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Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

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Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#81

Post by blake1 »

sephamorr wrote: post #28

Power markets are more complicated than most people realize. One thing to note is that solar power can be cheaper than gas, but still not be economic. The fact of the matter is that an intermittent kWh is not as valuable as an on-demand reliable kWh to a utility who's number 1 priority is reliability. Even as solar is acquired at lower and lower prices, if evening power is generated by expensive and inefficient gas t…

As mentioned in the article, solar power is insanely cheap. So while you are right that a kWh of solar is not, on average, as valuable as a kWh of semidispatchable coal, the insane cheapness means that at some point, it is economical to massively overbuild renewable and decommission fossil fuel plants. You provide no evidence for the implausible claim that solar causes emissions to go up: your argument is only that the emissions reducing effect is muted, which may be true.

Also, while storage would be helpful, it is not the only way to enable a renewable transition. Additional transmission is enormously helpful: as the sun goes down on California, the wind is picking up in the Midwest. And don’t forget demand response: if smart thermostats received price signals (maybe we should precool this house...) that would alleviate the evening ramp-up issue.

So I claim we’ll need less storage than “a whole day’s usage”. But the learning curve applies to batteries as well! This storage won’t cost as much anyway.

The whole issue of intermittency is overrated. While a single solar panel might generate intermittently, the solar fleet across a whole state generates more predictably.

I am predicting that grid emissions will come down a lot over the coming decades. Partially I’m predicting the past: they’ve already come down, a lot!

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#82

Post by ravedev »

TheGrim-888 wrote: post #47
Retric wrote: post #6

Another aspect of this is the cost of the physical solar cells have dropped low enough that other costs have become significant. This is pushing companies to increase efficiency which opens the door for other applications. A hypothetical cheap ~30% efficient solar panel could add something like 40 miles of range per day to a car in ideal conditions. That starts to look actually useful vs a simple gimmick.

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I quite possible could be, but from a quick Google search, I'm seeing numbers of anywhere 200Wh/mile to 350Wh/mile for a Tesla. If we're generous and assume only 200Wh/mile, then 40 miles of range translates to an energy consumption of 8,000Wh. A 100 watt solar panel, producing the full 100 watts, would take 80 hours of perfect sunlight to produce enough power for an extra 40 miles of ran…

But you could have a few 100w (or 200w) solar panels installed on the roof of your house which either charge your home battery or offload that to the grid. And just charge your car when you want.

It is true that you lose some energy every time you store or transfer it, but if we install solar panels on every roof (so we get excess energy from solar) and also find a way to store energy cheaply for a long time, that should be enough to completely switch from fossil fuels, (well, mostly)

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#83

Post by drpgq »

7thaccount wrote: post #80
remmargorp64 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All they need to do is build mechanical/hydraulic systems for storing solar power during the day and unleashing it at night. For example, use solar power during the day to pump fluid from a lower reservoir into a higher reservoir, and then harness the energy of the water flowing from the higher reservoir into the lower reservoir through turbines. As long as your output energy is always coming from the turbines, and a…

Which all costs a lot of money.

There's nothing more handwavy than electricity storage

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#84

Post by Scoundreller »

pfdietz wrote: post #74
ph0rque wrote: post #44

This tells me that until fossil plants are mostly shut down (and perhaps afterward), we will continue to have negative electricity prices at times. It might be a profitable idea to buy extra energy storage capacity to get paid for storing energy at certain times, then sell it when it is high demand.

The only reason renewables would cause negative prices is the subsidy they get on generated output, that would cause them to continue generating because for THEM they are still making money at that instant. Otherwise, the renewable source itself could capture the negative price by just not feeding power to the grid.

Although I guess they "burn" their excess on-site, doesn't it make sense for solar panels to send power to a load at all times?

If they didn't, wouldn't that unspent energy make the panels even hotter and shorten lifespan/reduce efficiency?

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#85

Post by [deleted] »

maallooc wrote: post #75
pfdietz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, copper! Chromium! Next you're going to tell me of the fiendish plot to incorporate these into pots and pans to poison us all. There is no reason to include As in PV. There are anti-renewable propaganda screeds that pretend otherwise ("look! GaAs PV cells are a thing, therefore all PV uses As!") That leaves lead. Lead has been used for connections, but it is being phased out, not least because of EU environment…

Actually it does matter if it's not properly processed. Government research found those metals were contaminating landfills, and imposed restrictions. If you are interested in the facts, here are one. I believe in research done by my pro-PV government and scientists, not environmental shills and anti-science PV aficionados like you and this article. http://knrec.or.kr/file/2018%EC%8B%A0%EC%9E%AC%EC%83%9D%EC%9...

[deleted]

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#86

Post by danielheath »

Barrin92 wrote: post #30
arthurcolle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems a little silly - of course to develop future technologies we need to use existing technologies. Imagine debating using an abacus to develop a computer - "ah but we must remain pure to the hopes, dreams and philosophies of what the computer aspires to be." Yeah, ok. I'll be over here funding wind turbine companies, you can debate the merits of the methodology and strategies of funding green tech with petrol…

I don't understand your comparison at all. Given that the primary problem that a wind turbine seeks to solve is environmental, the environmental costs in making the turbine have to be considered. There's no relationship to computers here, it's not a question of philosophical purity, but of correct evaluation of the costs and benefits of a technology.

> Given that the primary problem that a wind turbine seeks to solve is environmental

That's ridiculous. The problem 'building a wind turbine' seeks to solve is "How do I turn this money into more money".

In market societies (eg most of the west) functionally speaking, the % of 'green power' delivered by environmental projects is a rounding error; it's essentially all delivered by people with capital attempting to obtain more capital.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#87

Post by pfdietz »

Scoundreller wrote: post #84
pfdietz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason renewables would cause negative prices is the subsidy they get on generated output, that would cause them to continue generating because for THEM they are still making money at that instant. Otherwise, the renewable source itself could capture the negative price by just not feeding power to the grid.

Although I guess they "burn" their excess on-site, doesn't it make sense for solar panels to send power to a load at all times? If they didn't, wouldn't that unspent energy make the panels even hotter and shorten lifespan/reduce efficiency?

It doesn't make sense for them to be sending power to the grid if they earn negative dollars doing it.

No, there's no cost to just not drawing power from the modules. They would become slightly hotter, but that's not a big deal.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#88

Post by gnramires »

undershirt wrote: post #4

Is solar just a stopgap tech? Like, do they still require fossil fuel energy to create, not to mention maintain and rebuild? And I know we’re now strip mining the ocean for battery metals. I don’t yet sense the sustainability in this amid all this economic hand-waving of “it’s getting cheaper”. (forgive my tone, i have a hard time of making sense of the big picture of renewables, hoping to eventually see how it actua…

Virtually all energy on available on Earth is Solar-derived. Plants all use solar power, carbon sources are all ancient stores of solar power. There's enough solar energy for several of our civilizations (4-5 orders of magnitude more, by a napkin calculation). Roughly 1/50,000 of Earth's surface covered in solar panels would suffice.

> do they still require fossil fuel energy to create, not to mention maintain and rebuild

That's not really particularly relevant. What is crucial is that they produce more energy than they consume. This is an important figure, EROI (Energy Return on Energy invested), which should be >1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#Ph...

Photovoltaics generally have been well over 1. There are still sustainability challenges with the technology, but I think they're minor (relative to current alternatives and carbon technology).

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#89

Post by maallooc »

skybrian wrote: post #60
maallooc wrote: post #48

Cheap for the economy, not so cheap for the environment. These kind of articles rarely calculate the price to dispose old solar panels. Our country recently found that current methods for disposing solar panels pose a grave danger to the environment and imposed strict regulations for it. As a result the price for disposal quadrupled. Because consumers of the solar panel, which are mostly individuals, can't afford tho…

I'm wondering why landfills are insufficient? Are the linings not good enough?

Not processing old solar panel was deemed dangerous by the government and we are building a government facility to recycle and properly decontaminate them. The price to run the facility will be collected from the manufacturers.

Same for Wind too. 81 tons of waste needs to be processed after 20 years of service of a 5MW wind turbine but operators and manufacturers does not take the price of disposal into account.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#90

Post by lmm »

pfdietz wrote: post #74
ph0rque wrote: post #44

This tells me that until fossil plants are mostly shut down (and perhaps afterward), we will continue to have negative electricity prices at times. It might be a profitable idea to buy extra energy storage capacity to get paid for storing energy at certain times, then sell it when it is high demand.

The only reason renewables would cause negative prices is the subsidy they get on generated output, that would cause them to continue generating because for THEM they are still making money at that instant. Otherwise, the renewable source itself could capture the negative price by just not feeding power to the grid.

Dumping power is not free - you need properly cooled resistor banks etc. to do it safely. For many forms of generation it's worth putting power on the grid at negative prices under some circumstances.
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