- cross-posted to:
- solarpunk@slrpnk.net
- cross-posted to:
- solarpunk@slrpnk.net
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/8471507
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Curious what the current average cost is for solar on a home? Sadly I haven’t been keeping up with the technology to really have a frame of reference. 🤔
Ahem. Please don’t use Twitter
Cynicism aside, there are genuine engineering and logistical problems with relying too heavily on solar power. Storage and distribution being chief among them.
A $20k LiPo4 battery in every home can remove almost all base load needs and is available today.
Get to 100% solar, then figure out how much coal/gas/oil can slowly be removed.
Hard sell. Also, say through collective action we actually somehow get governments to pay for a $20,000 battery for every home. How will you make that many, who will install them, who will maintain and replace them? You need a very large number of trained electricians and manufacturing capacity to make that a reality. You also need to plan for and earmark funds for replacements to make it not a complete waste. Just throwing out batteries as a solution is way easier said than done. There are a lot of barriers. That is why things take time.
Nuclear is about $6k per KWatt. Solar with battery is about $5k per KWatt.
If it’s cost effective to build and maintain a nuclear reactor for $6k per KWatt, then it can also be done with the cheaper solar.
Yes it takes lots of money, people and planning. So does operating a coal mine. No one says, “We can’t have coal power, where are all the trained miners going to come from? Someone will need to drive that coal to the powerplant and that power plant will need trained electricians. It’s a huge problem!”
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Well the point is the powerplant, if not currently a municipal service, has to pay for itself, make capital improvements, pay wages, etc.
If the powerplant doesn’t have “regular” income they are in a tougher spot and “may” go out of business.
Solar and green energy is wonderful and we need more and more. But we should agree we want power at any time, in any condition, so the powerplant currently still needs to exist.
This problem is not wholly removed if the powerplant is a municipal service either.
Edit Not sure what the downvotes are for, nothing I said is wrong. I even praised green energy.
Energy generation requires intense planning as the amount generated has to be spent immediately.
Reason all countries require some sort of permission before installing solar power to your roof is this; as you can’t just add more power to your grid without addressing proper storage for excess electricity or decreasing certain plant outputs.
decreasing certain plant outputs.
let’s be honest, this is the real threat, oil/coal/natgas based power production would take a hit midday, because at the end of the day, the shareholder is simply more equal than you are, and he is owed the income
no, it’s an engineering reason. The total energy into the grid has to equal the total energy out, and large generation plants can’t just be spun up and down at will. The generation network has to coordinate changes in capacity and synchronize resulting line frequency shifts.
and large generation plants can’t just be spun up and down at will.
actually, they can…
Don’t forget, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was just in China to protect US interests - this time because China has flooded the market with cheap solar panels.
We can’t have solar power becoming affordable and accessible for most people.
I’ve said it a million times, we had the opportunity to get into the market early under Bush JR, but he shot down investing in the tech. Now who is one of the top exporters?
Negative prices are good for BESS. It also has no bearing on the consumption market, which is detached from the generation market (so they can charge consumers more).
This.
For those not in the industry, the drivers for this are green tags and production tax credits (more common in wind).
Green tags are basically attaboys for funding the generation of renewable electricity, and are tradable.
Production tax credits are a $/MWH tax incentive for generating renewable power, and are, again, tradable.
In both cases, then, there are incentives for renewable projects to keep producing power even when the wholesale power price at the point of interconnection is negative, as there are generation incentives that still make it better than idling.
From an environmentalist perspective, this is fantastic, as virtually all of this renewable generation represents offset coal and gas peaker plant generation.
From an environmentalist perspective, this is fantastic, as virtually all of this renewable generation represents offset coal and gas peaker plant generation.
Aren’t prices swinging rapidly between negatives and high peaks a sign of volatility, where specifically fossil gas peaker plants flourish? (Since we have a notable absence of proper grid-level storage)
Yes, but if baseline generation goes up there are fewer peak demand events that exceed available baseline capacity so fewer revenue generating opportunities for peaker plants. But I agree the real answer is less overbuild and more storage- unfortunate given today’s Tesla news.
Renewable energy is great
Having a power grid is great, needs money to maintain
Having on demand power generation is great, needs money to maintain.
The current model pays for the maintenance and carrying costs of the grid and always available power generation with usage.
The current model doesn’t work when electricity has a negative cost. So we would lose either the on demand power generation or access to the grid.
It’s not capitalism that’s the problem, just the current pricing model.
