6 ms·

Looking at the graphs, the tracking arrays may have the added benefit of generating power in the mornings and evenings. If everyone builds non-tracking arrays,

Looking at the graphs, the tracking arrays may have the added benefit of generating power in the mornings and evenings. If everyone builds non-tracking arrays, power during peak will become almost worthless if solar is a big part of overall generation capacity, so the economics might change even with panels being cheap. Of course, just building 2x as many permanently tilted panels might also work. Edit: the article actually addresses this: "[fixed setups] can pack 250% more installed power into the same space when compared to a single-axis array" - so even if only the power in the morning/evening has value, there is little reason to install tracking ones.

leoedin 1y ago
Yeah - you can’t talk about renewable energy generation without also considering when it is generated. Then future price of energy will be incredibly time dependent. Finding a way to generate at a different time than everyone else - whether by east/west panels or time shifting with batteries or building a different kind of renewable generation is where all the big profits will be.
- yummypaint 1y ago
  Demand isn't fixed in time either, though. Industrial processes that presently run at night to use cheap power will switch to daytime when it makes sense to do so. Summer mid-day also has the highest electricity demand all year in many places due to air conditioning, so arguably solar is addressing one of the biggest stress points.
  - ericd 1y ago
    Not an expert, but my understanding is that the challenge there is that a big cost in industrial production is the initial capital outlay for the equipment, and oftentimes to pay that back reasonably, you need to run the equipment nonstop. Also, some processes are challenging to stop/start.
    - hinkley 1y ago
      This has been my understanding as well. But on the plus side, while you may run a machine all day, the price of cooling your equipment varies with the outside temperature and that is highly correlated with available renewable power. The AC units and diesel backup power are systems you buy and prefer to have idle. But not your press or data center.
  - WillPostForFood 1y ago
    "summer mid-day also has the highest electricity demand all year in many places due to air conditioning," Peak electric demand is 3-7pm in the summer. You might think you could then just set panels to to optimize for afternoon, but especially in winter, you get a big peak between 6-9am.
    - distances 1y ago
      Totally depends on the location. Say, Northern Europe has traditionally very little AC (changing thanks to dual use heat pumps) and the energy use naturally peaks at the depths of the winter.
    - Aerroon 1y ago
      What if you manually adjust them based on the season?
      - solardev 1y ago
        In the West, the cost of labor makes that unappealing. From a DIY standpoint it'd still be a pain. Those things are heavy and usually require at least 2 to 4 people to install or move. It's not something you'd want to do regularly if avoidable.
        Aerroon 1y ago
        I see. I imagined then being panels on like a hinge that you like unbolt, tilt a little and then bolt down again. I didn't know it would take multiple people to do it.
        solardev 1y ago
        Yeah, you could maybe design something like that. It'd still be quite a lot of work to go through all the panels one at a time every few months, though. And doing the math to remember what angle to point them at would be annoying and error prone.
- philjohn 1y ago
  It already is on wholesale markets - in the UK you can get on Agile Octopus which gives you half hourly prices. When there is a glut of renewables on the grid you can end up being paid to use energy. This highlights the need for grid scale storage (be it batteries, pumped hydro or something else) to balance Solar PV, and to bridge gaps when the wind isn't blowing.
ceejayoz 1y ago
Power during those lull periods will get expensive, and that’s likely to result in some farms with permanently tilted panels that prioritize those periods over peak overall production. Space is cheaper than maintenance and breakdowns in many cases.
Calwestjobs 1y ago
but, 70% of MY! yearly households electricity consumption is literally into [PV!] hot water. Hot water tank is cheapest energy storage device on planet. and i do not have to worry to shower in noon, i can just charge my water tank during day, even when im not home. and use hot water in evening. for very little price - no need to use heat pump, resistive heater is super cheap. hot water tank can be made even DIY to lower price even more. utility charges me so much for electricity that even tho i payed for 15 kWp roof mounted east west system literally literally ORDER OF MAGNITUDE more than prices showed in that article, AND i still save money by not buying electricity from grid ! that how much utilities are charging us, yes they need to manage all those wires, manage power plants, etc. i do understand where that cost comes from, but still, solar in residential is so cheap that installing PV on roof and directly consuming it will save you money. So for industry/ manufacturing there will be extremely high incentive to add PV + battery even when it wont cover 100% of their loads. utility+ onsite PV+battery. Again, back to my hot water system, 80% of year i am 100% "off-grid" for hot water [PV!]. even on days it is cloudy ! And 99%-0% of PV rest of year... And from april to October my electricity draw from grid is almost zero. so whole residential USA can be essentially "off-grid" huge part of year with just small battery, your tv, notebooks draw almost nothing over the course of the day compared to your energy need for hot water. and less residential is on grid, easier it is to manage electricity for other sectors of economy. this contraption from ETH Zurich can store iron/iron oxide to generate hydrogen, without storage loss! for years, without compressing hydrogen and without other cons of "standard hydrogen storage. essentially it can be thought about as hydrogen storage - it can "store" 10s of megawatts inside of a standard basement. - [https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2024/08/iron-as-an-inexpensive-storage-medium-for-hydrogen.html https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2024/08/iro...] and you do not need to make electricity from that hydrogen, you can heat your house directly with hydrogen, just by replacing 30$ burner in your existing furnace! so you complain about "peak" power excess, and i say and i show it to you that this "peak" solar power can be used to charge that extremely cheap storage device in summer and expend that storage over winter for heating house and making hot water. when sun is not shining. and again, calculate how much kWh is your need for heating and how much is for hot water and you can clearly see that extremely huge part of current residential energy need can be either "onsite off-grid" with this contraption + small LiFePO battery or to be on-grid and take only small loads like tv, notebooks from grid and having heating + hot water "onsite off-grid". and most importantly cheap. ratio of kWh for your heat and for your other appliances ! ! ! ! So essentially we can charge our heating system in summer, store energy WITHOUT LOSS until winter and heat with that energy in winter. right now! just sketch/draw for yourself timeline containing - PV + storage contraption in that link + small LiFePO battery. and you can see how huge part of energy we do not really need to draw from "grid". small towns can even make their own shared storage, prices for SEASONAL energy storage are even lower then current prices for electricity drawn from grid.... So this physical, economical actual contemporary possibility makes me mad every time i see just another youtuber or other kind of influencer, post about just another battery technology promising who knows what, in who knows what timeframe. we do have energy storage technologies capable of providing citizens of USA with clean energy RIGHT now, RIGHT here. for whole year, day and night. without buying one drop of oil from tyrants, dictators who literally literally kill people right at this moment. [https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drones-kharkiv-4396be6394f46a6320cac4bf82be2941 https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drones-kharkiv...] this world is so frustrating ! XD
ac29 1y ago
> If everyone builds non-tracking arrays, power during peak will become almost worthless if solar is a big part of overall generation capacity During peak solar yesterday in California wholesale power was $5-6/MWh (<1c/kWh). The CA grid is routinely over 100% renewables during springtime. The excess is handled by having a lot of batteries, exporting energy, and curtailments.
hinkley 1y ago
This is one of the areas where double sided panels reportedly win out. You can orient them to morning/evening light and they shed heat by convection better. Hot cells produce less electricity, which is why it’s difficult to construct Maxwell’s Demon from eg infrared-sensitized photovoltaics and band gapped radiators.

leoedin 1y ago

Yeah - you can’t talk about renewable energy generation without also considering when it is generated. Then future price of energy will be incredibly time dependent. Finding a way to generate at a different time than everyone else - whether by east/west panels or time shifting with batteries or building a different kind of renewable generation is where all the big profits will be.

yummypaint 1y ago
Demand isn't fixed in time either, though. Industrial processes that presently run at night to use cheap power will switch to daytime when it makes sense to do so. Summer mid-day also has the highest electricity demand all year in many places due to air conditioning, so arguably solar is addressing one of the biggest stress points.
- ericd 1y ago
  Not an expert, but my understanding is that the challenge there is that a big cost in industrial production is the initial capital outlay for the equipment, and oftentimes to pay that back reasonably, you need to run the equipment nonstop. Also, some processes are challenging to stop/start.
  - hinkley 1y ago
    This has been my understanding as well. But on the plus side, while you may run a machine all day, the price of cooling your equipment varies with the outside temperature and that is highly correlated with available renewable power. The AC units and diesel backup power are systems you buy and prefer to have idle. But not your press or data center.
- WillPostForFood 1y ago
  "summer mid-day also has the highest electricity demand all year in many places due to air conditioning," Peak electric demand is 3-7pm in the summer. You might think you could then just set panels to to optimize for afternoon, but especially in winter, you get a big peak between 6-9am.
  - distances 1y ago
    Totally depends on the location. Say, Northern Europe has traditionally very little AC (changing thanks to dual use heat pumps) and the energy use naturally peaks at the depths of the winter.
  - Aerroon 1y ago
    What if you manually adjust them based on the season?
    - solardev 1y ago
      In the West, the cost of labor makes that unappealing. From a DIY standpoint it'd still be a pain. Those things are heavy and usually require at least 2 to 4 people to install or move. It's not something you'd want to do regularly if avoidable.
      - Aerroon 1y ago
        I see. I imagined then being panels on like a hinge that you like unbolt, tilt a little and then bolt down again. I didn't know it would take multiple people to do it.
        solardev 1y ago
        Yeah, you could maybe design something like that. It'd still be quite a lot of work to go through all the panels one at a time every few months, though. And doing the math to remember what angle to point them at would be annoying and error prone.
philjohn 1y ago
It already is on wholesale markets - in the UK you can get on Agile Octopus which gives you half hourly prices. When there is a glut of renewables on the grid you can end up being paid to use energy. This highlights the need for grid scale storage (be it batteries, pumped hydro or something else) to balance Solar PV, and to bridge gaps when the wind isn't blowing.

ceejayoz 1y ago

Power during those lull periods will get expensive, and that’s likely to result in some farms with permanently tilted panels that prioritize those periods over peak overall production. Space is cheaper than maintenance and breakdowns in many cases.

Calwestjobs 1y ago

but, 70% of MY! yearly households electricity consumption is literally into [PV!] hot water. Hot water tank is cheapest energy storage device on planet. and i do not have to worry to shower in noon, i can just charge my water tank during day, even when im not home. and use hot water in evening. for very little price - no need to use heat pump, resistive heater is super cheap. hot water tank can be made even DIY to lower price even more. utility charges me so much for electricity that even tho i payed for 15 kWp roof mounted east west system literally literally ORDER OF MAGNITUDE more than prices showed in that article, AND i still save money by not buying electricity from grid ! that how much utilities are charging us, yes they need to manage all those wires, manage power plants, etc. i do understand where that cost comes from, but still, solar in residential is so cheap that installing PV on roof and directly consuming it will save you money. So for industry/ manufacturing there will be extremely high incentive to add PV + battery even when it wont cover 100% of their loads. utility+ onsite PV+battery. Again, back to my hot water system, 80% of year i am 100% "off-grid" for hot water [PV!]. even on days it is cloudy ! And 99%-0% of PV rest of year... And from april to October my electricity draw from grid is almost zero. so whole residential USA can be essentially "off-grid" huge part of year with just small battery, your tv, notebooks draw almost nothing over the course of the day compared to your energy need for hot water. and less residential is on grid, easier it is to manage electricity for other sectors of economy. this contraption from ETH Zurich can store iron/iron oxide to generate hydrogen, without storage loss! for years, without compressing hydrogen and without other cons of "standard hydrogen storage. essentially it can be thought about as hydrogen storage - it can "store" 10s of megawatts inside of a standard basement. - [https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2024/08/iron-as-an-inexpensive-storage-medium-for-hydrogen.html https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2024/08/iro...] and you do not need to make electricity from that hydrogen, you can heat your house directly with hydrogen, just by replacing 30$ burner in your existing furnace! so you complain about "peak" power excess, and i say and i show it to you that this "peak" solar power can be used to charge that extremely cheap storage device in summer and expend that storage over winter for heating house and making hot water. when sun is not shining. and again, calculate how much kWh is your need for heating and how much is for hot water and you can clearly see that extremely huge part of current residential energy need can be either "onsite off-grid" with this contraption + small LiFePO battery or to be on-grid and take only small loads like tv, notebooks from grid and having heating + hot water "onsite off-grid". and most importantly cheap. ratio of kWh for your heat and for your other appliances ! ! ! ! So essentially we can charge our heating system in summer, store energy WITHOUT LOSS until winter and heat with that energy in winter. right now! just sketch/draw for yourself timeline containing - PV + storage contraption in that link + small LiFePO battery. and you can see how huge part of energy we do not really need to draw from "grid". small towns can even make their own shared storage, prices for SEASONAL energy storage are even lower then current prices for electricity drawn from grid.... So this physical, economical actual contemporary possibility makes me mad every time i see just another youtuber or other kind of influencer, post about just another battery technology promising who knows what, in who knows what timeframe. we do have energy storage technologies capable of providing citizens of USA with clean energy RIGHT now, RIGHT here. for whole year, day and night. without buying one drop of oil from tyrants, dictators who literally literally kill people right at this moment. [https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drones-kharkiv-4396be6394f46a6320cac4bf82be2941 https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drones-kharkiv...] this world is so frustrating ! XD

ac29 1y ago

> If everyone builds non-tracking arrays, power during peak will become almost worthless if solar is a big part of overall generation capacity During peak solar yesterday in California wholesale power was $5-6/MWh (<1c/kWh). The CA grid is routinely over 100% renewables during springtime. The excess is handled by having a lot of batteries, exporting energy, and curtailments.

hinkley 1y ago

This is one of the areas where double sided panels reportedly win out. You can orient them to morning/evening light and they shed heat by convection better. Hot cells produce less electricity, which is why it’s difficult to construct Maxwell’s Demon from eg infrared-sensitized photovoltaics and band gapped radiators.