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Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

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Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#111

Post by Manfredo_1 »

pydry wrote: post #70
manfredo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery annually. That leaves geographically limited options like pumped hydroelectricity, and solutions not yet deployed at any significant scale like hydrogen fuel cells, synthetic methane, thermal batteries, flywheels, etc. Realistically we should saturate daytime en…

>Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery What's the point of this comparison? Lithium ion batteries are probably the least cost effective means of dealing with intermittency. It's also rare that the entire world is without wind and sun simultaneously. In terms of cost: Demand shaping < overproduction…

"Demand shaping" is a nice euphemism for energy shortages. And if we demand shaping we're just externalizing the cost to consumers that need to buy their own energy storage or change their energy usage patterns to accommodate the unreliable supply.

Overproduction helps but doesn't eliminate intermittency. And pumped hydroelectricity is geographically dependent. The irony is that most places with extensive hydroelectric storage potential don't need wind and solar in the first place because they get their energy from hydroelectric generation.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#112

Post by Manfredo_1 »

pfdietz wrote: post #110
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and what company can I call right now to install 50GWh of hydrogen storage? It's existing technology, but it's a novel application of that technology. We haven't used hydrogen electrolysis as a form of grid storage before. And we certainly haven't used it for grid storage at the Terawatt hour scale. And that the scale we'll need to make wind and solar viable. 1 TWh isn't even 30 minutes of global electricity c…

50 GWh of hydrogen would fit in one salt cavern of the kind already made for natural gas. Any numbers of companies can solution mine those caverns for you; that technology is many decades old. I'd need more information about the rest of what you want, as that scales by power not by energy capacity.

And are we currently using any of these caverns for electrolysis and grid storage? All you said is that we have a big cavern that we could fill with hydrogen. I'm asking if anybody is actually building hydrogen grid storage at any significant scale. Are there any facilities that take in excess energy from renewables, turn it into hydrogen, and then turn that hydrogen back into electricity?

We both know the answer: there aren't any.

Back in the 1950s people thought nuclear power would be cheaper than fossil fuels. They thought it'd be effectively free. The energy density of uranium is so much better, so clearly generating electricity with it would be much cheaper. But actually deploying a technology at scale reveals more and more challenges.

Your proposal for hydrogen storage is in the same phase that nuclear power was in during the 1950s. A solution that exists on paper, but one that hasn't actually encountered and overcome the challenges of implementing it at scale. Same with thermal batteries, synthetic methane, and so on. These are proposals that haven't passed the test of actual implementation at scale.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#113

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #111
pydry wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery What's the point of this comparison? Lithium ion batteries are probably the least cost effective means of dealing with intermittency. It's also rare that the entire world is without wind and sun simultaneously. In terms of cost: Demand shaping < overproduction…

"Demand shaping" is a nice euphemism for energy shortages. And if we demand shaping we're just externalizing the cost to consumers that need to buy their own energy storage or change their energy usage patterns to accommodate the unreliable supply. Overproduction helps but doesn't eliminate intermittency. And pumped hydroelectricity is geographically dependent. The irony is that most places with extensive hydroelectr…

There is always a shortage of electricity. Someone could always use more if it were free to do so. Economics is the study of the allocation of resources in the face of scarcity -- that is, all allocation of resources except perhaps breathable air. There's no need for a euphemism here because limitations on the consumption of energy are ever-present -- demand shaping is simply about making the signal stronger.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#114

Post by Symbiote »

Qwertious wrote: post #96
manfredo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery annually. That leaves geographically limited options like pumped hydroelectricity, and solutions not yet deployed at any significant scale like hydrogen fuel cells, synthetic methane, thermal batteries, flywheels, etc. Realistically we should saturate daytime en…

>By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery annually. And this will increase a hundredfold to make EV production possible. That means that if 10% of production goes to stationary storage then within 10 years, we'll have 10 full global hours of storage. If there's serious demand then the supply will scale up to create it. Also, old EV batteries will provide plenty of extra stationary…

The heater you describe is called a storage heater.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_heater

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#115

Post by crummy »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #111
pydry wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery What's the point of this comparison? Lithium ion batteries are probably the least cost effective means of dealing with intermittency. It's also rare that the entire world is without wind and sun simultaneously. In terms of cost: Demand shaping < overproduction…

"Demand shaping" is a nice euphemism for energy shortages. And if we demand shaping we're just externalizing the cost to consumers that need to buy their own energy storage or change their energy usage patterns to accommodate the unreliable supply. Overproduction helps but doesn't eliminate intermittency. And pumped hydroelectricity is geographically dependent. The irony is that most places with extensive hydroelectr…

Isn't demand shaping things like discounts during certain periods? My electricity provider lets me set a 'free hour of power' every day, as long as that hour is off peak.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#116

Post by Manfredo_1 »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #113
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Demand shaping" is a nice euphemism for energy shortages. And if we demand shaping we're just externalizing the cost to consumers that need to buy their own energy storage or change their energy usage patterns to accommodate the unreliable supply. Overproduction helps but doesn't eliminate intermittency. And pumped hydroelectricity is geographically dependent. The irony is that most places with extensive hydroelectr…

There is always a shortage of electricity. Someone could always use more if it were free to do so. Economics is the study of the allocation of resources in the face of scarcity -- that is, all allocation of resources except perhaps breathable air. There's no need for a euphemism here because limitations on the consumption of energy are ever-present -- demand shaping is simply about making the signal stronger.

There are rarely shortages of electricity in the US. There were some in California during Covid, and the state had to do rolling blackouts. But no, there are rarely shortages of electricity.

Yes, someone could use more of it than we could supply. But they don't. The existing supply is sufficient to meet demand. And when demand changes, we are capable of increasing supply.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#117

Post by Manfredo_1 »

crummy wrote: post #115
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Demand shaping" is a nice euphemism for energy shortages. And if we demand shaping we're just externalizing the cost to consumers that need to buy their own energy storage or change their energy usage patterns to accommodate the unreliable supply. Overproduction helps but doesn't eliminate intermittency. And pumped hydroelectricity is geographically dependent. The irony is that most places with extensive hydroelectr…

Isn't demand shaping things like discounts during certain periods? My electricity provider lets me set a 'free hour of power' every day, as long as that hour is off peak.

Yes, those incentives exist to try and shape demand. But in practice, people rarely take advantage of them. And some things really can't be shaped. The pumps that deliver your water cannot have their demand shaped, unless you're willing to go without running water for some hours of the day.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#118

Post by acdha »

ch4s3 wrote: post #68
jeffbee wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody needs 1 full day of storage.

One could imagine a series of cloudy windless days in the northern latitudes during the winter. Perhaps a large enough gird solves that problem? I have no clue.

That’s a problem if you’re an island isolated from everyone else, and you don’t have geothermal, hydroelectric, or nuclear options. The better question is how much capacity you’d need on a national grid to be able to handle large regional sags in production without endangering people.

As we recently saw with Texas’ catastrophic fossil fuel production failures the big problem is not the source but poor management and not being able to get help from the neighbors.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#119

Post by tzs »

manfredo wrote: post #54
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't car battery packs under $100/KWh? Is there some other factor which drives up the price for grid level storage?

The factor that drives up price for grid level storage is scale. Only ~300 GWh worth of batteries is produced globally each year. The world uses 2.5 TWh of electricity each hour. If anyone tries to install battery storage at a significant scale, demand will vastly outstrip supply and drive prices up.

That's lithium batteries, isn't it? For storage to balance out fluctuations in renewable sources you shouldn't need to use lithium.

It's used in cars and consumer devices because it can store a lot of energy for its size and weight and you don't have to mollycoddle it to avoid memory effects.

Those are much less important concerns for this application. You'd build you battery facilities somewhere outside your cities, perhaps near where you build your solar farms, and you don't need the batteries to move. Batteries that take up more room and/or weigh more than lithium batteries for a given capacity should be fine.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#120

Post by intrepidhero »

manfredo wrote: post #53
zizee wrote: post #41

I think the future will be robust national/international grids, with a mixture of storage options (batteries/pumped hydro) to smooth out the intermittent nature of wind and solar. Cynics always talk about the amount of energy storage required for solar as if you need to store 24 hours of energy for solar/wind to be viable. I'd like to see numbers on having 1 hour of storage for peak demand, a robust national grid, an…

Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery annually. That leaves geographically limited options like pumped hydroelectricity, and solutions not yet deployed at any significant scale like hydrogen fuel cells, synthetic methane, thermal batteries, flywheels, etc. Realistically we should saturate daytime en…

Let me introduce you to flow batteries. Lithium is a terrible choice for grid scale storage, except maybe as a secondary use of idle EVs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery

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