2 ms·

My question was not "how to store power" but how to generate power in the dead of night in Texas with no wind and no power storage.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
3 hours worth of batteries charged by solar and wind and if that runs out a turbine burning green hydrogen. The link I gave you goes into extreme detail on this and is based on historical data of exactly how often such windless nights occur and what the Texas grid demands overnight. It then works out the cheapest combination of solar/wind/battery/etc.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  Sure sounds like we need lots of storage then for those windless nights?
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    > need to come with gigantic storage projects. Was what I responded to. Do you think Texas has anywhere we could store some hydrocarbons? I don't even think that report is optimistic enough, Green Hydrogen production and EVs as demand response and some grid connections will solve the issue cheaper, but I don't want to blow anyones mind, so you've got to meet them halfway with an in-depth accounting of how the vast majority of Texas energy use could be renewable with ease at a low cost.
    - sidewndr46 4y ago
      Low cost won't cut it. It needs to be cheaper than existing technologies. Citizens don't vote for candidates with a pitch of "what we're going to do is change policy to require significant capital expenditure that is coming out of your pocket". Failing that if you can find a way to line some politicians pockets in the process, that could work.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        It is cheaper. It is apparently hard to sell this to certain political groups, who get their funding from more expensive sources of energy, but the truth has a way of making itself known when money can be earned and/or saved.
        sidewndr46 4y ago
        So you think the capex of building new types of energy generation & storage is less than the opex of the existing grid generation centered around fossil fuels, like natural gas?
        ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        Yes, this has been the case for coal and nuclear for a while, and is the case in most places for gas too, even before recent price spikes. The lazard LCOE reports give figures for running costs of existing fully deprecated plants to compare with the cost of new renewables. See page 7 "Levelized Cost of Energy Comparison—Renewable Energy versus Marginal Cost of Selected Existing Conventional Generation" https://www.lazard.com/media/451905/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-150-vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/451905/lazards-levelized-cost-o...

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

3 hours worth of batteries charged by solar and wind and if that runs out a turbine burning green hydrogen. The link I gave you goes into extreme detail on this and is based on historical data of exactly how often such windless nights occur and what the Texas grid demands overnight. It then works out the cheapest combination of solar/wind/battery/etc.

sidewndr46 4y ago
Sure sounds like we need lots of storage then for those windless nights?
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  > need to come with gigantic storage projects. Was what I responded to. Do you think Texas has anywhere we could store some hydrocarbons? I don't even think that report is optimistic enough, Green Hydrogen production and EVs as demand response and some grid connections will solve the issue cheaper, but I don't want to blow anyones mind, so you've got to meet them halfway with an in-depth accounting of how the vast majority of Texas energy use could be renewable with ease at a low cost.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    Low cost won't cut it. It needs to be cheaper than existing technologies. Citizens don't vote for candidates with a pitch of "what we're going to do is change policy to require significant capital expenditure that is coming out of your pocket". Failing that if you can find a way to line some politicians pockets in the process, that could work.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      It is cheaper. It is apparently hard to sell this to certain political groups, who get their funding from more expensive sources of energy, but the truth has a way of making itself known when money can be earned and/or saved.
      - sidewndr46 4y ago
        So you think the capex of building new types of energy generation & storage is less than the opex of the existing grid generation centered around fossil fuels, like natural gas?
        ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        Yes, this has been the case for coal and nuclear for a while, and is the case in most places for gas too, even before recent price spikes. The lazard LCOE reports give figures for running costs of existing fully deprecated plants to compare with the cost of new renewables. See page 7 "Levelized Cost of Energy Comparison—Renewable Energy versus Marginal Cost of Selected Existing Conventional Generation" https://www.lazard.com/media/451905/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-150-vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/451905/lazards-levelized-cost-o...