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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

#371

Post by soVeryTired »

rebuilder wrote: post #327
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need to defer anything, as I'm on a flat rate. I don't like peak metering, as it would forces me to micromanage things in a way that doesn't work for me. I don't have a clothes dryer, they use too much energy. I just hand my clothes on an indoor clothes airer and blow a fan on them. I usually leave the heat pump set to 16 degrees C while I'm out, the combination of mild air temp and the fan dries most of my c…

It seems odd that you worry about the energy a dryer uses, yet set your thermostat to 16 degrees when you're not even in.

Depends on whether they live somewhere hot or somewhere cold.

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

#372

Post by namibj »

duderific wrote: post #251
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…

They can potentially raise the rent (for the next renter if there's rent control) by advertising "modern double pane windows" which offer sound insulation from outside noise, in addition to the thermal benefits.

And here we upgrade to tripe pane. Get european/german windows, or something like them. They are worth the money.

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

#373

Post by lrem »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #33
krferriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm renting a house in central NC and May-September our power bill skyrockets from AC. The windows are not insulated at all and we have a lot of them. Even the floors, walls, and ceilings leak heat like crazy, you can feel it just putting your hand close to the wall or ceiling. We run AC to get it down to 76F and it's still crazy expensive and using a lot of unnecessary power. We need to encourage insulation, es…

> 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…

All rental search sites I've used in my life have energy bill estimation right there. Where I live now, the law requires including that in the advertised price.

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

#374

Post by cogman10 »

kragen wrote: post #322
floatrock wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.wundercapital.com The problem with commercial solar is the cost of the financing. Home solar is on par with a car loan, banks know how to do that with personal credit scores. Utility scale solar is the realm of private equity. Something like a strip mall is a weird in-between that requires enough manual review that the cost to do all of the risk analysis that financing requires kinda outweighs the potenti…

On the contrary, personal loans from banks routinely charge much higher interest rates than commercial paper. Think about the interest rate on a money market account, which consists of bonds. That's the rate PG&E is going to pay if they float a bond issue to build a solar power station. Large companies, particularly including electric generation utilities, can also get loans from banks at similarly low interest rates…

I'm going to push back a bit. Interest rates can be favorable to a company but not money market fund favorable. That would be a better interest rate than a US treasury note.

PG&E currently has 2.4% bonds out. Better than what you can get, but not lower than a mmf (usually less than a percent).

As a rule of thumb, rates won't sink lower than ten year tnote rates. Nobody will purchase a bond from a company that has a lower rate than a tnote.

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

#375

Post by sgerenser »

zhoujianfu wrote: post #315
spydum wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

|A 6.6 kW system installed retails at(AUD 2700 /USD 1870) Is that right? Pretty sure in the US most kits that size are literally 10x that cost?

Yeah, or 20x? In LA I just got exactly that size installed from Tesla and I think it was about $35K? That did include one powerwall (they tried to suggest two but I realized with net metering even one only made sense for the fun of it).

Wow, hope the Powerwall was worth it. Recently got a quote for $16.5K for a 6KW grid-tie system installed (North Carolina, US). No batteries, but I’m pretty sure I’d come out way ahead just over sizing the array by 30-40% vs installing any sort of battery unless the prices come way down.

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

#376

Post by sgerenser »

hokkos wrote: post #347
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 enti…

Almost nobody does that, because solar + batteries would need so much batteries for winter that it is completely unpratical. The only people that I know doing that are extreme ecologist in remote places. And grid access is so cheap like 10€/month.

If the grid connection fee is only €10/mo, then that doesn’t sound like it is really covering the full cost. Most US utilities have a monthly fixed fee around that amount. Just checked and mine is $15.05/mo. That fee is basically arbitrary and if everyone went solar and was only buying a nominal amount of energy from the grid there’s no way a few bucks a month from each customer would support the whole thing.

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

#377

Post by SigmundA »

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…

Why do people buy cars instead of using more cost effective mass transit?

Maybe not a perfect analogy but at least for me there is a certain amount of wanting to be self reliant and personalize the system and be in control of it.

My Dads 7kw array in the south lines right up with peek demand for air conditioning. Even with no batteries it gives them a 1500w emergency output if the suns out and the grids down. If you add a battery system you can get full output and use it into the night.

The ability to create shade from the panels is often overlooked, not only are they converting 20% of the suns energy to electricity with enough air space underneath they keep rook temperatures down and reduce heat load.

Would love to see a world where all cars are electric and all parking lots are covered parking with solar panels charing the cars.

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

#378

Post by jchook »

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…

The government covers a big part of the cost iirc. In 2010 (dated I know), the US paid 30% and North Carolina would also chip in 30%.

Also I did see some arguments against solar since they have negative environmental impact over time due to toxic elements and no formal recycle plan for all the panels 20 years later.

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

#379

Post by tim333 »

pg_bot wrote: post #248

I've done a bit of research on batteries and I haven't seen too many people mention vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) for grid storage. While lithium ion batteries have great energy density (necessary when you need to carry your energy) they deteriorate over time leading to continual capital expenditures. From what I've read, it seems like the VRFBs can basically run forever with minimal maintenance. If I were bet…

Apparently the vanadium stuff is expensive. Guy here arguing for Zinc. https://youtu.be/UCwJqMOiLs0?t=275

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

#380

Post by tomaskafka »

ivanhoe wrote: post #18
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…

There should be also more focus on proper thermal insulation of houses in warm climate, which is something that is not often mentioned. Lots of energy gets lost on AC simply because heat easily enters the houses.

Did you mean 'building a proper non-cardboard houses'? :)

(I wonder if there is a study on house sturdiness and longevity in Europe vs USA - there seems to be a huge difference. Are US houses considered a single generational (to be bulldozed instead of inherited)?)

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