kvs wrote:The storage problem has not been solved. All "green" energy requires base load support from "dirty" energy.
kvs, I don't disagree your instinct telling you there is a lot of BS going around about renewable energies and green agendas being much more about politics than about facts. But as with any other technology, the accumulation of money and effort on a field yields results, that is probably the hope of the West in terms of making something workable out of their green bet, if only because they are going to pump every amount of borrowed money they can find into it. But other countries like China and Russia are also embracing these technologies and in fact making a crucial contribution to price reduction themselves, so it is better not to dismiss the technology without a second thought.
Having said that:
> Storage is being worked on and the expectations for this decade are exponential growth. Prices have been on a extremely aggressive reduction trend as of late and currently both grid service stand alone storage installations and PV/wind coupled storage are proliferating at a extremely fast pace
> The goal is to replace base load generation and synchronous machines with storage coupled power electronics of incomparably better flexibility and performance. Of course the amount of investment to achieve this is around the world would be astronomical and that is the true difficulty, not the technical capabilities of the systems themselves.
Solar is BS for high latitudes. Period. Where are all those solar farms in north Africa and the middle east supplying power to Europe?
Solar is not necessarily BS for high latitudes, but the strong seasonal variations in both demand and supply of energy places a substantial additional burden on storage, alternative generation (i.e. wind complementing PV over the winter) and transmission of energy to make up for the missing solar resource. That is why I say that it is not about the technology not being adequate, but about the amount of time that such an energy transformation needs to take place and the price reduction needed to turn it into something reasonable. Politicians have no clue about the complexities of such topics, they want their pressing issues solved for yesterday and expect their technology monkeys to pull some levers and make things happen without even having a basic understanding of the real constraints. They fail in everything and it is only normal that they fail in this field too.
Re. transmission lines: HVDC lines are proliferating everywhere and there is no serious technical reason preventing the transport of energy from some thousands of km with relatively low losses.
Your claim about all solar panels being rated for 30 years is bold but not true. Some are but all are not. If I am going to find
these over-hyped boutique systems affordable, then I am not going to pay for the best panels. At $18,000 for under $600 per
year of power generation, they are a total joke. I will never recoup my expense since it takes longer than the maximum life
of the panels. This is why Germany, etc, all had to massively subsidize this "green" power source and as soon as the subsidies
are removed the installations dry up.
Glass-glass PV modules have a design life of 30 years. The ones with their backsheet made of polymers have normally 25 years design life, the later being currently substituted by the former across the industry. Just open a PV module data sheet to see that. None of these modules are more expensive than 0.4 €/Wp. With module efficiencies above 20% (mainstream, not boutique modules) you can have 20 kWp installed on a 100 sqm rooftop. That is some serious power and energy generation, roughly 100 kWh/day on a sunny land or the consumption of 5-10 Western average households. It does work and it produces lots of energy, no amount of Western BS agendas can turn that fact into a lie.
https://www.pvxchange.com/price-index
Re subsidies and so on, the industry needed to be kickstarted so it is to a certain extent unavoidable that in the beginning some money is going to be spent, this happened and happens with all energy sources, incl. conventional. I can tell you the cost of a PV system vs. cost of avoided energy bills pays off after 2-4 years in many countries, and will keep improving as commodities get more expensive and PV gets cheaper. Not to talk about the security of having your own energy production under your own control instead of depending on others, which has a big value too.
Windmills make more sense for high latitudes. But as we have seen in 2021, the wind does not always deliver. This has given
us the EU energy crisis. And the intermittency problem is always there even if the wind plays along. This is why Denmark
dumps its intermittent wind power into the EU energy grid and buys back stable power. If green energy is here to stay then
it is only as a boutique distraction. The racket run by Denmark and any other administrative district only works when conventional
power is available in sufficient amounts. But supposedly it is going to be retired, which proves that such plans are delusional
fantasy.
Interconnection solves most of the intermittency problems, of course it takes more money, the more oversizing in carrying capacity and the length of the transmission lines is needed. But the development of such lines is a need regardless, so it will come. A substantial help comes from local storage, which can have two main uses: energy or power applications. The first demands much more investment, but in reality many of the actual problems of the system are related to stability. So a renewable power plant with some power reserve and the necessary control to provide frequency regulation, black start capability, primary reserve or other functions already allows to grow the penetration of such source in the mix without compromising the grid and in fact improving its reliability. Utilities themselves face significant problems related to such topics and spend an awful amount of money to solve them, they are already eyeing storage as a very attractive alternative compared to additional grid investments.
Of course the suicidal plans of the EU of retiring conventional generation and dropping long term contracts without having properly prepared for intermittency of renewable sources are pure stupidity at work. Again, not a technical problem, but a mental one.
In summary: the time when we can cover a good chunk of the demand with PV and wind in a reliable way will come, but it will take some time. And in the meantime, a reasonable policy is needed that allows to avoid crises like the current one in EU by ensuring hydrocarbon supply, keeping viable NPP running and so on.
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