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We'll need a lot of storage to make local solar as reliable as the grid. We may be headed for an uncanny valley, as solar makes the grid less profitable, yet s

by p1mrx 8y ago

We'll need a lot of storage to make local solar as reliable as the grid. We may be headed for an uncanny valley, as solar makes the grid less profitable, yet still necessary. The utility companies should probably be investing in EV charging (like the ability to buy electricity from a shared charger, and bill it directly to your home account instead of appearing on the charger operator's meter), in order to maintain/increase demand for their product as solar takes it away.

BLKNSLVR 8y ago
This will be up to the management smarts of grid operators. They'll have to adjust their strategies over the next decade (or two) as large individual coal stations are decommissioned and many smaller solar and wind generators come online whilst consumers also take matters into their own hands. I think "the grid" has value as a shared-source backup that, personally, I'd rather have than not, but that will come down to how much it ends up costing versus the hassle of the occasional power failure and the costs of buying more storage to cover for them. Also, the cheaper electricity becomes, the more people will use it, which could put more demand on the grid, or keep demand stable as self-generation increases. Complex problem, good luck grid operators!
lovich 8y ago
I imagine at a certain point it'd be cheaper for a utility to have truck mounted battery banks that they can drive to affected areas and supply power to, while they repair their broken onsite power generation
- ebikelaw 8y ago
  A truck stuffed to the gills with batteries would hold maybe 4 MW-hours of energy. You'd need a lot of trucks, except most of the time you wouldn't need any of them and they'd just sit around. Sounds expensive?
  - lovich 8y ago
    It is more expensive, but would it be mor expensive than maintaining a grid for an entire region? The power density is low, but presumably you're not running every electricity using device while you're hooked up to emergency power. This idea may be worse than just keeping a grid around, but my point was more along the lines that we are not tied to needing a grid itself anymore if we get power generation at every home/business. We still need some sort of backup power system, but it is possible that it takes a different form
- p1mrx 8y ago
  In general, solar doesn't stop working because it needs repair; it stops because it's cloudy for longer than expected.

by p1mrx 8y ago

BLKNSLVR 8y ago

This will be up to the management smarts of grid operators. They'll have to adjust their strategies over the next decade (or two) as large individual coal stations are decommissioned and many smaller solar and wind generators come online whilst consumers also take matters into their own hands. I think "the grid" has value as a shared-source backup that, personally, I'd rather have than not, but that will come down to how much it ends up costing versus the hassle of the occasional power failure and the costs of buying more storage to cover for them. Also, the cheaper electricity becomes, the more people will use it, which could put more demand on the grid, or keep demand stable as self-generation increases. Complex problem, good luck grid operators!

lovich 8y ago

I imagine at a certain point it'd be cheaper for a utility to have truck mounted battery banks that they can drive to affected areas and supply power to, while they repair their broken onsite power generation

ebikelaw 8y ago
A truck stuffed to the gills with batteries would hold maybe 4 MW-hours of energy. You'd need a lot of trucks, except most of the time you wouldn't need any of them and they'd just sit around. Sounds expensive?
- lovich 8y ago
  It is more expensive, but would it be mor expensive than maintaining a grid for an entire region? The power density is low, but presumably you're not running every electricity using device while you're hooked up to emergency power. This idea may be worse than just keeping a grid around, but my point was more along the lines that we are not tied to needing a grid itself anymore if we get power generation at every home/business. We still need some sort of backup power system, but it is possible that it takes a different form
p1mrx 8y ago
In general, solar doesn't stop working because it needs repair; it stops because it's cloudy for longer than expected.