Comment on 'Air Emissions Due to Wind and Solar Power'
Katzenstein and Apt investigate the important question of pollution emission reduction benefits from variable generation resources such as wind and solar. Their methodology, which couples an individual variable generator to a dedicated gas plant to produce a flat block of power, is, however, inappropriate. For CO{sub 2}, the authors conclude that variable generators ''achieve {approx}80% of the emission reductions expected if the power fluctuations caused no additional emissions.'' They find even lower NO{sub x} emission reduction benefits with steam injected gas turbines and a 2--4 times net increase in NO{sub x} emissions for systems with dry NO{sub x} control unless the ratio of energy from natural gas to variable plants is greater than 2:1. A more appropriate methodology, however, would find a significantly lower degradation of the emissions benefit than suggested by Katzenstein and Apt.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC36-08GO28308
- OSTI ID:
- 1021207
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Environmental Science and Technology
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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