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Solar and batteries have made a lot of strides. At the technology level, it looks great. The problem is that energy is a concerted industry that requires all o

by scythe 1y ago

Solar and batteries have made a lot of strides. At the technology level, it looks great. The problem is that energy is a concerted industry that requires all of the parts to work together. That requires institutions that are ready and willing to play ball. Otherwise you look like Brazil, which until this year had a really impressive trend of solar adoption which just... suddenly... stopped: https://www.absolar.org.br/mercado/infografico/ https://www.absolar.org.br/mercado/infografico/ You can see it clearly in the graph: solar adoption grows rapidly every year until 2024, going from under 5% to over 20% of Brazil's electricity matrix in a decade, and then we get to 2025. Solar farm expansions drop almost to zero, and rooftop adoption significantly slows. Why did this happen? Well, the grid wasn't ready: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/brazils-grid-caps-power-wind-solar-threatening-renewable-projects-2024-08-22/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/brazils-grid-caps-po... It's not like nobody could have seen this coming. The trend is smoothly exponential every year until 2025. They just didn't care. There simply was not enough pressure or attention from the government or the public to prevent a grid crunch. These problems are not unavoidable. They are mostly political failures. In general, electricity markets do not exist without state support. China does not have this problem. In the West, our politicians seem to be too fond of the legacy energy industry and too timid about building infrastructure to address the issue, not to mention the popular tendency to think that the government should — or even can — just "get out of the way", or the ever-present NIMBY lawsuits. It's not only Brazil, either; the UK has the same problem with wind: https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-power/ https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-p... ...which has been outstanding since 2023. There is not even enough grid capacity planned to address the problem, to say nothing of how little they've actually built. I believe there is currently a political controversy about the appearance of pylons.

dalyons 1y ago
batteries should help with this. They can be cited in points with existing grid connections, and used to lower overall demands on the grid by smoothing out production & demand spikes.
rstuart4133 1y ago
> Well, the grid wasn't ready: You are being sold a pup. The grid was fine. Places like South Australia (a state) have 70% renewables without big changes to the grid. I don't know what the real reason was, but it's more likely to do renewables undercutting the price the existing coal plants could sell electricity during the day, to the point the were no longer profitable. So to keep them profitable they curtailed the much cheaper solar and wind, rather than the coal fired generation. Maybe those plants are state owned, or perhaps they have good political connections, or perhaps they own the generation, distribution and retail networks making them very difficult for a politician to take on. The approach taken in other countries is to let the market sort it out, with a guiding hand. If coal plants can only generate at night because they are out-competed during the day by solar, then let them raise their prices at night and when the sun don't shine. That will cause price spikes. Don't like the political problems price spikes cause? Force the retailers to sell at a base price fixed for must they advertise in advance. The retailers won't do that because they are owned by the generators - it's time to split the two functions and create an electricity market. Intermittent renewables and slow ramping coal companies are causing spikes? Create a market for storage, and ensure the retails have no choice but to purchase enough storage guarantee the continuous supply they promised to the customers. Or you can just sit on your hands, let the existing coal generators continue doing what they have always done, and justify it by saying "the grid" can't handle change. Reuters will happily repeat that excuse for you, without asking too many questions. Politically, that works too. But only in the short term. In the longer term, particularly as those coal fired plants reach end of life, you are up for a really painful time because the gradual change you could have had had now has to happen all at once.

by scythe 1y ago

dalyons 1y ago

batteries should help with this. They can be cited in points with existing grid connections, and used to lower overall demands on the grid by smoothing out production & demand spikes.

rstuart4133 1y ago

> Well, the grid wasn't ready: You are being sold a pup. The grid was fine. Places like South Australia (a state) have 70% renewables without big changes to the grid. I don't know what the real reason was, but it's more likely to do renewables undercutting the price the existing coal plants could sell electricity during the day, to the point the were no longer profitable. So to keep them profitable they curtailed the much cheaper solar and wind, rather than the coal fired generation. Maybe those plants are state owned, or perhaps they have good political connections, or perhaps they own the generation, distribution and retail networks making them very difficult for a politician to take on. The approach taken in other countries is to let the market sort it out, with a guiding hand. If coal plants can only generate at night because they are out-competed during the day by solar, then let them raise their prices at night and when the sun don't shine. That will cause price spikes. Don't like the political problems price spikes cause? Force the retailers to sell at a base price fixed for must they advertise in advance. The retailers won't do that because they are owned by the generators - it's time to split the two functions and create an electricity market. Intermittent renewables and slow ramping coal companies are causing spikes? Create a market for storage, and ensure the retails have no choice but to purchase enough storage guarantee the continuous supply they promised to the customers. Or you can just sit on your hands, let the existing coal generators continue doing what they have always done, and justify it by saying "the grid" can't handle change. Reuters will happily repeat that excuse for you, without asking too many questions. Politically, that works too. But only in the short term. In the longer term, particularly as those coal fired plants reach end of life, you are up for a really painful time because the gradual change you could have had had now has to happen all at once.