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Solar and batteries can power the world

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Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#171

Post by turtlebits »

balderdash wrote: post #128

Just my 2c but I think the biggest thing we could do is to reduce the regulatory burden, cost, and complexity associated with installing roof mounted solar. This should be something that can be approved and installed in a week, and should be a half the price (put another it should have a double digit roi) . Right now all of the economics of home solar are consumed by regulation/complexity and the contractors / solar…

100% this. If it was DIYable, its an order of magnitude cheaper.

I have leftover panels from an off grid install, and its extremely hard to get an approved permit for a small roof solar array + off the shelf AIO (Ecoflow/Anker)

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#172

Post by ZeroGravitas »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #131

Elon said the same thing about the US a decade ago. "a fairly small corner of Nevada or Texas or Utah." https://www.pcmag.com/news/elon-musk-running-us-on-solar-req... See you next decade when we're saying the same thing and not doing it?

Musk was proposing about 1.2TW of solar capacity, the US installed about 250GW since then and is currently installing about 50GW a year and is projected to have 770GW by 2036 in a decades time.

So the US is probably over-delivering compared with many things Elon has proposed delivering himself.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#174

Post by turtlebits »

jacquesm wrote: post #142
ronb1964 wrote: post #130

I build off-grid camper vans for a living and install solar + lithium battery systems regularly. The technology has matured a lot in the last few years. What used to take a massive roof array and a bank of heavy lead-acid or AGM batteries to run basic appliances now fits in a fraction of the space with lithium. The limiting factor in real-world installs isn't the panels or the batteries anymore, it's getting customer…

Very nice. I have my eyes on Lithium-Titanate cells for my house, I can't wait until they go down in price enough. Weight and energy density are not an issue, but safety is and those cells are very good in that sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-titanate_battery

LFP is safe and is under $100/kwH.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#175

Post by gpm »

declan_roberts wrote: post #75
dyauspitr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a 30 kWh battery considered massive? My F-150 lighting has a 143 kWh battery.

Yes 30 kWh battery is considered large. It takes up a full 6 slot 2u rack in my garage and cost around $8k. In the context of OP's goals it's larger than what 99% of people in the world will ever have.

Approximately 1% of people in the world currently have an EV with a more than 30 kWh battery... and we're very early in the adoption curve of EVs and other large batteries.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#176

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

gpm wrote: post #139
ronb1964 wrote: post #130

I build off-grid camper vans for a living and install solar + lithium battery systems regularly. The technology has matured a lot in the last few years. What used to take a massive roof array and a bank of heavy lead-acid or AGM batteries to run basic appliances now fits in a fraction of the space with lithium. The limiting factor in real-world installs isn't the panels or the batteries anymore, it's getting customer…

I doubt that issue scales to the national grid at all... national grids tend to dictated in size by more or less market forces not careful pre-planning... and capacity planning for new projects tends to have actual data about energy demand and weather patterns and so on.

And what the market doesn’t solve the grid operator solves using ancillary markets.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#177

Post by caseysoftware »

Tade0 wrote: post #32
declan_roberts wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said he grossly understates the energy demand we use in the United States for heating during the winter.

I believe a lot of that demand is due to there being no incentive to increase energy efficiency.

There are TONS of incentives to increase energy efficiency.

Most local electric and gas companies will do free energy audits. Many will offer rebates if you install tankless water heaters, heat pumps, and insulation. Installers get kickbacks from manufacturers and tax credits if you buy higher efficiency equipment. Lenders will give you 0% loans to fund it all. The Feds and many States offer tax credits for all of the above.

I've done every single thing on this list in the last 5 years, some in Texas, some in Indiana.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#178

Post by marcosdumay »

proee wrote: post #170

EVs are essentially a giant battery on wheels. Seems there is a good opportunity to configure them as bidirectional power banks for your local grid. You could rewire all parking slots to have a plugin that acts as a bidirectional power station. Imaging how much power could be moved around with such a grid! This would require a major investment in power transmission layouts, but a city full of batteries on wheels. Cal…

It's nice for an emergency, and almost all EVs can do that already.

But people pay extra to put the batteries over wheels because they need to haul charged batteries around. It's not normally useful to discharge them locally.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#179

Post by gpm »

legitster wrote: post #72

By 2050 is the important caveat. That's assuming constant production of batteries at the current scale and production. It also assumes we figure out how to economically recycle materials from batteries (and total recovery may never be possible). Grid scale lithium batteries have an effective lifecycle of 15 years. In this potential future, global lithium reserves would actually start getting choked up before the 2050…

> That's assuming constant production of batteries at the current scale and production.

That's a terribly pessimistic assumption when production has been scaling exponentially, and cost per kWh dropping exponentially.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#180

Post by notTooFarGone »

balderdash wrote: post #91
mbesto wrote: post #41

Fun fact, 12 million hectares of land of used to produce corn used for ethanol which is used to produce gas. I'll let you draw the conclusion. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/04/trading-some-corn-e...

I’d rather people went rooftop solar, and put that land to producing food.

Do you know how much land there is that is simply not worth farming on?

There are deserts everywhere.

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