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The US is using so much solar power it'll have to prepare for the August eclipse

qz.com

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Re: The US is using so much solar power it'll have to prepare for the August eclipse

#31

Post by mikeyouse »

luckydude wrote: post #19
jpitz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is during peak air conditioning load, and air conditioning is used most when when... wait... the sun is out.

Yeah but this article is silly. Solar isn't a given, you can have a cloudy day. Or days. So the grid already has to be prepared to deal with this. It's a known problem, happens every night. The company that solves storage in a meaningful way is gonna get rich. By meaningful I mean at scale and portable. I know you can pump water up to a reservoir and let it back out to generate power but that's not portable. Anyone k…

On a really dark cloudy day, you're still generating something like 30-40% of the energy as you would in bright sunlight.

Eclipses are much tougher since even on cloudy days, there's enough variance over a region that your output would rarely drop more than 50% (there's a mitigating benefit to clouds where they reflect a lot of light back to the earth). During an eclipse though, something like 5,000 square miles of land drop to 0%.

Re: The US is using so much solar power it'll have to prepare for the August eclipse

#33

Post by kwhitefoot »

pwg wrote: post #14
ComputerGuru wrote: post #3

QZ has become a spam and advertising cesspool. I couldn't find the story the first two times I tried until I realized by default it only shows ads and garbage until you click the small "show story" button.

I clicked over to the linked site using Firefox running NoScript in default deny JS mode. The whole text of the article appeared, ready to read. Granted it is a very short article, but it appeared just fine.

Same with uBlock with Privacy Badger.

Re: The US is using so much solar power it'll have to prepare for the August eclipse

#34

Post by mark-r »

abdulmuhaimin wrote: post #25
mikeash wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at 11AM it isn't.

dont these solar companies have to deal with rains, thunderstorm and other stuff too??? not every 11AM is a sunny day

Any individual power company would have to deal with this, but the graphic implies that the entire US will be inside the eclipse for a while. The usual strategy of buying from someone else on the grid who has a surplus won't be viable, they'll be relying entirely on standby generators.

Re: The US is using so much solar power it'll have to prepare for the August eclipse

#35

Post by mark-r »

glitcher wrote: post #20
yathern wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that people will turn off their air conditioners for the brief <5 minutes of darkness? I really doubt this.

In a very near total solar eclipse in I believe the summer of 1991, it was a blistering hot day in Arizona and during the eclipse the temperature dropped substantially. I don't know the numbers, but I remember being surprised at how nice and comfortable the temperature drop was, which lasted for much longer than 5 minutes.

How much of a lag was there between the eclipse itself and the drop in temperature? Even if the drop is immediate I don't expect the thermostats to turn off right away, as it will take some time for the cold to migrate into buildings.

Re: The US is using so much solar power it'll have to prepare for the August eclipse

#36

Post by Caveman_Coder »

davedx wrote: post #21
edent wrote: post #2

This occurred a few years ago in Europe - I graphed what happened with my solar panels. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2015/03/the-eclipses-effect-on-sola... For UK / Europe the effect was broadly similar to normal cloud cover. Something that California rarely experiences ;-) An eclipse is more predictable than the weather - so other sources of energy can be used to offset any disruption.

Yup! Grid operators will have this planned in well ahead of the date.

Yes indeed, we are mandated by NERC to have reserved for such events...it won't be an issue at all.

Re: The US is using so much solar power it'll have to prepare for the August eclipse

#37

Post by Caveman_Coder »

snowwindwaves wrote: post #16

Good thing they have 6000MW of dispatchable generation they can crank up when they need it. I wonder how much spare capacity they have and how much the people that own it get paid to have it on standby.

CAISO will do it's job and CA residents won't notice a thing...APS, BPA, and PAGE will make a good profit that day...utility planners/schedulers will minimize line work (especially on the BES), and everything will be normal

Re: The US is using so much solar power it'll have to prepare for the August eclipse

#39

Post by Caveman_Coder »

jpitz wrote: post #28
luckydude wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but this article is silly. Solar isn't a given, you can have a cloudy day. Or days. So the grid already has to be prepared to deal with this. It's a known problem, happens every night. The company that solves storage in a meaningful way is gonna get rich. By meaningful I mean at scale and portable. I know you can pump water up to a reservoir and let it back out to generate power but that's not portable. Anyone k…

No, seriously, during summer, peak residential and commercial load correlates with solar heating. Unless you have residential load-shedding installed in your footprint, coordinating with industrial loads is your best bet to reduce peak demand. The article isn't silly. It's a known problem, but utilities and operators move at a glacial pace due to their scale and regulatory issues. This can make it difficult for start…

It's not really a problem at all...the WECC utility companies have ample reserves, CA will just buy MW from APS, BPA, and PGE on the EIM (run by CAISO)...I'm not sure how this process is affected by utility company and operator "pace" in the slightest, in fact the ability to buy energy and transfer it from one BA to another happens every second...how would you envision this industry being "disrupted"?

Re: The US is using so much solar power it'll have to prepare for the August eclipse

#40

Post by luckydude »

Caveman_Coder wrote: post #39
jpitz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, seriously, during summer, peak residential and commercial load correlates with solar heating. Unless you have residential load-shedding installed in your footprint, coordinating with industrial loads is your best bet to reduce peak demand. The article isn't silly. It's a known problem, but utilities and operators move at a glacial pace due to their scale and regulatory issues. This can make it difficult for start…

It's not really a problem at all...the WECC utility companies have ample reserves, CA will just buy MW from APS, BPA, and PGE on the EIM (run by CAISO)...I'm not sure how this process is affected by utility company and operator "pace" in the slightest, in fact the ability to buy energy and transfer it from one BA to another happens every second...how would you envision this industry being "disrupted"?

So the problem that I (and I think others) see is a time where solar is providing more than 50% of our power. Or 100% of our power if that makes it more clear.

Then where do you pick up the slack?

Maybe your point is that we get it long distance from places that are not covered in clouds?

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