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Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

cleantechnica.com

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Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#61

Post by flgb »

zizee wrote: post #41

I think the future will be robust national/international grids, with a mixture of storage options (batteries/pumped hydro) to smooth out the intermittent nature of wind and solar. Cynics always talk about the amount of energy storage required for solar as if you need to store 24 hours of energy for solar/wind to be viable. I'd like to see numbers on having 1 hour of storage for peak demand, a robust national grid, an…

I suspect most of the intermittency of wind and solar will be addressed through super-capacity (500% of peak demand, not 100%) and geographic diversity. Batteries will be used for very short-term local balancing and power regulation ... then for those occasional times when hydro, wind and solar don’t cut it, we’ll still burn a little gas but it will be bio gas or green hydrogen, rather than fossil gas. This gas will be expensive, but these plants will hardly ever run.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#62

Post by manfredo »

nicoburns wrote: post #56
manfredo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery annually. That leaves geographically limited options like pumped hydroelectricity, and solutions not yet deployed at any significant scale like hydrogen fuel cells, synthetic methane, thermal batteries, flywheels, etc. Realistically we should saturate daytime en…

> Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery annually ... so if we could increase battery production by just 10x, then we could create an hours worth of storage every year. That seems... very doable.

And then we'd have to continue that production for two and a half decades to get to 1 day of storage. And we'd also have to drastically increase our battery recycling capacity to match (remember most lithium ion batteries last 1000-2000 cycles).

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#63

Post by flgb »

coderintherye wrote: post #29
turtlebits wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People use way too much power for battery storage to be viable. The average household consumes 28.9kwh in a day (in 2017), which is way more than rooftop solar can provide. Maybe when we have smaller houses and don't have a bajillion devices plugged in all the time.

The majority of solar comes from Utility scale about 60/40 vs. rooftop solar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_Stat...

Not in Australia, where we have much more roof-top solar (and which is less than half-the-price installed of roof-top in the US)

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#64

Post by Danieru »

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #37
briga wrote: post #2

This is good to hear. I assume location must play a large part in this? Solar must be more cost-effective in, say, the Mojave desert, than it is in Alaska. I sometimes wonder if the widespread adoption of solar is going to have an environmental impact that isn't immediately apparent. Every solar panel you put on the ground is going to take up solar energy that could otherwise be absorbed by a plant, which in turn mea…

One possibility is to use farmland or grazing land. You can pick crops that do better in part shade and then place solar panels over them. If done right it could have a beneficial effect on crop growth while at the same time earning extra money.

This is a allowed but semi-rare technique in Japan. Rare because of the capital costs to built the panels. Certain high end plants, such as tea, prefer the shade.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#65

Post by jeffbee »

manfredo wrote: post #62
nicoburns wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery annually ... so if we could increase battery production by just 10x, then we could create an hours worth of storage every year. That seems... very doable.

And then we'd have to continue that production for two and a half decades to get to 1 day of storage. And we'd also have to drastically increase our battery recycling capacity to match (remember most lithium ion batteries last 1000-2000 cycles).

Nobody needs 1 full day of storage.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#66

Post by TooDarkToRead »

andechs wrote: post #12
rich_sasha wrote: post #5

If solar were free, but we still needed to pay for battery storage, how would it then compare in cost to fuel-based alternatives (fossil fuel, nuclear etc)?

Not all battery storage needs to be electrochemical - hydroelectric dams work amazingly as pumped storage batteries (although site specific).

And the same concept as pumped hydro can by applied in other ways that don't require a waterway or quite as much physical infrastructure, https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11524958/energy-storage-rail is an example.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#67

Post by m463 »

briga wrote: post #38
m463 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered about that too (competing with nature for the sun) but I think just putting panels on the roof or over the parking lot would probably address 95% of the problem. Along similar lines, I've wondered if solar panels will start to look like pine trees at some point.

>I've wondered if solar panels will start to look like pine trees at some point. Interesting thought, but I'm not sure there same factors that led to plant evolution will play out with solar panels. Plants reaching up into the air was a direct response to competition with other types of plants. Presumably the same sort of competition won't be necessary with solar panels. I'm sure nature still has a lot of inspiration…

You're probably right. Aim fixed panels for the brightest part of the day and use batteries and that will probably solve most problems.

What I think is interesting abouts trees is that they can take in energy even when the sun is low on the horizon, they have good ventilation so they don't overheat, and they work no matter what angle the sun is facing.

The giant sequoias get a lot of their moisture directly from the air.

Maybe we could add functions to our "tree-shaped solar panels" like fresh water gathering and climate control heat exchange.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#68

Post by ch4s3 »

jeffbee wrote: post #65
manfredo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then we'd have to continue that production for two and a half decades to get to 1 day of storage. And we'd also have to drastically increase our battery recycling capacity to match (remember most lithium ion batteries last 1000-2000 cycles).

Nobody needs 1 full day of storage.

One could imagine a series of cloudy windless days in the northern latitudes during the winter. Perhaps a large enough gird solves that problem? I have no clue.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#69

Post by jkinudsjknds »

manfredo wrote: post #53
zizee wrote: post #41

I think the future will be robust national/international grids, with a mixture of storage options (batteries/pumped hydro) to smooth out the intermittent nature of wind and solar. Cynics always talk about the amount of energy storage required for solar as if you need to store 24 hours of energy for solar/wind to be viable. I'd like to see numbers on having 1 hour of storage for peak demand, a robust national grid, an…

Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery annually. That leaves geographically limited options like pumped hydroelectricity, and solutions not yet deployed at any significant scale like hydrogen fuel cells, synthetic methane, thermal batteries, flywheels, etc. Realistically we should saturate daytime en…

That 2.5TWh is probably an hour of active daytime usage though, no?

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#70

Post by pydry »

manfredo wrote: post #53
zizee wrote: post #41

I think the future will be robust national/international grids, with a mixture of storage options (batteries/pumped hydro) to smooth out the intermittent nature of wind and solar. Cynics always talk about the amount of energy storage required for solar as if you need to store 24 hours of energy for solar/wind to be viable. I'd like to see numbers on having 1 hour of storage for peak demand, a robust national grid, an…

Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery annually. That leaves geographically limited options like pumped hydroelectricity, and solutions not yet deployed at any significant scale like hydrogen fuel cells, synthetic methane, thermal batteries, flywheels, etc. Realistically we should saturate daytime en…

>Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery

What's the point of this comparison?

Lithium ion batteries are probably the least cost effective means of dealing with intermittency. It's also rare that the entire world is without wind and sun simultaneously.

In terms of cost:

Demand shaping < overproduction < pumped storage < < lithium ion batteries

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