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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

#211

Post by phil21 »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #130
fpoling wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article that described that in UK one needs 1 megawhat-hour battery over the winter to be grid independent. Judging by current trends in few years that will be below 40K USD. While this is indeed very expensive in most of US due to much more sun available the required battery would cost below 20k. One can also have a backup generator that can run constantly at maximum efficiency to replenish the battery.…

These studies tend to always rely on a perfectly balanced grid without any extra capacity to find these massive seasonal differences. Add a bit of extra capacity to the wind/solar installations and the battery figures usually plummet.

This is for a single home off-grid, meaning solar over-production is already implied. You need enough solar available to charge that 1MW battery in time for it to be useful during those seasonal differences which is going to be multiples of your peak summer generation.

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

#212

Post by compumike »

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…

It's very local here. I'm in the suburbs of Philadelphia, in one of the highest income counties in the state, two blocks from a major hospital, one block from a suburban downtown. Despite that, I've experienced one or two 4-6 hour long power outages per year the past few years. (Mostly correlated with weather.) One outage in June 2025 was 50 hours long!

Many larger homes in this area have whole-house generators (powered by utility natural gas) with automatic transfer switches. During the 50-hour outage, we "abandoned ship" and stayed with someone who also had an outage, but had a whole-house generator.

Other areas just 5-10 miles away are like what you describe: maybe one outage in the past 10 years.

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

#213

Post by buckle8017 »

Aurornis wrote: post #144
setgree wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are indeed living in more comfortable homes. Americans are migrating to the sunbelt because of ample AC in the summer and the winters are pleasant. that’s a big part of why we have many fewer heat deaths per capita than Europe: https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2025/08/02/opinion-us-heat-...

You don’t realize how nice it is to live and work in air conditioned spaces until visiting a part of Europe where AC is viewed with disdain for reasons I still don’t understand. Also the move to electric heat pumps is increasing electricity rates but reducing natural gas usage and improving overall efficient. The GP comment was trying to do snarky doomerism but accidentally hit upon a lot of truths. It’s amazing how…

> You don’t realize how nice it is to live and work in air conditioned spaces until visiting a part of Europe where AC is viewed with disdain for reasons I still don’t understand.

Most of Europe is poor. AC is expensive. It's actually that simple.

There's AC in Switzerland.

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

#214

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

Aurornis wrote: post #198
tastyfreeze wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Interesting fact: A lot of modern gas cooktops have safety features that will cut the gas off when the electricity is out. The safety mechanisms are powered by electricity, so if they can't confirm that the operation is safe they fail with the gas valve shut off. It comes as a surprise to most users because power outages are so rare. They just assume it will work until 8 years later when they try to cook something du…

TIL. Never used a modern gas stove, so I had not considered that without a pilot light, there must be a way to disable the flow or constantly spew gas into the house. Then again, I have had a pilot light go out for some amount of time without obvious ill effect, so the volume of gas must be low.

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

#215

Post by vlovich123 »

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.

Perform better as in more efficient electrically, not necessarily more pleasant or efficient in the cooking process.

For example, when cooking an omelette, a recommended technique is to angle the pan so the liquid part flows towards the hot part of the pan touching the flame as you slowly scrape the curds up to rest at the cooler part of the pan. AFAIK an induction cooktop is unable to simulate this technique. Now maybe there are similar ways of getting this, but there’s centuries of experience informing cooking on top of a fire in some form or another. The techniques for cooking on induction cooktops well have not been learned, taught and communicated.

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

#216

Post by danans »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #159
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

I recommend a backup butane stove, which is what I have for outages where my induction stove doesn't work.

Also an outdoor camp chef stove. Both are cheap and work great. My camp chef doubles as an outdoor pizza oven.

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

#217

Post by youngtaff »

diego_moita wrote: post #164
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> What is NG good for? Mostly a myth by cooks that think it "heats faster" or "heats with a better distribution of heat". It is foolish, but many still think so. I personally believe that the only kind of cooking that benefits from NG are round-bottom woks. But they can be substituted by flat-bottom pans without problems.

Burning gas also releases a lot of pollutants — we’ve a gas hob but always switch the extractor on when we use it because of this

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

#218

Post by fpoling »

sandworm101 wrote: post #92
fpoling wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of places where solar panels can increase yield for specific plants by providing a shade. They also can generate electricity to run electrical pumps for targeted irrigation saving a lot of water.

Ya, but that isnt as widespread as fields being rededicated from crops generally to solar exclusively. And mixed use doesnt mesh well in a world of crop rotation and crop-specific harvesting equipment. I have yet to see a combine that can drive over solar panels without touching them.

Vertical solar panels allows combines to drive unmodified.

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

#219

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

bob1029 wrote: post #190
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 du…

Grid forming inverters provide 1/3 to 1/4 the fault current of a similarly sized generator.

The other trivial solution are synchronous condensers. Or just let the generators and maybe even turbines of future emergency reserve thermal plants spin with the grid without consuming any fuel.

Just ensure the proper margins exist in the grid and call in ancillary services as needed.

No need to make it harder than it needs to be.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/baltic-power-grid-2666201539

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

#220

Post by beached_whale »

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.

Better is subjective here. Vancouver will be a bit different with it's warmer weather, but for the week or two at -30C to -40C(like I get) it provides a lot more heat at a lower price and in Canada, at least Ontario, it is still much cheaper to heat a home and water with. I'll probably go heat pump if my boiler goes as I can avoid the cost of adding ductwork(really expensive these days and more than furnace for install) and get A\C too.
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