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That means we only get electricity, when the sun is shining. Yes, solar can be good. But it’s got to be mixed with other tech such as battery, and perhaps even

That means we only get electricity, when the sun is shining. Yes, solar can be good. But it’s got to be mixed with other tech such as battery, and perhaps even nuclear.

abacadaba 5y ago
Or we adapt to the variability, charge our laptops and routers during the day, live in earthships.
epistasis 5y ago
The comment you are replying to mentions storage and transmission. It doesn't take much storage to operate solar in a "baseload" manner. Already, most new utility scale deployments are shipping with storage. For a long long time, the DC electricity side of a solar installation has been cheap enough that the design of a system will have an 20% extra DC over the capacity of the inverters change the DC to AC electricity for the grid. As panels have gotten cheaper, this loading factor has creeped up to 1.5 and 1.6 in many installations. Since battery storage is also on the DC side of the installation, adding storage of the doesn't even require adding more panels, it can just use the existing clipped solar energy. And when we start adding more panels to get the loading factor up to 2 or 3, the solar power installation becomes nearly completed dispatchable to meet grid needs. This is simple and straightforward changes of parameters in existing designs.
- liketochill 5y ago
  How many hours of storage at nameplate capacity do new solar farms have? 4? 8? 12? It does sometimes get cloudy for days on end which reduces solar output to about 10-20%.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Right now, usually 2-6hours of nameplate capacity. This is all that's really needed to meet the evening and morning parts of the duck curve, particularly since most grids have hydro and wind as well. However, if there's need for more, then the storage side could be expanded. Personally, I'd like to see a ton more expansion of solar and storage behind the meter, at people's homes and at industrial and commercial sites, so that we can reduce the need for transmission and distribution. The US stats for electricity costs are something like $0.13/kWh on average, with $0.05 of that from generation costs and $0.08 from T&D. Even if installation costs are slightly higher at smaller, more distributed sites, T&D isn't cheap either. And having more distributed generation and storage as the potential to greatly increase reliability, particularly after natural disasters.
    - liketochill 5y ago
      I agree distributed generation and storage behind the meter will grow, especially in places with dysfunctional or incompetent utilities.
- onepointsixC 5y ago
  That's not really true. More so than just covering for night you have weather, and seasons which have significant swings in solar productivity. It not a baseload.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    > weather Distribute your solar across multiple geographic locations > seasons which have significant swings in solar productivity. Install enough panels so that in the seasonal lull you still have enough power. Panels are super cheap these days. Solar panels and storage are on learning curves just like integrated circuits are for Moore's law. We are seeing absolutely astounding drops in cost every year, and innovation is happening continuously. The future world of renewables energy is one of extreme energy abundance. We will size our generation so that in the seasonal lulls we have enough energy, which means that in the rest of the year we are going to have absolutely massive amounts of energy available that's near to zero-margin cost (assuming you can move your electricity consuming application to be close to the generation site, since transmission will still be expensive). And this curtailed electricity has far more potential uses than the waste heat that comes out of a nuclear plant or a coal plant.
    - macspoofing 5y ago
      Your wishy-washy handwaving style of argument is all fine and good for the internet but show me a country (or even a reasonably sized city) that's actually self-sufficient from solar and wind renewables (backed by storage). Why do you think Germany is signing multi-billion/multi-decade contracts to ship Russian gas if solar/wind+storage is a solved problem?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

That means we only get electricity, when the sun is shining. Yes, solar can be good. But it’s got to be mixed with other tech such as battery, and perhaps even nuclear.

abacadaba 5y ago

Or we adapt to the variability, charge our laptops and routers during the day, live in earthships.

epistasis 5y ago

The comment you are replying to mentions storage and transmission. It doesn't take much storage to operate solar in a "baseload" manner. Already, most new utility scale deployments are shipping with storage. For a long long time, the DC electricity side of a solar installation has been cheap enough that the design of a system will have an 20% extra DC over the capacity of the inverters change the DC to AC electricity for the grid. As panels have gotten cheaper, this loading factor has creeped up to 1.5 and 1.6 in many installations. Since battery storage is also on the DC side of the installation, adding storage of the doesn't even require adding more panels, it can just use the existing clipped solar energy. And when we start adding more panels to get the loading factor up to 2 or 3, the solar power installation becomes nearly completed dispatchable to meet grid needs. This is simple and straightforward changes of parameters in existing designs.

liketochill 5y ago
How many hours of storage at nameplate capacity do new solar farms have? 4? 8? 12? It does sometimes get cloudy for days on end which reduces solar output to about 10-20%.
- epistasis 5y ago
  Right now, usually 2-6hours of nameplate capacity. This is all that's really needed to meet the evening and morning parts of the duck curve, particularly since most grids have hydro and wind as well. However, if there's need for more, then the storage side could be expanded. Personally, I'd like to see a ton more expansion of solar and storage behind the meter, at people's homes and at industrial and commercial sites, so that we can reduce the need for transmission and distribution. The US stats for electricity costs are something like $0.13/kWh on average, with $0.05 of that from generation costs and $0.08 from T&D. Even if installation costs are slightly higher at smaller, more distributed sites, T&D isn't cheap either. And having more distributed generation and storage as the potential to greatly increase reliability, particularly after natural disasters.
  - liketochill 5y ago
    I agree distributed generation and storage behind the meter will grow, especially in places with dysfunctional or incompetent utilities.
onepointsixC 5y ago
That's not really true. More so than just covering for night you have weather, and seasons which have significant swings in solar productivity. It not a baseload.
- epistasis 5y ago
  > weather Distribute your solar across multiple geographic locations > seasons which have significant swings in solar productivity. Install enough panels so that in the seasonal lull you still have enough power. Panels are super cheap these days. Solar panels and storage are on learning curves just like integrated circuits are for Moore's law. We are seeing absolutely astounding drops in cost every year, and innovation is happening continuously. The future world of renewables energy is one of extreme energy abundance. We will size our generation so that in the seasonal lulls we have enough energy, which means that in the rest of the year we are going to have absolutely massive amounts of energy available that's near to zero-margin cost (assuming you can move your electricity consuming application to be close to the generation site, since transmission will still be expensive). And this curtailed electricity has far more potential uses than the waste heat that comes out of a nuclear plant or a coal plant.
  - macspoofing 5y ago
    Your wishy-washy handwaving style of argument is all fine and good for the internet but show me a country (or even a reasonably sized city) that's actually self-sufficient from solar and wind renewables (backed by storage). Why do you think Germany is signing multi-billion/multi-decade contracts to ship Russian gas if solar/wind+storage is a solved problem?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]