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New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

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Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#81

Post by Retric »

ptaipale wrote: post #46
XorNot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a room temperature superconductor. High temperature superconductors can be economically refrigerated today. The problem overland is encapsulation - under the sea this goes away since the environment is much more stable (and colder).

Fixing a 3000 km long refrigerator at depth of 4 km will be an interesting challenge.

Cables are generally raised to the surface to repair.

Anyway, it's only 50 miles from Russia to Alasca making this a relatively simple connection. Hawaii would be hard to justify unless it's really cheap.

However grid storage is generally fairly cheap. Just going east to west across Eurasia also gives very good solar coverage.

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#82

Post by toomuchtodo »

icebraining wrote: post #80
toomuchtodo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where at in Portugal? Curious so I can take notes as part of my "places I'd like to live for a bit around the world" notebook.

Almost anywhere! The only exceptions are the more touristic centres, like the Algarve coast or Lisbon itself, but even there you can find those prices right across the river.

Thank you!

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#83

Post by rogerdpack »

nickff wrote: post #34
qoobaa wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very good question. I always thought that it's because of technical difficulties when transmitting electricity over long distances, but it turns out we already do it well (HVDC). When you think about it on a continent scale: why not move all PV panels from Germany to sunnier regions of Europe like Spain or Portugal where you can generate twice more power with them (in average 200 W/m² instead of 100 W/m²). The…

The amount of copper you would need to constantly convey electricity from the sunny side of the earth to the dark side would be absolutely massive. It is not an issue of common grids, as long distance high power transmission is done at many different voltages depending on the specific route, and has nothing to do with your mains voltage and frequency. Current long distance power transmission is most often used as a w…

I know they run large (presumably) copper lines from Utah to California to pump out electricity. That can't have been cheap, how bad can it be to pump it trans atlantic? LOL

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#84

Post by rogerdpack »

CptJamesCook wrote: post #10
blazespin wrote: post #2

This will create massive pressure on the price of oil. Why would anyone in their right mind not try to sell it off as fast as possible as it won't be worth much in a few years.

Solar doesn't really compete with oil. It competes with coal, natural gas, and nuclear power to power homes.

Natural gas comes from oil presumably?

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#85

Post by ptaipale »

Retric wrote: post #81
ptaipale wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fixing a 3000 km long refrigerator at depth of 4 km will be an interesting challenge.

Cables are generally raised to the surface to repair. Anyway, it's only 50 miles from Russia to Alasca making this a relatively simple connection. Hawaii would be hard to justify unless it's really cheap. However grid storage is generally fairly cheap. Just going east to west across Eurasia also gives very good solar coverage.

Yes, but adding refrigeration to a cable will make it firstly about thousand times more likely to need a repair, and when repairing, rather a lot less bendable and more fragile, thus making it also more difficult to repair.

There are also -- of course -- a lot of political problems with the idea of a a global electric grid. Like, what happens to your electrical system in case of an international crisis. Russia has used its gas supplies for political pressure in Europe, and other nations may do the same with electricity.

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#86

Post by ekianjo »

icebraining wrote: post #56
ekianjo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know where you live but in 3 different countries where i have lived till now the electricity bill was never high enough for me to take it in account for the choice of a place.

In Portugal you can get a 2 bedroom condo for 300€/month, but a family of three can easily pay 50€/month in electricity alone.

OK, then that's some very cheap accomodation. Never lived in a place where you could get such a good deal :)

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#87

Post by ekianjo »

XorNot wrote: post #33
ekianjo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily store oil. Electricity, not so much. And oil is a necessary element for numerous chemical compounds, you cant really compare both.

Industrial use of oil for chemicals doesn't burn it and is tiny compared to transportation. Also highly substitutable with plant sources.

> Also highly substitutable with plant sources.

This comes up often, but not really. There is no good replacement as cheap as oil from plant sources. Plants require a LOT more labor, processing, and producing it requires huge amounts of space. That's why we use oil and nothing else. If it was competitive, oil would have been replaced by plants long ago for chemical use.

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#88

Post by Xylakant »

patall wrote: post #79
Xylakant wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of demand that can be shifted to high-power periods, basically anything that requires heat/cold. Modern insulation is fairly good and we do have a lot of liquids with a high thermal capacity. Generating warm water for buildings and cold coolant for aircons during peak power production would be technologically feasible, it just doesn't pay off currently since the power production curve is essentially fla…

While I primarily agree, the problem from a more long term prospective is not intra-day balancing but between summer and winter. Every place that is not near to the equator gets less sun in the time of the year when there is more need for electricity. While there are some concepts with liquid salt etc., it becomes much harder to store such large amounts of energy for long periods.

Summer/winter is really not much of a concern in Dubai.

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#89

Post by Annatar »

pjc50 wrote: post #77
Annatar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you believe that a solar panel would last longer and be cheaper than a Stirling solar power plant? Based on which data?

One of these is currently commercially widely available, installed on roofs, and halving in cost seemingly every 18-24 months. The other one isn't. I don't doubt that Stirling systems could be cheaper, but I'm not seeing them yet. I also flatly refuse to believe that a moving-parts system can last 25 years without maintenance, even if just regular oiling, while solar panels should still have 70-80% of their output af…

I have yet to see a Stirling engine implementation which requires lubrication, so again, which maintenance are you referring to?

Specifically, I was and am referring to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EahfGfDdgNY

Re: New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

#90

Post by Annatar »

parimm wrote: post #5
Annatar wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because right now, batteries last only about one year and need to be replaced after that (I have lots of bad experience there), and because right now, my calculations show that for a 35,000 investement, the panels have to last 13 years before one breaks even, unless one lives in a sunny area. The problem is that the current solar technology isn't very good yet: the panels constantly lose capacity as they generate ele…

Mordern batteries last a lot more than one year. Tesla is providing ten year warranties on their batteries for their daily cycle batteries. https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

They do? I guess that explains why my UPS's, running on the same type of batteries, would be regularly shot after a year and I'd have a power outage. And I have industrial uninterruptible power supplies, with the current going through them, just like how they would be used in a solar panel scenario.

Don't believe the hype. Modern batteries are junk.

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