The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[lpetrich]

Australia now has more than 9GW of small scale rooftop solar | RenewEconomy

Australia has broken through another key milestone in small-scale rooftop solar capacity, with 9GW now installed across the country and the 10GW mark likely to be broken by the end of the calendar year.

According to the latest data from Sunwiz, Australia added 156MW of small scale rooftop solar capacity (systems of less than 100kW) in the month of June, taking the year to date total to nearly 1GW, and the grand total to 9.04GW.

“We are about to cross the 1GW threshold for the sub-100kW market, so we’re on track for a 2GW year,” says Sunwiz director Warwick Johnston.

Here are the numbers:

State	Sys	Size	Cap	Pop	SPP
ACT	24	4.30	103	397397	0.060
NSW	489	4.26	2083	7955900	0.061
NT	13	6.82	86	246700	0.053
QLD	630	4.14	2609	4827000	0.131
SA	254	4.28	1086	1706500	0.149
TAS	35	4.12	143	518500	0.068
VIC	411	4.32	1776	6430000	0.064
WA	300	3.87	1160	2613700	0.115
Total	2156	4.20	9046	24695697	0.087

• Sys: number of systems (1000's)
• Size: average installation capacity in kilowatts
• Cap: total capacity in megawatts
• Pop: population from  States and Territories of Australia
• SPP: systems per person

 

[bilby]

Sounds really impressive! Until you think it through.

If we had spent the price of two million 4kW solar power systems (at AU$7500 per 4kW system - [https://solaray.com.au/4kw-solar-system-nsw-everything-need-know/] ~$AU15bn) on nuclear power instead, (using the cost of the UKs "highly expensive" Hinkley Point C [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station] as a basis: £20bn/3.2GWe ~AU$40bn; ~AU$12.5bn/GW), we could have had 1.2GW at 90% CF = 1.08GW delivered continuous power, rather than 9GW at 25% CF = 1.5GW delivered intermittent power. So solar is a broadly similar price, but perhaps slightly less expensive, right?

Wrong. Intermittent power isn't as valuable as continuous power - because it needs storage. So lets add in the cost of the two million home batteries you'll need if you want your lights on at night (because lights that only work when the sun's shining are not such a popular idea).

A Tesla Powerwall 2 will set you back at least AU$10,000. [https://www.canstarblue.com.au/electricity/brands/tesla-powerwall/]

So that brings the cost of two million solar + battery installations (1.5GW of delivered continuous power) to AU$35bn - enough to buy 2.8GW of delivered continuous nuclear power, even at the hugely expensive Hinkley Point C price.

Oh, and the nuclear plant would have twice to three times the effective working life, so the cost per GW over the long term is actually two or three times more for the solar plus batteries than the above calculations imply. Making nuclear power between a quarter and a fifth of the cost of solar + batteries.

Nuclear power plants also produce far less toxic waste, and manage that waste effectively (rather than dumping it in the developing world and forgetting it). [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth]

The most remarkable thing about the progress of renewable energy is that apparently intelligent people seem to think it's a good option, when we have a cleaner, safer, more reliable, and cheaper alternative going begging.

But nuclear power is, apparently, too expensive.

 

[bilby]

My apologies; There's an error in my sums above. 9GW at 25% CF is 2.25GW.

So it should read:

If we had spent the price of two million 4kW solar power systems (at AU$7500 per 4kW system - [https://solaray.com.au/4kw-solar-system-nsw-everything-need-know/] ~$AU15bn) on nuclear power instead, (using the cost of the UKs "highly expensive" Hinkley Point C [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station] as a basis: £20bn/3.2GWe ~AU$40bn; ~AU$12.5bn/GW), we could have had 1.2GW at 90% CF = 1.08GW delivered continuous power, rather than 9GW at 25% CF = 2.25GW delivered intermittent power. So solar is perhaps half as expensive, right?
...
So that brings the cost of two million solar + battery installations (2.25GW of delivered continuous power) to AU$35bn - enough to buy 2.8GW of delivered continuous nuclear power.

Oh, and the nuclear plant would have twice to three times the effective working life, so the cost per GW over the long term is actually two or three times more for the solar plus batteries than the above calculations imply. Making nuclear power between a half and a third of the cost of solar + batteries.

This doesn't change the overall conclusions.

 

[steve_bank]

From a big busyness view centralized power distribution controls the market.

From an engineering and reliability view distributed power is a better system. Distributed can not be hacked or attacked by terrorists. A fault in ne area can not bring down another, which has happened periodically in the Eastern USA. Canada and the Eastern USA have interconnected grids and generators.And there are solar events that will happen. The Candian grid was affected by a minor solar event.

For a home system it is simply a matter of shutting down until the event passes.
The USA grid and power generation system is a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[fromderinside]

If something can be hacked it will be hacked. Matters not whether it is singular or multiple it can be hacked. Just different method s need be applied to insert hacks.

 

[bigfield]

Least cost 100% renewable electricity scenarios in the Australian National Electricity Market
Ben Elliston, Iain MacGill, Mark Diesendorf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513002164
https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513002164

Elliston et al's supply mix consists of several technologies that provide despatchable power when wind and/or sun aren't available: synfuel-powered turbines, pumped hydro, and concentrating solar thermal (CST) that can store heat to be used a few hours later.

Energy companies are adopting solar and wind pretty quickly, but they also seem content to stick with natural gas turbines for despatchable supply, despite the insanely inflated cost of gas in Australia. That suggests to me that the despatchable energy technologies chosen by Elliston et al don't actually offer an economical replacement for natural gas turbines.

 

[lpetrich]

Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid | Science | AAAS

This month, officials in Los Angeles, CA, are expected to approve a big solar farm and battery installation in Kern County, with electricity at 2 cents per kilowatt-hour and batteries at 1.3 cents per kWh. The solar farm will have 400 megawatts of solar panel, making 876,000 MWh of electricity per year, or an average output of 100 megawatts. Its batteries will have a capacity of 800 MWh.

Kern County is at the south end of the Central Valley, some 100 mi / 160 km north of LA.

"Goodnight #naturalgas, goodnight #coal, goodnight #nuclear," Mark Jacobson, an atmospheric scientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, tweeted after news of the deal surfaced late last month. "Because of growing economies of scale, prices for renewables and batteries keep coming down," adds Jacobson, who has advised countries around the world on how to shift to 100% renewable electricity. As if on cue, last week a major U.S. coal company—West Virginia–based Revelation Energy LLC—filed for bankruptcy, the second in as many weeks.

The United States is headed for a battery breakthrough – pv magazine USA

A new report released by the U.S. Department of Energy projects installed battery storage capacity to reach 2.5 GW by 2023. Florida and New York are set to pave the way, as massive projects in each of those states will account for nearly half of the coming capacity.

...
However, this list will likely look very different already by the time 2023 rolls around. Of the 1,623 MW expected to come on-line by the end of 2023, 725 of those MW will come courtesy of two projects, projects contained in states not currently in the top-10.

The first of these is Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) battery system under construction in its Manatee Solar Energy Center in Parrish, Florida. The battery is set to clock in at an unbelievable 409 MW, which will make it the largest solar-powered battery system in the world.

In that project’s shadow, but capable of casting a massive shadow of its own comes the Helix Ravenswood facility, planned to be located in Queens, New York. Almost more impressive than the project’s anticipated 316 MW of capacity is the idea of having a storage project of such magnitude located within New York City.

If nothing else, such battery installations will make natural-gas peakers unnecessary.

 

[lpetrich]

Solar power system that works at night a renewable energy game-changer

Professor Craig Buckley said the thermal battery was part of the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) system being developed by United Sun Systems, which requires a battery to store and release energy to enable non-stop solar power generation.

...
"The battery uses a high-temperature metal hydride or metal carbonate as the heat storage medium and a low temperature gas storage vessel for storing the hydrogen or carbon dioxide.

"At night, and in times of cloud cover, hydrogen or carbon dioxide is released from the gas storage vessel and absorbed by the higher temperature metal to form a metal hydride/metal carbonate, which produces heat used to generate electricity."

Liquid battery could lead to flexible energy storage - a kind of flow battery. The article mentioned that flow batteries could be useful for electric cars, because one would exchange spent battery fluid for charged fluid.

South Korea could soon be home to planet's largest floating wind farm - 200 MW. The wind turbines have towers, but the towers' bases float and are anchored to the seafloor with cables. That makes it possible to install wind turbines in deep water.

Tidal power project smashes record in waters off Scottish coast

• The project, which is located in waters off the north coast of Scotland, sent more than 7 GWh of renewable energy to the grid in 2019.
• The European Commission describes “ocean energy” as being both abundant and renewable.

This is about 1.6 megawatts on average.

This is tidal-stream electric generation, with turbines in the ocean.

The European Commission, the legislative arm of the EU, has described “ocean energy” as being both abundant and renewable. It’s estimated that ocean energy could potentially contribute around 10 percent of the European Union’s power demand by 2050, according to the Commission.

 

[bilby]

Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid | Science | AAAS

This month, officials in Los Angeles, CA, are expected to approve a big solar farm and battery installation in Kern County, with electricity at 2 cents per kilowatt-hour and batteries at 1.3 cents per kWh. The solar farm will have 400 megawatts of solar panel, making 876,000 MWh of electricity per year, or an average output of 100 megawatts. Its batteries will have a capacity of 800 MWh.

Kern County is at the south end of the Central Valley, some 100 mi / 160 km north of LA.

"Goodnight #naturalgas, goodnight #coal, goodnight #nuclear," Mark Jacobson, an atmospheric scientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, tweeted after news of the deal surfaced late last month. "Because of growing economies of scale, prices for renewables and batteries keep coming down," adds Jacobson, who has advised countries around the world on how to shift to 100% renewable electricity. As if on cue, last week a major U.S. coal company—West Virginia–based Revelation Energy LLC—filed for bankruptcy, the second in as many weeks.

The United States is headed for a battery breakthrough – pv magazine USA

A new report released by the U.S. Department of Energy projects installed battery storage capacity to reach 2.5 GW by 2023. Florida and New York are set to pave the way, as massive projects in each of those states will account for nearly half of the coming capacity.

...
However, this list will likely look very different already by the time 2023 rolls around. Of the 1,623 MW expected to come on-line by the end of 2023, 725 of those MW will come courtesy of two projects, projects contained in states not currently in the top-10.

The first of these is Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) battery system under construction in its Manatee Solar Energy Center in Parrish, Florida. The battery is set to clock in at an unbelievable 409 MW, which will make it the largest solar-powered battery system in the world.

In that project’s shadow, but capable of casting a massive shadow of its own comes the Helix Ravenswood facility, planned to be located in Queens, New York. Almost more impressive than the project’s anticipated 316 MW of capacity is the idea of having a storage project of such magnitude located within New York City.

If nothing else, such battery installations will make natural-gas peakers unnecessary.

Not unless they get about 10,000x cheaper and 100x bigger they fucking won't.

Fart-arsing around with billion dollar megawatts is all well and good, but the world needs cheap, dispatchible, and reliable terawatts.

This cannot be achieved with such low energy density power sources as wind and solar; Even if we were to tolerate having every hill and valley choked with industrial wind turbines and solar farms.

It's time to get serious, and get some nuclear power installed. Wasting money on this futile attempt to make low density energy power modern technological societies is worse than useless.

It's a great excuse to burn lots of gas while the planet dies. But it's not a solution to anything.

Germany has put in VAST effort and money; and has totally failed to reduce her carbon emissions. Despite loads of wind turbines and solar cells blighting their countryside.

How much more time and money must we waste? They've had thirty plus years, and have spent enough money to have built twice the nuclear capacity they would need to completely decarbonise their electricity system. And they have sweet fuck all to show for it.

Except thousands of breathless articles telling us all how effective it all is, and how any day now it will start to bring actual emissions down.

California is no better. They bang on about so many great successes that it seems inconceivable that they still emit carbon dioxide - and yet their emissions have barely changed.

Facts talk, bullshit walks.

https://www.electricitymap.org/?lang=en

Show me the emissions reductions. Show me the nation that consistently has emissions from electricity generation below 100gCO₂e/kWh, without depending on nuclear or hydropower. You can't - because despite three decades of massive effort, there isn't one.

France and Sweden achieved that target in less than a decade each - without even trying to reduce CO₂ at all - it just happened, as an unintended consequence of their decision to build nuclear power plants.

Renewables (other than Hydro and Nuclear) just can't do it. If they could, they would have by now.

They are a waste of time we don't have, and of money we could use to do something useful.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This cannot be achieved with such low energy density power sources as wind and solar; Even if we were to tolerate having every hill and valley choked with industrial wind turbines and solar farms.

Disagree--in much of the world there's plenty of space for enough solar cells. The problem is the lack of meaningful storage options.

Until (and if) such come along, though, we should be going nuke. Much better than cooking the hot regions of our planet.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

This cannot be achieved with such low energy density power sources as wind and solar; Even if we were to tolerate having every hill and valley choked with industrial wind turbines and solar farms.

Disagree--in much of the world there's plenty of space for enough solar cells. The problem is the lack of meaningful storage options.

Until (and if) such come along, though, we should be going nuke. Much better than cooking the hot regions of our planet.

Yes, but left-wings in the West seem mostly bent on torpedoing nuclear power. And so are a significant portion of non-leftists, just because. So, it looks like nuclear is going to remain strong in some non-Western countries like China and Russia, and maybe South Korea or India and a few others.

 

[Tigers!]

This cannot be achieved with such low energy density power sources as wind and solar; Even if we were to tolerate having every hill and valley choked with industrial wind turbines and solar farms.

Disagree--in much of the world there's plenty of space for enough solar cells. The problem is the lack of meaningful storage options.

Until (and if) such come along, though, we should be going nuke. Much better than cooking the hot regions of our planet.

What would be the effect of thousands of hectares of solar panels on cloud formation, rain, wind patterns etc. upon the environment above and surrounding?
Have any modelling be done on reflection, absorption etc.
What about the effects on birds flying over?

 

[James Brown]

A nuclear power plant has a much smaller footprint.

 

[Sarpedon]

Yeah, I'm ambivalent about putting solar panel farms in places where you could put actual farms or forests. However, putting them in deserts is probably less impactful, as well as more efficient. Putting them on roofs should have no negative impact at all.

 

[bilby]

Yeah, I'm ambivalent about putting solar panel farms in places where you could put actual farms or forests. However, putting them in deserts is probably less impactful, as well as more efficient. Putting them on roofs should have no negative impact at all.

Desert ecosystems are far more sensitive than most - very few desert areas are actually lifeless and empty.

And there aren't enough rooftops. There's just about enough roof space on a typical house to collect the energy that that house uses; But houses have easily the largest roof area to power demand ratio of any commonly used buildings. High-rise buildings and industrial facilities simply don't have enough area. Often VASTLY too little. A fifty story building can perhaps collect enough power to supply a couple of floors using just its own roof. The roof over an electric arc furnace wouldn't collect enough power to be the rounding error in its consumption total.

Energy density is important. The history of civilisation is one of using increasingly dense energy sources - wind and solar power were OK before the industrial revolution, but a medieval lifestyle can't support billions of people.

Nuclear fission can. Easily.

 

[steve_bank]

Watched a segment on a solar system that uses salts for storage. Salts are melted and piped through water creating steam. The new facility in Spain will be around 10Mw.

The salts alas act as storage in a molten state.

The technique has been used for solar heating. Melt a bed of eutectic salts under your house to store thermal energy during the day.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This cannot be achieved with such low energy density power sources as wind and solar; Even if we were to tolerate having every hill and valley choked with industrial wind turbines and solar farms.

Disagree--in much of the world there's plenty of space for enough solar cells. The problem is the lack of meaningful storage options.

Until (and if) such come along, though, we should be going nuke. Much better than cooking the hot regions of our planet.

What would be the effect of thousands of hectares of solar panels on cloud formation, rain, wind patterns etc. upon the environment above and surrounding?
Have any modelling be done on reflection, absorption etc.
What about the effects on birds flying over?

I would expect little effect--the area is going to be darker than normal but it's also going to be shipping off power. You would get a slight temperature shift but I don't know which factor would dominate.

I would not expect any effect on rain and the like--the panels are fairly small with a decent amount of space in between. (This is required for maximum efficiency. You get maximum yield when the panels are oriented away from the vertical by the local latitude--but such orientation requires space between them to avoid shadows on the next row of panels. You only see continuous panels when they are laid out on a roof.)

And why would a bird care? Do they care about flying over a road? (A panel will be much like a bit of road.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, I'm ambivalent about putting solar panel farms in places where you could put actual farms or forests. However, putting them in deserts is probably less impactful, as well as more efficient. Putting them on roofs should have no negative impact at all.

Yup. Plenty of pretty barren land around. Around here there's both the desert and areas too steep to have appreciable vegetation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Watched a segment on a solar system that uses salts for storage. Salts are melted and piped through water creating steam. The new facility in Spain will be around 10Mw.

The salts alas act as storage in a molten state.

The technique has been used for solar heating. Melt a bed of eutectic salts under your house to store thermal energy during the day.

Yeah, but such systems are still basically research prototypes, nowhere near ready for large scale operation.

 

[steve_bank]

Watched a segment on a solar system that uses salts for storage. Salts are melted and piped through water creating steam. The new facility in Spain will be around 10Mw.

The salts alas act as storage in a molten state.

The technique has been used for solar heating. Melt a bed of eutectic salts under your house to store thermal energy during the day.

Yeah, but such systems are still basically research prototypes, nowhere near ready for large scale operation.

According to the show there is a commercial station coming online in Spain. There was a development system shown on the show.

I forget the term my memory is fading. It is not just energy stored as heat like in a rock. The energy is stored in the energy added to change state.