Coal is king in Indiana when it comes to making electricity, but not for much longer. On October 31, Northern Indiana Public Service Co. filed its latest Integrated Resource Plan ? the company’s road map to the future. After considering more than 30 different proposals, NIPSCO found a mix of solar, wind, energy storage, and demand management ? along with a small amount of purchases from Midcontinent ISO ? to be the most cost effective way to supply its customers with electricity in coming years.
Schahfer coal fired generating station will be replaced by renewables
In fact, the analysis that went into creating the IRP shows the plan will save NIPSCO customers more than $4 billion over the next 30 years. The plan will see the role of coal decrease from 65% today to 15% in 2023 before reaching zero in 2028. The company owns and operates the 1900 MW Schahfer coal generating station located in Wheatfield, Indiana. Schahfer is one of the dirtiest facilities in the US, spewing out more than 8 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. Its newest units were built in the 1980s.
To replace its Schahfer and Michigan City coal fired generating plants, NIPSCO plans to use a mixture of 1,500 MW of solar and storage, 150 MW of wind, 125 MW of efficiency and demand-side management, and 50 MW of market purchases by 2028, according to Utility Dive.
The Indiana Coal Council begged the utility to take another look at its figures before making a decision. But even taking the best case scenario suggest by the Council, which included higher natural gas prices than exist today, the numbers still added up to a win for renewables. “Across all scenarios, converting both Unit 17 and 18 [of Schahfer] would cost NIPSCO customers between $540 [million] to $1.04 [billion] more than retirement and replacement with economically optimized resource selections from the RFP results,” the utility reported.
The score? Renewables 1, coal 0. That is remarkable in a state that ranks 7th in the US in coal production and 3rd in coal consumption. The transition will come with some costs, however. Connecting all those new renewable resources to the grid will require some expenditures to build new infrastructure. The IRP calls for a temporary increase of $11 in the monthly utility bills of NIPSCO customers, reports the Indianapolis Star.
Mark Maasel, president of the Indiana Energy Association, says “There is no question that there are efforts out there to sustain the coal industry, but the reality is that economics are driving the decisions that these utilities are making.” Economics are also doing what the Obama Clean Power Plan wanted to do (the Schahfer plant was one of the primary targets of the CPP) but couldn’t. They will also overwhelm the political fight in places like Arizona where voters last Tuesday rejected a plan that would require the state’s utilities to get 50% of their energy from renewable sources by 2030.
Economics will do what politicians cannot. There is no engine on Earth that can restrain the imperative of lower prices for long.
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此処迄来ている。石炭や原子力みたいに燃やしっぱなしのベース電源は不効率。
>After considering more than 30 different proposals, NIPSCO found a mix of solar, wind, energy storage, and demand management ? along with a small amount of purchases from Midcontinent ISO
The web of Mid.cont. ISO is as below. https://www.misoenergy.org/
MISO is a not-for-profit member-based organization that ensures reliable, least-cost delivery of electricity across all or parts of 15 U.S. states and one Canadian province. In cooperation with stakeholders, MISO manages approximately 65,000 miles of high-voltage transmission and 200,000 megawatts of power-generating resources across its footprint.
今や石炭を抜き、石油に次ぐ1次エネルギーとして重要度が増しているＬＮＧ（液化天然ガス）。その輸入において、日本のエネルギー史に残る第一歩が先日、静かに踏み出された。（「週刊ダイヤモンド」編集部?片田江康男）
米ルイジアナ州のサビンパスLNG基地から約７万トンのLNGを積み、約１カ月間かけて新潟県の上越火力発電所に到着したLNG船「オーク・スピリット」号?Photo by Yasuo Katatae
Masashi Hishida, Atsumasa Iwanaga, Yoshiyuki Wakabayashi, Katsuyuki Ueda, Kimishiro Tokuda
当社では，天然オリノコと水のエマルジョン燃料であるオリマルジョンの発電用燃 料としての実用化を目指し，１９８６年から種々試験・研究を推進し，１９９１年 から鹿島北共同発電（株）２号ボイラにて国内初のオリマルジョンだき改造を行っ た。ここでは，１９９４年に将来の燃料多様化に備え実機スケールの各種実証試験 を行うため，国内事業用ボイラとして初めてオリマルジョンだきに改造した関西電 力（株）大阪発電所４号ボイラの例に基づいて，オリマルジョンだきの改造概要及 び運転実績を紹介する。 （著者抄録）
Orimulsion, Orinoco-oil emulsified with water, has been the subject of a study for practical application as a fuel for utility boilers, and MHI has conducted various research & development works since 1986. And in 1991 the Unit No.2 boiler of Kashima Kita Joint Electric Power Co. was modified for OrimulsionR firing for the first time in Japan. This paper describes the features of the modification for OrimulsionR firing and field operating data of the boiler based on the experience at the Unit No.4 Boiler of The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. which was the first utility boiler to be modified for OrimulsionR firing in Japan in order to demonstrate many kinds of large-scale tests for the variety of fuels in the future.
