3 ms·

Almost all renewable calculations elide the storage cost.

moffkalast 5y ago
And that solar is the most expensive way of producing power per kWh and would go nowhere if not subsidized to the moon and back.
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  Unsubsidized on-shore wind and solar is the by far cheapest sources of energy today. They are down at the marginal cost of existing, paid of, traditional power plants. That is where the current explosion in renewable growth is coming from. It is simply a more efficient use of capital to close down your existing nuclear plant and build new renewables instead. https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
- dpierce9 5y ago
  That just isn’t true. Solar is among the cheapest per watt to build [0] and produces very cheap electricity [1] even if you remove subsidies. It isn’t a perfect technology but that is beside the point. Further, every other technology for producing electricity has subsidies: wind (similar tax benes), nuclear (the gov acts as the insurer of last resort in a catastrophe, unpriced externality of waste heat), coal (unpriced externalities for carbon, soot, heavy metals, waste heat), natural gas (unpriced externalities for carbon, waste heat for combined cycle), hydro has all sorts of hard to price externalities and they are usually built with the help of the government (financing, dislocating people, rights of way, building new shipping lanes, etc). [0] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/assumptions/pdf/table_8.2.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/assumptions/pdf/table_8.2.p... [1] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....
  - moffkalast 5y ago
    Well that sure is interesting, it's the exact opposite of what I've read before. Having not read that entire novel, I do have to ask if that's taking the average yearly Wh of a solar panel or what it says on the tin? Because it'll only produce that in Mexico during summer at midday. These costs can't be fixed but likely vary significantly by latitude and weather type. Anyhow if that's somehow correct and the price is $29.04 for a solar MWh and $121.84 for battery storage, then taking night into account for a 1MW installation you need 2x the solar capacity to make up the night draw during the day and a 12 MWh battery bank, so in total that would be $58.08 for the panels and $1462.08 for storage. Not exactly feasible by itself still. That's simplified of course, as you don't get as much draw at night, but you also have to consider that in winter you'll basically get nothing from the panels, so you may need even more than just 2x.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  > And that solar is the most expensive way of producing power per kWh This is utter bollocks. Solar is amazingly cheap today, per kWh produced. In the best places, it's around $0.013/kWh. Nuclear can't even meet that if you totally discount all capital and financing costs.
  - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
    Isn't that with subsidies etc? It averages 7.5 cents per kwh 'fully loaded' including equipment, installation and expected maintenance.
    - pfdietz 5y ago
      No, it's not with subsidies. Are you quoting RESIDENTIAL solar there? I was talking about utility-scale solar, which is the relevant thing to compare against nuclear. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30266828/worlds-cheapest-solar-farm/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30266828/worlds-ch...
  - moffkalast 5y ago
    > In the best places With all due respect, that's a pretty bullshit metric. Most of the world's population does not live where solar works best, so you'll get only fractional output and much higher price to performance.
    - pfdietz 5y ago
      Your response is without merit. Yes, most people don't live in places with the best solar resource. But the cost of solar I gave there is so cheap (like, a factor of 10 cheaper than new nuclear) that one could be 2-3x more expensive than that and still not be the most expensive source of electricity per kWh.
dpierce9 5y ago
Imagine I have a load that varies between 10kW +\- 50% and an intermittent generator that outputs 1kW at maximum and sometimes zero. I don’t have any need for storage so why would I have to calculate any storage cost? This is basically the situation the US grid is in as a whole today. If you want higher renewable usage with fewer fossil backups then you may need to price storage but that isn’t where we are today.
7952 5y ago
Storage is far easier though if the input power is cheap. Cost per MW is strongly correlated with cost per MWh.

And that solar is the most expensive way of producing power per kWh and would go nowhere if not subsidized to the moon and back.

Gwypaas 5y ago
Unsubsidized on-shore wind and solar is the by far cheapest sources of energy today. They are down at the marginal cost of existing, paid of, traditional power plants. That is where the current explosion in renewable growth is coming from. It is simply a more efficient use of capital to close down your existing nuclear plant and build new renewables instead. https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
dpierce9 5y ago
That just isn’t true. Solar is among the cheapest per watt to build [0] and produces very cheap electricity [1] even if you remove subsidies. It isn’t a perfect technology but that is beside the point. Further, every other technology for producing electricity has subsidies: wind (similar tax benes), nuclear (the gov acts as the insurer of last resort in a catastrophe, unpriced externality of waste heat), coal (unpriced externalities for carbon, soot, heavy metals, waste heat), natural gas (unpriced externalities for carbon, waste heat for combined cycle), hydro has all sorts of hard to price externalities and they are usually built with the help of the government (financing, dislocating people, rights of way, building new shipping lanes, etc). [0] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/assumptions/pdf/table_8.2.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/assumptions/pdf/table_8.2.p... [1] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....
- moffkalast 5y ago
  Well that sure is interesting, it's the exact opposite of what I've read before. Having not read that entire novel, I do have to ask if that's taking the average yearly Wh of a solar panel or what it says on the tin? Because it'll only produce that in Mexico during summer at midday. These costs can't be fixed but likely vary significantly by latitude and weather type. Anyhow if that's somehow correct and the price is $29.04 for a solar MWh and $121.84 for battery storage, then taking night into account for a 1MW installation you need 2x the solar capacity to make up the night draw during the day and a 12 MWh battery bank, so in total that would be $58.08 for the panels and $1462.08 for storage. Not exactly feasible by itself still. That's simplified of course, as you don't get as much draw at night, but you also have to consider that in winter you'll basically get nothing from the panels, so you may need even more than just 2x.
pfdietz 5y ago
> And that solar is the most expensive way of producing power per kWh This is utter bollocks. Solar is amazingly cheap today, per kWh produced. In the best places, it's around $0.013/kWh. Nuclear can't even meet that if you totally discount all capital and financing costs.
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  Isn't that with subsidies etc? It averages 7.5 cents per kwh 'fully loaded' including equipment, installation and expected maintenance.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    No, it's not with subsidies. Are you quoting RESIDENTIAL solar there? I was talking about utility-scale solar, which is the relevant thing to compare against nuclear. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30266828/worlds-cheapest-solar-farm/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30266828/worlds-ch...
- moffkalast 5y ago
  > In the best places With all due respect, that's a pretty bullshit metric. Most of the world's population does not live where solar works best, so you'll get only fractional output and much higher price to performance.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    Your response is without merit. Yes, most people don't live in places with the best solar resource. But the cost of solar I gave there is so cheap (like, a factor of 10 cheaper than new nuclear) that one could be 2-3x more expensive than that and still not be the most expensive source of electricity per kWh.

dpierce9 5y ago

Imagine I have a load that varies between 10kW +\- 50% and an intermittent generator that outputs 1kW at maximum and sometimes zero. I don’t have any need for storage so why would I have to calculate any storage cost? This is basically the situation the US grid is in as a whole today. If you want higher renewable usage with fewer fossil backups then you may need to price storage but that isn’t where we are today.

7952 5y ago

Storage is far easier though if the input power is cheap. Cost per MW is strongly correlated with cost per MWh.