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Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

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Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#31

Post by TomWhitwell »

bregma wrote: post #12

The article says the world relies on fossil fuel for energy because it's cheaper. That's true. It doesn't mention that the world relies on it because it's reliable. It doesn't disappear for 6 months of the year, or stop producing for 3 out of 5 days or during peak demand periods. Make renewables cheaper and more reliable and they will replace fossil fuels in a snap. Cheaper is not enough if it doesn't do the job.

Traditional power stations do exactly this - being closed for maintenance or running on low output for days, weeks or months even the interconnector cables between UK and European power suppliers have failed for months at a time. BUT yes, there's no equivalent of unexpected low wind and/or low solar for days or weeks.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#32

Post by chartpath »

BurningFrog wrote: post #25
bregma wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a power cable across the Pacific is going to be rife with expensive engineering problems, but sure, you could send electrons from Three Gorges to Google at some cost. I wouldn't call it cheaper, though.

In the spirit of "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." I wonder if shipping big piles of fully charged batteries around has any chance of being a practical power distribution method?

Sneakernet 4.0

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#33

Post by jpollock »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #28
albertop wrote: post #5

Too bad that low cost is invisible for the consumers. California has one of the most, if not the most, expensive electricity in spite of years of investment in renewables.

I live in Finland next to a hydroelectric dam. Electricity is, at worst, like 200 bucks a month. More than half the cost is transport. The dam is less than 15km out. What a ripoff. Privatizing the electric grid would make electricity cheaper, they said.

Even though you're 15km from a primary source, the network is built to provide you electricity even if that source is down. That requires connections to generators much further away.

It's the uptime that adds costs.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#34

Post by sremani »

BurningFrog wrote: post #25
bregma wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a power cable across the Pacific is going to be rife with expensive engineering problems, but sure, you could send electrons from Three Gorges to Google at some cost. I wouldn't call it cheaper, though.

In the spirit of "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." I wonder if shipping big piles of fully charged batteries around has any chance of being a practical power distribution method?

Batteries are heavy - unless you are sending these station wagons downhill, its probably not such a great idea.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#35

Post by CountSessine »

bregma wrote: post #12

The article says the world relies on fossil fuel for energy because it's cheaper. That's true. It doesn't mention that the world relies on it because it's reliable. It doesn't disappear for 6 months of the year, or stop producing for 3 out of 5 days or during peak demand periods. Make renewables cheaper and more reliable and they will replace fossil fuels in a snap. Cheaper is not enough if it doesn't do the job.

Related question: what's the spot price for solar power at 1am? How cheap is it then?

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#36

Post by gruez »

BurningFrog wrote: post #25
bregma wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a power cable across the Pacific is going to be rife with expensive engineering problems, but sure, you could send electrons from Three Gorges to Google at some cost. I wouldn't call it cheaper, though.

In the spirit of "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." I wonder if shipping big piles of fully charged batteries around has any chance of being a practical power distribution method?

I highly doubt this. According to wikipedia[1], three high voltage towers can transmit 7079 MW of power. To beat that with lipo batteries you'd need to move 26,713 metric tons worth of batteries per hour[2], and that's not even including time to charge. I don't think any sort of freight transportation method can do that cheaper than some transmission towers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission

[2] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=7079+MWh+%2F+265Wh%2Fk...

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#37

Post by inglor_cz »

bregma wrote: post #19
simongr3dal wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global energy grid?

Running a power cable across the Pacific is going to be rife with expensive engineering problems, but sure, you could send electrons from Three Gorges to Google at some cost. I wouldn't call it cheaper, though.

AFAIK even getting solar electricity from Sahara to European part of the Mediterranean basin would be extremely expensive, and this is peanuts compared to the cost of sending electricity over the Pacific.

Unless there are massive improvements in superconductive materials, of course.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#38

Post by shoguning »

BurningFrog wrote: post #16
bregma wrote: post #12

The article says the world relies on fossil fuel for energy because it's cheaper. That's true. It doesn't mention that the world relies on it because it's reliable. It doesn't disappear for 6 months of the year, or stop producing for 3 out of 5 days or during peak demand periods. Make renewables cheaper and more reliable and they will replace fossil fuels in a snap. Cheaper is not enough if it doesn't do the job.

It does mention this briefly in the Batteries and electricity storage follow learning curves too section.

Yeah, that is mentioned as "one of the downsides of renewables".

That is like saying, "one of the downsides of using a cooked noodle as a fork is that it doesn't hold its shape". It's disqualifying until that issue is sorted.

The value of solar right now is that it provides energy at the hottest, most energy use part of the day. But there is a tipping point where marginal solar is not really valuable for a grid anymore. California and Germany are at that point.

Hopefully we get cost-effective day-scale energy storage, it's not going to happen in the next few years unfortunately.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#39

Post by ed25519FUUU »

Confronting and solving the duck curve[1] and producing high duty-cycle electricity during non-sunlight hours is going to be a real challenge. We're at the point now where states will often pay other states to take excess renewable electricity during peak hours. What's the point in cheaper when we're already effectively throwing away electricity?

I personally don't believe batteries are going to do it. The world needs too many batteries. They're an important part but they aren't going to cut it, especially not fast enough.

The kind of power we need starts with an "N".

1. https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-...

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#40

Post by oblio »

shoguning wrote: post #38
BurningFrog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does mention this briefly in the Batteries and electricity storage follow learning curves too section.

Yeah, that is mentioned as "one of the downsides of renewables". That is like saying, "one of the downsides of using a cooked noodle as a fork is that it doesn't hold its shape". It's disqualifying until that issue is sorted. The value of solar right now is that it provides energy at the hottest, most energy use part of the day. But there is a tipping point where marginal solar is not really valuable for a grid anymo…

Well, at least the upside is that this will be another forcing function for better battery tech.

Another step up in battery tech would literally level us up as a civilization.

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