4 ms·

Not until you factor in energy storage, at which point it’s far more expensive, and carbon intensive.

by steeve 7y ago

spenrose 7y ago
Not sure how to parse this comment, but 11 months ago bid prices for solar plus storage were about $35 MWh [1] [1] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-levelized-cost-of-energy-for-lithium-ion-batteries-bnef https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-levelize...
- martinald 7y ago
  These stats are quite misleading. Solar + storage can deliver cheap energy, but still somewhat intermittently. Usually it would be something like a 10MW solar array paired with 10MWh of batteries. This only gives you 1 extra hour of runtime at 10MW. If you were to match nuclear's 24/7 output you'd need something like 100MWh of storage connected to a 10MW array. This becomes cripplingly expensive. I'm aware the grid can balance some of this load, perhaps with wind or solar arrays further away. But solar itself has externality costs of intermittency which the grid has to pick up.
  - spenrose 7y ago
    When I Google large recent projects, I see 4hrs [1][2] or (at 1.3GWH!!) 2 hours[3] of storage at much more than 10MW, and at lower prices today than the people selling nuclear hope to reach in 10 years. Nuclear is good! We should deploy it as fast as we can! That happens to be quite slow relative compared to our deployment of utility scale solar and wind. Let's go faster if we can. But for heavens' sake, nuclear advocates should, well, advocate for nuclear, not badmouth the clean energy coming online today at grid scale. [1] https://microgridknowledge.com/solar-plus-storage-prices-heco/ https://microgridknowledge.com/solar-plus-storage-prices-hec... [2] https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/11/la-8minute-solar-ink-lowest-cost-solar-plus-storage-deal-in-us-history/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/11/la-8minute-solar-ink-lo... [3] https://www.environmentalleader.com/2019/12/gemini-nevada-solar-plus-storage/ https://www.environmentalleader.com/2019/12/gemini-nevada-so...
    - martinald 7y ago
      That's at $80-120/MWh though, much higher than the GPs $35. Agreed though it is exciting to see the cost drops - but it's important to compare like for like wrt to intermittency.
      - spenrose 7y ago
        That's the price range for the Hawaii projects. The cost for the (much larger) Eland and Gemini projects is $35 MWh (previous and [4], respectively). WRT intermittency, the point of this conversation is that hydrogen generation is a solution: over-provision and generate combustible hydrogen (or ammonia, etc) that can be used later and / or where electricity performs poorly: long haul transport and high-temperature industrial processes. Many links on @ChrisGoodall2's excellent "Carbon Commentary": https://us9.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=a336c39e55a6260d59adbffb0&id=ffb538443d https://us9.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=a336c39e55a6260d59a... [4] https://www.barrons.com/articles/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-solar-power-nv-energy-690-megawatt-51577995149 https://www.barrons.com/articles/warren-buffett-berkshire-ha...
        Mirioron 7y ago
        Isn't hydrogen one of the hardest things to transport?

Not until you factor in energy storage, at which point it’s far more expensive, and carbon intensive.

by steeve 7y ago

Not until you factor in energy storage, at which point it’s far more expensive, and carbon intensive.

Not sure how to parse this comment, but 11 months ago bid prices for solar plus storage were about $35 MWh [1] [1] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-levelized-cost-of-energy-for-lithium-ion-batteries-bnef https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-levelize...

martinald 7y ago
These stats are quite misleading. Solar + storage can deliver cheap energy, but still somewhat intermittently. Usually it would be something like a 10MW solar array paired with 10MWh of batteries. This only gives you 1 extra hour of runtime at 10MW. If you were to match nuclear's 24/7 output you'd need something like 100MWh of storage connected to a 10MW array. This becomes cripplingly expensive. I'm aware the grid can balance some of this load, perhaps with wind or solar arrays further away. But solar itself has externality costs of intermittency which the grid has to pick up.
- spenrose 7y ago
  When I Google large recent projects, I see 4hrs [1][2] or (at 1.3GWH!!) 2 hours[3] of storage at much more than 10MW, and at lower prices today than the people selling nuclear hope to reach in 10 years. Nuclear is good! We should deploy it as fast as we can! That happens to be quite slow relative compared to our deployment of utility scale solar and wind. Let's go faster if we can. But for heavens' sake, nuclear advocates should, well, advocate for nuclear, not badmouth the clean energy coming online today at grid scale. [1] https://microgridknowledge.com/solar-plus-storage-prices-heco/ https://microgridknowledge.com/solar-plus-storage-prices-hec... [2] https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/11/la-8minute-solar-ink-lowest-cost-solar-plus-storage-deal-in-us-history/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/11/la-8minute-solar-ink-lo... [3] https://www.environmentalleader.com/2019/12/gemini-nevada-solar-plus-storage/ https://www.environmentalleader.com/2019/12/gemini-nevada-so...
  - martinald 7y ago
    That's at $80-120/MWh though, much higher than the GPs $35. Agreed though it is exciting to see the cost drops - but it's important to compare like for like wrt to intermittency.
    - spenrose 7y ago
      That's the price range for the Hawaii projects. The cost for the (much larger) Eland and Gemini projects is $35 MWh (previous and [4], respectively). WRT intermittency, the point of this conversation is that hydrogen generation is a solution: over-provision and generate combustible hydrogen (or ammonia, etc) that can be used later and / or where electricity performs poorly: long haul transport and high-temperature industrial processes. Many links on @ChrisGoodall2's excellent "Carbon Commentary": https://us9.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=a336c39e55a6260d59adbffb0&id=ffb538443d https://us9.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=a336c39e55a6260d59a... [4] https://www.barrons.com/articles/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-solar-power-nv-energy-690-megawatt-51577995149 https://www.barrons.com/articles/warren-buffett-berkshire-ha...
      - Mirioron 7y ago
        Isn't hydrogen one of the hardest things to transport?