8 ms·

I hope these get cheap enough that every house in the tropics gets them on their rooves. AC is going to become essential as temperatures rise, the grid can't su

I hope these get cheap enough that every house in the tropics gets them on their rooves. AC is going to become essential as temperatures rise, the grid can't support the load, and we can't afford to power all those ACs with fossil fuel. Solar powered AC seems like the most reliable way to survive a severe heatwave like the one described in the opening chapter of The Ministry of the Future: https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-ministry-for-the-future/ https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-ministry-for-t... You can't rely on the underprovisioned grid in a scenario like that, especially since the heatwave will likely drive the power plants themselves out of their operating range. Solar seems like the only way. Its intermittency is a problem on general, but clouds that would disrupt the power would also stop the heat.

ekianjo 5y ago
> AC is going to become essential as temperatures rise, the grid can't support the load What are you talking about? Electricity consumption due to AC is absolutely minimal, much less that heating houses in winter.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Most places with heavy heating loads use biomass, natural gas or fueloil. Electricity demand is limited to the exhaust/circulation fan.
- cartoonworld 5y ago
  I don't think "absolutely minimal" is the correct description of the nature of A/C electrical demand. EIA places the total percentage of A/C electrical expenditures at %12 in 2015[0], energy.gov cites it at 6% of the total usage[1]. This number looks pretty "meh", however note that A/C demand is highly variable, seasonal, and on a daily basis will spike quite a bit. Contextualized with the annual data this is positioned within, the %6 usage is concentrated regionally, during the day, in the vaguely 4-month summer season in CONUS. Contrasted with heating electrical requirements, which operate more or less all the time in the winter (to prevent freezing pipes, and thermal inertia of a cold-ass house) and the averages of the electrical demand begin to look a lot different. The relatively low aggregate demand is smoothed out of the highly variable nature of A/C load. Electrical load is immediately produced and consumed for the most part. An electrical grid will struggle to supply this peak-load demand a small but critical percentage of the time. This A/C demand happily coincides with the times solar power will be most effective. It appears to me that solar is very well suited to augment the baseline load of a national/regional electrical grid to support peak summer demand. There is also some effect of the increased summertime temperatures on electrical grid transmission losses[2], but I'm not sure how all that shakes out. [0] - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36692 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36692 [1] - https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/home-cooling-systems/air-conditioning https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/home-cooling-systems/air-... [2] - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/114008 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/1...
ipaddr 5y ago
The waste from solar panels can be toxic. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/solar-panel... We might be replacing one problem with another. We need to move on from toxic solar to some unknown fuel of the future.
- adrianN 5y ago
  We're replacing the problem where we dump waste in the atmosphere with no clear path to ever getting it back out with the problem of storing potentially hazardous solids. The latter seems to be a much better problem to have. We already have that problem with most things we produce and we are moderately good at handling it.
- onethought 5y ago
  But you can recycle them. Even says so in the article… so we just need a good recycling program. Not an option with fossil fuels, or nuclear or your super special unknown future energy source
- neartheplain 5y ago
  I don't know anything about solar panel recycling, but it's worth noting that other means of power generation via solar energy exist [1][2][3], most of which depend on mirror-concentrated heat and don't necessarily involve toxic chemicals or rare earth mineral extraction. Photovoltaics have largely left these technologies in the dust, but if the long tail of solar panel production becomes a significant environmental concern, alternatives do exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-powered_Stirling_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-powered_Stirling_engine [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-concentrating-solar-tower-is-worth-its-salt-with-24-7-power/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-concentrating... [3] https://www.seia.org/initiatives/concentrating-solar-power https://www.seia.org/initiatives/concentrating-solar-power
  - cinquemb 5y ago
    > Photovoltaics have largely left these technologies in the dust How so? CSP tech continues to advance on multiple levels and usage continues to grow globally at grid scale with advances with tech in the solar field, concentrator design [1] and molten salt storage [2]. PV is not currently competitive at grid scale on its own (I've seen it being used more recently in tandem with CSP, but more like CSP providing most [gt 70%] of the MW), because storage costs are joke (wrt underlying materials for batteries and recyclability[3][4]) compared to molten salt (I'm totally ignoring environmental concerns). I really think PV has more of an edge in small consumer market that wants/needs no storage at all. [1] https://www.solarpaces.org/beam-down-demos-first-direct-solar-storage-at-1-2-mwh-scale/ https://www.solarpaces.org/beam-down-demos-first-direct-sola... [2] https://www.solarpaces.org/for-100-renewables-doe-speeds-up-storage-policy/ https://www.solarpaces.org/for-100-renewables-doe-speeds-up-... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25383534 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25383534 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25403694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25403694
tharkun__ 5y ago
It seems like you've never been in a place that had very humid hot summers. I can tell you that it does not require constant sun to be miserable in summer. And without sun you can not power that solar and in humid hot weather something like a passive "swamp cooler" won't work either.
- moultano 5y ago
  Yay condescension. Heat waves are caused by heat domes, and they don't have clouds https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/10/heat-dome-heat-wave-faq/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/10/heat-dome-...
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    Heat waves != Heat domes Yes the 49C event in Vancouver and surrounding areas was a heat dome and didn't have clouds. Where I live, just a bit earlier we had complete cloud cover for an entire day w/ "feels like 40C" hot and humid weather. It didn't rain that day, except once a little sprinkle. It made it muggier outside than it was before.
    - moultano 5y ago
      That's not a heatwave that's just heat.
      - tharkun__ 5y ago
        Agreed. It's a heatwave when this kind of weather (hot/dry, hot/normal, hot/humid) persists. Sometimes in combinations of these conditions. Something that is a heat wave in one place might just be called 'weather' in another place. If New Delhi got our "regular winter weather", it would be called way more than a "cold spell", while 2 weeks of New Delhi weather here is called a heat wave.
      - TeMPOraL 5y ago
        Well, so what do you call a whole week of constant 34℃ during the day, but with clouds in the sky and even a brief (but intense) rain once? That's what we had last week in Poland.
bjourne 5y ago
Proper insulation is way more efficient than AC. One of the main reasons there is so much AC in the US is because many buildings aren't well-insulated and historically energy has been incredibly cheap.
- moultano 5y ago
  Insulation doesn't substitute for AC if the lows aren't low enough to cool thing down at night.
  - Jcowell 5y ago
    Not to mention that an AC installation is much cheaper than tearing a building down and building to back up.
  - bjourne 5y ago
    No, not entirely, but it complements AC. Proper insulation means that much less energy is needed both to cool and heat a building.

ekianjo 5y ago

> AC is going to become essential as temperatures rise, the grid can't support the load What are you talking about? Electricity consumption due to AC is absolutely minimal, much less that heating houses in winter.

Scoundreller 5y ago
Most places with heavy heating loads use biomass, natural gas or fueloil. Electricity demand is limited to the exhaust/circulation fan.
cartoonworld 5y ago
I don't think "absolutely minimal" is the correct description of the nature of A/C electrical demand. EIA places the total percentage of A/C electrical expenditures at %12 in 2015[0], energy.gov cites it at 6% of the total usage[1]. This number looks pretty "meh", however note that A/C demand is highly variable, seasonal, and on a daily basis will spike quite a bit. Contextualized with the annual data this is positioned within, the %6 usage is concentrated regionally, during the day, in the vaguely 4-month summer season in CONUS. Contrasted with heating electrical requirements, which operate more or less all the time in the winter (to prevent freezing pipes, and thermal inertia of a cold-ass house) and the averages of the electrical demand begin to look a lot different. The relatively low aggregate demand is smoothed out of the highly variable nature of A/C load. Electrical load is immediately produced and consumed for the most part. An electrical grid will struggle to supply this peak-load demand a small but critical percentage of the time. This A/C demand happily coincides with the times solar power will be most effective. It appears to me that solar is very well suited to augment the baseline load of a national/regional electrical grid to support peak summer demand. There is also some effect of the increased summertime temperatures on electrical grid transmission losses[2], but I'm not sure how all that shakes out. [0] - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36692 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36692 [1] - https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/home-cooling-systems/air-conditioning https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/home-cooling-systems/air-... [2] - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/114008 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/1...

ipaddr 5y ago

The waste from solar panels can be toxic. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/solar-panel... We might be replacing one problem with another. We need to move on from toxic solar to some unknown fuel of the future.

adrianN 5y ago
We're replacing the problem where we dump waste in the atmosphere with no clear path to ever getting it back out with the problem of storing potentially hazardous solids. The latter seems to be a much better problem to have. We already have that problem with most things we produce and we are moderately good at handling it.
onethought 5y ago
But you can recycle them. Even says so in the article… so we just need a good recycling program. Not an option with fossil fuels, or nuclear or your super special unknown future energy source
neartheplain 5y ago
I don't know anything about solar panel recycling, but it's worth noting that other means of power generation via solar energy exist [1][2][3], most of which depend on mirror-concentrated heat and don't necessarily involve toxic chemicals or rare earth mineral extraction. Photovoltaics have largely left these technologies in the dust, but if the long tail of solar panel production becomes a significant environmental concern, alternatives do exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-powered_Stirling_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-powered_Stirling_engine [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-concentrating-solar-tower-is-worth-its-salt-with-24-7-power/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-concentrating... [3] https://www.seia.org/initiatives/concentrating-solar-power https://www.seia.org/initiatives/concentrating-solar-power
- cinquemb 5y ago
  > Photovoltaics have largely left these technologies in the dust How so? CSP tech continues to advance on multiple levels and usage continues to grow globally at grid scale with advances with tech in the solar field, concentrator design [1] and molten salt storage [2]. PV is not currently competitive at grid scale on its own (I've seen it being used more recently in tandem with CSP, but more like CSP providing most [gt 70%] of the MW), because storage costs are joke (wrt underlying materials for batteries and recyclability[3][4]) compared to molten salt (I'm totally ignoring environmental concerns). I really think PV has more of an edge in small consumer market that wants/needs no storage at all. [1] https://www.solarpaces.org/beam-down-demos-first-direct-solar-storage-at-1-2-mwh-scale/ https://www.solarpaces.org/beam-down-demos-first-direct-sola... [2] https://www.solarpaces.org/for-100-renewables-doe-speeds-up-storage-policy/ https://www.solarpaces.org/for-100-renewables-doe-speeds-up-... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25383534 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25383534 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25403694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25403694

tharkun__ 5y ago

It seems like you've never been in a place that had very humid hot summers. I can tell you that it does not require constant sun to be miserable in summer. And without sun you can not power that solar and in humid hot weather something like a passive "swamp cooler" won't work either.

moultano 5y ago
Yay condescension. Heat waves are caused by heat domes, and they don't have clouds https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/10/heat-dome-heat-wave-faq/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/10/heat-dome-...
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  Heat waves != Heat domes Yes the 49C event in Vancouver and surrounding areas was a heat dome and didn't have clouds. Where I live, just a bit earlier we had complete cloud cover for an entire day w/ "feels like 40C" hot and humid weather. It didn't rain that day, except once a little sprinkle. It made it muggier outside than it was before.
  - moultano 5y ago
    That's not a heatwave that's just heat.
    - tharkun__ 5y ago
      Agreed. It's a heatwave when this kind of weather (hot/dry, hot/normal, hot/humid) persists. Sometimes in combinations of these conditions. Something that is a heat wave in one place might just be called 'weather' in another place. If New Delhi got our "regular winter weather", it would be called way more than a "cold spell", while 2 weeks of New Delhi weather here is called a heat wave.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      Well, so what do you call a whole week of constant 34℃ during the day, but with clouds in the sky and even a brief (but intense) rain once? That's what we had last week in Poland.

bjourne 5y ago

Proper insulation is way more efficient than AC. One of the main reasons there is so much AC in the US is because many buildings aren't well-insulated and historically energy has been incredibly cheap.

moultano 5y ago
Insulation doesn't substitute for AC if the lows aren't low enough to cool thing down at night.
- Jcowell 5y ago
  Not to mention that an AC installation is much cheaper than tearing a building down and building to back up.
- bjourne 5y ago
  No, not entirely, but it complements AC. Proper insulation means that much less energy is needed both to cool and heat a building.