4 ms·

Still no answer to how they’re going to solve those moments when there is no wind or sun. Are we just going to accept that businesses and residences have to tur

Still no answer to how they’re going to solve those moments when there is no wind or sun. Are we just going to accept that businesses and residences have to turn off all their appliances and machines when that happens?

justatdotin 4y ago
I've been on solar for years. I have over 12 hours every day where I get by with no sun, thanks to an amazing technology called a battery.
- draven 4y ago
  This may work for a single house, I don't think it's easy to scale to a whole city or a factory.
  - ragebol 4y ago
    Doesn't need to be easy. It's being worked on by many many people.
    - eof 4y ago
      Thanks for saying it. Industrial energy storage hardly strikes the intuition as less tractable than a skyscraper in the desert or a tunnel under the ocean
  - justatdotin 4y ago
    https://www.cefc.com.au/where-we-invest/case-studies/sa-big-battery-a-game-changer/ https://www.cefc.com.au/where-we-invest/case-studies/sa-big-...
  - defrost 4y ago
    It's already scaled to an entire Australian state, see peer comment ^^ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34336253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34336253
    - lm28469 4y ago
      Some time ago in Germany the last two nuclear power plants produced more than their entire wind and solar systems. Australia is nice, now do that in Northern Europe, in winter some countries barely have sun during the day, couple that with below freezing temperatures and your whole system become extremely in efficient. I was in my hometown during the holidays, between heavy fog and clouds we didn't see the sun for two weeks straight, not even mentioning almost constant snow
      - defrost 4y ago
        To be clear, you're criticising an integrated system optimally designed to work in South Australian conditions for not being plug 'n play transferable to Germany? Is that correct? Have you considered asking an engineer to design a system optimal for German conditions? BTW - we (Australia) have signed a large contract ($50 billion) with Germany recently to export Australian sunlight to Germany [1] as Ammonia ... [1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/forrest-strikes-huge-green-hydrogen-plan-with-german-energy-giant-e-on/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/forrest-strikes-huge-green-hydro...
        lm28469 4y ago
        Yes I am, we're talking about "the Future Dominance of Solar and Wind Energy". It's a very localised future, won't work for half of the year in half of the world, the half in which most people are living.
        defrost 4y ago
        And yet, somehow, Germany produced 46 percent of 2022 German power consumption via renewables. Could you explain again how this doesn't work in half the world? Is there no wind in Europe, no ability to lay long power lines (like like gas lines lines, only towards the equator rather than Russia), no path upwards past 46% ? On the face of it you don't seem to be putting much effort into finding a solution past fossil fuel usage .. is that because you don't accept climate change, you don't care what happens when they get increasingly scarce and more expensive, etc?
- oldmetuselah 4y ago
  > thanks to an amazing technology called a battery. How many kwh was it when you bought it and how many kwh can it still store today? How old is it? How much did it cost you?
  - justatdotin 4y ago
    I don't store a lot, and it hasn't cost me much, but I'm budgeting $15k to upgrade.
    - oldmetuselah 4y ago
      I wasn't able to understand this response.
- yesbut 4y ago
  People who aren't exposed to battery tech don't think it exists. Because they never see it in the media they consume and it isn't integrated into their lives in any meaningful way. It is difficult for them to imagine what they can't see.
- silon42 4y ago
  What would you do if there is 3 months of fog/clouds?
  - justatdotin 4y ago
    I live in a tropical paradise. The longest bad stretch I've had is 5 days
    - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      Yeah, that's the point. Kind of "Works on my machine" mindset. Wind and solar are not feasible for Europe without massive energy storage infrastructure, which does not exist.
      - justatdotin 4y ago
        yeahnah I was answering kevinak's question about "moments when there is no wind or sun" - I wasn't imagining silon42's "3 months of fog" It not only 'works on my machine' - it's cheaper, cleaner and more reliable. I'm sure we've got it better here, but that doesn't mean renewables can't continue to make up a growing slice of Europe's energy supply.
hannob 4y ago
I'll probably adress that in a future newsletter, but you may want to read the paper linked in the article above that contains a very detailed answer: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 The answer is a mix of demand side management, sector coupling and power-to-x technologies.
defrost 4y ago
There are answrs for those that seek rather than snide. Shared grids, small industrial estate sized battery farms, heated sand, hydrogen generation and recovery. In the real world [1]: > South Australia has been effectively powered by green energy for a week, with one expert predicting it could extend to a month by early next year. > From December 12 to 19, National Energy Market data showed wind and solar contributed on average 103.5 per cent towards the state's energy demand. > No coal was used during the period, but gas accounted for 5.9 per cent of electricity when renewable sources were not enough to power the state at points at night. ie. For an entire Australian state total internal renewable production exceeded total usage for a full seven day period - spot excess was exported to neighbouring states, minimal baseline generation in a shortfall period was boosted by gas. That's a dramatic change from nearly all coal generated power of some years ago. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-19/renewable-energy-production-hits-new-record-in-sa/101788694 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-19/renewable-energy-prod...
- Gatsky 4y ago
  South Australia is an interesting example. It is a big state, but 77% of the 1.8mil population live in the capital city. The average population density of the whole state is 1.7 persons per sqkm. It has a temperate climate, and gets quite a lot of sun overall. They’ve done a good job lately with their energy mix but important to bear in mind their specific circumstances when extrapolating to other places with less pleasant weather, less space, more distributed populations and more difficult grid arrangements.
  - defrost 4y ago
    Sure - take it as an example of renewable energy working for a continuous sustained period of time for ~ 2 million people plus Defence Industries [1], Heavy Industry Smelters [2], etc. It's "small", sure, but it's much bigger than a single house (which was the comment I responded to "sure, a house is easy, but does it scale?)). It's also relatively isolated (although not a fully isolated independent grid like W.Australia) and so serves as an interesting test case with almost a circle about it. [1] https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2021-11-23/south-australia-defence-industry-does-heavy-lifting https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2021-11-2... [2] https://www.nyrstar.com/operations/metals-processing/nyrstar-port-pirie https://www.nyrstar.com/operations/metals-processing/nyrstar... > The Port Pirie plant is one of the world’s largest multi-metal smelters, producing lead, silver and by-products such as sulphuric acid.
ajuc 4y ago
They won't "have to". But the dynamic pricing will make them "want to" turn of their non-essential appliances when they don't need them. Would it be a big problem for you if energy was essentially free 12 hours a day and 10 times more expansive than it is right now in the other 12 hours? This is the only thing that we will need to change - granular, dynamic pricing to reflect the new constraints. The rest will be solved by consumers adapting to that pricing. It might be by shifting the usage of non-essential devices (does it matter to you to have your laundry done at night?). It will likely include some batteries. But for me the best option to me seems to be synthetic fuel production. Make hydrocarbons when there's too much solar and wind, and burn them again when there's not enough. The roundtrip efficiency is low (I think about 10% currently), but the capacity of such "battery" is effectively infinite and the investment is very cheap compared to regular batteries. The whole world already is adapted to burning hydrocarbons. So we wouldn't need to change much - just produce hydrocarbons in place instead of drilling for them in dictatorships all over the world. BTW the implications on world politics are Earth-shattering. The difference in available renewable power per square meter in best vs worst countries is about 3 to 1 - maybe 4 to 1. Imagine if the least fortunate country on Earth had 25% of the oil that OPEC countries have.
- malka 4y ago
  > Would it be a big problem for you if energy was essentially free 12 hours a day and 10 times more expansive than it is right now in the other 12 hours? I would find this extremely annoying, yes.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    Annoying but manageable. You don't _need_ to run your most power hungry gear during the 12 most expensive hours. And if you need to, you pay for it. Otherwise you can use the cheap power.
- leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
  So why can't I tell these people who want to charge me more to F off and have them build nuclear? And is the threat of global warming enough to warrant making everyones life worse? Is adaptation more costly than stopping the use of fossil fuels?
gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
This - no wind and no sun - happens in the UK for a few days a month every month during the winter. During this time then more electricity is imported, a lot of gas is burned, and coal stations are put on standby. To my knowledge, then no industry needs to shut down .
- ehnto 4y ago
  It's not a gotcha. We will still deploy solar and wind in the UK to great effect, and the current plants will remain and fill in the gaps. Best of both worlds, and still better than before.
  - gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
    Indeed. I don't see many downsides to increasing solar and wind. Every turn of the blade is a volume of gas that is not burned for electricity. Only issue is ownership.
ehnto 4y ago
Practically we will always have backup plants I suspect. But we don't need perfect, we just need better, plus redundancies. Gas is a common backup since it had a fast spin up time, couple that with batteries to smooth out frequency and cover spin up time and life is good. I also want to point out that this is already going on, not just theory crafting. Solar and wind isn't just a good possibility, it is happening and in use right now. Batteries for grid stabilization is also an existing technology that is in practical use.
alex_duf 4y ago
Wind is always blowing somewhere on a continent. It's all about connecting countries together, storing a little bit, and pricing dynamically.
theshrike79 4y ago
Electricity storage is not that hard really. Batteries work in small/mid scale. If we have huge amounts of overproduction, hydrogen is a viable storage medium. But the conversion losses are too big for it to be viable unless the electricity is practically free. For large scale storage pumped hydro seems to be the best option, albeit it requires compatible geography and isn't cheap to build. On the other hand even a mid-priced electric car can run an American McMansion for a day, maybe even two. More if you actually pay attention to your energy consumption. 5-20kWh batteries aren't really that expensive and will pay themselves back if you're using market rate electricity instead of a flat rate. You can charge them up during the night with a few cents per kWh and use during the daily peaks - maybe even sell back to the grid if that's possible in your area.

justatdotin 4y ago

I've been on solar for years. I have over 12 hours every day where I get by with no sun, thanks to an amazing technology called a battery.

draven 4y ago
This may work for a single house, I don't think it's easy to scale to a whole city or a factory.
- ragebol 4y ago
  Doesn't need to be easy. It's being worked on by many many people.
  - eof 4y ago
    Thanks for saying it. Industrial energy storage hardly strikes the intuition as less tractable than a skyscraper in the desert or a tunnel under the ocean
- justatdotin 4y ago
  https://www.cefc.com.au/where-we-invest/case-studies/sa-big-battery-a-game-changer/ https://www.cefc.com.au/where-we-invest/case-studies/sa-big-...
- defrost 4y ago
  It's already scaled to an entire Australian state, see peer comment ^^ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34336253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34336253
  - lm28469 4y ago
    Some time ago in Germany the last two nuclear power plants produced more than their entire wind and solar systems. Australia is nice, now do that in Northern Europe, in winter some countries barely have sun during the day, couple that with below freezing temperatures and your whole system become extremely in efficient. I was in my hometown during the holidays, between heavy fog and clouds we didn't see the sun for two weeks straight, not even mentioning almost constant snow
    - defrost 4y ago
      To be clear, you're criticising an integrated system optimally designed to work in South Australian conditions for not being plug 'n play transferable to Germany? Is that correct? Have you considered asking an engineer to design a system optimal for German conditions? BTW - we (Australia) have signed a large contract ($50 billion) with Germany recently to export Australian sunlight to Germany [1] as Ammonia ... [1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/forrest-strikes-huge-green-hydrogen-plan-with-german-energy-giant-e-on/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/forrest-strikes-huge-green-hydro...
      - lm28469 4y ago
        Yes I am, we're talking about "the Future Dominance of Solar and Wind Energy". It's a very localised future, won't work for half of the year in half of the world, the half in which most people are living.
        defrost 4y ago
        And yet, somehow, Germany produced 46 percent of 2022 German power consumption via renewables. Could you explain again how this doesn't work in half the world? Is there no wind in Europe, no ability to lay long power lines (like like gas lines lines, only towards the equator rather than Russia), no path upwards past 46% ? On the face of it you don't seem to be putting much effort into finding a solution past fossil fuel usage .. is that because you don't accept climate change, you don't care what happens when they get increasingly scarce and more expensive, etc?
oldmetuselah 4y ago
> thanks to an amazing technology called a battery. How many kwh was it when you bought it and how many kwh can it still store today? How old is it? How much did it cost you?
- justatdotin 4y ago
  I don't store a lot, and it hasn't cost me much, but I'm budgeting $15k to upgrade.
  - oldmetuselah 4y ago
    I wasn't able to understand this response.
yesbut 4y ago
People who aren't exposed to battery tech don't think it exists. Because they never see it in the media they consume and it isn't integrated into their lives in any meaningful way. It is difficult for them to imagine what they can't see.
silon42 4y ago
What would you do if there is 3 months of fog/clouds?
- justatdotin 4y ago
  I live in a tropical paradise. The longest bad stretch I've had is 5 days
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    Yeah, that's the point. Kind of "Works on my machine" mindset. Wind and solar are not feasible for Europe without massive energy storage infrastructure, which does not exist.
    - justatdotin 4y ago
      yeahnah I was answering kevinak's question about "moments when there is no wind or sun" - I wasn't imagining silon42's "3 months of fog" It not only 'works on my machine' - it's cheaper, cleaner and more reliable. I'm sure we've got it better here, but that doesn't mean renewables can't continue to make up a growing slice of Europe's energy supply.

hannob 4y ago

I'll probably adress that in a future newsletter, but you may want to read the paper linked in the article above that contains a very detailed answer: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 The answer is a mix of demand side management, sector coupling and power-to-x technologies.

defrost 4y ago

There are answrs for those that seek rather than snide. Shared grids, small industrial estate sized battery farms, heated sand, hydrogen generation and recovery. In the real world [1]: > South Australia has been effectively powered by green energy for a week, with one expert predicting it could extend to a month by early next year. > From December 12 to 19, National Energy Market data showed wind and solar contributed on average 103.5 per cent towards the state's energy demand. > No coal was used during the period, but gas accounted for 5.9 per cent of electricity when renewable sources were not enough to power the state at points at night. ie. For an entire Australian state total internal renewable production exceeded total usage for a full seven day period - spot excess was exported to neighbouring states, minimal baseline generation in a shortfall period was boosted by gas. That's a dramatic change from nearly all coal generated power of some years ago. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-19/renewable-energy-production-hits-new-record-in-sa/101788694 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-19/renewable-energy-prod...

Gatsky 4y ago
South Australia is an interesting example. It is a big state, but 77% of the 1.8mil population live in the capital city. The average population density of the whole state is 1.7 persons per sqkm. It has a temperate climate, and gets quite a lot of sun overall. They’ve done a good job lately with their energy mix but important to bear in mind their specific circumstances when extrapolating to other places with less pleasant weather, less space, more distributed populations and more difficult grid arrangements.
- defrost 4y ago
  Sure - take it as an example of renewable energy working for a continuous sustained period of time for ~ 2 million people plus Defence Industries [1], Heavy Industry Smelters [2], etc. It's "small", sure, but it's much bigger than a single house (which was the comment I responded to "sure, a house is easy, but does it scale?)). It's also relatively isolated (although not a fully isolated independent grid like W.Australia) and so serves as an interesting test case with almost a circle about it. [1] https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2021-11-23/south-australia-defence-industry-does-heavy-lifting https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2021-11-2... [2] https://www.nyrstar.com/operations/metals-processing/nyrstar-port-pirie https://www.nyrstar.com/operations/metals-processing/nyrstar... > The Port Pirie plant is one of the world’s largest multi-metal smelters, producing lead, silver and by-products such as sulphuric acid.

ajuc 4y ago

They won't "have to". But the dynamic pricing will make them "want to" turn of their non-essential appliances when they don't need them. Would it be a big problem for you if energy was essentially free 12 hours a day and 10 times more expansive than it is right now in the other 12 hours? This is the only thing that we will need to change - granular, dynamic pricing to reflect the new constraints. The rest will be solved by consumers adapting to that pricing. It might be by shifting the usage of non-essential devices (does it matter to you to have your laundry done at night?). It will likely include some batteries. But for me the best option to me seems to be synthetic fuel production. Make hydrocarbons when there's too much solar and wind, and burn them again when there's not enough. The roundtrip efficiency is low (I think about 10% currently), but the capacity of such "battery" is effectively infinite and the investment is very cheap compared to regular batteries. The whole world already is adapted to burning hydrocarbons. So we wouldn't need to change much - just produce hydrocarbons in place instead of drilling for them in dictatorships all over the world. BTW the implications on world politics are Earth-shattering. The difference in available renewable power per square meter in best vs worst countries is about 3 to 1 - maybe 4 to 1. Imagine if the least fortunate country on Earth had 25% of the oil that OPEC countries have.

malka 4y ago
> Would it be a big problem for you if energy was essentially free 12 hours a day and 10 times more expansive than it is right now in the other 12 hours? I would find this extremely annoying, yes.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Annoying but manageable. You don't _need_ to run your most power hungry gear during the 12 most expensive hours. And if you need to, you pay for it. Otherwise you can use the cheap power.
leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
So why can't I tell these people who want to charge me more to F off and have them build nuclear? And is the threat of global warming enough to warrant making everyones life worse? Is adaptation more costly than stopping the use of fossil fuels?

gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago

This - no wind and no sun - happens in the UK for a few days a month every month during the winter. During this time then more electricity is imported, a lot of gas is burned, and coal stations are put on standby. To my knowledge, then no industry needs to shut down .

ehnto 4y ago
It's not a gotcha. We will still deploy solar and wind in the UK to great effect, and the current plants will remain and fill in the gaps. Best of both worlds, and still better than before.
- gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
  Indeed. I don't see many downsides to increasing solar and wind. Every turn of the blade is a volume of gas that is not burned for electricity. Only issue is ownership.

ehnto 4y ago

Practically we will always have backup plants I suspect. But we don't need perfect, we just need better, plus redundancies. Gas is a common backup since it had a fast spin up time, couple that with batteries to smooth out frequency and cover spin up time and life is good. I also want to point out that this is already going on, not just theory crafting. Solar and wind isn't just a good possibility, it is happening and in use right now. Batteries for grid stabilization is also an existing technology that is in practical use.

alex_duf 4y ago

Wind is always blowing somewhere on a continent. It's all about connecting countries together, storing a little bit, and pricing dynamically.

theshrike79 4y ago

Electricity storage is not that hard really. Batteries work in small/mid scale. If we have huge amounts of overproduction, hydrogen is a viable storage medium. But the conversion losses are too big for it to be viable unless the electricity is practically free. For large scale storage pumped hydro seems to be the best option, albeit it requires compatible geography and isn't cheap to build. On the other hand even a mid-priced electric car can run an American McMansion for a day, maybe even two. More if you actually pay attention to your energy consumption. 5-20kWh batteries aren't really that expensive and will pay themselves back if you're using market rate electricity instead of a flat rate. You can charge them up during the night with a few cents per kWh and use during the daily peaks - maybe even sell back to the grid if that's possible in your area.