4 ms·

Solar/wind is the cheapest form of power generation by far. You just can't beat it because they don't have any fuel costs. Gas peaker plants will always make se

by foxyv 4mo ago

Solar/wind is the cheapest form of power generation by far. You just can't beat it because they don't have any fuel costs. Gas peaker plants will always make sense until we have enough grid scale batteries. They will hold on for now until the price of natural gas hits rock bottom. But with the current advances in low cost battery technology I see them becoming less and less necessary. They would probably already be dead if hydrofracturing hadn't propped up the cost of gas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Neywiny 4mo ago
I think you've missed that all generators have upfront cost. That's why the monetary payoff time for installing solar is non-zero. Versus a backup generator you're paying 2-3x the cost upfront. And yes we know the running cost is almost 0, the maintenance is almost nothing, etc etc, but I could see that argument not holding as much water as we need it to.
- runtime_terror 4mo ago
  Are you talking backup generator vs solar for a home? If so, solar continually supplies power without paying for an input vs a backup generator which is only meant to run infrequently and is costly to run and requires you to pay for inputs and of course maintenance of an ICE. It's kinda an apples/oranges comparison
- Retric 4mo ago
  Loans transfer upfront costs into operating costs, thus making upfront costs largely meaningless for anyone with access to cheap credit.
- foxyv 4mo ago
  > I think you've missed that all generators have upfront cost. Why do you say this?
  - Neywiny 4mo ago
    Because you said it's the cheapest by far but didn't say "after X years". Did I miss where you acknowledged there's a crossover point in cost?
    - foxyv 4mo ago
      Typically power is priced by Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) where you amortize the total cost of ownership across the total power generated to get a per kwh cost which is what most grid operators care about. After all, large scale investors and governments don't care if a plant costs a billion dollars if it produces 20 billion in electricity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity What you are talking about is the Payback Period (PP) or Return on Investment (ROI) which is more important to homeowners adding a solar plant to their homes. Both of these types of measure take into account both capital and operating expenses.
      - eldaisfish 4mo ago
        LCOE is a terrible metric for the power grid because it does not capture the cost of balancing the power grid. Excess renewable power is great but it creates a problem and the cost of that problem is not borne by the generators that created the problem. What LCOE captures in this context is that solar panels are cheap and that the fuel cost is zero. The average price of electricity is greatly affected by this, which is why electricity is Europe is generally more expensive than in North America. Edit - the response below is also incomplete. The trouble with modelling the cost of balancing the power grid is that it depends on many variables, many of which are difficult to forecast. The primary challenge with depending on the weather for power generation is that the climate is changing. What that change looks like in 20 years is impossible to forecast. A great example is from the winter o 2023, during the "dunkelflaute" in europe. Both wind and solar power generation were low for three days. The estimates for solar plus battery storage typically only account for eight or twelve hours of storage.
        4mo ago
- crote 4mo ago
  Solar also has incredibly low upfront costs: 400W panels are available for less than $100 / each these days.
- ted_dunning 4mo ago
  The adoption rate in places like Australia and even Texas is what demonstrates that the argument holds water. People wouldn't be rushing to shift entire markets at the observed rates if the economics were upside down. It is the soundness of the economic model that is driving the adoption even against tariffs and subversion by the current US regime.
  - eldaisfish 4mo ago
    How do you explain the fact that the average residential electricity price is higher in Australia than in most of the US? This is not as simple as people here make it out to be. Consider also that solar is profitable today because it does not set the price of electricity in most markets. In a world where solar dominates, the prices of electricity could be negative. The economics of negative electricity prices becoming the norm are not yet fully understood.
    - BobaFloutist 4mo ago
      > How do you explain the fact that the average residential electricity price is higher in Australia than in most of the US? Transmission costs.
    - tencentshill 4mo ago
      They paid to decommission fossils early, and amortized it over the future. So it's going to drop like a rock once those debts are paid and the last plants shut down, with fewer remaining customers and lighter load on the grid. But until then, consumers will be paying higher bills. Similar to the UK - See item 18. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/141240/html/ https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/141240/html...
      - eldaisfish 4mo ago
        That is not what your link says?
        4mo ago
Gibbon1 4mo ago
Batteries in California have curtailed the need for peaker plants most of the year. Natural gas is starting to become a seasonal supply of electricity. Fall winter spring it's providing a few GW of power. Only in the mid to late summer does it break 10GW. That change happened over just five years. I keep mentioning this because it's notable. California now needs to increase demand for electricity to move forward on electrification. Things like low cost workplace charging and mass adoption of heat pumps. Unfortunately California is going to elect a governor who thinks it's his job to protect entrenched interests. Fortunately big picture it doesn't matter except to people in California. Currently renewable manufacturing is doing the the equivalent of adding 10 million barrels/day of oil production per year. Total production is 110 million barrels/day. Demand destruction for oil is coming very soon now.
DanielHB 4mo ago
Most places have a very different mix of electricity sources, things like hydro and imports from places further to the east (where the sun is still shinning) or wind from west-ward. Nuclear provides the same base power all around the day, etc. The need for peaker plants to offset the need for batteries is greatly exaggerated. The batteries are mostly required for grid frequency stabilization due to renewal intermittence (clouds passing through, wind slowing down), not so much for overnight storage in most locations. Of course this varies drastically from place to place, Hawaii for example can't really import energy production from other places.
- foxyv 4mo ago
  In America it is a little different. Unfortunately California is still using 48% natural gas at this point. But they are moving in the right direction. Most states are continuing this trend. Driving in Texas you see wide load trucks hauling wind turbine parts almost every day. https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/electric-generation-capacity-and-energy https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...

by foxyv 4mo ago

Neywiny 4mo ago

I think you've missed that all generators have upfront cost. That's why the monetary payoff time for installing solar is non-zero. Versus a backup generator you're paying 2-3x the cost upfront. And yes we know the running cost is almost 0, the maintenance is almost nothing, etc etc, but I could see that argument not holding as much water as we need it to.

runtime_terror 4mo ago
Are you talking backup generator vs solar for a home? If so, solar continually supplies power without paying for an input vs a backup generator which is only meant to run infrequently and is costly to run and requires you to pay for inputs and of course maintenance of an ICE. It's kinda an apples/oranges comparison
Retric 4mo ago
Loans transfer upfront costs into operating costs, thus making upfront costs largely meaningless for anyone with access to cheap credit.
foxyv 4mo ago
> I think you've missed that all generators have upfront cost. Why do you say this?
- Neywiny 4mo ago
  Because you said it's the cheapest by far but didn't say "after X years". Did I miss where you acknowledged there's a crossover point in cost?
  - foxyv 4mo ago
    Typically power is priced by Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) where you amortize the total cost of ownership across the total power generated to get a per kwh cost which is what most grid operators care about. After all, large scale investors and governments don't care if a plant costs a billion dollars if it produces 20 billion in electricity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity What you are talking about is the Payback Period (PP) or Return on Investment (ROI) which is more important to homeowners adding a solar plant to their homes. Both of these types of measure take into account both capital and operating expenses.
    - eldaisfish 4mo ago
      LCOE is a terrible metric for the power grid because it does not capture the cost of balancing the power grid. Excess renewable power is great but it creates a problem and the cost of that problem is not borne by the generators that created the problem. What LCOE captures in this context is that solar panels are cheap and that the fuel cost is zero. The average price of electricity is greatly affected by this, which is why electricity is Europe is generally more expensive than in North America. Edit - the response below is also incomplete. The trouble with modelling the cost of balancing the power grid is that it depends on many variables, many of which are difficult to forecast. The primary challenge with depending on the weather for power generation is that the climate is changing. What that change looks like in 20 years is impossible to forecast. A great example is from the winter o 2023, during the "dunkelflaute" in europe. Both wind and solar power generation were low for three days. The estimates for solar plus battery storage typically only account for eight or twelve hours of storage.
      - 4mo ago
crote 4mo ago
Solar also has incredibly low upfront costs: 400W panels are available for less than $100 / each these days.
ted_dunning 4mo ago
The adoption rate in places like Australia and even Texas is what demonstrates that the argument holds water. People wouldn't be rushing to shift entire markets at the observed rates if the economics were upside down. It is the soundness of the economic model that is driving the adoption even against tariffs and subversion by the current US regime.
- eldaisfish 4mo ago
  How do you explain the fact that the average residential electricity price is higher in Australia than in most of the US? This is not as simple as people here make it out to be. Consider also that solar is profitable today because it does not set the price of electricity in most markets. In a world where solar dominates, the prices of electricity could be negative. The economics of negative electricity prices becoming the norm are not yet fully understood.
  - BobaFloutist 4mo ago
    > How do you explain the fact that the average residential electricity price is higher in Australia than in most of the US? Transmission costs.
  - tencentshill 4mo ago
    They paid to decommission fossils early, and amortized it over the future. So it's going to drop like a rock once those debts are paid and the last plants shut down, with fewer remaining customers and lighter load on the grid. But until then, consumers will be paying higher bills. Similar to the UK - See item 18. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/141240/html/ https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/141240/html...
    - eldaisfish 4mo ago
      That is not what your link says?
      - 4mo ago

Gibbon1 4mo ago

Batteries in California have curtailed the need for peaker plants most of the year. Natural gas is starting to become a seasonal supply of electricity. Fall winter spring it's providing a few GW of power. Only in the mid to late summer does it break 10GW. That change happened over just five years. I keep mentioning this because it's notable. California now needs to increase demand for electricity to move forward on electrification. Things like low cost workplace charging and mass adoption of heat pumps. Unfortunately California is going to elect a governor who thinks it's his job to protect entrenched interests. Fortunately big picture it doesn't matter except to people in California. Currently renewable manufacturing is doing the the equivalent of adding 10 million barrels/day of oil production per year. Total production is 110 million barrels/day. Demand destruction for oil is coming very soon now.

DanielHB 4mo ago

Most places have a very different mix of electricity sources, things like hydro and imports from places further to the east (where the sun is still shinning) or wind from west-ward. Nuclear provides the same base power all around the day, etc. The need for peaker plants to offset the need for batteries is greatly exaggerated. The batteries are mostly required for grid frequency stabilization due to renewal intermittence (clouds passing through, wind slowing down), not so much for overnight storage in most locations. Of course this varies drastically from place to place, Hawaii for example can't really import energy production from other places.

foxyv 4mo ago
In America it is a little different. Unfortunately California is still using 48% natural gas at this point. But they are moving in the right direction. Most states are continuing this trend. Driving in Texas you see wide load trucks hauling wind turbine parts almost every day. https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/electric-generation-capacity-and-energy https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...