4 ms·

Does that price include enough storage to heat the entire Twin Cities area (~4M people) for six continuous weeks of average -20C weather with overcast skies, wh

Does that price include enough storage to heat the entire Twin Cities area (~4M people) for six continuous weeks of average -20C weather with overcast skies, where power failure means widespread death and property damage (broken pipes)? It might do, I don't know, but I'm skeptical. That's a lot of power! My gut feeling is a baseload solution is better for that kind of situation, though what I'm really advocating for is for every option to be on the table for the real experts (not me!) to decide.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
Pump water uphill on sunny & windy days. One thing that MN doesn't lack is water.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  During the long winter season, that water is largely in solid form, making it less useful for hydro-battery use.
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    Hydro plants in cold regions usually have an "ice laying" period where they reduce the output to form a thick layer of ice at their desired level to enable the flow they need and prevent ice-slush from entering the turbines. Seems like Minnesota is more lakes, but that same concept should apply, and it is not like they freeze to the bottom each winter.
    - shagie 4y ago
      You've also got a sizable river on the eastern border that extends up into northern Minnesota. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monticello_Nuclear_Generating_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monticello_Nuclear_Generating_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Crosse_Boiling_Water_Reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Crosse_Boiling_Water_Reacto...
- throwuwu 4y ago
  Wtf does six weeks of peak power consumption for a city look like in volume of water? Probably bigger than a city
- convolvatron 4y ago
  bit short on hills though
marcusverus 4y ago
Nope. The only "cost-competitive" solar+storage installations I've seen lack sufficient storage to maintain their advertised overnight--even after a perfect, sunny day! For solar with sufficient storage to handle consecutive cloudy days (when panel production is <30% of max), the cost would be many times higher than natural gas. And solar that can't handle consecutive cloudy days requires redundant backup capacity... which, oddly, is never priced in! In 20 years I think we'll look back on this idea that cheap solar could be the cornerstone of our electricity production as a goofy idea which was about as realistic as the ethanol fuel schemes of the early 2000s.
- 7952 4y ago
  But at a grid scale we don't need a single installation to provide continuous power and it wouldn't necessarily make sense for it to do so. Load is not uniform across the day and other sources may be cheaper at any particular moment.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    Weather patterns can be very large. So essentially all installations in one area will act same way. And we are not really doing any intercontinental grids with large enough capacities to move whole demand. Or overprovisioning in each area so that also other areas can be covered...
    - 7952 4y ago
      At a grid scale you don't have to do everything all at once. Overprovisioning takes time, as does interconnection and storage.
coryrc 4y ago
We need a New Deal-type mobilization to build https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Landing_Solar_Community https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Landing_Solar_Communit... everywhere across the country. Like building the Hoover Dam, it will generate massive amounts of carbon-free energy for a long time and with a relatively short ROI. It's embarrassing parallelizable. We could be off fossil fuels for heating in fifteen years across all homes, saving thousands of dollars a household per year.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  52 entire dwellings on 250 acres? Thanks but no. You would literally need to pave America to make this happen. 50 dwellings on one acre is at the low end of the urban density scale.
  - coryrc 4y ago
    First, that's literally not even close to true about paving. But I meant retrofit all existing housing stock with solar collectors and heat storage, neither of which require much room.
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      It is though. This is a net 5 acres per dwelling, there are only ~300 million arable acres in the USA and there are 200 million households.
      - coryrc 4y ago
        This is a tangent. Only the garage roofs have solar thermal collectors on them. Every existing suburban area in the USA regardless of density has enough building roof volume to fully supply a Drake Landing-type thermal system and eliminate heating inputs. Drake Landing shows it will work even in the exurbs. I would guess it could provide enough heating for low-rise apartments and row houses as they have reduced heat loss compared to SFH to make up for the lower available roof area. They cover the deep bore thermal system with dirt and make it a park. I would expect you could put a building over it too. It literally doesn't need to take up any additional land area, so the fact that Drake Landing is an exurb does not mean the system would only work there. What I haven't read enough about is whether it's limited to a certain geology. I assume it wouldn't work in Florida, but it's not needed there. Back to your tangent, Drake Landing isn't a giant paved area: the vast majority of the area is not paved or building. I also don't know why you're counting only arable acres as they're houses not farms. Since the system only needs a large-garage-roof-sized thermal collector and the average house roof is larger than that (and if the roof is even smaller so is the thermal load) it's completely irrelevant.
sunshinesnacks 4y ago
You might be surprised at the rigor applied in studies like the NREL Standard Scenarios, viewable here: https://scenarioviewer.nrel.gov/ https://scenarioviewer.nrel.gov/. I'm guessing the Twin Cities region doesn't actually see 42 days of overcast skies, but if it does, that can be captured in these studies. And transmission is important - load in the Twin Cities area does not have to be served by generation in that area.

bryanlarsen 4y ago

Pump water uphill on sunny & windy days. One thing that MN doesn't lack is water.

pwinnski 4y ago
During the long winter season, that water is largely in solid form, making it less useful for hydro-battery use.
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  Hydro plants in cold regions usually have an "ice laying" period where they reduce the output to form a thick layer of ice at their desired level to enable the flow they need and prevent ice-slush from entering the turbines. Seems like Minnesota is more lakes, but that same concept should apply, and it is not like they freeze to the bottom each winter.
  - shagie 4y ago
    You've also got a sizable river on the eastern border that extends up into northern Minnesota. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monticello_Nuclear_Generating_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monticello_Nuclear_Generating_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Crosse_Boiling_Water_Reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Crosse_Boiling_Water_Reacto...
throwuwu 4y ago
Wtf does six weeks of peak power consumption for a city look like in volume of water? Probably bigger than a city
convolvatron 4y ago
bit short on hills though

marcusverus 4y ago

Nope. The only "cost-competitive" solar+storage installations I've seen lack sufficient storage to maintain their advertised overnight--even after a perfect, sunny day! For solar with sufficient storage to handle consecutive cloudy days (when panel production is <30% of max), the cost would be many times higher than natural gas. And solar that can't handle consecutive cloudy days requires redundant backup capacity... which, oddly, is never priced in! In 20 years I think we'll look back on this idea that cheap solar could be the cornerstone of our electricity production as a goofy idea which was about as realistic as the ethanol fuel schemes of the early 2000s.

7952 4y ago
But at a grid scale we don't need a single installation to provide continuous power and it wouldn't necessarily make sense for it to do so. Load is not uniform across the day and other sources may be cheaper at any particular moment.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Weather patterns can be very large. So essentially all installations in one area will act same way. And we are not really doing any intercontinental grids with large enough capacities to move whole demand. Or overprovisioning in each area so that also other areas can be covered...
  - 7952 4y ago
    At a grid scale you don't have to do everything all at once. Overprovisioning takes time, as does interconnection and storage.

coryrc 4y ago

We need a New Deal-type mobilization to build https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Landing_Solar_Community https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Landing_Solar_Communit... everywhere across the country. Like building the Hoover Dam, it will generate massive amounts of carbon-free energy for a long time and with a relatively short ROI. It's embarrassing parallelizable. We could be off fossil fuels for heating in fifteen years across all homes, saving thousands of dollars a household per year.

jeffbee 4y ago
52 entire dwellings on 250 acres? Thanks but no. You would literally need to pave America to make this happen. 50 dwellings on one acre is at the low end of the urban density scale.
- coryrc 4y ago
  First, that's literally not even close to true about paving. But I meant retrofit all existing housing stock with solar collectors and heat storage, neither of which require much room.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    It is though. This is a net 5 acres per dwelling, there are only ~300 million arable acres in the USA and there are 200 million households.
    - coryrc 4y ago
      This is a tangent. Only the garage roofs have solar thermal collectors on them. Every existing suburban area in the USA regardless of density has enough building roof volume to fully supply a Drake Landing-type thermal system and eliminate heating inputs. Drake Landing shows it will work even in the exurbs. I would guess it could provide enough heating for low-rise apartments and row houses as they have reduced heat loss compared to SFH to make up for the lower available roof area. They cover the deep bore thermal system with dirt and make it a park. I would expect you could put a building over it too. It literally doesn't need to take up any additional land area, so the fact that Drake Landing is an exurb does not mean the system would only work there. What I haven't read enough about is whether it's limited to a certain geology. I assume it wouldn't work in Florida, but it's not needed there. Back to your tangent, Drake Landing isn't a giant paved area: the vast majority of the area is not paved or building. I also don't know why you're counting only arable acres as they're houses not farms. Since the system only needs a large-garage-roof-sized thermal collector and the average house roof is larger than that (and if the roof is even smaller so is the thermal load) it's completely irrelevant.

sunshinesnacks 4y ago

You might be surprised at the rigor applied in studies like the NREL Standard Scenarios, viewable here: https://scenarioviewer.nrel.gov/ https://scenarioviewer.nrel.gov/. I'm guessing the Twin Cities region doesn't actually see 42 days of overcast skies, but if it does, that can be captured in these studies. And transmission is important - load in the Twin Cities area does not have to be served by generation in that area.