In case anybody knows, what will happen to those batteries? Can they be recycled in any way?
Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
231–240 of 432 posts
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#232I’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…
Frankly I don't get why people install solar except in consistently sunny places like Hawaii, Arizona and some parts of California. Financially you're pretty much always better off paying utility rates. If you _really_ care about the environment, there's currently no cleaner tech than nuclear, even after you factor in things like nuclear waste and a couple of major disasters. If you only "woke" care about the environment but not really, utility renewables are much better both in the short and the long run, so again, just pay your utility for electricity and vote in the lawmakers who will set up the incentive structure to make that happen. You'll be paying twice as much for electricity (as Germans are now finding out), but I'm sure it's worth it to some.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can't believe all the comments so far and no one feels the need to justify their opinion with numbers. Drives me nuts. You are correct, according to National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), rooftop solar is over twice as expensive as utility scale solar[0]. The NREL estimate is helpful in that it details the components of the cost. And, as you would expect, the hardware and labor costs are lower for utility scale becaus…
that report puts a 76,800 square foot foundation (so perhaps triple that for total land usage) at $250,000. Is that anywhere remotely in the realms of reality for an area that might actually get permitted and connected at the other assumptions they've made? It wouldn't be in my country (UK).
Not sure if it's still the largest, but this plant is a few hours drive away from where I live in Phoenix:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2014/04/29/behold-th...
That's 2400 acres and it's up and running - so I assume permitted and connected to the grid. But I don't know the the total cost to compare things - I'd assume rather cheap, because Yuma is...not a "destination" (outside of maybe a stopover for the dunes).
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
As others have pointed out, wholesale energy cost is only about $0.02 per KW/H, yet retail is usually over $0.2 KW/H. Even if the wholesale cost of energy drops to $0, you are only dropping about 10% of the total cost of energy. Of course, this brings up another interesting question that has been a hot button issue; if power companies are supplying less and less power (since more and more people are getting their own…
It's not that complicated. There are countries in Europe that, in addition to metered price per kWh used also have a fixed price for grid usage. If you feel you're completely self-sufficient and can survive without the grid, you can cut it off and pay nothing. If you use your own power but want to keep the grid connection for backup, you pay for grid access but nothing for power (or get a discount or a refund, or mon…
The weird thing about fixed price grid attachment is that it encourages people to disconnect from the grid and to not install local solar to begin with.
If you pay a fixed price for the grid then your price per kWh goes down and it makes less sense to put solar panels on your roof because they need to beat the lower price per kWh unless you can get entirely off the grid.
But then you do have the incentive to get entirely off the grid if you can, because it gets you out of the grid attachment fee. So it justifies more in the way of batteries to avoid that cost.
In other words, it makes solar + grid attachment unprofitable, so your viable options become full grid or full independence. Then depending on which one has lower costs at scale, it either ends rooftop solar or ends the power grid.
And that could go either way. The power grid has economies of scale, but it also has transmission costs that don't exist for local generation, so which one wins?
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a big fan of that study. It suggests there may be an opportunity for a company to push rooftop solar for big strip malls and other large footprint single owner buildings - they aren't utility scale, but the install efficiencies make them pretty competitive. The incentives would be tricky, since the owners are less likely to be paying for utilities than the leaseholders...
If a moderate sized location goes out of business would solar panels have decent resale value?
Well, the prizes for new panels are still falling. And the cost of moving them might be too high..
But even used solar panels will be in demand.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#236Seriously! I'm an old time R/C enthusiast who romps frequently and still buys a toy here and there. I got out of R/C for a little bit so the last pack I bought was a 4,200mah 7.4 volt LiPo from a tiny mom+pop manufacturer. The pack is well taken care of and probably 7 or 8 years old. It's time for a new one.
I just looked up a replacement battery by the same manufacturer and their 7.4v LiPo's are up to 22,000 mah! That's almost 525% bigger than my last pack! That kind of capacity was only a dream back then, and 20 years ago when NiMH was the only game in town we were racing 30mph with 3,300!
I thought it was a typo. But other manufacturers are offering similar products.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solar farms are spreading & starting to take over a lot of quality farmland in the northern midwest because of the scale/price reasons you suggest.
Wind farms, maybe. I'm not seeing a lot of utility-scale solar (yet) around here. I'm in MN and travel to IA regularly, past the enormous wind farms. A wind farm has negligible impact on farmland use.
MN has been a big proponent & has several. IL just passed a energy jobs act & looks to have a few being built. ND is about to build their first one to supply electricity to MN I believe.
There are studies on mix use farmland & solar. Some crops work well. Also in some scenarios it seems as if solar farms are becoming more profitable than crops.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#238Earlier 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…
I'm eager for architects to incorporate shading into their designs. I love the louvres on the south face of the downtown Phoenix library. I imagine future iterations will put solar panels on those louvres. Here's a pic with the louvres open. https://www.archdaily.com/255208/burton-barr-central-library... Rooftop decks being so popular now, I expect someone clever will eventually add solar panels as shades.
ASU and Mesa Community College both use solar panel installs as covered parking areas; Fry's Marketplace over at Bell and I-17 has their parking lot under a solar panel shade structure, too.
So the idea is already there and makes sense; it's just a matter of time for it to be adopted on the consumer home market I suppose.
Now - if they would just manufacture homes to also suit the climate, and/or position them to stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, etc.
Had the dome style of home taken off, especially here in Phoenix, things would be much better, because the roof wouldn't get nearly as much sun hitting it directly as standard ranch-style homes and others currently do. Monolithic dome construction, coupled with a mostly below-grade first floor, would do wonders for heating and cooling (I know of a house almost like that up in the New River area). Add in a solar chimney with evap cooling (Boyce Thompson Arboretum used to have a demo system like this), and you'd limit AC/heatpump usage to probably 1-2 months a year.
I wish I had the money to build such a home on a decent size plot of land somewhere, but I doubt I ever will.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#239Seriously! I'm an old time R/C enthusiast who romps frequently and still buys a toy here and there. I got out of R/C for a little bit so the last pack I bought was a 4,200mah 7.4 volt LiPo from a tiny mom+pop manufacturer. The pack is well taken care of and probably 7 or 8 years old. It's time for a new one. I just looked up a replacement battery by the same manufacturer and their 7.4v LiPo's are up to 22,000 mah! Th…
Is there a theoretical limit to (current generation) battery capacity, like there is with solar panel power output?
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#240> .. addressing its chief flaw: It works only when the sun shines.
This never fails to frustrate me. Solar cells / PVC won't work absent sunshine, but solar thermal / CSP produces power for many hours after the sun goes down.