China's Blistering Solar Growth Runs Into Grid Blocks (reuters.com) 51
China's rapid solar power expansion is slowing due to grid bottlenecks, market reforms, and diminishing rooftop space, with new solar builds dropping 32% in March year-on-year. Reuters reports: The country's solar power expansion is slowing due to tighter curbs on supplying excess power from rooftop solar into the grid and changes in electricity pricing that are denting the economics of new solar projects. Forecasts show China's solar build this year will be heavily outpaced by growth in its photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing capacity, raising the prospect the country will export more solar panels despite a trade backlash in Europe and the U.S. The main factor slowing the expansion of distributed solar - installations built near the point of use, mostly on rooftops - is that there is not enough storage or transmission capacity to soak up the excess power generated when the sun is shining. That in turn is leading regulators to take away some of the price support that led to the rapid growth of distributed solar. "In the next couple of years, this is going to be a huge problem that all provinces will face as grids are oversaturated, the infrastructure is overwhelmed," said Cosimo Ries, an analyst with Trivium China, a policy research group. [...]
Renewable generators previously enjoyed a guarantee that grid operators would buy nearly all of their power at a rate tied to the coal index. That guarantee was lifted on April 1 and took effect earlier in some places, three industry experts said. Now, renewable generation is increasingly subject to less favourable market pricing. Shenhua Energy, a state-run coal and power firm, said in its first-quarter report that prices for its solar power fell 34.2% year-on-year to 283 yuan per megawatt-hour (MWh), while its coal power prices fell just 2.4% to 406 yuan per MWh. Wang Xiuqiang, a researcher at consultancy Beijing Linghang, attributed the lower solar prices and profitability to a higher proportion of market-based pricing. At the same time, grid companies are dialling back the 5% curtailment limit, "creating the risk for project owners that their generation might not be bought", said David Fishman of Shanghai-based energy consultancy the Lantau Group.
Curtailment for Huaneng Power International, a major state-owned generator, rose to 7.7% in the first quarter from 3.1% a year earlier, Jefferies analysts said in a client note, citing Huaneng management. In a further challenge, the easiest-to-site projects have already been largely developed, said Shi Lida, research manager at Yongan Guofu Asset Management. At sites still available, rooftops may need to be reinforced, grid connections may be limited, or hours of sunlight may be short. "If your costs don't continue to fall, the investment will not be cost effective," Shi said. Further reading: Germany Has Too Many Solar Panels, and It's Pushed Energy Prices Negative
Renewable generators previously enjoyed a guarantee that grid operators would buy nearly all of their power at a rate tied to the coal index. That guarantee was lifted on April 1 and took effect earlier in some places, three industry experts said. Now, renewable generation is increasingly subject to less favourable market pricing. Shenhua Energy, a state-run coal and power firm, said in its first-quarter report that prices for its solar power fell 34.2% year-on-year to 283 yuan per megawatt-hour (MWh), while its coal power prices fell just 2.4% to 406 yuan per MWh. Wang Xiuqiang, a researcher at consultancy Beijing Linghang, attributed the lower solar prices and profitability to a higher proportion of market-based pricing. At the same time, grid companies are dialling back the 5% curtailment limit, "creating the risk for project owners that their generation might not be bought", said David Fishman of Shanghai-based energy consultancy the Lantau Group.
Curtailment for Huaneng Power International, a major state-owned generator, rose to 7.7% in the first quarter from 3.1% a year earlier, Jefferies analysts said in a client note, citing Huaneng management. In a further challenge, the easiest-to-site projects have already been largely developed, said Shi Lida, research manager at Yongan Guofu Asset Management. At sites still available, rooftops may need to be reinforced, grid connections may be limited, or hours of sunlight may be short. "If your costs don't continue to fall, the investment will not be cost effective," Shi said. Further reading: Germany Has Too Many Solar Panels, and It's Pushed Energy Prices Negative
We all know what this is about (Score:1)
âoeThat in turn is leading regulators to take away some of the price support that led to the rapid growth of distributed solarâ
Oh snapâ¦now we know what this is all about.
Drumming up political support for more government funding.
Re: We all know what this is about (Score:1)
This is China, everything is led by the government with the motive of saving money and establishing power.
This is just another demonstrable failure of current renewables, we just had articles about Germany, US, UK and many other places: solar leads to grid instability despite producing very little energy in comparison to its investment.
We have now demonstrated it doesnâ(TM)t work in a capitalist economy, not in a socialist economy and not even in a communist economy. Doesnâ(TM)t matter how much go
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How does adding batteries to solar power improve the economics? Or rather improve the economics in a way that no other energy source would benefit from batteries?
A problem with thermal power plants, anything that boils water for steam turbines, is that they are slow to ramp up and down in power. Add batteries to them and that problem disappears. With batteries a coal, natural gas, or nuclear fission power plant could easily match supply to demand. The nice thing about batteries on a thermal power plant
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>> solar leads to grid instability
But you have no evidence?
Solar has been propping up the grid in Texas and California. Grid-scale solar is one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation.
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Solar has been propping up the grid in Texas and California.
Really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In October 2020, experts at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) warned that when the plant retires the state will reach a "critical inflection point", which will create a significant challenge to ensure reliability of the grid without resorting to more fossil fuel usage, and could jeopardize California's greenhouse gas reduction targets.
California is waking up to the problems posed by forcing nuclear power out of the state. Diablo Canyon was given a very sweet deal on a loan for operating costs from the state government once regulators and policy makers realized that they can't keep the grid stable, and still see lower CO2 emissions, from closing that plant. I know people will make a big deal about how this is some government subsidy to keep nuclear power going, but had the government not been je
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>> In October 2020
Why would we be interested in a remark from 4 years ago? And why are you going on about nuke plants in this discussion of solar power.
>> Nuclear power served Texas well in that storm
No it did not.
"The states nuclear power plants were all scrammed within the first two days of this past week due to concerns over power plants plumbing freezing and prevents coolant from reaching the reactor core. Nuclear power plants often source there coolant from nearby bodies of water like strea
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Why would we be interested in a remark from 4 years ago? And why are you going on about nuke plants in this discussion of solar power.
That comment is of interest because it is a parallel to what is happening in China. We should still have interest in this comment 4 years later since there hasn't been any large change in the issues.
No it did not.
The text of the article claims that all the nuclear power reactors shutdown in Texas in the storm but the graph provided shows that nuclear power never went away. There was a dip in output consistent with the failure of one reactor, and I can find other sources that say only one reactor was scrammed out of con
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>> the graph provided shows that nuclear power never went away
The graph shows that nuclear generation fell from about 11GW to ~7GW and stayed that way for several days. Solar generation actually increased during that time. Regardless of your infatuation with China, the there is no reason for the US to plow money into massively expensive nuke plants that take 15 years to build.
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Very little energy overall, it only produces when you don't need it, what is hard to understand?
Easy fix (Score:5, Interesting)
First "grid blocks" is not a term, unless you mean the children's toy?
Second, the fix is easy, and being done by many countries, probably including China. You just need the grid to have a means to remotely stop the solar panel inverter from feed-in when not wanted. This may use the same tech as remote meter reading.
Better yet, it can send live pricing data to a smart-meter, and allow homes & businesses to do feed-in when prices are high, and draw at times of low demand.
You know what you doing (Score:2)
Move ZIG!
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It doesn't change the fact that if you can't sell electricity when you are producing the most of it (in the middle of the day), your ROI is going to tank. This is the problem forecasted when people talk about negative prices. However, you need to look beyond immediate circumstances to understand this fully.
You can also believe batteries is an "easy fix". Not at scale.
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Oh noes, my air conditioner can be on full blast during the hottest part of the day for free, what ever will I do?
It makes sense for domestic users to have more solar PV than they need in peak summer, so that it can cover their use even in winter. It's that cheap now that the payback time is reasonable.
So the issue really is that grid operators don't like having to reduce central generation to zero during the day, and cheap inverters don't have an automatic shut off when the grid frequency gets too high. Th
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Don't be so obtuse; you are more knowledgeable than that. The problem of overproduction of PV during the day can't be countered with a silly and snarky "nuh uh, air conditioning uses a lot during the day".
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There are a lot of mitigating solutions that are going to be implemented for it in the near future, overprovisioning indeed being one of them, but the problem is definitely real.
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The point is that it's not really a problem for us, it's an issue for energy suppliers who don't want to adapt their business models to ones that suit us instead of them.
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Nonsense. Per the proof that I provided: Energy use after sundown is far from zero. PV production after sundown is zero.
It doesn't matter if consumers or corporations provide the PV power. They are all energy suppliers and all have to deal with the mismatch in timing between demand for and supply by PV power and they all have to compete with other forms of providing power. Just saying "those other guys have to stop producing power instead of us when there is a surplus" is simple minded single sided nonsense
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It's not that there's too much solar, it's more that China's power market is completely screwed up. It favors local producers and generation with coal and gas over renewables because it's more profitable to use coal and gas than solar.
So there are two problems for China. First, the people who need the power aren't near where there are lots of solar. Second, the power market is screwed up and favors coal and gas over solar.
In other words, while solar power is being generated, there are no consumers for it as
Time for them to work on battery capacity? (Score:5, Interesting)
This sounds like a perfect reason to focus on battery development. All the electricity coming in at peak load, if someone can get batteries an order of magnitude less than say propane or gasoline, the base/peak energy problem will be solved.
In the interim, perhaps focus on hybrid deployments, so solar goes to local businesses' and homes' batteries, which will help take base load off the grid at night, as well as having the ability to feed the grid.
What if (Score:2)
Spartacus had a Piper Cub?
Re: Time for them to work on battery capacity? (Score:2)
Batteries are great in combination with solar panels. I love mine.
But my battery storage can only be charged via my controller not via the net, AFAIK: the charger works DC to DC, doesn't rectify AC to DC. So with current tech, I think batteries for the grid would need to be installed by the source, not by home users.
Another upgrade is essential, regardless of whether we generate our power via solar panels: the net. Since we're all transiting from burning fossile fuels to electrical, the capacity of the powe
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My system can recharge the batteries from my utility. But I never do that. Then I'm just paying utility rates for power which is the opposite of the point of buying solar in the first place as well as burning additional cycles off my batteries and shortening their lives.
I get plenty of excess sun power during the day to top off the batteries. Why pay for it?
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It is not about BUYing utility power to charge your battery.
It is about getting PAID to do so: negative energy price.
Your battery becomes a member of a virtual power plant, for balancing power.
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Oh, I see, thanks.
We're 24/7 flat rate here with net metering but the way net metering is calculated I don't expect to ever get paid a penny back.
Solar cuts my bills to zero+taxes/fees and provides backup for outages.
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Re: Time for them to work on battery capacity? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks for the link, i'll check it out.
I'm in Florida under FPL where they managed to push through a net metering fuck you but didn't manage to completely kill it.
At last check, my terms were I pay retail at about 11 cents and they pay me at "their cost of production" which is something like 2-3 cents. The fuck you is the mandatory $25/month hookup fee which is relatively new and was only created to fuck net metering. So in order to get paid back I would have to out produce my usage plus $25 * 12 months of power at 2.5 cents as calculated each January. They don't net meter per month. It's basically impossible to out produce that $25 at 2.5 cents consistently for 12 months so I don't look at that part of my bill for more than a tenth of second.
There's really no action or change of lifestyle or billing switch or anything else I can do to improve this situation but otoh, FPL has been told by the legislature that this is the deal and they aren't allowed to fuck around any further, either.
With solar my $700 bills turned into $25+taxes and misc crap for about $28/month so that's pretty good.
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Wait, aren't you the guy who said he spent $100k on solar and it was no good?
Sounds like your badly designed system is going to pay for itself in about 12 years, assuming you still drive a fossil car.
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No I'm the guy who spent 170k on a system before tax credits and is very happy with his system.
I sometimes drive my awesome gas guzzling 2 seat vroom vroom car. Most of the time I drive my model 3 which I power off the roof for free.
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There are bidirectional inverters that can also charge batteries, so that's not a problem.
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"This sounds like a perfect reason to focus on battery development. All the electricity coming in at peak load, if someone can get batteries an order of magnitude less than say propane or gasoline, the base/peak energy problem will be solved."
Yes. But right now there are no such devices, and none even in development. So in the meantime the only answer is stop installing solar.
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Germany is full with batteries and smart meters like that.
Just not enough yet, to weather of every peak.
Re:Time for them to work on battery capacity? (Score:4, Interesting)
> Yes. But right now there are no such devices, and none even in development.
Factory will start operating mid to late 2024: https://formenergy.com/form-fa... [formenergy.com]
If my calculations are correct, it would take half of US military budget from one year, to build factories, to build enough batteries (during 20 year timeline) that could cover the whole US electricity usage for one day with 100% coverage. In other words, this looks very promising. I also calculated that in my country it would take me 2 years to get my money back if I build a battery farm like this (assuming only building cost comes from the battery itself). This means that this technology, is very profitable as long as electricity prices keep jumping, which means that it will spread really fast, if the company allows licensing it (because we need tens of thousands of factories to build batteries for the whole world).
Only downside is that we don't have any large scale long term results of it. Test sites are expected to start operating 2025.
bullshit. 1st qtr installations are up 33% (Score:1)
"China is still setting up solar panels at a rapid pace in the first quarter of 2024, as the installation rate jumped by more than one-third from a year ago, according to official data. However, this growth was much slower than in the 154% surge in the same quarter of 2023."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone... [msn.com]
Was anyone expecting another 150% increase YoY from last year? A 33% increase is already huge. And the installation placed in the 1st quarter this year alone is equal to about 1/3 of the US total capaci
Not their real resource issue (Score:2)
This is just a question of better balancing supply, demand, storage capacity and so on. It's a business problem. Too much solar isn't a big deal. This is true in some other countries as well and doesn't cause any serious economic harm. Just sort of a planning oops. Annoying but correctable.
Their real problem is they have a fuck ton of water in the south and serious water shortage in the north. The north is very dry, getting dryer and the desert is encroaching on farm land. They're currently working o
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Go look up the word "tofu" as it applies to Chinese construction.
You can find out yourself what's going on with buildings, bridges, roads, etc collapsing due to crap construction. There are also plenty of videos online showing it, too.
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Yeah, and China is big in Asia and Africa in constructions.
If it would not work, they would not be big ...
They should invest in deserts (Score:2)
They have only 7 of them
Taklamakan Desert: 337,000 km
Gobi Desert: 1,295,000 km (shared with Mongolia)
Badain Jaran Desert: 49,000 km
Kumtag Desert: 22,800 km
Tengger Desert: 36,700 km
Ulan Buh Desert: 10,000 km
Mu Us Desert: 40,000 km
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Capacity isn't use. It's insurance.