Alberta+ Power KPI's. Tough to compete with Natural Gas, even when overly burdened vs wind solar LCOE's for the reasons listed below.

Referenced from actual data from Alberta and scientific journals:

These concepts are quite complicated. There are many variables, each jurisdiction will have their own nuances. It's important to understand that LCOE's are directional, caution is advised as they positively skew renewable energy (RE)

Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is expressed in $/MWh. LCOE is a normalized means to show how much a technology costs to generate electricity over the life. Dials that get turned in RE favor are life of the asset and capacity factor (CF), opposite is true for natural gas. Weird.

Capacity factor is how much power is generated vs installed....using 1 day (24 hours) as an example.

EG: 100MW installed at 100% CF = 100*24*1=2,400MWh
100MW installed at 30% CF = 100*24*0.3=720MWh

Increasing decreases the total cost of the asset (LCOE) buy increasing the total power delivered. EG: The AESO uses a CF for wind and solar of 42.5% and 21%, while actual data shows 30% and 16% respectively.

I've corrected wind and Solar's LCOE's to represent actual data in the first table in this thread.

Why? Because using a higher assumed capacity factor makes RE look cheaper than reality on a $/MWh basis. When actual data is pulled from the AUC, you can see that CF's for RE's in Alberta isn't even close.

Also note that a 81% capacity factor is used for Natural Gas CC. This is too low in my mind. Mechanical limitations for these units are over 90%...but that would make gas look better so best to use the low end to help push the RE narrative

Life of the asset is another dial to turn. The longer the asset's life the more power it will generate and therefore lower the LCOE of the asset. Wind uses 20 years as does Natural Gas Solar 30 years.

From what I've picked up through my research the high end estimation for solar and wind are being used and the low end for natural gas for moth life and CF. Again, hurting the natural gas LCOE's while showing a best base for wind and solar.

Solar and wind simply do not work if reliability is part of the decision making criteria. Battery's do not work for longer than 4-8 hours so that is not even an option.

If batteries were an option for reliable power (physics dictate they are not), they are very expensive, quite dirty (think mining these metals), only have a 10 year life, and add inefficiencies to power conversion losing 15% through the transition

Anyone who says batteries can be used at scale for backup is either lying or simply doesn't understand. They can be used for peaking (4-8 hours), but that's about it....but natural gas would be a better option

Here is actual data from Alberta. Not the yellow (wind) and Solar (purple) as a % of capacity. Note that if we relied on solar and wind + batter backup there would be no power available

Renewable trickery lies in showing a LCOE that already skews RE in a positive light without considering the cost of backup power, or addressing reliability (horrible capacity factors)

Adding RE capacity increases intermittency. Ironically, this increases the requirements for simple cycle gas power. Which is much dirtier than CC, and more expensive.

So you have to ask the question, why not skip wind or solar and build the required reliable natural gas or nuclear backup that needs built anyways. Politics, narratives and virtue signaling. RE is sexy, and sex sells

Wind is better than solar, and there is a place for these technologies but at very low penetration rates. Solar should not be considered in Canada due to low capacity factors (~15%).

Please remember these are complicated, multi-variable and detailed concepts. Tough to provide deserved detail on Twitter, hopefully this is a good start.