Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

reneweconomy.com.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 365 posts

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#101

Post by goatlover »

themitigating wrote: post #72
itsoktocry wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ah yes, let's point the finger at California and ignore the one state... Wow, this comment is so indicative of modern discourse. The parent makes an off-hand reference about a state where brown outs have been an issue, (Democratic) California, and you feel the need to jump in with "WHY ARE YOU IGNORING (Repulican) Texas???" as if there's some political motivation behind an innocuous statement of fact.

Why did the parent make the off hand reference? Republicans know if they keep repeating such remarks (or accusations) it will eventually will just be accepted as fact without requiring evidence because people hear it from so many different people over long periods of time. They don't lie either, they just bring to attention a problem in a blue state or with a company considered to be liberal" and ignore similar issue…

But why make this political when the parent didn't say "Democratic" California or specify democrats as being responsible for the brown outs? Maybe they live in California instead of Texas? How do you know what their politics are?

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#102

Post by zdragnar »

plantain wrote: post #15
zdragnar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On its own, it does seem like a lot. Thinking about the nature of renewables where I live, it seems so small as to be not worth mentioning; January will often have a week to several weeks of heavy cloud cover and little wind. A mere 5 hours of capacity is a pittance. Australia, on the other hand, could easily make more sense, as I imagine the outback to be sunnier year round and maybe windier.

Cloud doesn't mean solar stops working - the decrease is 30-60% depending on thickness, but there's still very meaningful generation.

We get about nine and a half hours of sun in January, assuming no clouds. That leaves around 14-15 hours of no production, assuming there isn't sufficient wind (also often the case in January).

Panels operating at 30% capacity for 9 hours cannot be offset by 5 hours worth of storage. It simply isn't enough storage, even if the panels were operating at 100% capacity. Adding more storage really isn't a great solution either; I'm guessing that you would be hard pressed to get 15 hours worth of storage out of 9 hours of sunlight when the hours of darkness start at 4:30 PM, especially if everyone moves to electrical cooking, water heating and clothes drying, which some states are starting to compel.

So, the two obvious solutions remain- import stored energy from out of state, or using non-renewables as a base load a few months out of the year. We'll need to pay for burying tonnes of HVDC lines (stringing them up in tornado prone areas isn't a great call, imho) or the expense of more nuclear plants (unpopular and, currently at least, uneconomical) or pulling CO2 out of the air to offset natural gas (also expensive).

HVDC lines seem the cheapest, though sourcing the energy will take years of production and inter-state agreements to get to the point where the south is producing (and storing!) enough to send the excess north.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#103

Post by Schroedingersat »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #69
thayne wrote: post #57

"in Australia" is an important qualification here. Australia has a very high ratio of available solar and wind energy to population. Not that getting Australia fully on renewables wouldn't be exciting. But it is definitely an easier target than say the US.

Quite a lot of people live in Texas and California where renewables are already pretty advanced, plus there's nuclear in the north, and they have hydro and grid connections with Canada who have even more hydro and nuclear so the USA should be easier. The US intends to hit this target (i.e. 95% carbon-free generation) in 8 years I think, with 100% and wider electrification of current fossil fuel uses in 2035 and it di…

For the cost of 5kW nameplate of new western nuclear (>$10/W) you can get, right now, at retail, as an individual: 50kW nameplate of solar, and 8kW nameplate of wind, and 75kWh of storage and a 5kW generator (which will almost never need turning on) and a biogas digester.

And it will produce enough excess power to replace itself (with a cheaper version) or just triple the batteries if you can get 2-3c/kWh for the surplus well before the reactor is built

Mentioning nuclear as an option is about as sensible as a generator bicycle.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#104

Post by dont__panic »

arcticbull wrote: post #49

The Ontario grid has been there for years. 92% zero-carbon. [1] [1] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...

Wow, that's a lot of hydro and nuclear power!

Thanks for sharing. I wonder how the New England and upstate NY power grids compare, since they also have a lot of hydro and nuclear?

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#105

Post by ZeroGravitas »

rednerrus wrote: post #97
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a lot of people live in Texas and California where renewables are already pretty advanced, plus there's nuclear in the north, and they have hydro and grid connections with Canada who have even more hydro and nuclear so the USA should be easier. The US intends to hit this target (i.e. 95% carbon-free generation) in 8 years I think, with 100% and wider electrification of current fossil fuel uses in 2035 and it di…

62% of the power in Oregon comes from renewables, mostly renewables that are available 24/7.

Yeah, but that renewable hydro is unlikely to grow much in the USA, while wind and solar will be growing exponentially. Hydro is cool, and works well with solar/wind/nuclear to help match supply and demand, but ...

If you look at global renewable output, the big chunk of hydro production that's been flat for decades, somewhat obscures the recent sudden rise of solar and wind.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#106

Post by pydry »

cm2187 wrote: post #10

The averages don’t tell me much. We need to look at percentiles with intermittent sources of energy. 99% still means 3 full days of blackout every year. So it needs to be sufficient to cover an even higher percentile (in fact I don’t even think there is an acceptable number of hours of blackout in a year). I would be curious how they get to that with energies that pretty much go to zero the week there is no wind.

>99% still means 3 full days of blackout every year.

Or using some excess wind capacity to generate some windgas at and keeping it stored using existing natgas infrastructure.

The windgas process is only 50% efficient at converting electricity so it's only cost effective if it's used for say, These calculations also dont take into account demand shaping. If you can convince people to stop smelting aluminium so much and charging their cars on the off day that reduces storage needs still further.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#107

Post by mperham »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #59
mattnewton wrote: post #55

Meanwhile in the US, we have states allowing counties to ban solar and wind energy production specifically on privately owned and industrially zoned land. I hope Australia can push through the fossil fuel lobby as they start to fight harder. https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/08/23/nine-ohio-counties...

It's odd that the party that claims to be in favor of a free market is passing laws that actively restrict the free market.

They're only in favor of a "free" market that they control. Decentralization empowers everyone, not just plutocrats.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#108

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #103
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a lot of people live in Texas and California where renewables are already pretty advanced, plus there's nuclear in the north, and they have hydro and grid connections with Canada who have even more hydro and nuclear so the USA should be easier. The US intends to hit this target (i.e. 95% carbon-free generation) in 8 years I think, with 100% and wider electrification of current fossil fuel uses in 2035 and it di…

For the cost of 5kW nameplate of new western nuclear (>$10/W) you can get, right now, at retail, as an individual: 50kW nameplate of solar, and 8kW nameplate of wind, and 75kWh of storage and a 5kW generator (which will almost never need turning on) and a biogas digester. And it will produce enough excess power to replace itself (with a cheaper version) or just triple the batteries if you can get 2-3c/kWh for the sur…

I wouldn't advocate for new nuclear (for the same reason the creator of this model gives, it just isn't cost effective) but existing nuclear in stable, northern regions that also have hydro is definately a positive if you're aiming to get to carbon-free power faster.

If you don't have the much hydro then it can fight with solar/wind for usage of that dispatchable resource, and if you don't have the nuclear you can build solar/wind for less so there's no reason to start.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#109

Post by eldaisfish »

plantain wrote: post #15
zdragnar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On its own, it does seem like a lot. Thinking about the nature of renewables where I live, it seems so small as to be not worth mentioning; January will often have a week to several weeks of heavy cloud cover and little wind. A mere 5 hours of capacity is a pittance. Australia, on the other hand, could easily make more sense, as I imagine the outback to be sunnier year round and maybe windier.

Cloud doesn't mean solar stops working - the decrease is 30-60% depending on thickness, but there's still very meaningful generation.

it also creates another problem - solar generation drop off very quickly when the sun is obscured. going from 100% to 10% or 20% in many cases. Where doe the power come from during these swings? What generation source can ramp up and down at that speed?

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#110

Post by evancox100 »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #103
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a lot of people live in Texas and California where renewables are already pretty advanced, plus there's nuclear in the north, and they have hydro and grid connections with Canada who have even more hydro and nuclear so the USA should be easier. The US intends to hit this target (i.e. 95% carbon-free generation) in 8 years I think, with 100% and wider electrification of current fossil fuel uses in 2035 and it di…

For the cost of 5kW nameplate of new western nuclear (>$10/W) you can get, right now, at retail, as an individual: 50kW nameplate of solar, and 8kW nameplate of wind, and 75kWh of storage and a 5kW generator (which will almost never need turning on) and a biogas digester. And it will produce enough excess power to replace itself (with a cheaper version) or just triple the batteries if you can get 2-3c/kWh for the sur…

So you can buffer the wind/solar output for just 78 minutes? Doesn’t sound like a complete solution.

Edit: I guess per the paper it really depends on the specific details of generation/load timing. Could be workable for a certain region but not for another.

Post reply on HN