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Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

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Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#251

Post by saltcured »

Maakuth wrote: post #202
zer00eyz wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here (bay area), the power prices are so obscene that I almost makes sense to install batteries first. Those with homes with solar are going to end up saturating the grid (duck curve) to the point where renters can buy batteries and "coast", through the peaks of power cost.

Are spot electricity contracts available, so that you can do it like that? Makes sense then. And of course the installation cost of battery is way smaller than for a PV plant as no roof work is required.

AFAIK, there is no residential spot market with PG&E. Just different seasonal and hour-by-hour rate schedules with published rates.

There is an "electric home" rate plan that has three periods per day: off-peak, partial-peak, and peak with three rates. This can apply to a home with batteries, where you can shift your load to different periods. The spread can be up to $0.22 per kWh in summer and up to $0.04 per kWh in winter.

There is another rate plan with two periods per day: off-peak and peak. The spread here can be up to $0.09 per kWh in summer and up to $0.03 per kWh in winter. This is a typical plan for homes without solar nor batteries and with moderate consumption. This plan has two pricing tiers. A lower rate for consumption up to a "baseline allowance" and then a higher price after that. This allowance is summed over a whole billing period, in contrast to the time of use variations each day.

The above discussion do not include any net-metering, so you never sell power back to the grid. You just optimize your load during different hours of the day. With a currently available net-metering plan, PG&E will pay for excess power only around $0.02 to $0.04 per kWh.

Also, it seems PG&E distinguishes a "paired storage" net metering system, and requires special metering to track the solar generation that goes into the battery versus recharging from the grid. They will only credit solar production delivered back to the grid, and not off-peak grid energy reflected back during peak hours. So, I'm not sure why some posters seem to be talking about this arbitrage scenario.

For context, the actual per kWh rates are around $0.36 to $0.65 in the different seasons and rate plans. So these peak price differences may range around 5% to 25%. There isn't any of the wild fluctuation or negative numbers we've heard from other energy markets.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#252

Post by slyall »

mdorazio wrote: post #200
Zanfa wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I ran the numbers for this, price arbitrage alone using lithium batteries is not gonna be profitable. Current lithium batteries are just too expensive, store too little energy and degrade too quickly for true grid-scale storage. That’s why they typically offer services, other than price arbitrage, that actually makes building them make sense. There’s still no equivalent of a peaker plant using non-hydro sto…

Your numbers are likely outdated. The Tesla grid battery installation in Australia was so profitable that Neoen is building more as fast as it can: https://reneweconomy.com.au/neoen-aims-for-big-batteries-in-...

The Australian battery isn't just making money from Arbitrage. It makes most of it from "Frequency control ancillary services (FCAS)".

"80-90% of battery revenues have been coming from FCAS and about 10-20% from energy trading."[1]

I would assume the amount of FCAS capacity needed will be fairly limited so the economics of additional batteries won't be as good.

[1] https://www.energy-storage.news/batteries-are-number-one-at-...

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#253

Post by cycomanic »

foota wrote: post #108
hef19898 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You actually have no idea about electricity transmission. For long term problems, look no further than France. Short term, look up how electricity generation, transmission, markets and grid stability are linked. Wikipedia is a good start. Followed by studies about 100% renewable grids, those explain why baseload is much less of an issue than people think. And too much inflexible capacity, aka baseload, can actually b…

While I'm not a practicing economist, I have a bachelor's degree in economics and took multiple classes on the economics of electricity markets. While all of those are certainly relevant if you're comparing nuclear and other sources of power, I fail to see how that's relevant to the question of whether there's a significant difference between 80 and 95% capacity factor over a year.

Hold on you are an economist and are telling me the difference between a capacity factor of 95 and 85% is not relevant? What do you think the ROIs and margins are for nuclear investments? Considering that nuclear is almost completely dominated by upfront investment, I'd be surprised if the that difference is not the difference between comfortably making a profit on your investment and loosing a large amount of money.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#254

Post by cycomanic »

passwordoops wrote: post #185
throwaway2037 wrote: post #67

> Nuclear. Start-up of the fourth reactor (1.1 GW) at Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power plant I checked the Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla... > Two additional units utilizing Westinghouse AP1000 reactors were under construction since 2009, with Unit 3 being completed in July 2023.[9][10][11] This last report blames the latest increase in costs on the contractor not completing wor…

Regulation plays a significant role in cost overruns. Also we (should) expect the nuclear plants to work for at least a century while the panels and wind turbines last what, 5-15 years assuming no major storms damage them?

Design lifetimes for nuclear reactors are typically 30 to 40 years. Solar panels are often guaranteed to produce about 80% of their capacity after 20 years (and often exceed that) IIRC

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#256

Post by asadotzler »

weberer wrote: post #238
megaman821 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want a one-size-fits-all solution, nuclear makes the most sense for the high northern latitudes. Depending on the geography; wind, geothermal and hydro are viable too. Now if you are talking about Egypt, building nuclear over solar/batteries makes absolutely no sense.

Yeah, I just don't like how people here are providing a false dichotomy of "renewables vs nuclear" instead of "renewables+nuclear vs fossil fuels". We should put solar panels on every rooftop so we're not throwing away that free* energy, while having nuclear plants as baseload power to smooth out the duck curve. Polar regions need to slide the scale more toward nuclear, while the equatorial regions can go mostly sola…

The main reason for me that your scenario isn't ideal is that if we can pull it off, renewables remove significant risk compared to nuclear. When football field of batteries goes up in smoke, some battery money is lost. When a Fukushima happens, an economy can be lost, and a nontrivial number of lives. Thousands or tens of thousands of lives, hundreds of billions or trillions in damages, nah, I'd like to opt out and instead do the extra work to make renewable and safer sources happen. That's how I vote. If you live above the arctic circle you'll likely vote differently and hopefully your next meltdown doesn't reach my shores.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#257

Post by asadotzler »

samatman wrote: post #246
hef19898 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow, that is the latest pro-niclear / anti-renewables talking point. Not tgat people in field learn the principle of load factor in one of the first days of 101 lectures on the subject... It least it is an evolution up from "solar isn't working at night" and similar deep and hot takes on the subject.

Pro-nuclear doesn't make one anti-renewables. They're complementary technologies, the rivalry is entirely one-sided. Not to mention incredibly aggravating to those of us who would like power to be reliable, with no emissions.

The arguments against renewables from your side since at least the '70s when I came across them first, have been persistent and loud, for half a century! You're gonna just pretend that never happened, walk away from it. The parent mentioned the "duh, sun don't shine at night" line because that's some shit your side was for real pushing, for fucking decades. You don't get to sidestep half a lifetime of that garbage and claim some high ground now.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#258

Post by paganel »

epistasis wrote: post #239
paganel wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher interest rates are part of the game, or of reality, if you want to put it that way. So, yes, it was a reality check and it has proved that that company could only be viable under very particular economic circumstances (i.e. interest rates being close to zero)

Whoa, their viability as a company is not under question. The only thing under question is whether future long-term agreements will include inflation protection. When interest rates rise tremendously, long term investment gets pulled way back. That's the entire point of hiking interest rates, to make companies like Orsted slash their growth rates. It does not put Orsted at risk for collapse.

They've had a ~70% share price fall since the height of 2021, 40% lower compared to the summer of last year, of course that their future (at least as an independent company) is under threat, saying otherwise is just wishful thinking.

> That's the entire point of hiking interest rates, to make companies like Orsted slash their growth rates.

I highly doubt that that's the discussion being held at the meetings where the rates are being set, i.e. I've never heard the likes of the US Fed or of the ECB saying "we want to slow our most dynamic sector of the economy by increasing interest rates", but I could be wrong on that.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#259

Post by lowkey »

Maakuth wrote: post #123
randunel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of batteries in the US are built out of water. They pump the water up during the day and it generates electricity at night. No lithium involved. > Pumped storage is by far the largest-capacity form of grid energy storage available, and, as of 2020, the United States Department of Energy Global Energy Storage Database reports that PSH accounts for around 95% of all active tracked storage installations worldwide…

Pumped storage is a type of grid storage, but I don't think TFA includes it in battery storage. Pumped storage is a fine technology, but is there a lot of build potential left for it?

There have been some concepts proposed for gravity based pumped storage that do not rely on existing terrain.

I find the concept compelling as it is incredibly simple but it hasn't yet been proven at scale.

https://gravity-storage.com

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#260

Post by asadotzler »

doikor wrote: post #235
jeffbee wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the definition of cherry-picking data points.

I would say cherry-picking data points is better then providing 0 data points. edit: Basically competent operators hit ~90%. US is around 93%. Sweden 84% Switzerland 90% France would hit that if they could run their plants at 100% when they are on but they run theirs in load following mode due to having so many of them. So they run at around 80%. World average is 83%. https://world-nuclear.org/getmedia/891c0cd8-2beb-…

If the world average is 83% and his claim included 80%, he wasn't as far off as you made him out to be with the criminal negligence business, was he?
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