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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

#231

Post by epistasis »

beAbU wrote: post #165
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…

Presumably you can discharge the batteries while pv is also producing at full tilt. But that'll rarely happen. I absolutely hate the current state of energy reporting in general. The writers of these articles are not even trying to make sure they report accurately. E.g. the battery stats: Is it MW or MWH? Both are very different and the distinction is important. A battery that can deliver 380MW but only for 10 mins i…

This is the EIA. They are in charge of pretty much all energy tracking in the US. They are reporting the right units, and if they seem wrong, it's because the numbers are being used for something useful, but perhaps different than what you have in mind.

(That said, I do dislike units like BTU or "billions of kWh," but they are at least correct units for the quantity measured)

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

#232

Post by jeffbee »

doikor wrote: post #221
jeffbee wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over their lifecycle they are down more like 20-25%.

Only if the operator is criminally incompetent. 90%+ capacity factor/uptime is pretty much standard and the better ones reach ~95% For example TVO in Finland has 93% to 97% depending on the reactor since the early 1990s. Fortum has very similar numbers for their reactors.

This is the definition of cherry-picking data points.

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

#233

Post by doikor »

epistasis wrote: post #226
doikor wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is in large part because they are not building a bit over 2 reactors per year anymore.

France did not experience a significant fall in construction costs when they were building lots of reactors in the 1970s. There's not much hope of getting that €125/MWh below €100/MWh, and honestly that €125/MWh is likely a sever underestimate to start with.

Don't know about France but TVO in Finland is way under that. Their earlier reactors were built in the 70s.

They have been hitting 15 to 20€/MWh for decades now. Or at least this is the price they have been selling to their owners without going bankrupt for decades now. Target with OL3 in the mix is 40€/MWh so OL3 alone is probably in the 50€/MWh to 60€/MWh range. (and they got a really good deal with OL3)

https://www.tvo.fi/material/sites/tvo/pdft/rm89bf734/TVO_-_C...

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

#234

Post by paganel »

epistasis wrote: post #230
paganel wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could have said the same thing 2 or 3 years ago about companies active in the renewable energy space like Orsted. I mean, they were one of the biggest producers of wind-turbines, what was there not to like in this ESG-focused investment environment? Until the numbers suddenly stopped making sense for them a few weeks ago [1]. Which is to say that the investment numbers may look "right" for a good few years until…

It wasn't a "reality" check from having inaccurate estimates, it was rising interest rates that put a huge damper on the cost of projects where all the expense is front-loaded.

Higher interest rates are part of the game, or of reality, if you want to put it that way. So, yes, it was a reality check and it has proved that that company could only be viable under very particular economic circumstances (i.e. interest rates being close to zero)

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

#235

Post by doikor »

jeffbee wrote: post #232
doikor wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if the operator is criminally incompetent. 90%+ capacity factor/uptime is pretty much standard and the better ones reach ~95% For example TVO in Finland has 93% to 97% depending on the reactor since the early 1990s. Fortum has very similar numbers for their reactors.

This is the definition of cherry-picking data points.

I would say cherry-picking data points is better then providing 0 data points.

edit:

Basically competent operators hit ~90%.

US is around 93%.

Sweden 84%

Switzerland 90%

France would hit that if they could run their plants at 100% when they are on but they run theirs in load following mode due to having so many of them. So they run at around 80%.

World average is 83%.

https://world-nuclear.org/getmedia/891c0cd8-2beb-4acf-bb4b-5...

And yes I know best the numbers about the market I live in because I live here and this stuff effects the price I have to pay for electricity.

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

#236

Post by pfdietz »

thinkcontext wrote: post #201
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way solar can grow geometrically for long. It consumes real estate like there's no tomorrow. Land is limited; sunlight is limited. It has a hard, hard limit. Unlike many other kinds of power generation, which are land-frugal and work 24 hours a day. So, let's rethink who doesn't understand growth.

If you are concerned about solar's use of land then you must be positively apoplectic about using corn for ethanol. That uses more than 40% of US corn production, an amount of acreage so vast it's difficult to comprehend.

Using PV with BEVs instead of ethanol in ICEs would be something like 200x more land efficient.

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

#237

Post by hef19898 »

actionfromafar wrote: post #222
hef19898 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It generally helps to no use hunches when it comes to hard technical questions.

Ok, the hard technical answer is that a phase change from liquid to gas eats a lot more energy than just heating the liquid however many degrees. :-) My back of the envelope calculations say it's about 10 times less water to evaporate.

There are detailed diagrams and formulas to calculate that. Engineering, not back of the envelope highschool physics.

But guess what, people designing an building power plants know this. And whatever is built is the best compromise possible at the time. Backnof envelope calculus in 2023 or not.

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

#238

Post by weberer »

megaman821 wrote: post #207
weberer wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Finland, the national power grid operator provides a live graph of how much that each source is outputting. Its kind of funny how solar produces almost no energy during the winter this far north. I'm very happy that we have that new 1,600 MW nuclear plant, so we no longer have to get that energy from coal. https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/

People want a one-size-fits-all solution, nuclear makes the most sense for the high northern latitudes. Depending on the geography; wind, geothermal and hydro are viable too. Now if you are talking about Egypt, building nuclear over solar/batteries makes absolutely no sense.

Yeah, I just don't like how people here are providing a false dichotomy of "renewables vs nuclear" instead of "renewables+nuclear vs fossil fuels". We should put solar panels on every rooftop so we're not throwing away that free* energy, while having nuclear plants as baseload power to smooth out the duck curve. Polar regions need to slide the scale more toward nuclear, while the equatorial regions can go mostly solar.

*free as in beer

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

#239

Post by epistasis »

paganel wrote: post #234
epistasis wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't a "reality" check from having inaccurate estimates, it was rising interest rates that put a huge damper on the cost of projects where all the expense is front-loaded.

Higher interest rates are part of the game, or of reality, if you want to put it that way. So, yes, it was a reality check and it has proved that that company could only be viable under very particular economic circumstances (i.e. interest rates being close to zero)

Whoa, their viability as a company is not under question.

The only thing under question is whether future long-term agreements will include inflation protection.

When interest rates rise tremendously, long term investment gets pulled way back. That's the entire point of hiking interest rates, to make companies like Orsted slash their growth rates. It does not put Orsted at risk for collapse.

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

#240

Post by epistasis »

doikor wrote: post #233
epistasis wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France did not experience a significant fall in construction costs when they were building lots of reactors in the 1970s. There's not much hope of getting that €125/MWh below €100/MWh, and honestly that €125/MWh is likely a sever underestimate to start with.

Don't know about France but TVO in Finland is way under that. Their earlier reactors were built in the 70s. They have been hitting 15 to 20€/MWh for decades now. Or at least this is the price they have been selling to their owners without going bankrupt for decades now. Target with OL3 in the mix is 40€/MWh so OL3 alone is probably in the 50€/MWh to 60€/MWh range. (and they got a really good deal with OL3) https://ww…

Paid off reactors can get by on O&M only costs. The trouble is getting through that initial period of paying off the loan and interest. Also, older reactors were far simpler and reliable to construct. (Though "simpler" does not mean simple, they are still extremely complex beasts of machines.)

Finland was smart enough, and France dumb enough, to sign a fixed-cost contract for OL3. This ended up in complete disaster for the French companies doing the building, with the French government buying up the failed builder.

So you can thank French taxpayers for a €70-€100/MWh subsidy for the new clean energy in Finland.

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