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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.
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.
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)
Which is why peakers are being replaced by solar/wind AND STORAGE, which is the focus of the article and is there in the slashdot summary, you muppet.
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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I'd say "not very" - it's available here, but it hasn't really 'caught on'. We're just getting into domestic solar (that's really taking off actually, but it's still a tiny minority of people who have it). Some people have some wet solar to heat water, but that's got an even smaller penetration than electrical PV.
What we do have though, is quite a large amount of green generation into the grid (be that synthetic gas, or electricity). That industry is largely driven by consumer choice of supplier - some suppliers are now able to exclusively buy green energy to service their customers (others buy green first, then brown if they have to).
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.
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...