It takes an immense amount of coal to make steel turbines.
It takes an immense amount of natural gas peaking facilities to counterbalance Solar and Wind's draw downs.
Manufacturing photovoltaic panels with low-carbon electricity (for example, in a solar-powered factory), and installing them in a high-carbon-intensity country would tip the balance. Right now we do the opposite.
Solar actually INCREASES gas consumption.
You have to provide for a fixed power demand with 2 systems.
-Combined cycle methane gas plant (cc)
-Methane Peaker backed Solar PV(pvp)
"Epvp=Epeak/(1-Cpv)
Your effective time average methane energy consumption efficiency (electrical energy out / chemical heat in) for pvp is going to be the peaker efficiency divided by 1 - the capacity factor of the PV:
Epvp = Epeak / (1 - Cpv)
The methane energy efficiency of cc, Ecc, is fixed
One can find the methane breakeven capacity factor, Cpvbe by setting Epvp=Ecc and solving for Cpv:
Cpvbe = 1 - Epeak/Ecc
Epeak ~ a generous 42%
Ecc ~ 62%
Plugging these numbers in yields:
Cpvbe = 1-42/62 = 32% which means unless your capacity factor meets or exceeds 32% that solar imposes a net methane opportunity cost backing it up with a gas peaker plant in comparison to gas combined cycle.
This is a very poorly worded comment. I had to read it multiple times to get your point: Gas plants that run continuously (combined-cycle) have much higher efficiencies than peaker plants, so solar+peaker can have a lower efficiency than combined-cycle gas plants on their own.
I have a few questions about this. How do combined-cycle plants adjust to changes in demand? Do we need to compare solar+peaker to combined-cycle+peaker to have a fair comparison? Or do combined-cycle plants allow for lower changes in output than peakers, such that (e.g.) a 10% solar 90% combined-cycle system could adjust as well? The grid is a whole system, not just two power plants.
Finally, nobody is advocating for just solar+peaker. Solar+wind+peaker will easily get you over the 32% threshold, as solar and wind tend to provide power at different times (not perfectly, sadly). If you have some storage available (preferably hydro, but possibly other), then you get an even higher effective capacity factor.
It takes an immense amount of natural gas peaking facilities to counterbalance Solar and Wind's draw downs.
Manufacturing photovoltaic panels with low-carbon electricity (for example, in a solar-powered factory), and installing them in a high-carbon-intensity country would tip the balance. Right now we do the opposite.
Solar actually INCREASES gas consumption.
You have to provide for a fixed power demand with 2 systems.
-Combined cycle methane gas plant (cc)
-Methane Peaker backed Solar PV(pvp)
"Epvp=Epeak/(1-Cpv)
Your effective time average methane energy consumption efficiency (electrical energy out / chemical heat in) for pvp is going to be the peaker efficiency divided by 1 - the capacity factor of the PV:
Epvp = Epeak / (1 - Cpv)
The methane energy efficiency of cc, Ecc, is fixed One can find the methane breakeven capacity factor, Cpvbe by setting Epvp=Ecc and solving for Cpv: Cpvbe = 1 - Epeak/Ecc
Epeak ~ a generous 42%
Ecc ~ 62%
Plugging these numbers in yields:
Cpvbe = 1-42/62 = 32% which means unless your capacity factor meets or exceeds 32% that solar imposes a net methane opportunity cost backing it up with a gas peaker plant in comparison to gas combined cycle.
You can find the capacity factors for solar here: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...