Busbar Electricity Prices at the Tehachapi Wind Farm This Evening.

[NNadir]

The "Busbar" price of electricity is the price paid more or less at the generation source where it connects to the grid. It is more or less equivalent to the Incoterm FOB.

The California ISO website has a map based report of pricing at all California Power plants. It is here: Real Time Electricity Pricing.

The Tehachapi "wind resources area" has a Wikipedia page, describing its size and capacity: Tehachapi Wind Resource Area

Here is some interesting text from that Wikipedia page:

It is the largest wind resource area in California, encompassing an area of approximately 800 sq mi (2,100 km2) and producing a combined 3,507 MW of renewable electricity between its 5 independent wind farms.

800 square miles...2,100 sq km, 3,507 MW. I accept these as "facts," but if someone would like to suggest, "alternate facts," feel free to do so.

On the pricing page linked, you have to move the cursor over the plant, whereupon pricing will pop-up at that plant. The five Tehachapi wind plants are located pretty much due East of Pismo Beach, near the town of Mohave. You can zoom in and out to isolate it using the + and - keys at the bottom of the map. The prices at power plants change with market flows and are tied to the load of the State of California. As of this writing, 19:30 PDT, 6:30 PM, the State of California is consuming 37,449 MW of electricity, down from the peak demand at 18:00 PDT (6:00 PM PDT) of 38,709 MW. As of 19:30 PDT, all of the wind facilities in the entire State of California, including but not limited to the Tehachapi wind resources area were producing 4,678 MW of power. At the low point today, which occurred at 12:10 PDT, (12:10 PM PDT), at which all of the wind facilities in the entire State of California, including but not limited to the Tehachapi wind resources area were producing 1,319 MW of power, or roughly 0.5 MW per square mile if we, without real justification, imagine that all of California's wind turbines were in the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area Industrial Park. Actually this stuff is spread over a much larger area of the State of California.

Here, by the way, is an aerial view of part of the marvelous wind plant:



Notice all those delicious service roads for diesel trucks. Delicious...

Some prices at the plants as of 17:40 PDT (6:40 PM):

ENCWND: $77.49/MWh.
North Wind $77.09/MWh
TOT162W4_7_N001 $77.51/MWh.
ALTAD2_7_N006 $77.94/MWh.
ARBWIND_6_N001 $77.73/MWh

The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant operates as a physical plant, on 12 acres, (0.018 sq miles or 0.049 sq km) on a plot of around 700 acres (1.1 sq miles or 2.2 sq km), most of which is undisturbed marine chaparral. The plant has been producing between 2261 MW (low) and 2267 MW (high) consistently and reliably all day long, as of 18:30 PDT, July 12, 2021. In other words, the land footprint of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant is 0.1% that of the Tehachapi Wind Resources Area.

The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant is located on the California coast, just north of Pismo Beach, and South of Morro Bay.

As of 20:05, the plant's busbar operating cost was:

DIABLOCN_2_N001: $82.68/MWh

This by the way is a lower price than is being observed at the nearby Dangerous Natural gas plants nearby in Pismo Beach

CALLENDR_1_N001 $85.06/MWh.

OCEANO_1_N004 $85.04

...and slightly higher than the price at the Morro Bay dangerous natural gas plant, $82.45/MWh.

At 18:30 PDT (6:30 PM PDT), dangerous natural gas plants in California were producing 21,133 MW of power.

Note that electricity prices swing wildly during the day, depending on load and supply for all power plants. These prices apply to an early evening on a hot day.

Note that the prices observed at Diablo Canyon do not include, as the wind plants should but don't, the costs associated with the necessary back up plants. It doesn't matter at Diablo Canyon if the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. The Diablo Canyon, unlike the gas plants, is able to contain all of its by products, the very valuable used nuclear fuel, on site, in contrast to the dangerous natural gas plants, which are allowed to dump the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide directly into the planetary atmosphere at no cost, except for the cost to all future generations and all living things as a result of extreme climate change.

The State of California is now tragically experiencing more wild fires, as it has done in several recent years with increasing regularity. To my mind this is a function of the fact that the half of century of jaw boning about how wind and solar energy would save the world didn't work, isn't working and won't work, if the goal is to address climate change.

If, on the other hand, the goal is to lace the desert with access roads, the "renewable energy" industry in California is doing just great.

Because of appeals to fear and ignorance and wishful thinking, the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant will begin closing in 2024, and will stop producing climate change gas free electricity for the California grid.

Have a nice day tomorrow.