Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by hokkos » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 7:36 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #318

StreamBright wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be. Other sources claim it to be otherwise. "As of January 2010, the USGS estimated world total lithium reserves at 9.9×109 kg (economically extractable now) and identified lithium resources at 2.55 × 1010 kg (potentially economic). Most of the identified resources are in Bolivia and Chile (9 × 109 kg and 7.5 × 109 kg, respectively). World lithium production is currently on the order of 2 × 107 kg per year. If…

I'm assuming that you mean 9.9 × 10⁹ kg of economically-extractable-now reserves and 2.55 × 10¹⁰ kg of potentially economic reserves, not 2575.5 kg, which is what 2.55 × 1010 would work out to. The estimates of lithium abundance in the earth's crust have a low end of 20 ppm. The crust averages about 40 km thick and 3 g/cc in the 29% of the Earth that has continents, which works out to 1.5 × 10¹⁴ m², 5.9 × 10¹⁸ m³, 1.…

But if we need from 8 to 16 weeks of batteries storage for long duration seasonal energy storage, this is not going to work out.

https://static.clearpath.org/2018/04/EIRP-Deep-Decarb-Lit-Re...

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

#352

Post by Animats » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 7:37 AM UTC

organsnyder wrote: post #166

Animats wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

very situational Yes. You need a mountain lake and a low level lake close to each other, and the lakes aren't useful for much else because the water level goes way up and down every day. The US has 10 pumped storage plants bigger than a gigawatt, and few attractive sites for more.

Or build a reservoir next to a body of water. The Ludington Pumped Storage Plant next to Lake Michigan has 2172 MW of generating capacity and 19,548 MWh of storage capacity.

That site has a hill. 111 meter difference between the reservors. More would be better, but that part of the country doesn't have mountains.

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

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Post by biddlesby » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 7:53 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #255

astanway wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wholesale price is definitely not “zero”. It fluctuates wildly, and if a retailer is exposed to the real time market at the flow date, they can expect to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. RTM prices can easily spike from $50/MW to $8000/MW in an instant if a generator trips. So, retailers buy hedges to cover this risk, at price premiums that reflect the inherent exposure insurance.

I didn't know this, thanks for clarifying. Further investigation for my local area: Here's a link to the Australian wholesale spot price and peak price https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Mar... Where I live, Tasmania, the average for 2019 is $147.91 / MWh and the peak is $163. That works out to Au$0.163. I pay AU$0.26 / kWh, plus a daily supply charge of, if memory serves me correctly, $2.30 - t…

Companies also need to pay tax and other per-kWh costs on top of the spot price: are you taking that into account?

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

#354

Post by marvin » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 7:55 AM UTC

state_less wrote: post #212

nexuist wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 might be interested in the sun seeker duo. It's in the ballpark for personal air travel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBA4XeMddMY In flight charging (refueling) could be a possibility too. The drone based solar planes can stay up longer than 5 days. I think the defense companies can keep them up for months.

That’s incredibly cool. I see they’re using an audio variometer to determine sink/updraft lift as well as using the solar-powered motor during cruise, and operate it as a glider during landing. Assuming they could fly it as a glider as well, although I don’t know how its low-speed performance is wrt. thermalling or stall characteristics.

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

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Post by elihu » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 8:31 AM UTC

dflock wrote: post #289

elihu wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another option would be to electrify the highways so that long-range batteries are rarely needed.

That's a boil the oceans solution, though - it's doesn't do anything useful until you've converted a large percentage of all roads, and it's very expensive.

It's an option, though. And one that might be cheaper or more practical than expecting everyone to buy giant lithium-ion batteries in case they want to go on a road trip.

You don't really need to convert a "large percentage" of roads, just the major highways that people use for long-distance travel. Of those, you wouldn't need to convert the whole length, either. Maybe you'd electrify one mile out of every ten or something like that.

Electrified roads could also be a huge boon to long-haul trucking.

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

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Post by ctack » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 8:31 AM UTC

zizee wrote: post #254

ctack wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it would be cost effective for a solar power provider to line the streets with their panels such that they shade the pavement on either side to some extent. If they managed it, they’d save on transport losses and possibly in cost of space. They could possibly even host their batteries in the panel supports.

That sounds very difficult to maintain. Land outside cities is cheap, and the percentage of loss transmitting electricity long distances (at very high voltages) is usually overinflated in most people's minds. Better to put them out in a big barren field, fairly low to the ground.

Fair enough, that does make sense and sound cheaper. I guess the only thing going it vs your evaluation above would be the environmental impact. You wouldn’t need to affect that barren field, you’d be using already compromised land. But yes, the support structure costs would be prohibitive and possibly have a higher environmental impact in production vs just razing and sunblocking an unused by humans field. Also there is the aesthetic side where many streets might be improved with shading, where not many fields are improved by appearance of arrays of solar panels.

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

#357

Post by Tempest1981 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 8:36 AM UTC

diogenescynic wrote: post #278

brownbat wrote: post #228

Earlier 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...

Owners of the malls would still hold the rights to the roof, not the occupants of stores, so you’d just have to pay them enough that it’s worthwhile for the owners. However, I like the idea of requiring it for new developments over X square footage.

FWIW, California is requiring solar on new homes, in 2020:

https://fortune.com/2018/12/06/california-solar-panels-new-h...

Maybe not as cheap as large-scale solar, but cheaper than natural gas?

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

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Post by pjc50 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 8:57 AM UTC

bartimus wrote: post #337

namibj wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you need to demolish, you want to keep them in-place.

Why would we not want to move them elsewhere?

The panels stay generating even if the shop below has closed. The building remains owned by someone who has a financial interest in keeping them running.

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

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Post by tonyedgecombe » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:06 AM UTC

cosmodisk wrote: post #135

asdkhadsj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US needs to heavily encourage these sorts of improvements to buildings, it's good for everyone. Is it though? I imagine your landlord doesn't think it's good for them. It's not bad for them, but why would they spend hundreds or thousands of dollars improving your apartments insulation when it costs them nothing to keep the poor thermal in place. I too lived in rentals that had terrible thermal protection. It wa…

I live in London nowadays. When brosing rental properties,the first thing I check in photos is whether it has normal radiators ( gas heating). If I see electric ones, I move on to the next property.Also rent is much cheaper on these...

I'd imagine that thins out your choices quite quickly, in my area it seems landlords love storage heaters.

I think some of the Scandinavian countries have banned these heaters.

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

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Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 9:10 AM UTC

dkural wrote: post #305

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The utilities often don't want to buy this power - if they felt that they were underpaying, they'd want to buy it. Could you cite the "most research" you speak of? In fact I've read the exact opposite - that solar rooftop is economically possible only because the utility is often forced to buy it back at retail rates.

Utilities often get recompensated based on a percentage of what they spend.

If you assume they are rationally going to maximise their profit potential then saving money isn't really in their interest even before you get into externalities that they impose on others.

Another example of this is utilities moving coal and gas plants that are no longer economic into these kind of compensation deals to they get a guaranteed profit based on what the cost to run. This is why it's estimated that closing all coal plants in the US would save 10s of billions dollars just in lowered electricity costs, even before factoring in pollution and carbon.

For info on the research "value of solar" is the general term. It varies by geography and location (e.g whether demand is growing or falling, what the other power they displace is coming from etc) but it's generally pretty positive for solar. The number is even bigger when you include things that would save customers money rather than the utility, and as regulated industries they should probably be forced to consider those costs.

But what you said and what I said aren't strictly incompatible. You could get a prisoner's dilemma type situation in which it only makes sense for you to do something if someone else is forced to do something too, otherwise they would defect and gain even more. Doesn't mean it's not economically beneficial for both.

I have no real interest in whether solar makes economic sense for a household or for a utility. It clearly is at the society level and we should be organising ourselves so that we maximise the benefit, not throwing our hands up and saying "well, if it would involve changing a minor regulation on an already heavily regulated industry, then I guess I'm going to have to choose the more expensive option instead"