MrMakabar
@MrMakabar@slrpnk.net
- Submitted 21 hours ago to selfhosting@slrpnk.net | 5 comments
- Comment on Renewable energy passes 30% of world’s electricity supply 6 days ago:
There are basically three options to deal with overproduction:
- export
- storage
- shutting it done
The cheapest way of using wind and solar actually includes shutting done some of it at excellent days, so the capacity is enough to provide enough power at just okay days. The other problem is that storage is an issue. Right now pumped hydro and batteries are the only ways we have economically somewhat able to actually store electricity economically and both are at the expensive end. So they are usually just used to balance the grid. Hence the optimum is more in having overcapacity. The other option is to use the water reservoir of large hydro river plants, to vary the electricity production. that works rather well. The other big one is exports. As soon as a grid is large enough(continent sized), the weather matters a lot less. So you might see a lot of hvdc lines going from your country to other ones being planned, built and finished.
However most of the world is not even close to that. At 30% and a lot of it hydro, renewable electricity production is mostly just replacing fossil fuel.
- Comment on Renewable energy passes 30% of world’s electricity supply 6 days ago:
Which still means that fossil fuel power plants loose money in those periods due to low electricity prices. Those low prices also lead to electricity storage and more electricity consumption. The later is good, when it replaces other fossil fuel consumption(usually that is).
- Comment on Republicans are pulling out all the stops to reverse EV adoption 1 week ago:
Oil companies usually do not, but electricity companies do. The problem is that oil companies are great in geology, drilling and chemistry. Geothermal is a similar skill set and chemistry can be used in other products, but the first is small business and the other not renewable nexessarily.
- Comment on Vermont just passed a 100% renewable electricity mandate 1 week ago:
Vermonts electricity was 48% clean energy(renewables and nuclear). To go to 100% they need to add storage, a lot more renewable generation and upgrade the grid. All of that requires planning, ordering the parts and then building it. Doing it in a decade is a realistic, but ambitus target.
- Comment on German renewable energy: lack of network expansion 2 weeks ago:
The problem is that you need a reason to transport the electricity from Spain to Germany. There are very real limits to the electricity grid and that means, that you can not ignore the location of the electricity production. So in a market based system, electricity in Spain has to be cheaper then in Germany, the difference being the cost of electricity transport and/or the cost of flexible electricity generation in Germany, depending on the grid having enough capacity.
That does not mean barriers, just a system to not pretend the weather in Spain and Germany is the same at all times or that the electricity grid is not limited in any way.
- Comment on German renewable energy: lack of network expansion 2 weeks ago:
We also have to create a system, which values the location of the energy production. So something like electricity price zones or something similar.
- Comment on Chinese Export Surge Clouds U.S. Hopes of a Domestic Solar Boom 3 weeks ago:
or just install it and let it produce electricity. Solar panels last a long time, so even if China cuts off supply, the worst case is that you have a bit less electricity for a few years, until local production is set up on scale.
- Comment on Open source versus Microsoft: The new rebellion begins 4 weeks ago:
Just to say it the Lower Saxony example is not quite correct. The situation is that they started using Solaris a Unix system in the 90s in the tax department. When Solaris was no longer really developed, they opted to switch to Linux, as it was easier to migrate. However to unify German states tax departments, the previous state government opted to move to Windows. However the migration has so far failed. Mainyl due to the systems never having been designed for Windows in the first place. The other large user of Linux in Lower Saxony is the police and although they migrated from Windows to save some money, they too had problems migrating back as it was just too difficult.
That is just the reality of it. Software is sticky and once you migrate it often stays. Even when politicans do not like that.
- Comment on US Treasury Secretary Yellen to Warn China Against Flood of Cheap Green Energy Exports 1 month ago:
The US is free to give its own industry similar subsidies as China. Then both can flood the global market with cheap green energy products. There are lots of countries besides the US, who would love to buy a lot of cheap green energy products to reduce emissions and in many cases have green growth, if that is even possible. Countries like Ethiopia banning combustion engine car imports would be impossible without Chinas overproduction.
- Comment on China’s massive Desert Solar/Wind Project will eventually produce 455 Gigawatts of power, enough to power all of India. 2 months ago:
EU regulation forces manufacturers to recycle 95% of solar modules. At the same time they seem to age fairly well. With no moving parts the only really big problem are damage and loosing capacity. However degradation is between 0.5-0.8% per year. So even if you use 0.8% a 50 year old panel still has 66% of its original efficiency.
- Comment on European Electricity Review 2024 - Wind produced more electricity in the EU than gas for the first time in 2023 2 months ago:
About 10% drop in nuclear and about 10% gain in solar.
- Submitted 3 months ago to energy@slrpnk.net | 0 comments
- Submitted 3 months ago to energy@slrpnk.net | 4 comments
- Comment on U.S. battery storage capacity expected to nearly double in 2024 - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 4 months ago:
There is a big problem with that and that is that the most expensive electricity source is the price of electricity. The problem for renewables and nuclear is that most of them are expensive up front, but cheap to operate. So you end up in a position were you pay for the expensive fossil fuels and for adding clean electricity, without having the lower prices of clean electricity. That becomes really bad as the things like home heating and industry are long term decisiosn. You do not replace your boiler every few years as they last for decades. So you have to have policy to drive adoption of those technologies regardless of the price of electricity. Long term that is going to be mostly cheaper, but short term that it will not.
- Comment on U.S. battery storage capacity expected to nearly double in 2024 - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 4 months ago:
The simple answer is that by running your batteries properly they do not degrate nearly as fast. However doing that lowers the energy which can be stored in the battery. So consumer electronics do not do that. Also important to say is that even at half the storage capacity they are extremely usefull, so degradation is not as much of a problem.
- Comment on Scientist Discover How to Convert CO2 into Powder That Can Be Stored for Decades 4 months ago:
We can make coal from wood for centuries. The only thing we need to do is to grind it down and bury it. Even better we can make biogas and store it in empty gas deposits.
- Comment on Why we should be putting solar panels on our fields and lakes | DW 4 months ago:
- Comment on Austrian government launches repair scheme for electronic goods 4 months ago:
- Comment on Renewables cover more than half of Germany’s electricity demand for first time this year 4 months ago:
- Comment on Renewables cover more than half of Germany’s electricity demand for first time this year 4 months ago:
- Comment on €45,000 for a heat pump installation in Germany -- really? 5 months ago:
The other one is that a lot of people presume a house needs state of the art insulation, which obviously costs a lot to retrofit.
However in nearly all cases the old radiators work just fine with a heat pump as does the insulation. Underfloor heating and more insulation would make it more efficient, but that is often not worth the money, unless you do plan to do it anyway. When you redo the floors you can then add underfloor heating. Same for insulation, once you redo the roof or have to do work on the walls.
- Comment on Solar LCOE now 29% lower than any fossil fuel option, says EY 5 months ago:
It is a global study, so financing costs are different between countries. For example Chinas interest rate is at 10 year low right now. China also happens to be the largest market for renewables. In Europe fossil fuels are above average inflation numbers, so the high interest rate is made not that important as fossil fuels prices have risen that much faster. Indian prime interest rate is at about average right now. Japans interest rate is even negative right now.
Really it is USD which has a high interest rate right now, where it matters and it is bad.
- Comment on Solar LCOE now 29% lower than any fossil fuel option, says EY 5 months ago:
Actually large grids are another option as well and a really good one. Basically it is always sunny or windy somewhere and when you can transport the electricity you avoid storage. Also there are other types of none battery storage like hydro from reservoirs and pumped, chemical storage with hydrogen or something similar and well stuff like biomass.
It really starts to scale nicely with a bit of overcapacity, a bit of storage, a good grid and a lot of different types of renewables placed over a large area.
- Comment on Solar LCOE now 29% lower than any fossil fuel option, says EY 5 months ago:
It is just electricity generation, but it is also important to add, that it is the global average price of solar being 29% lower then the global average price of fossil fuel power generation. That means in good locations it would be even cheaper.
As for storage batteries are starting to kill gas power plant projects for cost reasons. That mainly happens in Europe with higher gas costs and emissions pricing, but there are some US examples as well. Both solar and batteries are rapidly becoming cheaper as well.
- Submitted 5 months ago to energy@slrpnk.net | 8 comments
- Comment on Wind turbine off coast of New York begins sending electricity to U.S. grid 5 months ago:
For a long time offshore wind was just more expensive then onshore and the US had the space. It was only in the last decade that large scale offhsore projects started in Europe and China. That brought down costs and offshore wind turbines have become much bigger and more efficent, which makes them competitive.
The US also has the Jones Act, which only allows ships build in the US, own by Americans and staffed by Americans to transport freight between US ports. That makes building offshore wind farms very difficult as the US does not build those ships and lacks qualified personal.
- New solar installations to grow by 58% to hit 413 GW this year, says BloombergNEFwww.pv-magazine.com ↗Submitted 5 months ago to energy@slrpnk.net | 2 comments
- 68 gas power plants have been put on hold or stopped due to batteries being cheaperwww.reuters.com ↗Submitted 5 months ago to energy@slrpnk.net | 2 comments
- Submitted 5 months ago to energy@slrpnk.net | 6 comments