The point of solar panels is not to ensure "solar profitability," but to make for a greener, better world. Its profitability is only justified insofar as it moves us towards that goal. If we want to switch to renewables, then sometimes we're going to have surplus, because of how renewables work. This is well known and discussed ad nauseam. If that makes power markets unstable, then the problem is with markets, not with there being too many solar panels.
The primary problem is not with some abstract markets but with the power grid. PV supply is not synchronised with the country’s demand and in general PV produces too much electricity when it cannot be consumed, and too little when it’s needed. The core characteristic of electricity is that it needs to be consumed almost instantly as it’s being produced and if it’s not, then it damages the grid.
To deal with that you need storage, which is very expensive and complex in many aspects, which is why it’s being deployed way too slow. The PV investors deploy cheap Chinese PV specifically because it’s cheap and they don’t deploy storage specifically because it’s not cheap - that’s the logic any investor would follow, because PV investors don’t give a shit about the grid or CO2. The negative electricity prices are a market way of signalling the investors that their business is not sustainable economically without storage because their excess production damages the grid.
Yes, you can do the same thing without markets and negative prices - you have a national grid regulatory body simply ordering PV produces to stop supplying to avoid damaging their grid, which is when it becomes their problem how to get rid of the excess energy. The PV investors will moan the problem they create is pushed to their shoulders, but it still doesn’t remove the root cause which is the desync between PV supply and country demand.
@theluddite Also this sets the stage for the next step: Storage. If storing energy means you earn money by capturing energy from the grid or engaging in arbitrage between low- and high-demand times... well that's the proper incentive right there. This is good.
@theluddite The problem becomes that solar panels will no longer be profitable to own. Even in a future where solar power is dominant, the real source of profits will come from whomever that can arbitrary the price swings. The solar panels themselves become an expense that is part of another business.
@theluddite "energy prices negative" — economy fill love that. Seriously love that. Once they manage to make their consumption flexible enough to take advantage of the gratis energy.
@theluddite@vees And there’s an obvious market solution to “negative price” events: enhanced storage and transmission facilities. There’s no such thing as a demand shortage for energy, there’s only mismatched place and time.
@grumpybozo@theluddite@vees there are demand shortages for electricity from a point in time perspective and it's super dangerous when it happens. Energy is even traded like other commodities because the supply and demand story is great to speculate on. Over-generation and under-generation events can destroy equipment and waste resources. It's why they have to plan their ramp ups for evenings of the holiday season with Christmas lights turning on in the evenings, or how in the UK during live events they plan for the tea kettles all turning on simultaneously during breaks...
It's true that there is no demand shortage for energy, but most energy we want to harness is not in the form of electricity.
@grumpybozo@theluddite@vees what you're saying is meaningless though. If we could store everything and use it later it would solve all demand of everything
anything that goes to waste is a case of "mismatched place and time". That's just how reality works
@theluddite what is your proposal to solve this? Have the government nationalize all power companies so they can print money to pay for infrastructure maintenance when the energy markets go long term negative??
@theluddite You can say that about solar panels, but as long as the organizations that build, own, and operate them are for-profit companies, profit is going to be top of mind.
It doesn’t matter if the generator is powered by solar or wind or coal or what: if it’s owned by a private company, that’s how it’s going to be. (Which is why utilities should be nationalized/in the public sector.)
@theluddite The idea that solar panels are somehow free of all the issues and perverse incentives associated with capitalism, or that they should be even if they are some company’s private property, is something popularized by capitalist marketing.
Unless they are nationalized, solar panels are an instrument of profit and subject to the whims of their profit-oriented owners too.
@theluddite Also, on a related note, “too much electricity on the grid” is a real mechanical/engineering problem that can break things. It’s why we need more storage and transmission to both ensure grid resiliency and to make full use of abundant renewable energy when stuff like this happens.
@MisuseCase
Exactly. And the negative spot price is actually the biggest problem for solar generators in this case, because the time they're producing the most, hoping to pay back the capital investment in the panels, they flood the market and lose money instead (not to mention destabilize the grid). A bunch of individual profit-oriented actors competing with each other actual makes a dogshit grid.
@CedarTea@MisuseCase@theluddite Negative prices aren't a problem for solar or wind, since they can just stop sending electricity to the grid. Coal, Nuclear and older gas plants on the other hand, can't ramp down quickly so they're the ones losing money.
And marketwise this is an opportunity for batteries, pumped storage and anything that can ramp demand up or down quickly - aluminium smelters (for example) can make a packet if they shut down lines during peak demand, and get free electricity if they spin up on sunny days.
@MisuseCase
I'm kinda low on storage because of the ecological impact of most of it though. I'd rather go the demand dispatch route if we can find some commodities that don't need 24/7 power. Hydrogen production has been floated as a possible option, and the hydrogen made through this could be used for tankers to replace the dirty ass oil they run on.
@CedarTea@theluddite Making clean fuels would be good, or doing water desalinization or something. (The latter might require uninterrupted power, I’m not sure: I know water treatment and sewage treatment do.)
I’m also in favor of putting more nuclear on the grid to manage baseload demand. Nuclear has a smaller material/physical/ecological footprint than renewables and solar - but may not be appropriate for all situations.
The problem is that baseload thinking doesn't work anymore.
What do you do during windy or sunny peaks, which get ever more common? Throttle the nuclear plant? Shut down the cheap renewables?
Nuclear is already damn expensive if it runs at 95% capacity. Running it as backup for renewables, with very limited output at most times, is a cost nightmare. And also not what the technology seems to be good at.
@billiglarper@CedarTea@theluddite “Baseload” means the electricity you need to generate to meet demand at its absolute lowest. You may need more than that at times (like peak times), but never less. Something that generates constantly and predictably is perfect for that.
“Baseload thinking doesn’t work anymore” well, the problem with that is baseload still exists.
@billiglarper@CedarTea@theluddite “Nuclear is expensive as it runs at 95% capacity” well, the cost of nuclear and its capacity have nothing to do with each other. It’s also not true that nuclear’s more expensive than equivalent solar generation.
@MisuseCase@billiglarper@CedarTea@theluddite 50k years of waste management may not be costs during the few years of production, but letting that pay your children and counting as zero is a business trick (a stupid one, without magic). It has been the most expensive power type ever being produced, we pay billions and health for the waste problem. Only if you do not count the externalised costs that companies did not pay you have a few years gain. Don't let the industries fool you about that.
@marwe Most jurisdictions have some form of levy on the production of nuclear power where they pay into their share of the used fuel management. Some planned grids don't, and simply account for it internally to their operating costs (same cost, same pocket, different ledger line). It is absolutely not counted as zero where I am.
(I won't make declarative statements that nowhere does though, because I haven't checked everywhere)
@CedarTea@marwe@billiglarper@theluddite In addition, every form of energy generation (including solar) produces waste, which may or may not include radioactive material but definitely includes some material that will be dangerous for much longer than the half-life of anything radioactive.
So when discussing the danger of waste from nuclear and the cost of managing it, it’s useful to ask, compared to what?
@CedarTea@marwe@billiglarper@theluddite Should we not manage and securely dispose of spent fuel, externalizing the cost to the environment and human health? That’s what coal and gas generation do. And some of the waste they put into the water and air is radioactive!
@CedarTea@marwe@billiglarper@theluddite What about solar? That actually creates waste too. Mining rare earths for solar panels is actually a nasty business.
For solar panels that have reached the end of their useful lifetimes, some materials can (and should) be recycled. Other materials can’t be, and must be safely disposed of.
@CedarTea@marwe@billiglarper@theluddite Whether you are talking about solar or nuclear, there’s waste material that needs to be sequestered safely for centuries or maybe millennia.
Or sometimes longer. There’s a lot of non-radioactive stuff that’s toxic forever, like arsenic.
@CedarTea@marwe@billiglarper@theluddite We manage long-term disposal of stuff like arsenic from industrial processes all the time though. Just sequester it and bury it in a vault below the water table. Which is the proper way to sequester spent nuclear fuel. If the spent fuel is reprocessed then what’s left over only needs to be sequestered for ~300 years.
@MisuseCase@CedarTea@billiglarper@theluddite have a look at "Asse 2" in Germany and you know that shit cannot be cleaned up with whatever effort you put into.
Water getting in already and we wait for large scale pollution of groundwater in the next years.
There is no safe storage place on earth, industry and politics still say they are "searching" for such a place, all storage is "temporary" and often on plant sites (unsafest place), since it cannot be transported.
About mines:see russian U
The financial feasability depends on how much energy it produces over a plants lifetime. The lifetime is limited.
Even running at high capacity, it's already more expensive than other plants. Reducing the output doesn't seem to prolong plant life that much, and the costs of running it stay the same anyways.
@billiglarper
You are absolutely correct that aggregate power output (and therefore capacity factor) are relevant to LCOE, as they are with all capital-loaded generating assets.
There are two very glaring issues with framing that graph as "unsubsidized though", which are subsidies through forced Chinese labour, and subsidies passed along to the grid/user/environment, which are not fully addressed. There are other more contingent ones as well.
@CedarTea@billiglarper@theluddite Another problem with “unsubsidized” is that solar got a lot of subsidies to get where it is and still does to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the region/state/country.
@ArneBab@CedarTea@billiglarper@theluddite Solar got (and still receives) plenty of subsidies. I don’t know why people are hung up on the subsidies thing when every form of generation gets them.
@MisuseCase that’s not the point. The point is that solar is much cheaper than nuclear if given the same subsidies.
Solars full cost, all subsidies included, is much lower than the full cost of nuclear.
That’s why it’s the better choice.
(and this doesn’t even include the cost of nuclear waste we have no way to get rid of; Asse just proves that one plan has failed)
@ElTico the LCOE difference between renewables and coal given by eia matches up with the total cost for energy in Germany, though (including "non-internalized costs" — hidden subsidies), so it looks plausible:
@ArneBab I'm not from USA, I'm from Costa Rica, I'm just using USA as an example.
LCOE is a useless metric when you compare reliable sources of energy with unreliable sources of energy, and it can fluctuate widely depending on which area of the US we're talking about, in tornado alley wind can get pretty a decent capacity factor, but in California and Washington state not so much. Solar is great in new mexico, not so much in Washington state.
@ElTico for the EU calculations based on actual solar irradiation and wind data show that even mild overcapacity make wind and solar much more reliable.
And given that French nuclear power reactors had to be shut down a lot last year because the streams they were built at became too warm to be used for cooling, they aren’t really reliable. That’s why France had to buy so much energy from Germany.
So LCOE is a pretty good metric as long as you know the basics.
@billiglarper@MisuseCase@CedarTea@theluddite
My rooftop solar cost about 500€/yearMWh - without anyone paying subsidies to me.
With a minimum, maintenance-free lifetime of 25 years (probably more like 50) that‘s
20€/MWh (or better)
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