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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

#91

Post by cycomanic »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #10
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.

> would put these projections as a bare minimum floor on how much solar will get installed Is there evidence they haven't fixed this bias? The EIA and IEA are in general credible forecasters. Assuming past errors will persist doesn't sound like a good strategy unless you have methodological clues that they haven't made adjustments.

> > would put these projections as a bare minimum floor on how much solar will get installed

> Is there evidence they haven't fixed this bias? The EIA and IEA are in general credible forecasters. Assuming past errors will persist doesn't sound like a good strategy unless you have methodological clues that they haven't made adjustments.

I would contest the credible forecaster label when it comes to solar. By now we require evidence that they fixed their biases. If somebody gets something so badly wrong for over 20 years why should we assume they suddenly fixed their models. All historical evidence points to the contrary.

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

#92

Post by baron816 »

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...

This is what the a big part of the Inflation Reduction Act was meant to address. You can thank Biden and Manchin for taking action to address your concerns.

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

#93

Post by pixl97 »

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

Being that we've not taken any steps toward the 15 minute city in the US, solar or not, I don't think that's much of a measuring stick.

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

#94

Post by cycomanic »

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…

> 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.

When we looked at installing solar on our house in Sweden the calculations showed that in winter we'd produce about 20% of the power IIRC. I just had a look for a source and I could only found this [1] which might be more like 10%. That said Sweden is quite extreme, all of the US save Alaska get much more sunlight in winter.

[1] https://adelsfors.se/2022/12/29/solar-vs-wind-power-in-swede...

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

#95

Post by dvdkon »

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

No, but a 15-minute city would offer no opportunities for this to happen, except on hard town borders. Any plot of land this big in a dense city would be much more lucratively used for houses.

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

#96

Post by delecti »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #53
Retric wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ramp up is inherently slow, we’re still generally seeing cheaper nighttime rates than daytime rates even after years of ‘heavy’ investment in solar. Solar’s impact on prices is going to remain fairly trivial for the next few years. But start looking 20 years out and a great deal of nighttime load will shift, which dramatically reduces the need for storage even as decades of X0 GW per year adds up. Aka it’s not ju…

3400GW of solar nameplate is expected to be built from 2023 to 2028 globally, which is maybe 40% of all existing global electrical generation. So I don’t think “20 years” is the right time period to be thinking in.

That's shifting generation, not demand. Most people won't respond immediately, so 20 years isn't a crazy guess for a significant amount of the equipment in peoples' houses to cycle out.

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

#97

Post by jcampbell1 »

tomohawk wrote: post #83

This makes me sad, as it means the industrialization of non-urban lands that will get covered with panels. Croplands. Wild lands. If subsidies were only provided for panels that cover existing urban hardscapes, it would be much better.

We currently have 40 million acres of corn dedicated to ethanol production. All our energy needs can be met by 15 million acres of solar panels. The same set of facts that make you sad make me happy.

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

#98

Post by MichaelNolan »

fastaguy88 wrote: post #74

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%.

For the US, the eia has all of this info in a pretty accessible format.

For electricity - https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/

For energy - https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/?tbl=T01.03#/?f...

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

#99

Post by cycomanic »

switchbak wrote: post #77
megaman821 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 do…

The OP was saying:

"I don't get why solar is so popular" based on the fact it doesn't work as well in extreme Northern regions where only a tiny fraction of the world's population lives.

That's sort of like saying I don't get why boats/ships are so popular because they can't drive on land.

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

#100

Post by s1artibartfast »

dylan604 wrote: post #70
Ajedi32 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to consider is that if that's profitable to do at house scale, then it's probably even more profitable to do at grid scale and you'll likely be out-competed by utility companies. Edit: Unless you're taking advantage of tax incentives to do it at house scale. Its hard to beat the economics of just being handed free money.

An individual can take action now whereas the grid scale action is molasses like. It's even worse when your state is not in the pocket of but the actual pocket of Big Oil

But an individual can't take action without the grid taking action to provide customers with the different pricing rates.
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