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Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

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Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#31

Post by ftth_finland »

ianai wrote: post #26
vasco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My imagination still prefers nuclear! I don't mind solar projects but think it's a big mistake to not invest in nuclear.

My state proposed a grid battery solution that would have provided power for the entire state for up to 1-2 days IIRC. They didn’t approve it, but the budget wasn’t astronomical. I honestly wonder if the worry about off hours use is a little overblown. Infrastructure has a history of both being expensive up front and funded. Imagine if the US didn’t have highways and trying to explain all the impacts to the GDP that…

Where can I find more information about this?

I can find very little information about long term storage, not that 1-2 days is much.

Most seem to think 4 hours qualifies as storage.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#32

Post by ed25519FUUU »

timerol wrote: post #13
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #8

Careful of the municipal utility bait and switch! Here in Idaho they recently adjusted the net metering credit to greatly decrease the value of solar energy. They waited until there was a lot of solar adoption in the state, and then pulled the rug on solar owners under the guise of “making sure everyone pays their fair share”

I wouldn't characterize that as a bait-and-switch, but as adjusting to economic reality. When solar is <1% of penetration, a solar kWh is basically just as valuable as any other kWh. When solar gets over 10% of penetration, a solar kWh is worth much less than any other kWh - when the sun is shining, energy is plentiful. By the time you get to ~25% solar penetration, energy is almost free on a sunny day at noon, and m…

Rubbing salt on the wound is Idaho Power announced a massive investment in a solar farm around the same time!

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#33

Post by ZeroGravitas »

ftth_finland wrote: post #28
noughtme wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the fanfare surrounding the phasing-out of coal and oil needs to be tempered with some realism… grid instability… investment in fossil fuel supply will rise by more than six percent… The article itself craps on solar.

How is this crapping on solar?

There's a paragraph about 2/3rds down that rolls out all the usual BS, and links to an article, by the same author, suggesting we need to slow down renewable rollout as it is "destabilising the grid".

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#34

Post by jackmott42 »

standardUser wrote: post #7

I get a little frustrated that all of the people who crapped all over solar power can now simply sit there quietly as it becomes a major component of electricity generation and pay no price for spreading anti-solar propaganda at such a historically critical juncture. I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem fin…

I have at times tried to explain realistic visions of what it takes for renewables to become, say, 75% of the grid and people have taken it as crapping on solar, because I describe how it will require trillion dollar scale storage solutions.

But fossil fuels also require trillion dollar scale extraction solutions, so I don't see it as crapping on solar, it won't be easy but we will do it, I hope!

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#35

Post by pydry »

ftth_finland wrote: post #31
ianai wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My state proposed a grid battery solution that would have provided power for the entire state for up to 1-2 days IIRC. They didn’t approve it, but the budget wasn’t astronomical. I honestly wonder if the worry about off hours use is a little overblown. Infrastructure has a history of both being expensive up front and funded. Imagine if the US didn’t have highways and trying to explain all the impacts to the GDP that…

Where can I find more information about this? I can find very little information about long term storage, not that 1-2 days is much. Most seem to think 4 hours qualifies as storage.

This model thinks that 5 hours gets us to 97%:

https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g...

5 hours is pretty doable with batteries and pumped storage. It's a lot and very expensive but not an impossible amount and there aren't any cheaper/quicker alternatives that I'm aware of.

I think Australia will be almost half way to 5 hours already once Snowy 2 is finished. That's just one pumped storage plant & studies show that the geography to build more is plentiful.

That last 3% can probably be eventually provided with via hydrogen, which, unlike the other two, is inefficient to roundtrip (~45%) but it lets you store large amounts of power for long durations easily.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#36

Post by CyberDildonics »

grej wrote: post #22
vasco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My imagination still prefers nuclear! I don't mind solar projects but think it's a big mistake to not invest in nuclear.

I think solar makes sense in all of the places that otherwise are unused. Roofs and the shades of car parks, for example. But I am not a fan of giant fields of solar panels. Or worse, taking arable land and covering it with solar panels. Nuclear (smallest geographic footprint and smallest overall environmental impact) + solar & wind is the way forward.

But I am not a fan of giant fields of solar panels. Or worse, taking arable land and covering it with solar panels.

Why are there any negatives here? A field of solar panels is far more valuable than a field growing corn to feed to cows.

Nuclear (smallest geographic footprint

This doesn't matter, there is no shortage of land. People living in high rises in the center of big cities think there is, but once someone looks at a map they see how much land is actually out there.

smallest overall environmental impact

According to what metric? You can't put a nuclear plant anywhere, you have to be able to cool it.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#37

Post by not_a_shill »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #33
ftth_finland wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this crapping on solar?

There's a paragraph about 2/3rds down that rolls out all the usual BS, and links to an article, by the same author, suggesting we need to slow down renewable rollout as it is "destabilising the grid".

Can you please respond to this? I just want to make sure misinformation isn't being spread.

>Just curious because this question is always posed when HN disagrees with something. Are the recent climate events actually statistically significant?

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#38

Post by ftth_finland »

chinathrow wrote: post #19
vasco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My imagination still prefers nuclear! I don't mind solar projects but think it's a big mistake to not invest in nuclear.

Even with current lead times?

If we start building nuclear now, in a number of years we we have nuclear power plants.

If we wait the same number of years, we might have some form of viable long term storage. Or not.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#39

Post by fooblaster »

ftth_finland wrote: post #31
ianai wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My state proposed a grid battery solution that would have provided power for the entire state for up to 1-2 days IIRC. They didn’t approve it, but the budget wasn’t astronomical. I honestly wonder if the worry about off hours use is a little overblown. Infrastructure has a history of both being expensive up front and funded. Imagine if the US didn’t have highways and trying to explain all the impacts to the GDP that…

Where can I find more information about this? I can find very little information about long term storage, not that 1-2 days is much. Most seem to think 4 hours qualifies as storage.

This was the most comprehensive study I have read:

[300 page pdf - warning]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

I have always been skeptical that grid storage was the hidden cost of solar, and that multiple weeks of total grid output storage were needed, but this makes convincing arguments that only a few hours of storage is needed, even in difficult areas.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#40

Post by michael1999 »

pydry wrote: post #17
vasco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My imagination still prefers nuclear! I don't mind solar projects but think it's a big mistake to not invest in nuclear.

Civilian nuclear power help share costs with the nuclear military industrial complex (e.g. Russia, France, UK, USA) and it's useful for countries that have a clear and pressing desire to be able to develop a nuclear bomb in a hurry (Sweden, South Korea, Japan), but without those caveats there isn't much point to it which is why nobody else builds it. Its LCOE is 5x that of solar and between 1.5x-3x more expensive tha…

That was always the killer for CANDU. If industry has to carry the whole cost of research, education, regulation, and training operators, our market is too small to support it. And the big buyers all have their own (weapon program adjacent) programs. We might have a renaissance with SMRs, but we’ll be contributors, not independents.
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