5 ms·

I'm not sure if you're engaging a fallacy, trolling, or you just misread "not much storage needed" as "no need." The argument in the article about storage is li

I'm not sure if you're engaging a fallacy, trolling, or you just misread "not much storage needed" as "no need." The argument in the article about storage is literally that there is not much storage needed right now, though that will change in the future that is not a problem to solve right now.

dragontamer 5y ago
California's grid is already at that point however. Other locations have more flexibility, either due to natural gas peakers or the prevalence of water (pumped hydro is the best battery)
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
If you read the Wikipedia article I linked, you'll see there is a strong need for storage right now because solar output falls to 0 right as demand peaks. Again, the source article talks about this, but this is also not just a simple problem that can be wished away, and the only "fallacy" is pretending this problem doesn't exist.
- Stupulous 5y ago
  If solar is used instead of nonrenewables, regardless of whether load has peaked, you decrease carbon output for each watt generated. In the chart on wikipedia, it looks like you could double California solar output without adding storage. If you want to provide 100% of your energy with solar, you'd need storage. But we're not at that point yet.
- lukeschlather 5y ago
  As the article says the need for storage is for storage that can store maybe 1-3 hours worth of grid capacity energy in the afternoon and discharge it late at night. That doesn't seem like a "strong" need for storage. I would say we have a "strong" need for storage if we need the majority of the grid to be operating on storage for at least half the day - "strong need for storage" is not a now problem. If you go out and build that you are likely to lose money. (But if you really think we need that kind of storage, go invest in it and prove me wrong!)
- vidarh 5y ago
  You're using "need" in wildly different ways. You're saying there's a need for storage right now because without it peak demand can't be met by solar. They're saying you don't need it right now because if you're ok wasting some of the solar power you can still reduce non-renewable use further without adding storage. It's just two different ways of looking at it.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    The need in the California "Duck Curve" is between 5pm and 10pm, when the sun is setting and solar output is dropping. Homes are still hot, and empirically speaking, everyone is still using their air conditioning units as the heat of the day is still all around the environment. No matter how many panels you add, you won't add any electricity at 7pm / 8pm (depending on time of year) because the sun has already set. There's still substantial demand for electricity. This means to solve the 7pm / 8pm duck curve, you need to build natural gas peaker plants, or figure out a storage methodology. That's it. Otherwise you get brownouts at 7pm every night and need to manage the lack of electricity. Maybe rolling brownouts is the solution people are proposing? The other solutions are: figure out storage, or build a gas peaker plant to temporarily provide power in those few hours. ----------- We focus at the "Duck Curve", because that's clearly where the next brownout will occur without intervention. Secondly: environmentalists are going to block the build of any natural gas plant (even if its necessary), so getting "ahead of the argument" only makes sense.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      You're committing fallacy number 2 here. Wind power and hydro is a thing. Also, the duck curve problem isn't the need for gas peakers after the sun goes down, it's the speed at which you need to ramp them up from being switched off. If they can't ramp as fast as the solar drops, then you need to start them earlier and end up producing extra electricity (and carbon) that you don't want. The problem you are talking about is called "nightime" and I'll refer you to the footnote in the article that covers this.
      - 5y ago
- tedsanders 5y ago
  I used to work at an electric utility and your comment is a common misconception and good learning opportunity for folks on HN. Unsurprisingly, the truth is more complicated. Firstly, you are correct that on most days, demand peaks around 7pm when solar output is tiny. Source: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html However, on most years, demand often peaks around 3pm-5pm, not 7pm (and note that in late summer in California days are longer and solar noon is roughly 1pm, so output is not bad at all). The reason for this is that the days with the most electricity consumption tend to be hot with large AC loads, and those loads tend to be higher during midday. Source: https://www.caiso.com/documents/californiaisopeakloadhistory.pdf https://www.caiso.com/documents/californiaisopeakloadhistory... So when you say solar output is 0 at "peak demand", it's worth mentioning whether you mean the daily peak or the annual peak or a peak measured over another timeframe. For utility capacity planning, we use the annual peak, not the daily peak, because we want to avoid blackouts most years, not most days. Therefore, adding solar - at today's margin - still does reduce our capex and need for gas peakers. The math gets a bit more multidimensional when you do this for real and consider aspects beyond peak demand (like ramping, fuel, current generation fleet, tradeoffs in characteristics of new gas plants, geographic spread, congestion, etc.), but the main point remains true and important: the daily peak is not the annual peak, and it's a clear mistake to use the daily peak to conclude that solar doesn't help with peak demand. In fact, at today's margins, solar both helps with peak power and with energy generation. It's fantastic. (And of course it gets less and less fantastic the more you add.) Anyway, this is a common misconception I've seen a lot, so I've added a new section to the Duck Curve Wikipedia article you cited above to help explain it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

dragontamer 5y ago

California's grid is already at that point however. Other locations have more flexibility, either due to natural gas peakers or the prevalence of water (pumped hydro is the best battery)

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

If you read the Wikipedia article I linked, you'll see there is a strong need for storage right now because solar output falls to 0 right as demand peaks. Again, the source article talks about this, but this is also not just a simple problem that can be wished away, and the only "fallacy" is pretending this problem doesn't exist.

Stupulous 5y ago
If solar is used instead of nonrenewables, regardless of whether load has peaked, you decrease carbon output for each watt generated. In the chart on wikipedia, it looks like you could double California solar output without adding storage. If you want to provide 100% of your energy with solar, you'd need storage. But we're not at that point yet.
lukeschlather 5y ago
As the article says the need for storage is for storage that can store maybe 1-3 hours worth of grid capacity energy in the afternoon and discharge it late at night. That doesn't seem like a "strong" need for storage. I would say we have a "strong" need for storage if we need the majority of the grid to be operating on storage for at least half the day - "strong need for storage" is not a now problem. If you go out and build that you are likely to lose money. (But if you really think we need that kind of storage, go invest in it and prove me wrong!)
vidarh 5y ago
You're using "need" in wildly different ways. You're saying there's a need for storage right now because without it peak demand can't be met by solar. They're saying you don't need it right now because if you're ok wasting some of the solar power you can still reduce non-renewable use further without adding storage. It's just two different ways of looking at it.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  The need in the California "Duck Curve" is between 5pm and 10pm, when the sun is setting and solar output is dropping. Homes are still hot, and empirically speaking, everyone is still using their air conditioning units as the heat of the day is still all around the environment. No matter how many panels you add, you won't add any electricity at 7pm / 8pm (depending on time of year) because the sun has already set. There's still substantial demand for electricity. This means to solve the 7pm / 8pm duck curve, you need to build natural gas peaker plants, or figure out a storage methodology. That's it. Otherwise you get brownouts at 7pm every night and need to manage the lack of electricity. Maybe rolling brownouts is the solution people are proposing? The other solutions are: figure out storage, or build a gas peaker plant to temporarily provide power in those few hours. ----------- We focus at the "Duck Curve", because that's clearly where the next brownout will occur without intervention. Secondly: environmentalists are going to block the build of any natural gas plant (even if its necessary), so getting "ahead of the argument" only makes sense.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    You're committing fallacy number 2 here. Wind power and hydro is a thing. Also, the duck curve problem isn't the need for gas peakers after the sun goes down, it's the speed at which you need to ramp them up from being switched off. If they can't ramp as fast as the solar drops, then you need to start them earlier and end up producing extra electricity (and carbon) that you don't want. The problem you are talking about is called "nightime" and I'll refer you to the footnote in the article that covers this.
    - 5y ago
tedsanders 5y ago
I used to work at an electric utility and your comment is a common misconception and good learning opportunity for folks on HN. Unsurprisingly, the truth is more complicated. Firstly, you are correct that on most days, demand peaks around 7pm when solar output is tiny. Source: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html However, on most years, demand often peaks around 3pm-5pm, not 7pm (and note that in late summer in California days are longer and solar noon is roughly 1pm, so output is not bad at all). The reason for this is that the days with the most electricity consumption tend to be hot with large AC loads, and those loads tend to be higher during midday. Source: https://www.caiso.com/documents/californiaisopeakloadhistory.pdf https://www.caiso.com/documents/californiaisopeakloadhistory... So when you say solar output is 0 at "peak demand", it's worth mentioning whether you mean the daily peak or the annual peak or a peak measured over another timeframe. For utility capacity planning, we use the annual peak, not the daily peak, because we want to avoid blackouts most years, not most days. Therefore, adding solar - at today's margin - still does reduce our capex and need for gas peakers. The math gets a bit more multidimensional when you do this for real and consider aspects beyond peak demand (like ramping, fuel, current generation fleet, tradeoffs in characteristics of new gas plants, geographic spread, congestion, etc.), but the main point remains true and important: the daily peak is not the annual peak, and it's a clear mistake to use the daily peak to conclude that solar doesn't help with peak demand. In fact, at today's margins, solar both helps with peak power and with energy generation. It's fantastic. (And of course it gets less and less fantastic the more you add.) Anyway, this is a common misconception I've seen a lot, so I've added a new section to the Duck Curve Wikipedia article you cited above to help explain it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve