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Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

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Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#31

Post by rudolph9 »

Animats wrote: post #13

"The Gemini solar facility in Nevada plans to begin operating in 2024. With a planned photovoltaic capacity of 690 megawatts (MW) and battery storage of 380 MW, it is expected to be the largest solar project in the United States when fully operational." That's about 60% of the capacity of one unit at Vogtle nuclear power station, and Vogtle has four units. Also, adding the solar capacity to the battery capacity to ge…

It seems like this thread has sparked a lot nuclear vs solar debate, but both have the potential to be net zero energy sources and most fault tolerant grids are powered by a multitude of sources. We should be aggressively building solar, wind, battery, and nuclear along with anything else that can reasonably be part of a net zero supply chain that produces electricity in the not too distant. They all have different tradeoffs and we shouldn’t be debating which is better than the other. Rather we should focus on what percent of each fit best balancing safety/resiliency/cost of adoption/long term operating costs. And this varies widely from region and changing over time. What’s need are formulas and frameworks for helping make these wildly complex decisions more straightforward.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#32

Post by thehappypm »

bequanna wrote: post #30

One thing I have wondered: does it make sense to just put most of our eggs in the solar basket in sunny states and then invest heavily in batteries and transmission lines to less sunny areas? Wind seems so much more expensive and maintenance intensive.

Wind is strange, because there is more maintenance and more upfront cost, but the amount of energy you get from a windmill is enormous.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#33

Post by elif »

bequanna wrote: post #30

One thing I have wondered: does it make sense to just put most of our eggs in the solar basket in sunny states and then invest heavily in batteries and transmission lines to less sunny areas? Wind seems so much more expensive and maintenance intensive.

Panel and battery prices have come down such that transmission losses, natural disasters to farms, last mile power lines in storms, etc become bigger concerns comparatively.

I think the end-use solar and battery model makes more and more sense every year from a consumer perspective.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#34

Post by chii »

nekoashide wrote: post #29

The cool thing about batteries is that they are great as an investment. You can charge them when power is cheap and sell back power when you have high demand and market prices for power. Typically Peaker Plants fill this role but at much higher cost for electricity and emissions. Batteries just make much more sense for this kind of power.

The question is whether such battery's charge/discharge cycle degrade faster than the return on investment.

For home use, break-even is an acceptable outcome, but not for commercial use like above. Is the price of battery low enough atm to make a return for such an investment?

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#35

Post by applied_heat »

Look at the stock prices of the companies installing owning and operating solar and wind farms. They are dogshit.

I think the boom is to capture the transmission system capacity near the best wind/solar sites, try and stay in business for the duration of the 20 year energy purchase agreement signed with local utility, and then mergers and aquisitions so that the larger entity can exert leverage upon renewal.

Power outages have a massive cost on society so the value of the marginal unit of electricity is very high.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#36

Post by toomuchtodo »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #16
nateglims wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second link is interesting since it covers actual generated energy. The others are kind of convoluted and need to be more clear on what the capacity measurement is since most renewables have significantly lower capacity factors than nuke, gas and coal.

Which is why the battery uptake mentioned in this piece is of note. It firms renewables and steals grid service revenue from thermal generators. Pulls the uptake trajectory of renewables closer to vertical. Only one coal fired generator in the US is currently economical to run vs new renewables. You don’t have to match capacity factor, it’s about economics; if renewables can run often enough cheap enough, it makes ot…

https://cleantechnica.com/2024/02/14/texas-shatters-own-sola... ("Texas Shatters Own Solar Power Record, Weird Political Situation Or Not")

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#37

Post by bryanlarsen »

bequanna wrote: post #30

One thing I have wondered: does it make sense to just put most of our eggs in the solar basket in sunny states and then invest heavily in batteries and transmission lines to less sunny areas? Wind seems so much more expensive and maintenance intensive.

No. Transmission lines are too expensive, it's cheaper to put solar panels in non optimal locations.

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-...

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#38

Post by troymc »

credit_guy wrote: post #27

It's not really correct to call batteries "electric-generating". They store electricity, but don't generate it. Still, if you take the batteries out, solar makes up 75% of the remaining new electric-generating capacity. If you add wind, you get 92%.

It seems that the thing they're measuring is the amount of instantaneous power that all the new "sources" could deliver at once, assuming they're able to deliver right then, and at max-output-power. In other words, it's an optimistic measure, but it's not meaningless.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#39

Post by epistasis »

chii wrote: post #34
nekoashide wrote: post #29

The cool thing about batteries is that they are great as an investment. You can charge them when power is cheap and sell back power when you have high demand and market prices for power. Typically Peaker Plants fill this role but at much higher cost for electricity and emissions. Batteries just make much more sense for this kind of power.

The question is whether such battery's charge/discharge cycle degrade faster than the return on investment. For home use, break-even is an acceptable outcome, but not for commercial use like above. Is the price of battery low enough atm to make a return for such an investment?

These are all grid investments. About half of the storage is being installed in Texas, which is the closest thing the US has to an open market for investors.

The storage being installed in Texas is all being done purely for profit. Meaning that the investors have run the numbers and find batteries to be the highest return they think they can get for their money.

Storage in other places (specifically California) is being driven both by the profit motive, but also in some cases by legislation that mandates storage (not specifically batteries) be added as part of the grid mix. California has enough solar now that nearly all new installations include storage, in order to profit during the peak evening hours when electricity prices are highest.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#40

Post by samatman »

This is nameplate capacity: the power a generator can deliver, full on, under ideal conditions. Solar and wind always look great when measured in nameplate capacity, which is why this is done.

If you want to know how much electricity they will generate, you have to multiply by the capacity factor. Nuclear, for instance has a capacity factor of 0.9 in the US: it delivers 90% of its nameplate capacity in a given year.

Solar ranges between 0.08 and 0.15.

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