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Solar Energy Saves Europeans $135M a Day

cleantechnica.com

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Re: Solar Energy Saves Europeans $135M a Day

#161

Post by rsynnott »

ramesh31 wrote: post #78
polairscience wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This perspective is always so myopic to me. I say this as someone who doesn't make much money who's in the middle of a massive solar install (DIY). I made some simulations and a spreadsheet to work out all of the scenarios and I figured out that with a loan I can come out at monthly financing costs nearly exactly my electrical bill every month. That's right, I can have a 12 kWh battery backed 18 kW whole-home install…

>"Saying there's no "ROI" is looking at the situation like the only variable is your monthly expenses." That's the reality of life for most people outside of our little bubble of six figure earners. If it's a higher monthly price, it's a nonstarter. >"Additional home value/equity" I wouldn't be so sure of that. Solar is a massive maintenance liability that a majority of buyers will avoid. Fine if you find the right o…

> Solar is a massive maintenance liability

... Wait, which maintenance is this? You'll probably eventually have to replace the inverter (or, at least, solar panel warranties are normally considerably longer than inverter warranties), but that's probably about it.

(Theoretically you can get a minor efficiency improvement by cleaning them regularly, but it really is minor to the point of "arguably not worth doing at all" in most conditions.)

Re: Solar Energy Saves Europeans $135M a Day

#162

Post by ben_w »

cubefox wrote: post #150
ben_w wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity#...

That's nonsense. Solar during overcast days is extremely and at night infinitely expensive by itself. You can't just take some average, you have to take expensive gas or battery backups into account when comparing to a stable energy source like nuclear or coal which doesn't need these backups.

> That's nonsense.

It's one of the industry standard metrics.

> Solar during overcast days is extremely and at night infinitely expensive by itself.

1. Note pink line's name: https://assets.bbhub.io/image/v1/resize?width=auto&type=webp...

(from article: https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/battery-storage...)

2. Literally everybody knows this. 2006 wants their memes back. Why do people bring this up without realising that demand is lower at night, with shops and factories being closed etc.? Even the duck curve thing is solved with just 1-2 hours of storage.

A quick DDG search says that other nearby countries with higher % of specifically solar (e.g. Luxembourg, Hungary, Netherlands), have lower consumer electricity prices than Germany, ergo solar itself isn't what's causing the high consumer prices in Germany.

And it's not like batteries are even expensive any more, at least not when bought in bulk.

> You can't just take some average,

Sure you can.

Consider a consumer with a constant demand (to make the maths easier, still works if not):

Option 1: use only the thing which works 24/7, but costs €1/kWh

Option 2: use the thing which works 50% of the time and while working costs €0.05/kWh, and the rest of the time go back to option 1.

Option 1 costs €24/day

Option 2 costs (50% * €1/kWh * 24h) + (50% * €0.05/kWh * 24h) = €12.6/day, or €0.525/kWh.

(PV is of course weirder than that, because it's shaped more like "Over the next 35 years it will emit X joules for your initial investment of Y money", so you're pre-paying for something, and also it's immune to any inflation, and there's a long side-discussion about financing here I'll skip as you seem to be refusing to accept even the fundamentals).

> stable energy source like nuclear or coal which doesn't need these backups.

They absolutely do need backups, their downtime is higher than you may expect.

This is, in fact, why even coal rich countries don't only use coal. Why nuclear-happy France doesn't only use nuclear. Etc.

Dismissing the cost benefits of renewables "because they need some kind of backup" is like dismissing the travel benefits of planes because the airspace around them gets closed every night, or like refusing to use a bike ever because sometimes you need to buy a new fridge and that won't fit on a bike trailer.

Or dismissing oil because of the two stupid wars currently going on, and how much they impact oil.

Re: Solar Energy Saves Europeans $135M a Day

#163

Post by rsynnott »

cubefox wrote: post #122
ben_w wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This doesn't explain why Germany has so high electricity prices. It's the main thing which does. Say you have two energy sources, Alice Electric can deliver at €0.03/kWh but only up to 10% of your demand, while Bob Energy can deliver 200% of your demand but all units will cost €0.5/kWh. The net result of the electricity auction, as described, is that the consumers pay Alice and Bob €0.5/kWh each, which gives Alice…

This doesn't explain why energy costs are higher in Germany. You have to replace the words "Alice" and "Bob" with something that is relevant to the topic at hand.

Bob is gas, here, generally. Gas is the supply of last resort pretty much everywhere. Though in Germany in particular, Alice is beginning to be big enough that the dynamic is beginning to break down; this March spot prices started to go zero or even negative at midday.

Re: Solar Energy Saves Europeans $135M a Day

#164

Post by rsynnott »

cubefox wrote: post #137
ben_w wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bob is the marginal generator: the most expensive power plant that still has to run to satisfy demand in a given hour (or whatever the auction period is, I assume it's per hour). Bob is not one single concrete thing, it's the abstract concept, anthropomorphised. Germany's energy is expensive because the marginal generator is so expensive.

The marginal generator is likely so expensive because solar was used to replace cost effective nuclear and coal plants.

No; nuclear and coal can't _really_ be used for peaking. They're too unresponsive. Peaker plants are pretty much always gas these days.

Re: Solar Energy Saves Europeans $135M a Day

#165

Post by rsynnott »

lnsru wrote: post #16

And yet all solar gear installed comes from China. Source: I am electrician installing it.

I mean... so? The immediate alternative is gas, where most of the _fuel_ comes from various dubiously-friendly regimes. At least once the solar panels are in place, China's permission isn't required for them to produce power.

Re: Solar Energy Saves Europeans $135M a Day

#166

Post by mayama »

teamonkey wrote: post #116
mayama wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fore more than 2 hours capacity, batteries are expensive than most other and cost keeps increasing as more hours of capacity needed. Without gas or coal to burn when 1hr battery capacity runs out, battery storage is expensive.

Are you saying that the cost/MWh of battery storage goes up the more batteries are installed?

It's simple power vs energy equations. Let's say you need to supply steady 1MW to town for 1hr, 2hr or 10hr. This needs total of 1MWh 2Mwh or 10Mwh respectively. Let's say battery would cost $200/kwh, then this would cost 200k, 400k or 2M resp. Battery storage is generally used for less than 2hr duration currently where they are price competitive. For the rest, either gas peaker, coal or hydro is used.
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