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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.
A better option is to mandate efficiency standards for buildings. The builder can meet them any way they like. In practice solar plus battery is the most cost effective option, but they can still choose the supplier and configuration.
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Your logic is all wrong: there's a net benefit in terms of lower CO2 and other emissions when any fossil fuel plant is replaced by solar & batteries (and indeed wind & batteries). Sure, the benefit is larger when the fossil fuel is coal, but that will happen in time. Peaker plants deliver pricey on-demand power, so of course they are the first to be rendered uneconomic. But as solar/wind/batteries scale, costs will drop further and baseload coal and other sources will also be displaced (and in practice this is also already happening, just the change is slower than with peakers because the price differential isn't as favourable for renewables yet, plus assets have longer shelf lives, plus Trumpy loves his coal, etc)
You can thank Germany for cheap solar cells. How did they do that? The "Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz", the law for renewable energy, gave electricity generated from renewable sources priority over other electricity sources and guaranteed a fixed price per kWh. The cost is now part of the electricity price in Germany: A couple of cents are added to the price of every kWh sold to cover the price guarantee for solar and other renewables*. That's because it did not make economic sense to install solar panels when they were a niche technology. A lot of the technological development and mass market expansion resulted from that political decision. Solar is price competitive now because it was given a chance when it wasn't price competitive yet.
*) The price guarantee has come down as the price for solar has come down, and the price guarantee is time-limited, so the "tax" is slowly going to go away. In 10 years, it will be almost gone, but the positive effect of that law is permanent.
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).
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Does your economic model figure in the massive subsidy that fossil fuels receive in the form of not having to pay liability damages for the hundreds of thousands of respiratory problems caused every year from externalization of the exhaust going up the stack?
If they started putting a rider in your generation charge to pay back the Medicare claims for downwinders, solar starts to look real good. And this doesn't even touch any arguments about climate change.
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