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US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

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Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#301

Post by Saline9515 »

LightBug1 wrote: post #132
Saline9515 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar can't produce electricity at night, it's hardly a a credible sole competitor if the power surge requires a constant power supply. Renewables are most of the time coupled with gas power plants to handle this.

It's really a shame, a damned shame, that we haven't invented batteries yet.

Can you point me to a country-scale implementation of solar+batteries where electricity is affordable? If every country tries to do the same, what do you think will happen with the battery costs given the sheer size of the manufacturing and natural ressources extraction required?

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#302

Post by intexpress »

cbmuser wrote: post #149
ztetranz wrote: post #68

Here's a good podcast (with written transcript) about what's happening in Australia. https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-real-story-with-australian The difference in the permitting process between Australia and US is staggering.

Australia is still highly dependent on coal. They’re not a prime example of how to decarbonize an electricity grid. If you want a good example, rather look at France!

There is a very funny nuclear power plant in France which is located in such a way to be surrounded on 3 sides by Belgium instead of by France. (EDF Nuclear Power Plant Chooz)

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#303

Post by intexpress »

ztetranz wrote: post #68

Here's a good podcast (with written transcript) about what's happening in Australia. https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-real-story-with-australian The difference in the permitting process between Australia and US is staggering.

Thanks for sharing, although I don't understand how Saul expects everyone to buy electric cars. They are much too expensive in Australia and the charging infrastructure is not well distributed. Electric cars are also a massive risk in fires (they were a big problem in the LA fires), and Australia has a lot of fires.

Even an electrified kitchen (which Saul also suggests for everyone) is iffy in Australia, because good freestanding ovens with induction cooktops cost about 3x what freestanding ovens with a gas cooktop would cost, not to mention the electrical rewiring costs, which could be substantial especially if a conversion to 3-phase is needed.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#304

Post by irishcoffee »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #268
irishcoffee wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which way? For all we know the numbers are much worse and under-reported by Europe. China made the playbook for that a long time ago. Cuts both ways.

What has China to do with this? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence doesn't cut both ways.

I think it’s common knowledge China never reports numbers that cast them in an unfavorable light, to the point where analysts generally disregard them.

For example: https://www.nber.org/digest/aug19/official-statistics-overst...

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#305

Post by phil21 »

apexalpha wrote: post #273
briHass wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor for anything is expensive in the US. Parts/materials costs in contractor quotes are often padded so they aren't completely overshadowed by the labor portion. In any job where there's specialized knowledge or license restrictions (HVAC) or risk (walking on a roof), the floor for labor rates is usually 2-4x the materials cost. But, the real issue is that almost nobody pays cash upfront for their solar install. Be…

Over here installation takes 4 hours or so, probably less. How much more expensive can that be? It's probably much more in the planning process and tariffs on Chinese PV.

You don't really have that many competent solar installers in most locations in the US. I basically gave up trying. I'm sure they exist, but if you don't want some financed/leased/etc. financial-product-as-a-solar-install your options dwindle.

It's entirely obvious that most of these places make money off the financial engineering, not the installation part.

I'd sign a competent contractor today for my quite marginal installation plans if I could find someone I'd trust to build something decent and to my specification.

They also tend to devalue the house as it's more difficult to get insurance, and many potential buyers are used to shitshow level of installs and/or dealing with a more complex close due to the seller needing to pay off loans/leases/etc.

A lot of these plays are also companies setting up complex financial engineering schemes that boil down to government subsidy arbitrage.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#306

Post by ssl-3 »

lazide wrote: post #39
elzbardico wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the marginal value of electricity is negative, what matters if it is energy inefficient?

Scale/quantity. That ‘negative value’ electricity could also be used to do something else. And actually requires a lot of capital to produce. It isn’t actually free, it’s a side effect of another process that has restraints/restrictions.

When the price of a thing is negative, the entity facing the negative price is being paid to consume it.

We don't have enough automatic integration yet to make it happen, but: Residentially, that'd be a great time to charge millions of EVs and raise the temperature of water heaters. It'd be perfect for getting a head start on heating the glass kiln for Monday morning, or to supplement the used railroad ties and other fuels that might be feeding a lime kiln.

It's pretty easy to think of loads that feature scale and/or quantity, and the ability to switch on and off rather quickly. Even if the negative price event only lasts for an hour. (Even if it only lasts 5 minutes.)

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#307

Post by bsder »

vlovich123 wrote: post #215
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is NG good for? Induction cook tops perform better than gas ones, heat pumps do better than gas heaters. The only gap I can think of are just in time hot water heaters.

Perform better as in more efficient electrically, not necessarily more pleasant or efficient in the cooking process. For example, when cooking an omelette, a recommended technique is to angle the pan so the liquid part flows towards the hot part of the pan touching the flame as you slowly scrape the curds up to rest at the cooler part of the pan. AFAIK an induction cooktop is unable to simulate this technique. Now ma…

> not necessarily more pleasant or efficient in the cooking process.

For amateurs, I find that the gain of control from using induction far outweighs everything else--especially at low heats. If I put a newbie on an induction with a temperature sensor, they generally do great. Over time they start to correlate the behavior of the food with the temperature, but, even if they don't, they still can maintain control over the food via the temperature sensor.

> The techniques for cooking on induction cooktops well have not been learned, taught and communicated.

And, sometimes, those old techniques are just a pain in the ass and only exist because of the lack of control. Caramelizing onions requires a lot less attention when I can set the pan to a specific temperature and don't have to worry about thermal runaway as the water cooks off. There are all manner of directions for thickening custards that aren't required if you can set the pan at exactly 180F and know that it isn't going above that. Tempering chocolate is stupidly easier when you can set the pan for 115F-81F-88F rather than having to swish it on a marble slab or put it on a double boiler and risk seizing the chocolate because of water. On an electric or gas stove, I plan for two batches of caramel because I almost always screw up my first batch if I haven't done it in a while; on induction I almost never miss. etc.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#308

Post by phil21 »

einpoklum wrote: post #230

The title is somewhat misleading. First, US demand increased by 3.1%. That is bad - demand should be going down, since there is a need to conserve electricity while much of it is provided by CO2-emitting sources. That said - it is not such a huge "surge" that the fact that 61% of it was covered by an increase in Solar capacity is so impressive. Second, Solar generation is said to have reached 84 TW. But if the increa…

> First, US demand increased by 3.1%. That is bad

It is not bad. Energy usage is the best proxy we have for societal wealth. It's starting to somewhat decouple, but I'd posit that's largely due to financial woo-woo than actual real wealth. Time shall tell. A lot of energy (no pun intended) was put into short-term easy wins on the efficiency side the last couple decades, but those low hanging fruits are largely picked over. In the end, it requires serious capital investment into energy production and distribution.

> demand should be going down

Naw. If we want to actually regain any sort of self-determination as a nation we need to re-industrialize and learn to make things again. This is a multi-generational project that takes decades to even build the foundation for. This all requires energy - preferably as clean and cheap as possible.

We should be looking what what China is doing. Building everything possible as quickly as possible. Spam solar, wind, nuclear, and yes natural gas which enables the former two to exist to begin with. Start spinning up battery plants as well on top of it. Coal I can grant is silly to invest in these days, re-purpose those plants as their useful lifetimes run out into natural gas or nuclear power plant sites.

Then start spamming long distance transmission lines throughout the country to further even out demand vs. supply, so more sunny and windy locations can pick up the slack in other regions of the country. Start telling NIMBYs to go pound sand.

This degrowth stuff is just a way to make poor and working class folks suffer. China and India are building so much energy production capacity it simply doesn't matter anyways. Build or have your grandchildren be left behind.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#309

Post by cman1444 »

Saline9515 wrote: post #301
LightBug1 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really a shame, a damned shame, that we haven't invented batteries yet.

Can you point me to a country-scale implementation of solar+batteries where electricity is affordable? If every country tries to do the same, what do you think will happen with the battery costs given the sheer size of the manufacturing and natural ressources extraction required?

California, while not a country, is basically the size of one and they have made significant progress with this strategy.

Why is this any different than the sheer size of manufacturing and natural resources to extract other forms of energy?

Oil, natural gas, coal also all take vast amounts of capital investment and resource extraction to implement.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#310

Post by [deleted] »

vlovich123 wrote: post #215
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is NG good for? Induction cook tops perform better than gas ones, heat pumps do better than gas heaters. The only gap I can think of are just in time hot water heaters.

Perform better as in more efficient electrically, not necessarily more pleasant or efficient in the cooking process. For example, when cooking an omelette, a recommended technique is to angle the pan so the liquid part flows towards the hot part of the pan touching the flame as you slowly scrape the curds up to rest at the cooler part of the pan. AFAIK an induction cooktop is unable to simulate this technique. Now ma…

[deleted]
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