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Has storage been solved yet? In my experience US power companies hate crediting pushback to the grid because it all happens at the same time during peak sunligh

by umvi 1y ago

Has storage been solved yet? In my experience US power companies hate crediting pushback to the grid because it all happens at the same time during peak sunlight hours and then customers get to use those credits at night and during the winter which the power company thinks is unfair. In Idaho at least the power companies were able to change the laws so that you get much fewer credits for solar panels on your roof which means they aren't great unless you can figure out how to store the generated energy inexpensively. Personally I like the idea of an electric car doubling as a house battery but so far I think only the F-150 lightning is capable of doing that.

mannanj 1y ago
Prius's can do it too, they are super efficient.
xnx 1y ago
> Has storage been solved yet? No, but it's cheaper than it ever was and panels are so cheap that they can have ROI even without storage. That said, grid solar makes the most financial sense if you're not in an off-grid location.
- Retric 1y ago
  Carful when saying it’s not cheaper, it’s generally profitable to add some batteries to a solar power plant. The economics on storage only kicks in after scaling the grid with a lot of solar, but adding solar to that point is itself profitable almost anywhere.
  - jaggederest 1y ago
    I've always been confused by the insistence on storage. Saturate 100% of the daytime loads with solar, curtail at peak, it's still cheaper than just about any other source. Save all the hydro power, gas, and other standby sources for before and after sunset. Once you're curtailing a bunch of power during the daytime, then you can add storage as a no brainer bonus and stop curtailing.
    - xnx 1y ago
      Yes, and if peak solar generation exceeded demand, and were priced appropriately, I think we'd find that some workloads could be timeshifted (e.g. precooling homes).
    - Retric 1y ago
      Saturation of daytime loads with solar kills nuclear by lowering its capacity factor or daytime pricing, which some people object to. It’s clearly a net win environmentally and economically, but for anyone who sees nuclear as part of a green future storage in some form is a massive requirement.
      - rsynnott 1y ago
        > Saturation of daytime loads with solar kills nuclear If you exclude China, effectively no nuclear plants have been built in the last decade, and the existing fleet is aging out. "We shouldn't do this thing, because it might threaten that other thing that we don't do anymore" is a weird argument.
        Retric 1y ago
        It’s not quite that extreme: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/reactors.html https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/reactors.html But yea building nuclear is all about forecasting the future so most of the damage has already occurred here, still advocates are going to advocate even if what they say doesn’t make sense.
Retric 1y ago
> Has storage been solved yet? In general yes, grid solar + grid batteries are cheaper than any peaking power plants. So now 24/7 batteries + wind + solar generally outcompetes nuclear, coal, or natural gas on price as long as there’s no tariffs involved. This isn’t enough to make batteries + solar viable in Alaska but long distance transmission lines could solve that issue cost effectively.
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  Solar is actually viable in places like Alaska and Finland. It just isn't viable in the winter, but in the summer it is extra viable. Greenhouses (another form of solar) also work wonders in Alaska, and outside they can grow the biggest pumpkins you'll ever see anywhere.
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    OK, but nobody has enough batteries to store enough for the winter. Overnight? Sure. Winter? That's a whole different deal.
    - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
      First, the only reason solar isn't so common in Alaska is that hydro is even easier to get power from, so your outback communities will often use small scale hydro instead of solar (especially in southeast Alaska). Communities in the north will use diesel generators in the winter (nothing else is viable). Again, I assume you are talking about off grid communities, which is basically all of them except a few cities (and most cities have their own grids disconnected from the rest, especially Southeast Alaska).
    - cachius 1y ago
      That's why you generate hydrogen during summer for gas power plants during winter.
      - somanyphotons 1y ago
reducesuffering 1y ago
> In my experience US power companies hate crediting pushback to the grid because it all happens at the same time during peak sunlight hours and then customers get to use those credits at night and during the winter which the power company thinks is unfair. I'm pretty sure PG&E pays back something like only 5% of the generation of my solar panels. I'll end the year with $400 more generated than used, and I'll get a check for $20...
more_corn 1y ago
Yes. Cheap batteries distribute storage at the end user location, flattening the demand curve and stabilizing the grid at economically viable prices.
marcosdumay 1y ago
The most likely is that storage will never be "solved". We will run with 100% renewables for years, and there will still be people asking if storage has been solved already. We will just solve every large issue, and suffer lots of small issues. Also, if you are using your car as a battery, you can't use it as a car. It's more likely that you will have extra batteries at home so that you can charge your car when you want.
darth_avocado 1y ago
> Has storage been solved yet? If it wasn’t, parts of the country wouldn’t be invested in adding it. Recent discussion on HN on a similar topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45706527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45706527
triceratops 1y ago
> unless you can figure out how to store the generated energy inexpensively Like solar panels, also tariffed.
WaxProlix 1y ago
Rooftop solar is nice for resiliency and can have its place in a grid, but it's not cost effective. Grid-scale solar is what most folks are talking about when they say solar boom. Even in the somewhat backwards US, where Solar in total is ~340TWh, the majority (~250TWh?) comes from grid-scale interconnected solar and solar+battery installations. Hopefully this gap continues to grow as the Biden-era IRA fueled grid-scale solar projects mature through their design/build/deploy pipelines in the coming years. Thinking of national policy from a home owner perspective is expected, but it isn't always instructive. For the latter item, my Rivian has a relatively paltry 1500W inverter with standard 110W plugs in the back seat, truck bed, and gear tunnel, but I can use a rectifier/power supply to pull a constant 1kW, step that back to DC and feed it into my home's battery backup system. My whole house tends to use ~2kW at peak, and obviously can conserve in outages. So I get my normal 4kWh battery bank with solar hookups, but can splice the 141kWh Rivian battery in, too, for a good chunk of off-grid power.
gertlex 1y ago
I assume that the extra regular (daily?) cycling of the battery in your car would have a notable effect on your vehicle battery's longevity. (But I'm very fuzzy on how battery improvements in the past ~decade have applied to "cycle life", or really even what the cycle life means, e.g. is end of life when it's something like 70% of total original capacity?)
GloriousKoji 1y ago
Places in California has this problem too. Installing solar panels today could result in a larger electricity bill than not having them. Getting solar panels forces you onto a plan in which they charge more per kwh pulled from the grid. The surplus electricity is only credited at the generation cost which is only 1/4 the total cost per kwh. (Delivery costs is 3x the price of electricity). So if you want to go solar to save money you need both batteries and solar panels which is not an insignificant amount of money.
namibj 1y ago
Net metering is unrealistic. Maybe just force grid-connected solar installations that want credit (any size) and even those that just want to be grid-tied (beyond some small size like maybe 5 panels/2kW worth of MPPT) to use a registering meter that meters net energy for each like 15 min interval (that's the granularity we use in central Europe; I assume the US would have come to a similar choice of granularity), and bills energy according to market rate and appropriately handles connection capacity/transformer capex by like taking a histogram of those individual measurements or otherwise letting a few isolated bursts through while ensuring transformer capacity is paid for by those responsible for the (hypothetical, until it's not) transformer upgrade.
tbrownaw 1y ago
> *which the power company thinks is unfair" The way you worded this implies that you disagree. Are you aware of why wholesale prices aren't constant?

by umvi 1y ago

mannanj 1y ago

Prius's can do it too, they are super efficient.

xnx 1y ago

> Has storage been solved yet? No, but it's cheaper than it ever was and panels are so cheap that they can have ROI even without storage. That said, grid solar makes the most financial sense if you're not in an off-grid location.

Retric 1y ago
Carful when saying it’s not cheaper, it’s generally profitable to add some batteries to a solar power plant. The economics on storage only kicks in after scaling the grid with a lot of solar, but adding solar to that point is itself profitable almost anywhere.
- jaggederest 1y ago
  I've always been confused by the insistence on storage. Saturate 100% of the daytime loads with solar, curtail at peak, it's still cheaper than just about any other source. Save all the hydro power, gas, and other standby sources for before and after sunset. Once you're curtailing a bunch of power during the daytime, then you can add storage as a no brainer bonus and stop curtailing.
  - xnx 1y ago
    Yes, and if peak solar generation exceeded demand, and were priced appropriately, I think we'd find that some workloads could be timeshifted (e.g. precooling homes).
  - Retric 1y ago
    Saturation of daytime loads with solar kills nuclear by lowering its capacity factor or daytime pricing, which some people object to. It’s clearly a net win environmentally and economically, but for anyone who sees nuclear as part of a green future storage in some form is a massive requirement.
    - rsynnott 1y ago
      > Saturation of daytime loads with solar kills nuclear If you exclude China, effectively no nuclear plants have been built in the last decade, and the existing fleet is aging out. "We shouldn't do this thing, because it might threaten that other thing that we don't do anymore" is a weird argument.
      - Retric 1y ago
        It’s not quite that extreme: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/reactors.html https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/reactors.html But yea building nuclear is all about forecasting the future so most of the damage has already occurred here, still advocates are going to advocate even if what they say doesn’t make sense.

Retric 1y ago

> Has storage been solved yet? In general yes, grid solar + grid batteries are cheaper than any peaking power plants. So now 24/7 batteries + wind + solar generally outcompetes nuclear, coal, or natural gas on price as long as there’s no tariffs involved. This isn’t enough to make batteries + solar viable in Alaska but long distance transmission lines could solve that issue cost effectively.

seanmcdirmid 1y ago
Solar is actually viable in places like Alaska and Finland. It just isn't viable in the winter, but in the summer it is extra viable. Greenhouses (another form of solar) also work wonders in Alaska, and outside they can grow the biggest pumpkins you'll ever see anywhere.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  OK, but nobody has enough batteries to store enough for the winter. Overnight? Sure. Winter? That's a whole different deal.
  - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
    First, the only reason solar isn't so common in Alaska is that hydro is even easier to get power from, so your outback communities will often use small scale hydro instead of solar (especially in southeast Alaska). Communities in the north will use diesel generators in the winter (nothing else is viable). Again, I assume you are talking about off grid communities, which is basically all of them except a few cities (and most cities have their own grids disconnected from the rest, especially Southeast Alaska).
  - cachius 1y ago
    That's why you generate hydrogen during summer for gas power plants during winter.
    - somanyphotons 1y ago

reducesuffering 1y ago

> In my experience US power companies hate crediting pushback to the grid because it all happens at the same time during peak sunlight hours and then customers get to use those credits at night and during the winter which the power company thinks is unfair. I'm pretty sure PG&E pays back something like only 5% of the generation of my solar panels. I'll end the year with $400 more generated than used, and I'll get a check for $20...

more_corn 1y ago

Yes. Cheap batteries distribute storage at the end user location, flattening the demand curve and stabilizing the grid at economically viable prices.

marcosdumay 1y ago

The most likely is that storage will never be "solved". We will run with 100% renewables for years, and there will still be people asking if storage has been solved already. We will just solve every large issue, and suffer lots of small issues. Also, if you are using your car as a battery, you can't use it as a car. It's more likely that you will have extra batteries at home so that you can charge your car when you want.

darth_avocado 1y ago

> Has storage been solved yet? If it wasn’t, parts of the country wouldn’t be invested in adding it. Recent discussion on HN on a similar topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45706527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45706527

triceratops 1y ago

> unless you can figure out how to store the generated energy inexpensively Like solar panels, also tariffed.

WaxProlix 1y ago

Rooftop solar is nice for resiliency and can have its place in a grid, but it's not cost effective. Grid-scale solar is what most folks are talking about when they say solar boom. Even in the somewhat backwards US, where Solar in total is ~340TWh, the majority (~250TWh?) comes from grid-scale interconnected solar and solar+battery installations. Hopefully this gap continues to grow as the Biden-era IRA fueled grid-scale solar projects mature through their design/build/deploy pipelines in the coming years. Thinking of national policy from a home owner perspective is expected, but it isn't always instructive. For the latter item, my Rivian has a relatively paltry 1500W inverter with standard 110W plugs in the back seat, truck bed, and gear tunnel, but I can use a rectifier/power supply to pull a constant 1kW, step that back to DC and feed it into my home's battery backup system. My whole house tends to use ~2kW at peak, and obviously can conserve in outages. So I get my normal 4kWh battery bank with solar hookups, but can splice the 141kWh Rivian battery in, too, for a good chunk of off-grid power.

gertlex 1y ago

I assume that the extra regular (daily?) cycling of the battery in your car would have a notable effect on your vehicle battery's longevity. (But I'm very fuzzy on how battery improvements in the past ~decade have applied to "cycle life", or really even what the cycle life means, e.g. is end of life when it's something like 70% of total original capacity?)

GloriousKoji 1y ago

Places in California has this problem too. Installing solar panels today could result in a larger electricity bill than not having them. Getting solar panels forces you onto a plan in which they charge more per kwh pulled from the grid. The surplus electricity is only credited at the generation cost which is only 1/4 the total cost per kwh. (Delivery costs is 3x the price of electricity). So if you want to go solar to save money you need both batteries and solar panels which is not an insignificant amount of money.

namibj 1y ago

Net metering is unrealistic. Maybe just force grid-connected solar installations that want credit (any size) and even those that just want to be grid-tied (beyond some small size like maybe 5 panels/2kW worth of MPPT) to use a registering meter that meters net energy for each like 15 min interval (that's the granularity we use in central Europe; I assume the US would have come to a similar choice of granularity), and bills energy according to market rate and appropriately handles connection capacity/transformer capex by like taking a histogram of those individual measurements or otherwise letting a few isolated bursts through while ensuring transformer capacity is paid for by those responsible for the (hypothetical, until it's not) transformer upgrade.

tbrownaw 1y ago

> *which the power company thinks is unfair" The way you worded this implies that you disagree. Are you aware of why wholesale prices aren't constant?