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There are two key points of excess that comes from Solar now being the cheapest source of KWH. 1) The duck curve gets flattened to zero during the sunny days a

There are two key points of excess that comes from Solar now being the cheapest source of KWH. 1) The duck curve gets flattened to zero during the sunny days and there is excess power at that moment that no one can use. This can go into a variety of uses like hydrolysis or maybe a CO2 capture of the future. At the moment the only thing being deployed for this is storage for later release that day. 2) Solar exceeds what the grid can actually distribute. This can't be utilised as well by big centralised installations and will push towards somewhere to dump the excess power through the summer locally. Some companies are trying to turn the CO2 in the air and power into fuel for home installations and this might make homes quite a lot more independent with their own generators and fuel creation. Not a lot of solutions yet on how to utilise this power. Other than storage of power for later use that day/week there isn't a whole lot of competition to try and use these periods of excess better. Its an area rife with business opportunities especially ones that can store the energy long term for a home once we hit scenario 2.

BobbyTables2 2y ago
Ironically, it almost sounds as if total energy consumption may increase due to cheap solar… Definitely good to not be using fossil fuels but there must also be a later point at which marginal increases in energy consumption have negative effects.
- pests 2y ago
  What would the risk be other than changing the distribution of heat around the planet? The solar power would have heated up the area locally had it not been captured by the panel. This makes the local temp lower while raising the temp at the point the power is used.
  - cowsandmilk 2y ago
    White roofs reflect the sun’s energy back to the atmosphere. It isn’t a given that it will be absorbed.
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    Solar panels have a pretty low albedo compared to most surfaces: they will contribute to warming of the planet to some degree because less light gets reflected back into space. It's just much, much less than the warming from fossil fuels for the same amount of energy.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  The roughly 4x efficiency gains in using electricity for heating and replacing engines means energy is likely to go down over the next decades even while electricity use might double.

BobbyTables2 2y ago

Ironically, it almost sounds as if total energy consumption may increase due to cheap solar… Definitely good to not be using fossil fuels but there must also be a later point at which marginal increases in energy consumption have negative effects.

pests 2y ago
What would the risk be other than changing the distribution of heat around the planet? The solar power would have heated up the area locally had it not been captured by the panel. This makes the local temp lower while raising the temp at the point the power is used.
- cowsandmilk 2y ago
  White roofs reflect the sun’s energy back to the atmosphere. It isn’t a given that it will be absorbed.
- rcxdude 2y ago
  Solar panels have a pretty low albedo compared to most surfaces: they will contribute to warming of the planet to some degree because less light gets reflected back into space. It's just much, much less than the warming from fossil fuels for the same amount of energy.
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
The roughly 4x efficiency gains in using electricity for heating and replacing engines means energy is likely to go down over the next decades even while electricity use might double.