered to Our Homes
Electricity More Efficient than NG Not for Most Residential Uses
Electricity costs comparable to NG
Energy Truths
Electricity is Green & Clean CA Electricity is only 30% Renewables
Can Purchase 100% Green Energy Can’t Get It Delivered to Our Homes
Electricity More Efficient than NG Not for Most Residential Uses
Electricity costs comparable to NG Electricity 6-12x More Expensive
Fruitless Future-Proofing
Remodeled home 20
years ago -added Cat 5
internet & phone lines
Today Exclusively WIFI
& cell phones
Same professionally: I
almost always guessed
wrong!
Recommended Actions
•Do no harm
•Do not mandate fully electric
•Require minimum futureproofing without too many specifics
•e.g. run EV conduits but not wiring
•Consider dual meters to allow mixed tariffs for different applications
•Work toward big wins –REACH Further
•Work with other cities and agencies (CEC, PUC, SVCE, EPA) to promote better tariffs
•Insist bankrupt PG&E terminate long term contracts for dirty energy
•Speed up Green Energy Deployment
•Give mountain people a break –unreliable PG&E, fires, mudslides
earthquakes are hazards. Never insist upon full electric for remote areas.
They need their propane for cooking, boiling water and heat in an
emergency.
Backup Slides
Other Myths and Reality
•Natural gas leaks increase methane emissions and GHG
•Yes, but mostly upstream. Very little escapes in residences. REACH does not
address upstream
•But, residential refrigerant losses from heat pumps are also a GHG source
•Natural gas pollutes indoor air more than electric cooking
•Rubbish! Unvented electric ovens and spatters on electric elements are way
more polluting
CEC chart
Figure 3-32: Daily average household maximum loads from electrifying all end uses in
a high building electrification scenario
•Change appliances from gas to electric and somehow electric usage goes down!
*Very questionable assumption that peak loads are dramatically reduced in 2050 as more homes are fully
electrified, and a couple of EVs are added
*
Negative Pricing
-Too Much Solar,
too little storage
Electric Stoves Turning On a Couple
of Hours Later?
Primarily supplied by low efficiency
Peaker Plants
Windy during
peak hours
Greatest mismatch in usage/generation occurs on a hot September
afternoon during sunset as solar generation declines but AC is still
on and cooking starts –how is that peak mismatch generated?
Generating Heat from Electricity
It’s basically crazy to burn NG to generate steam to spin a turbine then
send it tens to hundreds of miles through lossy transformers and
transmission lines
Using a 40% efficiency of the heat content of NG delivered to the
consumer:
Compared to NG:
•An electric dryer generates 250% more GHG
•A conventional water heater generates 200% more; a heat pump based water
heater generates 50% less
•But, heat pump water heaters cost about $1,000 more, cost twice as much to operate,
and chill the room they are in –which may lead to increased space heating –e.g. using an
electric space heater in that garage workshop
Cooking with Electricity
A Dirty Way to Go
•A conventional electric stove generates 135% more GHG than NG at
base load times
•Efficiency per CEC : NG 40%, resistive electric 74%, inductive electric 84%
•Really? They can calculate this down to 1% accuracy? Huge variation based on
pan sizes and cooking temperatures
•Cooking that evening meal during peak usage times (4-8PM) requires
deployment of low efficiency peaker plants
•A conventional electric stove actually generates 200% more GHG at peak
hours
•An electric oven generates 250% more GHG than NG
•Imagine how many low efficiency peaking generators would go off
line if everyone cooked with NG!
Heat Pump Space Heating
•A potentially very big win in our climate
•COP* can be as high as 5 (though typically <4 in real life operations
•e.g. dirt accumulation and defrost cycling
•However, current tariffs penalize heat pumps -both tiered pricing and
time-of-day
•Electrical energy costs over 6x more than NG
•Tier prices designed to reduce energy usage make heat pumps an expensive
proposition
•If I want to cook with gas I cannot get the fully electric tier tariff, a huge disincentive for heat
pump heating!
•Heat pumps should be operated without large rapid changes in temperature
•Engages resistive heating to meet sudden demand
•Turning down the thermostat way down while away at work, nights or during peak pricing
periods may actually increase electrical usage rather than save it.
*COP (coefficient of performance) = energy out/energy in
Axioms
•Grid operators will always use available green energy first unless forced
otherwise by long term contracts as the variable cost is near zero. All
demand above that will be supplied by NG
•Less than 40% of the energy content of power plant fuel gets delivered
to your home (basic thermodynamics puts a strict limit on this)
•For the common NG turbine peaking plants (jet engines) it is under 30%
•Increased REACH demands will be met by slowing down retirement of
NG fired plants since the supply of green energy at any time is finite
•Essentially all new (i.e. REACH electrification) demand will be supplied from
existing dirty energy sources!
•Other GHGs such as NG leaks and refrigerant leaks happen but pretty
much net out on overall tradeoffs according to CEC estimates
A Personal Aside
•I changed my kitchen from fully electric to a NG stove. I think anyone doing
a major remodel wouldn’t seriously worry about the reverse -running
electric wires on a kitchen remodel if they were changing from NG to
electricity. It’s a small expense in the scheme of things.
•I installed a fancy electric wall oven. It is unvented and fills the house with
cooking fumes. It is too far from my super large 1,200cfm stove fan. The
manufacturer says it cannot be vented. My guess is a NG stove would have
to be vented by code. I waste a huge amount of energy (fan power and
heat/AC loss) by running the fan on high trying to reduce the fumes (a
double whammy on energy efficiency).
•Having had both electric and NG kitchens, my experience is electric cooking
is a far greater contributor to in-house pollution than gas
•Spatters smoke on conventional electric stoves, while a spatter on a NG stove is
unlikely to hit the hot flames and when it does it is consumed.
•Electric broilers are essentially unusable due to grease spatters on the elements. NG
broilers consume most of the fumes from cooking and don’t have much of a spatter
issue.
Electric Car Hookups
•Electric cars are a big win as conventional gas engines are only 20%
efficient and use high carbon fuel
•Dual meters are interesting –one for electric car charging so better tariffs
can be developed for them (but, who knows what will happen!)
•Electric cars are potentially a big win but need to be better integrated with the grid
operation and grid pricing
•New meters are an expensive retrofit
•Wait for more standards before making possibly counterproductive rules
•Faster charging options may be developed
•Electric cars may someday be integrated with grid storage
•Whatever is done now will be obsolete
Residential Batteries
•Storage is a big issue with renewables
•Large scale grid battery storage can be implemented at a fraction of
the cost of residential batteries and be better maintained and
integrated with grid operations and pricing
•Residential batteries a marginal idea
•A 10kW $3,500 Tesla battery stores less than $0.30 worth of electricity at
normal wholesale prices (~$3 at peak prices)