Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 419 posts

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#231

Post by Gibbon1 »

verisimilitude wrote: post #31
DoctorOetker wrote: post #22

I don't truly understand this "problem". I understand storing the energy in batteries is currently very expensive economically and materially. However I believe there are plenty of "goods" (irrespective of if they are bulk materials, or partially processed products) which have a high processing energy per volume ratio (this does not need to be recoverable stored energy). Allow me to give an example: currently we have…

I believe aluminum is nicknamed "solid electricity" due to the ore purification process or somesuch; which dovetails well with the strategy you outline here!

About ten years ago I read a paper describing a pilot plant in 1950's Norway that was electrowinning iron from sulfide ore. I think the energy usage was 4-5kwh/kg.

Roughly the reason it's not economic is electricity nominally costs about 5 times what coal/nat gas does. And with the current carbon footprint of the grid it probably doesn't reduce CO2 emissions.

But that could change with as clean grid that has wild daily price swings. Electrowinning iron and other metals could easily soak up excess power.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#232

Post by GuB-42 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #5

> It’s left the utilities complaining that they can’t earn the returns they expected for their investment in generation capacity. Good. That's a well functioning market economy. Those who make poor investment choices need to feel the sting of losses else the market fails to work correctly.

It is well functioning economy, but is it good for the environment, CO2 emissions in particular?

Because with negative electricity prices, the obvious "good" investment is in peaking power plants. And considering that the best spots for hydro are already well exploited, it means fossil fuel. Natural gas is the best but newer coal plants, like the one they are building in Germany can do that to some extent.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#233

Post by imtringued »

hogwild wrote: post #169
bufferoverflow wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use sun light directly for that. Just paint your boiler black, maybe concentrate some sunlight with cheap mirrors.

Yea but not at night.

The entire point of this discussion is to figure out how to use electricity only during the day.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#234

Post by Dylan16807 »

WalterBright wrote: post #229
Dylan16807 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a much longer term elasticity. That's equivalent to flat-out raising electric rates and having people deal with hotter temperatures inside. That elasticity already exists, for the most part. Variable pricing probably doesn't get you a lot more of it.

I lived through the gas crisis. People were able to instantly change their use of gas to adapt. A simple example: people no longer drove to the store to buy a loaf of bread. They shifted to one trip and buying several days worth. They started carpooling. They started tuning up their cars (an ill-tuned car can be very inefficient).

My point is that they didn't start changing their behavior back and forth multiple times a day. They tightened their belts as much as they could, and kept them tight.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#236

Post by eloff »

floatrock wrote: post #48
DoctorOetker wrote: post #22

I don't truly understand this "problem". I understand storing the energy in batteries is currently very expensive economically and materially. However I believe there are plenty of "goods" (irrespective of if they are bulk materials, or partially processed products) which have a high processing energy per volume ratio (this does not need to be recoverable stored energy). Allow me to give an example: currently we have…

Capital costs vs. marginal costs. You're going to build a $100M desalination plant and run it for three hours a day? That's a ton of money sitting idle most of the day, far more than what is recovered with zero operating costs. (This is called the utilization factor -- how long a piece of equipment is used vs. staying idle) Ideally you want useful processes with low capital costs and expensive marginal/energy costs.…

Desalinization isn't a good example for the reasons you say, but theptip writes below that heating water in residential and commercial settings might be better. Since water once heated stays hot for a good while in the insulated storage tank. Also buildings can be heated with hot water instead of forced air, typically through pipes in the floor. Which is nicer because it keeps your feet toasty and doesn't dry out the room so badly.

A freezer is possibly another such use case, if it keeps the temperature to within +/- X degrees of the set temperature, it can delay kicking in during periods of expensive electricity, and over-cool during periods of cheap electricity.

I could load the washer or dryer and program it to run it when it's cheapest if I'm not in a hurry.

Charging an electric car could work the same way.

Air conditioners are a huge deal, my single biggest electricity consumer. In a world where things were smarter they would chill coolant/water/ice during times of cheap electricity, and that would be used to cool during the hot evenings.

The problem is I have no way to take advantage of any of that. The electric grid isn't giving me feedback on the spot price of electricity (and in many places they don't even break it down on the bill, showing just one value for $/kwH for the entire month - that's what my bill looks like.)

Even if that problem is resolved, my appliances are too dumb to take advantage of that information to optimize my costs.

The grid needs to convey the realtime pricing information to customers, and then smarter appliances will be developed to take advantage of that information. The market may be able to do a surprisingly effective job of moderating demand itself if both the information and the means to apply it are available.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#237

Post by rstuart4133 »

bluGill wrote: post #69
verisimilitude wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe aluminum is nicknamed "solid electricity" due to the ore purification process or somesuch; which dovetails well with the strategy you outline here!

Unfortunately it doesn't. Aluminum needs a lot of electricity, but it needs to be consistent for several hours. It takes a lot of energy true, but the furnaces need to be at operating temperature. You can't just turn them on and off, there are startup and cool down times that need to be accounted for.

> Aluminum needs a lot of electricity, but it needs to be consistent for several hours.

Then Aluminium smelting is an excellent match for wind and solar. Quoting https://hal-mines-paristech.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-0052998...

"Typical numbers in accuracy are an RMSE of about 10- 15% of the installed wind power capacity for a 36 hour horizon."

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#238

Post by caf »

mmt wrote: post #200
whatsstolat wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live its about 25c (of Australian Dollar) for 1kwh but you only get 7c back. So a real battery would be much preferable.

> Where I live its about 25c (of Australian Dollar) for 1kwh but you only get 7c back I've read about places that don't actually do "net metering" and implement this with two separate meters, one for inflow and one for outflow. Is that the case where you are? Are there any time-of-use options available that might sweeten the deal? > So a real battery would be much preferable. Assuming it were free (even to purchase,…

It doesn't need two meters, you can just keep separate track of the times that the connection is a net exporter and the times it is a net importer.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#239

Post by WalterBright »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #227
WalterBright wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With minor engineering changes, you can timeshift quite a bit. Consider hot water heaters. When power goes out, mine will keep water hot enough for a shower for 2 days. Two days. That means the design can be changed to heat water up to, say, 200 degrees, and then mix it with cold water to bring it down to 100 or so when demanded, and one should never need to run the heater more than a couple hours a day when power is…

Sure, that works well if you're willing to wait 20 years for devices to be replaced. Though batteries keep improving and eating in to the amount you can save by doing that.

If you could shave your electric bill by 25-50% with new time-shifting systems and appliances, you (and I) would be looking to buy them tomorrow.

Re: Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

#240

Post by WalterBright »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #234
WalterBright wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived through the gas crisis. People were able to instantly change their use of gas to adapt. A simple example: people no longer drove to the store to buy a loaf of bread. They shifted to one trip and buying several days worth. They started carpooling. They started tuning up their cars (an ill-tuned car can be very inefficient).

My point is that they didn't start changing their behavior back and forth multiple times a day. They tightened their belts as much as they could, and kept them tight.

> several times a day

As I explained, that can be automated.

BTW, if you need an example of constant intraday fluctuation and its effects on behavior, look no further than the stock market.

Post reply on HN