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Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

cleantechnica.com

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Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#241

Post by imtringued »

pfdietz wrote: post #97
mlyle wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear batteries will do the same. While there's been effort to make batteries less reliant on scarce natural resources and mining, there's no guarantee we really get there. If we don't, price can be expected to go up, not down, with scale. I would bet on price going down slightly with scale, but one can't really tell now what will happen: it might go up a lot, it might go down a lot, or it might stay flat.

There are thousands of different chemistries for batteries. The nuclear stans are betting that all of them fail.

These discussions are always super boring. There are dozens of technologies that can scale to the level needed but everyone goes goes lithium ion and pumped hydro as if everything else didn't exist.

Sure cell batteries might not work, we can try out flow batteries, we can try liquid metal batteries, we can try hydraulic hydro storage, we can try out hydrogen, we can try compressed air, we can try electrolyzing iron or aluminum, we can try another dozen different things and it is highly likely that at least 3 will work out just fine.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#242

Post by imtringued »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #101
pfdietz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are thousands of different chemistries for batteries. The nuclear stans are betting that all of them fail.

None of those other battery chemistries are seeing the massive growth that lithium ion batteries have experienced. The nuclear "stans" are just pointing out that these are potential solutions, not actual solutions. If iron oxide batteries, or some other chemistry, suddenly becomes cheap and easily deployed at the TWh scale, great. But until then they're not a solution.

There is very little demand for grid storage. The biggest problem with energy storage is that it's a red herring until the 30s and 40s.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#243

Post by imtringued »

Danieru wrote: post #64
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possibility is to use farmland or grazing land. You can pick crops that do better in part shade and then place solar panels over them. If done right it could have a beneficial effect on crop growth while at the same time earning extra money.

This is a allowed but semi-rare technique in Japan. Rare because of the capital costs to built the panels. Certain high end plants, such as tea, prefer the shade.

It would be interesting in northern Africa. Install soil erosion blankets and then put solar panels on top to reduce evaporation. Trim the plant growth to increase the biomass available to the soil.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#244

Post by imtringued »

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #45
fabatka wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then harvesting would be significantly harder, no? At least in the way I imagine this.

I'm not sure but certainly it would depend on the crop as different harvesting methods are used for different crops. For example, panels could be built so cows can graze under them or for handpicked crops so that people can walk under them.

You're right. Just build a "solar roof". Basically a solar panel on four legs.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#245

Post by imtringued »

cbmuser wrote: post #19

It doesn't matter that solar itself is cheap, it still needs backup plants which are the reason Germany has the highest electricity prices - world-wide. > https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/ It's really strange that users on HN keep rehashing the myth that solar and wind energy will result in lower electricity prices for consumers - they won't, never. Even if solar and wind energy was free, consume…

German electricity is dirt cheap if your business qualifies for tax exemptions. Consumers have to pay all the renewable energy taxes and they get higher as the spot market price drops.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#246

Post by nicoburns »

ch4s3 wrote: post #68
jeffbee wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody needs 1 full day of storage.

One could imagine a series of cloudy windless days in the northern latitudes during the winter. Perhaps a large enough gird solves that problem? I have no clue.

If we had smart metering, then we could simply restrict consumption in these (presumably rare) circumstances.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#247

Post by eloff »

kragen wrote: post #229
eloff wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a lot to read to figure out that you did mean you think energy consumption will increase 100x in 30 years. That's crazy. You do realize electricity consumption has actually declined in the US in 7/10 years over the last decade, despite a growing population and economy [1]. Worldwide as standard of living catches up with the US, electricity consumption will increase - but it would take a massive unforeseen de…

"That's crazy" isn't a rebuttal; it's just a statement of surprise. But I already know that what I said was surprising. As I said, in 01800 it was "crazy" to contemplate people safely traveling at 30 miles per hour (13 m/s in non-medieval units) or crossing the Atlantic under steam, and in 01830 it was being done, if not yet commonplace. In 01954 it was "crazy" to use a computer for "clerical work" like compilation;…

> I think a 100× increase in world marketed energy consumption due to PV is eminently plausible.

It's not plausible, and despite your verbosity you offered no hypothesis as to why energy needs might increase 100x in just 30 years.

It's not impossible, but there is no reason to expect that to happen - and you offer none, which I think is the minimum required to support your argument.

That demand will increase 100x simply because solar energy is cheaper is not an argument.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#248

Post by dukeofdoom »

imtringued wrote: post #240
dukeofdoom wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I've been watching these Van build outs into full time living vans for travel. Most of them have solor panels on the roof, and 3 two hundred watt batteries. One guy said it would take him 23 days to fully charge these batteries off of solar vs just a few hours to charged them from the alternator when he is driving. It just doesn't seem very practical at this point. They all seem to have 2 or 3 thousand watt panels…

I saw an EV van that had solar panels that generated enough power to drive 50km per day. It was fully decked out to a comical level though.

in real life? or youtube? can you share a link

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#249

Post by toomuchtodo »

netflixandkill wrote: post #154
zizee wrote: post #41

I think the future will be robust national/international grids, with a mixture of storage options (batteries/pumped hydro) to smooth out the intermittent nature of wind and solar. Cynics always talk about the amount of energy storage required for solar as if you need to store 24 hours of energy for solar/wind to be viable. I'd like to see numbers on having 1 hour of storage for peak demand, a robust national grid, an…

It's not cynicism, it's understanding capacity factors and how difficult large scale storage is. If solar panels have a capacity factor of around .25, which is what we're seeing in real installations worldwide, then it is necessary to overproduce by at least 4x and store it somewhere for off-peak solar production hours. It's even worse if there is not other dispatchable generation available unless people are willing…

That Guam use case would be perfect to trial combined desal and hydrogen production and storage for production troughs instead of keeping the diesel genny. Saltwater and renewables goes in, clean water and hydrogen come out.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#250

Post by Qwertious »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #171
Qwertious wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your own source: "The solar heavy network wouldn’t need energy storage with an HVDC network." So no, we wouldn't need that. HVDC would be far cheaper.

A solar heavy network would still need 12 hours of storage to accommodate nighttime energy use. More actually, because of greater seasonal fluctuations further from the equator. All of the Americas experience night time simultaneously for at least 8 hours a day. Even if we ran HVDC lines to the Sahara, there's still a period of time where most sunlight is shining on the pacific ocean.

Yes, 100% solar makes no sense. Thankfully, we have other sources such as wind.

Also, if you can run HVDC to the Sahara you could run it to hydro plants, so I don't think that's a good hypothetical.

But mostly, talking about pure solar just makes no sense.

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