4 ms·
That number seems to exclude storage.
by toenail 2y ago
That number seems to exclude storage.
- bee_rider 2y agoStorage requirements are workload dependent. If your load can be deferred, you don’t need batteries.
- brink 2y agoBut generally, you need batteries.
- more_corn 2y agoYou can generate daytime peak base load without batteries. Then you compare the cost of a gas peaker plant to the cost of a battery and make your decision off that.
- toenail 2y agoIs there any workload that can be deferred at will, without harming businesses or people?
- bastawhiz 2y agoIt depends on what you mean by "harming". But to answer your question, yeah, most of them. I've been preparing my home to switch to time of use energy pricing, where power is less expensive at night when there's lower demand. It's pretty painless to put things on timers or set schedules in configuration. The trivial cost of setting this up will pay for itself within about two months. Deferring workloads for when it's sunny is almost the exact opposite: using more power during the day rather than at night. That's probably better for most consumers, since people tend to use more power when they're awake by default.
- bee_rider 2y agoWe can definitely defer our air conditioners for times when it is sunny, haha.
- bastawhiz 2y agoThat's one thing that's maybe an inconvenience for me now! I'll have to run my heat pumps in the early morning to lower (or raise) the temperature of the house before the cost of power goes up. Though maybe also more efficient in the summer, since I suspect it's less energy intensive to cool the house when it's cooler outside.
- megaman821 2y agoBitcoin mining can, with little notice and any time of day. Solar is pretty predictable and there are a lot of workloads that can follow solar output. Vehicle charging, water heating, water chilling/freezing, and industrial heat batteries. Depending on the capital cost of the plant, desalination and hydrogen splitting make sense too.
- bee_rider 2y agoI don’t like Bitcoins, they seem like a ridiculous way of burning extra electricity. That said, because they can consume energy on tap, they do seem like a funny way of providing a return on extra renewable energy, promoting the over-building of renewables, which would mean that we have to turn on the wasteful peaking generators less often. Have to give them credit here.
- otherme123 2y agoFor example water heating can be done and stored for 12 hours. In some houses, this is the main energy consumption for a family. The night hours are tipically cheaper due to low demand, so water heaters are programmed to work at night. But if solar panels are the energy source, you can move the heating to the middle of the day. Same goes to electric cars, but in that case there are batteries storing, so I'm not sure it counts.
- bee_rider 2y agoWhat do you mean by harm? Appliances could be made smarter—think fridges, water heaters, pool pumps, air conditioners, dishwashers—the grid just needs to communicate price info, and the electricity needs to be priced in line with production capacity. It would be extremely easy but there’s no incentive to do it. I mean, flip it around. Those of us who can plan ahead are being harmed by the fact that we’re paying for a system that caters to those who can’t.
- pfdietz 2y agoHeating and/or cooling can be shifted by hours, depending on the thermal time constant of the building. The better the insulation, the longer it can be shifted. Texas had a problem because so many older buildings there are very poorly insulated. Thermal energy in general is very cheap to store. This is also true industrially, where thermal storage has long been used for regenerative recovery of waste heat, for example in various places in steelmaking. Thermal storage of heat derived from electrical power is now being proposed as a way to soak up zero or negative price electricity. There's a company based on work at MIT that's doing this, using moderately electrically conductive refractory ceramic bricks as combined storage and heating elements.
- MisterBastahrd 2y agoThat might be true, but in places like North Texas where multiday blackouts are becoming common during the winter, it might make sense to invest in storage if you have the option. Not going to help much with heating, but at least your fridge / freezer can stay running.
- hcurtiss 2y agoIs that true? Places in America with multi-day blackouts common? That’s nuts!
- otherme123 2y agoFor what I read about Texas, the root if the problem is that they opted to disconnect from the interstate grid, IIRC to avoid Federal regulations. If anything goes bad, they can't lean on neighbor states to provide, so they blackout.
- delecti 2y agoAnd additionally, things are more likely to go bad, precisely because there are fewer regulations that would otherwise lead to stability.
- more_corn 2y agoI’m not sure if Texas qualifies, but yes. When it gets too hot or too cold the Texas grid tends to fall over. Mostly because Texas aggressively deregulated their power grid allowing producers to cheap out of weatherization. If you live in Texas rooftop solar and a battery are highly recommended.
- publicsavant 2y agoIt isn't. Ercot keeps records, or you can check the outages section of wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection .
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- asoneth 2y agoTrue, a few workloads can be time-shifted (like filtering your pool) but the majority of grid load is at least somewhat time-dependent. Some loads are slightly time-dependent because you can shift them with minor inconvenience such as pre-cooling your home or refrigerator (using it as a thermal battery) or scheduling when your car charges (using its battery as a battery). Others are entirely time-dependent. Waiting until it's sunny to process an online order, take MRI images, run an assembly line, or use your TV to watch a sporting game incurs substantial additional cost and/or inconvenience.
- bee_rider 2y agoI don’t think we really know what percentage of loads are time-dependent because we mostly don’t have demand response pricing in the US. A hospital probably needs a backup battery (or a guaranteed slice of the grid’s battery capacity). Everything which could be shifted with minor inconvenience—we don’t have any incentive to try and automate that inconvenience away, so who knows? Perhaps we could see a resurgence in more efficient designs, like chest freezers.
- asoneth 2y ago> we mostly don’t have demand response pricing in the US What makes you say that? Do you know of a region that does not have DR (demand response) options? Every US utility I am aware of has had DR programs for commercial and industrial customers for many years. Back when I worked in electricity markets a decade ago only a few had DR programs for residential customers but since then many have added residential DR or have started pilots as they upgrade their residential infrastructure. TVP (time-variable pricing) is also very common, though moreso with commercial/industrial customers. I'm honestly not sure how many residential customers have the option to pick a provider with TVP/TOU pricing. Some crazy ISOs (looking at you ERCOT) even allow residential customers to pay rates pegged to RTP (real-time pricing) which is gloriously insane and very Texas. > A hospital probably needs a backup battery (or a guaranteed slice of the grid’s battery capacity). Yes. Hospitals often have special utility contracts and get priority when there are brownouts or blackouts. (One benefit of living next to a hospital is that you'll get power back more quickly after a blackout!) But most hospitals still have backup generators, and special circuits so that they only need to power critical equipment. > we don’t have any incentive to try and automate that inconvenience away, so who knows? Perhaps we could see a resurgence in more efficient designs, like chest freezers. This is already very common with commercial/industrial customers, but hopefully you're right that as residential customers get more exposure to things like dynamic pricing and home solar generation that more of them will alter their behavior and appliances.
- declan_roberts 2y agoYou should tell that to California which has such an excess glut of solar during the sunniest part of the day that they're sometimes _paying_ to export their energy.
- Herz 2y agoWhile the idea of deferring load to eliminate the need for batteries might seem straightforward, it raises significant practical challenges. Forcing billions of people and businesses to change their consumption habits is not only unrealistic but also fraught with potential issues. Consider the global perspective. In developing countries, where resources and infrastructure are already limited, expecting such flexibility is impractical. These regions often lack the luxury of choice and are more vulnerable to disruptions. Moreover, the goal of decarbonization isn't just about ideological preferences for renewable energy. It requires a pragmatic approach that incorporates a mix of technologies: solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, batteries, and more. Each technology has its strengths and plays a crucial role in the overall strategy. Cherry-picking preferred technologies without considering the broader context can delay our progress by decades. To effectively combat climate change, we need to embrace a comprehensive and inclusive approach that leverages all available solutions.
- bee_rider 2y ago> While the idea of deferring load to eliminate the need for batteries might seem straightforward, it raises significant practical challenges. This is pretty vague. Practical challenges such as? > Forcing billions of people and businesses to change their consumption habits is not only unrealistic but also fraught with potential issues. Potential issues such as? > Consider the global perspective. In developing countries, where resources and infrastructure are already limited, expecting such flexibility is impractical. These regions often lack the luxury of choice and are more vulnerable to disruptions. I’m under the impression that brownouts or blackouts are a little more common in developing countries, so if we’re going to have to deal with intermittent supplies we probably should be asking them for advice. I think we’d have to look, probably case-by-case, at what the issues are in less electrified areas, to see how renewables and load shifting would affect things. If the grid is less robust and parts become disconnected from time to time, then renewables are great, because they tend to be more disperse. If there are times where there isn’t enough generation capacity (not enough power plants or fuel) then great, whatever communication scheme is used to communicate information about renewables can also be used for fossil fuel. > Moreover, the goal of decarbonization isn't just about ideological preferences for renewable energy. It requires a pragmatic approach that incorporates a mix of technologies: solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, batteries, and more. Each technology has its strengths and plays a crucial role in the overall strategy. This is true. But I don’t really see any ideology in the idea of load shifting though. It is actually a practical answer. Renewable generation capacity that isn’t backed by batteries is always cheaper than that which is, unless batteries somehow become free. So, the pragmatic answer is to combine the two. Batteries are a cost, strategies to avoid them should be taken. That doesn’t mean 0 energy storage, though. > Cherry-picking preferred technologies without considering the broader context can delay our progress by decades. To effectively combat climate change, we need to embrace a comprehensive and inclusive approach that leverages all available solutions. Accounting for the price of batteries is often brought up as an argument against renewables. We should implement dynamic pricing now. It could even provide a market incentive to build more batteries. There’s no cherry picking here. Load shifting goes in the basket of solutions.
- danaris 2y agoYes, but it's also right now. Solar costs are still decreasing. And fossil fuel costs still do not price in the catastrophic side effects of using them.