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From society's perspective, isn't it better if the solar panels all end up in large installations where they can benefit from economies of scale as far as maint

From society's perspective, isn't it better if the solar panels all end up in large installations where they can benefit from economies of scale as far as maintenance, infrastructure, and installations costs go? As long as there is an empty warehouse rooftop in the sunbelt, there shouldn't be a residential solar install occuring. I say this as someone who had a solar install on his old house, but still, the costs should have been such that it discouraged me and encouraged industrial installs.

epistasis 5y ago
There are even higher benefits by reducing the transmission and distribution requirements. T&D is hugely expensive, and local installs of solar reduces costs for the neighbors of whomever get solar installed. Industrial installs are encouraged by utilities because they increase dependence on expensive, centralized, infrastructure. And for regulated utilities, this sort of infrastructure expense is easy to rate-base and increase profits. But independent modelers that have been looking at fine-grained grid modeling, like Christopher Clack, have found huge cost savings by deploying massive amounts of storage and solar at residential and C&I locations first in the coming years, before doing larger industrial scar installations.
- aledalgrande 5y ago
  Yep 5% of electricity just wasted on resistance [1]. Also all the dangerous/expensive components of an electrical grid could be reduced, if energy was more decentralized. Don't think we're any close to that though. PS: it's also a harder system to attack for malicious operators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Losses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Lo...
- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  > local installs of solar reduces costs for the neighbors of whomever get solar installed How's that?
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Will it reduce T&D? You still need some capacity for times when solar is not available. And cost doesn't really come from use, but infra existing. Just like Internet, after you have hardware and lines the use is somewhat marginal. Ofc, local storage is an option, but will it be cheaper and safer than what we currently have? 20-30+ year old battery installations left to operate and just hang there don't look too promising to me...
  - epistasis 5y ago
    T&D must be sized for the peak of usage, meaning that most of the capacity sits idle, except for the extreme situations. If that peak is reduced, T&D upgrades and expansions are delayed as our energy demand grows, and all the equipment is used more efficiently. (And just as transmission has been neglected in the US for a long time, so has distribution, and we are going to need a ton of upgrades as energy demand grows while we electrify our energy usage.) In nearly every market, energy use peaks at mid-day, just as solar is peaking. So distributed solar is a peak-shaving system, whereas centralized utility solar still requires the same big peak. Distributed storage reduces both troughs and peaks, and makes T&D even more efficient.
- 01100011 5y ago
  So you're suggesting that commercial users use less electricity in during peak illuminance than residential? I don't buy that. If you want to place the solar where the electricity is being consumed between 10am - 2pm you're going to put it on a commercial rooftop.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Commercial rooftop, residential rooftop, doesn't matter much at the geographic scale of grids. Certainly doesn't hurt to put it on commercial roofs though! And since those are often flat, it's probably a lot safer. Check out the map of electrical infrastructure in California: https://cecgis-caenergy.opendata.arcgis.com/apps/california-electric-infrastructure-app/explore https://cecgis-caenergy.opendata.arcgis.com/apps/california-... You'll see that on the scale of substations, industry is right next to residential, and virtually indistinguishable. Consider 500MW placed on the roofs of homes in San Jose, versus 500MW in a somewhat close green field build. The distant green field build is going to send every single kWh over transmission lines. Where as close to 0 kWh of the residential solar would hit transmission, meaning that all transmission requirements are lessened, as are distribution requirements.
goodpoint 5y ago
> isn't it better if the solar panels all end up in large installations where they can benefit from economies of scale The opposite: the closer you place production and consumption the better. Less energy wasted in transportation, less costs for infrastructure maintenance, less risk of widespread outages. However, decentralizing access to solar energy goes against the interest of energy companies, the gas industry, the nuclear industry and, consequently, the political class.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  > less costs for infrastructure maintenance Not sure about that. In general it's centralization that reduces maintenance costs. Centralizing in terms of location lets you use bigger, more efficient hardware, and gives you economies of scale. Centralizing ownership reduces administrative costs and allows for savings not possible with distributed ownership. I do see the various benefits of everyone running their own energy production, but costs and reliability aren't them.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    Scale and network effects are complex and non-linear and need to be understood beyond simplistic slogans. The efficiency of solar panels stays the same with the number of panels deployed next to each other. The infrastructure to transport electricity (pylons, cabling, transformers) becomes more expensive with increasing capacity. Less centralization requires less transport.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

epistasis 5y ago

There are even higher benefits by reducing the transmission and distribution requirements. T&D is hugely expensive, and local installs of solar reduces costs for the neighbors of whomever get solar installed. Industrial installs are encouraged by utilities because they increase dependence on expensive, centralized, infrastructure. And for regulated utilities, this sort of infrastructure expense is easy to rate-base and increase profits. But independent modelers that have been looking at fine-grained grid modeling, like Christopher Clack, have found huge cost savings by deploying massive amounts of storage and solar at residential and C&I locations first in the coming years, before doing larger industrial scar installations.

aledalgrande 5y ago
Yep 5% of electricity just wasted on resistance [1]. Also all the dangerous/expensive components of an electrical grid could be reduced, if energy was more decentralized. Don't think we're any close to that though. PS: it's also a harder system to attack for malicious operators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Losses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Lo...
MaxBarraclough 5y ago
> local installs of solar reduces costs for the neighbors of whomever get solar installed How's that?
Ekaros 5y ago
Will it reduce T&D? You still need some capacity for times when solar is not available. And cost doesn't really come from use, but infra existing. Just like Internet, after you have hardware and lines the use is somewhat marginal. Ofc, local storage is an option, but will it be cheaper and safer than what we currently have? 20-30+ year old battery installations left to operate and just hang there don't look too promising to me...
- epistasis 5y ago
  T&D must be sized for the peak of usage, meaning that most of the capacity sits idle, except for the extreme situations. If that peak is reduced, T&D upgrades and expansions are delayed as our energy demand grows, and all the equipment is used more efficiently. (And just as transmission has been neglected in the US for a long time, so has distribution, and we are going to need a ton of upgrades as energy demand grows while we electrify our energy usage.) In nearly every market, energy use peaks at mid-day, just as solar is peaking. So distributed solar is a peak-shaving system, whereas centralized utility solar still requires the same big peak. Distributed storage reduces both troughs and peaks, and makes T&D even more efficient.
01100011 5y ago
So you're suggesting that commercial users use less electricity in during peak illuminance than residential? I don't buy that. If you want to place the solar where the electricity is being consumed between 10am - 2pm you're going to put it on a commercial rooftop.
- epistasis 5y ago
  Commercial rooftop, residential rooftop, doesn't matter much at the geographic scale of grids. Certainly doesn't hurt to put it on commercial roofs though! And since those are often flat, it's probably a lot safer. Check out the map of electrical infrastructure in California: https://cecgis-caenergy.opendata.arcgis.com/apps/california-electric-infrastructure-app/explore https://cecgis-caenergy.opendata.arcgis.com/apps/california-... You'll see that on the scale of substations, industry is right next to residential, and virtually indistinguishable. Consider 500MW placed on the roofs of homes in San Jose, versus 500MW in a somewhat close green field build. The distant green field build is going to send every single kWh over transmission lines. Where as close to 0 kWh of the residential solar would hit transmission, meaning that all transmission requirements are lessened, as are distribution requirements.

goodpoint 5y ago

> isn't it better if the solar panels all end up in large installations where they can benefit from economies of scale The opposite: the closer you place production and consumption the better. Less energy wasted in transportation, less costs for infrastructure maintenance, less risk of widespread outages. However, decentralizing access to solar energy goes against the interest of energy companies, the gas industry, the nuclear industry and, consequently, the political class.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
> less costs for infrastructure maintenance Not sure about that. In general it's centralization that reduces maintenance costs. Centralizing in terms of location lets you use bigger, more efficient hardware, and gives you economies of scale. Centralizing ownership reduces administrative costs and allows for savings not possible with distributed ownership. I do see the various benefits of everyone running their own energy production, but costs and reliability aren't them.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  Scale and network effects are complex and non-linear and need to be understood beyond simplistic slogans. The efficiency of solar panels stays the same with the number of panels deployed next to each other. The infrastructure to transport electricity (pylons, cabling, transformers) becomes more expensive with increasing capacity. Less centralization requires less transport.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]