I dream of humans one day building a Dyson swarm around the Sun and becoming a Kardashev type 2 civilization. It’s a magnificent dream that we probably must one day accomplish or accept extinction.
But that is one serious problem with it. Unless it’s managed democratically, one psycho could gain control over all of it, then yeah, they could literally block out the Sun for anyone who won’t pay for sunlight.
If you’re describing nearly free and unlimited electricity as a problem, you may want to reconsider some things.
It’s a very capitalist way of thinking about the problem, but what “negative prices” actually means in this case is that the grid is over-energised. That’s a genuine engineering issue which would take considerable effort to deal with without exploding transformers or setting fire to power stations
Home owned windmills, solar panels and battery storage solves that.
Edit: Look at this awesome diagram of how it’s done for a hybrid setup that’s about $400 on Amazon.
Home owned windmills are almost a total waste. Its surprising how little electricity they generate especially given how much the cost to buy and install. Some real numbers. A 400w can cost almost $18k to buy and install. A 410w solar solar panel is about $250 + $3k of supporting electronics and parts. And that same $3k can support 10+ more panels. I looked into it myself really wanted it to be worth it for home, but it just isn’t. Now utility grade wind? Absolutely worth it. You need absolutely giant windmills with massive towers, but once you have those, you can make a LOT of electricity very cost effectively.
Solar panels worth it? Yes. Absolutely.
Batteries, not quite there yet for most folks. Batteries are really expensive, and don’t hold very much electricity $10k-$15k can get you a few hours of light or moderate home use capacity. For folks with really expensive electricity rates or very unreliable power this can be worth it financially, but for most every else. Cheaper chemistry batteries are finally starting to be produced (Sodium Ion), but we’re right at the beginning of these and there not really any consumer products for home made from these yet.
Yeah, right now end of life EV batteries are great for making your own power storage but that’s a level of diy beyond what 95% of people are willing or able to do
What’s infuriating is that we had electric cars before ICE powered cars. 1899. If we would’ve been investing money and effort into research for battery technology since then, we wouldn’t have this problem. Salt batteries, solid state batteries, and other promising tech is in it’s infancy because we just started to take this seriously as a society like 10 years ago.
Better late than never but it grinds my gears that the best argument against solar and wind is power storage requirements due to unpredictable power generation. Like this is an extremely solvable problem.
Oh yeah, super expensive. /s
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087BY2YV7/?
The first link that came up: https://www.bobvila.com/articles/best-home-wind-turbines/
Wait so the same people that can’t drop 500 USD for an emergency are expected to drop 300 USD for a wind turbine and provide the installation of it to boot is that right
How, exactly, does that solve anything? It’s not like we can add some kind of magic automatic residential cutoff system (that would just make it worse) and residential distribution is already the problem! Residential solar is awesome (tho home batteries are largely elon propaganda…) but they only contribute to the above issue, not solve it. There are ways of addressing it, but they’re complicated and unglamorous.
It’s not like we can add some kind of magic automatic residential cutoff system
Of course we can. They’re called Microgrid Interconnection Devices (MIDs).
that would just make it worse
Microgrids that can disconnect from the utility at appropriate times may in fact make it better. If homeowners responded to utility alerts of high demand and opted to disconnect from the grid during those times while still having power, that would just make grid operators and home owners happier.
residential distribution is already the problem!
Microgrids are the solution!
tho home batteries are largely elon propaganda…
While residential BESSs are largely Tesla based, they are absolutely key in the energy transition from fossil- to renewables-based power sources.
they only contribute to the above issue, not solve it.
How?
There are ways of addressing it, but they’re complicated and unglamorous.
Which ways?
I see this posted a lot as if this is an issue with capitalism. No, this is what happens when you have to deal with maintaining the power grid using capitalism as a tool.
Power generation needs to match consumption. Always constantly the power grid must be balanced. If you consume more than you can generate, you get a blackout. If you generate more than you use, something catches fire.
Renewables generate power on their own schedule. This is a problem that can be solved with storage. But storage is expensive and takes time to construct.
Negative prices are done to try and balance the load. Its not a problem, its an opportunity. If you want to do something that needs a lot of power, you can make money by consuming energy when more consumption is needed. And if you buy a utility scale battery, you can make money when both charging and discharging it if you schedule it right.
That’s not renewables being a problem, that’s just what happens when the engineering realities of the power grid come into contact with the economic system that is prevalent for now.
Just to be clear this can’t be solved with storage. Currently it can be but not permanently.
For ease of argument let’s say the grid runs 100% on solar with batteries that last a day. For 100% solar you need to build power for when demand is highest, winter, and supply is lowest also winter. Come summer demand is lowest and supply is highest. You can’t store all that energy in summer because you got fuck all to do with it.
It’s a really weird cost saving exercise but basically when supply is massively abundant it has to be wasted. No one is going to build that final battery that is only used for 1 day every 10 years.
Bringing it all together. In a 100% renewables grid with solar, wind, hydro and batteries a lot of electricity will be wasted and it will be the cheapest way to do it. Cheaper than now.
Quite a few people talk about this on youtube. Tony Seba and rethinkx is the best place to start in my opinion.
You can’t store all that energy in summer because you got fuck all to do with it.
Main value of H2 electrolysis is solving (more economic return from renewables than just curtailing) this problem. Also provides exportable energy to cover winter clean power/heat needs.
I’ll be interested to see what happens with this.
New forms of industry will work out if you got very low capital costs and high energy costs. The factory is going to be running, what? At most 25% of the year? Probably more like under 10 and unpredictable. That’s going to be so weird for profitability.
I feel like storing the hydrogen itself could be an issue. Storing methane seems way easier so I wonder if that happens instead. But is it cheap to make a device that can make huge amount of hydrogen or methane? I have no idea and no one seems to know what’s going to happen yet.
I just expect most of it to be dumped. Because it’s 1 less thing to buy.
To get $2/kg 300 bar H2, $500/kw electrolyzer capital costs, and 2c/kwh electricity input costs are needed. China is pushing down to $300/kw on electrolyzer costs. Just as seasonal negative prices happen in some locations, stabilizing to 2c/kwh is the path H2 enables. $2/kg H2 means 6c/kwh CHP power cost from Fuel Cell, and 10c/kwh electric only power output. Competitive with electric utility service, and fast charging vehicle stations. It’s competitive at $4/kg in many jurisdictions, in fact.
Factories already operate mostly daytime. Solar output is seasonal with more variability the further from equator you go. Having solar cover 100% of summer cloudy day generation at low AC use, can result in 2c/kwh or less prices on sunny days, and in Spring and fall where there is no HVAC demand. Running FF electricity just in winter/backup is path to significantly lower emissions, and lower cost of FF energy from less use. Factories with long shifts running half on solar is still low overall energy input costs, if they can sell what they make.
H2 storage is a solved problem. Lined pipe and pressure vessels. If factories are ever automated to the point where labour cost is nearly irrelevant compared to energy costs, then they too can become variable loads. H2 electrolysis and desalination and battery charging are all highly automated processes that benefit from those conditions today.
The forever advantage of green H2 production is that it is containerizable. Can be transported seasonally to where renewable surpluses will occur. I guess self mobile robots could do the same, though.
