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> Solar though produces power roughly in phase with the demand curve. I don't think that's true -- load peaks in the evening, while solar peaks in the early af

> Solar though produces power roughly in phase with the demand curve. I don't think that's true -- load peaks in the evening, while solar peaks in the early afternoon. This issue (as pertains to the mismatch between solar/wind production and grid demand) has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

Retric 8y ago
1,000 miles of power lines east or west pushes solar power +/- 1 hour earlier or later at the cost of ~3% efficiency. It's only nighttime that's a real problem but again, night time has lower overall demand. Which means the duck curve is mostly a non issue over any large land mass. Alt least relative to coal / nuclear base load power plants.
- patrickg_zill 8y ago
  Plus the cost of the power lines and related equipment.
  - gandreani 8y ago
    Exactly! That's probably %40-25 of the cost in our utility bills. The maintenance of these is never considered
    - Retric 8y ago
      US has 700,000 miles of power lines, a few HVDC can send a lot of power east/west while being a rounding error.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Sort of, if you want to send power north then sending power north east takes less extra lines then sending power east then nort. So, generall sending power 1,000 miles west requires up to but not nessisarily 1,000 miles of power lines.
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    Little goggling showed a proposed 3000 MW transmission line coming in at about $1.6M/mile. At a 1000 miles that would be 1.6X1000 or $1.6 billion $1.6b/3000W is $0.53/W capital cost. That doesn't seem crazy.
    - gameswithgo 8y ago
      people imagine that making renewables work is just TOO HARD yet if you look at all of the infrastructure requried to make fossil fuels work it is a massive amount of money, tech, and effort. We send cities out into the ocean to drill holes into the curst of the earth, massive boats the size of stadiums to bring the oil to shore, then massive facilities to refine it and on and on and on. Then people act like figuring out large scale energy storage is just too hard! Sorry have to deal with global warming! ridiculous
      - hueving 8y ago
        Argue with numbers, not emotions. If drilling wasn't cost effective at the current price per barrel, they wouldn't do it, it's that simple. Perhaps you're underestimating how much a drilling rig can extract. You're right about no pricing of global warming externalities, but that has nothing to do with your appeal to incredulity of 'cities on the ocean'. Have you seen the scale of a large offshore wind farm?
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        You're making an argument about variations inside of "hard", which is missing the point. There are people that act like renewables are in the "hard" class but coal/oil power isn't. They're wrong.
    - hueving 8y ago
      You need opex and to show that a one hour shift is worth anything close to that. People in cold climates need heat in the dark. People in hot climates need air con in the evening after work. A 1 hour shift does little for that.
    - 8y ago
- gwright 8y ago
  And what about when it isn't sunny? As an extreme example the impact of last year's eclipse on power generation was significant: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/9/16089636/solar-eclipse-2017-solar-energy https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/9/16089636... Not suggesting that eclipses are the biggest concern with solar power and base loads but it does illustrate the complexity of matching supply and demand with renewables.
  - Retric 8y ago
    People use less power on cloudy days so this tends to average out. Really though solar provides zero power for 1/2 the day so it needs some form of backup. Wind/Hydro/Storage work, but on top of that you simply want excess cheap solar / wind so a minimal reduction like an eclipse does not present a problem.

Retric 8y ago

1,000 miles of power lines east or west pushes solar power +/- 1 hour earlier or later at the cost of ~3% efficiency. It's only nighttime that's a real problem but again, night time has lower overall demand. Which means the duck curve is mostly a non issue over any large land mass. Alt least relative to coal / nuclear base load power plants.

patrickg_zill 8y ago
Plus the cost of the power lines and related equipment.
- gandreani 8y ago
  Exactly! That's probably %40-25 of the cost in our utility bills. The maintenance of these is never considered
  - Retric 8y ago
    US has 700,000 miles of power lines, a few HVDC can send a lot of power east/west while being a rounding error.
- Retric 8y ago
  Sort of, if you want to send power north then sending power north east takes less extra lines then sending power east then nort. So, generall sending power 1,000 miles west requires up to but not nessisarily 1,000 miles of power lines.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  Little goggling showed a proposed 3000 MW transmission line coming in at about $1.6M/mile. At a 1000 miles that would be 1.6X1000 or $1.6 billion $1.6b/3000W is $0.53/W capital cost. That doesn't seem crazy.
  - gameswithgo 8y ago
    people imagine that making renewables work is just TOO HARD yet if you look at all of the infrastructure requried to make fossil fuels work it is a massive amount of money, tech, and effort. We send cities out into the ocean to drill holes into the curst of the earth, massive boats the size of stadiums to bring the oil to shore, then massive facilities to refine it and on and on and on. Then people act like figuring out large scale energy storage is just too hard! Sorry have to deal with global warming! ridiculous
    - hueving 8y ago
      Argue with numbers, not emotions. If drilling wasn't cost effective at the current price per barrel, they wouldn't do it, it's that simple. Perhaps you're underestimating how much a drilling rig can extract. You're right about no pricing of global warming externalities, but that has nothing to do with your appeal to incredulity of 'cities on the ocean'. Have you seen the scale of a large offshore wind farm?
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        You're making an argument about variations inside of "hard", which is missing the point. There are people that act like renewables are in the "hard" class but coal/oil power isn't. They're wrong.
  - hueving 8y ago
    You need opex and to show that a one hour shift is worth anything close to that. People in cold climates need heat in the dark. People in hot climates need air con in the evening after work. A 1 hour shift does little for that.
  - 8y ago
gwright 8y ago
And what about when it isn't sunny? As an extreme example the impact of last year's eclipse on power generation was significant: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/9/16089636/solar-eclipse-2017-solar-energy https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/9/16089636... Not suggesting that eclipses are the biggest concern with solar power and base loads but it does illustrate the complexity of matching supply and demand with renewables.
- Retric 8y ago
  People use less power on cloudy days so this tends to average out. Really though solar provides zero power for 1/2 the day so it needs some form of backup. Wind/Hydro/Storage work, but on top of that you simply want excess cheap solar / wind so a minimal reduction like an eclipse does not present a problem.