All this energy ! Can't be stored (don't tell me about lithium, please do the math…), and it's not there at night.
Heat the swimming pool during the day and then use the heat pump at night.
How does that store energy for the grid?
‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
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Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#52Meanwhile the largest California utilities are rolling back incentives for solar[1]. Why? Because they're effectively paying people to take electricity during the peak hours of the duck curve. Texas has the same issue during peak periods of wind power.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-03-16/california...
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#53One of the best things about this tech is how effective it is at domestic scale. My small roof in London generated 26kWh of electricity today. About 3X what we consumed. https://twitter.com/edent_solar
How well does it work if you have at least partial tree cover on your entire property?
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#54Meanwhile the largest California utilities are rolling back incentives for solar[1]. Why? Because they're effectively paying people to take electricity during the peak hours of the duck curve. Texas has the same issue during peak periods of wind power. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-03-16/california...
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Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#55This is why pushing for free markets is the most effective solution for combating fossil fuel dependencies.
If you push for free markets, Big Oil isn't going to be the first to yield. If we can't get rid of CO₂ subsidies, solar subsidies are necessary.
The free market really has no method of pricing developments with 30+ years to profit/free cash flow. The government first started subsidizing solar to be price competitive in specific situations in the 1970s.
There simply aren't any rational free market actors funding large unprofitable initiatives for 40 years with the expectation that the technology will be a bananza after all the principals have retired or are dead.
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#56All this energy ! Can't be stored (don't tell me about lithium, please do the math…), and it's not there at night.
It’s not as far off as you might think - even for individual homeowners. I’ve got a far from ideal house with a 8.4KWh solar array on my roof and 3x Tesla Powerwalls in my basement. Yesterday I produced 43KWh of electricity and exported 27KWh to the grid. The only reason I’ve needed grid connectivity in the last nine days has been to export power. In essence, I’m largely off grid from March through October. Now, this…
$22,000 would pay my electric bills for about 12 years, not even factoring in opportunity cost. What are the ongoing maintenance costs/total cost of ownership over 12 years of such a system?
As far as Powerwalls go, I'd definitely want something like that in an outbuilding and not in my house. Last thing I want to do is wake up at 3:00am with a raging battery fire in my basement.
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#57This is why pushing for free markets is the most effective solution for combating fossil fuel dependencies.
If you push for free markets, Big Oil isn't going to be the first to yield. If we can't get rid of CO₂ subsidies, solar subsidies are necessary.
Isn’t the damage to climate and health arguably a subsidy to big oil? While they get that damage for free, of course they win.
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#58All this energy ! Can't be stored (don't tell me about lithium, please do the math…), and it's not there at night.
It’s not as far off as you might think - even for individual homeowners. I’ve got a far from ideal house with a 8.4KWh solar array on my roof and 3x Tesla Powerwalls in my basement. Yesterday I produced 43KWh of electricity and exported 27KWh to the grid. The only reason I’ve needed grid connectivity in the last nine days has been to export power. In essence, I’m largely off grid from March through October. Now, this…
How much would you pay for electricity / month if you did not have any of that?
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
It still means power for air conditioning is ~free during the day when it's most needed, and you could pre-cool or pre-heat a bulk block with high heat capacity, then slowly use the heat/cold during the day. You can charge the electric cars when there's an excess, so in particular all the extra load from electric car charging that some people were so worried about is no longer a concern. If it gets cheap enough, you…
I think that you don't see how much land you actually need. Maybe in America there is plenty of space, but in Europe it's way more difficult. To replace one nuclear reactor, you need ~ half of Paris in solar panel. And still need energy "at night". Yes heating water, or cooling places are nice. But your trains ain't gonna work "only when there is sun". If you need backup at one moment, you need 0C0² backup and basica…
> you need ~ half of Paris in solar panel
So put solar panels on roofs in Paris then. Europe has plenty of space if you actually look for it.
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that you don't see how much land you actually need. Maybe in America there is plenty of space, but in Europe it's way more difficult. To replace one nuclear reactor, you need ~ half of Paris in solar panel. And still need energy "at night". Yes heating water, or cooling places are nice. But your trains ain't gonna work "only when there is sun". If you need backup at one moment, you need 0C0² backup and basica…
Fortunately space and land are cheap in the vast scheme of things. There are very large amounts of "free" space, on rooftops, for example.
The last time I flew to Europe, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of residential rooftop solar there was.