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Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

sciencemag.org

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Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#171

Post by liquidise »

rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

Indeed this is already a thing. Denver has a ton of sunlight hours per day/year and Xcel Energy offers homeowners the ability to have Xcel's panels installed on their roofs. In return Xcel fixes your energy bill at some fraction of your present average over the next 5-10 years.

Many of my coworkers took the deal as it feels like a win-win for all parties. Xcel gets a great ROI curve while families feel like they can run their AC's without fear for cost or environmental impact.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#172

Post by Baeocystin »

swinglock wrote: post #164
Baeocystin wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Plus there are many reasons to install solar, not just financial. The thing that surprised us the most when we installed our home solar system was how much cooler the house was during the summer, just because of how much the air-gapped panels on the roof reduced the heating load on the house. We noticed a significant reduction in our AC bills during the couple of months we had the system installed, but couldn't use…

So it works double as another layer of isolation. Seems obvious but I had not considered that before, interesting.

It's definitely one of those makes-sense-in-retrospect kind of things. I'm just surprised it never came up as a point in favor of the systems when discussing with the various solar sales reps- we spoke to several different companies, and not one mentioned it.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#173

Post by driverdan »

js2 wrote: post #100
Animats wrote: post #7

$0.02/Kwh for the solar part is pretty good. A reasonable short-term goal: get 100% of US peak air conditioning load south of 37° N on solar. That's the line from the Virginia/North Carolina border west to central California. Peak solar power output and peak air conditioning load line up pretty well, so that doesn't need storage. Storage is more of an issue for wind, which varies about 4:1 over a day over large areas…

[deleted]

Why would it cost $43k for a 16kW system? You can get the panels for around $0.50/W so those would cost about $8k. Labor is expensive but not that expensive.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#174

Post by bluGill »

johngalt wrote: post #167
rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

You are underestimating how much of your electricity bill is going to capital costs. It's possible that the cost of electricity consumption will drop, but only if it replaced with other costs to subsidize the cost of the various electrical infrastructure. Installing a small amount of solar to offset personal usage at the hottest part of the day is much different than ensuring that varied demands can be met across an…

Rooftop solar makes sense because cost of land is a sunk cost, and thus doesn't have to factor into the total cost of the install. This assumes that solar makes sense for the area though, some houses are shaded too much.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#175

Post by solotronics »

johngalt wrote: post #167
rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

You are underestimating how much of your electricity bill is going to capital costs. It's possible that the cost of electricity consumption will drop, but only if it replaced with other costs to subsidize the cost of the various electrical infrastructure. Installing a small amount of solar to offset personal usage at the hottest part of the day is much different than ensuring that varied demands can be met across an…

So if municipalities tracked the cost to install and maintain the utilities accurately they could split out the infrastructure rate from the kilowatt rate. Once you pay off the cost of your portion of infrastructure then you would only pay for maintenance. This would result in more efficient pricing for watts used of electricity.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#176

Post by avip »

rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

Let's fix some false assumptions first.

1. The cost of a solar power plant is dominated by real-estate and infrastructure.

2. Energy companies are already building large scale solar farms, and have been for over 15 years. As any non-trivial large-scale construction project, these take years to approve and execute.

3. Electricity is far from a free market. In many countries (not sure how US works wtr), there are long-term commitments from grid operators (which are commonly the state) to buy zero-carbon electricity at a set price (in short, clean energy is subsidized pretty much everywhere).

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#177

Post by Scaevolus »

Baeocystin wrote: post #143
PuffinBlue wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only need to think of the other things that solar requires in order to see where scale cost might arise - land and infrastructure. Labour is cheap. Solar needs space and it needs a way to export it's electricity to where it's needed, or to where it is stored. Places where space is cheap enough almost universally don't have infrastructure. So large scale solar does come with large capital costs. Contrast to home o…

>Plus there are many reasons to install solar, not just financial. The thing that surprised us the most when we installed our home solar system was how much cooler the house was during the summer, just because of how much the air-gapped panels on the roof reduced the heating load on the house. We noticed a significant reduction in our AC bills during the couple of months we had the system installed, but couldn't use…

Double-layered roofs are a really easy way to avoid daytime heat gain, and a slightly more sophisticated design minimizes nighttime heat losses too.

Here's a tropical house with multiple roof layers to stay cool: https://www.notechmagazine.com/2013/09/a-passively-cooled-ho...

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/12/something-practical-n... or the paper: http://callippe.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/ORNL_roo...

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#178

Post by ZeroGravitas »

litany wrote: post #158
rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

So the thing is the economics of rooftop solar are a lot different than power station solar. The DOE has public data on how much utilities pay for electricity. In a market like mine, Southern California Edison isn’t an electricity generator, they buy power at about $0.02/kWh but then they sell it to the residential consumer for up to $0.32. So clearly it’s a very different calculation. Regardless of that generators a…

Most research suggests that net metering is underpaying the households that deliver it. This seems very counteri tuitive to people, but remember you're paying an average cost. Gas peakers can cost thousands of times that when load is high. If you use AC then solar and high demand are correlated. At the extremes that means building a whole new powerstation that might only be used for literally hours per year.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#179

Post by drchewbacca »

nexuist wrote: post #101
darksaints wrote: post #46

I know someone who has gone fully off the grid via sailboat and is currently on his way around the world. He converted his sailboat to a hybrid setup (electric engines powered by the same batteries that power his stovetop, refrigerator, etc.). His power sources keeping those batteries charged are solar (1200W) and sail regeneration [0]. He has an 18kw diesel generator as a safety measure. His story is particularly in…

>At this point, I feel like the only reason fossil fuels are used anymore in new projects is inertia Solar might work for boats and trains, but can it work for a plane? What about drones? No renewable energy source can beat gasoline, sans nuclear power (which I think we should be transitioning to, along with the rest of the renewables). MIT built a gas powered drone that lasts 5 days (not minutes!) in the air[1] - th…

You can make jet fuel from air, water and power, it's just hydrocarbons. If we had enough electricity from renewables we could just make all the fossil fuels we wanted.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#180

Post by rossdavidh »

ajross wrote: post #160
rossdavidh wrote: post #156

Good news: non-carbon energy sources will, faster than most of the world currently thinks, force carbon energy sources off the market. This has already started to happen with coal. Bad news: Well the Left may lament the fact that it will not be due to any change of heart or international cooperation, it will just be due to mercenary calculations of cost, and technology. But all of us have to consider what will (not m…

Cynically: to first approximation no one lives in Saudi Arabia. Even if it devolves to a Venezuela style anarchy, we'd still be more worried about Venezuela. Practically: Saudia Arabia is an oil source. Petroleum fuels are going to be with us forever. It's coal (first) and gas (eventually) which are being displaced by better electrical generation options. But if you want to fly an airplane, you really can't replace t…

You _can_, certainly. But I still have the suspicion that a good chunk of the political Left will be dissatisfied that the carbon emissions will plummet without any changes in political beliefs or policies being involved.

As for Saudi Arabia: there's a lot more people living there, than did before there was oil. Yes, we will still use _some_ oil for many years, but if the oil revenue drops to, say, 50% of current levels, I think that there will be problems sooner rather than later.

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