5 ms·

Not meant as a diss, but: > What do you do when an entire region is sunless and windless for a week To me that sounds like a highly theoretical problem. I'm

Not meant as a diss, but: > What do you do when an entire region is sunless and windless for a week To me that sounds like a highly theoretical problem. I'm not a meteorologist or climate scientist, clearly, but I think a if you have a week-long thick cloud cover chances are probably comes with solid winds, no?

tsimionescu 4y ago
While rare, it does happen often enough, and electricity is critical enough, that it must be considered.
throwaway894345 4y ago
I’m not sure. Last winter Chicago went something like 40 days without sun IIRC, and I assume the same is true for much of the surrounding area. It doesn’t seem particularly unlikely that you could have many consecutive windless days as well, especially as climate change brings us these “once in a millennia” events every few years. Moreover, as we transition homes from gas heating to heat pumps, this will increase demand on the grid and it will also increase the risks in case of failure (people freezing). Moreover, even without cloud cover, winters are snowy and the days are short and the light is indirect.
- Retric 4y ago
  You just described why placing solar panels in Chicago is a bad idea. Real world grid scale solar farms are placed in sunny areas that don't get regular cloud cover or even snow like that. Washington State and Chicago are terrible locations for solar, but moving electricity is surprisingly cheap. https://blog.solarenergymaps.com/2014/05/potential-solar-energy-map-of-us.html https://blog.solarenergymaps.com/2014/05/potential-solar-ene... That said, cloudy days reduce but don't eliminate output, so as excess capacity is added the minimum output keeps increasing. A hypothetical green hydro/wind/solar grid would have significant excess solar capacity the same way the current grid adds redundant conventional powerplants.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    > Washington State and Chicago are terrible locations for solar, but moving electricity is surprisingly cheap. https://blog.solarenergymaps.com/2014/05/potential-solar-ene https://blog.solarenergymaps.com/2014/05/potential-solar-ene... Your link doesn’t support your claim that moving energy is surprisingly cheap. I’m of the impression that this isn’t the case (we can’t easily build transmission lines that can carry the necessary amount of power from the southwest to other parts of the country).
    - Retric 4y ago
      I didn't add a link on power transmission. Actually building stuff in the US has issues that have little to do with cost. Individual UHVDC links are in the multiple GW range. Exact numbers depend on a host of factors but something like 1c/kWh per 1,000 miles for long range is a reasonable ballpark. (Upfront costs in the billions.) Though it’s much higher for underwater links, etc. A link sending power 24/7/365 at maximum capacity is significantly cheaper, conversly geographic barriers can quickly increase prices. Also those costs aren't constant with distance the transmission lines cost far less than the equipment at either end.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    I have worked with several folks to get solar installed on their roof in the Chicago suburbs, and it offsets over 100% of their local consumption.
    - LunaSea 4y ago
      Not during night time.
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
        It probably could with enough batteries and panels, but it's probably a very expensive setup.
    - Retric 4y ago
Hermitian909 4y ago
Short answer is no, slightly longer answer is that even if you have "solid" winds they're often not enough to make up for the loss of solar. Additionally, cloudy and low-wind periods are common enough that without grid-stabilization tech we'd expect regular blackouts through many countries throughout the world. All that said, I'm quite hopeful for grid stabilization tech coming online in the next decade. Source: I've spent the last few years working on renewables R&D
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  Can you elaborate on grid stabilization tech? I haven't heard about this before.
  - Hermitian909 4y ago
    Sure, so in my mind there are two kinds of grid stabilization, I'll call them short term and long term. Roughly speaking, short term stabilization helps deal with fluctuations in demand over the course of a day. The Hornsdale Power Reserve[0] is a good example, it's basically a big bank of Lithium Ion batteries. This allows us to handle, say, everyone in Australia turning on their AC when they get home without needing blackouts to reduce load. At night, excess power generation can then refill the batteries. Unfortunately this is not a workable solution if total demand per day exceeds total power production per day for more extended periods (think weeks). This is precisely the problem that can occur with solar or wind. Lithium Ion Batteries are not suitable for storing large amounts of charge over longer periods. We would instead like a battery that can perform longer term storage of power at an affordable price during winder and sunnier periods. I'm currently excited by the approach taken by Form Energy[1] for what is called a Rust Battery. If they get it working this essentially allows us to trap and release energy through an extremely cheap and scalable chemical process. During a sunny summer you could potentially store enough excess power to get you through a very cloudy winter. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve [1] https://formenergy.com/ https://formenergy.com/
czottmann 4y ago
Why am I being downvoted for asking this? C'mon. :|

tsimionescu 4y ago

While rare, it does happen often enough, and electricity is critical enough, that it must be considered.

throwaway894345 4y ago

I’m not sure. Last winter Chicago went something like 40 days without sun IIRC, and I assume the same is true for much of the surrounding area. It doesn’t seem particularly unlikely that you could have many consecutive windless days as well, especially as climate change brings us these “once in a millennia” events every few years. Moreover, as we transition homes from gas heating to heat pumps, this will increase demand on the grid and it will also increase the risks in case of failure (people freezing). Moreover, even without cloud cover, winters are snowy and the days are short and the light is indirect.

Retric 4y ago
You just described why placing solar panels in Chicago is a bad idea. Real world grid scale solar farms are placed in sunny areas that don't get regular cloud cover or even snow like that. Washington State and Chicago are terrible locations for solar, but moving electricity is surprisingly cheap. https://blog.solarenergymaps.com/2014/05/potential-solar-energy-map-of-us.html https://blog.solarenergymaps.com/2014/05/potential-solar-ene... That said, cloudy days reduce but don't eliminate output, so as excess capacity is added the minimum output keeps increasing. A hypothetical green hydro/wind/solar grid would have significant excess solar capacity the same way the current grid adds redundant conventional powerplants.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  > Washington State and Chicago are terrible locations for solar, but moving electricity is surprisingly cheap. https://blog.solarenergymaps.com/2014/05/potential-solar-ene https://blog.solarenergymaps.com/2014/05/potential-solar-ene... Your link doesn’t support your claim that moving energy is surprisingly cheap. I’m of the impression that this isn’t the case (we can’t easily build transmission lines that can carry the necessary amount of power from the southwest to other parts of the country).
  - Retric 4y ago
    I didn't add a link on power transmission. Actually building stuff in the US has issues that have little to do with cost. Individual UHVDC links are in the multiple GW range. Exact numbers depend on a host of factors but something like 1c/kWh per 1,000 miles for long range is a reasonable ballpark. (Upfront costs in the billions.) Though it’s much higher for underwater links, etc. A link sending power 24/7/365 at maximum capacity is significantly cheaper, conversly geographic barriers can quickly increase prices. Also those costs aren't constant with distance the transmission lines cost far less than the equipment at either end.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  I have worked with several folks to get solar installed on their roof in the Chicago suburbs, and it offsets over 100% of their local consumption.
  - LunaSea 4y ago
    Not during night time.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      It probably could with enough batteries and panels, but it's probably a very expensive setup.
  - Retric 4y ago

Hermitian909 4y ago

Short answer is no, slightly longer answer is that even if you have "solid" winds they're often not enough to make up for the loss of solar. Additionally, cloudy and low-wind periods are common enough that without grid-stabilization tech we'd expect regular blackouts through many countries throughout the world. All that said, I'm quite hopeful for grid stabilization tech coming online in the next decade. Source: I've spent the last few years working on renewables R&D

throwaway894345 4y ago
Can you elaborate on grid stabilization tech? I haven't heard about this before.
- Hermitian909 4y ago
  Sure, so in my mind there are two kinds of grid stabilization, I'll call them short term and long term. Roughly speaking, short term stabilization helps deal with fluctuations in demand over the course of a day. The Hornsdale Power Reserve[0] is a good example, it's basically a big bank of Lithium Ion batteries. This allows us to handle, say, everyone in Australia turning on their AC when they get home without needing blackouts to reduce load. At night, excess power generation can then refill the batteries. Unfortunately this is not a workable solution if total demand per day exceeds total power production per day for more extended periods (think weeks). This is precisely the problem that can occur with solar or wind. Lithium Ion Batteries are not suitable for storing large amounts of charge over longer periods. We would instead like a battery that can perform longer term storage of power at an affordable price during winder and sunnier periods. I'm currently excited by the approach taken by Form Energy[1] for what is called a Rust Battery. If they get it working this essentially allows us to trap and release energy through an extremely cheap and scalable chemical process. During a sunny summer you could potentially store enough excess power to get you through a very cloudy winter. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve [1] https://formenergy.com/ https://formenergy.com/

czottmann 4y ago

Why am I being downvoted for asking this? C'mon. :|