I sometimes wonder- if you have a superconducting "pipeline" along the earths rotation direction could those countrys where the sun is still "up" power those where the sun already has set?
Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S
221–230 of 352 posts
Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet the market isn't "actually paying" for battery storage at anywhere near the amount of installed solar capacity... Which was the point you misunderstood: dedicated storage installation are not needed at current production levels, and can be avoided even when solar's share of the energy mix grows. Among the possibilities are "smart" appliances scheduling their demand to production peaks (dishwashers can often wait…
You don't need 1:1 storage for solar production but it is a real problem. Germany and California are both facing the problem of the solar "duck curve", that is, high solar production during the day when demand is low and high electric usage at the end of the day when people get home from work as solar production is tailing off. More than batteries they utilize gas peaker plants, inefficient, dirty and expensive plant…
> Dirty
By coal standards?
Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S
#223The true price of solar is the price to produce reliable, continuous energy. That requires something to smooth out the signal and store the energy, most probably a battery. The solar + battery price is also going down, though not as fast as the solar only piece. But that's the metric we should be following. When that hits $30 per MWh, it'll be game over.
Agreed. Without some alternative form of energy in the morning and evening we may have already reached the saturation point of solar energy. See the Duck curve [1].
Once the heavily regulated energy market has time to adjust to market conditions you are going to see this energy surplus during the day being adjusted for. Where solar panels make economic sense today they may not tomorrow when energy prices for mid-day use plummet due to oversupply.
Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S
#224The true price of solar is the price to produce reliable, continuous energy. That requires something to smooth out the signal and store the energy, most probably a battery. The solar + battery price is also going down, though not as fast as the solar only piece. But that's the metric we should be following. When that hits $30 per MWh, it'll be game over.
To quote Dwight... "False." It is true that a wide electrical grid needs a base load. It is also true that solar isn't great at continuous power because of, you know, the Sun sometimes being behind the Earth. But that doesn't mean you need necessarily need batteries. There are at least two scenarios where you don't: 1. You have an alternative to batteries for storage. This could mean using excess solar power to creat…
With regards to #2: You should study the "duck curve" and "nessie curve".
In particular, in Solar-heavy situations, the peak energy is now 5pm. When the sun begins to set but there's still a large demand of electricity.
Batteries in today's form cannot solve the duck curve. So the only reasonable situation is to use natural gas plants to supply the grid with power. Future batteries need to be built more efficiently and cheaper to deal with the many Gigawatts and Gigawatt-hours (both power AND energy capabilities need to grow) to deal with the future duck curve and/or nessie curves.
Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
For ACs and cooking lunch, yes. For cooking dinner and artificial lighting, no.
Dinner is relevant. Lights… take a standard lightbulb form factor fill it with batteries and coat the outside with LEDs, and it can last most of the night.
Now you’re right back where this started - accounting for the cost of batteries.
Oh, and my stomach says dinner is most definitely not irrelevant.
Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet the market isn't "actually paying" for battery storage at anywhere near the amount of installed solar capacity... Which was the point you misunderstood: dedicated storage installation are not needed at current production levels, and can be avoided even when solar's share of the energy mix grows. Among the possibilities are "smart" appliances scheduling their demand to production peaks (dishwashers can often wait…
You don't need 1:1 storage for solar production but it is a real problem. Germany and California are both facing the problem of the solar "duck curve", that is, high solar production during the day when demand is low and high electric usage at the end of the day when people get home from work as solar production is tailing off. More than batteries they utilize gas peaker plants, inefficient, dirty and expensive plant…
> You don't need 1:1 storage for solar production...
You seem to be referring exclusively to solar photovoltaic.
Solar thermal generation has quite a different, evening-friendly, distribution curve.
Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
You misunderstand the sense of "true" here. The point is not that the "true" price in the sense of what it ought to be. It is the "true" price in the sense of what the market is actually paying for the service. When people put out the number $23, they compare it with the cost of power and wonder why, if it is so much lower, it doesn't already swamp the current solution. So the purpose of the comment is to explain tha…
I've thought about adding solar to my home and can't see any reason why I should even consider a battery for storage. I'm in Texas and so I get plenty of sun and my peak energy demand happens to coincide with that sunlight (due to HVAC). Why should I worry about a complete solution?
Bob Bruninga has written and researched this a great deal. He's pretty well known and respected. He feels grid tie is the way to go for homes (no batteries). Lots of great info here:
Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S
#228The true price of solar is the price to produce reliable, continuous energy. That requires something to smooth out the signal and store the energy, most probably a battery. The solar + battery price is also going down, though not as fast as the solar only piece. But that's the metric we should be following. When that hits $30 per MWh, it'll be game over.
Why can't existing energy infrastructure handle the gaps? Does it take too long to boot up a natural gas plant just for the night? Would still make a huge dent to energy needs and the existing infrastructure already in place.
Because total load on the power grid peaks at 8 PM when solar is providing nearly 0% of the power [1].
This means that no matter how many additional solar panels you add to the system, you are not displacing a single fossil fuel plant. Sure it's good that those plants are running nominally fewer hours per day per additional solar panel, but the cost to own, operate, and maintain the panels is roughly constant.
This results in the effect of increased prices for fossil power in a way that can't be offset by solar.
Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what's generally happening. It's a bit of a limiting factor, though. As you have more and more renewable, you need more and more gas plants which mostly sit around doing nothing, which isn't free. There's also the opposite problem, particularly in the case of wind turbines; if you have enough, then your base-load (ie coal, nuclear, hydro) plus renewable may sometimes exceed demand. This happens from time to ti…
> As you have more and more renewable, you need more and more gas plants This is only true if the load on the grid is growing. In North America, it is not. Otherwise, you already have enough dispatchable generation available when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.
The North American grids will need to start growing again, if electric vehicles become common.
Re: Solar Just Hit a Record Low Price in the U.S
#230There is an interesting part about solar generating electricity when its sunny - it will help population move to warmer climes. If you live in Ohio heating in winter is a problem, solar isn't going to keep you warm on a cold night (ok batteries can help but they're expensive). If you live in the South West though its perfect as Winter nights dont require much heat and the biggest loads are AC at the times when there…
We have a loooong way to go before cost of living in southern California is offsetting energy prices in Ohio.