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Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

electrek.co

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Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#11

Post by ch4s3 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #6
willvarfar wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the article talks about consumers scheduling things like washing machines during the day, or even filling up a battery.

They could also run their AC to below where their normal set point would be to “bank” some of the free electricity. I wonder if we’ll start seeing other more passive energy sinks… if you lived in a hot area and could rely on several hours of free electricity each day, it enables all sorts of interesting options like turning on a secondary cooling system to “charge” a large boulder or hunk of metal that you could then…

If you built homes with a lot of thermal mass, you could cool the internal thermal mass when energy is $0 and have that mass absorb heat the rest of the day. This is sort of the principle a lot of traditional architecture uses where evaporation, wind over a courtyard, or nighttime lows cool thick walls.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#12

Post by hangonhn »

willvarfar wrote: post #3

Ignoring the politics, we have to say that China has done the world collectively as a whole a major service in strategically developing and mass producing super cheap solar panels.

It really is a huge service not just to the developed world that needs to decarbonize but also a huge service to the developing world. Solar can be put up quickly and cheaply and is good for about 2 decades and can be paired with cheap LiFo batteries to give round the clock electricity. Both of these are relatively portable. It can really bootstrap the economies of local communities where infrastructure hasn't been built out. Then combined that with portable Internet connection via something like Starlink or one of the competitor networks, we can really enable the available human capital in developing nations to realize their potential.

It's all very exciting I think.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#13

Post by mikeyouse »

ch4s3 wrote: post #11
mikeyouse wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could also run their AC to below where their normal set point would be to “bank” some of the free electricity. I wonder if we’ll start seeing other more passive energy sinks… if you lived in a hot area and could rely on several hours of free electricity each day, it enables all sorts of interesting options like turning on a secondary cooling system to “charge” a large boulder or hunk of metal that you could then…

If you built homes with a lot of thermal mass, you could cool the internal thermal mass when energy is $0 and have that mass absorb heat the rest of the day. This is sort of the principle a lot of traditional architecture uses where evaporation, wind over a courtyard, or nighttime lows cool thick walls.

Yep, our house was built like this but in a cooler climate (large windows facing south with the all of the stone flooring and surfaces getting direct sunlight in the winter). But since most houses in the Aussie suburbs aren’t really optimized for this, you’d have to retrofit many million houses to take full advantage. Opens up some interesting opportunities for sure.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#14

Post by energy123 »

willvarfar wrote: post #3

Ignoring the politics, we have to say that China has done the world collectively as a whole a major service in strategically developing and mass producing super cheap solar panels.

And the US and Germany since the 1970s for putting public funds into early research

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#15

Post by tasty_freeze »

willvarfar wrote: post #3

Ignoring the politics, we have to say that China has done the world collectively as a whole a major service in strategically developing and mass producing super cheap solar panels.

For years I've been hearing one excuse for the US not doing more about climate change is that China is polluting more and if they aren't doing something about it then why should we?

The argument always seemed disingenuous. For sure, China produces a lot of pollution as they are modernizing, but they are also investing a lot in the direction of sustainability. If we take the balance of (pollution produced - pollution prevented) for the two countries, the day will come, if it isn't now, that the US is on the losing side of that comparison, and I wonder what the new argument will be for the US not doing more.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#17

Post by almosthere »

willvarfar wrote: post #3

Ignoring the politics, we have to say that China has done the world collectively as a whole a major service in strategically developing and mass producing super cheap solar panels.

They are so cheap, infact, that no other country in the world is able to compete even with huge tariffs.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#18

Post by freedomben »

almosthere wrote: post #10

For some reason when I read that I thought it was offering anyone in the world free electricity, and I started imagining the USA setting up a giant undersea cable... then I realized the voltage drop would be too high, then finally realized they meant it for Australians only!

Now I'm imagining drilling through the Earth to get the shortest possible line from Australia to my house. I like this

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#19

Post by Freedom2 »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #15
willvarfar wrote: post #3

Ignoring the politics, we have to say that China has done the world collectively as a whole a major service in strategically developing and mass producing super cheap solar panels.

For years I've been hearing one excuse for the US not doing more about climate change is that China is polluting more and if they aren't doing something about it then why should we? The argument always seemed disingenuous. For sure, China produces a lot of pollution as they are modernizing, but they are also investing a lot in the direction of sustainability. If we take the balance of (pollution produced - pollution…

It's easier to understand that excuse when people realize that Americans tend to start with a conclusion then work their way backwards to support it. As in, 'we aren't doing much about climate change so here's why that's okay'.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#20

Post by Leherenn »

BtM909 wrote: post #5

> The Australian government is floating a scheme that would share the benefits of solar power with everyone on the grid, offering totally free electricity to ratepayers in the middle of the day, when the sun is shining the strongest. > Australia proposes letting everyone benefit from negative wholesale rates I know more countries have this now, so that's a good initiative that hopefully will spread to other countries…

It might not be as reliable in other places to do it every day, even just in summer. Still, there's clearly a trend globally towards more dynamic prices.
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