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In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

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Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#221

Post by hexbin010 »

kieranmaine wrote: post #81
ricardo81 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is blessed with cheap energy, the abundance of hydro surely helps to bridge any intermittency other renewables have. I lived there 10 years back, your energy is less than half the cost of mine in Scotland. In Scotland's case we're part of the UK and the rest of the UK is less blessed with the geography for hydro. The incumbent Scottish government also has an anti stance to nuclear. I hope the incentives for cl…

Related to UK energy I read this interesting article on transmission congestion between Scotland and England and how this is increasing energy costs due to curtailment of renewables. https://ukerc.ac.uk/news/transmission-network-unavailability... TL;DR - Until new interconnectors between Scotland and England are finished in 2029, there will be significant curtailment of Scottish wind power which increases costs. This…

The UK will perpetually have "issues" that lead to higher pricing. We just put up and pay. It is unspoken energy policy to be expensive

Oh no we messed up nuclear oops sorry made it very expensive. Pay up

Oops sorry we messed up transmission pay up

Oops sorry we let people get into huge energy debt pls pay off their debt in your bill...

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#222

Post by boringg »

testing22321 wrote: post #75
boringg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean physics would dictate that shade impacts performance but if you are able to break the laws of physics I am impressed!

And bifacial panels with higher efficiency were invented to work around that physics. Real numbers don’t lie.

No one works around physics. You work with physics or you don't work.

What you are describing is adding more solar capability to counter act the shade. Also the other part of it is that the panels work in parallel/not in series or alternatively don't dis activate as many conversion points as possible.

Physics never lies - they are the only laws that you cannot break.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#223

Post by pornel »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #196

Solar with a modern LFP battery system is a no-brainer solution for 21st century energy infrastructure. The safety record beats pretty much everything else, and as long as the sun is out, it just works.

In the UK just having batteries already helps. There's a surplus of wind at night. Shifting it to 5pm peaks pays back the cost of the battery quicker than solar panels pay for themselves.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#224

Post by rsynnott »

otterley wrote: post #110
DetectDefect wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven’t touched ours, they are clean and have been going fine with zero maintenance, though admittedly it’s only been a year. > Where are you getting this maintenance schedule from? The solar panel owner does not know the required maintenance they are now permanently responsible for. Ibid, your honor.

You’re being extremely argumentative all over the comments to this story. Do you yourself own any solar panels? Your ceaseless naysaying constantly contradicts people’s lived experience (including mine) as owners. Focus on solutions, not trying to be right. It’s aggravating.

> Your ceaseless naysaying constantly contradicts people’s lived experience (including mine) as owners.

Also, like, every study on this matter. The efficiency drop from being dirty for vaguely modern solar panels is _tiny_; below 5% and potentially below 1%.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#225

Post by ricardo81 »

amiga386 wrote: post #171
fullstop wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything that I learned about energy in Scotland comes from Still Game , so I must ask -- how many bars?

"One bar's plenty!" "Victor, it's gratis, get the three bloody bars on." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUMCO8cFrPU

3 bars? gonnae no dae that.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#226

Post by fulafel »

weslleyskah wrote: post #205

> In 2025, both Ireland and Finland joined the ranks of European countries that have shuttered their last remaining coal plants. Interesting, they mentioned Finland. I wonder how Norway and Finland fair using solar since they have rigorous winters with polar nights.

Hydro in Norway, nuclear+wind in Finland.

https://www.iea.org/countries/norway/electricity https://www.iea.org/countries/finland/electricity

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#227

Post by boringg »

rngfnby wrote: post #189
boringg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? No Canada isn't cheap solar power -- last I checked rooftop ballasted solar is a 12-14 year payback on avoided costs. Inverter will go beforehand and that excludes any op costs. 8k$ free loan doesn't really provide as much value as you would think. FWIW - I am all for solar but selling rooftop solar in canada as cheap and no-brainer is false. 3-4 year payback would be a no brainer. 8-13 year payback with an inv…

Largely agree, with one big nitpick. Canada is a massive exporter of electricity to the USA. The more clean energy CND produces the more there is to displace North East's coal. Of course, solar on Canadians' roof is a joke. A proper regulatory regime would encourage solar in Arizona and encourage lettuce Canada; not vice versa.

I don't disagree but the major energy being exported is from hydro or nuclear. It isn't coming off rooftop even at the margins. Rooftop solar is purely residential play.

If you are trying to argue that in aggregate the demand for energy in canada drops because of high adoption of residential solar which then passes off clean energy to the US - its a reach. Also the amount of individual infra for each small residential asset is probably not particularly great return on investment - would be better to do as large deployments.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#228

Post by patapong »

ricardo81 wrote: post #103
kieranmaine wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related to UK energy I read this interesting article on transmission congestion between Scotland and England and how this is increasing energy costs due to curtailment of renewables. https://ukerc.ac.uk/news/transmission-network-unavailability... TL;DR - Until new interconnectors between Scotland and England are finished in 2029, there will be significant curtailment of Scottish wind power which increases costs. This…

It has been a long standing problem. Ideas crop up like generating hydrogen with the curtailed energy or maybe at least in Winter, use it for heat generation. The problem would seem to be the capex and the inverse of intermittency being the problem for them in utilising that energy, i.e. waiting for curtailment. At least with available hydro you can pump water back up hill using a reliable and cheap tech.

I find it fascinating that we have not identified a use for almost free intermittent electricity. You'd think there would be plenty of things to do, but it seems like with the capex investment things like smelting etc need to always be running. Maybe electric car charging can come to the rescue? But even there people need their cars charged usually at certain fixed moments.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#229

Post by SamPatt »

embedding-shape wrote: post #179
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Solar prices in the US are criminal, protecting oil and gas who bought all the politicians. >Canada here. 7.6kw on our roof for $0 out of pocket thanks to $5k grant and $8k interest free loan. This very well may be true, but taken at face value Canada seems to be paying you around $7k to install solar panels on your roof (that's 8k interest free loan is losing out to inflation + any interest it would have earned). D…

> Definitely a great deal if you own a home, if I was a renter/condo owner I'd be annoyed that everyone is subsidizing your free solar however. What kind of selfish point of view is this? Don't you want people to use energy sources that are better for our entire world, even if it costs you like $10 more in taxes per year? Seems like a no brainer deal if you like "the outside" and you want it to still be there. I'm a…

>I'm a renter, been all my life, I'd be happy to pay more in taxes if it means more solar panels for everyone except me.

That's because you're rich like most people on HN.

Environmental protection is a luxury good. This has been proven time and time again.

A great reason to prioritize growth and wealth creation. Poor countries don't make those tradeoffs, they're worried about survival not what percentage of their energy usage is renewable.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#230

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

embedding-shape wrote: post #220
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm a renter, been all my life, I'd be happy to pay more in taxes if it means more solar panels for everyone except me. But I also feel the same about elder care, health care and a bunch of other things, do you feel the same for those things too, or this is specifically about solar or owning vs renting? There's an alternative, and almost certainly cheaper per watt with cost of scale, where your tax dollars go to a n…

Why not both? One works better for people not living in cities, and the other one better for high-density areas.

>One works better for people not living in cities

It's not as if homes outside of cities have their own diesel generators to power their house.

(Since I'm guessing from this line of comments you'll point out the less than 1% of people who actually do do this, maybe it's better to focus only the 99% here).

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