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Solar Power and Batteries Are Encroaching On Natural Gas In Energy Production (electrek.co)
Socguy writes: The relentless downward march in cost of both solar and battery storage is poised to displace 10GW worth of natural gas peaker plant electricity production in the U.S. by 2027. Already we are seeing the net cost of combined solar and batteries cheaper than the equivalent natural gas peaker plant. Some particularly aggressive estimates from major energy companies predict that we may not see another natural gas peaker plant built in the U.S. after 2020. GE has already responded to the weakness in the gas turbine market by laying off 12,000 workers. Further reading available via Greentech Media.
"but if it's free from the sky how will the rich get richer"
You clearly don't have sufficient reading comprehension to understand what is being claimed.
Key concept here is peaker plant production.
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought ignorant, than to open it and prove it. - Mark Twain (IIRC)
Look, if we're serious about addressing climate change then we'll need to ramp solar and wind to the point where they are widespread enough that politicians will stop turning a blind eye to the serious damage being done. This of course means either campaign finance reform or clean energy companies bribing politicians better. I'd like to see laws on the books that would require new commercial developments to include solar+battery for each housing unit.
The good news is that solar+battery installations are recursive self-improvement as each installation reduces the amount of emissions while decreasing the market price of solar installations. Elon really needs to get his battery factory building in gear!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Cobalt plays a role in the positive electrode of a lithium battery. Lithium air batteries seek to remove that. That said, Li-air batteries seem to still be a ways off. However, there is a good amount of progress in Na-air batteries in that there are solutions providing office building backup power off a series of Na-air batteries. However, Na-air batteries have their own sets of problems and what-not. However, people thinking that grid storage will be nothing but lithium are idiots.
It's good that solar power and betteries costs are being cheaper. These energy sources would be better for our environment http://www.backgroundpi.com/
It's almost like solar panels are magic devices that spit out free money from thin air. I'm glad that investors and business owners are finally realizing that. The only think standing in the way was the payoff period/return rate and with scale, it's a lot better now.
"Key concept here is peaker plant production."
That's much better, but it doesn't really address the Public Policy issue, which goes like this:
*Electrical Energy is generated based on Aggregate Demand. Certain kinds of Generation can be scaled back when not needed, like Hydropower, but increasingly Utilities are depending on inefficient smaller Peaking Plants to ramp up for expected demand beyond Aggregate. Unexpected demand leads to Brownouts and Blackouts, common in the Third World, and not uncommon enough in California.
*Energy Production has historically always been cheaper than Energy Storage to meet Peak Demand. Hydropower has usually been used in the past to pump water back up into Reservoirs using excess available Electricity, but this is geologically and geographically limited.
*Batteries are finally getting remotely reasonable for large-scale Electrical Storage, but at least another Order of Magnitude improvement in Costs are still needed.
*"Alternative" Production, after a few false starts, are finally making a dent in meeting Aggregate Demand, but the main value is in meeting Peak Demand, given suitable Storage.
*10GW by Solar is, given Aggregate Demand, not a hell of a lot. But with one "Simple Trick", it can make a lot of sense, and that Simple Trick is getting rid of "Surge Pricing", which has been experimented with in California now for a couple of decades, with varying levels of failure. I won't use the term Conspiracy here, perhaps others have a better word, but California currently has very little Surge capability left. The State, by Public Policy, lets the Utilities buy Out-Of-State Electricity at "Market Pricing", and as a result, the CPUC and CALISO are two of the most Corrupt Energy Arbitragers in the Nation. The State is still paying off their Enron debt. The CPUC is _finally_ being investigated for Corruption, and for their far too cozy Rubber Stamping of PG&E Rate Increases.
*Per Capita usage of Electricity is dropping at a steady rate, as Consumers and some Businesses make the switch to Energy Efficient alternatives. My daily consumption now for a small house is below 4KWh a day, down from ~10KWh a day a decade go.
*Almost by default, usually short-sighted Entrepreneurs are jumping in the long-term Energy Storage Biz. The Tech is almost here, the Demand is here now, but Public Policy is still lagging. My Second Home is already "Off the Grid", with Solar and Lead-Acid Battery Banks, and a back-up Diesel Generator. Once Lithium/Anythium Technology comes down in Cost, I'll make the switch to that, and by then, these will be Home Depot packages, and priced more than competitively Industrially, if...
*Various Tax Incentives exist, both for Consumers and Business, for the Generation of Solar Electricity, and that is a good start, but no incentives exist for the Storage of this Electricity. There are little or no Incentives here because the Public Policy has been Market Based on Surge Pricing, and any recent DOE studies on this have been eliminated this year by the sTrumpet That Shall Not Be Named.
*We, as usual, are going to be screwed.
The cost of power of a gas plant are higher. The power of battery technology is cheap. But a battery at full power only serve from minutes to hours while the gas plant could serve 24x7. So, the fixed costs make the gas plant less and less competitive with the drop of it's load factor. When you only need to cover a hour from time to time, batteries are now more competitive.
In the 24x7 occurs the opposite. Other plants, like coal, has greater fixed costs, but fuel are normally cheaper, so high load factor make coal more competitive than gas, while gas remain the most competitive in intermediate load factors while there is not enough renewables (solar+wind) that are the cheaper but not constant production.
With the improvement of batteries, the gap of profitability of gas will narrow, although because solar + wind are displacing coal first, it probably remains in the energy mix for decades as the best option for this kind of demand (medium load factor + not enough wind and solar).
So of all the carbon based energy sources, solar and batteries are replacing the one generally considered the least harmful....nice
A very poor comparison as Peaker Plants only operate at peak demand so will naturally be more expensive than the baseload plants. The most important factor in building such plants is that they are able to produce the power when needed, regardless of weather which is something solar and wind power plants cannot guarantee.
Reliance on solar and wind will result in either increasing baseload capacity to the point you don't need Peaker Plants (an expensive option) or more likely accepting more brownouts when supply cannot meet demand.
Last I checked, batteries didn't produce energy, they merely stored it.
Did I miss something?
I think the biggest issue is getting enough sun on them.
In the UK, we had a bit of weather on Monday, snow everywhere (was brilliant!) so on the day that we needed power the most - as it was bloody cold - all the solar panels were covered in snow, and the sky was cloudy, and as it was a snowy day (ie there was a big high pressure area over the UK) the wind farms were barely turning.
Net result, as seen from gridwatch was that renewables were providing about 5% of our energy demand.
That's the problem with renewables, great to reduce overall yearly carbon contributions, but useless on the worst days, which are the days when we need energy the most. So unless we can provide power from traditional sources, we would be screwed. The renewables lobby fails to appreciate that.
In the UK, we had a bit of weather on Monday, snow everywhere (was brilliant!) so on the day that we needed power the most - as it was bloody cold - all the solar panels were covered in snow, and the sky was cloudy, and as it was a snowy day (ie there was a big high pressure area over the UK) the wind farms were barely turning.
The reason it 'was brilliant!' was that it's so unusual. It was the most snow I've seen here in the last 4 years - no other day in that time has had enough snow that it hasn't melted by mid morning. As long as you have enough backup capacity, having the occasional day of no generation from solar and wind doesn't matter too much. A couple of days later, wind and solar are up to 20% in total.
The bigger problem is that most of the UK uses gas or oil-fired central heating. It's a lot cheaper than using electricity, so even if you switch the whole grid supply over to renewables you're still burning a lot of fossil fuels for heating (which is one of the largest single contributors to energy demand).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
First of all, batteries are not a means of producing energy. So, they don't count - at all - even though the power grid has used hot sulfur batteries as storage for decades.
Second of all, these statistics are very misleading because they only include natural gas that is used to produce electricity, not that which is used to produce heat or locomotion. The primary use case for natural gas is producing heat, not electricity.
Out of curiosity, how common is it in UK to use geothermal heatpumps (also known as heatpumps with a ground loop) in private residential housing? This can make electric heatoing 3 or 4 times more efficient.
...and a large part of that gas/oil use is to heat water (either for hot water taps, or central heating systems). That can be (at least partly) achieved by wet solar, which weirdly still works when there's snow on top of it (within reason).
As noted, none of these options is a 100% solution to every problem, but they all form part of the patchwork that is our energy supply, both now and in the future.
Are expensive to run. They are inefficient and the hotter the outside temperature is the more inefficient they are. And they are basically jet engines so they need a lot of maintenance. Battery prices are declining so as soon as it dips below the price difference between baseload generated power and peak generated power then the peakers GT are gone.
GE expanded rapidly into the gas turbine market because of the high demand to replace coal-fired power quickly due to regulation. Now that that business is functioning efficiently, the workforce doesn't need to be as big.
Now only if there was some way to clean off solar panels... maybe some kind of long-handled brush...
if...
*Various Tax Incentives exist
if...
*Someone else pays for it
FTFY
Peaker plants have always been the low hanging fruit for solar since their forte in power generation coincidences with peak demands...air conditioning.
Seems to me that solar/battery is simply taking its proper place in the power generation mix, which is NOT base load power generation.
So Congratulation people, you've finally reached the point that everyone was saying you should reach...as opposed to your Utopian plans to replace all fossil fuel generation.
Cobalt is the 32nd most common element in the earth's crust (more common than lithium), and is a waste product of nickle smelting. The problem is that there are few "concentrated" pockets for mining (it is more evenly distributed in the crust), with the top 5 nations being the Congo (53% global production), China, Canada, Russia and Australia, in descending order. So we are really facing another future political exploitation scenario of the Congo, rather than a true resource scarcity scenario.
a forecast of battery shortages due to vehicle demand. That was predicted last year with a forecast of a "hockey stick" price rise in batteries.
That little factoid isn't mentioned here and THAT is the entire flaw in battery land. capacity is dependent on physical "expensive" batteries; electrical "tanks" that are semi-expensive to make and very much to be in demand. Hdrogen... Well, gas storage tanks are MUCH cheaper and easier to make in huge volumes.
In the movie, Mrs Robinson, the word was plastics (and kind of still is).
Now the word is infrastructure (tank manufacturing/sales). Not kewl or sexy, but in the long haul...
This is the heart of it.
Fuck you idiot. Straight of the bat GDP is constantly growing in the world and is an objective of every government. So as GDP goes up, so does the pollution. I though you were trying to reduce it?
2nd GDP is a terrible measure. Just use make work programs with no actual benefit to anyone to inflate your GDP numbers so you are allowed to pollute more. Invest in empty cities and bridges to nowhere, it's lose lose. The extra building will pump out more CO2 and the increase in GDP will make it acceptable to pump out even more on top. You couldn't have picked a worse measure if you tried.
It seems to me that long term, their can only be a one way migration from fossil fuel based energy to non-fossil fuel energy. Are we there yet? We haven't even gotten started. But I've been reading, and SRS Rocco Report has been publishing information that makes it sound like the US energy industry is in financial trouble (much like the financial problems in Russia, Venezuela, and certain others. https://srsroccoreport.com/u-s...
What that will lead to will be a shutdown of US production and/or a significant increase in the cost of fossil fuels, which will probably lead to a cost advantage for non-fossil fuel sources, which will begin a real migration in the US to solar, wind and other energy sources, and hopefully an increase in production of the equipment, which will hopefully provide increased economies of scale and help drive down costs. Since wind and solar don't increase in cost to produce, there is a ceiling there that will eventually force most places to switch (some may not as the cost of the cause the cost of remaining oil to go down significantly). The hardest (most costly) to extract will be turned off, and the oil and gas market should be much smaller than now.
Offer to build them solar/wind if you think it's more affordable. I'm sure they would agree. The worst option for them is to miss out on stable electricity and a rising standard of living because America already used up all the worlds CO2 quota. If you have a better option, sell it too them.
You cant have coal tomorrow because you didn't have it yesterday. You cant have a car tomorrow because you didn't have one yesterday. You have to keep your small house, not allowed to have a bigger one because a guy in a big house said so. You cant eat as much meat as I do tomorrow because you only ate vegetables yesterday. My standard of living is fine for me, but don't you dare to aspire to it. You can't have it because you didn't get there fast enough.
Is that really what you are telling poor people. And you expect them to listen to you?
LFP / LiFePO4 batteries do NOT use Cobalt
I work next door and overlook the roof of the major natural gas supplier in my state- they own pretty much all the pipes in the state. Do you remember those "NG fuel cells" that were all the rage and would aid large energy consumers in states like CA? You'd think they would install those to reduce their electric bill.
Well the gas company just installed solar panels on the roof of their building last month. Corner to corner.
Everyone gets it. It's cheaper. Yes, the state does have incentives to turn solar power into a financially rewarding endeavor.
Of course they are coated with 4 inches of snow right now. But hey.
Shutdown of US production? Now that OPEC extended their cuts, with oil near $60/barrel the US shale production is ramping up like crazy, and expected to stay that way.
We didn't leave the stone age because we ran out of rocks.
Just to be clear: you made this comment on an article about solar AND STORAGE.
Solar and wind power generation by themselves don't reduce the amount of peak power production capacity by other means necessary, since peak demand can coincide with times with no sun or wind. However, if an energy storage media is available, then all power needs can be met by just enough solar and wind capacity to meet _average_ demand -- which is significantly lower than peak demand. I always imagined pumping water uphill into a reservoir to feed hydroelectric turbines as a way of storing power, but if batteries really become cheap and reliable... I'll take whatever works.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Oil is doomed.
Oil has already peaked.
aaaaaaa
Big Batteries for EVs or storage are usually LiFePo4, they do not use Cobalt, they have a 5x-10x longer lifetime.
aaaaaaa
Oil has already peaked.
Wow, a post from 1970. I didn't know /. existed way back then...
"but if it's free from the sky how will the rich get richer"
By selling collection systems.
"It's raining soup. So I want to sell buckets."
Back in the late '60s, when I invented (and tried to patent) an improved solar focusing mirror system, I named it "the bucket" in reference to that line.
(Didn't pursue the patent after the search found a portable microwave antenna using the same principle, granted in 1953. When I DID get around to getting a bunch of patents, a couple decades ago, I found out that an initial rejection was almost pro forma, to be followed by an appeal listing why this patent is different from those the examiner thought might be related. Of the eight or so patents I've gotten so far, only ONE was so new and different that it went through without that "Why is it different from all this similar-sounding stuff?" appeal stage.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Yes, but daytime is when you should be generating and storing it, not sucking from your batteries (which you will need that night when there is no sun). Unless you plan your storage to account for this extra power (which will add to the overall system cost).
Typical American, I'm rich so I'm entitled to pollute.
My little country is allowed to pollute much more than India because we are rich. And India isn't even allowed to build electricity to catch up because it will pollute too much.
LOL.
First, adding to your GDP, will only add on average, the same amount of CO2.
What kind of complete and utter garbage is this?
So America builds a 10 GW coal plant, and China builds a 10GW coal plant.
By the 'magic of windbourne thinking', the American plant is less polluting because America's GDP is higher than China's.
You haven't the slightest clue have you?
Your post even gets more stupid from there.
This applies to a family with a home storage and solar solution, not so much to peaker plants.
Seriously, how much of a third world nation is the USA if you can't even keep up with Canada?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No point is storing anything unless you can generate excess. And right now, even on the best day of the year for renewables, they just about managed to hit 50%.
So that means we have to double the existing capacity, and even then it will not generate enough to be worth storing.
We'd have to build 4x the capacity to have enough to be able to store it for the following day, and even then I think most of the winter or even half the year would require fossil fuel generation every day.
Just to be clear: you made this comment on a post about solar AND STORAGE, not peaker plants....
The article was about solar and storage replacing gas peaker plants. It is very sad for you that you struggle to keep all of these concepts in mind at once. It renders your comments ... more stupid than they already are.
And by solar and storage, I don't mean domestic solar and storage, I mean grid scale.
Peaker plants, such as gas turbine plants,have always been the most expensive way to generate electricity. Peaker plants are what you need if you are depending on solar, wind, or both for your base load.
If the sun don't shine, the wind don't blow and the water in the river is way way low; peaker plants all fire up nice.
NRRPT/RCT
Just to be clear: you made this comment on an article about solar AND STORAGE.
You:
The article was about solar and storage replacing gas peaker plants.
It is very sad for you that you struggle to keep all of these concepts in mind at once, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE YOUR OWN COMMENTS. It renders your comments ... more stupid than they already are.
The fact you see a contradiction between these two comments is a spectacular admission of idiocy. Sigh. I will spell this out for you seeing as you are too dumb to get it all by yourself. The article is about the ability of solar and storage to replace gas peaker plants. The post to which I responded said "but winter daytime weather makes solar useless", ignoring the fact that the article discussed not solar alone but solar and storage. Then you chipped in with your trump card of "but winter daytime weather means you'll be using not generating" and I pointed out that this would be true if we were talking about a domestic system, but isn't true for peaker plant replacement solar-and-storage. That's because:
1. Peaker plants (and thus any replacement solar-and-storage) typically only operate for a few hours in a day (morning or afternoon peak) and a few days in a year, so there is still plenty of generation time. Indeed if you go back to the original report and dig into the modelling assumptions, it's working off a 4 hour minimum per day use case ("the MISO definition of a Use Limited Resource") and "MISO historical peak hours typically correspond with HE15 through HE18 during summer months". Note *summer*, not winter. On slide 172 of the Stratagen report, they even have a handy-dandy graphic that shows quite clearly how peak demand hours mainly come immediately *after* a solar-and-storage system is charged.
2. Peaker plants (and thus any replacement solar-and-storage) are supplementing baseload only (and charging a pretty penny for doing so)
3. Solar-and-storage that replaces peaker is on a big enough scale to warrant maintenance, including keeping solar panels free of snow and ice, unlike a domestic system. So while generation will drop in the winter, it won't go close to zero (and in any event, that's not where peak demand occurs for this model, see #1 above)
http://energytransition.umn.ed...
It's beyond irritating that people like you expend all your (feeble) intellectual efforts trying to win rhetorically (including such pathetic playground devices as copying my phrasing), rather than actually learning about what is being proposed. And that it's so obviously beyond you to admit that a significant effort has been made to get the details of this rights, and that yes that does actually include accounting for the fact that snow falls in winter and irradiance drops, thank you very much.
You know what I would love?
If one day, superdave80's rejoinder was "look, there's a mistake in the assumption on slide 166 in Appendix G about the scale of O&M costs for the net costs of CT, so the waterfall is out by about 42%, and here's my sources to back up what I'm saying". Instead, there's no thought whatsoever for fact-based analysis.
Wow, you sure do like to type things. If it makes you feel better, we can just both pretend that I read any of that.
The fact you think I typed it for you alone is an excellent demonstration of:
a) your stupidity
b) your narcissism
c) your ignorance of how the internet works
Of course you didn't read it -- that would require a level of intellectual effort on your part that we both, if we're honest, know you're incapable of making. Much less engaging with the argument and responding in a thoughtful way. You stick to your world of pretense. I'm sure it's a happy place for you.