US Will See More New Battery Capacity Than Natural Gas Generation In 2023 (arstechnica.com) 97
The US' Energy Information Agency (EIA) expects the nation's electrical grid to add more power (just under 55 GW), "and solar will be over half of it, at 54 percent," reports Ars Technica. "Another trend that's apparent is the reversal of the vast expansion in natural gas use following the development of fracking." From the report: In most areas of the country, solar is now the cheapest way to generate power, and the grid additions reflect that. The EIA also indicates that at least some of these are projects that were delayed due to pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions. As has been typical, Texas and California will account for the lion's share of the 29 GW of new capacity, with Texas alone adding 7.7 GW, and California another 4.2 GW. Another trend that's apparent is the reversal of the vast expansion in natural gas use following the development of fracking. Last year, natural gas generation accounted for 9.6 GW of the new capacity; this year, that figure is shrinking to 7.5 GW. And, strikingly, the EIA indicates that 6.2 GW of natural gas generating capacity is going to be shut down this year, meaning that there's a net growth of only 1.2 GW. Should current trends continue, we may actually see a net decline in natural gas generating capacity next year.
The last big trend is the rapid growth of batteries. While these don't generate electricity, they are increasingly providing the equivalent function of a power plant, in the sense that they send power to the grid when it's needed. However you want to view them, they're booming, going from 11 percent of the new capacity last year (5.1 GW) to 17 percent this year. At 9.4 GW of new batteries, the additions have nearly doubled in just a year, pushing the new battery capacity ahead of natural gas and into second place. While it doesn't represent a trend, there's also big news for nuclear power: The last two reactors that had been under construction at the Vogtle site in Georgia will be coming online. Their operators expect that one of the 1.1 GW plants will start operating in March, and the second in December. Given the plant's history of delays, it will be no surprise if the latter slips into next year.
The other major source of additions, wind power, appears to have entered a period of stagnation. It saw a burst of new construction at the start of the decade in advance of expiring tax credits. But, even though those credits were restored by the Inflation Reduction Act, construction of new facilities hasn't returned to its previous levels. Only six gigawatts of new wind are expected this year, down slightly from last year. Things may pick up in the second half of the decade as planners take the Inflation Reduction Act into account and offshore wind facilities start construction. The final piece of the story is the continued decline in coal plants. No new ones will be completed this year, and none are in planning. By contrast, nearly nine gigawatts of existing coal facilities will be shut down.
The last big trend is the rapid growth of batteries. While these don't generate electricity, they are increasingly providing the equivalent function of a power plant, in the sense that they send power to the grid when it's needed. However you want to view them, they're booming, going from 11 percent of the new capacity last year (5.1 GW) to 17 percent this year. At 9.4 GW of new batteries, the additions have nearly doubled in just a year, pushing the new battery capacity ahead of natural gas and into second place. While it doesn't represent a trend, there's also big news for nuclear power: The last two reactors that had been under construction at the Vogtle site in Georgia will be coming online. Their operators expect that one of the 1.1 GW plants will start operating in March, and the second in December. Given the plant's history of delays, it will be no surprise if the latter slips into next year.
The other major source of additions, wind power, appears to have entered a period of stagnation. It saw a burst of new construction at the start of the decade in advance of expiring tax credits. But, even though those credits were restored by the Inflation Reduction Act, construction of new facilities hasn't returned to its previous levels. Only six gigawatts of new wind are expected this year, down slightly from last year. Things may pick up in the second half of the decade as planners take the Inflation Reduction Act into account and offshore wind facilities start construction. The final piece of the story is the continued decline in coal plants. No new ones will be completed this year, and none are in planning. By contrast, nearly nine gigawatts of existing coal facilities will be shut down.
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I'm confused on the use of "autarky" here as isn't that a good thing? Autarky means being self sufficient, and being self sufficient means the outside world has little influence. If the USA were self sufficient then it would not much care about the flow of petroleum oil out of any other nation, if they want to stop trading with the USA then that might be a bit inconvenient but not something to go to war over. When the USA was producing all the petroleum it needed there was still international trade simpl
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I'm confused on the use of "autarky" here as isn't that a good thing?
No, autarky is not a good thing. It sounds good and often has popular support, but it leads to economic stagnation and decline.
North Korea's "Juche" is a policy of autarky and has impoverished the country.
In 1980, India was more prosperous than China. But India subsequently focused on self-sufficiency while China opened its economy. Today, China's per capita income is five times that of India.
Focusing on self-sufficiency means foregoing economic specialization. Poor countries are much better off concentrati
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On the other hand, autarky is a bit of a straw man here. It's not as if we have only two choices: depend on China or depend upon ourselves alone. We can have legitimate reasons not to want our supply chains passing through China but still be perfectly happy to depend on countries like Germany, Canada or Australia.
I think it's a big mistake to be so dependent upon any society which lacks the rule of law. This is a country without an independent judiciary, in which rules can be bent, ignored, or selectivel
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The production of solar panels produces huge amounts of toxic byproducts. I would rather keep production in China and poison their groundwater.
It does the way they do it in China, but not the way we do it here, which is one reason why theirs are cheaper. (The other reason has historically been government-sponsored dumping.)
I'd rather nobody poison their groundwater, it has long-term ramifications.
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it will also create jobs!".
America's unemployment rate is 3.5%. There is nobody to fill those jobs.
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And of course, employed people never want to leave their existing job for a better one.
Re: Where does the US get its solar panels from? (Score:2)
EPA regulation alone would make it impossible to build such factories at scale, besides the total lack of mining for resources, China could simply shut down any factory. Itâ(TM)s too large of a risk.
Re:Where does the US get its solar panels from? (Score:5, Informative)
> Where does the US get its solar panels from? Oh China?
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
44.8% Malaysia
27% Vietnam
7.8% South Korea
7.4% Thailand
3.3% Mexico
2.8% Singapore
2.7% Turkey
4.2% "Others"
Nice talking point, though. Real shame it's debunked in under 10 seconds.
=Smidge=
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> Where does the US get its solar panels from? Oh China?
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
44.8% Malaysia 27% Vietnam 7.8% South Korea 7.4% Thailand 3.3% Mexico 2.8% Singapore 2.7% Turkey 4.2% "Others"
Nice talking point, though. Real shame it's debunked in under 10 seconds. =Smidge=
Real shame that just because Malaysia slapped the final "manufactured in ..." doesn't mean much more than that. For example you really think those AMD "assembled in Malaysia" CPUs are made there?
Re:Where does the US get its solar panels from? (Score:4, Informative)
Malaysia manufactures over four gigawatts of solar panels annually. Some panels may be only assembled there, but many of them are also fabbed there.
AMD does assembly in Malaysia for semiconductors manufactured in Taiwan. That is well known.
Re:Where does the US get its solar panels from? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Nothing of what you said is relevant to my comment or the comment I was replying to. Like literally none of it.
The claim was the US imports solar panels from China. The fact is it doesn't. End of story, regardless of the reasons why the US doesn't import Chinese panels.
=Smidge=
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Nothing of what you said is relevant to my comment or the comment I was replying to. Like literally none of it.
False. The op made a, dumb in my opinion, comment about ripping out installed Chinese panels. You tell them off by only citing one recent year, without even highlighting its odd we don’t get almost any panels from the worlds largest supplier. Panels have a life measured in several decades, thus the historical glut of installed panels will leave a sizable amount more in use than your reply suggests.
Re:Storage capacity vs. generation capacity (Score:5, Interesting)
It's almost as if you didn't even read the summary before posting.
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It applies aptly to the headline, what more do you want?
I for me would like the summary to be an actual summary. It reliably hasn't been in at least ten years.
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I for me would like the summary to be an actual summary. It reliably hasn't been in at least ten years.
But large language models have come so far in the last decade..
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It applies aptly to the headline, what more do you want?
Read the fucking summary.
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If the summaries aren't worth reading and haven't been for a decade then what the fuck are you doing on Slashdot? Are you some sort of bane on the rest of the user base who want to discuss the topic at hand?
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You're an idiot troll, got it already.
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I don't need to think about the obvious. "I can't justify my trolling so I'll leave some dumbshit nebulous post like "think about it""
You can't be bothered to read a summary but insist you should be taken seriously talking about something you don't understand. You're a troll.
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It's almost as if you didn't even read the summary before posting.
So how much did you pay for that low of a user ID?
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I paid full asking price.
Worth every penny...
Storage vs. Drain (Score:3)
Re: Storage vs. Drain (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Storage vs. Drain (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason that power is important as opposed to energy, is that while gas power plants can run more or less continuously, they don't because gas is expensive. In both cases, therefore, the power is actually important. If we have 1GW of battery power available, then we do not need to use a 1GW gas peaker plant.
Of course, in terms of overall generating capacity you are correct. Batteries do not replace gas power there at all. They just allow wind and solar to replace gas power.
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The reason that power is important as opposed to energy, is that while gas power plants can run more or less continuously, they don't because gas is expensive. In both cases, therefore, the power is actually important. If we have 1GW of battery power available, then we do not need to use a 1GW gas peaker plant.
Really? Let's say I install a small, supercapacitor-type storage facility that can provide 1 GW of power - for a whole of 5 seconds, then it's out of juice and needs recharging. You really think it's completely interchangeable with 1 GW gas peaker plant?
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They're saying that if your supercapacitor-type storage facility needs to supply 1GW of power for the duration that the peaker would be expected to.
It can then use the non-peak time to slow-charge for the next peak.
I.e., if you need 1GW for 2h, then you can supply a battery with 1GW maximum discharge at 45MW continuous.
Don't be deliberately stupid. It's a bad look.
And if it's not deliberate, I apologize, and do yourself a favor and remove yourself from discussions that are o
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That's not what they said. They're saying that if your supercapacitor-type storage facility needs to supply 1GW of power for the duration that the peaker would be expected to.
Except, with renewables, there's no "duration", as in single number. There's a distribution, and it tends to be heavy-tailed (like: mostly you need 2h, but sometimes and quite often you need to cover for a week long dunkelflaute). With gas you can sustain energy production for months if needed. With batteries there's always the question "okay, how long a dunkelflaute we should be able to weather, and after how long it's acceptable to have a blackout".
But you knew that.
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1. Only if it doesn't break down
2. Only if it doesn't need to be stopped for maintenance
3. In some cases as long as it doesn't freeze which stops them.
4. In some cases as long as the weather doesn't get too hot.
No power plants are perfect and have 100% uptimes
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If this, if that, If if if.
None of these are valid excuses. They all are known conditions and they all can be planned for. Gas power plants can run for months if needed. We know this because we run them for months. The problem with gas plants is they are fossil fuel plants. This far better than coal but sill a source of emissions. But in the short term a gas plant back up is just fine.
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But in the short term a gas plant back up is just fine.
It really is. It's such a vast improvement over the status quo that I really don't fucking get where the hell this "all or nothing" bullshit comes from.
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"With gas you can sustain energy production for months if needed" 1. Only if it doesn't break down 2. Only if it doesn't need to be stopped for maintenance 3. In some cases as long as it doesn't freeze which stops them. 4. In some cases as long as the weather doesn't get too hot. No power plants are perfect and have 100% uptimes
All of these can be mitigated and/or planned for. Unlike weather, with which all you can do is keep your fingers crossed.
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Except, with renewables, there's no "duration", as in single number.
Don't move the goalposts.
The various difficulties of providing the 45MWh*22 to handle the 1h@1GW peak from renewables are separate.
I didn't use the word renewable, and neither did you in the post that I replied to, nor did you quote anything about renewables in the post that your post was in reply to.
I'm not your soapbox.
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Aren't batteries kinda temporary?
Everything is in the process of turning into something else.
Won't there be a point where all the production capacity goes to replacement and maintenance?
No.
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Aren't batteries kinda temporary? Won't there be a point where all the production capacity goes to replacement and maintenance?
Batteries are to temporary making them a poor choice to use on the grid for any kind of real capacity. I'm speaking primarily of batteries that use lithium. Baring any significant increase in energy density current battery technology takes up to much space for the amount of current they can provide. I believe the largest grid battery can only supply 4 hours of useful load. If the power is down for days, or in some cases weeks then batteries are useless. Besides the lithium used in these batteries wo
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But a single night does not last years ...
We have solar lights here all over the places. They charge during daytime, and run all night from battery.
No nuclear reactor needed for street lights ...
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I'm not talking about nights lasting for years my friend. I should have been more specific but what I had in mind was cases where the sun doesn't shine enough for days, or weeks to keep up the grid. Or some cases where the wind doesn't blow enough, or both.
Granted, these events are going to be rare, but they do happen. In cases like this we will need systems that can cover for days, or even weeks. I just don't see current battery technology up to this task.
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You cover that, the way you cover it right now: with conventional power plants.
Re:Storage vs. Drain (Score:5, Informative)
BPA averaged 9000 MW during one moderately cold day in December. During that day the multiple wind farms generated 0.7% of their capacity, and averaged over the whole 24 hours the solar panels generated a bit less than 2% of capacity.
Yeah, we had a dunkelflaute. To get through that one day we need 216 GW-hr, assuming that we started the day with full charged batteries, and could recharge them the next day. Given the weather condions during that whole week neither of those conditions would be met.
And since someone is about to say " the wind is always blowing somewhere" please provide the latitude and longitude of "somewhere" and the pre-approved routes for the transmission lines to get the power from there to Eastern Washington.
Alternatively just shut up about ripping out the hydroelectric dams we already have.
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maximum drain rate for the battery since they are quoting units of watts
This is a vastly underrated performance specification however it must be paired with an actual capacity at that discharge rate because it’s going to be substantially less than the peak capacity rate. It’s amazing that right on down to the spec sheet for batteries the most important information is often missing. If you’re lucky, you get a capacity with a specified discharge rate, often 20 hours or 0.05C. But there is rarely information about the effects of temperature or discharge rate o
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Spec sheets for storage batteries often offer a graph showing capacity at different rates, so that's nice, but otherwise you're right. There's usually a lot missing.
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The better way to think of batteries is as a component of a renewable power source that lets e.g. solar energy captured in the day get used at night. So a more valid comparison would be to compare the "battery-smoothed" average power output of e.g. a solar plant to that of the gas-fired one. The peak output of the batteries and the peak output of the solar itself during the day are both going to be much higher than the continuous output of a gas generator.
That's where I was going too. We need to count the batteries as negative power sources when they're charging, positive when discharging. Counting smoothed, sustained output seems reasonable. OTOH, knowing peak output for hot sunny afternoons isn't bad ether.
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I guess you've never heard of solar and wind. I'd start reading more if I were you.
Re:rapid growth of batteries, WHAT charges them ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unsurprisingly, a story about batteries this dickhead's saying "but what charges them?".
They are physically incapable of thinking for themselves, to draw from two different bits of information and putting them together to think of potential answers to their questions. If I were being generous, I'd say they're JAQing off. But they've convinced me they're too stupid to do even that.
Re:rapid growth of batteries, WHAT charges them ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Both of these are completely reasonable questions.
Intermittency is a fact for both solar and wind. Solar, in northern latitudes, basically vanishes from November through February. If the policy is to move the grid substantially to solar, there has to be some means of filling the gap. Solar, the intermittency is predictable. Wind is worse, its both intermittent and unpredictable.
At the moment the only way of running a substantial wind generated grid is to build duplicate gas capacity, and switch it in when needed. Similarly the only practical way of making solar usable is to to have duplicate gas capacity. This is not very cost effective because when you do this the fuel efficiency falls, but its at least a bit better than having coal plants in standby all the time. Which you have to do with coal because of the long lead time to start them up.
So its perfectly reasonable to ask policy makers what their solution is to the intermittency problem which afflicts both wind and solar. The key question is, what are you doing to make wind and solar usable, what is the cost of these measures, and how does your total solution compare with no wind and solar at all, but only coal/gas as the solution?
Then we get to the question of how the batteries, if you are going with batteries, are to be charged. This is an entirely reasonable question for the following reason. In Northern Europe you frequently have winter blocking highs, which lead to week-long cold calm days. So, if you had batteries in sufficient bulk maybe you could run the grids for a week or so on them. Then the wind picks up, and you use the wind to supply the grid.
But you need to do more than that. You also need to recharge the batteries, and you need to do it soon, because another wind drought can arrive at any time.
The only solution to this is to overbuild the wind capacity. If you do this, you will be able to supply the grid when the wind rises and at the same time recharge the long term storage. If you don't overbuild, you do not have a fit for purpose solution, because two successive calms will bring the grid to a stop.
So its entirely reasonable to ask policy makers whether their plans have taken account of this. Whether they have provided enough capacity to both recharge and supply normal demand at the same time.
You can call everyone who asks any questions 'dickheads' and 'parrots', but the reasonable questions they are asking will not go away, and if Net Zero is implemented without addressing them in the system design and configuration the result will be disaster. If they are addressed of course the result will be hugely higher costs. But bad as that may be, its a lot worse than a system which has been designed in denial of the physical realities.
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So its perfectly reasonable to ask policy makers what their solution is to the intermittency problem which afflicts both wind and solar. The key question is, what are you doing to make wind and solar usable, what is the cost of these measures, and how does your total solution compare with no wind and solar at all, but only coal/gas as the solution?
In France these questions have been answered [rte-futurs...es2050.com] already. In particular see scenario M0 which goes full renewable and 0% nuclear in 2050 and compare it to N03 which shoots for 50% nuclear.
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Wind is worse, its both intermittent and unpredictable.
Completely wrong. I suggest to read once a weather report. Surprisingly it contains wind speeds.
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At the moment the only way of running a substantial wind generated grid is to build duplicate gas capacity, and switch it in when needed. Similarly the only practical way of making solar usable is to to have duplicate gas capacity.
That is complete nonsense. Germany is producing 50% of its energy with renewables: where are the gas plants you think you need? Care to draw a map and point them out?
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Wow, what an Einstein, able to do grade school arithmetic to point to a straw man. You see, son, we can charge batteries during the day, and whallah, discharge them at night.
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This "Viol8" tosser is admitting to being a bigger idiot than a politician.
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And others on here also don't understand how much sunlight reaches the ground during a high latitude winter. But whatever, I'm a moron, right?
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Wow, what an Einstein, able to do grade school arithmetic to point to a straw man. You see, son, we can charge batteries during the day, and whallah, discharge them at night.
And hope like hell that there's no clouds the following day, otherwise we're fucked.
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Because where will people get the power to run their air conditioners on cloudy days?
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another one who thinks solar is the only solution providing power
Sigh. Fine. Sorry, I assumed some modicum of intelligence on part of readers, but for those who like you need everything explicitly spelled out: change that to "hope like hell we're not going to have dunkelflaute the following day, otherwise we're fucked". Remember, energy from PV and wind only, anything else is anathema to green morons.
EV mineral shortage (Score:1)
One big problem, where raw components are located
https://www.visualcapitalist.c... [visualcapitalist.com]
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Copper: don't need copper, or at least not more than we use for ICEVs. We can use Aluminum for motor windings, high current carrying cables, etc. It takes a little more material, big whoop. Seen how small the motors are now? They can be a little bigger.
Nickel: A thin coating over a carbon electrode in LFP batteries, we should stop making EVs with NMC batteries anyway.
Cobalt: none in LFP batteries
Rare earths: Little or none in LFP batteries
Lithium: This is the sticking point, but oceanic and geothermal sourc
Its definitely Peak Gas Turbine ... (Score:3)
Solar is ramping down, but demand is still high, late evening. The grid is despo for power, and there is no time to solicit and accept bids. Spot market, the killing fields for the Enron crooks.
But, if the grid gets 1 hour of storage, there is enough time to solicit and accept bids. The steam turbines will have enough advance warning to ramp up. Energy will be bought and sold at contracted prices well negotiated in advance. In this marketplace gas turbines will lose to steam turbines.
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The "steam turbines" have always "enough warning".
Because the time when a certain solar plant will go offline is perfectly well known ... in advance.
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That is the effect of having enough battery storage for one hour.
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That is the effect of having enough battery storage for one hour.
You are using the wrong "time construct".
More correct would be: "That would be the (a side) effect of having enough battery storage for one hour."
The grid knows when the solar power goes offline. It does not need a battery back up with the: "oh My gosh, we are on battery, we have to power up steam turbines!" bullshit.
Costs (Score:2)
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Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA [carbonbrief.org]
Solar and Wind Cheapest Sources of Power in Most of the World [bloomberg.com]
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I have a feeling that "solar is now the cheapest way to generate power in some places" might not be a completely well thought out statement. It would be interesting to see if the figures for solar include all cost factors like battery production, transportation, life expectancy, capacity degradation. Solar panel production costs, replacement costs, disposal costs. Land acquisition costs for panels, land management, environmental impact management. Economic subsidies, etc, etc. It would be interesting to see the numbers.
Of course not. You see, only the coal energy is not allowed to externalize costs. All the pollution created by solar manufacture is green, because solar is green, so drink that eco, green, mercury-laden water downstream from solar panel plant, you f*cking Chink, and revel in the knowledge that it's Greenpeace-approved, therefore harmless!
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Or you could do it as everyone else is doing it:
How much cents per kW does power from solar cost? Simple. Because that is the only question you ask yourself when you consider to either build/buy a solar on your roof or a diesel generator in the garage.
And most of your silly points: are all factored in already!! Or do you think the cost for a solar panel does not include e.g. transportation?
Battery production is irrelevant. It is only relevant for people who install batteries, and has nothing to do with the
Interesting (Score:3)
But there is an interesting issue. In on way shape or form will this make mains electricity cheaper for many people.
The Rural Electrifcation project is no longer around in the USA, and if you don't live in an already served area, you'll be paying for every inch of wire, and every pole and all the labor to install the mains electricity. Build a house down the holler a mile away? If you have to run electric mains, you're looking at ~$37/foot, or around $187,000.
Suddenly that solar and battery system looks pretty darn good.
Because all of our gas will be going to Europe (Score:2)
Where are the battery plants? (Score:2)
I'm not aware of any utility-scale batteries being built near me. I wonder where they're building them and how large they are. And, for that matter, how much they cost.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That plant is also undergoing a huge expansion. It's pretty mind-boggling to make enough little cells for millions of cars, thousands of semi tractors, and utility-scale storage.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
Lithium production itself is lagging in the US, but on the increase
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/1... [cnbc.com]
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Sorry, didn't mean where the batteries are manufactured. I was wondering where are the batteries being deployed. In other words, is there a huge building packed with batteries 50 miles from me?
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I'm not aware of any utility-scale batteries being built near me. I wonder where they're building them and how large they are.
Here's one example [prnewswire.com], from one particular company, using one particular technology. I'm sure you're already aware of Tesla's 'frequency balancing' lithium battery installation in Australia, as well.
And, for that matter, how much they cost.
That I can't answer, I'm afraid. While the prices for Tesla's Australian Array have previously been discussed on /. pricing information on the Ambri installation seems to be a little less public.
Power in GW, storage in GWh (Score:3)
Load-shifting 1GW of solar power from the daytime to the 6-hour evening requires 6GWh of batteries.
I have 6kW of south-facing solar panels on my roof. In December, they generated 440 kWh, or the equivalent of 0.6kW flat load = 10% nameplate capacity. It's about 20% year-round, 30% in the summer, but I'd need something like 2MWh of battery (= 150 Tesla Powerwalls) to save power from summer to use in winter; that'll never be economical. 10% of solar is the number that matters to keep my lights on in December.
So, replacing 1GW of fossil power requires *10GW* of solar, and *6GWh* of batteries.
Replacing the 7.5GW of natural gas that will come online this year will require 75GW of solar (2.5x what's planned) and 45GWh of batteries (5x what's planned).
Yes, wind power would help with that. But that seems to be harder to permit and build in California than rooftop solar, so in reality we're gonna need a lot of batteries. Many more than you'd think if you read "9GW of batteries" and thought that was actually comparable to 9GW of any other kind of power.
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The day to night issue is very real. The December to July issue is not. That isn't a case for energy storage, that is a case for alternate energy forms and ensuring there is a mix on the network. In many placed in the world the summer / winter change in output of solar is already countered by the summer / winter change in output of wind, and as such you don't need to size storage to build in summer and get you through a winter.
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The day to night issue is very real. The December to July issue is not. That isn't a case for energy storage, that is a case for alternate energy forms and ensuring there is a mix on the network. In many placed in the world the summer / winter change in output of solar is already countered by the summer / winter change in output of wind, and as such you don't need to size storage to build in summer and get you through a winter.
Yes, but we're clearly not doing that. 30GW of solar planned this year, 2GW of wind.
We can use solar in the winter. Sure, it's less efficient by a factor of 3 than in the summer, but if panels are cheap enough that doesn't really matter. That's the direction we're headed in California, where all new homes are required to install solar even though we already have plenty of power for summer days. Of course, then we can't pay homeowners for the surplus power they generate, so NEM3.0 screws new installs. W
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wind power would help with that. But that seems to be harder to permit and build in California than rooftop solar, so in reality we're gonna need a lot of batteries.
The regulatory situation across most of the country is abysmal by design. Regulatory capture is killing us in many ways.