News/Analysis Flashcards
What is FiT?
Feed in tariff - A feed-in tariff (FIT, FiT, standard offer contract, advanced renewable tariff, or renewable energy payments) is a policy mechanism designed to accelerate investment in renewable energy technologies by offering long-term contracts to renewable energy producers. Their goal is to offer cost-based compensation to renewable energy producers, providing price certainty and long-term contracts that help finance renewable energy investments.
What is FiP?
Feed in premium- A type of feed-in policy, where producers of electricity from renewable sources sell electricity at market prices, and a premium is added to the market price to compensate for higher costs and thus to mitigate financial risks of renewables production
a megawatt
is one million watts
a kilowatt
is one thousand watts
what is the yardstick for measuring electricty?
watts
a hundred watt lightbulb….
consumes 100 watts of power when turned on
if an 100 watt lightbulb was turned on for 4 hours
it would consume 400 Wh of energy (watt hours)
watts measure….
instantaneous power
watt hours measure….
total energy consumed over a period of time
a 100MW rated wind farm is capable of producing?
100MW during peak winds. It depends on wind though.
why would a power plant produce less than it can?
shut down for maintenance, strikes, and if other plants can produce power less expensively
what is the capacity factor?
the ratio of a power plants average production to its rated capability
what is the capacity factor of a 100MW capability that produces 30MW?
30pc (30MW/100MW)
what is load factor?
divide the average load by peak load over a certain period of time
If the residential load at a utility averaged 5,000 MW over the course of a year and the peak
load was 10,000 MW….
residential customers would have a load factor of 50
percent (5,000 MW average divided by 10,000 MW peak).
Who have high and low load factors?
Residential homes tend to have low load factors because people are home and using appliances only during certain hours of the day, while certain industrial customer will have very high load factors because they operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
How do you work out what a plant produces?
knowing the plant’s
rating (capability) and capacity factor
What are very important aspects to knowing what a MW of generation capacity is worth in terms of how many equivalent homes it represents?
The first factor is how much electricity the power plant itself produces, which can be calculated by knowing the plant’s rating and capacity factor. Second, the location of the plant is very important as the amount of
electricity consumed in a typical household can vary dramatically across the country.
