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Generation isn't the bottleneck - it's the storage. Solar produces dramatically less power in the winter, and having season long storage is not practical. As
by koheripbal 7y ago
Generation isn't the bottleneck - it's the storage.
Solar produces dramatically less power in the winter, and having season long storage is not practical.
As an example, the largest plant in Arizona produces only 10% in January compared to June.
- skitout 7y ago1) That is why you should rely on different (renewable) complementary energy : solar, onshore wind, offshore wind, biomass, hydro 2) You don't really NEED Season long storage, but Season long thermal storage would do the job
- koheripbal 7y ago1. This doesn't address my point at all. 2. Of course you do. Power needs to be 99.95% reliable. We cannot have entire winters without power just because the sun wasn't out enough in one particular June. ..."thermal storage" is incredibly inefficient and entirely theoretical.
- kragen 7y agoNo, seasonal thermal energy stores are a well-known technology with many large-scale deployments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_thermal_store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_thermal_store But they are only applicable in some cases. Utility-scale seasonal electrical energy storage is orders of magnitude from practicality. You don't need it, though. Most populated places can easily install enough solar panels to provide their winter energy demands, providing a great surplus of energy during the summer.
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoPerhaps continuous power is a luxury we can’t afford.
- Gibbon1 7y agoMy thought is we could use combined cycle nature gas power plants to back stop renewable's. So lack of storage isn't the show stopper people seem to think it is.
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoPerhaps with CCS but that is yet to be proven.
- pfdietz 7y agoThis technology is highly promising: https://gasturbineworld.com/first-fire-for-la-porte-carbon-capture-demo/ https://gasturbineworld.com/first-fire-for-la-porte-carbon-c...
- edhelas 7y agoAgain, show us papers that did the maths where such things are working, even "theoretically". Throwing techs at a problem will not solve the problem.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hokkos 7y agoNot really, you need massive seasonal storage, like giant hydrogen cavern, or lot of methane gas holder.
- kragen 7y agoSeasonal grid-scale energy storage is indeed not practical, but a factor of 10 is unusually large; the sun angle doesn't change that much. (Must be clouds?) Even seasonal thermal stores are infeasible under some circumstances, although in other circumstances they do work. Massive overprovisioning is probably practical. Demand response is definitely practical, and in Arizona happens by coincidence to some extent, but it remains to be seen whether the reduction delivered by demand response is a factor of 2, 3, 10, or 100.
- dumbfounder 7y agoSource? From what I have seen it is more like 40%.
- 7952 7y agoFinding a grid connection can be a serious bottleneck. Rural substations often lack the capacity to export lots of power. And reinforcing capacity or building new lines is expensive. Interestingly this can make it viable to co-locate battery storage at solar sites. This reduces the peak power that is exported and makes the power line cheaper to build. And the battery's can be recharged from the grid if generation is low and used to generate income through storage contracts.
- pfdietz 7y ago> As an example, the largest plant in Arizona produces only 10% in January compared to June. Utterly false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesquite_Solar_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesquite_Solar_project