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

eia.gov

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

#41

Post by epistasis »

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%.

From the purposes of grid operation, batteries serve both generating and load functions.

Having a complete catalog of generating capacity is a standard metric that EIA tracks. So even though batteries can also consume from the grid, it really does make sense to add them to the list of "generation," at least according to the purpose that this generation metric has always served.

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

#42

Post by why_only_15 »

samatman wrote: post #40

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.…

In the US, PV solar capacity factor is about 0.24 (partly because lots of people live near very sunny regions like California and Texas). The National Renewable Energy Laboratory claims that in some parts of the US utility-scale solar capacity factors are 0.33 [0]. Wind is about 0.36, Hydro also 0.36, Nuclear about 0.93 [1]. If you apply these capacity factors to the nameplate capacities (ignoring batteries), you get 58.5% solar, 19.7% wind, 15.1% natural gas, and 6.6% nuclear.

[0]: https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2021/utility-scale_pv

[1]: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

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

#43

Post by why_only_15 »

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.

This isn't really how batteries make money in the US right now, as I understand it. ~80% of battery revenue in ERCOT comes from what are called "ancillary services" [0] which is payment from the grid for being able to very quickly increase or decrease the amount of generation to ensure stability.

[0]: https://cimview.com/monthly-battery-revenue-in-ercot/

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

#44

Post by epistasis »

samatman wrote: post #40

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.…

Yes, correcting for capacity factor is essential if you want to compare potential energy generated over a year (which is perhaps not the most common use of these numbers). Gas generators are typically less than 50% capacity factor, and batteries should have course have a 0% capacity factor for comparison of energy created over a year

However, your capacity factors for solar are far too low, average CF is above 20%. There are roughly as many installs with CF>30% as there are with CFhttps://emp.lbl.gov/pv-capacity-factors

Also omitted from this view is the cost per MWh delivered to the grid. A great overview of the current state of the technology, including costs ($40/MWh), is here:

https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/utility_scale_solar_...

There's also a great overview of the state of batters here, where conservative estimates of lifetime cost of stored energy results in about $88/MWh:

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf

For the new nuclear cost, it's actually really hard to dig up, because it's a bit too embarrassing to the industry. But by taking the factors from this slide deck:

https://liftoff.energy.gov/advanced-nuclear/

And scaling the slide 14 numbers for $9k/kW overnight cost to the real cost of $15/kW at Vogtle, and we get nuclear costs north of $180/MWh for nuclear when including the new subsidies from Biden's IRA legislation (north of $200/MWh unsubsidized).

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

#45

Post by epistasis »

why_only_15 wrote: post #43
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.

This isn't really how batteries make money in the US right now, as I understand it. ~80% of battery revenue in ERCOT comes from what are called "ancillary services" [0] which is payment from the grid for being able to very quickly increase or decrease the amount of generation to ensure stability. [0]: https://cimview.com/monthly-battery-revenue-in-ercot/

This revenue will quickly disappear, however, as there is limited need for ancillary services. Lithium batteries served this purpose well in PJM starting long ago (more than a decade?), even with very high battery prices of yesteryear.

New battery additions must be banking on limited ancillary services revenue. Unless Texas investors never bothered to learn the lessons of the storage experience in PJM, which seems unlikely to me.

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

#46

Post by why_only_15 »

epistasis wrote: post #45
why_only_15 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really how batteries make money in the US right now, as I understand it. ~80% of battery revenue in ERCOT comes from what are called "ancillary services" [0] which is payment from the grid for being able to very quickly increase or decrease the amount of generation to ensure stability. [0]: https://cimview.com/monthly-battery-revenue-in-ercot/

This revenue will quickly disappear, however, as there is limited need for ancillary services. Lithium batteries served this purpose well in PJM starting long ago (more than a decade?), even with very high battery prices of yesteryear. New battery additions must be banking on limited ancillary services revenue. Unless Texas investors never bothered to learn the lessons of the storage experience in PJM, which seems un…

Why did Texas not start building out batteries for ancillary services until recently? Did/do they not need as much ancillary services as PJM? Also -- do you know what happened to ancillary service pricing as batteries became cheaper? Did grids become much more stable in practice?

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

#47

Post by epistasis »

why_only_15 wrote: post #46
epistasis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This revenue will quickly disappear, however, as there is limited need for ancillary services. Lithium batteries served this purpose well in PJM starting long ago (more than a decade?), even with very high battery prices of yesteryear. New battery additions must be banking on limited ancillary services revenue. Unless Texas investors never bothered to learn the lessons of the storage experience in PJM, which seems un…

Why did Texas not start building out batteries for ancillary services until recently? Did/do they not need as much ancillary services as PJM? Also -- do you know what happened to ancillary service pricing as batteries became cheaper? Did grids become much more stable in practice?

Edit: cwal37 seems to be better clued into ERcOT's market https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39393321

That is beyond my knowledge; I know that PJM specifically set up a market for ancillary services that allowed battery operators to get paid. I assume ERCOT must have set up some sort of similar market, but I don't know the particulars...

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

#48

Post by roenxi »

applied_heat wrote: post #35

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 ou…

Not necessarily a problem; recall that the way economics works is the market will have marginal businesses that are on the verge of being unprofitable to run - so seeing some borderline cases is not troubling.

It looks like solar is finally becoming economic; so it is reasonable that the marginal producers right now will be solar farms. But assuming the price trends continue businesses will start to appear that make good money.

Although there does seem to be a serious risk to grid stability. Most of the energy emergencies in the last few years have been linked to areas that invested heavily in renewables.

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

#49

Post by cwal37 »

samatman wrote: post #40

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.…

That’s not why it is done, it’s because this is reporting in capacity and that is the physical capacity being installed. That phrasing makes it sound nefarious, then you end with a fairly low solar range (which varies substantially and exceeds that in sunnier parts of the US).

Bit of an odd take. You could say the same, or lower, of capacity factors on peaking oil or gas plants in some areas that run for only a couple percent of the year. Nameplate and utilization are just different things.

Maybe worth noting that despite lower capacity factors and despite it being mid-winter, Texas (ERCOT) keeps setting solar output records because they’re installing so much nameplate[1]. It’s not like it does nothing.

[1] https://www.gridstatus.io/records/ercot?record=Maximum%20Sol...

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

#50

Post by cwal37 »

epistasis wrote: post #45
why_only_15 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really how batteries make money in the US right now, as I understand it. ~80% of battery revenue in ERCOT comes from what are called "ancillary services" [0] which is payment from the grid for being able to very quickly increase or decrease the amount of generation to ensure stability. [0]: https://cimview.com/monthly-battery-revenue-in-ercot/

This revenue will quickly disappear, however, as there is limited need for ancillary services. Lithium batteries served this purpose well in PJM starting long ago (more than a decade?), even with very high battery prices of yesteryear. New battery additions must be banking on limited ancillary services revenue. Unless Texas investors never bothered to learn the lessons of the storage experience in PJM, which seems un…

Those early reg-d PJM batteries also got absolutely physically wrecked, so it wasn’t the best outcome.

ERCOT is quite different from PJM when it comes to AS - the market is very deep and the operational needs are increasing in a way they aren’t in PJM (yet). Couple that with a vastly easier permitting regime and hugely faster interconnection process for a facility (batteries) that require relatively little land compared to conventional generators, and Texas has enabled ERCOT’s queue to become absolutely stuffed full of battery applications.

PJM was ahead of the ball on market design, but that was a (relatively) long time ago. Now they’re in the midst of their massive backlog queue transition and also revamping (for the nth time) facets of their capacity market.

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