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US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

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Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#181

Post by pton_xd »

jordanb wrote: post #91

While I'm concerned about the environmental challenges of reversing the trend and increasing energy consumption, I'm happy that people are living in more comfortable homes, that the Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation). That is what we're using this electrici…

> That is what we're using this electricity for, right?

Ok, I'll say it: it's for AI datacenters to train chat bots.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#182

Post by microtonal »

Retric wrote: post #179
tastyfreeze wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas cooktops are good for still being able to cook when the power is out.

Batteries or Generators don’t just let you cook and stay warm when the power is out but do everything else such as keep food cold as well.

Do induction cooking tops work well on batteries (or generators)? IIRC our induction plate has two-phase power because it can pull more than 3.6kW.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#183

Post by spwa4 »

pton_xd wrote: post #181
jordanb wrote: post #91

While I'm concerned about the environmental challenges of reversing the trend and increasing energy consumption, I'm happy that people are living in more comfortable homes, that the Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation). That is what we're using this electrici…

> That is what we're using this electricity for, right? Ok, I'll say it: it's for AI datacenters to train chat bots.

You know, we don't have any choice! We need more power. It's getting so tough to get something to tell Trump he isn't totally fucking up America.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#184

Post by nightski »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #153
slashdev wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Vancouver, Canada natural gas was completely phased out as of the beginning of 2025 in most new construction.

What is NG good for? Induction cook tops perform better than gas ones, heat pumps do better than gas heaters. The only gap I can think of are just in time hot water heaters.

I own an induction stove, and overall really enjoy it. But there are certain types of cooking it's not nearly as well suited to (still possible, but not as good). One of those is cooking on a wok.

But really it comes down to heating. Heat pumps are not universally better. We are currently sitting at -25C or so which is pretty common in the winter (it can even get a fair bit colder at times). Hardly any of the contractors around here work with heat pumps, and even the ones that do aren't aware of the latest tech. That said even if you could get a cutting edge system through sheer money/will I am not sure how it would perform without at least a gas backup. At least from an efficiency standpoint.

Not to mention we have had electricity go out in the winter which can be life threatening or at least cause substantial damage to property. I can't remember ever having the gas go out. (we have generator backup but that couldn't run an electric furnace for very long).

Lastly we have a gas water heater (tankless) and damn that thing is efficient. A few therms a month...

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#185

Post by [deleted] »

microtonal wrote: post #175
tastyfreeze wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas cooktops are good for still being able to cook when the power is out.

I am not sure where you live, but I cannot remember the last time our power went out (Western Europe). I have gas-cooked since I was a kid (living in an area with a lot of natural gas, so houses were connected to gas since the 50ies), but induction is so much nicer that I'm happy to not be able to cook during a once in a ~10-20 year outage. Also a lot safer (it still happens quite frequently that a house blows up bec…

[deleted]

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#186

Post by infecto »

fpoling wrote: post #75
infecto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the US there is a push to make electric appliances smarter already. So for example, the electric hot water heater responding to the strain on the grid. The same could happen for AC, heat, EVs and other higher load appliances. At scale that can help out the grid immensely either in times of peak load or dip in demand.

I do not see a point of smart appliances besides electrical car. 10 KWt-hour battery will cover all the needs to smooth the demand from all home appliances and costs below 1K usd. It will allow also to significantly reduce maximum power that has to be supplied to a house while allow to increase peak consumption while heavy cooking/AC/heating.

At least in the US most of this is still on the research phase but if you can get a standard adopted for all new equipment you can easily adjust these high draw appliances to act as a virtual power plant. It would be a trivial implementation compared to getting batteries in homes.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#187

Post by chongli »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #153
slashdev wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Vancouver, Canada natural gas was completely phased out as of the beginning of 2025 in most new construction.

What is NG good for? Induction cook tops perform better than gas ones, heat pumps do better than gas heaters. The only gap I can think of are just in time hot water heaters.

Heat pumps do not do well when it's -40 outside. You can say "fine, but how often does it get that cold?" but consumers are not going to be happy with a heat pump if their pipes freeze during an extended cold snap.

I live in Southern Ontario and I have a heat pump with an auxiliary natural gas furnace for emergency heating. The heat pump shoulders most of the heating load but the thermostat does kick on the furnace when the heat pump starts falling behind.

It should also be noted that although heat pumps are very efficient, even when it's below freezing outside, they cannot raise the temperature of the house very quickly. Consumers are generally quite unhappy when it takes 8 hours to raise the temperature of the house by 1 degree, so the thermostat usually calls for the furnace to start up before things get that bad.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#188

Post by ZeroGravitas »

cbmuser wrote: post #149
ztetranz wrote: post #68

Here's a good podcast (with written transcript) about what's happening in Australia. https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-real-story-with-australian The difference in the permitting process between Australia and US is staggering.

Australia is still highly dependent on coal. They’re not a prime example of how to decarbonize an electricity grid. If you want a good example, rather look at France!

Since 2005 France has deployed as much solar and wind generation as they've removed nuclear, about 10-15%.

You probably meant late 20th Century France, when better renewable alternatives didn't exist, not current 21st century France.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#189

Post by infecto »

idiotsecant wrote: post #28
infecto wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger issue, at least in the US, is that there is a huge lack of supply in the equipment to connect to the grid at the moment. Backlogs are still 1-3 years after order, not terrible but still an issue deploying.

That is definitely not the bigger issue. If we had faster grid tie completions the problem would be even worse. If you don't believe me look at the very nearly daily negative power pricing inany areas of California. We simply don't have the transmission and storage for significantly more grid tied solar. It's pointless to build more for purposes of grid supply, we need to build transmission and storage first .

Disagree. Taking 3-5 years to get new plants online is a huge issue, renewable or otherwise

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#190

Post by bob1029 »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #126
bob1029 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any energy source can provide power. Not all prime movers are the same with regard to grid dynamics and their impact. Solar, wind, etc., almost universally rely on some form of inverter. This implies the need for solid state synthetic inertia to provide frequency response service to the grid. Nuclear, coal, gas, hydropower, geothermal, etc., rely on synchronous machines to talk to the grid. The frequency response c…

Or just grid forming inverters? https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-inverter-2667719615

These do not address the concern of fault current handling. This is a much more localized and severe condition than frequency deviation. Think about dropping a literal crowbar across the output of a solar inverter. This is a situation the grid has to deal with constantly.

I'd argue that nothing that uses semiconductors would be suitable for the task. They get you to maybe 2x rated current capacity for a meaningful duration. A spinning turbine can easily handle 10x or more for a much longer duration.

We could put so many redundant transistors in parallel that we have equivalent fault handling, but then we are into some strong economic issues. There's also no room for error with semiconductors. Once you start to disintegrate, it's all over ~instantly. There is no way to control this. A synchronous machine can trade downstream maintenance schedule for more current right now. The failure is much more gradual over time. A human operator can respond quickly enough if the machine is big enough.

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