I don’t think you do get it.
When I say solar is 6 cents per kwh, that means that if I build a solar plant right now, it will cost that much over the LIFETIME of the plant.
If that is greater than the current cost of my natural gas plant, then economically it would be stupid of me to build a solar plant.
The moment that solar < natural gas, then they will climb all over themselves to build solar.
You are accusing them of being short-sighted, but it isn’t as if building a solar plant today will reap some unexpected dividends in the future. They know EXACTLY how much it will reap.
Solar panels degrade at a predictable rate over the life of the panel(about 1% per year) and the inverters have about a 10 year life. The costs are highly predictable
We need “load following” if we have 20% solar.
The only “load following” is hydro and natural gas.(or new nuclear)
We can’t build more hydro.We probably won’t build new nuclear.
So, you need to replace the coal with natural gas.
You need to replace the biomass with natural gas.
@pucksr why not use a gas turbine/cogeneration system for a load-following power source? they’re relatively clean and, as power plants go, they’re quick to startup and shut down. i ask because there’s a mixed source power plant not far from where i live which ties a large solar panel array, a windfarm, and a gas turbine load-following power plant to insure a stable and consistent output. i agree that standalone solar is at least 10-20 years off but a balanced mixed-source system seems like it would have a chance to bridge the gap between now and then.
sorry, i either didn’t read far enough upthread or missed the reference(s), although i really intended as much or more to get your opinion on mixed-source operations like the one i described as a stopgap on the way to better systems down the road as i was trying to highlight natural gas qua natural gas.
I would have called 27% a “large portion” although I realize whether you call it a potayto or a potahto the point stands.
I notice you haven’t talked about wind, which is also intermittent but with different intermittency, nor other storage modalities like pumped hydro (unless you’re lumping that under “hydro” in general, but it’s not really the same thing). Probably you will say these are a drop in the bucket. (As an aside I occasionally wonder why pumped hydro isn’t more popular; I suppose it might be because it requires just the right piece of undeveloped geography sitting around where you need it.)
We put solar panels on our roof 3 years ago, because we were sick of paying ~$450 per month for electricity (server farm and consistent need for a/c). We are okay with kicking back to the electric co. to maintain their lines because we haven’t been able to completely sever ourselves from the grid, and not everyone can afford to do solar. We would, however, like to see more progress made where the electric co. accepts and builds solar power into their model, either commercial or home generated, rather than pout about people not paying to buy their electricity.
This is a fun place to talk about stuff, some of it even true.
Is that a problem… 'cause I’m not really seeing much of a problem.
Look at what a lively thread this is. It would be less so without your contribution.
Biomass is not “load following”. It is basically like coal.
So, if you have 20% highly variable solar/wind, then you need a big chunk of load-following power source scattered throughout the country.
I sorta have. Just a different type of solar energy
Hydro is pretty much maxed out. We are very near our capacity for hydro. DoE did a study recently about how much more we could increase our hydro capacities. If I remember correctly, we could “double” hydro, if we turned every conceivable valley and nook and cranny into a hydro storage. That is a lot of investment for minimal return
Plus, hydro has a huge environmental and economic impact.
So, you won’t see much more hydro being installed. Ergo, you probably won’t see pumped hydro being used that heavily. Maybe in certain places, but then you have a huge efficiency loss.
Well, you can still have grid-tie solar. That is completely legal.
There are other things they did which are “anti-solar”. Such as how the repay people for the energy they put back on the grid.
In fact, you can have “off-grid” solar. You just have to keep running a utility service to you house and not using it(if one was already there)
I appreciate the info, but I still feel investing in the future is the best bet long term.
Also, FWIW, I want to see urban investment in solar, not solar plants. Partnerships with municipalities, business and property owners as I noted.
Same in Arizona, or at least the Metropolitan Phoenix area. I looked at doing solar a couple years ago, and financially it didn’t make a lick of sense at the time, especially with leasing the system. I was told that the utility companies (both of them here) charge a minimum usage fee, and that I was required to keep the utility connected in order to keep the house ‘habitable’ according to codes.
One of the things I do for my employer is keep a weather eye on the power system that feeds the data centre; it has a fully automatic ATS that will switch between generator and line. We have a great big honking UPS system in front of it to provide additional power conditioning and to keep the gear running for a short while if utility power fails until the generator fires up. I suspect the entire rig cost more than my house, but then, my house isn’t wired for three phase.
You should really look at grid tie. Arizona recently passed some rules that make the payback weak, but it is the preferred way to hook up.
You leave it hooked up all day. During the day, you don’t use any electricity. At night, you use electricity.
It can save you enough money to justify the cost of the system.
I have been involved in the design and such of 3MW UPS systems with 2N+2 reliability.
They were so large that we couldn’t use an ATS and the entire system was via automated switchgear controls.
That is a beautiful sentiment. However, you were arguing that they need to be thinking “long term”, which generally means “long term financially”. I was pointing out that even “long term”, solar just doesn’t make financial sense right now.
I believe you were actually arguing: They need to think long term about the environment. That is a completely different argument.
Well if you’re going to be that way, pretty much everything is other than nuclear and tidal.
Not clear to me without chasing down the study, though, if it relates only to conventional hydro, i.e. water comes in the top, goes out the bottom, it’s an energy source, vs. pumped-storage where water comes in the bottom, goes out the bottom, it’s basically a very damp battery, you could do it with piles of rocks instead of water as your potential energy sink except fluids are so much easier to work with.
(That said, I already speculated in my earlier post that it’s probably hard to find geography friendly to pumped-storage, at an affordable price.)
The Wikipedia “pumped-storage hydroelectricity” article sez “The round-trip energy efficiency of PSH varies between 70%–80%,with some sources claiming up to 87%”, which doesn’t seem like a “huge efficiency loss”? Actually it seems pretty reasonable, not far off from the 80-90% cited for LiIon batteries.
Related, ISTR the humongous Tesla battery farm going in to South Australia was (is?) competing with a pumped-storage facility. Actually it looks as though the fat lady may not have sung on that one yet.
