17 ms·

US installs record solar capacity as prices keep falling

101 points by jseliger 4y ago

akira2501 4y ago
Yea.. it's a pretty long way to go to seamlessly pick up summer and some winter loads, though. Look at the CAISO supply trend on Sep 07 2022: https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html Similarly, examine it on Feb 07 2022.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Its not clear what you intend us to conclude from that data. I'd conclude that until solar has excesses on the peak demand days that it probably makes financial sense to keep rolling out more solar. And that increase in excess on non-peak days then makes rolling out batteries make financial sense. And then the presence of those batteries makes rolling out even more solar make sense. And indeed that is what is happening.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Right, you only roll out storage as fast as you have overcapacity to charge it from. The amount of storage build-out that justifies, thus far, is easy to accommodate with batteries. Later, as renewables shoulder more of the load, the storage needs to get bigger and you start looking for economies of scale. Ultimately, instead of paying to build out long-term storage, most places will rely on imports of synthesized liquid fuel to burn in peaker plants, from places that produce excess reliably, e.g. tropics, for solar, and reliably windy places. It is always windy somewhere. That synthetic liquid fuel is most likely ammonia. And, while waiting for those to come online and undercut NG, you just continue peaking with NG. Today people are breaking ground for factories to build ammonia synthesis equipment, which will take remarkably long to finish and start producing. Then those need to build enough synthesis equipment to absorb hundreds and thousands of excess GW. And we will have ships to transport it in, tanks to keep it in. All that is a huge job, but it will be done. The stuff that handles an equal amount of petroleum and NG was built and is used, and will wind down and be scrapped.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Provided, of course, civilization doesn't collapse first. If build-out matches predictions, collapse is an easy call. But build-out has been consistently beating predictions.
- jokoon 4y ago
  Not to mention that a big fraction of those panels are made in china, and panels generally generate much less power after 20 or 30 years. They're also vulnerable to hail, and require a lot of copper wiring. I would buy any stock related to mini nuclear reactors. It seems like a promising solution, since it's faster and simpler to deploy, they can probably be sold to less rich countries, they're probably even safer. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I wish there was more news about it.
  - Brometheus 4y ago
    - benzin 4y ago
      I'm pro-everything. From my flawed knowledge of economic history, energy rules all and is the single best thing to invest in for a country or civilisation's future. [1][2][3][4][5] Any advantages individual technologies have in energy generation, transportation or storage is probably worth exploring. I hope to have more insight in this when I get around to reading Vaclav Smil, or better yet work in the energy industry as it seems to be one of the few industries I've looked at that definitely needs to exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution [3] https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow-in-1942-but-rather-move-for-Stalingrad https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow... [4] https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harb... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
    - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
      These are real issues. Saying nuclear is too hard/too dangerous/too expensive/takes too long is the real FUD, simply because it's a wide range of significantly different technologies each with vastly different properties (whereas solar panels are all pretty similar and the problems are not with one particular kind but external - caused by how the solar panels are used). We need both/all.
- fasthands9 4y ago
  If I'm reading this chart correctly on 2-07-22 solar production reached a peak of ~11MW and stayed their for about 6 hours. On 9-7-22 solar production reached a peak just under ~13MW and was at that level for about 7/8 hours. To me the average seasonal difference actually seems insignificant in the big picture. If its feasible for solar to power most energy on the summer days then it would be doable to get there for winter days especially since demand on 2-7-22 peaked at about 60% of the peak on 9-7-22. The larger issues seem to be unpredictable off days due to off-season weather (cloud cover or wilfire ash or whatever) and of course storing power at night. But it seems like batteries will improve and running off solar on the day reduces need for natural gas until night.
- pjc50 4y ago
  That page shows me "-17MW" for solar, so I'm not sure what to make of that?
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    If you visit the link it loads todays info. The poster was intending us to select a specific date on the calendar to get the full days info not just the early morning. Not totally sure why solar would ever be negative, but that's the wider explanation I think. One possibility is that batteries are often colocated with solar, so possibly a solar/battery combination has been misfiled under solar.
buro9 4y ago
At what point does the accumulation of solar deployed start to threaten the economics of power plant creation? That is... power plants are such significant investments that they are only viable with a government guarantee on future price and demand. But with renewables being deployed at large scale, those guarantees would start being something a gov would pick up the tab on rather than long-term by consumers. Which is to hypothesis that the gov won't want to pick up the tab, prices of grid energy will rise fast, and there's a long-term incentive to getting off-grid that will accelerate whenever this tipping point occurs.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ben_w 4y ago
  > At what point does the accumulation of solar deployed start to threaten the economics of power plant creation? From what I've read… a few years ago, even for existing plants and just counting fuel costs. Although the cause is because it is cheap, not because of how much is installed.
- tuatoru 4y ago
  What guarantee? Are you thinking of nuclear plants? Gas turbine power plants are cheap to build. (They have to be, because they're used as "peakers", only operating 10% - 20% of the time.) The threat to them is battery storage, not renewable generation. Combined-cycle gas turbines (combined with steam powered generation using the turbine exhaust for heat) are slightly less cheap, but nowhere near the same league as nuclear costs. Even so, in some places it's now (2022) cheaper to build new PV than to pay for the gas to run a fully paid-for gas plant. Or so we are told. Long distance high voltage transmission lines sometimes need government involvement, because 1) they affect many land-owners, at least some of whom won't be happy; and 2) the margins are low in the power transmission game. The need for long-distance transmission and gas peakers could be reduced quite a bit in a year or so, if PV, wind, and battery storage prices continue on trend (downwards). Not off-grid, but local grid.
  - belorn 4y ago
bdcravens 4y ago
Virtually every one of the solar salespeople (probably a dozen in less than 3 months) I have had come to my door use shady tactics. ("We are here from your energy utility to give you a free energy analysis....", "free solar" (based on net costs only, but ignoring the $30k in payments you sign up to cover installation etc), etc. I'm hip to the tactics, but everyone may not be. I have at least one friend that tells me they regret the decision. I'm actually pro-solar, and plan to get it eventually, but I think the scaminess surrounding it will put a nasty taste in people's mouths for years to come.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Rooftop solar costs quite a lot more to field than utility solar. If you can buy from a community solar project, instead, that is likely a better deal.
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    Unfortunately I'm in the Houston area, where there isn't much support for renewables or sustainability on a level larger than the individual. The best I was able to do was find a grid provider that claims to be 100% renewable.
    - 93po 4y ago
      My issue with those providers is that buying their services doesn't mean they're expanding their renewable sources to match the people signing up for them. Those sources exist and are being used already, it just gives them a bucket of billing that they can mark up.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        Specific providers make those guarantees, to go beyond just selling green credits they already have lying around. I think in Texas Bulb should qualify in this case. https://bulb.com/ https://bulb.com/
pdx_flyer 4y ago
The biggest unknown right now is how FERC 2222 is going to play out. It essentially allows consumer solar to be aggregated and sold on the wholesale markets. As aggregators come online and prices fluctuate there are going to be even more regulations as federal and state officials find flaws and gaps in how the system works. I tend to lean toward battery storage as being the piece that will tip the scale. As more efficient and longer lasting batteries come online, grid ops will become a bit easier and some of the DER capacity that would typically be shed could be stored for later needs.

101 points by jseliger 4y ago

Yea.. it's a pretty long way to go to seamlessly pick up summer and some winter loads, though. Look at the CAISO supply trend on Sep 07 2022: https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html Similarly, examine it on Feb 07 2022.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Its not clear what you intend us to conclude from that data. I'd conclude that until solar has excesses on the peak demand days that it probably makes financial sense to keep rolling out more solar. And that increase in excess on non-peak days then makes rolling out batteries make financial sense. And then the presence of those batteries makes rolling out even more solar make sense. And indeed that is what is happening.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Right, you only roll out storage as fast as you have overcapacity to charge it from. The amount of storage build-out that justifies, thus far, is easy to accommodate with batteries. Later, as renewables shoulder more of the load, the storage needs to get bigger and you start looking for economies of scale. Ultimately, instead of paying to build out long-term storage, most places will rely on imports of synthesized liquid fuel to burn in peaker plants, from places that produce excess reliably, e.g. tropics, for solar, and reliably windy places. It is always windy somewhere. That synthetic liquid fuel is most likely ammonia. And, while waiting for those to come online and undercut NG, you just continue peaking with NG. Today people are breaking ground for factories to build ammonia synthesis equipment, which will take remarkably long to finish and start producing. Then those need to build enough synthesis equipment to absorb hundreds and thousands of excess GW. And we will have ships to transport it in, tanks to keep it in. All that is a huge job, but it will be done. The stuff that handles an equal amount of petroleum and NG was built and is used, and will wind down and be scrapped.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Provided, of course, civilization doesn't collapse first. If build-out matches predictions, collapse is an easy call. But build-out has been consistently beating predictions.
jokoon 4y ago
Not to mention that a big fraction of those panels are made in china, and panels generally generate much less power after 20 or 30 years. They're also vulnerable to hail, and require a lot of copper wiring. I would buy any stock related to mini nuclear reactors. It seems like a promising solution, since it's faster and simpler to deploy, they can probably be sold to less rich countries, they're probably even safer. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I wish there was more news about it.
- Brometheus 4y ago
  - benzin 4y ago
    I'm pro-everything. From my flawed knowledge of economic history, energy rules all and is the single best thing to invest in for a country or civilisation's future. [1][2][3][4][5] Any advantages individual technologies have in energy generation, transportation or storage is probably worth exploring. I hope to have more insight in this when I get around to reading Vaclav Smil, or better yet work in the energy industry as it seems to be one of the few industries I've looked at that definitely needs to exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution [3] https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow-in-1942-but-rather-move-for-Stalingrad https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow... [4] https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harb... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
  - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
    These are real issues. Saying nuclear is too hard/too dangerous/too expensive/takes too long is the real FUD, simply because it's a wide range of significantly different technologies each with vastly different properties (whereas solar panels are all pretty similar and the problems are not with one particular kind but external - caused by how the solar panels are used). We need both/all.
fasthands9 4y ago
If I'm reading this chart correctly on 2-07-22 solar production reached a peak of ~11MW and stayed their for about 6 hours. On 9-7-22 solar production reached a peak just under ~13MW and was at that level for about 7/8 hours. To me the average seasonal difference actually seems insignificant in the big picture. If its feasible for solar to power most energy on the summer days then it would be doable to get there for winter days especially since demand on 2-7-22 peaked at about 60% of the peak on 9-7-22. The larger issues seem to be unpredictable off days due to off-season weather (cloud cover or wilfire ash or whatever) and of course storing power at night. But it seems like batteries will improve and running off solar on the day reduces need for natural gas until night.
pjc50 4y ago
That page shows me "-17MW" for solar, so I'm not sure what to make of that?
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  If you visit the link it loads todays info. The poster was intending us to select a specific date on the calendar to get the full days info not just the early morning. Not totally sure why solar would ever be negative, but that's the wider explanation I think. One possibility is that batteries are often colocated with solar, so possibly a solar/battery combination has been misfiled under solar.

buro9 4y ago

At what point does the accumulation of solar deployed start to threaten the economics of power plant creation? That is... power plants are such significant investments that they are only viable with a government guarantee on future price and demand. But with renewables being deployed at large scale, those guarantees would start being something a gov would pick up the tab on rather than long-term by consumers. Which is to hypothesis that the gov won't want to pick up the tab, prices of grid energy will rise fast, and there's a long-term incentive to getting off-grid that will accelerate whenever this tipping point occurs.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ben_w 4y ago
> At what point does the accumulation of solar deployed start to threaten the economics of power plant creation? From what I've read… a few years ago, even for existing plants and just counting fuel costs. Although the cause is because it is cheap, not because of how much is installed.
tuatoru 4y ago
What guarantee? Are you thinking of nuclear plants? Gas turbine power plants are cheap to build. (They have to be, because they're used as "peakers", only operating 10% - 20% of the time.) The threat to them is battery storage, not renewable generation. Combined-cycle gas turbines (combined with steam powered generation using the turbine exhaust for heat) are slightly less cheap, but nowhere near the same league as nuclear costs. Even so, in some places it's now (2022) cheaper to build new PV than to pay for the gas to run a fully paid-for gas plant. Or so we are told. Long distance high voltage transmission lines sometimes need government involvement, because 1) they affect many land-owners, at least some of whom won't be happy; and 2) the margins are low in the power transmission game. The need for long-distance transmission and gas peakers could be reduced quite a bit in a year or so, if PV, wind, and battery storage prices continue on trend (downwards). Not off-grid, but local grid.
- belorn 4y ago

bdcravens 4y ago

Virtually every one of the solar salespeople (probably a dozen in less than 3 months) I have had come to my door use shady tactics. ("We are here from your energy utility to give you a free energy analysis....", "free solar" (based on net costs only, but ignoring the $30k in payments you sign up to cover installation etc), etc. I'm hip to the tactics, but everyone may not be. I have at least one friend that tells me they regret the decision. I'm actually pro-solar, and plan to get it eventually, but I think the scaminess surrounding it will put a nasty taste in people's mouths for years to come.

ncmncm 4y ago
Rooftop solar costs quite a lot more to field than utility solar. If you can buy from a community solar project, instead, that is likely a better deal.
- bdcravens 4y ago
  Unfortunately I'm in the Houston area, where there isn't much support for renewables or sustainability on a level larger than the individual. The best I was able to do was find a grid provider that claims to be 100% renewable.
  - 93po 4y ago
    My issue with those providers is that buying their services doesn't mean they're expanding their renewable sources to match the people signing up for them. Those sources exist and are being used already, it just gives them a bucket of billing that they can mark up.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      Specific providers make those guarantees, to go beyond just selling green credits they already have lying around. I think in Texas Bulb should qualify in this case. https://bulb.com/ https://bulb.com/

pdx_flyer 4y ago

The biggest unknown right now is how FERC 2222 is going to play out. It essentially allows consumer solar to be aggregated and sold on the wholesale markets. As aggregators come online and prices fluctuate there are going to be even more regulations as federal and state officials find flaws and gaps in how the system works. I tend to lean toward battery storage as being the piece that will tip the scale. As more efficient and longer lasting batteries come online, grid ops will become a bit easier and some of the DER capacity that would typically be shed could be stored for later needs.