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Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

cleantechnica.com

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Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#71

Post by Aloisius »

verisimi wrote: post #15

I don't get why solar is so popular. In more northern regions, you get much less light in the winter. You effectively can only generate around one tenth of the energy you can in the summer - this is from experience talking to others who monitor their solar installations. But, you need more energy in the winter. People are in more, using electricity for heat cos it's colder. I'm pointing out that there is a supply/dem…

Most homes in the Northern US outside use propane, natural gas, heating oil or wood to heat their homes in the winter, not electricity.

Electricity demand in summer in the US is far higher than winter due to air conditioning.

Moreover, most of the utility-scale solar generation capacity isn't in the Northern US.

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#72

Post by ctoth »

epistasis wrote: post #3

The EIA (and the IEA) have historically underpredicted solar deploys, to a comical level. They need 2-4 years of spot on predictions before they can regain credibility on their projections, IMHO. So I would put these projections as a bare minimum floor on how much solar will get installed. The true number is likely quite a bit higher.

No, 2050 isn't some sort of tipping point[0].

[0]: https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/to-avoid-the-worst-impacts-...

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#73

Post by marssaxman »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #62
hammock wrote: post #23

Welcome to the future. https://media.sciencephoto.com/c0/47/01/29/c0470129-800px-wm...

1) That ain't even bad 2) There are better ways to integrate solar into communities

Better yet, there are better ways of integrating solar with agriculture.

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#74

Post by fastaguy88 »

How hard would it be to include one graph that plots the relative contributions of solar, wind, gas, coal, etc to total energy usage, rather than growth in energy usage?

If the growth over the next 2 years is 10% of current total, having it mostly be renewable is nice, but not very meaningful. It is reassuring that coal growth is negative, but what is the total? Negative 2% is very different from negative 20%.

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#75

Post by JumpCrisscross »

scythe wrote: post #52
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no intrinsic reason why their predictions should be any good This is where the "generaly credible" bit comes in. They're good forecasters in other domains. Part of being a good forecaster is adjusting as you make errors. So we'd need a hypothesis for why they wouldn't be making those adjustments. As a trivial example, Hoekstra's chart shows the WEO serially predicting false plateaus between 2006 and 2018. Those pla…

The link you're referring to only goes to next year, whereas the infamous pessimistic graphs tried to extrapolate for around a decade. I suppose capitulation would count as an adjustment.

> link you're referring to only goes to next year, whereas the infamous pessimistic graphs tried to extrapolate for around a decade

This CleanTechnica article references the short-term energy outlook. The context is near-term forecasts.

> capitulation would count as an adjustment

What else would it be?

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#76

Post by vladms »

orenlindsey wrote: post #50

We really shouldn't have waited this long to start transitioning to clean energy. If 2050 really is the point of no return (somewhere around then, from what I've heard), we'll have to replace over a century of infrastructure in about 20 years. And scaling is the hardest part. (we've already done some scaling, but renewables only account for ~20% of US energy, so we have to 5x that) Then, there's less developed countr…

Information takes time to disseminate to people. I think the transition happened "as fast as it could" given that people tend to oppose change, have a hard time understand scientific results and science takes a long time anyhow.

If anything I would say "we should educate more people". Because that is the only thing that might prevent the next "we shouldn't have waited..." (for any of the problems that we could solve, but people just don't think/understand them - like antibiotic microbial resistance and other topics)

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#77

Post by switchbak »

megaman821 wrote: post #25
verisimi wrote: post #15

I don't get why solar is so popular. In more northern regions, you get much less light in the winter. You effectively can only generate around one tenth of the energy you can in the summer - this is from experience talking to others who monitor their solar installations. But, you need more energy in the winter. People are in more, using electricity for heat cos it's colder. I'm pointing out that there is a supply/dem…

The answer is a bit simple. Only a small amount of Earth's population lives at north European latitudes ( https://engaging-data.com/population-latitude-longitude/ ). Solar is quite effective for the majority of the population, so its adoption rate will have the biggest impact on further climate change.

I get that it's a great solution for much of the world - and that is fantastic.

But they were asking about its effectiveness in northern climates during winter (which I also live in). It sounds like your answer is: "it doesn't work there". If so, that's fine, we can focus on other approaches in such climates.

What seems like an emerging shortsighted opinion (on HN at least) is: "it's so cheap, just use more". That doesn't really work when: - you're in a place that gets a small fraction of solar radiation during the winter - it's often overcast - the requirement for electricity for heat pumps goes up drastically during this time - the nighttime requirement is even higher, as temps can get to -20 C or lower

I can't imagine the system you'd have to build to satisfy such demand with solar and battery (or similar) storage in the worst case, but I don't imagine it's "cheap".

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#78

Post by dylan604 »

olyjohn wrote: post #61
dylan604 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where I'm really intrigued of all-house battery packs like the Tesla Powerwall (it's the only name of one I'm familiar to call out). I like the idea that it charges at night during the lower rates, and during the day the house is powered from the battery. Just haven't seen any longevity reports on them in general vs brochure data.

Does this reduce your energy usage though? You're still using the same amount of power during the day. So it saves you money, and takes some load off the grid during peak usage. What does that do to reduce emissions from power generation? Without solar, you're still charging off the same infrastructure.

As if someone trying to save money is such a ridiculous thing to do? WTF?

I subscribe to a power company that produces power via wind. So my money is supporting green energy generation. So yeah, it would still be doing plenty. Not really sure why you gotta be so negative about something

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#79

Post by r00fus »

ren_engineer wrote: post #64

I love having our energy grid being reliant on a geopolitical rival. I'm sure this won't end in disaster >China makes 80% of global solar panels >controls 95% of overall supply chain for solar https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/energy/china-to-dominate...

We only have ourselves to blame (mostly due to being in the pockets of Big Oil/Coal).

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#80

Post by r00fus »

hammock wrote: post #67
Fauntleroy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) That ain't even bad 2) There are better ways to integrate solar into communities

> 1) That ain't even bad It's not exactly a step towards a 15-minute city, either

Right, in a 15m city this would be on rooftops or integrated in the agriculture.
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