140 sats \ 27 replies \ @kepford 23 Jul \ parent \ on: Can Solar Rooftops Power the World? econ
Eventually you hit the duck curve. Over production during the day which can actually damage infrastructure and under production when the sun goes down.
Batteries are the solution but they are expensive and toxic. Bitcoin mining can use excess energy but that hasn't taken off yet in places that could use it most.
I have solar. Made sense financially for me but only because my energy rates are insane and government rebates.
A free market for energy would fix many of the issues we have. Solar would be a part of that I think but it's not the silver bullet like people thought it would be.
“Over production during the day which can actually damage infrastructure”
Only if the infrastructure is terribly designed.
Grid frequency naturally goes up and down slightly as power is over and under supplied. It is not hard to build solar inverters that automatically disconnect from the grid if power is being oversupplied, based purely on grid frequency. If that's not happening, the root cause is bad management and regulations.
edit: an interesting example of frequency shifting being used to intentionally turn off solar inverters: https://www.provisionsolar.com/general/grid-outages-and-the-magic-of-frequency-shifting/
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The infra was not designed for solar in places like California. I was just watched an interview with the grid operator in California describe this very problem a few weeks ago. Its an actual issue. Its not like you can design something that has no edges or limits. Damage to the infra is only one issue though. There is the fact that energy is not being harnessed. Hence the need for batteries. But batteries lose power over time as well.
A similar problem arises in places that are adding nuclear plants. Was listening to a Canadian engineer discuss how they have so much power generation from this new plant they are looking for consumers to avoid overloads.
These are all engineering problems to solve and ones that can be solved but most people are not aware of the reasons why governments are decreasing their solar incentives. Central planning is really at the center of all this.
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Part of designing good infrastructure is figuring out how many watts worth of solar can you permit given existing infrastructure; pretty much every grid connected solar installation has been permitted and approved. There will inevitably be a handful of illegal installs. But they're on a small enough scale that they aren't relevant.
If California has screwed that process up, their infrastructure is terribly designed. Most likely due to political reasons, by politicians wanting to meet solar install goals without wanting to spend the money to accommodate them.
If you are willing to spend that money, there is no technical reason why you couldn't put solar on every single roof in the nation. Oversupply conditions are a very solvable problem.
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A free market for energy would fix many of the issues we have.
That would prevent the overproduction problem, because the return on solar would go negative (at least during those periods) and people would disconnect. Then, at night, there would be a premium, which would cover the costs of the right amount of batteries.
It's so elegant. If only people could see it.
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In a free market there would be competition for energy. You wouldn't have power generators being told when they can build power plants or how much they can charge. Almost every market in the US has a utility monopoly enforced by the government. Its not natural. Its created by force.
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Water, power and gas monopolies, all local
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Well, some are state wide. That's pretty common.
Water is typically hyper local though.
And don't get me started on the regulation preventing hospitals to be built based on market demand. Most states have boards that are gate keepers.
WE HATE COMMUNISM! But we LOVE central planning. WE LOVE CAPITALISM! But free markets are dangerous.
When I started seeing how hypocritical the conservative movement actually is I started looking at libertarian ideas. I started seeing how minor the differences are between democrats and republicans. They are both pro central planning. Both pro taxes and big spending. They just fight for control and use different levers to gain it. Usually around moral topics. Its so clear once you divorce yourself from the red/blue grift.
The ideas many of hold are logical and can be explained very simply with reason. However they are labeled as extreme and dangerous. Its all so absurd.
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I thought most places only charged from one end or the other.
I think I’ve usually only paid the sewage charge.
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damage infrastructure
Are you referring to the house with solar or something bigger?
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Referring to solar generating more electricity than the lines and transformers can handle. Houses are a part of the whole grid system. Grid operators have to ask commercial generators to shut off their systems to avoid damaging their infra.
Or they spin down their power plants. Then when people come home from work the power plants have to spin up to meet the higher demand as the solar generators drop to zero.
This is why they are pushing batteries in homes so hard. It helps offset the demand and ease the curve. But personally I would not put one of those things near my home. I would in an out building a safe distance from the house. Fire risk is real.
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Thanks for the explanation, makes sense
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Just stick the batteries on an exterior brick wall, without anything flammable above them. Not easy to do in every house. But easy to do in a lot of houses.
A building near me has a commercial full-scale Tesla power bank (I suspect to run essential loads during power outages; they don't have any solar afaik). They just installed it at one corner of their parking lot. It's surrounded by concrete so if it ever catches fire, no big deal.
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Connected garages aren't as dangerous as you'd expect. In most places building codes already require them to have significant fireproofing between the garage and the rest of the building.
Obviously, in many cases the build will pre-date said codes, or builders will cheap out. But this isn't an unsolvable problem.
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I've seen videos of EV fires. I've also seen an attached garage fire with a non-EV car – it was so hot you couldn't comfortably stand across the street from it. The house still survived due to the cinder block wall between the garage and house.
Still much less spectacular than the natural gas explosion I once saw... The house that actually exploded was just gone, and every house around it had to be torn down due to massive structural damage. But that explosion was intentional insurance fraud.
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accidental arson
Asbestos prevents fires from burning down your home or any building
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