California Has So Much Solar Power That Other States Are Paid To Take It (mic.com) 324
"On 14 days during March, Arizona utilities got a gift from California: free solar power," reported the Los Angeles Times. Mic reports:
California is generating so much solar energy that it is resorting to paying other states to take the excess electricity in order to prevent overloading power lines. According to the Los Angeles Times, Arizona residents have already saved millions in 2017 thanks to California's contribution. The state, which produced little to no solar energy just 15 years ago, has made strides -- it single-handedly has nearly half of the country's solar electricity generating capacity...
When there's too much solar energy, there is a risk of the electricity grid overloading. This can result in blackouts. In times like this, California offers other states a financial incentive to take their power. But it's not as environmentally friendly as one would think. Take Arizona, for example. The state opts to put a pin in its own solar energy sources instead of fossil fuel power, which means greenhouse gas emissions aren't getting any better due to California's overproduction.
The Los Angeles Times suggests over-construction of natural gas plants created part of the problem -- Californians now pay roughly 50% more than the rest of the country for power -- but they report that power supplies could become more predictable when battery storage technologies improve.
When there's too much solar energy, there is a risk of the electricity grid overloading. This can result in blackouts. In times like this, California offers other states a financial incentive to take their power. But it's not as environmentally friendly as one would think. Take Arizona, for example. The state opts to put a pin in its own solar energy sources instead of fossil fuel power, which means greenhouse gas emissions aren't getting any better due to California's overproduction.
The Los Angeles Times suggests over-construction of natural gas plants created part of the problem -- Californians now pay roughly 50% more than the rest of the country for power -- but they report that power supplies could become more predictable when battery storage technologies improve.
So Make Hydrogen (Score:4, Insightful)
So why not take that excess electricity and make hydrogen out of it?
Re:So Make Hydrogen (Score:5, Insightful)
Not cost effective on a large scale. Needs way too much storage capacity. Worse, the state often has droughts so fresh water is EXPENSIVE, while salt water has huge corrosion problems when making hydrogen.
Basically, storing electricity is hard. It's why their has been so much investment in batteries. Its the major technological issue holding us back.
It's why electric cars are still rare, the reason why planes need fuel, and the reason why cellphones get hot and need to be recharged every freakin day.
Re:So Make Hydrogen (Score:5, Interesting)
Not cost effective on a large scale. Needs way too much storage capacity. Worse, the state often has droughts so fresh water is EXPENSIVE, while salt water has huge corrosion problems when making hydrogen...
Build some desalinizing plants and run them when there is too much available power. Getting some fresh water is better than giving away power, and they WILL need the desalinizing plants in the future in any case.
As to making hydrogen, that would be more viable with a supply of distilled water, but still not a great plan unless you can use it without storing it... maybe make hybrid natural gas for consumer use, offset buying some of the natural gas now used.
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Because, you know, it's a totally worthwhile capital investment to make massive desalination capacity that you run a tiny percentage of the time with no relationship to the demand for water. Tell me, are we also going to pay the workers to stand idle, or will we just expect there to be a bunch of trained unemployed people living nearby that we can hire to staff it when the power's available?
Re:So Make Hydrogen (Score:5, Interesting)
Water, unlike electricity, can be stored. Quite easily. You just need a big hole.
It's not that bad an idea. The plants are not labor-intensive, they are just capital-intensive - once the pumps and membranes are in they only need monitoring and occasional replacement, it's almost entirely automated. There's also a convenient correlation: The need for fresh water is greatest in summer when days are long, and especially when cloud cover is low. Exactly the conditions in which solar is most capable. It's also very easy to run the plant at reduced capacity - they are essentially just a simple low-capacity desalinator repeated thousands of times, and each one can be turned off individually on a time scale of seconds.
Don't think of it as a plant running a tiny percentage of the time. Think of it as a plant running at 100% capacity in summer, 80% in spring and autumn and 60% in winter. With exceptions when the sun is good for a few hours to add more water to the tanks (which need not be valley-flooding reservoirs), so it can then be scaled back down again when the clouds return.
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Re:So Make Hydrogen (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, people are actively harvesting sea salt today in California... not sure why... lot of algae from the looks of it.
San Francisco Bay @ Coyote Creek [google.com]... I don't think I want that on my salad...
worst idea going (Score:2)
OTOH, excess electricity can and should be stored in batteries, EVs, even weights that slide down the side of a mountain, or simply thermal. The later would be IDEAL at any manufacturing site that is dealing with high temps.
Re:worst idea going or useful way out? (Score:4, Interesting)
Fuel Cells are just not cost effective at this time. According to NREL, they will be, around 2025. Until then, they are a joke.
In regard to portable fuels cells, specifically cars, there is a problem that there are only 36 places in all of the continental US where you can tank up -
(https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_locations.html)
Which makes it hard to sell a hydrogen car, because there is no demand and there is no demand because there are no stations, which both feed into slowing development of better cells, because there's no market.
One way to punch out of this mess is for California to start making hydrogen, and give small hydrogen fueling pumps to any gas station that will take one, and now it becomes possible to sell cars, leading to a possible way forwards.
I myself looked into buying the Honda Civic GX, a from-the-factory natural gas vehicle. The problem was that I could never go farther than half a tank from my house (where I would put in my own pump) because there was no place to reliably buy fuel.
I realize that the technology is still limited, but CA. is spending money to give away power, why not do something useful at home with it? According to the comments above, there would be some use for a few combined desalination/electrolysis plants which would be able to make Hydrogen, Oxygen, potable water, and delicious algae rich salt as needed.
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Because storing it in a battery is much more efficient.
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We actually do that in Germany on an "experimental scale" and feed the hydrogen in a very low percentage into the ordinary gas grid.
The idea is you basically "sell" H2 to the gas company, and later "buy" CH4 for your gas turbines.
Bottom line most often that Gas company and electric company are owned by the same power company.
But you avoid the "storage problem" of H2.
Re:So Make Hydrogen (Score:5, Funny)
Do we really need to do anything really useful with it, at all? I mean, the article states that the problem is that all this "hot" energy will overheat the grid, so it just needs to get off the grid . . . what we do with it, is just for shits and giggles anyway.
Which is why I would like to just plain dump the energy into the world's largest Californian Tesla Coil! It will be a great tourist attraction on humid nights: pulsating insect-zapping plasma tracers lighting up the skies . . . and the Little Fluffy Clouds . . .
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It's also not solar energy, all the electricity gets mixed together on the grid. You could say we have excess oil powered electricity that we're paying other states to take. Phrasing it like the headline does implies that solar power is a problem, click bait for the oil-lasts-forever crowd.
Why? (Score:2)
So why not take that excess electricity and make hydrogen out of it?
And do what with the hydrogen? There isn't enough demand or storage capacity and certainly no relationship between the production of the excess energy and need for hydrogen.
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And do what with the hydrogen? There isn't enough demand or storage capacity and certainly no relationship between the production of the excess energy and need for hydrogen.
No relationship, true. Demand, probably false. We are making ever-increasing amounts of hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are actually hitting the streets [of California] now, in fact Honda will give you free fuel if you lease a Clarity FCV. Right now virtually all hydrogen is produced through steam reformation of natural gas, which means more natgas, which means more fracking. What to do with the hydrogen is by far the least of problems.
ca needs to stop subsidies on this (Score:2, Interesting)
As to solar, they should simply require that all new buildings of 5 stories and less, have enough on-site AE to equal or exceed the average monthly energy used of the HVAC.
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You DO realize that your solution would exacerbate CA's current problem, right?
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By having CA focusing their subsidies on STORAGE and not on generation, this will enable buildings to buy cheap energy, or save their own.
At the same time, by requiring unsubsidized on-site AE, it will encourage builders to put in more insulation, and switch to geo-thermal HVAC.
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There was a program which (I think) finished recently, under which you could get an almost free battery for your house.
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Seriously, they should instead focus on subsidies for energy storage.
There's already a market in place for storage. They will pay you to take the energy, and then they'll pay you to give it back. It doesn't need subsidies, it just needs time to grow.
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Note that with this approach builders can choose to add lots of AE, increase insulation, go with efficient HAVC such as geo-thermal, or a combination of the above. With this approach, the costs of energy for a building nearly goes away. The reason is that HVAC is abou
How are they storing energy for the night? (Score:2)
Can some Slashdotter in the know advise on how Californian's are storing energy for use in the night? I am meant to understand that there are a number of options; Molten Salt, pumping water up a mountain and later utilizing gravity, compressed air in rocks or under the sea and of course batteries.
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They are basically "storing" it in Arizona, paying Arizona to take it and paying Arizona to give it back.
Re:How are they storing energy for the night? (Score:4, Informative)
In related news (Score:2)
California companies are locating their data centers in neighboring states to take advantage of those state's cheaper power.
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The only constant is Californians overpaying due to government meddling. Whether that meddling creates shortages or surpluses or other sorts of inefficiencies, Californians always get overcharged.
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Californians should pay more. They keep voting to pay more. I think Washington DC will grant Californians' wish for higher taxes by ending deductibility of state tax. Californians can pay more so low tax red state residents can pay less. That way, everyone gets what they voted for.
Curious... (Score:5, Interesting)
...on those 14 days in March, electricity customers paid exactly the same price for electricity as they did the other 17 days in March, so how did that help the consumers in California?
Likewise, customers in the state that got 'free' electricity from California also paid exactly the same rate for electricity every day in March.
So I ask, who benefitted from all that 'free' excess solar electricity? I can tell you who suffered because of all that 'free' excess solar electricity, every consumer of electricity in California, because the utility company is required, by law, to pay a premium price for every solar generated KWh fed into their grid, whether they need it or not, whether or not they can resell it.
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It only changes if you're paying market prices. So if you're speculating on demand and supply in the energy market (kind of like the stock market for energy supply), you're basically been given some money if you invested correctly previously.
This doesn't affect customer much. My energy supply costs me $0.02xxx and even though I have a variable rate, that cost doesn't vary much throughout the year, only the smaller digits change, the other ~10c is primarily delivery and transport and about 3-4c in taxes and
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March this year had exceptional weather. It was sunnier than usual , so solar power generation was higher than one would expect for this time of year.
But paying to send electricity in this manner is not new. In the UK, where generators bid to sell electricity into the grid, there have been occasions where the bids have been negative. This is because the owners of generating capacity want to keep their equipment running.
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The power company in Arizona, that bought the power and got money on top, profited.
Wow, that was easy again.
Re: Curious... (Score:2)
Is the profitability of the Arizona utility the reason Californians built solar plants?
The California utility was forced to buy the electricity from solar plant owners, that raises, not lowers, California consumer electricity costs - is that the reason Californians built the solar plants?
The California utility was forced to pay the Arizona utility to take the excess solar electricity, that raises, not lowers, California consumer electricity costs - is that the reason Californians built the solar plants?
Acco
Re: Curious... (Score:2)
CA utility paid premium for solar electricity it didn't need, then had to pay someone to take it to avoid damaging (overload) it's power grid. Sounds like a problem to me. This is a situation that occurred 14 out of the 31 days in March, so it is becoming more commonplace.
As solar deployments expand in California, and these 'excess' electricity days become more common, will that drive electric costs up or down for California consumers? I think it will drive costs up, and I think that's a problem.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
That's been going on for decades. The Enron scandal involved the energy companies making the Californian senate panic into thinking energy prices were going to skyrocket and they had better sign a long term contract "freezing" prices to a fixed rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis
"Overscheduling is a term used in describing the manipulation of capacity available for the transportation of electricity along power lines. Power lines have a defined maximum load. Lines must be booked
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I think it will drive costs up, and I think that's a problem.
I think it's generating a market for storage, and that's not a problem.
Re: Curious... (Score:2)
It's a problem until there's a storage solution.
So the long-term plan is:
Pay a premium for electricity today for electricity you don't need today, then invest in a storage mechanism to store that electricity until it's needed tomorrow?
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It's a problem until there's a storage solution.
Yes, but you need problems in order to get solutions.
... in order to prevent overloading power lines. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are the reporters always writing such a nonsense?
You feed power into the grid: it needs to be consumed. Or you can not feed it in.
And: I guess the solar power was teleported to Arizona, to prevent "overloading a wire"?
Re:... in order to prevent overloading power lines (Score:5, Funny)
Electricity is stored in wires. If the wires get full, the solar panels no longer work correctly. The excess energy has to be drained so feedback from the solar panels doesn't damage the sun.
If you went to journalism school, you would know these things.
Re: ... in order to prevent overloading power line (Score:2)
If you went to engineering school, you would know these things
FTFY
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You can't engineer a new sun. We need to raise awareness so we don't destroy the one we have.
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J school grads don't drive, but here goes:
I think it's like a parking lot. If you keep driving cars in after the lot is full, you have to double and triple park them. Eventually they get so heavy that the ground collapses and causes an earthquake. Just like too much electricity causes a blackout.
Now do you understand?
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...then how's that gonna help Alabama?
Subsidies. That's what we learned in J-school. The only hope for places like Alabama is subsidies. And education so Alabama's children can learn enough to move to a place with running water. Not Manhattan though. Maybe Queens.
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Because sensationalist headlines get more reads, and because journalists are usually under tight time constraints that do not allow them to do in-depth study.
They don't want it I'll take it. (Score:2)
I am wondering why they have to ship the power to a neighboring state instead of letting me run my AC and pool for free until the crisis is over. My utility bill routinely breaks over $600/month (both gas and electric) from PG&E in the summer.
Oh, wait. I'm in Northern California. That means they can use my water all they want but something like sharing their excess energy must be illegal. Rather than do that they would prefer to break California in two so they don't have to pay taxes to redwood tree
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Real time electricity pricing would be a good start to let the market fix this problem.
Re:They don't want it I'll take it. (Score:4, Interesting)
California is a huge state with an economy larger than that of France. You need 27 Nebraska's to make 1 California. But for all of that size, CA doesn't get any more negotiating power in the federal government. With 2 Californias, we get more representatives in congress and more electoral votes. Some of the stupidity could also go away, like declaring a drought when it's been raining for a month straight in NorCal.
The only down side is that SoCal might join Mexico.
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Solar energy drives costs UP, not down (Score:3)
The solar industry is propped up by regulations that deny utility companies the ability to refuse electricity they don't need from either distributed or utility-scale sources. The guarantee that every KWh generated by a solar source will be bought - at a premium - is what convinces investors to back them, but that same regulation increases consumer costs since at times of over-production the utility is running non-solar power plants that can't be spun down as needed, and simultaneously buying unneeded solar power at a premium.
The moment power companies can refuse to buy unneeded solar power is the moment the solar industry stops growing, and electricity prices will start coming down.
Factor in subsidies for manufacturing plants, subsidies for construction/installation of panels, etc. and solar energy in America lives in a special, politically-built protected market.
Before anyone goes off on 'oil industry subsidies' - I've never heard of the gov't cutting a check to cover half the cost of an oil refinery or offering loan guarantees on oil rigs, and the gov't certainly doesn't guarantee oil companies that every gallon of fuel they bring to market will find a buyer at a guaranteed price.
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I've never heard of the gov't cutting a check to cover half the cost of an oil refinery or offering loan guarantees on oil rigs, and the gov't certainly doesn't guarantee oil companies that every gallon of fuel they bring to market will find a buyer at a guaranteed price.
But the gov't does pick up the tab for all the costs of increased CO2 levels.
Simple Solution (Score:5, Informative)
The simple solution is to build a few large bore (2m diameter), high pressure pipes up into lakes in the rocky mountains. Drop them down to pumping stations with holding ponds. During the day when you have excessive solar, you pump water from your holding pond up into the lake at something like 3000 feet differential elevation. At night, when you need power, you let the water discharge down into your holding pond. Designed right this system will recover about 85% of the energy stored. If you are worried about evaporation, you can cover your ponds with ping pong balls (reduces evaporation by 90% plus.)
If you pump that water at 1m/sec up for 6 peak sunny hours per day, from the Bernoulli equation we know that the stored energy would be Volume rate * density * acceleration due to gravity * height of lift * time or:
3.14 m^3/sec * 1000 kg/m^3 * 9.81 m/s^2 * 1000 m * 6h * 3600 sec/h = 665 GigaJoules of stored energy or (*.85 efficiency) ~157MWh of recoverable electricity per day. You would need around 68,000 cubic meters of water to work with (about 6.8 Hectares) in a lake (or you could build 5 holding ponds at elevation that were 20m deep x 30m wide.)
Most natural gas power plants in California generate around this number. The main reason that 10 of these hydro lift systems aren't built post haste is all the environmental nuts that would lose their shit over human beings building pipelines in California and/or using a lake for anything other than squatting next to while meditating...
A use for extra power that California will pass up (Score:3)
Desalination would be an ideal 'peak absorber' use to shave off the high points in a fluctuating power supply in a state with a long-term shortage of water. But good luck getting California to issue permits for something this obvious before the end of this century.
Re:Clueless journalist (Score:5, Informative)
The journalist is (a) clueless about energy production and (b) a careless writer.
Just one example of the latter: "free" is not "paying other states to take it". Which is it? I'm not going to bother to look, but what crappy writing and editing.
Maybe you should actually bother reading. From the article:
Why does California have to pay rather than simply give the power away free?
When there isn’t demand for all the power the state is producing, CAISO needs to quickly sell the excess to avoid overloading the electricity grid, which can cause blackouts. Basic economics kick in. Oversupply causes prices to fall, even below zero. That’s because Arizona has to curtail its own sources of electricity to take California’s power when it doesn’t really need it, which can cost money. So Arizona will use power from California at times like this only if it has an economic incentive — which means being paid.
In my opinion the article is actually pretty good.
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In my opinion the article is actually pretty good.
Because you don't grasp that the following is wrong.
CAISO needs to quickly sell the excess to avoid overloading the electricity grid, which can cause blackouts.
The power is actually transported to Arizona via "the electric grid" ... and usually you simply disconnect the power plant if you can not get rid of the power ... no thread of overloading or black out (facepalm).
Oversupply causes prices to fall, even below zero.
And this is absolute nonsense.
The pric
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If power costs could actually go negative, someone would be building the world's largest heating element as a way to get rid of it.
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"Just one example of the latter: "free" is not "paying other states to take it""
Uh, to the other states, that is exactly that - free money and power. Where in your brain did this malfunction occur?
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That being out of the way.. RE: 'Hydroelectric storage of excess energy production': The only possible problem I see with using this technique to store excess produced energy, is environmental; we'd most likely be creating pairs of man-made lakes to make this work, and building new hydroelectr
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Just one example of the latter: "free" is not "paying other states to take it". Which is it? I'm not going to bother to look, but what crappy writing and editing.
"You can have all the junk in my yard for free, I'll give you twenty bucks to clear it for me." Me think you no understand English good.
Re: Clueless journalist (Score:4, Informative)
Also, when there is to much sun solar plants can be disconnected and just not feed the grid.
Wow.
Most solar plants (either domestic, built on private residences, or commercial) are private, and were built to generate profits for the owner based on the premium price utilities - by law - are required to pay for every KWh they feed into the grid.
Every KWh that CA utility paid someone to take was paid for at a premium. California utilities had to pay a premium for electricity it couldn't use, then had to pay someone to take that excess to save their power grid from damaging overload.
Re:energy storage (Score:5, Informative)
It's starting to happen already, [greentechmedia.com] but it will take some time to get enough storage capacity installed to catch up with the amount of solar power already on the grid.
Storage is not the solution (Score:3)
From TFA: "Californians now pay roughly 50% more than the rest of the country for power."
And from the TFA: "California is generating so much solar energy that it is resorting to paying other states to take the excess electricity in order to prevent overloading power lines."
Are we too brain dead to put these two statements together and realize that this is not a technological problem, it is a political problem? Why are Californian's PAYING EXTRA for electricity that is not being delivered to them, but instea
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While California does experience retardation on the gov't level (as all gov'ts do), and "excess" solar capacity requires addressing, its not as simple a problem as you think it is to resolve.
The problem is that California exists in a capitalist economic system. Electricity providers obtain contracts to generate X amount of power (and other contractual conditions) for a length of time, and gets paid Y. California mandates solar power subsidization, in that solar power generators that put their excess power
Re:energy storage (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, use batteries or flywheels but those lose energy with time.
Or maybe, spend the electricity to pump water to a sealed tank in the mountains and let the water flow down later to power a turbine when you need electricity.
There are many ways but none is perfect...
Re:energy storage (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, sea water could possibly be used...
Re:energy storage (Score:5, Informative)
Could, but rather not. Sea water is rather corrosive, and it's full of horrid organisms that clog up the machinery. You can use seawater for pumped storage, it just means higher maintenance costs. It's also not usually convenient from a landscape perspective - you need a steep slope for pumped storage, like a good hill or small mountain, which you seldom find in a conveniently coastal location. When you do, it's usually in an area prone to erosion.
Seawater pumped storage has been done experimentally, but all large-scale commercial facilities use freshwater.
Re:energy storage (Score:5, Interesting)
Assuming there is an excess energy issue, desalinate (and maybe clean) the sea water first. That kills a second bird with the same stone. You still get to re-use some of that power later, and you get more clean drinking water in a drought ridden area. win/win?
Look for anything that costs too much due to energy use to be feasible, and do it. Ex. Open a steel mill and only run it when power is dirt cheap or free.
This is really a very very temporary problem. Giving away power for free will quickly find uses for it. Charge up cars during the day; put batteries or flywheels in each building to offset nightly usage; run CO2 sequestration services (CCS); turn waste into oil; run recycling plants; power a railgun to put stuff into orbit; etc.
Going directly back to the water pumping example, it's used because it's easy and well understood, but you could lift anything up and let it fall back down. Ship rocks up the side of a mountain on a conveyor belt or mining carts or whatever, and let them generate power on their way back down at night.
I suspect that the real truth is that it's not really excessive. There's a temporary imbalance, and they've found a sort of pressure relief. Later, they'll put that to use more effectively. Hopefully, no one builds a long term business around the prospect of this monetarily free energy.
Re:energy storage (Score:4, Interesting)
That kills a second bird with the same stone
No. You aimed it in the right direction but the stone deflected off the first bird and left the second alone, and it turns out the first bird was stone resistant.
Deslainating is incredibly energy intensive. You won't be desalinating water and then pumping it into storage only to later make electricity from it. You may as well just heat up some large resistor banks to burn off the power or shut down the solar panels. Also desal plants are expensive to make and are not suited to batch processes. So not only will the scheme not work, but you'll pay a lot of money to not see it work too.
Look for anything that costs too much due to energy use to be feasible, and do it. Ex. Open a steel mill and only run it when power is dirt cheap or free.
Oh my god NO!. That's far worse than the desal example. When power goes out at a steel mill it becomes a multi-million dollar event where you have the privilege of replacing a lot of damaged equipment. You can't batch run a steel mill. You can't even safely shut them down without doing any damage.
Some of your latter examples make more sense. Especially the ones which deal with storage or one shot (pun intended) energy users.
Re:energy storage (Score:4, Interesting)
I recently read about a cool inverted version of this. You put bigass balloons in the ocean down a hundred feet, and use the excess energy to inflate them. When you want your energy back, you are using the pressure from the water to drive the air out and run a turbine. I think it's in testing somewhere, Spain perhaps?
Re:energy storage (Score:4, Interesting)
Germany... underwater energy storage [arstechnica.com]
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It's not waste if it's a closed system.
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Pumped storage is a specific example of "potential energy storage". If you are short on water, but have hills and rocks, you can raise and lower the rocks for energy storage. Electric motors can drive containers of rock uphill on rails or via cable to store energy, then bring them back downhill to release it.
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Pump water storage is a pretty solid technology as it can store massive amounts of potential energy. But like many things it only works properly under circumstances where you have an abundance water available and also have the space to store that water. And then again we're talking about California here, where you can get fined for wasting water during the rather frequent draughts. Well, at least that's what the internet tells me. I don't live actually there so your mileage may differ.
California does pump water back into the San Luis reservoir at night with spare base load electricity. Assuming there is enough water in the river, there is no reason they could not do that during the day while they're experiencing a surplus of solar. Of course, there would probably be huge environmental impacts from this due to the fact that the reservoir would not be letting any water out for a 24 hour period potentially.
Re: energy storage (Score:3)
You can also tug down giant floats that rise up, running the motors in reverse to generate electricity. They don't even need to come all the way up or go all the way down.
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It's harder than you think, any sort of 'storage' will be either potentially highly toxic (as in batteries), require lots of investment (like hydro) and take up lots and lots of space. Given California is already paying a premium for their energy, I don't think they want to invest in even more 'waste'.
Given more energy is going to consumed in the future, it's probable that anything they start building now is never going to be used 5-10 years down the road when it will be completed.
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Given more energy is going to consumed in the future, it's probable that anything they start building now is never going to be used 5-10 years down the road when it will be completed.
As people love to point out, the demand graph of solar doesn't follow the supply graph, so there will also be use for storage.
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so there will also be use for storage
Not necessarily. As long as it's cheaper to give the electricity away or dump it to ground then there's no use for storage.
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Yes, but that's very unlikely. For instance, if I use my electric car in the garage as grid storage, the incremental cost for me is almost zero.
Re:energy storage (Score:4, Informative)
By charging and discharging your car batteries for uses other than moving your car, you would be consuming charge/discharge cycles on your relatively expensive batteries designed for your automobile rather than batteries designed for fixed location storage (which would likely be cheaper as weight and compactness and certain safety considerations would be substantially less costly for the fixed location storage batteries.).
The cost of what you describe can be a very expensive replacement of your electric car batteries or substantial reduction in resell value of your electric car. That's quite a bit above zero.
Using batteries from electric cars for fixed storage after the batteries don't hold enough of a charge for automotive use might be more cost effective (both financially and environmentally) than discarding and recycling them.
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Space isn't an issue - the storage doesn't have to be be urban areas. The big problem is upfront cost. Even just the batteries are expensive, and then you have all the management electronics and construction on top of that.
Pumped storage works very well indeed - if you've got the landscape for it. It's very location-sensitive.
Least worst option (Score:5, Insightful)
It's harder than you think, any sort of 'storage' will be either potentially highly toxic (as in batteries), require lots of investment (like hydro) and take up lots and lots of space
"Toxic"? As opposed to fossil fuels or uranium which are just so amazingly safe? Most batteries are recyclable (including lithium batteries) - the only issue is whether it is economical to recycle them. We're looking for the least worst option and everything indicates batteries + solar/wind are likely a major part of the least worst options. Any toxicity from batteries is easily justified in the face of the alternatives.
Hydro simply isn't an option in most locations. It's fine where it's available but the capacity for it is limited and regional.
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Uranium produced energy has been less toxic so far than solar panels. They may be recyclable, they often aren't but the mining of materials and production of the batteries in itself is highly toxic as well, often done in places where regulations are non-existent.
Hydro is the cleanest option to store energy, even if you have to make the lake, there are hills to be found pretty much everywhere but it requires a lot of investment, the problem is California although plenty of hills doesn't have a lot of water a
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"Uranium produced energy has been less toxic so far than solar panels. "
Putting the "nuclear waste" problem in perspective: The output from a single 800-1000MWe PWR or BWR nuclear plant over its 60 year lifespan is almost enough to fill an olympic-size swimming pool and is relatively safe to handle in 300 years (not 200,000)
Thorium cycle systems with continuous chemical processing would eliminate the ~85% waste on the input side (enriching uranium makes a LOT of depleted uranium waste) and the 99% waste on
Re: Stop burning the gas. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just for the record: The sun is still there when you think it is night time, it is just harder for you to see.
Which is why much effort is being directed toward interconnecting disparate grids (and yes, interconnecting has its own downsides).
Re:energy storage (Score:5, Insightful)
3. explain to taxpayers that solar energy is only available during the day and sunny days are more productive than cloudy ones. I realize most children innately understand this already, but politically brainwashed adults have lost their reasoning skills.
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solar energy is only available during the day and sunny days are more productive than cloudy ones
Yes, that's the problem. Why you would pay for such an inconsistent source, then pay again to cover up that problem is what you need to explain.
Re:energy storage (Score:5, Interesting)
Other than nuclear there are really no consistent sources of energy. We make them consistent due to engineering in of storage, feed surge and levelling, and careful planning ahead.
Removing the engineered storage component of only solar is dishonest. Remind me again what the USA stores in fossil fuels to ensure stable supply in the market? 700million barrels of oil or something like that, not to mention the amount laying in tankfarms around the country. I know the local coal power plant has a quite small footprint compared to the mountain of coal reserves they have laying beside it to sure if there's a supply issue it won't affect operation. This is quite the opposite for solar where the battery storage system fits in a shipping container for a solar grid covering an entire football field.
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It's not zero/one. The greatest electricity demand is on hot days, during the daytime. You can equate solar energy with air conditioners.
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Re: Can they reduce output? (Score:3)
You need simply follow the money to understand why that will never happen.
Power utilities are required to buy every KWh generated by solar panels at a premium price regardless of their need (or lack thereof) for the electricity, if a solar plant owner reduces the solar power they generate, they are the ones losing money - why would they choose to do that unless they are going to be compensated for the electricity they choose not to produce?
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even on a part time basis
That's the problem. They only have excess power for a few minutes on some days. It doesn't make sense to build a desalinization plant to deal with that.
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Like The Starlost episode Mr. Smith of Manchester ...
https://youtu.be/JP18WQfEtyM?t... [youtu.be]
'70s cheese
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California has mountains, sure. But in order to pump water up mountains, you don't just need mountains; you also need water. California has regular shortages of water -- for example, the years 2012-2016.
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California has regular shortages of water -- for example, the years 2012-2016.
it would have been nice if they had huge water storage facilities up in the mountains....