3 ms·

Or, at night also? Solar is all fun and games until the sun goes down and your grid needs to not collapse.

jillesvangurp 4y ago
A solar charged EV will keep your house going for several days. Other storage solutions are available. With the right amount of square meters and storage, you could disconnect from the grid entirely. For most people that would be too expensive but it's perfectly feasible in large parts of the world. Especially the US. With the exception of Alaska, most of it is much further south than most of Europe. Plenty of sun hours throughout the year. Even in winter. So, even in winter you'd be able to squeeze some kilowatt hours out of a few solar panels. Just install more of them until you have enough to charge up your batteries during the darkest part of the winter and you are good to go. Maybe add some wind to diversify. For heating there are thermal storage solutions that use cheap materials like sand or basalt. Charge in the summer, heat in the winter. All you need is some pipes, mass, insulation and a way to dump energy in the system. There are various prototype systems operational already and they work as advertised. You might wonder about the cost of a silo of locally sourced sand. I'd say it's probably going to be dirt cheap. EV batteries are going to be great for balancing the grid. Vehicle to grid charge connectors are already being standardized and multiple vehicles that support that are being produced already. Millions on the road in the next few years. Twh of power. A very tempting target for would be virtual power plant companies. Like Tesla. The main challenge with wind and solar is bridging the few weeks a year where production of both may drop dramatically in the winter for more than a day. The combination of no wind, low sun and little amount of sun hours, and overcast skies is kind of deadly. In northern Europe that might last as long as a month. The rest of the year there is going to be either or both enough solar and wind. Mostly the real challenge the rest of the time is actually what to do with the growing amounts of excess power. Plenty of answers to that but it's not a fully resolved issue. Mostly current wind operators seem to regularly disable their wind mills by weather-vaning them instead. They're not broken, they've been turned off because they are producing more than needed. We're going to end up with way more power than what we need. People are installing solar panels on their roof that generate much more power than they need, even when aggregated over time. The current crisis is actually going to result in even more people doing that. This poses a serious challenge for energy produces still dumb enough to depend on burning fossil fuels. Most of the time they'll be selling at a loss or completely shutting down operations. And a few weeks a year they suddenly have to deliver a little bit of power. Not a great business to be in.
legulere 4y ago
Luckily most electricity use is during the day and wind blows also in the night and more in winter when there’s less sun.

A solar charged EV will keep your house going for several days. Other storage solutions are available. With the right amount of square meters and storage, you could disconnect from the grid entirely. For most people that would be too expensive but it's perfectly feasible in large parts of the world. Especially the US. With the exception of Alaska, most of it is much further south than most of Europe. Plenty of sun hours throughout the year. Even in winter. So, even in winter you'd be able to squeeze some kilowatt hours out of a few solar panels. Just install more of them until you have enough to charge up your batteries during the darkest part of the winter and you are good to go. Maybe add some wind to diversify. For heating there are thermal storage solutions that use cheap materials like sand or basalt. Charge in the summer, heat in the winter. All you need is some pipes, mass, insulation and a way to dump energy in the system. There are various prototype systems operational already and they work as advertised. You might wonder about the cost of a silo of locally sourced sand. I'd say it's probably going to be dirt cheap. EV batteries are going to be great for balancing the grid. Vehicle to grid charge connectors are already being standardized and multiple vehicles that support that are being produced already. Millions on the road in the next few years. Twh of power. A very tempting target for would be virtual power plant companies. Like Tesla. The main challenge with wind and solar is bridging the few weeks a year where production of both may drop dramatically in the winter for more than a day. The combination of no wind, low sun and little amount of sun hours, and overcast skies is kind of deadly. In northern Europe that might last as long as a month. The rest of the year there is going to be either or both enough solar and wind. Mostly the real challenge the rest of the time is actually what to do with the growing amounts of excess power. Plenty of answers to that but it's not a fully resolved issue. Mostly current wind operators seem to regularly disable their wind mills by weather-vaning them instead. They're not broken, they've been turned off because they are producing more than needed. We're going to end up with way more power than what we need. People are installing solar panels on their roof that generate much more power than they need, even when aggregated over time. The current crisis is actually going to result in even more people doing that. This poses a serious challenge for energy produces still dumb enough to depend on burning fossil fuels. Most of the time they'll be selling at a loss or completely shutting down operations. And a few weeks a year they suddenly have to deliver a little bit of power. Not a great business to be in.

legulere 4y ago

Luckily most electricity use is during the day and wind blows also in the night and more in winter when there’s less sun.