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Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

pv-magazine-usa.com

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Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#51

Post by [deleted] »

luqtas wrote: post #46
mullingitover wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already cheaper to demolish an existing coal plant that's already paid for and replace it with solar + battery. Solar and battery brand new buildout, plus their maintenance overhead, dominates coal even when you only count coal's maintenance cost. People have it in their heads that this is some bleeding heart, don't ruin the planet thing, but it's plain economics. Non-renewable energy is simply inferior, and wil…

> Non-renewable energy is simply inferior, and will only become more so. you simply can't say this. despite the lobby against it, solar and wind energy have lifespans of around 20 years and afterwards, it's a freaking mess to deal with recycling and often times, garbage we don't know what to do. not even counting the amount of NASTY chemicals going into the production of solar panels. these are sometimes permanent an…

[deleted]

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#52

Post by cogman10 »

nomel wrote: post #45
jcheng wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like an opportunity for someone

No, it's a bad fit. it would be pure marketing. Lipo slowly destroy themselves when charged. Lead acid slowly destroy themselves when not charged.

There are different LIPO chemistries. LFP in particular has little problem with being fully charged. You'll see it get swapped in for lead acid chemistries even in places like car/motorcycle batteries.

If you want an Lithium power supply then the keyword to look for is "LFP".

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#53

Post by toomuchtodo »

bootsmann wrote: post #43
sdoering wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here in Germany/Europe. Our conservatives actually destroyed the solar industry for the third time. Our conservative party has actually destroyed significantly more jobs in solar industries over the last 20 years than it keeps alive with subsidies of 70k€ - 100k€ per person working in that industry (direct and indirect subsidies make the 70 - 100k€ range). But hey, our populist right tell us, that the subsidies…

> cleared of inflation energy costs are lower than 2013, 12 years ago This is not the argument you want to make. Energy prices are a significant component of the basket used to measure inflation. Like yeah, you expect energy prices to sink if you discount for the rise of energy prices. Germany is suffering from high energy prices its the key factor why the country has been stagnating economically for the past 6 years…

Their energy prices are an outcome of incompetence, having tied their energy prices to Russia and a gas supply from them. In hindsight, economic diplomacy is not the path to keeping an authoritarian in check; a strong military and energy independence is.

German energy prices will decline with battery storage and more renewables pushing out the last of their coal and fossil gas generation. Should’ve kept the old nuclear generators running too, as long as possible. Alas, a lesson they’ve learned.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#54

Post by Carlseymanh »

empiricus wrote: post #48

All nice and beautiful, but I don't understand how will this work in the winter in the temperate areas. You maintain parallel natural gas installations and ramp them up in the winter? Does this doubles the cost?

One of the few problem of nuclear is summer time water use. Combining solar with nuclear would be the best option in my opinion.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#55

Post by jansan »

empiricus wrote: post #48

All nice and beautiful, but I don't understand how will this work in the winter in the temperate areas. You maintain parallel natural gas installations and ramp them up in the winter? Does this doubles the cost?

This probably depends a lot on how close you are to the equator. Here in Germany output of solar in winter is negligible, and if there is no wind, which can happen for several consecutive weeks, we need a backup. No utilities company will build a fossil power plant that will be used only a few weeks per year, so our government will have to step in to make sure this happens.

On top of this you have very high costs for an increasingly complex grid, which needs to be built and then maintained. Prices will never again be as low as in the fossil/nuclear era.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#56

Post by datadrivenangel »

Carlseymanh wrote: post #54
empiricus wrote: post #48

All nice and beautiful, but I don't understand how will this work in the winter in the temperate areas. You maintain parallel natural gas installations and ramp them up in the winter? Does this doubles the cost?

One of the few problem of nuclear is summer time water use. Combining solar with nuclear would be the best option in my opinion.

Nuclear plants, like most large thermal plants, are almost always located near large bodies of water and return that water downstream so it doesn't really matter?

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#57

Post by lesuorac »

nomel wrote: post #45
jcheng wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like an opportunity for someone

No, it's a bad fit. it would be pure marketing. Lipo slowly destroy themselves when charged. Lead acid slowly destroy themselves when not charged.

Can't we just not push the lipos to 100% and have the UPS maintain a ~60% charge instead and get a long life span?

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#58

Post by junto »

tirant wrote: post #47
sdoering wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here in Germany/Europe. Our conservatives actually destroyed the solar industry for the third time. Our conservative party has actually destroyed significantly more jobs in solar industries over the last 20 years than it keeps alive with subsidies of 70k€ - 100k€ per person working in that industry (direct and indirect subsidies make the 70 - 100k€ range). But hey, our populist right tell us, that the subsidies…

I don’t care if German prices for electricity are below inflation. They’re just still expensive. As an EV owner is difficult to find an electricity provider with costs below 0,25€/kWh, and most of them go beyond 0,30€. While I had prices in other European countries for around 0,05€/kWh at night for example. Not only that, Conservatives, Socialists and the Green all managed to increase our electricity CO2 footprint by…

That’s mainly because German has fucked up the smart meter rollout. In their wisdom they separated the meter and the gateway when other countries just combined it. They also made it super secure (good), but then didn’t look at the fact that lots of people live in rented apartments and their meters in the cellars have really poor or no cellular connectivity. When Germany can finally do steerable dynamic loads properly at 95% of the market rather than under 10%, it will finally make a difference on steering pricing for such consumers as yourself.

Germany is investing in massive battery parks dotted around the grid. This will make a difference to supporting base load and offsetting coal, but it will take time.

If there’s anything about the Germans you can count on, is that they move slowly.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#59

Post by grensley »

codersfocus wrote: post #21

Does anyone know whether it makes sense to setup solar arrays closer to users or to concentrate them in sunny places and send them throughout the country? e.g. an analysis of whether we should setup all the solar farms in Nevada for the whole country... set them up in the general south and transmit north... or will each state have their own farms?

The transmission network is underbuilt, so it's mostly best to generate closer to where it's consumed (especially for data centers).

We'll continue to see a mix though of Residential / Commercial & Industrial / Utility Scale

There are about 7,000 Utility scale sites in the US right now, so even the big boys there are fairly distributed.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#60

Post by moooo99 »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #56
Carlseymanh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the few problem of nuclear is summer time water use. Combining solar with nuclear would be the best option in my opinion.

Nuclear plants, like most large thermal plants, are almost always located near large bodies of water and return that water downstream so it doesn't really matter?

It does when you care about the environmental impact of your cooling (and also consider the fact that droughts are an increasingly severe problem).
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