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Solar + a few hours of capacity are economical viable to run on a day and night cycle. Each day they charge up, and each day they discharge, with a market price
by belorn 5y ago
Solar + a few hours of capacity are economical viable to run on a day and night cycle. Each day they charge up, and each day they discharge, with a market price that goes up and down in a similar pattern. This is possible for the southern part of EU, but more so in the southern parts of that (Egypt and below).
Further north and solar get displaced by wind as the primary source of energy, and wind do not have a day cycle. It has weeks/months long period of low and high amount of wind. A battery solution that last hours is just a drop in the supply bucket. At the same time, rather than being discharge (and thus generating profits) each day, a wind battery solution will only generate profits a few times each year depending on how large the capacity is. The only way that will be profitable is if it several order times cheaper than the batteries for solar, or if the cost isn't directly linked to capacity. The technology that Germany and other "wind" countries is constantly talking about here is green hydro, but which is yet to be economical viable.
One alternative is to build massive transmission lines from Africa and use solar power + batteries from the Sahara desert, through there are political, technological, and economical problems over designing such energy grid for EU.
Thus for now the political winds are blowing towards natural gas and wind, despite the ecological issues of burning a fossil fuel.
- 7952 5y agoBattery storage is profitable if you can sell for more than you buy. It just needs to be connected to the grid and not necessarily connected to a particular generator. Although battery storage may still be located close to generation. One benefit of this is that you get more benefit from your grid connection. Without batteries you can just export for a part of the day. With batteries you can export when it is sunny/windy, export when it is dark/not windy, and even import energy when wholesale prices are cheap. The expensive grid connection is better utilised.
- holoduke 5y agoNot true. We have 10kw solar panels with 64x ,280ah LIFO batteries. Even in the winter we manage for 90% using only solar/battery power. We have a detached family house in the Netherlands using slightly above average. Our monthly bill is about 20 euros max. I build the entire setup myself for about 10k euros.
- AstralStorm 5y ago90% is not good enough, when your total increased due to heating. Oh, you do not heat with electricity? I hope you counted that heat source in CO2e...
- holoduke 5y agoWell it's almost enough. we don't have gas. Everything in the house is powered by electricity. Either from solar, battery or grid. So 10% still from grid. I am going to solve that by putting another 20 panels on the Northside of the roof. Not efficient, but maybe enough to cover the last 10%
- belorn 5y agoI know a person who built a house worth 600k euros for less than 100k euros. Would you sell your setup for 10k euros, or is the value of your setup possible worth more than the cost of doing it yourself. 10k to be free of the electric company for all future seems like a very good deal if purchasable at that price, and if offered I think there would be quite a few homes willing to take you up on it.