11 ms·

Solar and wind are coming. And the power sector isn’t ready

174 points by spenrose 8y ago

spenrose 8y ago
"The US electricity system is at an extremely sensitive and uncertain juncture. More and more indicators point toward a future in which wind and solar power play a large role. But that future is not locked in. It still depends in large part on policies and economics that, while moving in the right direction, aren’t there yet. And so the people who manage US electricity markets and infrastructure, who must make decisions with 20-, 30-, even 50-year consequences, are stuck making high-stakes bets in a haze of uncertainty."
- mtgx 8y ago
  Anyone looking at the past 10 years of solar and wind growth and price declines who is still "unsure" what the future will bring in the next 10 years and what they should be betting on doesn't deserve to run the given power companies.
  - Pica_soO 8y ago
    Its over- any attempt to delay solars victory with regulations, will result in solar being deployed elsewhere (offshore/ south-america) and then delivered at combat prices to the border, deforming a future energy grid even further.
    - trumped 8y ago
      Unless the government start charging crazy fees for imported power...
      - Pica_soO 8y ago
        I wish there was some way to unionize dis-aligned interests. The whole public and all of the industry pays for such mobster schemes, but is unable to rally a viable defense against one little lobby, because...?
        icebraining 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action
    - lstodd 8y ago
      That's only so if you don't take transmission losses into account. Somehow many people tend to forget that transmission isn't free or even cheap.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - mmt 8y ago
        Indeed. Energy in chemical form is astonishingly cheap to transmit (and store), but, as electricity, it's completely different. The storage problem is part of the point of the article, of course. I always thought this was one of the advantages of rooftop solar, that it would reduce transmission costs by bringing generation closer to consumption, especially at peak, and not necessarily because of costs due to losses in the transmission lines, but costs due to maintaining the necessary capacity in those lines (a challenge for both the SFBA and NYC, IIUC).
  - mrob 8y ago
    Tell that to the designers of the Pentium 4. Exponential growth can't continue forever, and it's not always obvious when it's going to end.
  - raggles 8y ago
    Obviously there is going to be an increased amount of solar and wind coming online in the near future, and I don't think that anyone running a power system network at the distribution or transmission level is going to dispute that. However there definitely is uncertainty about how much, and there is even more uncertainty about what our loads are going to look like with large amounts of EVs coming online and potential battery deployments. These things could have a big impact on the size and timing of grid peaks and inertia which can require big investments to manage appropriately. And as with any big investment, you want to make it at the right time, and you want to be sure that you are going to make a return on that investment.
  - readams 8y ago
    It's also important to note that the value of solar/wind on a grid declines as they become a larger percentage of the power. These power sources are much less consistent and storage technology doesn't exist yet. And if it did, it would require big investments, which obviously dilutes any cost advantage.
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      Since this is a discussion mentioning software a lot, it's worth mentioning that big battery cars can be a storage source if they're plugged in at work and at home -- a prediction of whether the owner wants to be full combined with a prediction of near-term renewable generation and you've got a lot of storage without having to pay for it.
  - rb808 8y ago
    OK if you know the answers - what % of cars in the US will be fully electric in 10 years? 20 years? Will offshore windfarms be allowed in the US? Will household electricity consumption rise or fall? Will Trump subsidize coal? People really don't know the answers to those questions. Of course they're unsure.
    - EADGBE 8y ago
      > Will household electricity consumption rise or fall? It looks like it'll plateau. As we add more appliances, they just tend to become more efficient. https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-consumption-since-1975/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-co...
- grecy 8y ago
  One of the things I love most of all about Solar is it really doesn't matter how incompetent policy makers are. Irrelevant of what they're doing, you can cover your roof in panels and stick in some storage and forget that a grid even exists. People spend a lot of time complaining about things they should just ignore.
  - white-flame 8y ago
    Of course, that's dependent on permitting, which can fine you or require you to tear everything down on a whim. It also has huge up front capital costs, with battery replacement being additional burdens going forward, and you probably need to change your lifestyle significantly and rework your house structurally to be more power efficient. Certainly some of the local legislation regarding such permitting is affected by local electric companies wanting to dissuade that. But I would hope that the tides are turning in the direction of easier personal energy independence over the long term.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Are you off-grid? It's not for everyone: https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2018/05/so-you-wanna-go-off-grid.html https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2018/05/so-you-wanna-go-off-grid...
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Sure, until you have a week of overcast in the winter and suddenly the grid is very much occupying your thoughts.
    - EADGBE 8y ago
      51/52 ain't bad. It's a benefit to still being connected to the grid. Though I'm sure you'll find "service fees and taxes" eating up a majority of the power bill you thought you were cutting (e.g. my natural gas bill costs $20 monthly to run @ 0 usage, regardless of only using it for emergency heat for the furnace). FWIW, Tesla's (crude) Powerwall calculator suggests 3 powerwalls would account for an instance of this with 100% power generation via solar (7 + days backup, it says). Of course I'd hate to see that installation invoice, though.
Proven 8y ago
They wouldn't be "coming" nearly as fast if the government didn't plunder to subsidize them. The article calls for more state meddling into what market should sort out in its own. Every meddling makes it messier and the solution is of course more meddling, etc. until one day the US turns into a failed centrally planned economy similar to most of Europe today.
diafygi 8y ago
My favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" I have a startup in cleantech software, and often I feel very alone on HN. Every time the energy transition or climate change comes up on HN, it seems like most of the replies are either armchair-quarterbacking ("What they should do is..."), dismissive ("They don't take into account..."), or futile ("This isn't going to be fixed because..."). What I don't see is gravity for the magnitude of what's going to happen in the next few decades. Over 80% of the world's energy currently comes from fossil fuels[1], and the vast majority of that will switch to clean sources within our careers. It's a $10.2 trillion dollar transition that will happen in just a few decades[2]. So why the the lack of interest from "high growth" HN crowd? There's fuck ton of money to be made in the energy transition, and I'm betting that much of it is going to be in software. Intermittent solar/wind generation + storage requires a ton of software to (1) deploy enough to displace fossil sources and (2) actually work reliably. The energy transition isn't a research problem anymore, it's a scaling problem, which means software opportunity. Maybe it's the assumption that salaries aren't competitive? Maybe it's because most business models in energy tech aren't compatible with VC? Maybe it's because you have no idea what specific problems there are that need solving? Maybe the assumption is that energy is super slow and bureaucratic? Anyway, it's always sad to see the 2nd largest industry in the world (the 1st largest is killing people over energy) always get so categorically poo-pooed on HN. I'll keep posting[3][4] and hoping that attitude will eventually change, because we could very much use your talent in making this transition happen. Because it really is too late. [1]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=11951 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=11951 [2]: http://sdg.iisd.org/news/investments-in-renewable-energy-to-top-us7-trillion-by-2040/ http://sdg.iisd.org/news/investments-in-renewable-energy-to-... [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13250336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13250336 [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15127154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15127154
- bengale 8y ago
  > I have a startup in cleantech software, I'd be really interested to find out more about what you're doing. How did you get into that line of work?
LiamPa 8y ago
Current UK status: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ Is there a US equivalent?
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  We monitor our national status here in the US via a single Twitter account these days. You can say things have become pretty streamlined.
- jasoncartwright 8y ago
  Better view: https://electricityproduction.uk https://electricityproduction.uk
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Worldwide map: https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=map&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=map&solar=false&remote=...
childintime 8y ago
For some perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM
techbio 8y ago
Power sector isn't ready, nor anyone else. Developing power to heavy usage areas from available generation areas is like building new railroads. Success will arise from new, large, government-granted monopoly operations and be slow and pricey without political support at local levels and paying to or seizing from the many literal NIMBY people affected. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609766/how-to-get-wyoming-wind-to-california-and-cut-80-of-us-carbon-emissions/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609766/how-to-get-wyoming... Alternatively, of course, solar roof tiles get mandated for new construction and these problems go away.
- test6554 8y ago
  I'm not really in favor of an energy production mandate for new homes, but even if I was, I wouldn't want to be locked into solar, or even solar roof tiles specifically by law or statute.
  - woodandsteel 8y ago
    Are you implying there are or might be in the future other sources of home energy production than solar? Oh, and if there are, why not just mandate that there has to be some form, rather than mandating only solar?
  - techbio 8y ago
    An economic mandate could be triggered by an imperative to balance climate-control costs with passive home production systems.
carapace 8y ago
I apologize in advance for what is pretty much a tangent, but I wanted to mention a kind of passive wind generator that has no moving parts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaneless_ion_wind_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaneless_ion_wind_generator It's basically one half of Lord Kelvin's Thunderstorm turned sideways and powered by wind instead of gravity. Imagine a conductive screen, like an aluminum screen door and, upwind of it, a spray nozzle that emits mist. There is a conductive ring around the nozzle that is DC-biased so that the mist droplets carry a charge. The wind moves the droplets to the screen, collecting the charge. There are no moving parts so you wouldn't injure birds.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  At first glance it seems like this would constantly consume fresh water due to evaporation.
  - ajmarcic 8y ago
    This link indicates the process relies on water's conductivity: http://www.amasci.com/emotor/kelvin.html http://www.amasci.com/emotor/kelvin.html (and works in spite of the higher resistivity of fresh, or even deionized water)
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      It would be very difficult to spray saltwater through nozzles, the evaporation would cause salt buildup and clog them.
- aoner 8y ago
  This is super cool. Is someone working on this and making progress?
  - carapace 8y ago
    I don't know. I learned about it from Rex Research http://rexresearch.com/ http://rexresearch.com/
michaeljbishop 8y ago
For those of you skeptical that software can address this problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant Adding storage to the grid is one solution, but adding software that can better influence the demand various customers put on the grid is also surprisingly effective.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  >software that can better influence the demand various customers put on the grid is also surprisingly effective. Every time the smart grid comes up, I imagine the power company turning off my air conditioning because the ability to turn off my air conditioning made them feel safe to under-provision.
  - emiliobumachar 8y ago
    That's sure one way to do it. Another one is to have strict on- device limitations for how much control the power company does have. E.g. maximum delay of one minute for the air conditioning, one hour for the ice maker. A little flexibility goes a long way in load management.
  - ncallaway 8y ago
    What if you could set parameters under which the power company could turn off your air conditioning, and you got paid as a result? Such as: * You may turn off my air-conditioning for $2.00/hour as long as my room's temperature is below 75 Fahrenheit. * You may turn off my air-conditioning for $10.00/hour as long as my room's temperature is below 80 Fahrenheit. * You may turn off my air conditioning for a maximum of 1-hour per day for $60.00/hour, as long as my room's temperature is below 85 Fahrenheit * You may, at no point, turn off my air-conditioning between the hours of 10pm-6am.
    - 1123581321 8y ago
      Anecdotally, we are paid $10/mo for the utility to have the option to disable our A/C for up to a couple hours a day. They do not pay us for the time they actually disable A/C, but I don’t it hasn’t actually happened yet, so we are “winning” that bet. I think that customers would bid this option lower than $10, given the option, but agree others wouldn’t touch it. I hope that the price mitigated the real risk of supply planning skew mentioned by the GP.
AdamM12 8y ago
If they are expecting to lower energy costs then why do they want more subsidies? Or on the other end a carbon tax to penalize competitors? I'm sure there are policy prescriptions other than subsidies that can be beneficial to the industry but the ones that seem to get the most discussion are production tax credits and carbon tax.
- megaremote 8y ago
  It still costs money to build this stuff. And you might be asking why does coal and gas get subsidies?
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    Just to be evenhanded, the article is touting wind and solar, not really coal and gas.
  - AdamM12 8y ago
    They get deprecation like everyone else which helps subsidize the building of facilities as well as certain on going capital expenditures. Why do they need a production tax credit also (industry specific)? Talking simply renewables so coal & gas is another discussion.
blendo 8y ago
At our 40 acre walnut orchard in Northern California, we water via two wells (30 foot water depth) powered by two PG&E-powered electric pumps (60hp and 20hp). There is an agricultural discount if we run them nights and weekends, so we typically run them on weekends for 12-24 hours. Summer daytime temps are often 90-95 degrees F. Nighttime watering is also helpful due to less water evaporation. But given the duck curve, I expect PG&E will at some point encourage 10am to 3pm power usage. Then it might be cheaper, electricity-wise, to run the pumps 3 times a week, during the heat of the day, instead of overnight on weekends. Bad: More evaporation, so more water use. Good: Maybe cheaper, and since trees reduce their photosynthesis when it gets too hot (to decrease water loss), daytime watering may increase growth by keeping the air temperature lower.
- jfoutz 8y ago
  You’re in an interesting spot. You could generate your own power, since you don’t need to store it. I’d take a long look at how much power you need, and when 5 years of electric bills are more expensive than your own installation. Maybe never, but prices do keep falling.
mrfusion 8y ago
I’ve mentioned it before. I think I have a new low cost approach to residential solar if anyone is interested in helping or teaming up.
eximius 8y ago
At first glance I read "solar wind is coming" - which is a more alarming and perhaps even less prepared for condition.
jerluc 8y ago
I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I'm glad to see so many comments here in response to one of the Utility API founders. Just wanted to note something very important: As a co-founder of a very new cleantech software startup, and as a guy coming into the energy industry initially with only a background in software, you need to understand that the energy industry (especially in the US) is incredibly diverse and is really an ecosystem in itself. The market is not just regulated utilities and their customers. There are unregulated markets, power generators, ISOs, cleantech vendors, project developers, installers, financiers, insurance companies, and plenty more players in the space. Each of these actors serves a different role in the process of getting a solar array or battery up and running on a building or out in the field. And to echo some other comments, the hardware is pretty much all there by now, with prices getting lower by the month, and the only thing that's missing is the right software to help scale deployment of capital, energy assets, installation labor, etc. [Impending plug is coming] In fact, this is exactly what my company, Station A (https://stationa.com https://stationa.com), is doing. We've realized that in the commercial and industrial sectors, renewables are seeing slower penetration because the high soft costs associated with project development for the medium-to-small energy consumers. This stems primarily from a lack of access to critical data, biased sales tactics (solar developers only want to sell you solar, even if it won't make a difference), and the inability for project developers to really find the right locations to develop with the right technology in a scalable fashion. This sector is ripe for disruption purely with software, as the hardware has become so much more commoditized.
agumonkey 8y ago
> President Trump has embraced fossil fuels, ... still unbelievable
CosmicShadow 8y ago
Aw, I misread as Solar Wind is coming, got excited for some strange new form of electricity harvesting :(
westurner 8y ago
I don't know that fatalism and hopelessness are motivating for decision makers (who are seeking greater margins regardless of policy and lobbies). Is our transformation to 100% clean energy ASAP a certain eventuality? On a long enough timescale, it would be irrational for utilities to not choose both lower cost and more sustainable environmental impact ('price-rational', 'environment-rational'). We should expect storage and generation costs to continue to fall as we realize even just the current pipeline of capitalizable [storage] research. Solar energy is free.

174 points by spenrose 8y ago

"The US electricity system is at an extremely sensitive and uncertain juncture. More and more indicators point toward a future in which wind and solar power play a large role. But that future is not locked in. It still depends in large part on policies and economics that, while moving in the right direction, aren’t there yet. And so the people who manage US electricity markets and infrastructure, who must make decisions with 20-, 30-, even 50-year consequences, are stuck making high-stakes bets in a haze of uncertainty."

mtgx 8y ago
Anyone looking at the past 10 years of solar and wind growth and price declines who is still "unsure" what the future will bring in the next 10 years and what they should be betting on doesn't deserve to run the given power companies.
- Pica_soO 8y ago
  Its over- any attempt to delay solars victory with regulations, will result in solar being deployed elsewhere (offshore/ south-america) and then delivered at combat prices to the border, deforming a future energy grid even further.
  - trumped 8y ago
    Unless the government start charging crazy fees for imported power...
    - Pica_soO 8y ago
      I wish there was some way to unionize dis-aligned interests. The whole public and all of the industry pays for such mobster schemes, but is unable to rally a viable defense against one little lobby, because...?
      - icebraining 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action
  - lstodd 8y ago
    That's only so if you don't take transmission losses into account. Somehow many people tend to forget that transmission isn't free or even cheap.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - mmt 8y ago
      Indeed. Energy in chemical form is astonishingly cheap to transmit (and store), but, as electricity, it's completely different. The storage problem is part of the point of the article, of course. I always thought this was one of the advantages of rooftop solar, that it would reduce transmission costs by bringing generation closer to consumption, especially at peak, and not necessarily because of costs due to losses in the transmission lines, but costs due to maintaining the necessary capacity in those lines (a challenge for both the SFBA and NYC, IIUC).
- mrob 8y ago
  Tell that to the designers of the Pentium 4. Exponential growth can't continue forever, and it's not always obvious when it's going to end.
- raggles 8y ago
  Obviously there is going to be an increased amount of solar and wind coming online in the near future, and I don't think that anyone running a power system network at the distribution or transmission level is going to dispute that. However there definitely is uncertainty about how much, and there is even more uncertainty about what our loads are going to look like with large amounts of EVs coming online and potential battery deployments. These things could have a big impact on the size and timing of grid peaks and inertia which can require big investments to manage appropriately. And as with any big investment, you want to make it at the right time, and you want to be sure that you are going to make a return on that investment.
- readams 8y ago
  It's also important to note that the value of solar/wind on a grid declines as they become a larger percentage of the power. These power sources are much less consistent and storage technology doesn't exist yet. And if it did, it would require big investments, which obviously dilutes any cost advantage.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    Since this is a discussion mentioning software a lot, it's worth mentioning that big battery cars can be a storage source if they're plugged in at work and at home -- a prediction of whether the owner wants to be full combined with a prediction of near-term renewable generation and you've got a lot of storage without having to pay for it.
- rb808 8y ago
  OK if you know the answers - what % of cars in the US will be fully electric in 10 years? 20 years? Will offshore windfarms be allowed in the US? Will household electricity consumption rise or fall? Will Trump subsidize coal? People really don't know the answers to those questions. Of course they're unsure.
  - EADGBE 8y ago
    > Will household electricity consumption rise or fall? It looks like it'll plateau. As we add more appliances, they just tend to become more efficient. https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-consumption-since-1975/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-co...
grecy 8y ago
One of the things I love most of all about Solar is it really doesn't matter how incompetent policy makers are. Irrelevant of what they're doing, you can cover your roof in panels and stick in some storage and forget that a grid even exists. People spend a lot of time complaining about things they should just ignore.
- white-flame 8y ago
  Of course, that's dependent on permitting, which can fine you or require you to tear everything down on a whim. It also has huge up front capital costs, with battery replacement being additional burdens going forward, and you probably need to change your lifestyle significantly and rework your house structurally to be more power efficient. Certainly some of the local legislation regarding such permitting is affected by local electric companies wanting to dissuade that. But I would hope that the tides are turning in the direction of easier personal energy independence over the long term.
- icebraining 8y ago
  Are you off-grid? It's not for everyone: https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2018/05/so-you-wanna-go-off-grid.html https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2018/05/so-you-wanna-go-off-grid...
- ams6110 8y ago
  Sure, until you have a week of overcast in the winter and suddenly the grid is very much occupying your thoughts.
  - EADGBE 8y ago
    51/52 ain't bad. It's a benefit to still being connected to the grid. Though I'm sure you'll find "service fees and taxes" eating up a majority of the power bill you thought you were cutting (e.g. my natural gas bill costs $20 monthly to run @ 0 usage, regardless of only using it for emergency heat for the furnace). FWIW, Tesla's (crude) Powerwall calculator suggests 3 powerwalls would account for an instance of this with 100% power generation via solar (7 + days backup, it says). Of course I'd hate to see that installation invoice, though.

Proven 8y ago

They wouldn't be "coming" nearly as fast if the government didn't plunder to subsidize them. The article calls for more state meddling into what market should sort out in its own. Every meddling makes it messier and the solution is of course more meddling, etc. until one day the US turns into a failed centrally planned economy similar to most of Europe today.

diafygi 8y ago

My favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" I have a startup in cleantech software, and often I feel very alone on HN. Every time the energy transition or climate change comes up on HN, it seems like most of the replies are either armchair-quarterbacking ("What they should do is..."), dismissive ("They don't take into account..."), or futile ("This isn't going to be fixed because..."). What I don't see is gravity for the magnitude of what's going to happen in the next few decades. Over 80% of the world's energy currently comes from fossil fuels[1], and the vast majority of that will switch to clean sources within our careers. It's a $10.2 trillion dollar transition that will happen in just a few decades[2]. So why the the lack of interest from "high growth" HN crowd? There's fuck ton of money to be made in the energy transition, and I'm betting that much of it is going to be in software. Intermittent solar/wind generation + storage requires a ton of software to (1) deploy enough to displace fossil sources and (2) actually work reliably. The energy transition isn't a research problem anymore, it's a scaling problem, which means software opportunity. Maybe it's the assumption that salaries aren't competitive? Maybe it's because most business models in energy tech aren't compatible with VC? Maybe it's because you have no idea what specific problems there are that need solving? Maybe the assumption is that energy is super slow and bureaucratic? Anyway, it's always sad to see the 2nd largest industry in the world (the 1st largest is killing people over energy) always get so categorically poo-pooed on HN. I'll keep posting[3][4] and hoping that attitude will eventually change, because we could very much use your talent in making this transition happen. Because it really is too late. [1]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=11951 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=11951 [2]: http://sdg.iisd.org/news/investments-in-renewable-energy-to-top-us7-trillion-by-2040/ http://sdg.iisd.org/news/investments-in-renewable-energy-to-... [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13250336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13250336 [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15127154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15127154

bengale 8y ago
> I have a startup in cleantech software, I'd be really interested to find out more about what you're doing. How did you get into that line of work?

LiamPa 8y ago

Current UK status: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ Is there a US equivalent?

themodelplumber 8y ago
We monitor our national status here in the US via a single Twitter account these days. You can say things have become pretty streamlined.
jasoncartwright 8y ago
Better view: https://electricityproduction.uk https://electricityproduction.uk
toomuchtodo 8y ago
Worldwide map: https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=map&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=map&solar=false&remote=...

childintime 8y ago

For some perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM

techbio 8y ago

Power sector isn't ready, nor anyone else. Developing power to heavy usage areas from available generation areas is like building new railroads. Success will arise from new, large, government-granted monopoly operations and be slow and pricey without political support at local levels and paying to or seizing from the many literal NIMBY people affected. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609766/how-to-get-wyoming-wind-to-california-and-cut-80-of-us-carbon-emissions/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609766/how-to-get-wyoming... Alternatively, of course, solar roof tiles get mandated for new construction and these problems go away.

test6554 8y ago
I'm not really in favor of an energy production mandate for new homes, but even if I was, I wouldn't want to be locked into solar, or even solar roof tiles specifically by law or statute.
- woodandsteel 8y ago
  Are you implying there are or might be in the future other sources of home energy production than solar? Oh, and if there are, why not just mandate that there has to be some form, rather than mandating only solar?
- techbio 8y ago
  An economic mandate could be triggered by an imperative to balance climate-control costs with passive home production systems.

carapace 8y ago

I apologize in advance for what is pretty much a tangent, but I wanted to mention a kind of passive wind generator that has no moving parts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaneless_ion_wind_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaneless_ion_wind_generator It's basically one half of Lord Kelvin's Thunderstorm turned sideways and powered by wind instead of gravity. Imagine a conductive screen, like an aluminum screen door and, upwind of it, a spray nozzle that emits mist. There is a conductive ring around the nozzle that is DC-biased so that the mist droplets carry a charge. The wind moves the droplets to the screen, collecting the charge. There are no moving parts so you wouldn't injure birds.

whatshisface 8y ago
At first glance it seems like this would constantly consume fresh water due to evaporation.
- ajmarcic 8y ago
  This link indicates the process relies on water's conductivity: http://www.amasci.com/emotor/kelvin.html http://www.amasci.com/emotor/kelvin.html (and works in spite of the higher resistivity of fresh, or even deionized water)
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    It would be very difficult to spray saltwater through nozzles, the evaporation would cause salt buildup and clog them.
aoner 8y ago
This is super cool. Is someone working on this and making progress?
- carapace 8y ago
  I don't know. I learned about it from Rex Research http://rexresearch.com/ http://rexresearch.com/

michaeljbishop 8y ago

For those of you skeptical that software can address this problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant Adding storage to the grid is one solution, but adding software that can better influence the demand various customers put on the grid is also surprisingly effective.

whatshisface 8y ago
>software that can better influence the demand various customers put on the grid is also surprisingly effective. Every time the smart grid comes up, I imagine the power company turning off my air conditioning because the ability to turn off my air conditioning made them feel safe to under-provision.
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  That's sure one way to do it. Another one is to have strict on- device limitations for how much control the power company does have. E.g. maximum delay of one minute for the air conditioning, one hour for the ice maker. A little flexibility goes a long way in load management.
- ncallaway 8y ago
  What if you could set parameters under which the power company could turn off your air conditioning, and you got paid as a result? Such as: * You may turn off my air-conditioning for $2.00/hour as long as my room's temperature is below 75 Fahrenheit. * You may turn off my air-conditioning for $10.00/hour as long as my room's temperature is below 80 Fahrenheit. * You may turn off my air conditioning for a maximum of 1-hour per day for $60.00/hour, as long as my room's temperature is below 85 Fahrenheit * You may, at no point, turn off my air-conditioning between the hours of 10pm-6am.
  - 1123581321 8y ago
    Anecdotally, we are paid $10/mo for the utility to have the option to disable our A/C for up to a couple hours a day. They do not pay us for the time they actually disable A/C, but I don’t it hasn’t actually happened yet, so we are “winning” that bet. I think that customers would bid this option lower than $10, given the option, but agree others wouldn’t touch it. I hope that the price mitigated the real risk of supply planning skew mentioned by the GP.

AdamM12 8y ago

If they are expecting to lower energy costs then why do they want more subsidies? Or on the other end a carbon tax to penalize competitors? I'm sure there are policy prescriptions other than subsidies that can be beneficial to the industry but the ones that seem to get the most discussion are production tax credits and carbon tax.

megaremote 8y ago
It still costs money to build this stuff. And you might be asking why does coal and gas get subsidies?
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Just to be evenhanded, the article is touting wind and solar, not really coal and gas.
- AdamM12 8y ago
  They get deprecation like everyone else which helps subsidize the building of facilities as well as certain on going capital expenditures. Why do they need a production tax credit also (industry specific)? Talking simply renewables so coal & gas is another discussion.

blendo 8y ago

At our 40 acre walnut orchard in Northern California, we water via two wells (30 foot water depth) powered by two PG&E-powered electric pumps (60hp and 20hp). There is an agricultural discount if we run them nights and weekends, so we typically run them on weekends for 12-24 hours. Summer daytime temps are often 90-95 degrees F. Nighttime watering is also helpful due to less water evaporation. But given the duck curve, I expect PG&E will at some point encourage 10am to 3pm power usage. Then it might be cheaper, electricity-wise, to run the pumps 3 times a week, during the heat of the day, instead of overnight on weekends. Bad: More evaporation, so more water use. Good: Maybe cheaper, and since trees reduce their photosynthesis when it gets too hot (to decrease water loss), daytime watering may increase growth by keeping the air temperature lower.

jfoutz 8y ago
You’re in an interesting spot. You could generate your own power, since you don’t need to store it. I’d take a long look at how much power you need, and when 5 years of electric bills are more expensive than your own installation. Maybe never, but prices do keep falling.

mrfusion 8y ago

I’ve mentioned it before. I think I have a new low cost approach to residential solar if anyone is interested in helping or teaming up.

eximius 8y ago

At first glance I read "solar wind is coming" - which is a more alarming and perhaps even less prepared for condition.

jerluc 8y ago

I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I'm glad to see so many comments here in response to one of the Utility API founders. Just wanted to note something very important: As a co-founder of a very new cleantech software startup, and as a guy coming into the energy industry initially with only a background in software, you need to understand that the energy industry (especially in the US) is incredibly diverse and is really an ecosystem in itself. The market is not just regulated utilities and their customers. There are unregulated markets, power generators, ISOs, cleantech vendors, project developers, installers, financiers, insurance companies, and plenty more players in the space. Each of these actors serves a different role in the process of getting a solar array or battery up and running on a building or out in the field. And to echo some other comments, the hardware is pretty much all there by now, with prices getting lower by the month, and the only thing that's missing is the right software to help scale deployment of capital, energy assets, installation labor, etc. [Impending plug is coming] In fact, this is exactly what my company, Station A (https://stationa.com https://stationa.com), is doing. We've realized that in the commercial and industrial sectors, renewables are seeing slower penetration because the high soft costs associated with project development for the medium-to-small energy consumers. This stems primarily from a lack of access to critical data, biased sales tactics (solar developers only want to sell you solar, even if it won't make a difference), and the inability for project developers to really find the right locations to develop with the right technology in a scalable fashion. This sector is ripe for disruption purely with software, as the hardware has become so much more commoditized.

agumonkey 8y ago

> President Trump has embraced fossil fuels, ... still unbelievable

CosmicShadow 8y ago

Aw, I misread as Solar Wind is coming, got excited for some strange new form of electricity harvesting :(

westurner 8y ago

I don't know that fatalism and hopelessness are motivating for decision makers (who are seeking greater margins regardless of policy and lobbies). Is our transformation to 100% clean energy ASAP a certain eventuality? On a long enough timescale, it would be irrational for utilities to not choose both lower cost and more sustainable environmental impact ('price-rational', 'environment-rational'). We should expect storage and generation costs to continue to fall as we realize even just the current pipeline of capitalizable [storage] research. Solar energy is free.