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Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

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Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#61

Post by cinntaile »

UberFly wrote: post #56
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always found it particularly grotesque coming from the HN crowd, where an audience of mostly engineers and entrepreneurs seemed to have no problem finding impossible problems that could never be solved and would therefore render solar useless on a large scale. I guess your lesson here is that most people who call themselves engineers aren't by any meaningful definition. Don't expect individual creativity from a b…

Your crapping on engineers blast-radius is too broad here.

He's probably right that plenty engineers let politics or opinions get in the way of data, engineers are only human after all.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#62

Post by jackmott42 »

megaman821 wrote: post #51
jackmott42 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have at times tried to explain realistic visions of what it takes for renewables to become, say, 75% of the grid and people have taken it as crapping on solar, because I describe how it will require trillion dollar scale storage solutions. But fossil fuels also require trillion dollar scale extraction solutions, so I don't see it as crapping on solar, it won't be easy but we will do it, I hope!

How can you accurately project costs of grid-scale store 1 or 2 decades into the future? It is an industry that is just starting out and projected to grow quite large. Profits and manufacturing labor account for greater than 50% of the battery costs now, so there is a good bit of room for prices to fall as manufacturing ramps up and the market becomes more competitive.

You can't, it was an order of magnitude napkin math calculation I did based on the cost of pump back hydro dams in china and the amount of energy storage you would need.

It is going to be in the trillions barring some radical revolution in storage that is unlikely given our breadth of knowledge of physics at this point. A lot of people think that Tesla Megapacks here and there are enough but those cover interruptions on the scale of minutes, not hours or days.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#63

Post by jackmott42 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #43
jackmott42 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have at times tried to explain realistic visions of what it takes for renewables to become, say, 75% of the grid and people have taken it as crapping on solar, because I describe how it will require trillion dollar scale storage solutions. But fossil fuels also require trillion dollar scale extraction solutions, so I don't see it as crapping on solar, it won't be easy but we will do it, I hope!

$1T is really not that much money for the US. Energy is 4.8% of US GDP, about ~$1T. So we already have $1T to spend on energy... It's just a matter of how we spend it. This is just what things cost when you've got 335M people and most of them are relatively rich from a global perspective.

Right, but we don't yet see this projects happening, and it might be time that they start happening. But how to talk people into that, when half of the USA thinks climate change is a liberal scam, I don't know.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#64

Post by jacquesm »

gregschlom wrote: post #49
jacquesm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense, until 100% of daytime generation is solar/wind every KW added still offsets generation from other sources. This myth is mostly perpetrated by the suppliers of power based on more expensive and more polluting sources who see the value of their investments slashed.

"still offsets" - yes "just as valuable" - no Reducing the price that the utility pays for solar KWs makes economic sense.

That's not how energy markets work. This is by design and whether or not you think it's fair isn't really all that important. Energy prices are determined by the most expensive source of the moment, not by the least expensive one.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#65

Post by MostlyStable »

oittaa wrote: post #21
timerol wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't characterize that as a bait-and-switch, but as adjusting to economic reality. When solar is <1% of penetration, a solar kWh is basically just as valuable as any other kWh. When solar gets over 10% of penetration, a solar kWh is worth much less than any other kWh - when the sun is shining, energy is plentiful. By the time you get to ~25% solar penetration, energy is almost free on a sunny day at noon, and m…

The whole "paying the fair share" is just propaganda from oil companies. I saw a great video about that recently which sums up the situation nicely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPfpa2KqYk0

I'm a fan of this guys channel, he does good work and is generally well informed and informative. This video was by far his worst ever. Yes, the groups supporting this stuff have questionable motives, but the fact is that the payment model for power needs to change under a "prosumer" paradigm. Disentangling grid connection fees and power fees just makes sense. And yes, it does reduce the incentive of putting rooftop solar, but that's because the incentive was artificially high. Being connected to the grid is a valuable service that should be paid for. We used to pay for that because the cost was baked into the price of power. Now that some people are, on net, not buying power, it needs to be disentangled. Infrastructure needs to be maintained, and that has costs that need to be paid even as we switch to a renewable future.

Imagine a situation where everyone has rooftop solar, enough that, under net metering, they pay no fees. What happens? The power company goes under and now you don't have a grid. Which every one of those solar users _still needs_. There is _value_ in being able to buy power when you want it and produce it when you don't, and that value should be paid for.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#66

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

jacquesm wrote: post #29
timerol wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't characterize that as a bait-and-switch, but as adjusting to economic reality. When solar is <1% of penetration, a solar kWh is basically just as valuable as any other kWh. When solar gets over 10% of penetration, a solar kWh is worth much less than any other kWh - when the sun is shining, energy is plentiful. By the time you get to ~25% solar penetration, energy is almost free on a sunny day at noon, and m…

Nonsense, until 100% of daytime generation is solar/wind every KW added still offsets generation from other sources. This myth is mostly perpetrated by the suppliers of power based on more expensive and more polluting sources who see the value of their investments slashed.

I am fully pro solar, but the duck curve is a real thing. Time value of money and time value of electricity. If there is nobody to consume that extra juice it is of limited utility.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#67

Post by the8472 »

r00fus wrote: post #48
vasco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My imagination still prefers nuclear! I don't mind solar projects but think it's a big mistake to not invest in nuclear.

For baseload power I agree, but looking at Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine, it's hard not to see the downsides of nuclear: it's vulnerable to water/cooling issues and can be weaponized by terrorists or an invading army. Solar has none of these issues, and is resilient/decentralized as well.

> and can be weaponized by terrorists or an invading army.

These risks seem vastly overstated for a large fraction of the world. That such events happen occasionally does not mean the entire world needs to be on a war footing all the time. That would be incredibly wasteful.

> it's vulnerable to water/cooling issues

Yeah that seems more like an issue but may be solvable by using sea water for cooling?

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#68

Post by constantcrying »

jackmott42 wrote: post #59
constantcrying wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any news in regards to recycling or operation length? Solar obviously "works" if it has the surrounding infrastructure, like storage and weather. Hopefully green energy subsidies can end soon.

Hopefully fossil fuel subsidy ends before green ones do, they are much more expensive.

Absolutely, use them for nuclear.

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#69

Post by scythe »

ianai wrote: post #26
vasco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My imagination still prefers nuclear! I don't mind solar projects but think it's a big mistake to not invest in nuclear.

My state proposed a grid battery solution that would have provided power for the entire state for up to 1-2 days IIRC. They didn’t approve it, but the budget wasn’t astronomical. I honestly wonder if the worry about off hours use is a little overblown. Infrastructure has a history of both being expensive up front and funded. Imagine if the US didn’t have highways and trying to explain all the impacts to the GDP that…

One problem is that currently the mix of solar is low enough that grid storage has to be sold as "backup" or "leveling". Grid storage that is actually used will for obvious reasons have a better cost-benefit ratio. If you still have three times as much gas as you do solar, why would you buy a battery?

Re: Global Solar Power Investment Will Top $1B per Day This Year

#70

Post by MostlyStable »

colordrops wrote: post #44
janj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That also happened in CA but if you already had solar panels you continue with the same rate for a while. Doesn't seem right to switch it for those already installed.

Doesn't seem right to limit it at all, new or already installed. In fact they should be quadrupling down on incentives for solar considering climate change.

If what you care about is climate change, single home rooftop solar is a _terrible_ investment. It's dramatically harder and more expensive to install relative to large installations. For the same exact dollar, you get nearly twice the installed capacity with large scale installations vs. home scale.
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