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The issue with renewables isn't recycling, it's storage. Solar generates electricity in a sine wave. Half the day it's generating no electricity. Wind doesn't f

The issue with renewables isn't recycling, it's storage. Solar generates electricity in a sine wave. Half the day it's generating no electricity. Wind doesn't follow a sine wave, but has the potential to generate lower levels of power for long stretches of time. Wind is consistent on a yearly basis, but variable on a weekly basis.

epistasis 6y ago
That's a pretty big shift of the initial question, but it's an important shift! If you look in the "most free" markets for energy in the US, where there is the most possibility for independent companies to come in and provide generation and other energy resources, we are looking at ERCOT in Texas and PJM in the north. In these free markets, we are seeing huuuge amounts of storage resources in the interconnection pipeline over the next few years [1]. So where indecent investors are allowed to participate in energy, we are seeing massive influx of capital to build storage, from people that are profit-seeking. Meaning storage, at least this first chunk of it, is already likely to be economically efficient. That said, when we talk about renewables, wind and solar are largely uncorrelated, and where we have good wind resources we tend to get good wind at night. And when you look at load on grids, such as Texas' independent ERCOT grid, you see a sinusoidal pattern too [2]. And for ERCOT, with a sinusoidal amplitude of about 20GW, by sheer coincidence there are about 17GW of storage projects in the pipeline. And I'm pretty sure that doesn't include the solar projects that have storage directly on them, which is happening with a huge chunk of solar projects. And though Texas has been good at building wind resources, they have left their solar mostly untapped up until now. So as they start to deploy solar, they are going to get a ton of storage deployed with that too. The challenge is not longer the technology or the costs, the future challenges will be entirely about regulation, and whether entrenched interests will use regulatory capture to prevent new entrants that can supply cheaper low carbon energy to consumers and industry. [1] https://rmi.org/clean-energy-is-canceling-gas-plants/ https://rmi.org/clean-energy-is-canceling-gas-plants/ [2] http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCurrentDay.html http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCu...
- Manfredo_1 6y ago
  What do you mean by 17GW of storage in the pipeline? I'm not seeing this in your sources. Watts isn't a measurement of storage, storage is measured in watt-hours. To put the mismatch between available storage and required storage in perspective, the US consumes 11.5TWh of electricity daily on average. We have ~25GWh of storage currently. Most of that is in hydroelectric storage, which is geographically limited. Less than a gigawatt is in battery storage. This works out to a few minutes of storage - and a matter of seconds of battery storage.
  - epistasis 6y ago
    ERCOT puts their panning pipeline out in the open; I'm relying on an ERCOT expert that said this as a summary of the August 2020 XLS raw data [1]. About 950 MW is as far along to have an interconnection agreement. Grids think of energy sources primarily in terms of power, not in terms of energy, so that's the number that gets reported to ERCOT. Grid ops dispatch W, not Wh. We may never know the exact GWh for these planned projects, but since it's likely nearly all lithium ion tech, we can expect 1-4 GWh per GW for each project, and probably an average between 2-3GWh/GW overall. Going from less than a GWh storage currently in the entire US, to probably 20x that planned for Texas alone in the near future shows just how scalable battery tech is and how quickly it is advancing. This switch is unprecedented, and is going to catch a ton of energy folks by complete surprise. People aren't used to things changing so quickly when it comes to electrical grids. The next decade is going to be a wild ride and I can't wait to see the grid drop carbon-based generation faster than nearly anyone is imagining. Next, we need to decarbonize industry. [1] http://mis.ercot.com/misdownload/servlets/mirDownload?mimic_duns=000000000&doclookupId=731966427 http://mis.ercot.com/misdownload/servlets/mirDownload?mimic_... PS: I originally replied to a "manfredo" and your username is "Manfredo_", which seems like a remarkable coincidence. Given the prevalence of paid astroturfing on these subjects, it would be good to clarify if this is just a coincidence, or if you have two accounts, or what else might be going on! Given our past discussions I'm sure your an honest commentator but it would probably help people that don't recognize your username.
    - deleted 6y ago

epistasis 6y ago

That's a pretty big shift of the initial question, but it's an important shift! If you look in the "most free" markets for energy in the US, where there is the most possibility for independent companies to come in and provide generation and other energy resources, we are looking at ERCOT in Texas and PJM in the north. In these free markets, we are seeing huuuge amounts of storage resources in the interconnection pipeline over the next few years [1]. So where indecent investors are allowed to participate in energy, we are seeing massive influx of capital to build storage, from people that are profit-seeking. Meaning storage, at least this first chunk of it, is already likely to be economically efficient. That said, when we talk about renewables, wind and solar are largely uncorrelated, and where we have good wind resources we tend to get good wind at night. And when you look at load on grids, such as Texas' independent ERCOT grid, you see a sinusoidal pattern too [2]. And for ERCOT, with a sinusoidal amplitude of about 20GW, by sheer coincidence there are about 17GW of storage projects in the pipeline. And I'm pretty sure that doesn't include the solar projects that have storage directly on them, which is happening with a huge chunk of solar projects. And though Texas has been good at building wind resources, they have left their solar mostly untapped up until now. So as they start to deploy solar, they are going to get a ton of storage deployed with that too. The challenge is not longer the technology or the costs, the future challenges will be entirely about regulation, and whether entrenched interests will use regulatory capture to prevent new entrants that can supply cheaper low carbon energy to consumers and industry. [1] https://rmi.org/clean-energy-is-canceling-gas-plants/ https://rmi.org/clean-energy-is-canceling-gas-plants/ [2] http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCurrentDay.html http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCu...

Manfredo_1 6y ago
What do you mean by 17GW of storage in the pipeline? I'm not seeing this in your sources. Watts isn't a measurement of storage, storage is measured in watt-hours. To put the mismatch between available storage and required storage in perspective, the US consumes 11.5TWh of electricity daily on average. We have ~25GWh of storage currently. Most of that is in hydroelectric storage, which is geographically limited. Less than a gigawatt is in battery storage. This works out to a few minutes of storage - and a matter of seconds of battery storage.
- epistasis 6y ago
  ERCOT puts their panning pipeline out in the open; I'm relying on an ERCOT expert that said this as a summary of the August 2020 XLS raw data [1]. About 950 MW is as far along to have an interconnection agreement. Grids think of energy sources primarily in terms of power, not in terms of energy, so that's the number that gets reported to ERCOT. Grid ops dispatch W, not Wh. We may never know the exact GWh for these planned projects, but since it's likely nearly all lithium ion tech, we can expect 1-4 GWh per GW for each project, and probably an average between 2-3GWh/GW overall. Going from less than a GWh storage currently in the entire US, to probably 20x that planned for Texas alone in the near future shows just how scalable battery tech is and how quickly it is advancing. This switch is unprecedented, and is going to catch a ton of energy folks by complete surprise. People aren't used to things changing so quickly when it comes to electrical grids. The next decade is going to be a wild ride and I can't wait to see the grid drop carbon-based generation faster than nearly anyone is imagining. Next, we need to decarbonize industry. [1] http://mis.ercot.com/misdownload/servlets/mirDownload?mimic_duns=000000000&doclookupId=731966427 http://mis.ercot.com/misdownload/servlets/mirDownload?mimic_... PS: I originally replied to a "manfredo" and your username is "Manfredo_", which seems like a remarkable coincidence. Given the prevalence of paid astroturfing on these subjects, it would be good to clarify if this is just a coincidence, or if you have two accounts, or what else might be going on! Given our past discussions I'm sure your an honest commentator but it would probably help people that don't recognize your username.
  - deleted 6y ago