A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #139

throwaway894345 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that electrification of fossil fuel applications is going to significantly increase the demand on our grid. So it’s not enough to get to parity in renewables, but we have to go far beyond our current capacity in order to accommodate a world in which almost every car is electric (whether electric hybrid or green hydrogen) and almost every home uses electric rather than natural gas for heating (not to me…

It's going to increase the amount of energy flowing through the grid, but there's plenty of excess grid capacity to accommodate that. The grid is a technological marvel, but one weakness about it is that it has never included storage except small amount of hydro (which I've heard some claim is because nuclear needed it so that the reactor could stay always on, but I have my doubts on that origin story) Without storag…

[deleted]

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

#212

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 8:55 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #192

throwaway894345 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that electrification of fossil fuel applications is going to significantly increase the demand on our grid. So it’s not enough to get to parity in renewables, but we have to go far beyond our current capacity in order to accommodate a world in which almost every car is electric (whether electric hybrid or green hydrogen) and almost every home uses electric rather than natural gas for heating (not to me…

I'm real bullish on electrification of everything, but the necessary service upgrades for me to get a level 2 charger on my property would cost on the order of $5-10k. Edit: typo corrected, I said level 3 previously

Yeah, same for me (I live in a condo building and our parking lot is not adjacent to the building). My wife and I bought a Tesla back in November of last year, and charging at superchargers hasn't been terribly inconvenient. If you do it too much, your peak charge rate gets limited by a small amount, but we haven't noticed it and we have 15k miles on it already. That said, it will be really nice to have a level 2 charger at our next place.

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

#213

Post by r00fus » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 8:58 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #192

throwaway894345 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that electrification of fossil fuel applications is going to significantly increase the demand on our grid. So it’s not enough to get to parity in renewables, but we have to go far beyond our current capacity in order to accommodate a world in which almost every car is electric (whether electric hybrid or green hydrogen) and almost every home uses electric rather than natural gas for heating (not to me…

I'm real bullish on electrification of everything, but the necessary service upgrades for me to get a level 2 charger on my property would cost on the order of $5-10k. Edit: typo corrected, I said level 3 previously

I find this surprising. I specced out an L2 charger and it did cost me $2K for the install + charger a few years ago (in an expensive market). The install required a new 100A line pulled to my garage as I had no existing washer/dryer there.

What else would you need to support L2 than an extra breaker entry for a 100A?

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

#214

Post by s1artibartfast » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

theluketaylor wrote: post #180

anonporridge wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a technical issue, but an economic one. If you have so much wind and solar generation that they spend too much of their lifespans sitting idle and not generating income, they potentially never even pay for their initial build cost and basic maintenance, let alone be a better investment than just buying a treasury note yielding 1%. That's a recipe for long term stagnation and depression.

If whole solar or wind farms find themselves sitting idle someone will drop off some containers nearby to split water into hydrogen or run a data center or something else that drinks power and skip the grid middle-man. Over-idle is not going to be a real issue; someone will always find a way to use of excess power.

Over idle already is a real issue.

Who is going to build a hydrogen generator or data center with a 80% idle time, operating only 12-4 PM?

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

#215

Post by r00fus » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

cp9 wrote: post #195

klyrs wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm real bullish on electrification of everything, but the necessary service upgrades for me to get a level 2 charger on my property would cost on the order of $5-10k. Edit: typo corrected, I said level 3 previously

fyi the inflation reduction act will cut a good chunk of that for you (assuming you're in the US) > The Alternative Fuel Refueling Property Credit expired at the end of 2021, but the Inflation Reduction Act gave it life again by extending its application through 2032. For homeowners, the credit is worth 30% of the costs of "qualified alternative fuel vehicle refueling property" installed in the home, up to $1,000.

The IRA kinda ruined the AFRPC because it's now only 30% if you're in an eligible jurisdiction (ie, low-income area). Otherwise, you get 6%.

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

#216

Post by beerandt » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #174

epistasis wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to increase the amount of energy flowing through the grid, but there's plenty of excess grid capacity to accommodate that. The grid is a technological marvel, but one weakness about it is that it has never included storage except small amount of hydro (which I've heard some claim is because nuclear needed it so that the reactor could stay always on, but I have my doubts on that origin story) Without storag…

That's an interesting point I hadn't considered before. That said, I would think the net effect is still increased demand on the grid. If everyone buys an EV, I can't imagine that constitutes a net reduction in demand on the grid even if everyone charges off-peak (unless utilities can pull storage from those car batteries during peak hours, and I doubt car owners will want that kind of wear on their batteries). Do yo…

In engineering speak, what he means is increased grid efficiency, which can happen simultaneously with increased demand and increased cost.

But all that does is shift the inefficiencies off of the grid. It's redefining the system boundary in a politically/ marketing friendly way, but doesn't eliminate the problem of storage/buffer capacity.

Anyone who thinks the grid can approach steady-state operations near capacity hasn't seriously looked at demand patterns, and that's before complicating things by trying to accommodate the transportation needs of replacing gas/diesel.

It's the equivalent of claiming traffic problems can be solved by staggering when people work instead of doing road improvements.

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

#217

Post by kkfx » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

stevesimmons wrote: post #93

kkfx wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider how strategical targets became such networks? How much geopolitics nightmares they represent?

Conversely, did you consider how much critical infrastructure we already have today, and how surprisingly little of it is targeted?

Yes, all are far less fragile than such worldwide grid: takes logistics, anything can go wrong but there are few hotspots and in any case we have buffers here and there, a total disruption it's hard, actual "crisis" clearly show it. We have big airports. If one goes totally out of service planes can choose some else and passengers with issue can continue their journey etc.

On contrary a global-scale electricity grid means a global scale blackouts with global scale cascading effects. Something we have already seen at far smaller scales and already devastating effects.

Anything can fail, but if the fail impact few it's far less big than something who impact all. Also if you have buffers you can have a bit of time, even short, to act, to reduce the impact. If you have nothing because you are actually powered by some farms in Uzbekistan thousand of miles away than you are completely TFU.

Just as a sidenote: I've invested in a new (witch means well insulated) home, with p.v., a little lithium storage to survive a single night etc just to ensure I still have energy in case of disruption. So far it already worked few times, and curiously such times are more and more frequent, partially due to explicit political choices partially due to natural events, partially because we push renewables up and still have nothing to compensate energy (frequency) fluctuation they provoke in the national grid. Now instead of try solving this issue witch is VERY BIG especially if you live a bit at north (winter) or at south (aircon needs) some propose some megaprojects fully know that ALL recent megaprojects fails all over the world, and in general ANY big-enough project fail at a rate proportional of it's size and complexity. What's the outcome? Personally I'm protected, at a high price, others simply get worse and worse services and no backups. Also without any proof that we can reach a stable future and that the actual tech is less pollutant at global scale than even classic fossil (actually p.v. and battery shift pollution in exotic place, but do not reduce it at global scale)...

Oh, just to be clear I'm from the EU, nephew of a WWII Partisan's family, so definitively not something like "proud boys" people.

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

#218

Post by kkfx » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 9:09 PM UTC

SlickNixon wrote: post #158

kkfx wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider how strategical targets became such networks? How much geopolitics nightmares they represent?

As opposed to fossil fuels, famously free of geopolitical nightmares.

You can store oil. In significant quantity. You can't store electricity in the same way, easiness and quantity. So in case of a war you still have, any country still have months of oil reserves, very little electricity reserves in the form of pumped hydro, fossils and nuclear powers. Not only: a electricity grid disruption is almost instantaneous, oil&gas issue takes at least days and can be foreseeable in months and years.

At a small scale: you can easily store in your garage 1000l, 2000l of diesel. You only need two cheap plastic reservoirs with a supporting structure (something here in EU south priced 50-200€ per tank) and or a high enough support (gravity fall) or a manual/electric pump (various price but in the range of 200-500€ more maximum) and your car will be autonomous for a certain, not that small, amount of time. Similarly to heat your house you might have perhaps 5-15.000l tank underground in your garden, normally sufficient for an year of heating. You can also easy store hot water, it does not last that long but two day is doable. You might have wood burning backups etc. Electricity? Try just to compare the impact of a 5 day gas station strike vs a 5 day blackouts for yourself.

My personal lithium storage suffice for a night at minimum service (just lights, fridges/freezers, home rack etc NO heating/cooling without Sun) and its price was ~4k€ (battery) + 2k€ (battery inverter) for an estimated maximum service life of 10 years. While diesel reservoirs and pumps can potentially last 100+ years. Surely the Sun tend to shine a bit all day, but just to live on it I need at my single-home scale the price of a mid-range car for a similar MTBF. With a very cheap and resilient solution I can survive few months without diesel supply. With relatively cheap freezers I can survive a month or two grocery supply without special attentions. Without water things get complicated, but I still have a bit of autonomy anyway. Without electricity I have a small autonomy thanks to p.v. + lithium but while all the rest it's doable by anyone the p.v. system is too expensive for most and still not suffice to heat the house in winter. In summer I can cool it during the day and lucky here nights are always fresh, but you get the idea.

At a bigger scale I do not have sources is English, this is a study by French Gov. https://www.economie.gouv.fr/files/files/directions_services... on the topic, it's conclusion are: we can't run France on renewable nor now nor in the foreseeable future. And that's a study by public body only, no interested parts for nor fossil nor renewables sectors...

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

#219

Post by trashtester » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #139

throwaway894345 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that electrification of fossil fuel applications is going to significantly increase the demand on our grid. So it’s not enough to get to parity in renewables, but we have to go far beyond our current capacity in order to accommodate a world in which almost every car is electric (whether electric hybrid or green hydrogen) and almost every home uses electric rather than natural gas for heating (not to me…

It's going to increase the amount of energy flowing through the grid, but there's plenty of excess grid capacity to accommodate that. The grid is a technological marvel, but one weakness about it is that it has never included storage except small amount of hydro (which I've heard some claim is because nuclear needed it so that the reactor could stay always on, but I have my doubts on that origin story) Without storag…

> Electrification has enormous potential to reduce grid cost, and overall energy cost, IMHO.

This sounds a bit strange. I'm pretty sure that electric cars and replacing natural gas for heating will require quite significant investment in electric distribution infrastructure.

Also, if you want to be able to transfer a significant fraction of power generated from wind and solar across the country, transmission capacity needs to be multiple times greater than today, as far as I can tell.

Some kind of smart adjustment of the end user consumption may slightly shave up the extremes in demand, but that requires a significant investment per household (not only in money, but also awareness and ability to set this up), and a lot of people do not want to compromise on the charge of the car or the temperature in their living room.

And in the end, I really doubt that those efforts will make a big difference, unless paired with significant spare battery capacity.

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

#220

Post by Schroedingersat » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

plantain wrote: post #21

WalterBright wrote: post #4

5 hours of grid-scale storage seems like a lot.

The "Victorian Big Battery" cost about 100 million to build and provides 450MWh, so at those prices the 120GWh they calculate for 5 hours would cost about 25 billion. Not outrageous in the scale of nation building projects.

Prices have roughly halved since then, and will likely halve again when a winner of the not-lithium battery competition emerges (which is looking very much like sodium ion as it's entering mass production). Everyone is expecting another halving after that but before 2035 even with no single clear winning outcome. After that prices become dominated by steps that don't typically get cheaper, so prices much below $30 (or a bit over 10% of the Big Battery) are unclear.