7 ms·

Yes, and they don't produce at night so you need to keep those coal/gas plants.

by thatfrenchguy 4y ago

widdershins 4y ago
Wind operates at night, often producing more than it does in the day.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  And sometimes not. You really can't have a 95% available electricity system and call it "close enough".
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Sure you can, you just need some diversification and some storage. Power demand tends to be lower at night, too.
    - strictnein 4y ago
      Until we're all charging our cars overnight.
      - _ea1k 4y ago
        Its expected that the "off peak" might eventually shift to daytime hours in solar heavy areas. That isn't necessarily a bad thing.
        strictnein 4y ago
        Off peak in the day in solar heavy areas seems like the worst possible outcome. When power is the most readily available, it'll be used the least. When it's the least available, it'll be used the most.
        _ea1k 4y ago
        I'm not sure how that'd be the worst. It'd just mean that we incentivize mostly addressible loads (eg, car charging) to be done during the afternoon instead of at night. And as others have pointed out, we already have high loads in those hours anyway during the summer.
        BizarroLand 4y ago
        During the day is when most power is used. AC is a significant energy hog.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        The chances of wind for an entire electrical grid dropping to zero is slim. My power company already can ask my Nest to reduce usage during times of high demand; I'd fully expect a smart grid scenario eventually where charging is slowed or paused during dips in available power, and prioritized to less-charged vehicles. We're a pretty innovative species; it baffles me that any discussion of renewables quickly trends towards "this issue is insurmountable" style wailing.
        TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
        Except 2021, where whole Europe had low winds for almost a year. But let's ignore that. https://theconversation.com/what-europes-exceptionally-low-winds-mean-for-the-future-energy-grid-170135 https://theconversation.com/what-europes-exceptionally-low-w...
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        > For instance, UK-based power company SSE stated that its renewable assets produced 32% less power than expected. Although this may appear initially alarming, given the UK government’s plans to become a world leader in wind energy, wind farm developers are aware these low wind “events” are possible, and understanding their impact has become a hot topic in energy-meteorology research. > So should we be worried about this period of low wind? In short, no.
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        And in 2022. But that didn't stop wind and solar from picking up 5/6ths of the shortfall from hydro, nuclear, and gas. It's unfortunate that coal picked up the last 6th. Pity money was spent on building gas and nuclear instead of wind and solar.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        Why would we be charging them at night if we have PV everywhere? Only makes sense to do that at night when you're overproducing at night and thus making it cheaper then. PV everywhere reversed that, making it cheapest to charge during the day.
        strictnein 4y ago
        Not sure what the location of solar panels has to do with charging cars, to be honest. The point is that people will mainly charge their cars at their homes in the evening, when solar power is low/non-existent. You're not charging them during the day because you're using them.
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        60kWh of battery per car: Inevitable Someone wanting to charge with 2c/kWh power during the day rather than 20c/kWh at night: Inconceivable! 70kWh of battery per car with 10kWh at the solar panels: Impossible! A 20A AC extension cord at work: Inconceivable!
        strictnein 4y ago
        Yes, I clearly claimed all of those things. Being snarky isn't the same as being clever, but I'm sure you've convinced yourself otherwise.
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        And repeating tired lies is much less clever than pointing out the implied impossibilities, but I'm sure you've convinced yourself otherwise.
        ben_w 4y ago
        > Not sure what the location of solar panels has to do with charging cars, to be honest. > You're not charging them during the day because you're using them. "Everywhere" includes "on the cars" (covering 80% of mean usage because most people aren't commercial drivers) and "car parks" (because even commercial drivers take breaks, or at least that's my understanding of the law in various places).
    - BurningFrog 4y ago
      With "some diversification and some storage" you can have 100% availability, sure. For some value of "some". But you actually have to build for the worst cases, and include the costs in your calculations. Sweden did not, and had a disastrous electricity winter. I expect California to be even less competent. For context, I'm a Swede emigrated to California.
      - mbfg 4y ago
        I suspect california winters are far more moderate than swedens.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        What happened that was bad in Sweden, was it the record electricity exports? > Sweden sent 33 terawatt-hours to other nations in 2022, making it the No. 1 exporter for the first time, according to Entso-E data analyzed by Rystad Energy AS.
        BurningFrog 4y ago
        Sweden exported when they had extra electricity. In December they had much less than they needed, because some plants needed maintenance, the wind wasn't blowing, and the sun was down. Not sure if any actual blackouts happened, but electricity prices went insanely expensive to drive down demand. There is now a big political issue about how to compensate people ruined by their electricity bills. They had built a system with very little backup capacity. When a few components stopped producing, there was nothing to replace them. California has similar episodes, as do other parts of the US. I'm unconvinced anyone is making sure the system works under stress. https://www.thelocal.se/tag/energy/ https://www.thelocal.se/tag/energy/
  - _ea1k 4y ago
    I hear this a lot as some sort of criticism of solar & wind, but tbh, it isn't that different from coal, natural gas, and other addressable generation. A major cost component is the reality that we have to build for the worst case. And worst case consumption is dramatically higher than the moderate case. I'd like to see the deep engineering analysis on the cost differences over 30 years with varying degrees of renewables in the mix.
    - BurningFrog 4y ago
      Solar & wind do have more inherent variability. With fossil & nuclear power, an individual power plant can go offline for some technical issue, but they fail independently of each. Solar & wind production is correlated to the weather of the region. If there is no wind, all wind power production is affected. Solar has similar dependencies. This is all fine if you retain backup fossil or nuclear power, or built transmission lines or batteries. That's unfortunately not how the politics always work.
      - _ea1k 4y ago
        > This is all fine if you retain backup fossil or nuclear power, or built transmission lines or batteries. That's unfortunately not how the politics always work. My statements were made with reasonable assumptions about sanity in policy decisions. You are correct that those aren't always reasonable assumptions. :) In my area, it isn't unusual to see relatively small utility solar on vacant land next to substations. Its cheap to build, transmission lines are low cost due to small distances, the land wasn't being used anyway, and its basically just demand reduction from a grid pov. I suspect that economics change when they start putting huge installs 100 miles from anything in a desert, but I don't live in California.
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        There are several hundred GW worth of methane emitted from organic sources that need to be collected. Burning it reduces its net GWP to zero. Gas peakers cost a pittance to build or idle. There is also 500GW of existing hydro. There will also be large stores of hydrogen derivatives like ammonia because electrolysers can be used as seasonal arbitrage for easily stored intermediates. The only people who claim it is a problem are pro fossil fuel and pro nuclear reactionaries and shills.
hef19898 4y ago
So no wind at night?
pydry 4y ago
https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g... "A near 100 per cent renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage"
- lm28469 4y ago
  In Australia*
abetusk 4y ago
https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
danny_codes 4y ago
There are plenty of energy storage options. I don't know how much they increase cost, but there really is no need for old tech like coal/gas
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
From the report: > Replacing coal plants with local wind and solar would also save enough to finance nearly 150 gigawatts of four-hour battery storage, over 60 percent of the coal fleet’s capacity,
- oconnore 4y ago
  4 hours is sometimes not enough. I think that we can build a clean grid, but I think: 1) it is orders of magnitude easier if we include nuclear, and 2) even with a nuclear baseline we will need to build up caches of supplemental longer term storage options such as synthetic fuels. The added resiliency is worth the reduced efficiency.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Nuclear has the same cost issues as coal. Whatever reasonable figure you put on it, it would be better spent on renewables and batteries.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Nuclear is about the same price as very simple LiIon, and LiIon is one of the more expensive options that regularly gets brought up. Nuclear also comes with a lot of geopolitical concerns, because it's not just "us good guys" who need a working power supply, but also "that rogue state, $insert_country_here". For example, Israel and the Begin Doctrine w.r.t. Syria, Iran, and Iraq. We could also solve the same problem for reasonable $-cost with a really big HVDC line around the planet, with the same criticism: geopolitics is hard, yo.
    - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
      > Nuclear is about the same price as very simple LiIon... For what time frame? That is, I can build an X Megawatt nuclear plant, and I can get X megawatts out of it hour after hour, day after day. But if I build LiIon, that's storage - a stock, not a flow. I can build X Megawatts for an hour, but if I need two hours, I have to double the storage.

Yes, and they don't produce at night so you need to keep those coal/gas plants.

widdershins 4y ago

Wind operates at night, often producing more than it does in the day.

BurningFrog 4y ago
And sometimes not. You really can't have a 95% available electricity system and call it "close enough".
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Sure you can, you just need some diversification and some storage. Power demand tends to be lower at night, too.
  - strictnein 4y ago
    Until we're all charging our cars overnight.
    - _ea1k 4y ago
      Its expected that the "off peak" might eventually shift to daytime hours in solar heavy areas. That isn't necessarily a bad thing.
      - strictnein 4y ago
        Off peak in the day in solar heavy areas seems like the worst possible outcome. When power is the most readily available, it'll be used the least. When it's the least available, it'll be used the most.
        _ea1k 4y ago
        I'm not sure how that'd be the worst. It'd just mean that we incentivize mostly addressible loads (eg, car charging) to be done during the afternoon instead of at night. And as others have pointed out, we already have high loads in those hours anyway during the summer.
        BizarroLand 4y ago
        During the day is when most power is used. AC is a significant energy hog.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      The chances of wind for an entire electrical grid dropping to zero is slim. My power company already can ask my Nest to reduce usage during times of high demand; I'd fully expect a smart grid scenario eventually where charging is slowed or paused during dips in available power, and prioritized to less-charged vehicles. We're a pretty innovative species; it baffles me that any discussion of renewables quickly trends towards "this issue is insurmountable" style wailing.
      - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
        Except 2021, where whole Europe had low winds for almost a year. But let's ignore that. https://theconversation.com/what-europes-exceptionally-low-winds-mean-for-the-future-energy-grid-170135 https://theconversation.com/what-europes-exceptionally-low-w...
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        > For instance, UK-based power company SSE stated that its renewable assets produced 32% less power than expected. Although this may appear initially alarming, given the UK government’s plans to become a world leader in wind energy, wind farm developers are aware these low wind “events” are possible, and understanding their impact has become a hot topic in energy-meteorology research. > So should we be worried about this period of low wind? In short, no.
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        And in 2022. But that didn't stop wind and solar from picking up 5/6ths of the shortfall from hydro, nuclear, and gas. It's unfortunate that coal picked up the last 6th. Pity money was spent on building gas and nuclear instead of wind and solar.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Why would we be charging them at night if we have PV everywhere? Only makes sense to do that at night when you're overproducing at night and thus making it cheaper then. PV everywhere reversed that, making it cheapest to charge during the day.
      - strictnein 4y ago
        Not sure what the location of solar panels has to do with charging cars, to be honest. The point is that people will mainly charge their cars at their homes in the evening, when solar power is low/non-existent. You're not charging them during the day because you're using them.
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        60kWh of battery per car: Inevitable Someone wanting to charge with 2c/kWh power during the day rather than 20c/kWh at night: Inconceivable! 70kWh of battery per car with 10kWh at the solar panels: Impossible! A 20A AC extension cord at work: Inconceivable!
        strictnein 4y ago
        Yes, I clearly claimed all of those things. Being snarky isn't the same as being clever, but I'm sure you've convinced yourself otherwise.
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        And repeating tired lies is much less clever than pointing out the implied impossibilities, but I'm sure you've convinced yourself otherwise.
        ben_w 4y ago
        > Not sure what the location of solar panels has to do with charging cars, to be honest. > You're not charging them during the day because you're using them. "Everywhere" includes "on the cars" (covering 80% of mean usage because most people aren't commercial drivers) and "car parks" (because even commercial drivers take breaks, or at least that's my understanding of the law in various places).
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    With "some diversification and some storage" you can have 100% availability, sure. For some value of "some". But you actually have to build for the worst cases, and include the costs in your calculations. Sweden did not, and had a disastrous electricity winter. I expect California to be even less competent. For context, I'm a Swede emigrated to California.
    - mbfg 4y ago
      I suspect california winters are far more moderate than swedens.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      What happened that was bad in Sweden, was it the record electricity exports? > Sweden sent 33 terawatt-hours to other nations in 2022, making it the No. 1 exporter for the first time, according to Entso-E data analyzed by Rystad Energy AS.
      - BurningFrog 4y ago
        Sweden exported when they had extra electricity. In December they had much less than they needed, because some plants needed maintenance, the wind wasn't blowing, and the sun was down. Not sure if any actual blackouts happened, but electricity prices went insanely expensive to drive down demand. There is now a big political issue about how to compensate people ruined by their electricity bills. They had built a system with very little backup capacity. When a few components stopped producing, there was nothing to replace them. California has similar episodes, as do other parts of the US. I'm unconvinced anyone is making sure the system works under stress. https://www.thelocal.se/tag/energy/ https://www.thelocal.se/tag/energy/
- _ea1k 4y ago
  I hear this a lot as some sort of criticism of solar & wind, but tbh, it isn't that different from coal, natural gas, and other addressable generation. A major cost component is the reality that we have to build for the worst case. And worst case consumption is dramatically higher than the moderate case. I'd like to see the deep engineering analysis on the cost differences over 30 years with varying degrees of renewables in the mix.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    Solar & wind do have more inherent variability. With fossil & nuclear power, an individual power plant can go offline for some technical issue, but they fail independently of each. Solar & wind production is correlated to the weather of the region. If there is no wind, all wind power production is affected. Solar has similar dependencies. This is all fine if you retain backup fossil or nuclear power, or built transmission lines or batteries. That's unfortunately not how the politics always work.
    - _ea1k 4y ago
      > This is all fine if you retain backup fossil or nuclear power, or built transmission lines or batteries. That's unfortunately not how the politics always work. My statements were made with reasonable assumptions about sanity in policy decisions. You are correct that those aren't always reasonable assumptions. :) In my area, it isn't unusual to see relatively small utility solar on vacant land next to substations. Its cheap to build, transmission lines are low cost due to small distances, the land wasn't being used anyway, and its basically just demand reduction from a grid pov. I suspect that economics change when they start putting huge installs 100 miles from anything in a desert, but I don't live in California.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      There are several hundred GW worth of methane emitted from organic sources that need to be collected. Burning it reduces its net GWP to zero. Gas peakers cost a pittance to build or idle. There is also 500GW of existing hydro. There will also be large stores of hydrogen derivatives like ammonia because electrolysers can be used as seasonal arbitrage for easily stored intermediates. The only people who claim it is a problem are pro fossil fuel and pro nuclear reactionaries and shills.

hef19898 4y ago

So no wind at night?

pydry 4y ago

https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g... "A near 100 per cent renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage"

lm28469 4y ago
In Australia*

abetusk 4y ago

https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline

danny_codes 4y ago

There are plenty of energy storage options. I don't know how much they increase cost, but there really is no need for old tech like coal/gas

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

From the report: > Replacing coal plants with local wind and solar would also save enough to finance nearly 150 gigawatts of four-hour battery storage, over 60 percent of the coal fleet’s capacity,

oconnore 4y ago
4 hours is sometimes not enough. I think that we can build a clean grid, but I think: 1) it is orders of magnitude easier if we include nuclear, and 2) even with a nuclear baseline we will need to build up caches of supplemental longer term storage options such as synthetic fuels. The added resiliency is worth the reduced efficiency.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Nuclear has the same cost issues as coal. Whatever reasonable figure you put on it, it would be better spent on renewables and batteries.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Nuclear is about the same price as very simple LiIon, and LiIon is one of the more expensive options that regularly gets brought up. Nuclear also comes with a lot of geopolitical concerns, because it's not just "us good guys" who need a working power supply, but also "that rogue state, $insert_country_here". For example, Israel and the Begin Doctrine w.r.t. Syria, Iran, and Iraq. We could also solve the same problem for reasonable $-cost with a really big HVDC line around the planet, with the same criticism: geopolitics is hard, yo.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    > Nuclear is about the same price as very simple LiIon... For what time frame? That is, I can build an X Megawatt nuclear plant, and I can get X megawatts out of it hour after hour, day after day. But if I build LiIon, that's storage - a stock, not a flow. I can build X Megawatts for an hour, but if I need two hours, I have to double the storage.