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Nope. The only "cost-competitive" solar+storage installations I've seen lack sufficient storage to maintain their advertised overnight--even after a perfect, su
by 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 agoBut 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 agoWeather 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 agoAt a grid scale you don't have to do everything all at once. Overprovisioning takes time, as does interconnection and storage.