Will Solar Power Outshine Oil in the Near Future?

[mheslep]

Who on Earth thinks that paying to get electricity from here to there, a profit margin, supporting billions in infrastructure, at the mercy of market pricing is better economically than simply owning your own power generation equipment and having it on your own property

You have not made the case from running entirely off "your own power equipment", but rather for using your own installation part time, and then when it doesn't work, and often it won't, receiving the benefit of a trillion dollars worth of reliable electric grid almost for free.

 

[mheslep]

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

Many things begin with a single step, like getting lost the forest.

 

[NTL2009]

... Who on earth thinks that paying to get electricity from here to there, a profit margin, supporting billions in infrastructure, at the mercy of market pricing is better economically than simply owning your own power generation equipment and having it on your own property?

Hello - from your fellow Earthling!

We have so many examples where it is worthwhile to purchase the end product rather than DIY. Electricity is a fantastic example of that.

Even with the present situation where you get to use the grid for zero, or near zero cost, solar PV has a pretty long payback (and subsidies don't really count, that is still a cost, it is just someone else paying for it). With all the uncertainties, I'd rather get what I need at ~ $0.11/kWh.

As @mheslep pointed out, it isn't as 'simple' as you say ("simply owning your own power generation equipment and having it on your own property"). You are still very reliant on that big, old, bad, profit seeking utility and their billions of infrastructure. If you really want to disconnect from the electrical grid, be my guest. But please let me know how much it will cost for batteries and inverters to store enough kWh to get you through a cloudy, snowy Canadian winter, or how people would do it with large A/C needs?

The economy of solar PV you see is because we have a grid available for you to use at night, in bad weather, and to pull from anytime your instantaneous power demand exceeds your system capacity. The grid is your storage system, and you are getting it almost for free. You deride it, but I bet you won't give it up!

 

[nitsuj]

lol the grid is free,

Who's still reliant on "still very reliant on that big, old, bad, profit seeking utility"? What's more in my province ultimately the populace owns the infrastructure, well apparently just a controlling share at this point...they sold 60% to those big bad stakeholders. teeheee hee the infrustrure was failing apart, repair greatly increasing the cost...of electricity, hmmm...

 

[NTL2009]

lol the grid is free,

Who's still reliant on "still very reliant on that big, old, bad, profit seeking utility"? What's more in my province ultimately the populace owns the infrastructure, well apparently just a controlling share at this point...they sold 60% to those big bad stakeholders. teeheee hee the infrustrure was failing apart, repair greatly increasing the cost...of electricity, hmmm...

?

You didn't answer the question. What would it cost you to disconnect from the grid?

 

[gleem]

Now you install a small solar panel on your roof. On some days you don't need to buy electricity. You don't pay the 4 cent/kWh for the production naturally, but you also don't pay the 4 cent/kWh used to maintain the grid. But the grid still has to be maintained, because you want to be able to use it at any time. To get the same money to operate the grid, the electricity price has to rise. The effect from your local solar panel is tiny, of course, but summed over all residential solar power it can matter. While you save 8 cent/kWh, summed over all customers we only save 4 cent/kWh.

It sound like people with solar panels should feel guilty for not paying their fair share of the transmission cost. How is that different from a person who has a second home which is used for 4-5 months and turns off the power when not in use. In the US 15 million residences are occupied part time.

It gets worse. Electricity demand is quite predictable and follows daily and weekly cycles. Production from solar panels is not that predictable, and has a different pattern every day. The grid operators have to match production to demand, which means regulating down some power plants. Power plants that are idle still cost money but suddenly no money flows in when the sun shines.. What does the power plant operator do to recover these losses? Increase the price per kWh. Your electricity company guarantees that you get power even if the sun doesn't shine - the power plants will have to stay as long as we don't have a better storage solution.

A production/demand pattern that changes frequently can also mean the transmission lines need more capacity, increasing distribution costs. And handing down these costs to the customers, of course.

I don't get it. One user putting power on the grid is the same as one user reducing his pull from the grid by the same amount. The fluctuations of demand from the grid from solar at least currently is small the great fluctuations occur in the morning as household and commerce awake and at night when they wind down.

Except as new solar installations come on line the solar effect on fluctuations should be predicable but new solar usually comes on line in very small negligible capacities. As new solar comes on line so do new houses without solar which increase the demand on the grid which must be accommodated. I can't see where solar is particularly bad for the power companies.

 

[nitsuj]

?

You didn't answer the question. What would it cost you to disconnect from the grid?

That's a good question, I'll try and measure-calculate it. It'll take me some research and stuff but will do it as I'm interested to know myself.

I have played with measurements from a single solar panel, I can't remember exactly but think it farmed maybe 0.10$ over a day (not straight /kwh cost, our billing includes fixed recurring costs). So maybe 30 panels , let's add a 1/3 for bad weather, so 40 panels for 90$ (assumed cost of current elec use - $3*30days) of electricity. $5000 just for the panels (40*$100+$tuff).

then there's the batts...

super rough guess is $10k per person per 15yrs. looking for to getting it from a measurement perspective.

1kwh for 0.08 - 0.16$ is SO CHEAP, it'll be bad lol

 

[NTL2009]

...I don't get it. One user putting power on the grid is the same as one user reducing his pull from the grid by the same amount. ...

No, it is very different.

Take the simple case where a solar home nets to zero, they have a very low bill (connection fees vary), but they used the grid for most of the day. If they are able to net to zero, they had an excess around noon (so used the grid to absorb the excess), and then they used the grid to pull what they need for ~ 18 hours/day. Yet they pay almost nothing. Their solar system would not function w/o the grid, they ought to pay for it's use, the same as anyone.

If I reduce my consumption through efficiency, I'm using the grid less, and it's reasonable for me to pay a lower share of its support.

 

[mfb]

It sound like people with solar panels should feel guilty for not paying their fair share of the transmission cost.

I don't say people should feel guilty, but keeping it in mind is certainly not a bad idea.
As long as it replaces coal or oil, I think it is a great thing, and I happily pay for it.

How is that different from a person who has a second home which is used for 4-5 months and turns off the power when not in use.

That house won't suddenly need power if it is cloudy, and the owners use electricity and pay elsewhere for the grid infrastructure.

The fluctuations of demand from the grid from solar at least currently is small the great fluctuations occur in the morning as household and commerce awake and at night when they wind down.

The daily cycles are highly predictable, and changes occur over a timescale of about an hour. The overall fluctuations from solar power can be faster and they are less predictable. They are small today, sure, but the fraction of solar power is small as well.

 

[OCR]

So maybe 30 panels , let's add a 1/3 for bad weather, so 40 panels...

You added a 1/3 (10 panels ) for bad weather on your initial 30 panels... did that estimate include bad weather for the 10 added panels ?

 

[zoobyshoe]

So, the key to viable wind and solar is not in direct generation of electricity, but in using them to create a storable form of energy that can be used as needed by big power plants. Most are looking at hydrogen gas.

According to this wiki article, storage of hydrogen gas for stationary power plants (as opposed to the mobile car engine) is not especially problematic:

Unlike mobile applications, hydrogen density is not a huge problem for stationary applications. As for mobile applications, stationary applications can use established technology:

• Compressed hydrogen (CGH2) in a hydrogen tank[61]
• Liquid hydrogen in a (LH2) cryogenic hydrogen tank
• Slush hydrogen in a cryogenic hydrogen tank

Underground hydrogen storage[edit]
Underground hydrogen storage is the practice of hydrogen storage in underground caverns, salt domes and depleted oil and gas fields. Large quantities of gaseous hydrogen have been stored in underground caverns by ICI for many years without any difficulties.[62] The storage of large quantities of liquid hydrogen underground can function as grid energy storage. The round-trip efficiency is approximately 40% (vs. 75-80% for pumped-hydro (PHES)), and the cost is slightly higher than pumped hydro.[63] The European project https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hyunder&action=edit&redlink=1[64] indicated in 2013 that for the storage of wind and solar energy an additional 85 caverns are required as it can't be covered by PHES and CAES systems.[65]

By this scheme, the grid and all its power plants remain intact, but they would burn hydrogen instead of natural gas and coal. Wind and solar farms would not be directly connected to the grid: all their output would be used to split water, and the resultant hydrogen conveyed to power plants much like natural gas is now.

Power to gas is a technology which converts electrical power to a gas fuel. There are two methods: the first is to use the electricity for water splitting and inject the resulting hydrogen into the natural gas grid; the second, less efficient method is used to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen to methane, (see natural gas) usingelectrolysis and the Sabatier reaction. The excess power or off peak power generated by wind generators or solar arrays is then used for load balancing in the energy grid. Using the existing natural gas system for hydrogen Fuel cell maker Hydrogenics and natural gas distributor Enbridge have teamed up to develop such a power to gas system in Canada.[66]

Pipeline storage of hydrogen where a natural gas network is used for the storage of hydrogen. Before switching to natural gas, the German gas networks were operated using towngas, which for the most part (60-65%) consisted of hydrogen. The storage capacity of the German natural gas network is more than 200,000 GW·h which is enough for several months of energy requirement. By comparison, the capacity of all German pumped storage power plants amounts to only about 40 GW·h. The transport of energy through a gas network is done with much less loss (<0.1%) than in a power network (8%). The use of the existing natural gas pipelines for hydrogen was studied by NaturalHy[67]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage

 

[mfb]

That's a good question, I'll try and measure-calculate it. It'll take me some research and stuff but will do it as I'm interested to know myself.

I have played with measurements from a single solar panel, I can't remember exactly but think it farmed maybe 0.10$ over a day (not straight /kwh cost, our billing includes fixed recurring costs). So maybe 30 panels , let's add a 1/3 for bad weather, so 40 panels for 90$ (assumed cost of current elec use - $3*30days) of electricity. $5000 just for the panels (40*$100+$tuff).

then there's the batts...

super rough guess is $10k per person per 15yrs. looking for to getting it from a measurement perspective.

1kwh for 0.08 - 0.16$ is SO CHEAP, it'll be bad lol

I don't know when you did your measurements and cents are a problematic unit for electricity production, but with $6000 minus installation costs in batteries and solar cells that just barely cover your average demand you'll have no power frequently.

 

[nikkkom]

Wind and solar farms would not be directly connected to the grid: all their output would be used to split water, and the resultant hydrogen conveyed to power plants much like natural gas is now.

Not connecting PV farms to the grid is obviously wrong. That would waste energy on conversion even at times where it is not necessary.

The right way is to connect all energy sources to the grid, and also connect all storage to the grid. When other demand is low (e.g. night), generation does not dial down, it continues to run and this energy goes to storage. When peak comes, storage puts additional power to the grid. This way, generation does not need to be built up to support peak load alone.

Utilities have already figured out this elementary logic and are going with it.

 

[Algr]

I'm not sure if I should start a new thread for this.

I heard this from a questionable source, and trying to fact check it myself did not make clear results. Can anyone here help me? Someone said:

One trillion dollars in windmills and solar panels would generate more power then we get from the middle east. Add a half trillion for power lines and storage and we can forget [the middle east] ever existed.

This was in the context of the Iraq war costing $6 trillion, and "accomplishing nothing". That part probably doesn't belong on PF, but the quote above ought to be demonstrably true or false.

 

[gleem]

I checked out the process for selling power back to the utilities in my area and from it I am lead to believe that the user gets charged for the line at his rate of usage like everybody but get paid for his generation of power because they know what is used and what is and going out.. Check it out.

https://www.renewableenergysolar.net/blog/can-i-sell-electricity-from-solar-energy-to-bge-and-pepco/

It looks like no freebies.

 

[NTL2009]

I checked out the process for selling power back to the utilities in my area and from it I am lead to believe that the user gets charged for the line at his rate of usage like everybody but get paid for his generation of power because they know what is used and what is and going out.. Check it out.

https://www.renewableenergysolar.net/blog/can-i-sell-electricity-from-solar-energy-to-bge-and-pepco/

It looks like no freebies.

I don't think that answers the question. Let's keep it simple:

Assume you normally use a typical 1 MWH per month. Let's say you install solar panels that exactly off-set your usage, so your net consumption is zero. What would your utility bill be?

It sounds like your bill would be near zero. It sure sounds to me like you are using the grid for (near) free. Why do you say otherwise?

 

[gleem]

That's a good question, I'll try and measure-calculate it. It'll take me some research and stuff but will do it as I'm interested to know myself.

I have played with measurements from a single solar panel, I can't remember exactly but think it farmed maybe 0.10$ over a day (not straight /kwh cost, our billing includes fixed recurring costs). So maybe 30 panels , let's add a 1/3 for bad weather, so 40 panels for 90$ (assumed cost of current elec use - $3*30days) of electricity. $5000 just for the panels (40*$100+$tuff).

then there's the batts...

super rough guess is $10k per person per 15yrs. looking for to getting it from a measurement perspective.

1kwh for 0.08 - 0.16$ is SO CHEAP, it'll be bad lol

Below is a link to an cost estimate sheet from an Ohio Solar company for several roof top installation with battery backup. The estimated utility saving and income over 25 years however seems over optimistic

http://dovetailsolar.com/getattachm...sidential-Battery-Price-Sheet-9-09-2013af.pdf

 

[NTL2009]

I'm not sure if I should start a new thread for this.
I heard this from a questionable source, and trying to fact check it myself did not make clear results. Can anyone here help me? Someone said:

One trillion dollars in windmills and solar panels would generate more power then we get from the middle east. Add a half trillion for power lines and storage and we can forget [the middle east] ever existed.

This was in the context of the Iraq war costing $6 trillion, and "accomplishing nothing". That part probably doesn't belong on PF, but the quote above ought to be demonstrably true or false.

It sounds non-nonsensical to me. Our electrical power is from coal, natural gas, hydro, wind and small amounts of solar, biomass. We don't use very much oil at all for electrical production (0.6%).

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Unless you want to convert our entire transportation fleet, and heating oil needs to electric power, we still need oil. And conversion of everything like long haul trucks, trains, etc just isn't feasible at this point. We just don't have practical storage systems - I won't do the math, because we don't even know what numbers we are talking about, but offhand, I don't think a half-trillion $ would go very far in terms of storage and transmission lines for the US. You could work backwards to see where you come up in terms of MWHrs, I'll pass.

I don't want to get into politics, but I don't think that protecting our oil supply is the only reason we spend money on defense in the Middle East.

 

[gleem]

It sounds like your bill would be near zero. It sure sounds to me like you are using the grid for (near) free. Why do you say otherwise?

1 MHhrs per month?

First I would probably be generating more than I could possibly use during the time of generation.so I get paid for supplying the utility. When the sun gets low I need to buy power from the utility when I pay for the connection to the grid. If I have batteries to store the access power I go off the grid.

 

[NTL2009]

1 MHhrs per month?

It's a nice round number, and pretty typical depending on where you live. Some places the average is higher, some lower:

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/sales_revenue_price/pdf/table5_a.pdf

First I would probably be generating more than I could possibly use during the time of generation.so I get paid for supplying the utility. When the sun gets low I need to buy power from the utility when I pay for the connection to the grid.

Why don't you answer the question? It was a simple question - if you net to zero for the year, what would your bill be?

If I have batteries to store the access power I go off the grid.

I'll look at your link in more detail later, but $48,700 isn't appealing to me. Says install on a flat roof (so typically will cost more), and I doubt those batteries last 25 years, are replacements factored in? And is it really sized to store enough power to cut your grid connection? Hmmm, looks like about 1.6 days worth of battery power? Sounds like trouble to me, better add a bunch more batteries.

And I don't count the "rebate" that doesn't change the cost, it only changes who pays for it. I can make the most hair-brained idea sound "cost effective" if I get somebody else to pay for it.

 

[nikkkom]

Below is a link to an cost estimate sheet from an Ohio Solar company for several roof top installation with battery backup. The estimated utility saving and income over 25 years however seems over optimistic

Why is it "over optimistic"? According to the numbers there, ROI is ~10 years. That's about the same that I hear from many other places (even other countries and continents) - prices fell quite a bit, PV installations pay for themselves in 5-10 years depending on local conditions.

 

[NTL2009]

I've never seen 5-10 year ROI numbers for a PV system that included a large battery back up. From what I've seen, 5-10 can be pretty optimistic even for grid tie, with no batteries (and then only in the highest $/kWh regions).

 

[nikkkom]

Since solar installs rate doubles every 2.5 years and price falls by about 20% in the same time period, maybe you just did not see latest numbers and remember the "old" ones from 2-4 years ago?

 

[NTL2009]

1 MHhrs per month?

First I would probably be generating more than I could possibly use during the time of generation.so I get paid for supplying the utility. When the sun gets low I need to buy power from the utility when I pay for the connection to the grid. ...

Looking closer at your source: https://www.renewableenergysolar.net/blog/can-i-sell-electricity-from-solar-energy-to-bge-and-pepco/

that does not appear to be the case at all. You don't pay for everything you draw from the utility, you only pay for the net. And you are using the grid both ways, as a source and a sink. So if you net to zero, you pay close to zero (there may be a small monthly connection fee or something),

In the end you will only be charged for the net amount of power you use: your total usage minus the amount you produce.

 

[nikkkom]

https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capcost_assumption.pdf

Recent US Energy Information Administration's info on costs for various types of generation:

(Advocates of nuclear power, don't look at the pic, it's a disaster).

 

[mheslep]

. The overall fluctuations from solar power can be faster and they are less predictable.

Even assuming solar is perfectly predictable for a moment, it is not dispatchable. Demand is largely inflexible despite decades of attempts make it otherwise, e.g. the hospital must have power at 8pm during peak load.

 

[mheslep]

By this scheme, the grid and all its power plants remain intact, but they would burn hydrogen instead of natural gas and coal. Wind and solar farms would not be directly connected to the grid: all their output would be used to split water, and the resultant hydrogen conveyed to power plants much like natural gas is now.

This effectively describes two grids (plus storage) running side by side at different times, in place of the single one in use now, an enormously expensive solution. I suppose some wealthy countries can attempt such a scheme for some minority fraction of the grid before cost puts a halt to the enterprise. More importantly, the developing countries (India, Indonesia, Turkey, Vietnam, etc) can't and won't attempt something so expensive and, without nuclear, will go on building hundreds of coal plants.

 

[zoobyshoe]

This effectively describes two grids (plus storage) running side by side at different times, in place of the single one in use now, an enormously expensive solution. I suppose some wealthy countries can attempt such a scheme for some minority fraction of the grid before cost puts a halt to the enterprise. More importantly, the developing countries (India, Indonesia, Turkey, Vietnam, etc) can't and won't attempt something so expensive and, without nuclear, will go on building hundreds of coal plants.

I don't see where you get two grids. "The grid" is the electrical grid, which is already in place. The way I see it, the companies who are now mining fossil convert to hydrogen farming and sell their product to the utilities. How you get hydrogen from the farm to the power plant is the same way you now get natural gas from the fracking sites to the power plants. Every time they open a new fracking site, they have to repipe as it is, don't they? A stationary hydrogen farm, on the other hand, would only have to be connected once.

 

[NTL2009]

So, the key to viable wind and solar is not in direct generation of electricity, but in using them to create a storable form of energy that can be used as needed by big power plants. Most are looking at hydrogen gas.

According to this wiki article, storage of hydrogen gas for stationary power plants (as opposed to the mobile car engine) is not especially problematic: ...

While I think there may be merit to converting excess renewable energy to hydrogen to be burned for a turbine generator, this doesn't seem like an issue at all, until we actually have considerable excess renewable energy.

Of the variable renewable sources, solar PV is still a small component, wind is a bit larger. But if we only have excesses on occasion, that won't justify the infrastructure costs to convert it. As much as most of us hate the idea of letting energy go to waste, I think the reality is that until there is considerable excess, and it occurs regularly (allow the imprecise wiggle words like 'considerable' and 'regularly' - I'm just talking very generally), no one is going to invest the resources to store it.

Now maybe if we define 'storage' as just long enough for time-shifting, a few hours worth to handle peaks that occur in the late afternoon/evening, when solar has dropped. There have been plans to use pumped hydro storage for that, the round-trip losses of hydrogen will be far worse than pumped hydro, but hydrogen wouldn't be dependent on the geography (or caves) required for pumped hydro (or caves).

 

[Ken Fabos]

Assume you normally use a typical 1 MWH per month. Let's say you install solar panels that exactly off-set your usage, so your net consumption is zero. What would your utility bill be?

It sounds like your bill would be near zero. It sure sounds to me like you are using the grid for (near) free. Why do you say otherwise?

Apart from subsidies (that are subject to change and unlikely to persist long term) I doubt any arrangements that allow solar customers to be "freeloaders" are widespread or will persist where they are in place. Charging methods appear to vary widely, but where I live the rate I pay for power purchased is about 3x higher than the rate I get paid for the excess PV sold back to the grid (and I'm on a better than average deal in that) - I have heard of early PV feed in metering methods that simply subtracted what gets fed to the grid from what is taken from it but suspect it's an urban myth that anyone is still operating under those arrangements (around here). Also there is a fixed Service Availability Charge that is in addition to the balance between what is bought and what is sold and incorporates the largest part of the costs of grid services. So I certainly pay for grid services - given my low usage and rate of feed to the grid compared to what I take the SAC is the greatest part of the bill and the effective rate per kWh (total bill divided by power imported) is much higher than the stated rate per kWh. I'm aiming to get that price up to infinity, but if it looks like I can succeed I'll be thinking about disconnecting.

Now, I am treated as just another customer and expect supply when I need it, to be charged no differently than any other customer, but there is a case for PV/battery fitted homes to be special cases - where the service is only occasional backup power provision but with them most likely to occur during periods of high demand (from large numbers of PV users switched from self use to import). Given how low my usage is and that I still get a significant amount of solar power even during overcast conditions, I suspect my contributions still exceed the costs of the service provided - but inherent in that is that over time greater proportions of that service will be provided by "peaking" plants rather than "baseload". That "peaking" supply - at higher than average prices - is what storage will compete with.

Some other points - if you have more PV than you use then it can be cost effective to use the excess for hot water heating, especially if the prices you get for exporting the excess is lower than the price you pay for electricity for water heating. If the hot water system is a high efficiency heat pump a little electricity goes a long way. Solar thermal systems may have better conversion efficiencies and simplicity, yet electrical systems are very reliable and can have low costs.

It's a transition and most homes and businesses in developed countries are serviced by existing, mostly reliable, grids; there is no current need for those that install PV and batteries to be 100% self sufficient - and good reasons to remain connected apart from the convenience of making use of that backup, including some that can advantage grid operations. That they cannot currently achieve 100% at reasonable cost doesn't mean they should not aim for a lower proportion as an interim step, even where it's not yet known how the rest can be achieved.

Customers can potentially become active as participants in an energy market, with smart systems able to manage buying, storing and selling power on our behalf and in a market like Australia's National Electricity Market they could bypass the retailers (and a large part of the costs that extra level imposes) and deal directly with the wholesale market. Going away for a few weeks? The batteries can be run lower, selling when prices hit the predetermined threshold to maximise returns. A linked weather and electricity demand prediction service could allow the system to pre-charge our storage during "off peak" periods ahead of prolonged overcast conditions or expected high usage. Equitable arrangements may be contracted that allows the grid operators access to a proportion of stored power, as virtual peaking power plants or for emergency services. The old way of dealing with electricity supply is no longer applicable or even tenable.

I think it would take determined efforts to put the solar genie back into the bottle. It will disrupt a sector that needs serious disrupting in order to undergo fundamental change; guiding that change towards desired outcomes - not preventing them - is what it's about. Emergent market forces from growing proportions of intermittent renewables will tend to create the incentives that policy makers have resisted, that will make investment in storage - and demand management and efficiency - increasingly attractive. Fixed fossil fuel plant - and nuclear (unless it gets special treatment for it's low emissions) - will be forced into greater intermittency during renewables rich periods and have to charge higher prices outside those times to sustain their economic viability; it will (or can be treated as) a de facto carbon price.