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Solar and batteries can power the world

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Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#421

Post by declan_roberts »

hamdingers wrote: post #161
balderdash wrote: post #128

Just my 2c but I think the biggest thing we could do is to reduce the regulatory burden, cost, and complexity associated with installing roof mounted solar. This should be something that can be approved and installed in a week, and should be a half the price (put another it should have a double digit roi) . Right now all of the economics of home solar are consumed by regulation/complexity and the contractors / solar…

There's been a wave of legislation[1] introduced in the US to legalize so-called "balcony solar," small grid-tied solar systems that plug into a regular household outlet with zero permitting or interconnect requirements. This is already common in Europe, it's mildly complicated by our split-phase system but not much. The reason for the high burden today is people have developed an inflated sense of how much the kWh t…

"Costly burden" is an incredible statement. The utilities get what is effectively free electricity generation. Remember every solar customer still pays the grid connection fee, which goes to maintain the grid.

They love to market a "green energy" plan where they pay you 3c for your exported power and charge somebody miles away 25c for it!

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#422

Post by declan_roberts »

turtlebits wrote: post #171
balderdash wrote: post #128

Just my 2c but I think the biggest thing we could do is to reduce the regulatory burden, cost, and complexity associated with installing roof mounted solar. This should be something that can be approved and installed in a week, and should be a half the price (put another it should have a double digit roi) . Right now all of the economics of home solar are consumed by regulation/complexity and the contractors / solar…

100% this. If it was DIYable, its an order of magnitude cheaper. I have leftover panels from an off grid install, and its extremely hard to get an approved permit for a small roof solar array + off the shelf AIO (Ecoflow/Anker)

What's the challenge you're seeing?

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#423

Post by declan_roberts »

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #242
jakewins wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, 30kWh is not much in this context. In 10 years every modern 2-car home will have 200kWh on the driveway just from the EVs; add a 100kWh whole home battery at a price point close to a 10kWh battery today and the calculus changes in most of the world. The cost of materials going into modern batteries easily leaves room for another 10x reduction in price, IMO where this all is heading is obvious. Zero marg…

40 kWH of storage and 9 kW of solar panels is all I need personally to live a 1st world lifestyle in the bay area mostly off-grid except for water and internet.

Bay Area is ideal climate to accomplish this.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#424

Post by hamdingers »

declan_roberts wrote: post #421
hamdingers wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been a wave of legislation[1] introduced in the US to legalize so-called "balcony solar," small grid-tied solar systems that plug into a regular household outlet with zero permitting or interconnect requirements. This is already common in Europe, it's mildly complicated by our split-phase system but not much. The reason for the high burden today is people have developed an inflated sense of how much the kWh t…

"Costly burden" is an incredible statement. The utilities get what is effectively free electricity generation. Remember every solar customer still pays the grid connection fee, which goes to maintain the grid. They love to market a "green energy" plan where they pay you 3c for your exported power and charge somebody miles away 25c for it!

It's a true statement and a real problem. These wildcat megawatt-scale generation facilities built on top of suburban neighborhoods produce an un-curtail-able midday oversupply of electricity driving energy prices into the negative.

The power has to go somewhere, SoCal grid operators have to pay real money to neighboring grids to accept the energy being generated while also paying the homeowner who generated it. No grid connection fee comes close to covering this, it's paid for by increasing rates for everyone else. Net metering was a stupid deal cooked up by politicians who are incapable of systems thinking, or simply decided appealing to suburban voters was more important than grid stability.

It's getting better[1] but still a problem, and the solutions being pursued are: discourage export in favor of onsite storage (done by NEM 3.0) and encourage smaller solar installs (balcony solar).

1. https://www.caiso.com/content/monthly-market-performance/jan...

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#425

Post by wakawaka28 »

defrost wrote: post #417
wakawaka28 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 years is not great for those. Extreme weather can also shred them. It's fine to have some, but I sure as hell don't want to be dependent on that.

Gotcha, you prefer to be daily dependent on fossil fuel delivery rather than get new panels every 20 years, particularly given you're in a country seemingly incapable of manufacture and minerals processing. That's certainly a position.

The US and the rest of the West are capable of manufacturing. You just said yourself they can be made "anywhere" so make up your mind. What I think is that manufacturing is not competitive in the US or the West as a whole because of wage requirements and monetary exchange rates, and additionally because we operate a mostly free market and don't penalize foreign state-subsidized products hard enough to make domestic manufacture make sense.

Replacing the solar panels every 20 years at minimum would mean that the panels would always be getting refreshed. Bro we have roads and bridges 50 years past end of life, in need of rebuilding. We can't afford this fragile power grid rebuild that is completely dependent on foreign suppliers. Sorry. Take your snark and shove it.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#426

Post by esseph »

0wis wrote: post #354
esseph wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

85?!? I've lived in extremely cold and extremely hot/humid places. I cannot imagine setting the temp in the house that high.

Setting for command is different from actual temp. Plus, humidity is rarely accounted for. A good AC that lowers humidity from 90%+ to 30% and this 30°C home becomes quite comfortable.

Again, you're just built different :-)

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#427

Post by functional_dev »

germandiago wrote: post #92
anon7000 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the technology connections video on this was fantastic. If one was to cover that land in solar, you’d produce far more than the current energy demands of the US. Relying on an energy source which requires constant, continuous resource extraction is fucking stupid when we can spend resources up front and get reliable energy (solar + battery) for decades with minimal operating cost & maintenance. And then we’ll h…

So here I go: if it is so stupid, why it is not done yet? Try not to blame anyone. Do it rationally if you can, from your message I understand your opinion. I say this as a person that has lived in a developing country the last 15 years. It is not that simple IMHO...

had the same question and after reading about it, I found there are multiple layers on each other.

Existing plans are built to run 40-60 years.. retiring creates "stranded assets". pension funds fight hard to avoid that. The renewable projects that wait for permits exceed total existing capacity.. the bottleneck is not tech, but locality.

I found this visual schematic helpful - https://vectree.io/c/why-energy-transitions-are-slow-grid-in...

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#428

Post by toasty228 »

friendzis wrote: post #245
toasty228 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People still build houses like energy is cheap and abundant. A properly insulated house in any temperate climate require very little heating or cooling. Spend 50k on insulation that will last the life of the building instead of 50k on heating and cooling devices which will need constant maintenance and replacement + fuel and end up costing 10x more over the life of the building. A modern house with modern insulation…

> A properly insulated house in any temperate climate require very little heating or cooling. A "properly insulated" house still requires something around 0,5 W/m2/K. Modeling a moderate 120 m2 house in the coldest months when the temperatures hit 15-20 negative you still need 2,5 kW of heat with domestic hot water on top. Put in the efficiency of a heat pump and you are still easily looking at half a mega watt-hour…

> 0,5 W/m2/K.

That was a good number in 1980 lmao (or in the US maybe), passive houses are often 1/5th of that. I'm talking 25cm+ of rockwool in the walls, 40cm on the roof and triple pane windows, mostly facing south, reasonably shaped house that conserve heat by design, etc.

0.5 W/m²/K is a good value.... for a window, certainly not for the overall house, for a wall it wouldn't even pass code in most of Europe

> That's entirely unrealistic to cover with batteries with current battery technologies alone

It already is a reality for many people.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#429

Post by jwr »

mft_ wrote: post #386
jwr wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. After former chancellor (Schroeder) heavily pushed Russian gas pipelines (Nord Stream 1 and 2) and then swiftly moved to working for Russian state-owned energy companies, including Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, and Gazprom, I have a different outlook on things.

One can never discount lobbying and influence behind the scenes, but Schroeder finished being Chancellor in 2005, which was six years before the initial post-Fukushima vote in question, and even longer since various aspects of the plan continued to be supported by various politicians. He'd be a spectacularly successful lobbyist if your suspicion is correct.

Why would I assume Schroeder is the only politician under the influence of Russia or any of the fossil-fuel industry businesses?

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#430

Post by Hikikomori »

defrost wrote: post #413
wakawaka28 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Becoming completely dependent on imported tech for such basic needs is a BAD idea. The West cannot outcompete China on cost for these products at this time. And before you say subsidies, let me remind you that we are all going broke.

Once you have PV panels, they (on average) last 20+ years - that's not being dependant, particularly when PV panels can be mass produced anywhere. ( They do not use rare earths (inverters use trace amounts) ) China cornering rare earths (for now) is an "own goal" by every country that chose to let China (and to a lesser degree Malaysia) take a hit on the toxic by products of processing concentrates. The US is easily…

There was a test on 30 year old panels and they only lost 20%.
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