4 ms·

Solar is beginning to sunset natural gas use in Texas

23 points by philipkglass 3y ago

aegypti 3y ago
Please note this is utility scale solar, not random homeowners adding panels to their roofs. These are ~~fossil fuel~~ energy companies investing in and operating these installations. And it’s working!
- toddmorey 3y ago
  Yes we looked at panels for our home but I believe community (off site) solar is the way to go. You essentially buy panels as part of a large farm and the energy they produce is subtracted from your utility bill. No maintenance, no worry about roof angles or which way your house faces. Usually the investment is financed but you still come out ahead each month. Of course need to have a local program and participating power company.
- zaphod12 3y ago
  That's what is so frustrating about people who oppose renewables - it's super simple capitalism at work. Once prices came down enough, why would you want to have to PAY for the fuel your power plant uses?! Install it and let it go! This is also what's killed coal so effectively - why would any company want to provide all of those good paying jobs when they just don't have to! (this pertains to NG and other fuels, too - they are just so much less human intensive to extract once the infrastructure is established)
- throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago
  Residential solar in the US is largely a greenwashing, financialization to exploit homeowners. 99.9% of the time, there is no battery or inverter in these systems and they lack 2/3-way ATCs and instead fail completely without grid power "for safety". Commercial-scale solar is an entirely different beast, and Texas is crushing it post-snowpocalypse, without much thanks to ERCOT. [0] 0. Similarly-timed press-release with a picture of a large deployment: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/utility-scale/texas-solar-surpasses-coal-production-for-first-time/ https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/utility-scale/tex...
  - cyclotron3k 3y ago
    Any idea why rooftop solar hasn't taken off? In Australia it's going gang busters and contributes about 2x the energy of our grid-scale solar.
mcbishop 3y ago
> EIA expects 13 GW of battery storage capacity to be added between the time of this report and 2025. That's like 20 power plants worth of instantly available power. This makes paired PV truly dispatchable. Wow.
- theamk 3y ago
  This is a power, not capacity though. Real power plants could produce that many GWs continiously, but battery storage can only do for a limited time. I could not find GWh figures for that particular install, but other grid-scale battery storage systems only has 1-2 hours of capacity, a far cry from real power plants.
  - bastawhiz 3y ago
    > other grid-scale battery storage systems only has 1-2 hours of capacity, a far cry from real power plants There's no need for these batteries to release all of their charge at max power, though. For one, the nonrenewable power sources they're helping to replace aren't simply going away entirely. But they also only need to discharge when renewables aren't producing. The charts near the top of the article show that wind power still heavily outstrips solar in terms of capacity. What matters is that battery capacity continues to keep pace with solar such that an excess of power when it's bright out can be stored until when it's needed.
    - theamk 3y ago
      Sure, it's just that citing the batteries max power seems very misleading. This article mentions: "13 GW of battery storage capacity [...] 3 GW of natural gas additions" - so one might think that solar + battery is can power more houses than gas. And in reality, that's not the case at all. 3GW of natural gas can power (approximately) 2.5 million houses continuously. How many houses can 13 GW of battery (+ whatever amount of solar to charge them fully every day) can power? Probably way less than that, given that even in the summer, there are at least 12 hours every day when solar panels don't produce enough power.
m463 3y ago
I wonder how much progress will happen in states with cold dark winters. I've just sort of noticed heat pumps are becoming more widespread. Can they help there?

23 points by philipkglass 3y ago

Please note this is utility scale solar, not random homeowners adding panels to their roofs. These are ~~fossil fuel~~ energy companies investing in and operating these installations. And it’s working!

toddmorey 3y ago
Yes we looked at panels for our home but I believe community (off site) solar is the way to go. You essentially buy panels as part of a large farm and the energy they produce is subtracted from your utility bill. No maintenance, no worry about roof angles or which way your house faces. Usually the investment is financed but you still come out ahead each month. Of course need to have a local program and participating power company.
zaphod12 3y ago
That's what is so frustrating about people who oppose renewables - it's super simple capitalism at work. Once prices came down enough, why would you want to have to PAY for the fuel your power plant uses?! Install it and let it go! This is also what's killed coal so effectively - why would any company want to provide all of those good paying jobs when they just don't have to! (this pertains to NG and other fuels, too - they are just so much less human intensive to extract once the infrastructure is established)
throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago
Residential solar in the US is largely a greenwashing, financialization to exploit homeowners. 99.9% of the time, there is no battery or inverter in these systems and they lack 2/3-way ATCs and instead fail completely without grid power "for safety". Commercial-scale solar is an entirely different beast, and Texas is crushing it post-snowpocalypse, without much thanks to ERCOT. [0] 0. Similarly-timed press-release with a picture of a large deployment: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/utility-scale/texas-solar-surpasses-coal-production-for-first-time/ https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/utility-scale/tex...
- cyclotron3k 3y ago
  Any idea why rooftop solar hasn't taken off? In Australia it's going gang busters and contributes about 2x the energy of our grid-scale solar.

mcbishop 3y ago

> EIA expects 13 GW of battery storage capacity to be added between the time of this report and 2025. That's like 20 power plants worth of instantly available power. This makes paired PV truly dispatchable. Wow.

theamk 3y ago
This is a power, not capacity though. Real power plants could produce that many GWs continiously, but battery storage can only do for a limited time. I could not find GWh figures for that particular install, but other grid-scale battery storage systems only has 1-2 hours of capacity, a far cry from real power plants.
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  > other grid-scale battery storage systems only has 1-2 hours of capacity, a far cry from real power plants There's no need for these batteries to release all of their charge at max power, though. For one, the nonrenewable power sources they're helping to replace aren't simply going away entirely. But they also only need to discharge when renewables aren't producing. The charts near the top of the article show that wind power still heavily outstrips solar in terms of capacity. What matters is that battery capacity continues to keep pace with solar such that an excess of power when it's bright out can be stored until when it's needed.
  - theamk 3y ago
    Sure, it's just that citing the batteries max power seems very misleading. This article mentions: "13 GW of battery storage capacity [...] 3 GW of natural gas additions" - so one might think that solar + battery is can power more houses than gas. And in reality, that's not the case at all. 3GW of natural gas can power (approximately) 2.5 million houses continuously. How many houses can 13 GW of battery (+ whatever amount of solar to charge them fully every day) can power? Probably way less than that, given that even in the summer, there are at least 12 hours every day when solar panels don't produce enough power.

m463 3y ago

I wonder how much progress will happen in states with cold dark winters. I've just sort of noticed heat pumps are becoming more widespread. Can they help there?