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.

Comments

Not aggressive enough.

[Gravis Zero]

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!

Re:Not aggressive enough.

[Maxo-Texas]

Seed money from the government is often very useful. They are not just "feel good" because existing methods have huge built in subsidies. For example..we spent 4,000 lives and 2 trillion dollars protecting oil.

There are large subsidies for coal, gasoline, etc.

Oil and Gasoline would be much more expensive without those subsidies and coal wouldn't even be remotely competitive.

That said, I agree that excessive subsidies and mandates can be counter productive.

As far as India goes.. uh. They have massive subsidy programs.

a) they don't want to be stuck in dead end technologies.
b) they don't want to sped a billion building coal plants that won't be needed before paying for themselves.
c) they really need to reduce pollution (which raises health care costs).

Re:Not aggressive enough.

[Freischutz]

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!

There is one way and one way only to phase out fossil fuels. You have to roll up your sleeves and make solar and wind so totally ridiculously cheaper than coal or natural gas that the bottom will fall out of the natural gas market because you can bet your bottom dollar that there is a delegation from the natural-gas /fracking industries in the White House now pounding a table yelling: "Something must be done Mr. President!!!". Next thing you know a delegation is on it's way to WTO headquarters to lobby for import tariffs on wind/solar tech to protect fossil fuels (if they haven't done all these things already) and the only way to beat that is make the alternatives so much cheaper they cannot be ignored even with protective tariffs in place. When the fossil fuel barons run to the politicians for protection, like the coal lobby has already done, you know you are winning.

Re:Not aggressive enough.

[Freischutz]

I'd like to see laws on the books that would require new commercial developments to include solar+battery for each housing unit.

This is one of the dumbest things we could do. In order to make a real change, alternative energy HAS TO ACTUALLY MAKE ECONOMIC SENSE. Requiring companies to buy their products regardless of the efficiency will take away incentives to improve and impede progress.

"Feel good" subsidies and mandates only work in the 1st World, and nearly all growth in energy use is coming in the 3rd World, where they can't afford such foolishness. India isn't going to switch from coal to solar until solar is cheaper.

Define ECONOMIC SENSE. Is economic sense calculating the total cost of using renewable energy sources AND their minimal carbon footprint? ... Or is economic sense to use coal/oil/gas count only the price of extraction/transport/energy-generation? Because that is how things usually work with people arguing that fossil fuels make more economic sense than renewables. The fossil fuel pundits never count the cost of the enormous carbon footprint of coal/oil/gas and the cost of the damage that carbon footprint does. Once you factor that in, the picture of the argument that coal/oil/gas make superior economic sense looks a lot weaker. The basic truth is that coal/oil/gas are wreaking havoc in the life support system of this planet (hint: the part of your environment that produces oxygen for you to breathe) that makes them a liability, economically, environmentally and even in the USA they will eventually become a liability politically. Coal/oil/gas is already a political liability in much of the rest of the world. But do continue to argue in favour of coal/oil/gas and ignore the fact that wind/solar/battery are already cheaper than coal and according to the summary they are now getting cheaper than gas. You seem like to type who'll enjoy being like one of those guys 20 years ago who kept arguing long after the writing was on the wall that digital cameras will never replace film cameras because of the superior quality of film.

Re:Not aggressive enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Not aggressive enough.

[Namarrgon]

I'd like to see laws on the books that would require new commercial developments to include solar+battery for each housing unit.

This is one of the dumbest things we could do. In order to make a real change, alternative energy HAS TO ACTUALLY MAKE ECONOMIC SENSE.

It only sounds dumb if you keep ignoring the elephant in the room: external costs.

The economic fact of the matter is, fossil fuels cost us a lot more than the sticker price, and not only in nebulous future climate costs but in real, measurable damage to our health. US coal alone costs $300-500 billion a year, easily doubling the wholesale cost. When you look at the whole picture, it actually made economic sense to get off fossil fuels a long time ago, and what doesn't make sense is why people keep pretending these costs don't exist.

Since it's abundantly clear that the energy market is in no hurry to factor these external costs into their prices, the issue has to be forced - ideally by government evaluating full, levelised costs for all the alternatives then applying a suitable market correction (regulatory mandate, carbon price, cap & trade, whatever suits your politics), or the hard way - let the problem keep getting worse until the pain can no longer be ignored, and hope that the alternatives aren't too unattractive.

We've done exactly this in any number of other industries (sulphur emissions cone to mind), but the energy industry has been pushing back extra hard.

Re:Not aggressive enough.

[Subm]

By your definition it doesn't make economic sense to

- require seat belts

- require air bags or other safety features

- require catalytic converters

- prevent factories from dumping toxic waste into rivers and the air

- etc.

Not everyone considers human and environmental safety just "feel good" mandates.

Re:What a waste

[shilly]

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)

Re:Cobalt shortage?

[TheRaven64]

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).