Solar to provide 20% of energy by 2027

[DanKegel]

I'll share that salient and insightful wisdom will my water company, and, while I'm at it, with SDG & E. I'm sure they'll treat it as profound, something no one's thought of yet, and give it all the attention it deserves.

? I'm just describing standard practice.

[DanKegel]

Solar, even assisted with other forms of RE just can't supply enough power 24/7/365 to fill 100% of the needs of the worlds appetite. Fossil fuel has to be part of the mix even if you don't believe so.

100%, perhaps. But 90%, now that's another matter. And 90% would be a great place to be by 2040.

It's clearly possible to provide enough storage - and shift enough load to daytime, and reduce enough load with efficiency improvements - to cover a very large % of usage with a combination of wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, and geothermal. The question is schedule and cost.

[SunEagle]

100%, perhaps. But 90%, now that's another matter. And 90% would be a great place to be by 2040.

It's clearly possible to provide enough storage - and shift enough load to daytime, and reduce enough load with efficiency improvements - to cover a very large % of usage with a combination of wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, and geothermal. The question is schedule and cost.

I agree that 90% is doable for some parts of the world but IMO only a very very small % can do it. The logistics just makes it very hard and expensive when it comes to storage and transmission.

Maybe when I am in a better mood I would agree to more than 50% but even that would take an extreme step in conservation and efficiency improvements which IMO would be very hard since a large portion of the world population is still in the renaissance of their industrial period and are hungry for electrical power consumption. It will be hard to hold them back on expanding what they consume let alone how they generate that power.

[HollySprings]

The most fair and practical way to combat climate change is to implement a carbon tax so that the effect of dumping carbon in the atmosphere is account for in the price of fossil fuels. The USA then should get rid of all subsides for fossil fuels, wind and solar. What I do personally has little effect on carbon since I only make up %,000000001 percent of the human carbon output. Solar is dropping rapidly in price and the fossil fuel companies are scared and putting serious money in a disinformation campaign. Solar energy is already produces 7.5% of California's electricity. With much cheaper solar panels solar panels will provide for cheaper and cleaner energy. We already have utility scale solar at 2.99 cents a watt and within 5 to 10 years 1 cent a watt will be achieved and if you think at a penny a watt people won't be building solar power plants like crazy, you aren't super sharp.

$0.0299 / W? This isn't correct. Canadian Solar, in their SEC 20-F filing, shows their average sales price per W for their solar modules as $0.58 for the year ending 12/31/2015. I think they are just under $0.50 now, for the average selling price, with container pricing being the cheapest... but not close to $0.0299 / W.

[DanKegel]

I agree that 90% is doable for some parts of the world but IMO only a very very small % can do it. ...IMO would be very hard since a large portion of the world population is still in the renaissance of their industrial period and are hungry for electrical power consumption. It will be hard to hold them back on expanding what they consume let alone how they generate that power.

Looks like 47 of the world's poorest countries are aiming for 100% renewable energy: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38028130
so the folks involved seem to think it's doable.

In a way, it might be easier for them, since for currently unserved areas they can bypass fossil fuel and go straight to renewables.

[SunEagle]

Looks like 47 of the world's poorest countries are aiming for 100% renewable energy: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38028130
so the folks involved seem to think it's doable.

In a way, it might be easier for them, since for currently unserved areas they can bypass fossil fuel and go straight to renewables.

And will be in the dark for part of the day unless they find a way to cover what RE doesn't. Don't say energy storage will do it because IMO that is still a way off for most of those countries.

Look wanting to do something and being able to do is are two completely different things. I can say one thing in public to get the worlds approval then in private I can say well that may get some people off my back now lets get back to what we can really do.

[DanKegel]

$0.0299 / W? This isn't correct.

Maybe he meant $0.0299/kWh? Supposedly that's what the bids came in at for phase III of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. It's not alone; there are others in the same ballpark. In the US, low bids are a bit higher, like $0.06/kWh.

Admin Note, no links to that website please

[DanKegel]

And will be in the dark for part of the day unless they find a way to cover what RE doesn't.

Right, so 90% is a more likely target. Nothing wrong with aiming high, though.

Clear, simple proposals like "100% clean" or "build a wall" seem to resonate well with people, and get people lined up towards the real goal, which might be slightly different (like "90% clean" or "discourage immigration").

[SunEagle]

Maybe he meant $0.0299/kWh? Supposedly that's what the bids came in at for phase III of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. It's not alone; there are others in the same ballpark. In the US, low bids are a bit higher, like $0.06/kWh.

See https://cleantechnica.com/2016/09/20...arubeni-score/ for a list.

The DOE feels that in the next decade and 1/2 Utility size arrays will come in at $0.03/kWh, commercial at $0.04/kWh and residential at $0.05/kWh so the amount stated is not off the mark.

[HollySprings]

[QUOTE=DanKegel;n336971]

Maybe he meant $0.0299/kWh? Supposedly that's what the bids came in at for phase III of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. It's not alone; there are others in the same ballpark. In the US, low bids are a bit higher, like $0.06/kWh.


Yes, the article I googled references $0.0299/kWh. Just call it $0.03 / kWh. That's in Dubai, by the way. I don't have UAE in SAM so I couldn't "try" it out with a comparison in NC. But I looked up Dubai in solar irradiance tables and Holy Cow! Their numbers are huge. Probably like that in the desert SW in the US I would imagine.

[jflorey2]

It's clearly possible to provide enough storage - and shift enough load to daytime, and reduce enough load with efficiency improvements - to cover a very large % of usage with a combination of wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, and geothermal. The question is schedule and cost.

OK so it's "clearly possible." Could you describe how that will be accomplished?

My thinking:

In the US, average power usage is about 2kw per person. So that's 48kwhr per person per day, or 14 petawatt-hours of storage required for even one day of storage. That's approximately 1 trillion li-ion cells of the most common type (18650's.)

The Tesla gigafactory, the largest planned battery factory in the world, can produce 35 gigawatt-hours a year of cells if it works out. So you would need to run that plant at full output for 400 years to build enough cells to provide even one day of storage for the US. Or you'd need 40 of them to produce enough within 10 years. Or 80 of them to make enough AND replace the ones that are wearing out. Assuming we have enough lithium, which we currently do not.

So how would your plan work?

[Mike90250]

The most fair and practical way to combat climate change is to implement a carbon tax so that the effect of dumping carbon in the atmosphere is account for in the price of fossil fuels.

Get India and China signed up first. Not going to happen. California's "green" grid is life support and has to import power at peak rates, at peak usage times
Unless it's caused by the sun. Remember, Global warming has been going on since the last Ice Age....

The USA then should get rid of all subsides for fossil fuels, wind and solar. ......

I'm behind that. And corn, ethanol, tobacco...

[DanKegel]

OK so it's "clearly possible." Could you describe how that will be accomplished?

It won't be any one thing, but for starters, let's look at how much power each person needs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ty_consumption says US and EU per capita electrical power consumption is 1843 and 788 watts, respectively.
The EU is an existence proof for having a high standard of living with less than half the power, so that's clearly possible (but not easy).

2. During even overcast days, PV can provide enough energy; you just have to have enough panels and/or transmission lines.
(My house pretty much doesn't use any grid power during the day, even on cloudy days.)

3. Wind is usually blowing somewhere; you just need to have enough wind turbines and/or transmission lines.

4. Thermal energy storage in cooling and heating systems can help, and is starting to be deployed.

5. As the vehicle fleet is electrified, many of those vehicles' batteries can be charged during
the day, soaking up more of that delicious daytime PV.

6. Relatively small utility scale batteries can be used to reduce fossil fuel consumption at
new peaker plants by handling the first 20 minutes of rampup, giving them time to
use more efficient combined cycle peakers rather than quick-start simple cycle peakers.

7. Modern 100MW solar power towers which use molten salt and can store energy for use all
night are commercially available; several are in operation already.

Each of these tweaks gets us closer to handling a very large percentage of load with clean energy, using nothing like the quantity of utility grid support batteries you were thinking about.

For a more detailed plan, see e.g.

http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/USStatesWWS.pdf

I don't think it's going to be easy or cheap, not by a long shot. But it's possible.

[J.P.M.]

? I'm just describing standard practice.

Proving once again that your grasp of the standard is astounding. Thank you for describing the obvious.

[word]

Get India and China signed up first. Not going to happen. California's "green" grid is life support and has to import power at peak rates, at peak usage times
Unless it's caused by the sun. Remember, Global warming has been going on since the last Ice Age....

I'm behind that. And corn, ethanol, tobacco...

China has the most installed solar PV at 43 GW, plus their panels are the cheapest and chinese manufactures have driven solar panel wholesale prices down to 39 cents a watt. In a couple of years consumers will be pay 20 cents a watt for their solar panels which is amazingly low.

[Mike90250]

I was quoting your carbon tax statement, you respond with PV panels. Because China and India (and other developing countries) need cheap power 24/7 now.
Taxing developed countries without taxing cheap imports from countries without environmental or social regulations is insane.
Make the price of a enviro/social responsible product the same as imported junk, and then see what happens. But no, import taxes are being flattened with all the global trade agreements with no enviro/social responsibilities, That's going to end badly,