[HN Gopher] Germany hits 80 GW milestone
___________________________________________________________________
Germany hits 80 GW milestone
Author : rustoo
Score : 99 points
Date : 2023-12-24 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pv-magazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pv-magazine.com)
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Photo Voltaic, or PV, of course. 14 GW just in 2023 alone.
|
| Note that Gigawatts is the installed capacity, but GWh is the
| actual production. Germany produces 2.5 times more energy from
| wind, rather than solar (quite intuitive, considering that solar
| is much less productive in Germany compared to, say, Greece or
| northern Africa).
|
| From Wikipedia [0]:
|
| Germany's installed capacity for electric generation increased
| from 121 gigawatts (GW) in 2000 to 218 GW in 2019, an 80%
| increase, while electricity generation increased only 5% in the
| same period.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany
| hurril wrote:
| And then it stops blowing so they buy all our Swedish
| electricity, making us all pay for the german environment.
| Except the germans.
| Zetobal wrote:
| Germany is a net energy exporter... in the last two years
| especially helping out the crippled french nuclear power
| systems.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| That was only possible because of coal plants. If that's
| unavoidable I'm sure most French people prefer that's
| burned in Germany rather than France.
| lispm wrote:
| Half of the French nuclear power plant fleet was offline
| in 2022. -> https://www.catf.us/2023/07/2022-french-
| nuclear-outages-less...
| oezi wrote:
| The Germans certainly don't want to export dirty coal
| power but my understanding was that they were essentially
| aiding France to overcome a summer of draughts which
| crippled the mono-culture in France.
| uecker wrote:
| Summer droughts and also high energy use in winter with
| electric heating is where France regularly depends on
| imports.
| hurril wrote:
| Exporting coal power. Lovely.
| skywal_l wrote:
| In the last two years _only_. FTFY
| danielbln wrote:
| We don't pay? We paid like 40 cents per kwh im late 2022, vs
| 26 cents in Sweden. Feel free to blame whoever, but German
| end consumers are probably not to blame.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| > but German end consumers are probably not to blame.
|
| If they overlap with the German voters who voted for Merkel
| and especially Schroder (who literally became an agent
| working for the Russian government after he left office)
| before that then we can certainly blame them.
| oezi wrote:
| Certainly mistakes were made, but please recall that it
| is primarily market forces which led us to the German gas
| dependence. Russian gas was just cheaper than American
| and Qatari gas.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| There were other options than gas.
| hurril wrote:
| We pay that and more because both Germany and Sweden
| decided that nuclear power is a bad idea. You would pay
| even more if we weren't selling, which in a sense would be
| more fair because then you would bear the consequences of
| your own actions.
|
| Downvote me all you want, dear germans.
| Klinky wrote:
| They would pay more if there were fewer market options,
| but there aren't, so not sure your point.
| hurril wrote:
| -Who would pay more for what?-
|
| Re-read.
|
| That isn't why in the slightest. It isn't about the
| number of alternatives, it's entirely to do with the cost
| of producing electricity for the different alternatives.
|
| When there's plenty of wind, then wind power is obviously
| cheap. Sometimes running into the negative, as in: we get
| paid to use it.
|
| This causes _everyone_ to lose money.
|
| When there's no wind in large areas, industry power draw
| (which is most of it by a wide margin), means that
| something else has to produce the missing energy. If too
| little electrical energy is produced, the entire grid
| breaks down, so there's a scuttle to either disconnect
| sub-nets or add more production.
|
| The production that is added is more expensive. This sets
| the market price.
| oezi wrote:
| Nuclear is a bad idea, period. There are less than 20 new
| reactors in planning in the entire western world and
| their cost and timeline overruns show that nuclear is a
| losing ticket.
|
| The quicker we transition to renewable + battery, the
| better. I am sorry that Germans (or should we say Putin's
| war?) caused higher prices for Swedes, but all studies I
| have seen show great benefits of the European unified
| grid for consumer prices.
| hurril wrote:
| Nuclear is the least bad idea and electricity prices have
| nothing to do with Putin's war. But sure, you are right
| that nuclear is very expensive but it doesn't have to be
| that way; plus: there are a lot of countries changing
| their minds here at this point.
|
| I am not against renewables, I am for keeping our senses.
|
| An example of something that just isn't sensible: Fueling
| my electric car with energy derived from coal, stored in
| batteries basically built by satan. (Read about the
| mines.) For decades, we stopped developing nuclear power
| because of confused environmental groups. (And against: I
| am not a coal thumper and definitely a green person!)
|
| Electricity prices have basically increased five-fold at
| least, here. And it gets worse every years. When the wind
| stops, we run coal, oil and gas plants here that are
| extremely expensive and also destroy the environment.
| Instead of nuclear that we use to have.
| uecker wrote:
| Nuclear economics doesn't work. China just pulled out
| from Hinkley Point C. EDF made record losses and sits on
| an ancient fleet and is being renationalized.
| Westinghouse went bankrupt over two projects. NuScales
| project just got canceled because - surprise - cost was
| too high. Really, nuclear looks good on paper but simply
| is as a technology far too complex and costly.
| hurril wrote:
| It is very hard, yes. A lot of things in the regulations
| probably have to change because the technology works in
| reality, as opposed to wind and solar, which only works
| intermittently. We see news like these when there's a lot
| of wind power, but nothing when we use coal, oil and gas
| in its stead. Why is that? Ask yourself that question.
|
| Opting for even more wind implies the need for backup
| coal power. Also: a lot of wind economics is pure bs in
| the sense that they calculate lifetimes that are
| completely bogus as well as the fact that they,
| themselves, are not recyclable in the slightest. This is
| a bubbly/ boomy economy.
| hurril wrote:
| We, where I live, regularly pay over 26 Cents. Just last
| week, every day cost us north of 15 EUR a day on the
| electric bill, and it's not even _that_ cold yet. Because
| of a lack of nuclear power that used to be there.
| icehawk wrote:
| I don't understand what you mean by that?
| hurril wrote:
| When your energy mix is biased towards wind and solar, the
| market price for energy fluctuates with the weather,
| basically. So when there's a lot of wind in an area, then
| energy is cheap (and the wind farms lose money.) When
| there's no wind, energy becomes expensive and the wind
| farms lose money.
|
| This means that base power generation from nuclear also
| loses money when there's a lot of wind, and that coal power
| is needed when there isn't any [wind.] So we all pay more
| _and_ destroy the environment more.
|
| When there's no wind in Germany, they buy from the energy
| market, driving up prices all the way up to what Coal and
| Oil power generation costs (which is expensive and
| terrible), since that is the competition. And since
| everyone pays market prices, we all suffer from Germany's
| lack of nuclear. (And ours.)
|
| In a sense: Germany has socialised their energy production.
|
| If I was conspiratorical, I would say that Russia played
| Germany like a fiddle in this regard. Cancel your nuclear
| so that you have to buy gas for energy production. And here
| we are.
|
| Thank you Sweden and Germany.
| wazoox wrote:
| Actually it has been revealed that Gazprom supported
| financially anti-nuclear and pro-renewable NGOs in
| Germany for many, many years. That's not conspirational,
| just a fact.
| lispm wrote:
| Actually Russia sells nuclear fuel into Europe & the US.
|
| https://www.voanews.com/a/putin-profits-off-us-and-
| european-...
| hurril wrote:
| Akschully, these are not mutually exclusive.
| oezi wrote:
| I think you might be right in the short term or
| considering the past, but it doesn't explain why a lot of
| money is pouring into renewables nevertheless and that
| there just isn't any other path forward than building
| another magnitude more in renewables (as TFA says:
| Germany is aiming to triple(!) solar by 2030). This will
| change massively change the markets.
| hurril wrote:
| It won't work. What needs to happen for that to work is
| extreme progress in accumulation technology. It's a pipe
| dream.
|
| You cannot run any industry that requires power or energy
| on: oh, I wonder what the weather is like tomorrow. And
| if we want to replace coal and other really bad parts of
| reality, we have to come up with alternatives that work
| and actually exist.
|
| Solar and wind now is not that. Doing more of this will
| lead to even greater non-linear effects on prices, which
| will bankrupt normal citizen. And industry won't want to
| be here. They need stability and _lots_ of energy.
| uecker wrote:
| Industry can definitely adapt to electricity prices. This
| is the power of free markets, they can optimize
| production and demand. Fluctuating prices cause by
| renewables will cause investments in storage and demand-
| side flexibility.
| hurril wrote:
| Only to an extent. But sure: let's hope for better
| storage technology. But this also immediately eats away
| at cycle efficiency.
|
| There's a reason nuclear remains, despite cost and
| apparent risks. It's because it is still less bad than
| the alternatives.
| pgeorgi wrote:
| Germany's location means that it's a logistics hub. Gas,
| electricity, goods - large percentages of each are going into
| Germany on one end and leave it on another.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Your power plants earn that money. Tax it or something.
| lm28469 wrote:
| The main problem with renewable energies, at least in Germany,
| is that they're not replacing anything, they're just added on
| top of existing fossil sources, so in the end we still pollute
| as much and we're still as far as ever from our end goal.
|
| The fact that we consume so much more just hides the truth
| behind nice percentages. The reality is that Germany burns as
| much fossil fuel as they were 20 years ago, and on top of that
| they offer the most expensive end user kwh price of Europe
|
| https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...
|
| https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/app/uploads/cheap-electric...
| sdk16420 wrote:
| You are confusing installed capacity with power used. The
| consumed power is going down since the early 2000s, but since
| the generated power by most renewables depends on the weather
| and season, more reserve capacity needs to be installed.
|
| https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-
| energy-c...
| asdefghyk wrote:
| The reserve capacity , would need to be 100% - to be able
| to supply the country for at least several days if/when
| renables are not able to produce , most likely due to
| weather.
| ben_w wrote:
| The capacity doesn't have to be constantly burning fuel
| 365 days a year in order to solve weather issues, just
| for however long the combination of startup/shutdown time
| and adverse weather duration.
|
| Adverse weather conditions can be predicted sufficiently
| well in advance that this matters.
| woodruffw wrote:
| My understanding is that Germany has interlinkings with
| other EU members with substantially different climates
| and power mixtures, so this isn't true.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Yes, there is such a thing as the european energy grid.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Contine
| nta...
|
| And yes, they know of the concept of getting electricity
| from south to north or vice versa - and there are already
| High Voltage Direct Current transmission lines in place
| and more on the way (much more efficient, to transport
| electricity long distances).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Portugal is within a stones throw of 100% renewables due
| to its pumped hydro storage and Spain interconnector.
| Extrapolate through Europe accordingly. Don't stop
| building renewables, transmission, and storage.
| sveme wrote:
| The contribution of renewables has never dropped below
| 30% over a full day in Germany in the last year. Good
| thing is that wind and PV are often complementary.
|
| https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-
| gas...
| skrause wrote:
| That's why Germany is building a lot of new gas power
| plants. They're cheap to build and can be turned of and
| off really quickly, so it's okay if they're only really
| needed for a few weeks a year. The new power plants are
| also planned to be able to handle hydrogen which can be
| produced with electrolysis (during an oversupply of
| renewables) and then stored underground.
| orangepurple wrote:
| From where are they obtaining gas for these plants?
| skrause wrote:
| https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/30706.j
| peg
|
| Currently about half of the gas in Germany comes through
| pipelines from Norway, the other half is mostly from the
| the Netherlands and Belgium (which I think import a lot
| of LNG to ship to Germany).
| GaggiX wrote:
| That was the peak of 2022, today it's 30.74EUR/MWh, not
| 670EUR/MWh: https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/electricity-
| price
|
| Compared to the rest of Europe 0.03EUR/kWh is quite cheap.
|
| The price so low does not surprise me as Germany is producing
| 46GW of energy with wind alone right now:
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| I just wish this was the price on my bill. But it's not.
| It's 13x more and we are waiting for: the VAT on
| electricity to go up to 19%, co2 taxes (aka the budget
| filler money) to go up, and the removal of the price cap
| for end consumers. 2024 will be wild in Germany. But energy
| companies will make a killing.
| patall wrote:
| I live in Sweden and my electricity bill would be cheaper
| in Germany. Why? Because in Germany, base fees are so
| low. 5ct per kWh doesn't help you when you pay 24EUR per
| month to be connected to the grid.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Hence I always simply chuckle when people say ,,the
| electricity is so cheap as never, 0.03EUR/kWh". Yeah, to
| manufacture. No end customer ever sees that price.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Same thing with water. For residential. Most of the cost
| is the capital costs of the distribution network. You'll
| always pay way more than the water district pays.
|
| Example. A friend lives in a tiny water district. Used to
| not be metered. Then they installed meters and usage went
| down. They had to increase the rates to make up the
| difference and people were really mad. And usage went
| down even more. It was kinda brain dead because their
| water comes from a huge spring so it's free as in beer.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I'm a bit suspicious in the US that rates are higher
| where per capital consumption is lower. And probably also
| depends on max vs average usage. In practice capital
| costs of both generation facilities and distribution are
| being rolled into the rate part of peoples bills.
|
| Consider California is using probably 25GW today. But has
| 50GW of capacity which has to be paid for whether it's
| operating or not. Also uses half as much per capita as
| other states. Stands to reason capital costs will be a
| higher proportion of the bill.
|
| A bet I'd make is as people switch to heat pumps and
| electric cars consumption will go up and maybe rates will
| drop.
| manmal wrote:
| I'm on a spot market based plan and am billed EUR0.02/kWh
| in the hour I'm writing this. Powered by mostly wind and
| water at the moment.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Great for you. People in Texas a couple of years ago were
| also on the spot market.
|
| Thought exercise: what happens to the price on the spot
| market when the major chunk of the population switches to
| the spot market?
| manmal wrote:
| I just have shorter price intervals - hourly instead of
| quarterly. What do you think should come of that?
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Depends how long the price is out of wack. How many
| alternatives do you have to switch to?
| manmal wrote:
| The contract has a two weeks notice period. So I could
| easily switch to a different provider, but I doubt that
| would change things long term - most providers also buy
| from the spot market.
|
| BTW this spot market plan would have been cheaper than my
| previous, regular plan when the energy price hikes hit
| last year.
| tcfhgj wrote:
| if you pay 13x more, which is 0,42 Euro, you are just too
| lazy to switch to a new contract, which usually is about
| 0,27 Euro/kwh. You can even get significantly below that
| using dynamic contracts where the current price is based
| on spot market prices.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Wow, 9x vs 13x. What a difference. You didn't get my
| point but you're fast to tell me I'm lazy.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| > in the end we still pollute as much and we're still as far
| as ever from our end goal.
|
| Well there is no need to burn coal/gas while the wind/solar
| plants are working.
| rapsey wrote:
| Unfortunately you can't just turn on/off coal at will. Gas
| is easier but still takes some time. This is why renewables
| solve very few problems. They are not really a replacement
| for anything.
| patall wrote:
| I know facts do not matter in this debate, but both types
| of coal have significantly decrease since 2016. 2023 will
| end as a record low for decades.
|
| Source: https://energy-
| charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...
| ben_w wrote:
| Nothing at grid scale is as easy as flipping a lightbulb
| on or off, but even so grids can and do switch coal
| plants on and off.
|
| At least the UK coal plants do this, so there's no reason
| German ones can't.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| I don't think that's true:
|
| https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/
|
| Of course of we look at yearly figures getting rid of
| nuclear and increasing coal usage after the start of the
| war didn't really help.
| jorvi wrote:
| Greens (the world over) aggressively attacking nuclear is
| quintessentially that meme of the cyclist shoving a stick
| between his own spokes.
|
| In 25 years, when we still have to keep coal plants
| turned on because we couldn't magic enough battery
| capacity into existence to compensate for base load,
| those coal plants should have giant billboards next to
| them with this generation's green politicians.
|
| Thanks for tying a concrete block to our feet.
| oezi wrote:
| Don't talk such nonsense. The capacity additions in
| renewables are so enormous that by 2030 most European
| countries will run so much surplus during summer that we
| will likely not know what to do with it. TFA talks about
| tripling in solar in Germany until 2030!
|
| The only chance for needing any more coal in 2030 will be
| as a contingency if Putin is still fighting in Ukraine at
| that point.
| uecker wrote:
| Overall, economics is killing nuclear not greens.
| ben_w wrote:
| > we couldn't magic enough battery capacity into
| existence
|
| "My Little Investment: The Invisible Hand Of The Free
| Market Is Magic"
|
| UK has mostly shut down coal. Has one single plant
| hanging around just in case. In 2020, Britain went 5,202
| hours free from coal electricity generation, up from
| 3,665 hours in 2019 and 1,856 in 2018.
|
| And that's without significant quantities of batteries,
| because there's more than one way to store energy and
| more than one way to fuel backup generators if those
| storage systems aren't sufficient.
|
| If the UK can do it, basically everyone can.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > because we couldn't magic enough battery capacity into
| existence to compensate for base load
|
| Lets look at California's ISO supply page right now.
| Renewables: 14.3GW. Nat Gas: 3.5GW Nuke:
| 2.2GW Imports: 1.3GW Batteries: -3.5GW
| (Charging)
|
| All the utility grade battery capacity was added in the
| last three years.
|
| What's kind annoying about solar, wind and batteries is
| we could have done a moon shot program in the 70's to
| develop the industry but we didn't. So we wasted 40 years
| and trillions on fossil fuels and nuclear. If we had
| taken the money spent on nukes in the 50's and 60's we
| would have been switching over in the 70's.
| vjjsejj wrote:
| Is battery storage cheaper than nuclear though?
|
| > annoying
|
| Wasn't nuclear supposed to be the "moonshot" of the 50s
| and 60s? I guess another problem is that they would've
| had to solve both solar panel and the battery issue at
| the same time.
| patall wrote:
| The main reason why Germany increased coal usage last
| year was because they exported it to France. Because
| their (french) nuclear plants were in maintainace or
| lacking cooling water.
|
| And why is everyone always looking at the momental
| situation? Look at yearly tendencies if you want to see
| what happens.
|
| Edit: since people are down voting, here is a fun fact
| for you.
|
| Power generated from nuclear: France 2016=415TWh;
| 2023(ongoing)=312TWh Germany 2016=80TWh;
|
| So optimistically for France -95TWh/a, Germany -80.
|
| Sources:
|
| https://energy-
| charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=FR...
|
| https://energy-
| charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...
| konschubert wrote:
| Solar and Wind are absolutely pushing out Coal generation
| on top of Gas generation.
|
| Coal capacity is sitting idle more and more.
| Significantly.
|
| You can convince yourself of this by looking at these
| charts and comparing coal generation from week to week.
| https://www.energy-
| charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c...
| pantalaimon wrote:
| They are replacing nuclear
| mpweiher wrote:
| Yep. Which is about the dumbest thing you could do.
|
| Yay us!
| lispm wrote:
| Sure not.
|
| The dumbest thing we did was to slow down the expansion
| into renewable. Similar dumb was to make us (Germany and
| Europe in general) depend on Russian energy (gas, nuclear
| fuel&technology, ...), which the Russian regime then used
| as a weapon against us.
| oezi wrote:
| It wasn't a dumb idea. It was the most rational choice to
| use Gas. But rationality didn't work with a madman in the
| Kremlin.
| lispm wrote:
| It's not about a 'single madman', which surprised us.
| There were many warnings that the Russian regime was
| going in this direction and the German government ignored
| it. Even shortly before the Russian attack on the
| Ukraine, when the gas storage in Germany was (almost)
| empty and gas delivery was going down, our German
| government did not believe the warnings.
|
| There is nothing rational about increasing dependency on
| an authoritarian Russian regime, which for example
| invaded Crimea almost ten years ago. The aggressive
| Russian politics was on display. It is also not rational
| to, at the same time, sell critical energy infrastructure
| to Russian companies, like Germany did with its gas
| network and storage systems. Similar it was not rational
| to build a gas pipeline together with the Russians to
| even further increase the Russian potential to blackmail
| us.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Burning methane is not rational if you value living in a
| stable climate. The atmosphere doesn't care whether it
| came from a democratic or autocratic country.
| lispm wrote:
| The idea at that time was for electricity production to
| replace nuclear&coal with renewable & gas (as backup) for
| some time, until there are other ways to backup
| renewable. It could (!) have had the effect of CO2
| emissions going down in total.
| evilos wrote:
| The German plants were world class too. Hopefully they will
| turn them back on soon.
| la_fayette wrote:
| Lets hope not. Everone whith basic math skills will
| understand that economics for nuclear make absolutely no
| sense... just do your research on the topic...
| robbomacrae wrote:
| Is this even possible? Would be great if so. First google
| result seems to say it's do able [0]. Turning them all
| off was the dumbest knee jerk reaction I've ever seen.
|
| [0]: https://www.radiantenergygroup.com/reports/restart-
| of-german...
| uecker wrote:
| True, but also coal. Coal use declined substantially in
| Germany. Lignite from 171 TWh production in 1990 to 92 TWh
| in 2020 and coal from 141 TWh to 43 TWh.
| wewxjfq wrote:
| You're looking at consumer prices of electricity two weeks
| after Gazprom stopped its gas deliveries to Germany
| indefinitely, which lead to a heavy price shock. The graphic
| also ignores that some countries like France simply
| prohibited companies from raising prices in 2022. Lastly, the
| consumer price comparisons are flawed because they include
| taxes and levies and Germany adds plenty of these. German
| electricity production is not nearly as expensive as the
| consumer prices suggest.
|
| The claim that Germany's electricity is as dirty as ever is
| also not true, the CO2 per KWh decreased by 350g over the
| past 30 years.
| mildchalupa wrote:
| I would argue that median energy consumed per capita is a
| useful metric to measure standard of living.
| tcfhgj wrote:
| not really
|
| passive houses, electric cars and cycling reduce energy
| consumption extremely while having no (negative) effects on
| the standard of living
| Shalle135 wrote:
| You're also importing tons of renewable energy from
| scandinavia. Sweden for example exported 39TWh in 2022 alone
| - which of a majority is renewable energy.
|
| And in addition to this, if you'd build the new energy
| sources based on coal, things would of course just get worse
| while implementing renewables doesn't increase emissions in
| the same fashion.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| If PV prices continue to plummet like this, it'll become
| feasible to just produce hydrogen. It's not optimal that
| there isn't a grand plan but there are various ways how even
| base load can be covered through storage once it's set up
| ricw wrote:
| This is a gas industry falsehood that has to stop being
| spread.
|
| Hydrogen efficiency would have to improve ~350% to be
| competitive with current battery electric stored power.
| That's just never going to happen, particularly as battery
| electric is dropping ~15% in price / becoming more
| efficient every year.
|
| Battery electric is to power storage what silicon has been
| to chip manufacturing.
| la_fayette wrote:
| Where did you get this number from for battery? All
| research shows that there is no such thing as moors law
| for batteries. Also the advancement of battery technology
| is highly challenging.
| ben_w wrote:
| Figures 1, 2, 6, and 10 disagree with you.
|
| https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/EE/D0
| EE0...
| tcfhgj wrote:
| no idea how you arrive at 350%.
|
| Anyways, batteries don't scale easily to dozens of TWh
| while hydrogen storage is mostly possible in gas caverns
| Germany already has (and provide Germany with energy in
| the winter)
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| But the point isn't that it's "better" it's just that gas
| (really only H2) provides the volume of storage to
| meaningfully transfer energy between seasons. It's mostly
| about capacity not about efficiency
| ben_w wrote:
| If you need to fill a 20 hour storage system in 4 hours
| of sunlight, you care about how cheap the electricity is
| to generate and overproduce accordingly in better
| seasons. PV is cheap, and also not the only renewable so
| it may not even be as bad as 20:4.
|
| If you need to fill a 6 month night storage system with
| the sunlight from the other 6 months, instead of
| overproducing in summer you care about the storage being
| relatively stable and dense enough you don't run out of
| space. There may well be enough space, though at the
| scales that matter you'd need a lot of pipes or
| transmission lines depending on where you want the
| hydrogen powered generators, and a good electricity grid
| diminishes the need to store it anyway (a sufficiently
| good grid, 1m^2 aggregate cross section, doesn't even
| need any storage, because the planet is a sphere).
|
| Given how many people react as badly to hydrogen as to
| nuclear, just replacing Chernobyl with the Hindenburg and
| a misunderstanding about hydrogen bombs, I think
| sufficient storage will be tricky _politically_ even if
| you solve all the technical issues.
|
| If you see a way to make it happen anyway, go for it. A
| plurality of solutions makes black swan correlated
| failures less damaging.
| stefan_ wrote:
| But the whole point is that 1) at peak solar times
| electricity is free (meaning wholly insufficient storage)
| and 2) the upfront cost of battery storage is rather
| prohibitive right now, while a hydrogen system is (I'd
| naively assume) technologically simple.
|
| Where this comes into play is with the repeated calls for
| new nuclear plants - nobody in their right mind will bet
| against solar and battery electric storage on a 30 years
| timescale, and so nobody is building _those_.
| ricw wrote:
| Sure the "electricity" is free or maybe even "paid for
| use" a couple of short times a year. That doesn't justify
| the massive capex investment needed to build a hydrogen
| plant that would be underutilised 95%+ of the time.
|
| The economics will never get there. You're railing
| against battery electric whilst ignoring the even bigger
| cost of entirely unproven hydrogen. The gas industry
| wants you to believe this so that we invest in hydrogen
| usage that for the foreseeable future will be made using
| gas.
|
| That lie shouldn't be repeated.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Molten iron batteries will come sooner than hydrogen
| anything
| p1mrx wrote:
| Who is making those batteries? Iron melts at 1500degC.
| pydry wrote:
| If you assume a big enough underground salt cavern it's
| already cheaper to produce 1 GWh of electricity from
| electrolyzed hydrogen produced from solar power than it is
| from a nuclear power plant.
|
| It's not a particularly meaningful milestone, just a sign
| of how expensive nuclear power is. There are cheaper ways
| to store power.
| uecker wrote:
| Nonsense:
|
| coal 1990: 141 TWh, 2000: 143 TWh, 2010: 117 TWh, 2020: 41
| TWh lignite 1990: 171 TWh, 2000: 148 TWh, 2010: 146 TWh,
| 2020: 91 TWh
|
| Official numbers: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/10/STR...
| epistasis wrote:
| It's worth pointing out for those of us in the US that Germany
| has less solar insolation than _anywhere_ in the continental US:
|
| https://globalsolaratlas.info/map?c=44.933135,-144.991617,3
|
| If Germany can do this much solar, than New England is going to
| have a much much easier go of it.
|
| And why isn't there far more solar in Florida, when solar is such
| a cheap source of electricity for running all that AC? Because of
| regulatory capture by utilities and fossil fuel interests.
| brnt wrote:
| Why dont Floridians install panels themselves? Airco use
| correlates strongly with sunshine, so I imagine they pay
| themselves back within a year or three.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Hurricanes, probably.
| ozim wrote:
| PV is a bit counterintuitive in that it loses efficiency when
| it gets hot. Best efficiency is when circuitry is a bit
| colder and not in full sunshine and 30+ degrees C. Full
| sunshine around 15-20C works well.
|
| So coupling AC with PV seems like a no brainer it doesn't
| work that well when you really want to blast that AC full
| power because panels get too hot from the outside
| temperature.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| Is it possible to use some form of cooling on the panels?
| The heat would need to fuck off to somewhere though...
| someplaceguy wrote:
| > PV is a bit counterintuitive in that it loses efficiency
| when it gets hot.
|
| Is that significant enough to matter? How much does it
| lose?
| patall wrote:
| There was a comment here on hn from a guy that measured the
| heat effect. For them the loss in efficiency was 12%. Which
| would be somewhat negligible.
|
| Edit: here it is
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38688116
| brnt wrote:
| Efficiency isn't the uptimate goal, that is: do you get
| enough power per currency spent? Efficiency may drop, power
| output won't. It might plateau, but that's OK.
| epistasis wrote:
| Good question! First, will the utility let you do it, second
| will they charge you excessively for the privilege, third,
| will your local municipality allow it, fourth is there a base
| of skilled labor to make it happen?
|
| Germany got around all these obstacles, but if the state and
| utilities are in the way, it's hard for individuals to make
| the move to solar.
| ajross wrote:
| FWIW, the US is only slightly behind Germany in PV solar
| generating capacity per capita, and IIRC is building out both
| solar and wind faster per capita than pretty much anywhere
| else.
|
| There's lots more to do. There are certainly things to complain
| about (c.f. Florida regulatory capture, something I would
| believe but know nothing about). But the US isn't really
| "behind".
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| On the whole solar is massively more practical in the US than
| Germany.
|
| Northernmost most point in the continental US is about on the
| same latitude as as the southern most parts of Germany.
|
| In much of Europe solar is pretty much useless during winter
| infecto wrote:
| I really dislike these baseless claims. At least provide some
| backing evidence.
|
| Y'all always like to spout regulator capture but when I go look
| at the data it does not seem to back it up.
|
| 2021 stats Florida is the second largest generator. And third
| largest in solar.
|
| Natty gas dominates their generation mix but I wonder if it's
| more than just the blanket complaint regulatory capture.
| Florida is pretty unique as a state, lots of wetlands, is this
| suitable for solar? Perhaps for the electric companies there on
| a cost per acre basis it's easier to build out natty plants? It
| would make some sense because I don't think Florida has as much
| accessible land as other states do.
| anonporridge wrote:
| > And why isn't there far more solar in Florida
|
| One reason might be that Florida likely experiences much more
| destructive storms on a regular basis. Germany doesn't. Texas
| and California (the US leaders) also have more protected land
| area.
|
| The economic calculations look different if you have to factor
| in the relatively common risk of a hurricane wiping out your
| entire capital investment every few years.
|
| That being said, Florida is recently surging in solar
| deployment. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/florida-
| is-now-ad...
|
| Texas and Florida are actually great canaries to judge whether
| wind and solar are actually becoming economically viable. You
| know that they don't have the politics that would artificially
| subsidize and try to force them to happen. Like you suggest, if
| anything, they try to resist. Texas is the renewable energy
| leader in the US purely because it makes $en$e.
| epistasis wrote:
| Panels are (surprisingly) very resistant to hurricanes:
|
| https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/what-happens-to-solar-
| pane...
|
| Glad to see the surge in Florida, it's long overdue!
| anonporridge wrote:
| Cool!
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| In Florida any home system over 10KW requires you to purchase
| $1m in liability insurance if you intend to connect to the
| grid and participate in net metering. This is not insurance
| against destruction, it's liability insurance in case your
| solar plant hurts someone. Needless to say this requirement
| does not exist in other states with successful net metering
| programs, it was invented to discourage rooftop solar. And
| this is just the highly-visible stuff. You can only imagine
| what other disincentives the powerful energy company
| lobbiests have used to discourage other solar installations
| in the past.
|
| PS I've now seen multiple commenters explaining that solar in
| Florida is rare because of hurricane risk. This makes me
| wonder if some PR firm is circulating this as a talking
| point.
| guhidalg wrote:
| The argument about risky Florida actually doesn't make any
| sense. There are so many structures that look like solar
| panels that continue to be built: gas stations, billboards,
| pergolas, covered walkways, etc... What exactly is
| different about solar panels that makes their construction
| riskier than everything else that we do build?
| jldugger wrote:
| Liability insurance seems fine -- if the systems and
| installers are safe, underwriting it will be cheap. What
| seems to be harder is finding an insurer that will cover
| you.
|
| You can even tie this back to hurricane season if you wish
| (since you brought it up)-- given the high winds can cause
| downed power lines, even when a storm has been downgraded
| below hurricane, you really don't want energized lines from
| solar while repairs are ongoing. And given Florida's
| hurricane frequency outlier status in the US, they may want
| more rather than less of it. One way to keep people honest
| about this is liablity insurance. Now it's your job to keep
| it repaired and the insurer's job to inspect it, since
| they're on the hook. And if someone is injured as a result
| of your culpability, neither they nor you are screwed.
|
| But sure, the energy company probably isn't happy about
| solar subsidies either.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Iowa has 12GW from 6000 wind turbines installed, and growing
| daily!
|
| Some days in the summer, energy independent!
| kibwen wrote:
| Extremely impressed at Iowa for seizing its opportunity to be a
| major wind energy producer. I visited the Iowa State Fair a few
| years back and they had a big turbine smack-dab in the middle
| of the fairgrounds, along with a building with educational
| exhibits on wind energy. Kudos to them.
| gniv wrote:
| Yeah, you don't hear local politicians brag a lot about this,
| but the whole middle of US has tons of wind power. Texas alone
| has more than 40GW:
| https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/economic-data/energy/2...
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| The average monthly electricity bill in Iowa is $142 [1], or
| $1,704 annually. As of 2022, Iowa's population was roughly 3.2
| million [2], giving an estimated electricity consumption of
| ~$532 per capita annually. What has to happen for near energy
| independence to translate to near zero cost? Granted the
| amortization of installed wind generation is not zero, but I am
| certain it is not $532 per capita.
|
| Interesting side note. Previously, Iowa had one operating base
| load nuclear plant - the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Palo,
| which ran for over 40 years before permanently shutting down in
| August 2020 due to economic reasons and damage from a derecho
| storm.
|
| [1] Citation: EnergySage's 2023 data
| https://www.energysage.com/
|
| [2] Citation: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=IA
| simon_acca wrote:
| For context, demand in Germany sits at about 500 TWh/year
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-demand?tab=ch...
| recursive wrote:
| In case it isn't obvious 500 TWh/year is less than 80 GW.
| simon_acca wrote:
| With some caveats perhaps... theoretically speaking if 80GW
| of PV were to produce at 100% output power 24/day that would
| be about 700TWh in a year
| winwang wrote:
| More clarity: 500 TWh/yr is ~57 GW on average. From a quick
| google, it seems that peak electricity usage is 60-80 GW,
| which makes the 80 GW milestone much more interesting.
| lispm wrote:
| For those interested. We had a windy week in Germany. There was a
| record of >53MW wind electricity production. 83 million
| population. 1/4 of the US.
|
| https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&...
|
| Right now there is 48 MW from wind and 5 MW from coal.
| passwordoops wrote:
| Thanks for the link. For those of us who don't read German, is
| any imported?
| lispm wrote:
| English: https://energy-
| charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&...
| lnsru wrote:
| It shows, that wind generates a lot of power at the moment.
| But at the moment it is very windy. Not normal windy for this
| time of the year.
| lispm wrote:
| 2/3 of our the wind electricity production is in the winter
| half year.
|
| 2020 had records: https://www.next-kraftwerke.de/energie-
| blog/winter-sturm-win...
|
| We are in 2023 way past this record.
| lnsru wrote:
| And without wind it's 53 MW from coal. Even more with increased
| demand for heat pumps and electric vehicles in not far future.
| Here in Munich I constantly get warning about wind gusts from
| my warning apps. This windy period imho is not usual.
| lispm wrote:
| Germany does not have the capacity for 53MW electricity from
| coal.
|
| Pick a day without much wind on that site and see yourself.
| No need to guess.
| p1mrx wrote:
| That looks like 53000 MW.
| exabrial wrote:
| Stop shuttering perfectly fine nuclear. If they're unsafe designs
| that's one thing, but let's not be patting ourselves on the ass
| yet.
| viktorcode wrote:
| It is the most expensive power source. Cost is prohibitive
| without the state footing part of the bill. And depending on
| the type of power station, it is not as reliable too: remember
| past year France shut down few of their nuclear plants due to
| the draught causing water levels in rivers to drop? They needed
| that water for circuit cooling.
| snickerer wrote:
| There was always only one real reason to have nuclear power
| plants: to produce the base material for atomic weapons.
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