4 ms·

The tipping point for renewable energy is nearly here

12 points by ph0rque 10y ago

philipkglass 10y ago
This is a pretty good roundup of recent trends. Of course projecting past growth numbers to the future needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt; don't try estimating solar capacity in 2035 by taking the 50% annual growth rate since 2001 and plotting the results over another 18 years. There are a couple of qualitative predictions (observations?) that I didn't see in the article that I'd like to make for posterity. One observation is that increasing numbers of electric vehicles and plugin hybrid electric vehicles can actually help increase an electrical system's integration of intermittent renewables. Currently, solar/wind power become marginally less valuable as more is installed because at their peak production times they don't find enough demand to match supply. Peak demand time in most systems occurs in the early evening when people get home from work, start using appliances, and adjust home temperature up or down depending on the region and time of year. Late night generation from high concentrations of wind power, and mid-day generation from high concentrations of solar power, go wasted and discourage further installations that will increase oversupply. But if you add charger-connected EVs with a dynamic pricing system, you can signal "discount power -- charge now!" to EVs whenever supply is high relative to demand. Each depleted EV can offer ~1-10 kilowatts of dispatchable demand to help match non-dispatchable supply. In terms of balancing the grid that complements the traditional method of dispatching supply to match uncontrolled demand. It also means that you probably don't need to upgrade distribution infrastructure for a long time even as EVs become more common: late night charging with can be scheduled for hours where distribution infrastructure is traditionally under-used and the vehicle will still be charged to drive when people wake up. I also predict that big infrastructure projects for long distance transmission are going to enable more and (eventually) more diverse energy resources to compete with fossils. For example, Texas's big Competitive Renewable Energy Zones transmission projects started in 2005 with a legislature that was looking to bring wind power from rich Western Texas resources to Eastern Texas load centers. Solar was so expensive back then that it wasn't really part of planning. But now that the transmission infrastructure is built and solar continues to fall in price, I expect future Western Texas solar projects to cluster around that already-built transmission capacity. Since wind output typically peaks at night and solar peaks mid-day, solar and wind production can get complementary uses out of the same infrastructure. And if storage continues to fall in price, I predict that storage projects too will eventually cluster around the endpoints of CREZ transmission, so they can save a little of the late-night wind peak or the mid-day solar peak and use it to serve the early evening demand peak.
- astrodust 10y ago
  Projecting is difficult, I'll give you that, but I also think the 35% number might be low. There's going to be an enormous uptick in renewables being deployed in new markets, Africa is absolutely huge in this regard. Many countries lack the natural resources to keep coal or oil fired power plants running, they don't have uranium not the budget to build nuclear plants, and most are without large rivers they can tap for hydroelectric power. What you're left with is wind and solar. These can be deployed just about anywhere it's windy and/or sunny. It's also something you can deploy on a very tiny scale or a very large one, it just depends on the packaging. You can also build it up incrementally as your needs grow which makes it easy to scale. As the price of these technologies continues to plunge you're going to see some dramatic shifts taking place.

12 points by ph0rque 10y ago

This is a pretty good roundup of recent trends. Of course projecting past growth numbers to the future needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt; don't try estimating solar capacity in 2035 by taking the 50% annual growth rate since 2001 and plotting the results over another 18 years. There are a couple of qualitative predictions (observations?) that I didn't see in the article that I'd like to make for posterity. One observation is that increasing numbers of electric vehicles and plugin hybrid electric vehicles can actually help increase an electrical system's integration of intermittent renewables. Currently, solar/wind power become marginally less valuable as more is installed because at their peak production times they don't find enough demand to match supply. Peak demand time in most systems occurs in the early evening when people get home from work, start using appliances, and adjust home temperature up or down depending on the region and time of year. Late night generation from high concentrations of wind power, and mid-day generation from high concentrations of solar power, go wasted and discourage further installations that will increase oversupply. But if you add charger-connected EVs with a dynamic pricing system, you can signal "discount power -- charge now!" to EVs whenever supply is high relative to demand. Each depleted EV can offer ~1-10 kilowatts of dispatchable demand to help match non-dispatchable supply. In terms of balancing the grid that complements the traditional method of dispatching supply to match uncontrolled demand. It also means that you probably don't need to upgrade distribution infrastructure for a long time even as EVs become more common: late night charging with can be scheduled for hours where distribution infrastructure is traditionally under-used and the vehicle will still be charged to drive when people wake up. I also predict that big infrastructure projects for long distance transmission are going to enable more and (eventually) more diverse energy resources to compete with fossils. For example, Texas's big Competitive Renewable Energy Zones transmission projects started in 2005 with a legislature that was looking to bring wind power from rich Western Texas resources to Eastern Texas load centers. Solar was so expensive back then that it wasn't really part of planning. But now that the transmission infrastructure is built and solar continues to fall in price, I expect future Western Texas solar projects to cluster around that already-built transmission capacity. Since wind output typically peaks at night and solar peaks mid-day, solar and wind production can get complementary uses out of the same infrastructure. And if storage continues to fall in price, I predict that storage projects too will eventually cluster around the endpoints of CREZ transmission, so they can save a little of the late-night wind peak or the mid-day solar peak and use it to serve the early evening demand peak.

astrodust 10y ago
Projecting is difficult, I'll give you that, but I also think the 35% number might be low. There's going to be an enormous uptick in renewables being deployed in new markets, Africa is absolutely huge in this regard. Many countries lack the natural resources to keep coal or oil fired power plants running, they don't have uranium not the budget to build nuclear plants, and most are without large rivers they can tap for hydroelectric power. What you're left with is wind and solar. These can be deployed just about anywhere it's windy and/or sunny. It's also something you can deploy on a very tiny scale or a very large one, it just depends on the packaging. You can also build it up incrementally as your needs grow which makes it easy to scale. As the price of these technologies continues to plunge you're going to see some dramatic shifts taking place.