California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3 • Hacker News Board

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#181

Post by tdhoot » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:57 AM UTC

FPGAhacker wrote: post #155

dap wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a quote last fall in the SF Bay Area for a system: - 6.4 kW (16x400W panels), microinverter-based (little to no maintenance expected in 25 years) - estimated to produce 8,500 kWh in year 1 - the panels are warrantied to produce 86% in year 25. Let's use 80% as a more conservative estimate. - up front cost: $16,500 after the federal tax incentive - alternative: paying PG&E $.25/kWh on average (conservative estim…

The fact that the return is not compounding makes a very large difference here. $16,500 returning 10% of the original principle per year isn’t a great investment. 25 years you have $41,000 + 25 yr old solar panels. $16,500 returning 10% compounding over 25 years gets you $162,000 + the $16,500 principle. Considering opportunity cost spread evenly over 25 years, those panels cost over $5000 per year. There are plenty…

Just take the money you save on electricity and put it into the market...?

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#182

Post by Ekaros » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:01 AM UTC

outside1234 wrote: post #162

offmycloud wrote: post #148

Their math seems off. I really don't see how you get to 97% renewable when the state was burning natural gas to generate 2.8 GW of non-renewable power and had about 1.1 GW of nuclear at the time. There might be some funny math here where they assign all of the "dirty" power generated in the state to exports and can claim that that California is running on renewable power. Source: https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/P…

It was only 97% for a brief Sunday afternoon - not at night not even a major portion of the day

Oh how I wait for the days of using solar to heat my home during blizzard night... People posting these headlines make it seem like utopia.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#183

Post by tomp » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:07 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #177

If electricity is cheaper to generate when the sun is shining, the retail price of electricity should reflect that. In fact, the retail price should fluctuate minute by minute, so that demand can be shaped to match supply. Trying to match variable supply to a fixed retail electric rate is certain to cause energy gluts and shortages. For example, I'd be happy to charge my electric car during price minima, heat the ele…

> If electricity is cheaper to generate when the sun is shining, the retail price of electricity should reflect that.

This would be amazing. It would quickly turn the population off further investment in solar and other unreliable, unpredictable sources of energy and prove that nuclear is the only viable green power.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#184

Post by pydry » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:14 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #183

WalterBright wrote: post #177

If electricity is cheaper to generate when the sun is shining, the retail price of electricity should reflect that. In fact, the retail price should fluctuate minute by minute, so that demand can be shaped to match supply. Trying to match variable supply to a fixed retail electric rate is certain to cause energy gluts and shortages. For example, I'd be happy to charge my electric car during price minima, heat the ele…

> If electricity is cheaper to generate when the sun is shining, the retail price of electricity should reflect that. This would be amazing. It would quickly turn the population off further investment in solar and other unreliable, unpredictable sources of energy and prove that nuclear is the only viable green power.

Except in the UK where it's called octopus and electric car drivers love it.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#185

Post by wcoenen » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:20 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #177

If electricity is cheaper to generate when the sun is shining, the retail price of electricity should reflect that. In fact, the retail price should fluctuate minute by minute, so that demand can be shaped to match supply. Trying to match variable supply to a fixed retail electric rate is certain to cause energy gluts and shortages. For example, I'd be happy to charge my electric car during price minima, heat the ele…

These are called "time of use tariffs".

Here in Belgium this type of tariff is marketed under the name "dynamic tariff". (It's only offered by the biggest player Engie, but other companies are working on it.) The price varies hourly, but it is determined by the day-ahead electricity market so the price schedule for the day is known the evening before.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#186

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:25 AM UTC

robbiep wrote: post #179

WalterBright wrote: post #177

If electricity is cheaper to generate when the sun is shining, the retail price of electricity should reflect that. In fact, the retail price should fluctuate minute by minute, so that demand can be shaped to match supply. Trying to match variable supply to a fixed retail electric rate is certain to cause energy gluts and shortages. For example, I'd be happy to charge my electric car during price minima, heat the ele…

The wholesale price does fluctuate minute by minute. The grid and the average consumer/retail user is not yet sophisticated to take advantage of what you propose. We know this because until recently, this ‘ideal situation’ that you propose was available by a company called Griddy, that went balls up when their consumers got absolutely slammed during the Texas snowstorms, and the idea of having the wholesale price if…

Oh, I know about the Texas example. It wasn't the concept that was bad, it was the implementation. The implementation needs to be coupled with meters where you can set a max price you'll accept.

Any system where you sign a contract that says you'll pay any price to turn on a lamp is idiotic, and so are the people who sign such contracts.

(The wholesale prices fluctuation does little to affect demand, because the demand is on the retail price, which is fixed.)

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#187

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:27 AM UTC

FPGAhacker wrote: post #155

dap wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a quote last fall in the SF Bay Area for a system: - 6.4 kW (16x400W panels), microinverter-based (little to no maintenance expected in 25 years) - estimated to produce 8,500 kWh in year 1 - the panels are warrantied to produce 86% in year 25. Let's use 80% as a more conservative estimate. - up front cost: $16,500 after the federal tax incentive - alternative: paying PG&E $.25/kWh on average (conservative estim…

The fact that the return is not compounding makes a very large difference here. $16,500 returning 10% of the original principle per year isn’t a great investment. 25 years you have $41,000 + 25 yr old solar panels. $16,500 returning 10% compounding over 25 years gets you $162,000 + the $16,500 principle. Considering opportunity cost spread evenly over 25 years, those panels cost over $5000 per year. There are plenty…

[deleted]

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#188

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:28 AM UTC

elcomet wrote: post #178

WalterBright wrote: post #177

If electricity is cheaper to generate when the sun is shining, the retail price of electricity should reflect that. In fact, the retail price should fluctuate minute by minute, so that demand can be shaped to match supply. Trying to match variable supply to a fixed retail electric rate is certain to cause energy gluts and shortages. For example, I'd be happy to charge my electric car during price minima, heat the ele…

This makes prices unpredictable, and I think it's a bad thing. You cannot plan when you can charge your car. Why not have just two prices which are predictable (one day and one night for example) ?

The price of pump gas changes every day. Is that a bad thing?

I'm old enough to remember when pump gas was regulated. Two things happened - gluts and shortages, at the same time! This all ended abruptly when Reagan signed his first Executive Order to repeal all that nonsense.

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#189

Post by onion2k » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:31 AM UTC

ploxiln wrote: post #160

rtkwe wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy is pretty perfectly fungible so it makes about as much sense credited to the state as it does to the wider grid. If you just look at CA it generated 97% of its energy needs in state from renewable energy at that time. That it was connected to a larger grid so it was generating excess power dirtily doesn't really change that math.

Electrical power is fungible, but the time it is available is not. There is usually near-peak power usage just after sun-down. So while a large amount of "clean" power was generated in the middle of the day and sold to other states, after sun-down a significant portion of the power used in the state was "un-clean". Even if California made it the final 3% to reach 100% renewable energy (by the headline metric), it wil…

Even if California made it the final 3% to reach 100% renewable energy (by the headline metric), it will still depend on a significant amount of non-renewable energy for significant parts of every single day (or else it will have blackouts).

It's not like you can ramp a coal-fired or nuclear power station up and down on a whim either though. It takes time and planning to modify the output if you don't have storage capacity. Power companies do a lot of predictive analysis to forecast demand and make sure they're running a little ahead. Here in the UK we even have a term called "TV pickup" where the electricity demand for the country increases significantly immediately after popular TV shows when we all go and put our kettles on for another cup of tea[1].

Power demand varies a lot, and in a reasonably predictable way, so you're fine so long as you have a mix of generation technologies. For most places that'll end up being solar, wind and nuclear, with extensive storage capacity.

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

Re: California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3

#190

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:32 AM UTC

wcoenen wrote: post #185

WalterBright wrote: post #177

If electricity is cheaper to generate when the sun is shining, the retail price of electricity should reflect that. In fact, the retail price should fluctuate minute by minute, so that demand can be shaped to match supply. Trying to match variable supply to a fixed retail electric rate is certain to cause energy gluts and shortages. For example, I'd be happy to charge my electric car during price minima, heat the ele…

These are called "time of use tariffs". Here in Belgium this type of tariff is marketed under the name "dynamic tariff". (It's only offered by the biggest player Engie, but other companies are working on it.) The price varies hourly, but it is determined by the day-ahead electricity market so the price schedule for the day is known the evening before.

It's a good approximation. But renewable power generation is affected by the weather, and the weather is not predictable.

The price should change minute by minute. Of course, this implies people having internet-connected hot water heaters, car chargers, etc., which are hardly expensive.