Why doesn't every house have solar installed?

[Vayra86]

Energy grids are in a catastrophic state all over the world for the same reason most should-be-public infrastructure is: it's all been privatised, and the new owners take the profits while putting only enough in to keep things afloat. Infrastructure isn't something that's supposed to make a profit, it's something you invest money into so that the rest of your economy makes more money. The fact that the infrastructure bought and paid for by taxpayers was ever allowed to be sold off into private hands for a pittance of its value, is one of the greatest 20th-century failures of so-called democratic nations.

Is the grid privatised? I don't think so, its not in the Netherlands at least. Supplier and grid are separated.

And guess what, Tennet, the national net controller, has a major issue. There's money, but there are no hands to make the connections, dig in bigger cables, etc. Or there's legislation stopping them.

 

[wNotyarD]

Is the grid privatised? I don't think so, its not in the Netherlands at least. Supplier and grid are separated.

And guess what, Tennet, the national net controller, has a major issue. There's money, but there are no hands to make the connections, dig in bigger cables, etc. Or there's legislation stopping them.

If I were to anedoctally talk about the Brazilian grid, the national operator/coordinator isn't privatised but all of the transmission lines, substations and power plants are (at best, they're partly state-owned).

EDIT: there's afaik ONE fully state-owned plant here: the nuclear complex in Angra. One could argue over the Itaipu Dam being state-owned, but Brazil owns 50% of it (the other 50% are owned by the Paraguayan state).

 

[Chrispy_]

Solar is not useless

Solar, wind, and tidal are all useless without storage.
Someone mentioned producing hydrogen with the excess, which is at least half a solution and covers energy overproduction in an on-demand, useful way.

 

[dragontamer5788]

We've got 4 pages of discussion and yet I haven't seen the basic rundown on baseload vs in-demand.

1. Solar is uncontrolled baseload, but largely predictable for the day-ahead or so. Modern weather modeling is good enough that we will roughly now how much cloud coverage an area will get by the next day, even on an hourly basis.

2. In-demand power can only be accomplished by energy-storage (Pumped Hydro) and Natural Gas in practice. (GW-hrs). Sure, there's a few 100MW-hr battery packs here and there across the world, but they're a tiny part of our energy storage / in-demand energy right now.

-------------

So all the Solar we build out needs supporting Natural-Gas plants anyway, because when people turn on their electricity throughout the day, they expect the lights to turn on. Even if the sun is behind clouds or setting.

Now the good thing about Solar is that one of the top uses of electricity in the USA is Air-conditioning, which is closely related to how brightly and consistently the sun shines. Our cities get cooler at night, so less air-conditioning demand, and there's more people asleep so there's less electricity used in general. Thanks to this, Solar has a larger place in our world than its detractors may think.

But we cannot power a full grid with Solar Alone.

---------

We should deploy lots of solar. Enough so that it makes sense, but no more than what makes sense. California is an example of a state that has overdeployed solar power, with a ridiculous "Duck Curve" that's becoming more-and-more difficult to manage (likely requiring more-and-more Natural Gas to handle). The "Duck Curve" is the setting of the sun (leading to lack of Solar Power), but when the twilight hours are still warm and people are awake (7pm to 10pm or so), so lots of electricity keeps getting used.

California doesn't have much water, so Pumped Hydro is not a good solution (but it should be used where possible). Thus, natural gas is all California can use to manage the Duck Curve.

Other states don't have enough Solar, so supporting more solar panels is a good thing. But keep an eye on the prize: eventually there's too much Solar for your city / state to handle. Try not to overdeploy and your municipality will be fine.

Solar, wind, and tidal are all useless without storage.

Natural Gas is energy storage. The more Solar you deploy, the less Natural Gas peakers will run. A huge portion of our energy grid is Natural Gas peakers.

We MUST deploy Natural Gas to keep our grids stable as we lean into green-energy, like Solar, Wind, or whatever else is used. (Note: Hydro-power is also energy storage, so no Nat Gas needed for Hydro). Its a both approach that must be taken. There's no battery tech ready for large-scale Solar deployments. So we use Natural Gas while waiting.

The more Solar we deploy, the more power from Natural Gas is needed to match the various curves. But the less energy is used (ie: less burning of Nat. Gas). There's some funny economics here where we will reduce our usage of Nat. Gas but be forced to build out more plants to keep the grid stable, but as long as society understands the tradeoffs we're making, we are fine.

 

[Assimilator]

We've got 4 pages of discussion and yet I haven't seen the basic rundown on baseload vs in-demand.

1. Solar is uncontrolled baseload, but largely predictable for the day-ahead or so. Modern weather modeling is good enough that we will roughly now how much cloud coverage an area will get by the next day, even on an hourly basis.

2. In-demand power can only be accomplished by energy-storage (Pumped Hydro) and Natural Gas in practice. (GW-hrs). Sure, there's a few 100MW-hr battery packs here and there across the world, but they're a tiny part of our energy storage / in-demand energy right now.

-------------

So all the Solar we build out needs supporting Natural-Gas plants anyway, because when people turn on their electricity throughout the day, they expect the lights to turn on. Even if the sun is behind clouds or setting.

Now the good thing about Solar is that one of the top uses of electricity in the USA is Air-conditioning, which is closely related to how brightly and consistently the sun shines. Our cities get cooler at night, so less air-conditioning demand, and there's more people asleep so there's less electricity used in general. Thanks to this, Solar has a larger place in our world than its detractors may think.

But we cannot power a full grid with Solar Alone.

---------

We should deploy lots of solar. Enough so that it makes sense, but no more than what makes sense. California is an example of a state that has overdeployed solar power, with a ridiculous "Duck Curve" that's becoming more-and-more difficult to manage (likely requiring more-and-more Natural Gas to handle). The "Duck Curve" is the setting of the sun (leading to lack of Solar Power), but when the twilight hours are still warm and people are awake (7pm to 10pm or so), so lots of electricity keeps getting used.

California doesn't have much water, so Pumped Hydro is not a good solution (but it should be used where possible). Thus, natural gas is all California can use to manage the Duck Curve.

Other states don't have enough Solar, so supporting more solar panels is a good thing. But keep an eye on the prize: eventually there's too much Solar for your city / state to handle. Try not to overdeploy and your municipality will be fine.



Natural Gas is energy storage. The more Solar you deploy, the less Natural Gas peakers will run. A huge portion of our energy grid is Natural Gas peakers.

We MUST deploy Natural Gas to keep our grids stable as we lean into green-energy, like Solar, Wind, or whatever else is used. (Note: Hydro-power is also energy storage, so no Nat Gas needed for Hydro). Its a both approach that must be taken. There's no battery tech ready for large-scale Solar deployments. So we use Natural Gas while waiting.

The more Solar we deploy, the more power from Natural Gas is needed to match the various curves. But the less energy is used (ie: less burning of Nat. Gas). There's some funny economics here where we will reduce our usage of Nat. Gas but be forced to build out more plants to keep the grid stable, but as long as society understands the tradeoffs we're making, we are fine.

680MW has just come online in Cali and they are going to add more, much more, over the upcoming years. So I really don't see any basis for your claim that "There's no battery tech ready for large-scale Solar deployments".

 

[dragontamer5788]

680MW has just come online in Cali and they are going to add more, much more, over the upcoming years. So I really don't see any basis for your claim that "There's no battery tech ready for large-scale Solar deployments".

2,720 MW-hrs, that's cute.

Today's Outlook | Demand | California ISO

Monitor real-time grid conditions. View current and historical data for demand, net-demand, supply, renewables, CO2 emissions and wholesale energy prices.

www.caiso.com

California's "Duck Curve" is 21,000 MWs at Noon (remember, California has a ton of Solar, so Noon is the least use of electricity now), and 31,000 MWs at 8pm.

That's 10,000MWs across 8 hours, or 40,000 MW-hrs or something if I'm eyeballing that Duck-curve correctly. 680MW and 2,720MW-hrs is lulzy small.

--------

EDIT: And that doesn't get into the economics of all of this. If you're only using a battery pack once-per-day (during that big duck-curve), its economically more beneficial to run Natural Gas instead. The typical top-of-the-line LiFePo4 Battery pack survives ~3000 of charge/discharge cycles, which would be ~10 years in grid-scale usage. If you compare the cost of 10-years of battery vs 10-years of Natural Gas burned, the Nat. Gas should come out cheaper.

Nat. Gas plants are very cheap. Its the gas itself that costs the most money. So creating cheap plants that use expensive fuel is good when you only have a few hours of the day that you use them.

 

[wNotyarD]

680MW has just come online in Cali and they are going to add more, much more, over the upcoming years. So I really don't see any basis for your claim that "There's no battery tech ready for large-scale Solar deployments".

680MW is no small number, sure. In a large scale, that adds up.
How big is it compared to the decomissioned thermal plant which it replaces, and especially compared to the grid load?

 

[Assimilator]

680MW and 2,720MW-hrs is lulzy small.

I agree, but this is just the beginning. Now that power companies have finally been forced to accept that renewables are happening whether they like it or not, they're being forced to think about how they can fit batteries into their grids, and ultimately Ihat will drive both them and their suppliers to innovate. 680MW may not be much, but sometimes it only takes a pebble to start an avalanche.

 

[dragontamer5788]

I agree, but this is just the beginning. Now that power companies have finally been forced to accept that renewables are happening whether they like it or not, they're being forced to think about how they can fit batteries into their grids, and ultimately Ihat will drive both them and their suppliers to innovate. 680MW may not be much, but sometimes it only takes a pebble to start an avalanche.

Why? You don't just make statements like that on hopes and dreams. Nat. Gas will cover the whole duck curve, not just the first 2800MW-hrs of it. So that's more revenue per day. Nat. Gas plants are far cheaper to make than utility-scale batteries. Nat. Gas plants are more durable (on a 50-year cycle, rather than the ~3000-cycles / ~10Year cycle I'd expect out of a LiFePo4 battery pack).

At some point, economic reality needs to be addressed.

----------

LiFePo4 is not good enough. That's okay though. Sodium batteries are coming up in the next 2 or 3 years. Lets see what the future holds. But anyone building cities today can easily run the calculation and see that LiFePo4 utility scale grid batteries are... kind of a green-washing solution. They're not sufficient and are far too costly to be a real solution IMO.

Sodium lowers the cost dramatically while increasing the power.

There's also other ways to cheat the duck-curve. IceBear is a now defunct California company that used water to store cooling energy. (https://www.thuleenergystorage.com/). It only worked on air-conditioners (ie: use air-conditioners on water when there's excess electricity. Then use fans to cool down your air by blowing it over the water), but that's a huge part of the market.

I think people are sleeping on how many valid solutions there are on the market. I'd like to see more Ice Bears deployed, as one of the greenest solutions I've seen in this discussion.

IceBear, the original company, went bankrupt a few years ago. I've never heard of Thule Energy Storage before, but it looks like this group managed to buy up the IP / Trademarks on this concept.

------

One thing is certain though: Nat Gas peakers are the easiest solution for now. You'll need enough Nat. Gas to keep the grid stable. After that, go crazy with experimental batteries. Someone needs to be working on the next-generation battery packs. Eventually it will be good enough, but I don't think LiFePo4 is quite good enough yet.


----------------------

Note: Pumped Hydro, like the Bath County Pumped Hydro Station, can supply 30GW-hrs of energy storage in one project. If the local terrain supports it, absolutely deploy Pumped Hydro.

There's limited regions that have enough water and enough mountains to make pumped-hydro good. But 100% the highest priority is building out Pumped hydro everywhere that the terrain allows. Its the easiest way to get a mass of energy storage.

 

[Chrispy_]

Matt Ferrell's channel covers the various generation, grid-scale, and small scale energy storage across several videos.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjtUS7-SZTi6pXjUbzGHQCg

There's also plenty in there on various developments in battery tech that may or may not ever reach commercial success.

It's quite clear there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Different regions have different usage patterns and different viability of the many possible solutions. The only solution that isn't viable is sticking your head in the sand and hoping it will all sort itself out eventually. Change is necessary so you can either be a part of it and profit from it, or you can get dragged along by it unwillingly.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Where I live, the installation and sales tactics have a horrible reputation. In fact my friend is part of a class action lawsuit against one company. You hear more horror stories about bad installation, poor savings, contractor never showing up, new home buyers stuck with payments for panels that they were not aware of on a home purchase, etc., than you do positive stories.

FYI, my company actually has a line of solar products so it's not like I'm anti solar yet not one person has solar panels on their homes.

Everyone I know locally has solar and are glad they have it but unless free it should be a choice. The Leases are a scam and everyone's energy use is different. I use an abnormal amount so it's more worth it for me vs someone who loves it 80F in their house.

I also get a discounted rate because I have solar paired with a tankless water heater and a heat pump so the real value is hard to calculate but I honestly rather spend 3-400 a month on somthing I'll own per month than handing it over to utility companies who are just going to raise my rates every couple years personally.

 

[dirtyferret]

I also get a discounted rate because I have solar paired with a tankless water heater and a heat pump

Where I live it's all oil and gas heat. In fact it's hard to sell a home (when the market isn't crazy) with a heat pump. I had this conversation with both my realtor and home inspector since I had a heat pump in both my unit when lived down south and in my town home. When I bought my my recent house, the AC went out on us the following summer (inspector did not catch the leak) so I ended up installing a new AC system (handler and unit) that cost me twice what installing a new pump in my townhouse cost me.

 

[dragontamer5788]

It's quite clear there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Different regions have different usage patterns and different viability of the many possible solutions. The only solution that isn't viable is sticking your head in the sand and hoping it will all sort itself out eventually. Change is necessary so you can either be a part of it and profit from it, or you can get dragged along by it unwillingly.

There's also our economic system.

There's a group of companies who are specifically designed to extract energy at the lowest costs possible and sell it to us in the most convenient way possible. They're called utility companies. To some extent, this problem will solve itself. IE: Utility companies will buy solar and batteries and give it out to everyone attached to power-lines.

--------

I don't like rooftop solar, because roofing issues confuse me. (If there's a leak, I'll have to remove the solar panels, replace the shingles and then put the solar panels back on). I think roofs should remain roofs: cheap shingles that protect your house. No more, no less.

But Solar is obviously a good idea. I'm actually a big supporter of so called "Community Solar", which are small companies that buy out fields / old-farmland and put a bunch of solar panels on them. You can often buy into these "Community Solar" plots as either rental or as a shareholder. The shareholder agreements entitle you to a % of the power generated (which becomes net-metering and powers the grid... which then cuts down on your utility bills). The rental agreements is just a fancy way of paying for electricity, at lower costs than the utility company usually does.

In either case, the solar panel's "unreliability" are factored in. If there's a lot of clouds one month, you won't get as much solar power, and thus fewer credits. But that's just fair, right?

--------

Getting ~3000 people to form a company / rental agreement on a 10MW Solar field is... just economics and community building. And the agreements are becoming standardized, at least in my neck of the woods.

The issue with "shareholder" style is that if you ever move, you need to sell your shares to someone else "on the same grid". If you move within the same county or region, you don't necessarily have to sell your shares. But... its a hassle for sure. Rental agreements save less money but have less risk. This seems to be the most convenient way to support solar in my experience.

 

[Steevo]

Why? You don't just make statements like that on hopes and dreams. Nat. Gas will cover the whole duck curve, not just the first 2800MW-hrs of it. So that's more revenue per day. Nat. Gas plants are far cheaper to make than utility-scale batteries. Nat. Gas plants are more durable (on a 50-year cycle, rather than the ~3000-cycles / ~10Year cycle I'd expect out of a LiFePo4 battery pack).

At some point, economic reality needs to be addressed.

----------

LiFePo4 is not good enough. That's okay though. Sodium batteries are coming up in the next 2 or 3 years. Lets see what the future holds. But anyone building cities today can easily run the calculation and see that LiFePo4 utility scale grid batteries are... kind of a green-washing solution. They're not sufficient and are far too costly to be a real solution IMO.

Sodium lowers the cost dramatically while increasing the power.

There's also other ways to cheat the duck-curve. IceBear is a now defunct California company that used water to store cooling energy. (https://www.thuleenergystorage.com/). It only worked on air-conditioners (ie: use air-conditioners on water when there's excess electricity. Then use fans to cool down your air by blowing it over the water), but that's a huge part of the market.

View attachment 351701

I think people are sleeping on how many valid solutions there are on the market. I'd like to see more Ice Bears deployed, as one of the greenest solutions I've seen in this discussion.

IceBear, the original company, went bankrupt a few years ago. I've never heard of Thule Energy Storage before, but it looks like this group managed to buy up the IP / Trademarks on this concept.

------

One thing is certain though: Nat Gas peakers are the easiest solution for now. You'll need enough Nat. Gas to keep the grid stable. After that, go crazy with experimental batteries. Someone needs to be working on the next-generation battery packs. Eventually it will be good enough, but I don't think LiFePo4 is quite good enough yet.


----------------------

Note: Pumped Hydro, like the Bath County Pumped Hydro Station, can supply 30GW-hrs of energy storage in one project. If the local terrain supports it, absolutely deploy Pumped Hydro.

There's limited regions that have enough water and enough mountains to make pumped-hydro good. But 100% the highest priority is building out Pumped hydro everywhere that the terrain allows. Its the easiest way to get a mass of energy storage.

Its just heat pumps, and insulation, ours pumps heat into the ground all summer keeping our place 66F inside, then pumps it back out in the winter keeping it 66F inside and once I get time it will make hot water again too.

The issue is the raping* people need to take on installing/retrofitting these systems, and in major cities the heat density for large buildings would require insane amounts of talent and funding people don't have or are willing to do.


*This is all the culmination of bad government subsidies in studies for idiots when we need more trades/manufacturing workers to put nuclear on existing coal/gas plants.

 

[AusWolf]

By that impeccably selfish "logic" we should never do anything to try to make the lives of future humans better.

I never said not to try to make lives better. But waving the "carbon emission" flag in front of people who have just enough money to eat couldn't be further away from that goal.

If we want to make lives better, then let's fix the economy and educate people (financially and professionally) up to the level where they can actually afford to think outside of their basic necessities.

Virtue signalling doesn't solve shit.

It's not interesting, it's alarmist claptrap designed to be alarmist claptrap. Stop and think about why that might be, given who's producing it.

It's funny that you don't even know what video I'm talking about. I only vaguely presented one single idea in it in my own layman terms, but now you're certain that it's crap because...?

You made the claim that "Therefore, solar panels alone are not a feasible alternative to the grid" based on a video that is obviously bullshit, ergo that assertion is obviously bullshit too, and I'm not going to waste my time disproving obvious bullshit because it doesn't need to be disproven because it's bullshit.

It's not just that video. The main problems are cost and efficiency, both of which are severely lacking for mass adoption.

I bring up one video that potentially covers a tiny morsel of the problem (if that) depending on how much credit you give to it (which you're obviously free to choose for yourself), and you ultimately dismiss my entire opinion without knowing what my opinion actually is. This is sad.

Edit: I'm sure you know that you can't disprove anything by saying "it's bullshit".

Stop conflating actually cutting carbon emissions with companies being shitty. Doing nothing because companies are being shitty doesn't help to fix those companies, or the pollution problem.

So what do we - you and I do to fix them? (edited)

We don't need "high-efficiency power generation methods" or similar bullshit to solve the climate crisis or end pollution. We just need to replace fossil fuels with renewables now, instead of kicking the can down the road with fallacious arguments about how that replacement has to be perfect before we should even consider it. Perfect is the enemy of good enough, and we don't live in a perfect world, but we do live in one that is running out of time - fast.

That's the thing. We can't. We can't produce enough renewable energy fast enough, and with a minimal environmental impact (think of the area wind turbines cover, for example) to cover Earth's energy needs.

 

[Vayra86]

We don't need "high-efficiency power generation methods" or similar bullshit to solve the climate crisis or end pollution. We just need to replace fossil fuels with renewables now, instead of kicking the can down the road with fallacious arguments about how that replacement has to be perfect before we should even consider it. Perfect is the enemy of good enough, and we don't live in a perfect world, but we do live in one that is running out of time - fast.

Good enough is already happening and ironically its not good enough. There are so many gaps in the renewables strategy its unreal, like I pointed out earlier we 'forgot' to upgrade the grid proper and now we are stuck. The growing pains are real and they are immense in terms of scale and complexity.

We still base ourselves on national energy supply for example, and the market is there to manage that supply in the EU. But, now you are looking at having to transport far more energy over far greater distances. So you will need to have the grid to support that. Etc.

Is it possible? I think it is. Is it practical? Fck no

By the way, a resounding victory for progress...

Rogue Austrian minister burns bridges to save EU nature law

Cue the lawsuits, potential fines, dueling allegations — and, for Leonore Gewessler, a great campaign ad.

www.politico.eu

So you're not the only one who feels it in his gut things need to radically change...

 

[dragontamer5788]

Good enough is already happening and ironically its not good enough. There are so many gaps in the renewables strategy its unreal, like I pointed out earlier we 'forgot' to upgrade the grid proper and now we are stuck.

Honestly, Solar + Nat. Gas peakers solves most of the issues.

As long as environmentalists are happy with the necessary Nat. Gas rollout to keep the grid stable, pushing out Solar will be great for our grid. The ultimate form of stored energy (in terms of cleanliness and costs) today is Natural Gas. Certainly cleaner than coal or oil, and in the USA Nat Gas is cheaper. Obviously different countries have different levels of reserves so things are different in Europe since they don't have Nat. Gas reserves.

Running Natural Gas 100% of the day is obviously wasteful, especially because Solar can take over for the bulk of the daytime hours. Its just the "Duck Curve" that needs Natural Gas solutions today (that Utility-scale batteries are too slow at deploying).

--------

We should obviously prefer batteries as the technology improves. But the economics just aren't quite there yet. Nat. Gas is very cheap to deploy and only expensive to run (as you need to keep buying more-and-more Natural Gas to keep running). So its effectively a storage technology.

 

[Vayra86]

Honestly, Solar + Nat. Gas peakers solves most of the issues.

As long as environmentalists are happy with the necessary Nat. Gas rollout to keep the grid stable, pushing out Solar will be great for our grid. The ultimate form of stored energy (in terms of cleanliness and costs) today is Natural Gas. Certainly cleaner than coal or oil, and in the USA Nat Gas is cheaper. Obviously different countries have different levels of reserves so things are different in Europe since they don't have Nat. Gas reserves.

Running Natural Gas 100% of the day is obviously wasteful, especially because Solar can take over for the bulk of the daytime hours. Its just the "Duck Curve" that needs Natural Gas solutions today (that Utility-scale batteries are too slow at deploying).

Yeah, Solar, Wind, Gas, some nuclear I wouldn't dismiss either. You need something locally, even just for strategic purposes. For the EU, nuclear makes sense that way, plus a healthy gas storage. We need a healthy 'mix' and having domestic reserves is essential. A national gas reserve alone is simply gone too quickly during winter. (How much can you save underground / do you want to save / what is effective)

Wind is fantastic on sea. Solar is great on roofs. I do think renewables like that should focus on minimal, or no, substantial use of land. We're losing dry surface area as we speak, and climate change won't make it better. It feels totally counterproductive to be using soil for energy production if you can do it elsewhere.

I also believe there is a place for battery storage, even if its just 5% of the hourly national energy usage, that's a substantial buffer capacity with various use cases.

Also, I think your view of the Nat. Gas situation is heavily colored because to all things do eventually come an end. Fracking is devastation and its the way you've unlocked these gas reserves. There is a lot more of it, sure. But increased pressure on the national environment will inadvertently increase the price and demand won't be going down as more countries abandon coal. So is Gas really still so cheap 10 years down the line? Could the EU continue importing those huge amounts of it reasonably? Budgets end too. So the key points here to me are diversification and minimalization of and around gas usage.

 

[ShiBDiB]

To get back to the original question.

I live in upstate NY so my concern is weight and roof damage. We already have to shovel the roof some winters to keep weight down, adding a few thousand pounds in solar doesn't seem particularly smart without spending a small fortune reinforcing the roof. Also I'd bet insurance will use the panels as a reason to deny any claim involving the roof.

I'm pro using solar as part of a more resilient grid. But it feels like a bandaid on a sucking chest wound, whereas if we didn't cave to the no-nuclear crowd back in the day we'd probably be in a much better place by now.

 

[Vayra86]

To get back to the original question.

I live in upstate NY so my concern is weight and roof damage. We already have to shovel the roof some winters to keep weight down, adding a few thousand pounds in solar doesn't seem particularly smart without spending a small fortune reinforcing the roof. Also I'd bet insurance will use the panels as a reason to deny any claim involving the roof.

I'm pro using solar as part of a more resilient grid. But it feels like a bandaid on a sucking chest wound, whereas if we didn't cave to the no-nuclear crowd back in the day we'd probably be in a much better place by now.

Insurance over here just wants to know but yeah thats another such hurdle to tackle

 

[dragontamer5788]

Also, I think your view of the Nat. Gas situation is heavily colored because to all things do eventually come an end. Fracking is devastation and its the way you've unlocked these gas reserves. There is a lot more of it, sure. But increased pressure on the national environment will inadvertently increase the price and demand won't be going down as more countries abandon coal. So is Gas really still so cheap 10 years down the line? Could the EU continue importing those huge amounts of it reasonably? Budgets end too. So the key points here to me are diversification and minimalization of and around gas usage.

Looking to the future is good and all, but we also have to admit what's doable and worthy of our $$$ today.

I'm fine with people talking about future batteries (LiFePo4 today, Sodium or Silicon batteries tomorrow, Redox Flow or whatever), or Hydrogen and whatnot.

But at the end of the day, if people are so enamored with what's coming in 5 years or 10 years from now that they've forgotten what's needed today, then all of that future-dreaming has become counterproductive. People need to remember that what we build today still takes a few years before it comes online, so today we need to build Nat. Gas to be ready for 2027 (even if 2027 has Silicon batteries take over the industry... but those battery plants won't take over until 5 years after that in 2032). Etc. etc. etc.

We can't stop today's investments (that come online in 2027 or 2029) just because we're so "optimistic" with the promises of 2027-era or 2030-era technology.

------------

What can we do today? Changing a ton of our Air Conditioners into load-delays to better match solar panels (Ex: Ice Bear). Natural Gas rollouts. Public awareness campaigns to ask people to prefer Noon-day loads (ex: turn on your Washer/Dryer at 12pm rather than 7pm), etc. etc. These things help. It doesn't have to all be Batteries or Natural Gas.

But we have to admit about the economic benefits of Nat. Gas, especially as a stopgap technology.

----------

EDIT: Another plan: we can over-deploy solar panels on purpose, which will make the "Duck Curve worse", so to speak (more powerramp between 5pm and 10pm). But it will still reduce the overall amount of natural gas used late in the evening. 7pm sun may be setting, but having 10% more solar panels is still better.

So in some regards, "too many solar panels" is one plan around the problem. Just waste the energy generated at 12pm (aka: negative energy costs, which California is hitting on a somewhat regular basis IIRC) and have the free-market try to figure out uses of the free temporary energy when the sun is up.

 

[Vayra86]

Looking to the future is good and all, but we also have to admit what's doable and worthy of our $$$ today.

I'm fine with people talking about future batteries (LiFePo4 today, Sodium or Silicon batteries tomorrow, Redox Flow or whatever), or Hydrogen and whatnot.

But at the end of the day, if people are so enamored with what's coming in 5 years or 10 years from now that they've forgotten what's needed today, then all of that future-dreaming has become counterproductive. People need to remember that what we build today still takes a few years before it comes online, so today we need to build Nat. Gas to be ready for 2027 (even if 2027 has Silicon batteries take over the industry... but those battery plants won't take over until 5 years after that in 2032). Etc. etc. etc.

We can't stop today's investments (that come online in 2027 or 2029) just because we're so "optimistic" with the promises of 2027-era or 2030-era technology.

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What can we do today? Changing a ton of our AC into load-delays to better match solar panels (Ex: Ice Bear). Natural Gas rollouts. Public awareness campaigns to ask people to prefer Noon-day loads (ex: turn on your Washer/Dryer at 12pm rather than 7pm), etc. etc. These things help. It doesn't have to all be Batteries or Natural Gas.

But we have to admit about the economic benefits of Nat. Gas, especially as a stopgap technology.

I don't disagree with you at all on the point of natural gas, but the part about diversification matters. We've already seen that with the events in Europe recently. Really, a lot of the energy transition's issues are already popping up there as we're leading this development, it so seems, and its staggering to see how much is left to a disfunctional market. That same market can be the cause of a direct issue with our gas imports. This is also a $$$ question. You really need a lot of things to go well to be certain you have substantial gas imports going, especially if the supplier count dwindles.

 

[chrcoluk]

Natural gas plants may be cheap to build (will take your word for it), but its not cheap to consume, its currently the most expensive way of producing electric and was/is the prime driver of the EU energy crisis.

Personally I want gas completely gone, but it seems it will be with us for a while, as our government cut back on nuclear investment leaving a gap that has to be filled by gas, but efforts are on the way to push for higher renewables, reducing the amount of electric supply dependent on gas.

Occasionally we have periods where we can fully supply from renewables, and when it happens, anyone on spot price TOU tariffs the price tumbles.

for the curious here is some stats on UK grid supply. Hardly any wind in this summer weather so the spot pricing is poor currently. 40% gas at time of this post.

National Grid: Live

Shows the live status of Great Britain’s electric power transmission network

grid.iamkate.com

 

[dragontamer5788]

Natural gas plants may be cheap to build (will take your word for it), but its not cheap to consume, its currently the most expensive way of producing electric and was/is the prime driver of the EU energy crisis.

Personally I want gas completely gone, but it seems it will be with us for a while, as our government cut back on nuclear investment leaving a gap that has to be filled by gas, but efforts are on the way to push for higher renewables, reducing the amount of electric supply dependent on gas.

Occasionally we have periods where we can fully supply from renewables, and when it happens, anyone on spot price TOU tariffs the price tumbles.

Natural Gas is a terrible solution for Europe because there's very little of it in that part of the world.

Consider my earlier arguments US-centered. The idea of Europe relying upon others is a bad idea, Europe needs to find a home-grown energy source for itself.

Europe is much cooler and has less air-conditioning needs compared to America. There's a chance that the "Duck Curve" over there won't be as large as what we have to deal with over here. So solar is likely a better option for Europe.

 

[Chrispy_]

I live in upstate NY so my concern is weight and roof damage. We already have to shovel the roof some winters to keep weight down, adding a few thousand pounds in solar doesn't seem particularly smart without spending a small fortune reinforcing the roof.

Roof integrity and snow are dificult to solve on a budget, but solar matters most in Winter when the energy usage is highest and the sun is lower in the sky. I'm wondering why we don't see more wall-mounted solar on the south-facing walls of buildings. Walls should be strong, and walls are vertical so snow won't build up on the panels.

Sure, you're not getting the optimum sun angle during the peak of summer, but that's also the season with the lowest electrical demands. In winter when you need to heat your home and your water, the vertical panels are a better fit for the low angle of the sun in the sky, provided your property isn't surrounded by tall trees or too close to other tall buildings.