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Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

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Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#181

Post by greglindahl »

ciceryadam wrote: post #76
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.

Yup, storage just like that has been built in Switzerland: https://www.alpiq.com/power-generation/hydropower-plants/pro... California is mountainous enough to follow suit.

California has a lot of storage just like that already. The problem is that it can't be scaled up.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#182

Post by dwaltrip »

lukifer wrote: post #164
gwright wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter that if solar/wind is cheap (or even zero) because you still have to have an alternate power source for when your intermittent power has gone AWOL. You need cheap grid-scale storage, which doesn't exist at the moment.

I don't know about its efficacy, but my favorite means of mass energy storage is a gravity battery: literally stacking heavy blocks in a huge tower, which are raised and lowered based on energy demands by automated cranes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Vault

When I briefly looked into this, my takeaway was that the energy density (and thus price) is much, much lower than needed to compete with other storage mechanisms.

As another poster said, gravity is relatively weak compared to the other forces.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#183

Post by sunstone »

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…

These days most contracts are being bid solar+battery at a ratio of about 5:1, if memory serves.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#184

Post by sunstone »

dwaltrip wrote: post #182
lukifer wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about its efficacy, but my favorite means of mass energy storage is a gravity battery: literally stacking heavy blocks in a huge tower, which are raised and lowered based on energy demands by automated cranes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Vault

When I briefly looked into this, my takeaway was that the energy density (and thus price) is much, much lower than needed to compete with other storage mechanisms. As another poster said, gravity is relatively weak compared to the other forces.

Yes, when a magnet holds up a nail, what you're seeing is that the force of the tiny magnet on the nail is much much higher than the gravitational force of the entire earth on the nail.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#185

Post by sunstone »

rsynnott wrote: post #161
maallooc wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, it’s from the statistics. Let’s talk real. Compared to fluorescent lamp, LED comsumes half of energy. It’s not like they comsume nothing. Over 68% of sockets in American households already use LED in 2018 and 13% of energy was used in residential lighting in 2018. If 32% changes to LED it will lower the percentage to 11% which is still more than what we use to refrigerate.

LEDs mostly aren’t replacing fluorescent; CFLs never caught on all that well for domestic use. They’re replacing incandescent or halogen, so more like 10x.

LED lighting has taken the world by storm and we never hear a peep about it.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#186

Post by cjhopman »

maallooc wrote: post #119
tialaramex wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern lights barely consume anything. Are you thinking of old-fashioned incandescent lighting? Improved efficiency is one of the things that allows us to have continued economic production despite reducing usage.

Nope, it’s from the statistics. Let’s talk real. Compared to fluorescent lamp, LED comsumes half of energy. It’s not like they comsume nothing. Over 68% of sockets in American households already use LED in 2018 and 13% of energy was used in residential lighting in 2018. If 32% changes to LED it will lower the percentage to 11% which is still more than what we use to refrigerate.

Your stats are just totally made up aren't they?

In 2017, 1% of households had all sockets using LED and 71% had not a single socket using LED. 11% still had all sockets using incandescent. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31112

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#187

Post by Retric »

cortesoft wrote: post #138
andy_ppp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it not be built into the roof directly! This is a great idea as presumably people who don’t use their car a lot need not leave it charging permanently and if you run out of battery you can just wait (if it’s sunny enough).

Why is that better than just putting the solar panel on the roof of your house and plugging the car in?

Your car is presumably not always at home. So, a solar panels on the roof of your house don’t increase the range of your car. At highway speeds assuming regular charges that’s mostly irrelevant. But if you’re camping or run out of charge it could become so.

Even relatively small solar arrays could keep a car from discharging at an airport parking lot etc. That could extend to running the climate controls when your shopping without concern for draining the battery.

PS: That said, the roof also has many advantages such as allowing you to park in a garage without issue.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#188

Post by epistasis »

greglindahl wrote: post #181
ciceryadam wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, storage just like that has been built in Switzerland: https://www.alpiq.com/power-generation/hydropower-plants/pro... California is mountainous enough to follow suit.

California has a lot of storage just like that already. The problem is that it can't be scaled up.

California is beginning to dip its ties into battery storage, however. There's a couple projects that total about 200 MWh currently, IIRC. And at Moss Landing they are installing more than a GWh soon.

It's already cheaper to use batteries than natural gas peaker plants (the most expensive form of energy). The next phase of storage is to defer or replace transmission like upgrades (which are also super expensive). After that we get into daily cycle operations like giving small amounts of dispatchability to solar or wind projects.

And just like solar, batteries are getting cheaper far far faster than anybody ever predicted. What people used to consider the absolute floor in terms of raw material cost For lithium ion batteries is dropping all the time too.

However, the challenge for scaling up renewables and storage is not technical, it's going to be political. Utilities are not typical businesses that will just switch to the cheapest way of doing things. They are excessively political, and lobby a ton in order to influence how they are regulated (and thus how they profit off a captive audience), and they have been close bedfellows of fossil fuel interests for a loooong time because their combined lobbying power is so much stronger.

Oddly enough, just as hydro won't be able to scale even where it makes sense because of popular political opposition, we won't be able to scale renewables and storage because of entrenched interests lobbying Against popular opinion (renewables are popular across all of the political spectrum).

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#189

Post by tim333 »

peterwoerner wrote: post #152
pydry wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intermittency and the unsuitability of grid storage batteries to compensate is heavily played up by the carbon industry. The future of low emissions energy production will be largely driven by overproduction and demand shifting, not banks of grid level batteries. This likely won't happen as soon in America, however, the economy is too tied in to fossil fuels and the appetite to upgrade the electric grid by utility co…

But the solution isn't batteries, it stored hydroelectric. Only works where you have mountains though.

Batteries are a bit uneconomical now but may well fall in price like solar has. See for example:

>A startup run by a Tesla veteran and backed by Bill Gates is promising to build a long-duration battery that's 50 to 100 times cheaper than lithium-ion https://www.businessinsider.com/form-energy-battery-startup-...

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#190

Post by [deleted] »

ThomPete wrote: post #116
pydry wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intermittency and the unsuitability of grid storage batteries to compensate is heavily played up by the carbon industry. The future of low emissions energy production will be largely driven by overproduction and demand shifting, not banks of grid level batteries. This likely won't happen as soon in America, however, the economy is too tied in to fossil fuels and the appetite to upgrade the electric grid by utility co…

then by your own logic it would happen other places, it doesent.

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