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@NTA Mine were 250w as well. From memory they had a 20 year warranty to operate at 80% plus (of original output) which actually sounds a bit low. Pretty hard to measure that in a home system though on any given day with the sunlight variable.
No idea what the Oxford ones will cost but if you are reducing the number of panels by that much could be economic. Say a third more efficiency on top.
These look interesting too:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090447913000403
The tech keeps changing so you have to take the plunge at some point I guess.
The other issue is supply with Covid and ships not being unloaded in NZ. Hopefully that will be fixed before I want them and isn't a problem as yet. -
I decided to reply here as it seemed like a better place for it. Also: the Powerwall is celebrating its 5th birthday today, so yay me.
@pakman said in Electric Vehicles:
Interesting language. A lot of angry comments under that article as well
Beyond the fact that WUWT is a known climate science denial/doomscare blog, and Eschenbach is not considered scientifically literate by any reasonable measure, I want to hone in on a couple of points he uses:
The NREL document he's quoting for solar at "8.3 watts per square metre" is from 2013
Significant improvements have been made since then , with cell efficiency doubling, so maybe quote that figure above 17 watts/sqm or more - due to better inverter tech. Ignoring deployments that use tracking tech to extract even more than the stated efficiency.Wind turbines quoted at 2MW is on the small side. Land-based turbines are typically 3MW or above for grid scale installations. Twice that or more for offshore turbines - average turbine size in Europe installed in 2019 was 7.8MW. I'd be happy to say that average installed wind turbine capacity for 2021 onward is 4MW and leave it at that.
(Unfortunately both of these are examples of the denier scepticism: use old or current figures like they're never going to get better).
We've just improved both technologies by 100%, and therefore halved any figures used in the article for time, land use, or labour. Nice. That's without even adding any firming storage or pumped hydro to support the capacity factor of wind/solar.
Nuclear is not financially viable in any of these scenarios, however I think there will continue to be development here to help with the last 25% of need on the grid. Governments will probably end up carrying the can for that.
I'm in no way belittling the challenge. Net zero is a freaking huge effort and the inaction to date hasn't helped kick it along except in certain cases e.g. R&D under certain schemes. We'll basically have to pivot all mining of fossil fuels into mining of other things to keep the movement going, as one example, and electrifying heavy industry will be tough.
On the plus side for the article: looking at the problem in terms of all FF burned is really key. A lot of studies just concentrate on the electricity grids and manufacturing, and forget the billions of cars running around - particularly here in Oz where we have no emissions standards.
At the same time, we need to consider the transformative nature of something like an EV: A petrol engine might convert about 20% of the power in liquid fuels to energy at the road (losing a lot to heat), while electric cars are close to 80% on the same measure. Already you're achieving a massive difference with each FF car taken off the road, even considering the manufacturing differences for the battery - which again will get more efficient over time.
An overarching point is the efficiencies in supply chain: if your car runs on wind/solar, you're not shipping or refining petrol, and so you're not burning crude to ship petrol. It is a force multiplier effect. Then you have the downside of replacing solar/wind every 20-30 years, which produces the upside of getting more efficient tech replacing old tech more rapidly than a 50-year coal or nuclear plant, but what about the waste? We'll make new recycling industries to ensure we keep a closed loop on things? Who is paying for that?
Here come the Unintended Consequences
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@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
Here come the Unintended Consequences
The consequences are obvious - we're going to pay more for electricity. And the more we pay for wind and solar the less we're going to decarbonise our grid per dollar spent compared to alternatives.
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@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
Here come the Unintended Consequences
The consequences are obvious - we're going to pay more for electricity. And the more we pay for wind and solar the less we're going to decarbonise our grid per dollar spent compared to alternatives.
You're funny.
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@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
Here come the Unintended Consequences
The consequences are obvious - we're going to pay more for electricity. And the more we pay for wind and solar the less we're going to decarbonise our grid per dollar spent compared to alternatives.
You're funny.
I almost bit
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@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
Here come the Unintended Consequences
The consequences are obvious - we're going to pay more for electricity. And the more we pay for wind and solar the less we're going to decarbonise our grid per dollar spent compared to alternatives.
You're funny.
Evidence. South Australia, California and Germany. Right now South Australia has the most expensive electricity in Australia:
What a coincidence.
Then we look at Norway, Sweden, France compared to Germany:
Strange how spending hundreds of billions of euros on wind and solar still hasn't decarbonised Germany's grid as well as France's.
Data's funny that way.
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@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
Strange how spending hundreds of billions of euros on wind and solar still hasn't decarbonised Germany's grid as well as France's.
You're a fan of government expenditure on nuclear?
That's weird, given your pissing and moaning about the cost to future generations over COVID
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@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
Strange how spending hundreds of billions of euros on wind and solar still hasn't decarbonised Germany's grid as well as France's.
You're a fan of government expenditure on nuclear?
More than subsidising rent seeking solar farms.
That's weird, given your pissing and moaning about the cost to future generations over COVID
Not weird at all. One has clear measurable benefits. Why are you conflating the two?
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@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
Strange how spending hundreds of billions of euros on wind and solar still hasn't decarbonised Germany's grid as well as France's.
You're a fan of government expenditure on nuclear?
More than subsidising rent seeking solar farms.
Rent seeking? So you're a big supporter of fossil fuels then?
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@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
Strange how spending hundreds of billions of euros on wind and solar still hasn't decarbonised Germany's grid as well as France's.
You're a fan of government expenditure on nuclear?
More than subsidising rent seeking solar farms.
Rent seeking? So you're a big supporter of fossil fuels then?
Are you capable of discussing something without inventing arguments for others? I'd consider $50+ billion in exports as slightly better than rent seeking.
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There appears to be no allowance for micro generation, so grid becomes irrelevant. I will be grid connected but more likely to supply than draw. Macro generation and distribution should be confined to the past.
Subsidies for micro would be a more efficient way to achieve the goal by 2050 than investing in large scale sources.
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@Snowy said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
There appears to be no allowance for micro generation, so grid becomes irrelevant. I will be grid connected but more likely to supply than draw. Macro generation and distribution should be confined to the past.
Subsidies for micro would be a more efficient way to achieve the goal by 2050 than investing in large scale sources.
Show me the data to support such an assertion.
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@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@Snowy said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
There appears to be no allowance for micro generation, so grid becomes irrelevant. I will be grid connected but more likely to supply than draw. Macro generation and distribution should be confined to the past.
Subsidies for micro would be a more efficient way to achieve the goal by 2050 than investing in large scale sources.
Show me the data to support such an assertion.
Sure.
This is from NZ (because that is where I am) and covers a lot of energy related stuff but micro is the beginning:
https://www.pce.parliament.nz/media/pdfs/microgen_background.pdf
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@Snowy said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@Snowy said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
There appears to be no allowance for micro generation, so grid becomes irrelevant. I will be grid connected but more likely to supply than draw. Macro generation and distribution should be confined to the past.
Subsidies for micro would be a more efficient way to achieve the goal by 2050 than investing in large scale sources.
Show me the data to support such an assertion.
Sure.
This is from NZ (because that is where I am) and covers a lot of energy related stuff but micro is the beginning:
https://www.pce.parliament.nz/media/pdfs/microgen_background.pdf
Page three and it's calling energy savings generation...
PV installed cost of $40k ?
Installing wood and pellet burners? I thought we were going for clean energy. That hardly seems a reasonable wholesale adoption for people who aren't rural/ remote households.
I've said it before; I'm more than happy to run an experiment here in Australia by removing the interconnects to South Australia and see how they're faring in a decade. If it's cleaner, more reliable and cheaper then I'm a convert.
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@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
Are you capable of discussing something without inventing arguments for others?
OK then, let's talk money:
GERMANY
Deutschland's Energiewende gets waved around like a big flag for the outcomes in Australia, ignoring that circumstances are different. That argument doesn't hold water any more, even if it did at the start.Probably the biggest factor there is the timing of their plunge into renewables: to shift to renewables these days is far cheaper than it was a decade ago, or even five years ago. Do you disagree that renewables are now far more effective for the price?
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
You're grabbing the spot price on the NEM. Be careful with that, because it may not always work in your favour e.g.Q4 2020 prices (VWA) were lowest in South Australia ($35/MWh) and Victoria ($40/MWh), followed by Queensland ($48/MWh) and Tasmania ($46/MWh), with the highest quarterly prices occurring in NSW ($71/MWh).
Of course, that is wholesale market, so pinning down someone to blame for retail electricity prices is difficult. Will SA always have the cheapest or most expensive electricity? It'll depend on the NEM.
To conflate price increases with renewables is ambitious at the least - I'd like to see your data reference for that in absolute terms. You'd be disagreeing with a fair few learned people, and ignoring several other market factors in South Australia including limited competition, a high proportion of gas*, and a larger proportion of gentailers than other states.
*the argument for gas as a transition fuel has also been thoroughly debunked, I might add.
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On the nuclear thing: awesome. I actually like nuclear as a source of energy, and think we'll need it for spreading throughout the solar system as one example. The only shortcoming is nobody wants to pay for it, because it is one of the few advanced technologies we've got that hasn't experienced double-digit growth in efficiency, or corresponding reductions in cost.
The Nordic countries have oodles of hydro to back up their state-sponsored nuclear, so like New Zealand, they're not comparable to a Germany or Australia in terms of leaving lignite and black coal.
The carbon intensity of NZ grids barely appears as a blip on our charts at work. So freaking low.
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@antipodean PV's can be as much as you want them to cost. My father's last year were 25k and he is a net producer of power even with an EV. Obviously a big system but it does the business and he pays no power bill (daily charge to be grid connected). My last system was $15k plus the battery and I paid F all in usage.
Modern wood and pellet burners are very efficient now and produce bugger all emissions and remember this is NZ lots of it is rural.
I did also say that it was the micro generation part not the whole document that was relevant.
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@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
The carbon intensity of NZ grids barely appears as a blip on our charts at work. So freaking low.
We have one left. Huntly. Genesis energy were supposed to shut it down in 2018 but reneged. The great thing about them closing it was that it wasn't economic. Not emissions or regulations, it simply doesn't make money. The most effective way to make change. Cash.
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Meanwhile on grand scale we can also look at China. The data are industry statistics totals from the China Electricity Council (https://chinaenergyportal.org/en/2020-electricity-other-energy-statistics-preliminary/)
If we look at power production (GWh) as a function of installed capacity, solar required over five times the installed capacity to produce less than three-quarters as much power as nuclear, so what would you select to replace five million GWh of thermal power?
@NTA said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
Are you capable of discussing something without inventing arguments for others?
OK then, let's talk money:
GERMANY
Deutschland's Energiewende gets waved around like a big flag for the outcomes in Australia, ignoring that circumstances are different. That argument doesn't hold water any more, even if it did at the start.Probably the biggest factor there is the timing of their plunge into renewables: to shift to renewables these days is far cheaper than it was a decade ago, or even five years ago. Do you disagree that renewables are now far more effective for the price?
And yet Germany still has to replace ~30 GW of coal generation. At what further cost to come close to the carbon emission intensity of France?
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
You're grabbing the spot price on the NEM. Be careful with that, because it may not always work in your favour e.g.Q4 2020 prices (VWA) were lowest in South Australia ($35/MWh) and Victoria ($40/MWh), followed by Queensland ($48/MWh) and Tasmania ($46/MWh), with the highest quarterly prices occurring in NSW ($71/MWh).
That's certainly true, I just found the timing amusing.
Of course, that is wholesale market, so pinning down someone to blame for retail electricity prices is difficult. Will SA always have the cheapest or most expensive electricity? It'll depend on the NEM.
To conflate price increases with renewables is ambitious at the least - I'd like to see your data reference for that in absolute terms. You'd be disagreeing with a fair few learned people, and ignoring several other market factors in South Australia including limited competition, a high proportion of gas*, and a larger proportion of gentailers than other states.
In the words of the ACCC:
"The transition from large-scale synchronous generation to variable and intermittent renewable energy resources has had a more pronounced effect on retail prices and number of offers in South Australia than any other state in the NEM."
What replaced the generation for Northern Power Station during this transition?
*the argument for gas as a transition fuel has also been thoroughly debunked, I might add.
I don't see anyone here arguing for gas. I see a place for renewables at ~25-33% of the market, but if people are serious about cost effective decarbonisation of the biggest emitting component in Australia, nuclear is the only sensible solution.
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@antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:
In the words of the ACCC:
"The transition from large-scale synchronous generation to variable and intermittent renewable energy resources has had a more pronounced effect on retail prices and number of offers in South Australia than any other state in the NEM."I saw that quote in the ABC article, but can't find it anywhere on the ACCC's website. It would be nice to have that quote in context of the wider report and what is was referencing - particularly gas. From the same article, and in part to answer your question on the coal closure:
The coal closure means power generated by a more expensive fuel source — gas — is more regularly setting the price. "South Australia is now much more reliant on gas-fired generation … which is a higher cost of energy compared with what Northern used to be," Mr Evans said. "The price of gas has nearly tripled in the past few years and that has meant that the fundamentals of where we get our energy from has increased substantially."
What I did find was this ACCC report:
Which refers to another reason why the number of gentailers in SA is a bad thing: less hedging, less competition, and therefore higher prices:
Wholesale hedging contracts The ACCC has also undertaken a detailed review of the hedging contract market. Apart from contracts traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), the contract market is generally opaque. In certain regions of the NEM, particularly South Australia, the level of liquidity and the advantages enjoyed by vertically integrated retailers make it difficult for new entrants and smaller retailers to compete effectively in the retail market
Gentailers stopped offering good prices because they could, not because of renewables. Renewables didn't drive the higher market prices - gas did, and the gentailers who had both laughed all the way to the bank.
While Environmental costs derived from supporting solar subsidies do contribute to the increase in bills, at less than 10% it isn't as big a factor as the network costs across the NEM - which thanks to NSW, QLD, and TAS gold plating their privatised networks, kicked off a round of snouts in the trough.
Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view