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Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

theguardian.com

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Re: Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

#41

Post by Filligree »

harmmonica wrote: post #22

Question for those in the know... See lots of press about balcony solar in Germany, and California recently introduced a bill to allow it (I'm guessing other states already allow it; not sure if the CA bill has a chance of becoming law). But how far are we from a more plug and play home solar system that becomes a primary energy source as opposed to a limited secondary source? And what are the issues with it actually…

There’s a legit grid stability issue for solar in general, balcony or no.

Usage varies second by second, so the grid relies on physical inertia in the form of rotating turbines. Panels have no inertia; therefore, the more you have the less stable the grid gets.

That is however something which can be fixed by grid-scale batteries. Or home systems, for that matter, if they have batteries and some equivalent of Victron’s PowerAssist.

(Which limits the rate at which power draw can change. Very useful when you use a house-sized generator; it amounts to synthetic inertia. I have a 7kW generator, but a 7kW step load would stall it.)

Re: Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

#42

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

SoftTalker wrote: post #6
toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is, roughly, deploying 1TW/solar PV a year at current rates. It took a while to get here, it won’t take as long to get to 100%. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci...

Storage is the issue. You still need to supply base load (well, all load) at night.

Contrary to popular belief, solar panels don't generate zero power on cloudy days.

They typically generate 10-25% of their maximum output on the cloudiest of days. Most cloudy days are not maximally cloudy.

We don't need solar panels everywhere to get even close to ~100% renewables (with nuclear, wind, new geothermal, and hydro). The areas where you put them are distributed enough that it would be exceptionally rare to ever encounter a meaningful need to ration.

So, storage is an issue, but not as big of an issue as most people think, and we do not generate anywhere near enough solar energy for it to be a reasonable concern yet...

There's also more solutions than just conventional batteries. There's pumped hydro, etc...

Re: Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

#43

Post by tedggh »

rtkwe wrote: post #36
Retric wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total electricity produced by coal + gas is down over the last 20 years. Total electricity production is up, the difference is from wind and solar. This administration swapped to actively suppressing Wind and Solar via tariffs etc, and yet the trends continued because the underlying economic reality heavily favors battery backed solar.

I think that's part of what's notable about this. The administration hasn't been able to reverse the trend despite putting a massive thumb on the scale against projects like offshore wind and tariffs on solar panel imports. There's probably a delay in the effects though since projects started before they took office are probably starting to thin out and finish up. We'd have to look into the permitting of new projects…

A lot of comes from state initiatives too. Texas being conservative also happens to be very pro solar. I’m in the business and we have some great projects there. The US military is also pushing solar at their facilities. Then you have many private-state partnerships like tolls investing a lot in solar. The outlook in general is pretty positive in the US, a lot more than what people would think.

Re: Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

#44

Post by sebastiennight »

thelastgallon wrote: post #35

This administration is hitting milestones without even trying!

Funny, I initially read the OP title as

> Solar generates more energy in US than coal for the last time

Then the actual title is what confused me for a second.

Re: Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

#45

Post by computerdork »

thelastgallon wrote: post #38
dnautics wrote: post #26

The US currently is at per capita GHG emissions approximately at the the same level as it was in 1910. https://ourworldindata.org/profile/co2/united-states Despite not being in the paris treaty, the us needs only a 10-12% reduction to meet the paris accord requirements on schedule (43% decrease by 2030).

US consumers and businesses buy almost all their stuff from China. China's massive footprint of Coal should be added to US emissions.

Good point. But one factor is China is also greatly reducing their emissions. For instance, their pollution levels have plummeted after enacting strict controls:

https://epic.uchicago.edu/insights/china-has-quickly-and-sha...

Still, that is a good point, a lot of the emissions from manufacturing have been shifted to other countries.

Re: Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

#46

Post by arbitrary_name »

trial3 wrote: post #28
harmmonica wrote: post #22

Question for those in the know... See lots of press about balcony solar in Germany, and California recently introduced a bill to allow it (I'm guessing other states already allow it; not sure if the CA bill has a chance of becoming law). But how far are we from a more plug and play home solar system that becomes a primary energy source as opposed to a limited secondary source? And what are the issues with it actually…

i think it’s kind of the opposite: balcony solar is good for power companies in the same way that them asking you to turn off your lights is good for power companies: if each customer is using less overall power they can serve more customers with existing infra. that obviously depends on time of use and the sun etc, but balcony solar in the USA can’t come fast enough. my electricity in NYC is almost $.40/kWh, a limit…

i think that is an overly simplistic axiom: the utilities must cover a fixed asset base (poles and wires and transformers), pretty much regardless of how much or whether a household consumes from the grid.

the less the utility recoups via billing for energy usage, the bigger the deficit to cover their fixed network costs.

they are frequently interested in having you consume energy, to help defray those costs, especially where the marginal cost of the energy is very low.

the more users who disconnect, the more the fixed costs must be recouped from a shrinking customer base, triggering more incentive to leave the network. this is called the death spiral.

In addition, things like balcony solar don't save them cost: it introduces complexity because they need to safely manage that load, they need to be able to predict and measure it; in my experience working with utilities and network operators for many years, they flat out don't want these distributed generation sources unless they have a lot of say in how they are added to the grid, and how users can be charged for the privilege of generating their own power. that is often a very significant barrier to regulatory change.

Re: Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

#48

Post by nickserv »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #39

There was an article recently about how the West Asia war is quickly decarbonising South Asia. Lot of solar and wind projects in the pipeline for SA countries. Especially because now renewables are a national security issue

You mean the "US-Israel war of aggression against Iran"?

Let's not avoid assigning responsibility when it is so clear.

Re: Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

#49

Post by flumes_whims_ »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #42
SoftTalker wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storage is the issue. You still need to supply base load (well, all load) at night.

Contrary to popular belief, solar panels don't generate zero power on cloudy days. They typically generate 10-25% of their maximum output on the cloudiest of days. Most cloudy days are not maximally cloudy. We don't need solar panels everywhere to get even close to ~100% renewables (with nuclear, wind, new geothermal, and hydro). The areas where you put them are distributed enough that it would be exceptionally rare…

But they do generate zero power at night.

Re: Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

#50

Post by mbgerring »

SoftTalker wrote: post #4

This is more from a lot of coal power plants being converted to gas over the past 20 years than solar overtaking the outputs of those power plants. Coal output shrinking, solar output rising, the lines have crossed. Coal is unpopular in all but a few areas where coal mining is still a part of the local econonmy. I used to work near a coal plant and every day I'd go out to my car and it would have little black particl…

It’s also from focused efforts to close coal plants, and rapid, massive deployment of solar in the last 20 years, and new technology emerging (better batteries and dispatch technologies) to make solar into a 24/7 resource.

For whatever reason, there’s a strong motivation for people to dismiss the gigantic global effort to transition the energy system away from fossil fuels, and claim that all that effort isn’t really doing anything. Thankfully, this is not true — determined people can change things for the better.

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