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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

#321

Post by Saline9515 »

cman1444 wrote: post #309
Saline9515 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think that a nuclear power plant is vastly more efficient on this aspect.

And California has the most expensive electricity prices in the US.

https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/

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

#322

Post by fulafel »

njarboe wrote: post #267
jordanb wrote: post #91

While I'm concerned about the environmental challenges of reversing the trend and increasing energy consumption, I'm happy that people are living in more comfortable homes, that the Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation). That is what we're using this electrici…

Why are you against increasing energy consumption? Increasing energy consumption is what pulled the world out of the feudal, warlord misery of the past. Maybe switch the focus of this feeling towards being against pollution or something that is a negative. Just being against energy consumption is quite regressive and anti-human.

To mitigate the ongoing climate catastrophe we must ramp down fossil fuels use and production. As long as there's fossil fuels in the electricity production mix, electricity use is contributes to the problem. This report tells us that fossil energy use is increasing as only 60% of the increase was covered by solar.

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

#323

Post by lazide »

ssl-3 wrote: post #306
lazide wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The CapEx (and planning/timing) required to actually use it would almost certainly dwarf any actual gains - notably, because we’d already be selling the electricity for a profit if we could use it productively, the negative price is precisely because the equipment just isn’t there yet.

Also, once said capex was spent so we could actually use that electricity - it’s marginal cost/value would no longer be negative.

Weird huh?

Notably, if these kinds of situations do keep occurring (aren’t just random), someone almost always ends up spending the capital to capture it, because this is obvious.

You just don’t see all the finance geeks pulling out their calculators and talking about their plans because they know secrecy is an important strategic and tactical advantage when arranging investment and building out capital equipment.

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

#324

Post by ginko »

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…

I used to be a gas snob for ages but after moving, first to a place with an induction stove, then to one with a regular electric one, I have to say the supposed advantages are overblown. You can cook perfectly well on either. Induction/gas are slightly nicer if you want to use very high heat but even my current electric stove puts out a lot of power on the highest setting.

And then there's the downsides of gas:

They're a complete mess to clean. Tons of nooks and crannies where stuff might get into. They suck for low heat simmering. There's iron plates you can put below the pot to distribute the heat but that's cumbersome. Low heat flames also go out more easily if there's a draft. Not even talking about air quality and fire risks.

So I'm never going back to gas if I can help it. If I have a choice I'll probably get an induction stove next time around.

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

#325

Post by jillesvangurp »

yen223 wrote: post #53
jillesvangurp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not wrong. The Australian grid shows that when solar is the dominant part of the grid, it can still work pretty well. But you need to plan for when the sun is not shining and adapt to the notion that base load translates as "expensive power that you can't turn off when you need to" rather than "essential power that is always there when needed". The notion of having more than that when a lot of renewables are…

Australia is lucky, we get hot summers and mild winters, which means our electricity demand is highest precisely when we get the most solar. That's why something like 30% of Australian houses have solar. That said, grid prices spiked recently. Both a combination of subsidies expiring, and fewer people buying grid power (because of solar) causing fixed costs to be shouldered by fewer people. It should be pointed out t…

Temperature has nothing to do with the performance of solar. Solar panels perform better when they are cooled.

Also worth pointing out that much of the US is below 49 degrees latitude. Which is south of most of Europe. Washington DC and San Francisco are at a similar latitude (38) as Melbourne (-37). Most of the US is perfectly situated for getting pretty decent solar power around the year. Yes it gets cloudy sometimes. It's usually not continent wide. You can compensate with cables and batteries. The US is far behind because of policy and their local energy monopolists blocking progress. Not because of anything to do with the weather or geography.

Prices have a lot to do with scarcity. Which with monopolists has more to do with the lack of a free market than with a scarcity of resources. Installing solar is about 3-5x more as expensive in the US as in Australia. The permitting process in the US is more expensive than the total cost of buying and installing in Australia. That's a policy problem in the US. All the hand wringing around that topic isn't helping a lot. A bit of pragmatism could improve things a lot and probably very quickly. Australia is showing how to do that. And yes, they have rain there too and you can go skiing pretty close to Melbourne. That isn't stopping them.

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

#326

Post by erricravi »

This 61% figure is a significant milestone for grid resilience. At Storify News, we’ve been tracking how the 2025 surge wasn't just about general demand, but specifically the localized clusters of AI data centers and the electrification of industrial heat. What’s particularly interesting here is the "duck curve" management—solar handled the bulk of the demand surge, but it’s the rapid deployment of BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems) that actually made this 61% figure viable without destabilizing the frequency. The question for 2026 is whether the transmission infrastructure can keep up with this pace of interconnection.

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

#327

Post by yen223 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #325
yen223 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is lucky, we get hot summers and mild winters, which means our electricity demand is highest precisely when we get the most solar. That's why something like 30% of Australian houses have solar. That said, grid prices spiked recently. Both a combination of subsidies expiring, and fewer people buying grid power (because of solar) causing fixed costs to be shouldered by fewer people. It should be pointed out t…

Temperature has nothing to do with the performance of solar. Solar panels perform better when they are cooled. Also worth pointing out that much of the US is below 49 degrees latitude. Which is south of most of Europe. Washington DC and San Francisco are at a similar latitude (38) as Melbourne (-37). Most of the US is perfectly situated for getting pretty decent solar power around the year. Yes it gets cloudy sometim…

I wasn't talking about the performance of solar, only the demand for electricity.

Someone pointed out that the big problem with solar isn't how do we store daytime solar for nighttime use - this is easily solved with batteries. The real unsolved problem is how do we store summer solar for winter use.

Australia doesn't have this problem, not to the extent of other colder places, because we don't need a lot of heating in the winter.

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

#328

Post by fundatus »

zozbot234 wrote: post #117
fundatus wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> undispatchable resources Solar is not dispatchable like a gas power plant is as the sun needs to shine to produce electricity. But it can very much be curtailed to any percentage you want. And that is being done globally every day exactly when it would be uneconomical to generate that electricity. Interestingly this is as opposed to nuclear energy, which is basically never curtailed and always runs at 100% unless n…

Nuclear can be curtailed, it's just uneconomic to do so unless the price is literally close to zero or negative.

> Nuclear can be curtailed

I know, that's why I said it's basically never done. And it's usually not even done even if the price is zero or below, because a lot of nuclear power plants have fixed prices that are guaranteed by the government. Also, operating costs of nuclear power plants stay the same even if you curtail it 100%, so it's more economical to curtail something else.

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

#329

Post by maxerickson »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #214
Aurornis wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting fact: A lot of modern gas cooktops have safety features that will cut the gas off when the electricity is out. The safety mechanisms are powered by electricity, so if they can't confirm that the operation is safe they fail with the gas valve shut off. It comes as a surprise to most users because power outages are so rare. They just assume it will work until 8 years later when they try to cook something du…

TIL. Never used a modern gas stove, so I had not considered that without a pilot light, there must be a way to disable the flow or constantly spew gas into the house. Then again, I have had a pilot light go out for some amount of time without obvious ill effect, so the volume of gas must be low.

Usually the pilot energizes a thermocouple+solenoid that is used to hold the gas valve open, so the valve shuts if the pilot goes out.

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

#330

Post by maxerickson »

yen223 wrote: post #327
jillesvangurp wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temperature has nothing to do with the performance of solar. Solar panels perform better when they are cooled. Also worth pointing out that much of the US is below 49 degrees latitude. Which is south of most of Europe. Washington DC and San Francisco are at a similar latitude (38) as Melbourne (-37). Most of the US is perfectly situated for getting pretty decent solar power around the year. Yes it gets cloudy sometim…

I wasn't talking about the performance of solar, only the demand for electricity. Someone pointed out that the big problem with solar isn't how do we store daytime solar for nighttime use - this is easily solved with batteries. The real unsolved problem is how do we store summer solar for winter use. Australia doesn't have this problem, not to the extent of other colder places, because we don't need a lot of heating…

Seems like there are lots of approaches that are technically viable for seasonal storage, hard to work out which one is better cost wise.
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