Comment on Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. As electricity prices go negative, the Golden State is struggling to offload a glut of solar power

Dagamant@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• silence7@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  There’s already some storage: its the #1 source of electricity during the evening peak, but realistically, we’re going to want enough renewables that we sometimes see curtailment

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• qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m hoping to one day install some solar, and looking forward to setting up non-battery “storage” — e.g., electric water heater that turns on when there’s an excess of power, deep freezer that gets as cold as possible when there’s excess power, that sort of thing. It seems thermodynamics is the relevant discipline for these sorts of “storage” methods :)

  As an aside — while smart devices are much maligned, some rudimentary smart features for matching consumption seems like a pretty good idea. (If I ever get around to this stuff it’ll be local control via HomeAssistant.)

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  • Dagamant@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Im a fan of gravity based energy storage. Excess energy is used to raise a weight up a slope and it can be reclaimed when the weight is released.

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    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There is a reason why energy based energy storage is not more developed right now (with the exception of Pumped-storage hydroelectricity). It’s not very dense at all.

      A 15 tons block of concrete that goes up 100m can only store 4kwh of energy. A 4.5kwh battery cost around 1600€.

      Gravity based energy storage seem simple and elegant at first but you go into the details you realized that is far far les efficient than regular chemical battery. Unfortunately.

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    • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Absolutely! Living in a city, this gets a bit tricky though. But if I had a giant reservoir on a hill…and another one below it…

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  • GBU_28@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Why would you convert electricity into thermal work then back again? Why not consider old school batteries? You’re already taking up space and infrastructure

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    • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Oh, I have no intention of converting that back to electricity. The goal would essentially be to maximize usage during times of cheap/marginally free energy.

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      • GBU_28@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Ah, that makes sense.

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• spujb@lemmy.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  if you had read the article, you’d know that they are.

  To cope, CAISO is selling some excess power to nearby states; California is also planning to install additional storage and batteries to hold solar power until later in the afternoon.

  don’t just read the headlines y’all. not a good look.

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  • Dagamant@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah, sorry I missed that single sentence in the article that is so plastered with ads that my phone has trouble displaying the page. I’ll be sure to do better next time.

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    • spujb@lemmy.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      lmao “too much work to read”

      upvoted

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      • Dagamant@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The site is serious crap on mobile. Between all the poppins and the ads reloading to make it jump around as you read. It’s damn hard to read a full article on a lot of these news sites.

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• Wanderer@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The only problem is they need more of it. Some cost needs to be put onto solar to fix the grid. It needs upgrading because solar is making more work for the grid.

  Solar is absoultely good, but it doesn’t come without costs to the grid and that money needs to be raised to upgrade it.

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• Kalkaline@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This makes me sad as a Texan.

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