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Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

cleantechnica.com

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Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#31

Post by DeRock »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #10
epistasis wrote: post #3

The EIA (and the IEA) have historically underpredicted solar deploys, to a comical level. They need 2-4 years of spot on predictions before they can regain credibility on their projections, IMHO. So I would put these projections as a bare minimum floor on how much solar will get installed. The true number is likely quite a bit higher.

> would put these projections as a bare minimum floor on how much solar will get installed Is there evidence they haven't fixed this bias? The EIA and IEA are in general credible forecasters. Assuming past errors will persist doesn't sound like a good strategy unless you have methodological clues that they haven't made adjustments.

Their predictions are comically bad, year after year they massively under appreciate the growth of solar. Just look at this graphic: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DsX2rpPW0AIVORG.jpg?name=orig

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#32

Post by GaggiX »

verisimi wrote: post #15

I don't get why solar is so popular. In more northern regions, you get much less light in the winter. You effectively can only generate around one tenth of the energy you can in the summer - this is from experience talking to others who monitor their solar installations. But, you need more energy in the winter. People are in more, using electricity for heat cos it's colder. I'm pointing out that there is a supply/dem…

Solar PV systems has reached grid parity in many parts of the world (it's cheap), at a national level renewable energy means energy security and solar is usually used with others power sources like wind and/or hydro.

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#33

Post by BobaFloutist »

verisimi wrote: post #15

I don't get why solar is so popular. In more northern regions, you get much less light in the winter. You effectively can only generate around one tenth of the energy you can in the summer - this is from experience talking to others who monitor their solar installations. But, you need more energy in the winter. People are in more, using electricity for heat cos it's colder. I'm pointing out that there is a supply/dem…

People closer to the equator tend to use more energy in the summer than in the winter, since they need more cooling than heating.

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#34

Post by robertlagrant »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #10
epistasis wrote: post #3

The EIA (and the IEA) have historically underpredicted solar deploys, to a comical level. They need 2-4 years of spot on predictions before they can regain credibility on their projections, IMHO. So I would put these projections as a bare minimum floor on how much solar will get installed. The true number is likely quite a bit higher.

> would put these projections as a bare minimum floor on how much solar will get installed Is there evidence they haven't fixed this bias? The EIA and IEA are in general credible forecasters. Assuming past errors will persist doesn't sound like a good strategy unless you have methodological clues that they haven't made adjustments.

You don't want methodological clues. You just want to monitor their predictions and see if they get better.

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#35

Post by tallowen »

verisimi wrote: post #15

I don't get why solar is so popular. In more northern regions, you get much less light in the winter. You effectively can only generate around one tenth of the energy you can in the summer - this is from experience talking to others who monitor their solar installations. But, you need more energy in the winter. People are in more, using electricity for heat cos it's colder. I'm pointing out that there is a supply/dem…

I think solar is becoming popular because it is so much cheaper where it works.

One point of disagreement is that you are saying "you need more energy in the winter". Right now, for example, tomato paste is made in a facility that runs year round. The main cost in converting tomatoes into tomato paste is in the thermal cost of energy. Having abundant cheap energy at one time of year will shift the way such industrial processes work so that we use more energy when supply is the highest rather than using the most energy when demand is the highest.

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#37

Post by dylan604 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #28
dylan604 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where I'm really intrigued of all-house battery packs like the Tesla Powerwall (it's the only name of one I'm familiar to call out). I like the idea that it charges at night during the lower rates, and during the day the house is powered from the battery. Just haven't seen any longevity reports on them in general vs brochure data.

Tesla warranties the Powerwall for 10 years, 15 years if part of one of their virtual power plants (orchestrated by Autobidder [1]). Look into the 30% federal tax credit for it, as well as state, local, and utility incentives. If you don't yet have solar and your site is favorable, I strongly recommend considering it if you can have it installed at a reasonable cost. [1] https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/tesla-sof…

Solar doesn't work for my property. There are too many trees doing exactly what they were intended to do by shading the roof top. Otherwise, it would be great as the roof alignment is pretty ideal.

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#38

Post by protastus »

verisimi wrote: post #15

I don't get why solar is so popular. In more northern regions, you get much less light in the winter. You effectively can only generate around one tenth of the energy you can in the summer - this is from experience talking to others who monitor their solar installations. But, you need more energy in the winter. People are in more, using electricity for heat cos it's colder. I'm pointing out that there is a supply/dem…

Solar is super cheap, making it a very effective complement to the matrix even though it's not enough by itself, for reasons you mentioned.

Every kWh from solar is one kWh less from fossil fuels. It seems inevitable that electricity becomes free when there's sun, because of solar.

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#39

Post by 7thaccount »

Retric wrote: post #29
7thaccount wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but please keep things in context. We're transitioning away from baseload, but it's a major endeavor and not going to happen over night. I think the HN crowd is a little overzealous in this area. NERC is reporting the potential for energy shortages in many regions in the United States. This was once virtually unheard of. Solar alone isn't going to fix this in the next few years and many regions still have only t…

The ramp up is inherently slow, we’re still generally seeing cheaper nighttime rates than daytime rates even after years of ‘heavy’ investment in solar. Solar’s impact on prices is going to remain fairly trivial for the next few years. But start looking 20 years out and a great deal of nighttime load will shift, which dramatically reduces the need for storage even as decades of X0 GW per year adds up. Aka it’s not ju…

The merit order effect of renewables like solar and wind has already been substantial on wholesale prices with the spot price being $0 or below $0 in significant percentages of the year. This probably hasn't trickled down to retail rates as we're stuck paying for the fixed costs of many of those assets via the PPAs that the utilities sign.

Re: Solar will supply almost all growth in U.S. electricity generation through 2025

#40

Post by jakewins »

tallowen wrote: post #27
dfxm12 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're already incentivized to do things like running the dishwasher in the evening do to costs, no? Or is the implication that it would be considerably even more cheap?

I think the implication is that we'll see a further split around pricing. One thing that stood out to me is that in the case of thermal loads (perhaps your dishwasher but more realistically a hotwater heater). It will become more worthwhile for that system to know when high and low electricity prices are and store more heat (i.e. hotwater) at low electricity prices and wait until prices fall again to refill it. In th…

Recall your entire house is a thermal battery too!

In fact, all the four major energy loads in a house - Heating/Cooling, Water heating, EV Charging, House Battery - are extremely flexible.

But we're still lacking good standards for reliable control. Today we do stuff like tell your HVAC to stop via vendor X's cloud API. What happens if your router dies after we send a "stop" command in the middle of the winter?

For many of the minisplits I see control code for, they'd just let the house freeze, waiting forever for another command that'll never arrive.

For critical functions like "keep my water pipes from freezing" / "be able to drive to work in the morning", we need much better standards for reliable control and safe failure modes.

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