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The article says we still need better battery technology, and there's truth to that. But even without batteries, just providing power on days when air conditio

by brlewis 15y ago

The article says we still need better battery technology, and there's truth to that. But even without batteries, just providing power on days when air conditioners run continuously, solar could make a huge difference in the energy picture.

ck2 15y ago
And using electric cars for battery storage too for excess power generation. Just imagine the world if it was 10 cents per watt instead of $1 a watt for solar. I hope I live long enough to see it. Dare we dream 1 cent per watt, just like what has happened with CPU development in the past three decades? Could we have 1 cent per watt solar in 30 years? 50 years? 100?
- saalweachter 15y ago
  If current trends[1] continue, it will take about 15-25 years for solar energy to become cheaper than fossil fuels, which seems like a reasonable length of time for a trend to continue. To get the installation cost down from an estimated $1.40 in 2020 to $0.10 and $0.01 with the same trend would take 30-50 and 60-100 years, respectively. 70-110 years is definitely further in the future than I am comfortable peering; 40-60, also a little shaky. But given current trends, it looks like 2050-2070 is roughly what you need to shoot for to live to see $0.10 / Watt solar energy. If you were born in America after 1976, I'd aim for 2076; it'd be nice to see the Tricentennial. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-05/solar-energy-costs-may-already-rival-coal-spurring-installation-boom.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-05/solar-energy-costs-...
  - ck2 15y ago
    Sadly no way to see tricentennial unless there is a leap in not only medical technology but the politics and cost of it in the USA. Here's hoping for 10 cents in 30 years. ps. Isn't it $1.40 right now in 2012? Or are you calculating for off-grid with batteries instead of grid-tie?
  - p0ckets 15y ago
    The price of fossil fuels could also go up. We are starting to shift production from conventional drilling to more expensive methods like tar sands.
  - ars 15y ago
    > it will take about 15-25 years for solar energy to become cheaper than fossil fuels You neglected to account for the change in price of fossil fuels. Natural gas is extremely cheap right now and is expected to only get cheaper.
saalweachter 15y ago
Or only burning coal at night. Once solar is significantly cheaper than coal and demand pricing kicks in, a lot of time-shifting of energy use could occur. Right now, night-time electricity is cheaper because demand is lower at night, but if the supply of daylight electricity increases dramatically, any activity which currently benefits from cheap nighttime electricity could be shifted back to the daylight hours. Data centers currently consume something like 2% of electricity -- it is probably possible to shift at least some of that to bright, sunny days. It may stop being cost-effective to run night shifts at factories, especially if your manufacturing process is energy-intensive. We might end up charging our electric cars at our offices during the day instead of over night at our homes. It'd be pretty silly to fill a battery with solar electricity during the day just to transfer it to another battery at night. Even without batteries, solar energy could still pick up a lot of our current nighttime energy usage because a lot of our nighttime energy usage doesn't actually have to be at night.
- rmc 15y ago
  I'm now thinking of amazon EC2's 'spot instances' where you launch an instance, do some computation then shut down, but only if the price per hour is less than some choosen point. (Basically a stock market for computation). If solar took off, i can see a correlation between price per hour and sunny days, as more machines are turned on when it's cheaper to run, hence increasing supply, and decreasing price. :P
  - count 15y ago
    This already happens, both at the energy generation level (power companies broker energy futures (excess supply/demand) between each other - see Enron for more) and at the energy consumer level (big businesses like refineries and foundries and the like pay less for electricity pulled in off-peak hours).
- polshaw 15y ago
  To be clear-- the reason energy is cheap at night is not JUST because it is used less-- it is also because there are certain continuous energy sources. Nuclear power, geothermal, tidal, wave and wind power are all producing energy round the clock and if you don't harvest it, it's lost. We are not heading towards a world where we have a single power source (solar), and most of our power uses cannot be rescheduled. As fossil fuels are one of the few sources which can be turned on and off at our choosing, I would expect they will function to fill in temporary gaps between supply and demand once renewables capacity is large enough to take the average load. I don't see these gaps occurring predominantly at night.

by brlewis 15y ago

ck2 15y ago

And using electric cars for battery storage too for excess power generation. Just imagine the world if it was 10 cents per watt instead of $1 a watt for solar. I hope I live long enough to see it. Dare we dream 1 cent per watt, just like what has happened with CPU development in the past three decades? Could we have 1 cent per watt solar in 30 years? 50 years? 100?

saalweachter 15y ago
If current trends[1] continue, it will take about 15-25 years for solar energy to become cheaper than fossil fuels, which seems like a reasonable length of time for a trend to continue. To get the installation cost down from an estimated $1.40 in 2020 to $0.10 and $0.01 with the same trend would take 30-50 and 60-100 years, respectively. 70-110 years is definitely further in the future than I am comfortable peering; 40-60, also a little shaky. But given current trends, it looks like 2050-2070 is roughly what you need to shoot for to live to see $0.10 / Watt solar energy. If you were born in America after 1976, I'd aim for 2076; it'd be nice to see the Tricentennial. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-05/solar-energy-costs-may-already-rival-coal-spurring-installation-boom.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-05/solar-energy-costs-...
- ck2 15y ago
  Sadly no way to see tricentennial unless there is a leap in not only medical technology but the politics and cost of it in the USA. Here's hoping for 10 cents in 30 years. ps. Isn't it $1.40 right now in 2012? Or are you calculating for off-grid with batteries instead of grid-tie?
- p0ckets 15y ago
  The price of fossil fuels could also go up. We are starting to shift production from conventional drilling to more expensive methods like tar sands.
- ars 15y ago
  > it will take about 15-25 years for solar energy to become cheaper than fossil fuels You neglected to account for the change in price of fossil fuels. Natural gas is extremely cheap right now and is expected to only get cheaper.

saalweachter 15y ago

Or only burning coal at night. Once solar is significantly cheaper than coal and demand pricing kicks in, a lot of time-shifting of energy use could occur. Right now, night-time electricity is cheaper because demand is lower at night, but if the supply of daylight electricity increases dramatically, any activity which currently benefits from cheap nighttime electricity could be shifted back to the daylight hours. Data centers currently consume something like 2% of electricity -- it is probably possible to shift at least some of that to bright, sunny days. It may stop being cost-effective to run night shifts at factories, especially if your manufacturing process is energy-intensive. We might end up charging our electric cars at our offices during the day instead of over night at our homes. It'd be pretty silly to fill a battery with solar electricity during the day just to transfer it to another battery at night. Even without batteries, solar energy could still pick up a lot of our current nighttime energy usage because a lot of our nighttime energy usage doesn't actually have to be at night.

rmc 15y ago
I'm now thinking of amazon EC2's 'spot instances' where you launch an instance, do some computation then shut down, but only if the price per hour is less than some choosen point. (Basically a stock market for computation). If solar took off, i can see a correlation between price per hour and sunny days, as more machines are turned on when it's cheaper to run, hence increasing supply, and decreasing price. :P
- count 15y ago
  This already happens, both at the energy generation level (power companies broker energy futures (excess supply/demand) between each other - see Enron for more) and at the energy consumer level (big businesses like refineries and foundries and the like pay less for electricity pulled in off-peak hours).
polshaw 15y ago
To be clear-- the reason energy is cheap at night is not JUST because it is used less-- it is also because there are certain continuous energy sources. Nuclear power, geothermal, tidal, wave and wind power are all producing energy round the clock and if you don't harvest it, it's lost. We are not heading towards a world where we have a single power source (solar), and most of our power uses cannot be rescheduled. As fossil fuels are one of the few sources which can be turned on and off at our choosing, I would expect they will function to fill in temporary gaps between supply and demand once renewables capacity is large enough to take the average load. I don't see these gaps occurring predominantly at night.