Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

Post by xupybd » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

jes5199 wrote: post #41

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.

in the past they were cheaper. Now renewables are cheaper. Right now, intermittent renewables actually drives up the cost of fossil fuels! Renewables do wacky things to the spot price of power - sometimes electricity is free or even has negative value, sometimes it's expensive. Ideally fossil fuel plants would only spin up when they could sell power at a profit, but they can't dispatch so quickly, so they end up sell…

Post by flgb » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

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?

Post by albertop » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

lambda_obrien wrote: post #11

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.

The cost of electricity in CA is mostly the cost of the distribution infrastructure maintenance, which is a value approved on several levels of government, and the actual electron cost is hidden from the end user behind layers and layers of contracts. The cost of electricity, then, is based on some fixed costs of infrastructure: we still haven't figured out how to make more electrons go down less metal wire than in t…

Post by albertop » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

jes5199 wrote: post #49

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.

this is why rooftop solar, which has the highest LCOE of any power generation, still ends up making sense for consumers. Because it doesn't have to compete on the open market, it just has to be plausibly cheaper than your utility bill

Post by dmurray » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

hangonhn wrote: post #64

gandalfian wrote: post #61

The Germans paid for it creating the market/industry. Vast amounts. Then the Chinese thought it looked like a good industry to be in and threw unbelievable money at developing manufacturing capacity. If the Germans keep voting green and being parsimonious savers then we may yet get cheap batteries and survive.

The Germans had this really clever scheme where they tied the price they pay for solar power to the price from fossil fueled power. That really incentivized people to create more efficient solar and thus increase their profit margins.