This assigment is due by midnight, Thursday March 12

Finding 10,000 MW of Renewable Energy for Oregon.

Some resources:

• Renewable Energy Atlas of Oregon

• Some Renewable Energy Projects in the NorthWest

• State Energy Alternatives for Oregon

  This assignment is related to the feasibility of Wind Power in various states of the American West and represents a full blown cost analysis.

  To begin with, you need to source the raw data.

  The data can be found at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/washington.pdf for the particular case of Washington state.

  For this assignment, you can choose any of the 11 Western States and simply substitute the name of that state in the browser title bar (i.e. oregon.pdf instead of washington.pdf)

  There is lots of information in these states profiles, most of which we won't use for this assignment, but its nonetheless interesting so you should take some time just to peruse the tables.

  1. Go to table 4 and find the row that says Total Electric Industry. This reports total output in units of Megawatts. Using the data from 2001-2006 determine the growth rate of electrical output (exponential growth rates will be dicussed in class on Thursday Feb 21)

  2. Based on your result, determine the projected power requirement in the year 2020.

  3. Now assume that aggressive energy conservation will occur in that state so the growth rate you previously determined is actually twice as large as it will turn out to be (i.e. if it was 2.5% now its 1.25%). Calculate the year 2020 power requirements with this new growth rate.

  4. For both growth rate cases, now calculate the total number of wind turbines needed to meet this power requirement. Assume:
     • 2.5 MW Turbines
     • 33% capacity factor

  5. Determine the capital cost per capita for your chosen state to build the required number of turbines (again in both growth cases) that you just calculated. Assume a total build and install cost of $1 Million per MW.

  6. Now you calculate the total cost of energy in the scenario where you have full electrical generation 24x7 from Wind Turbines.

     To solve the intermittency problem, you suggest that we use hydrogen to store the wind energy. The round trip efficiency of wind (electricity to hydrogen to electricity) is 25%. That means you will need four times the number of turbines you found previously.

     What will be the total cost of energy per kWh in 2020 in your chosen state (again for both growth scenarios)?

     Answer that question via the following steps:

     • Determine the total capital cost of wind turbine installation using the assumption as stated in question 5.

     • Add to that the cost of hydrogen conversion and fuel cell equipment. Assume this costs 0.75 Million dollars per MW.

     • Assume a "low interest loan" with an average debt service per year of 4% of the capital cost you just determined for both growth scenarios. Calculate the annual capital cost (again in both scenarios)

     • Now calculate the total amount of electricity generated per year (again in both scenarios) in units of KWH/year.

     • Determine the resultant capital cost of energy in units of $ per KWH?

     • Add to that the operating costs of 2cents/kWh to determine the final annual cost of electricity (to the consumer).

     • Based on your results, write a brief policy statement about the feasibility of wind -hydrogen farms (which produce no greenhouse gas emissions) as compared to developing an energy portfolio based on either "clean coal" or natural gas, both of which will have a total cost to the consumer of at least 8.5cents/kWh