Solar will soon eclipse other forms of energy generation

https://www.positive.news/environment/solar-will-soon-eclipse-all-forms-of-energy/

by simonjgreen • 3 years ago

56 113 3 years ago

rich_sasha3• 3 years ago

Well it's good, and very happy, but seriously, what is going to power Northern Europe in winter? Burning gas which is somehow seen as green? Ginormous batteries storing summer energy through until April, which people inexplicably assume will become viable by extrapolating exponential growth? Or good old coal as a "temporary measure"?

IMO renewables as a backbone for energy generation in a random locale, over nuclear, are misguided. I fear they will replace maybe 60-70% of fossil, if that, then will hit a wall and we will keep on burning stuff to patch the holes, or will build nukes anyway for this purpose, at which point the renewables will have been a waste of money and time. Or maybe we will just all burn to a crisp before any of this matters.

I hope I'm wrong, because sure enough no one making energy investments seems to agree with me.

hef198983• 3 years ago

> because sure enough no one making energy investments seems to agree with me.

Let's assume not every investment decision is following SoftBanks approach.

FooBarWidget• 3 years ago

Isn't there plenty of wind in the winter?

hef198983• 3 years ago

Also hydro, bio gas... And solar is working in winter as well, just a lot less efficient. But than there will still be a grid hetting electricity to those places.

nkoren• 3 years ago

You literally didn't read the first paragraph of the linked article, did you?

jahnu• 3 years ago

Isn’t it truly tiresome to see obvious questions voted to the top with answers right in the article or easily searchable. Why do HN commenters assume that they are the only person to think about these questions? It’s probably the most discussed and analysed topic of our time with an incredible wealth of professionals writing about it every day.

armada651• 3 years ago

The article:

Power delivered by the ‘GREGY Interconnection’ cable will serve grids in Greece, Italy and Bulgaria.

The comment:

what is going to power Northern Europe in winter?

You literally didn't read the first sentence of the comment, did you?

rich_sasha3• 3 years ago

So, what, we'll draw most of the winter power from Morocco?

Aside from engineering feasibility, this is literally what bit Europe (Northern Europe in particular - go figure) in the backside: having a single energy supplier. Projects like this sound like nice marginal improvements, but you wouldn't want to bet your whole economy on good relations with Morocco.

It is on fact worse since oil and gas can be transported with some difficulty, Germany muddled through in the end. But you won't be able to magic out new cables at this scale. And anyway where would they lead?

I think the bulk of energy must at least be produced in the EU, with all the limitations it entails. Or else be fungible with many third parties.

totoglazer• 3 years ago

It’s definitely a problem. However reducing annual global fossil fuel usage by 70% is still huge and worth doing today.

In terms of the Northern Europe winter, wind, offshore wind, and solar from Africa will hopefully make up a lot of the shortfall.

Ekaros• 3 years ago

Solar from Africa. So tying ourselves to very unstable region which is also in same pattern of production during day...

mathgeek• 3 years ago

As with most markets, it will be a mix for the foreseeable future. There will be dominant players and minor ones, holes filled by suboptimal forms, etc. Even if nuclear energy were the dominant source, we would still be burning some fossil fuels. Optimization should be the goal rather than perfection.

thx-27182• 3 years ago

What's interesting to me is that hydroelectric power generation pretty much dominates when it comes to over output per plant.

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

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

ceejayoz9• 3 years ago

Yes, hydro's great. The problem is scaling; "that plant is super helpful, let's build ten more nearby" isn't possible like it is with other forms of power generation.

londons_explore4• 3 years ago

I believe big cables will the the future... +-3 million volts and 30,000 amps DC makes a pair of cables each 2 feet thick which can deliver enough power for the whole of the UK, and then take that power from the equator to the north pole while losing only 5%.

The cable itself is expensive to make and hard to install, but I believe we will put cablemaking equipment onto a ship, and sail it at 1mph all the way from the equator to northern europe, with other ships bringing shipments of copper, steel, and polymers to keep it going.

The cable will be fed by lower voltage feeders, and voltage conversion done by stacked MOSFETS (600V MOSFETS, 5000 of them stacked, and all encased in polymer - at these voltages, air isn't a good enough insulator unless you have absolutely huge buildings.) Each stack can add or remove 300 megawatts of power from the cable - so you need a couple per powerstation or city

kreetx2• 3 years ago

That's interesting. Not knowing much about electricity read somewhere that it goes ~500km max and was wondering how are they going to get it from Africa to Europe.

donkeyd7• 3 years ago

This sounds like an in pipe(/cable) dream... First, you need that pair of cables for the UK (assuming your math and physics work out). Then you need at least 10 times that for the rest of Europe. Then we have all those cables in the water, in different places at the coasts of sea bound countries. We need to then split all of it up and transport it inland into all those countries.

Even if the first part is even feasible, that second part is another world of hurt. Oh, and the part before the first part, where we fill Africa with solar to provide the world with electricity for 12-ish hours a day. The geopolitics of this all are going to be pretty much impossible to figure out and that's before any actual engineering can even begin to be done.

tiku• 3 years ago

For my own situation in the Netherlands only december and januari are really low. In december 37kwH with solar, used 235. In januari about the same. In februari it goes up quick, generated about 100 kwh, used 200. From march on i'm in the + with generating solar.

So only the 4 winter months here should be abridged or have excess solar power (4 times as much) as normal. This is with a insulated house etc.

donkeyd7• 3 years ago

The thing is, many houses (like my own) aren't insulated very well still. Also, you can't look at production and use over a month. We often have multiple cloudy days in a row where we produce next to nothing in comparison to what is used. So you need something to bridge those days. We do have wind and off-shore wind is relatively reliable, so that's good.

Solar is just awful for our climate, since we produce most when we use the least, which you can see in the quite extreme negative prices for electricity we've already seen this year... And it's not even summer yet.

detourdog3• 3 years ago

In Western Massachusetts I have an all electric building heated with air sourced heat pumps.

December through March is when I buy electricity. I now have documented how KWhs or BTUs I need to eliminate the massive heating load. Last August the Governor made a new deal for better pricing of the electricity I deliver to the grid. This year I will see a much higher income for my excess summer production. I will re-invest this into more production.

The real problem with solar is only a few months of the year. Isolating the problem of energy production and storage to only those months demonstrates how close we are to a new energy future. My next step will be solar thermal install. I want a more passive method for heating as a backup.

My location 42.73226° N, 73.19623° W. I can provide five years of production data if people are curious.

cinntaile• 3 years ago

It'll likely be mostly be wind, hydro and nuclear. In that order. Not sure how this relates to the topic here though.

conradev• 3 years ago

will build nukes anyway for this purpose, at which point the renewables will have been a waste of money and time

Solar, wind, hydro, fission and fusion are all different, with different strengths and weaknesses. Building capacity for one source (making it cheaper in the process!) does not go to waste. Power plants will continue to operate continuously to recoup their capital cost.

A renewable-only grid is generally not the consensus view, just something Greenpeace pushes

Gwypaas2• 3 years ago

With the $120 - 200/MWh nuclear costs, which is the averege price they require all year around, you can do many completely insane things from an energy efficiency perspective and still come out ahead.

https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-e...

bryanlarsen3• 3 years ago

A lot of it will come from hydro used as a battery. The power cables across the North Sea will send power north in the summer and south in the winter. That power will be used to either pump water uphill, or just to replace the hydro power currently being used in the summer.

ftth_finland10• 3 years ago

The problem is that there isn't enough hydro. Only Norway has enough hydro to run the country.

Zemtomo• 3 years ago

Not sure about the term but I would have assumed northern Europe is Scandinavian countries and they have ground heat, water and nuclear.

France already has plans for more nuclear.

We Germans might have issues but let's see what this really means in the next 20 years.

We have a huge gas network and every sun hour will keep those storage tanks full for longer and it should be predictable enough to get good prices

donkeyd7• 3 years ago

I see the same problems. I don't understand why we're still subsidizing solar. I hope we can harness tidal movements in some way, seems like the most consistent thing we're not really using yet. I have no idea whether that's even feasible though.

pjc508• 3 years ago

Most new solar is unsubsidized.

pjc508• 3 years ago

or will build nukes anyway for this purpose, at which point the renewables will have been a waste of money and time.

If you decide to build a nuclear plant today, it might be finished by the time renewables deployed today have reached the end of their design lives.

(People will no doubt answer that it can be done quickly, and I urge those people to get on down to Hinkley Point C with a shovel to help them finish the thing)

rich_sasha3• 3 years ago

I've been hearing this for decades.

Had we built nukes 20 years ago, the problem wouldn't be here today.

It's not a great argument.

lucumo3• 3 years ago

Well it's good, and very happy, but seriously, what is going to power Northern Europe in winter?

Wind, onshore and offshore. The North Sea is currently filled up with offshore wind parks. North Sea countries

Hydropower is popular in the Nordics, I believe. With pumped storage that could flatten the seasonal variation.

Overproduction of both wind and solar is also feasible. Winter production of solar is not nothing, it's just less. Scaling up the number of collectors will still get you more production.

Seasonal price fluctuations. Having summer electricity be nearly free can create business opportunities, whereas high winter prices will reduce demand from industrial consumers.

ftth_finland10• 3 years ago

Wind, onshore and offshore.

How about when the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow?

Hydropower is popular in the Nordics, I believe.

Popular, but insufficient. Only Norway could ostensibly be run on hydro.

Overproduction of both wind and solar is also feasible.

But is it economically viable?

Winter production of solar is not nothing

Yeah, it pretty much is in the Nordics.

Scaling up the number of collectors will still get you more production.

Nope. Zero times a large number is still zero.

Having summer electricity be nearly free can create business opportunities, whereas high winter prices will reduce demand from industrial consumers.

Sure, business opportunities for end users. But is it sustainable?

With too much supply renewables make no money and other producers have to make all their money in the winter months.

shmde• 3 years ago

Solar is just nuclear with extra steps.

h4kor• 3 years ago

Or: fusion reactors are just solar power with extra steps

dirkc• 3 years ago

Doesn't both nuclear (fission) and fusion mainly generate heat that is used to make steam to spin a turbine? I'd say solar skips a few steps rather than adding extras

NeoTar• 3 years ago

Fossil fuels are just Solar with extra steps.

timthelion• 3 years ago

I like to run client code in a VM and my nuclear reactions several light minutes away. It's just basic hygiene...

pauletienney• 3 years ago

Well, you both twisted my brain and made me laugh with this one. Thank you, good sir.

flgb• 3 years ago

Extra steps? Not sure about that.

Solar farms are definitely much, much simpler .. thousands or even millions of perfectly uniform panels manufactured in a factory, some wiring and power electronics and some electrical infrastructure to connect to the grid. Projects are delivered in months, and almost all within 1% of project budget.

Nuclear power plants consist of probably tens of thousands of different components: a reactor (containing a reactor core, fuel rods, control rods, moderator, and coolant), a turbine, a generator, a containment building, a cooling system, pumps, valves, and piping, a control system, a safety system, and a waste disposal system, along with all the same electrical infrastructure to connect to the grid. Projects take years to decades and invariably delivered multiples over budget.

kreetx2• 3 years ago

The parent might have meant that nuclear processes in the sun generate the light that we catch here and turn into electricity.

The downside of nuclear is that more could go wrong when building, while deploying solar panels doesn't have any risks and the permission (if any) is easy to get.

henearkr• 3 years ago

Nuclear fusion with extra steps.

Not at all the same nuclear.

Tade02• 3 years ago

These are nice points, but might not be too convincing for someone who is doubtful about the technology.

Let me introduce the case of my country, Poland:

Bottom line: solar was 5.26% of the electricity mix in 2022 despite not even registering in annual reports as recently as in 2019.

People here generally lean conservative and don't think in terms of carbon footprints and whatnot. The grid is largely coal-based and until recently this was supposed to remain the case until resources run out.

Starting this year there are already hours during which solar supplies more power to the grid than coal, even though just three years earlier(2020) at 1.1% it barely registered in annual energy production reports. It's predicted to be over 7% of the mix this year.

Many different reasons for such an explosion in popularity, but ultimately they boil down to one thing: money talks. It's no secret that Poland is a net energy importer and the solar farms help in relying less on e.g. Germany in this regard and saving money in the process.

It's gaining ground because it's simply cheap and easy to deploy.

Meanwhile the nuclear power plant(s), plans for which started in earnest in 2008, is yet to start construction. Perhaps we'll have one by 2030, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

mathnode• 3 years ago

FTA

1. Europe to plug into desert sunshine Solar energy harvested in the sunbleached dunes of the Sahara desert is set to power millions of homes in Britain and Europe.

It's not just nice points. It's the entire point of the article.

TheLoafOfBread2• 3 years ago

And that's the reason why this article is geopolitically naïve beyond comprehension. Morocco and Algeria does not like each other and can end up fighting tomorrow. Libya is a hot mess after French and Italians weren't able to hold their impulses and Egypt is under military government.

Tade02• 3 years ago

I heard about Xlinks before and I'm cheering for it, but to me a shorter, but more powerful HVDC line to Spain and a plant there would yield better returns, and earlier at that.

Solar is booming there anyway - there's currently 22GW connected to the grid, which is double that of the 2019 figure. A far cry from the days of the infamous sun tax.

The world relies on Morocco for its minerals used in fertilizers so if it were not a safe place to invest, we would have worse problems to deal with, but still, the world record in HVDC line length might be not worth it.

prox• 3 years ago

Poland is also an EU country and lots of subsidies come round to complying with them, and reaching Solar goals is part of them. Even when the government doesn’t cooperates, they still accept all the money/work they can get.

Not only that, but also lots of other infrastructure.

mbgerring• 3 years ago

The trend lines for this have been obvious for a decade or more for anyone who has paid even cursory attention to the energy industry. The comment section under this post will be full of the same skepticism that always accompanies these announcements, and solar will keep chugging along regardless.

Raztuf• 3 years ago

I am interested to learn more about the subject, even in more technical details. Do you have any source suggestions ?

laratiede• 3 years ago

Read any book by Vaclav Smil if you want to understand the space of energy and not live in fantasy land.

There is no way solar is going to overtake everything by 2027.

I wish that was the case, it would be awesome but that is just not going to happen.

This fantasy land stuff is so counterproductive because when it doesn't happen it causes people to question the entire idea.

How the World Really Works is Smil's book to counter fantasy land stuff like this article but the problem is there is a true believer contingent that that is just not interested in the real world.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply uneducated, ignorant or a true believer themselves.

The fundamental problem is reflected in Smil's writing. The space of energy is incredibly complex and an incredibly dry read. It couldn't lend itself less to news articles and social media posts. So we end up with this ridiculous two sided argument between climate change denial morons and climate fanatics who think solar is going to overtake everything by 2027 and to think otherwise is to be one of the climate change denial morons.

It is fucking pathetic.

gonzo41• 3 years ago

Every roof in a city, All bus shelters, car parks with shade roofs. Ive often wondered why there's not solar snaking down the highways. There's so much unused land between roads just waiting for panels.

jackmott42• 3 years ago

As grids reach higher and higher % of renewables you need more and more storage or more and more peaking plants. You could very easily just crank out solar panels but building the storage gets to be apollo program scale projects as % solar gets very high. Just a few tesla mega packs isn't enough if you are over 50%. You need entire lakes. And we should be doing those programs!

cfiggers• 3 years ago

Re: snaking down the highways—I'm not an electrician, but my understanding is that transporting electricity over distance is costly. First, because you have to run and long-term maintain additional wire, which isn't free, but second because of something called "transmission and distribution losses"—essentially, some fraction of the power you generated gets lost whenever you send it along a wire. That's why the existing grid uses high voltage for transport and transformers to step it back down where it's going to be used.

Solar panels are getting better and better all the time, but for a long time the marginal benefits of running them have been slim (once you offset the power generation by the cost to manufacture, install, and maintain them). And their output is notoriously unpredictable because it's dependent on weather. So, T&D losses alone are enough of a factor to make certain kinds of solar deployment unfeasible. Then consider how much easier maintenance would be if your panels are arranged in a conventional solar farm rather than running for miles down a highway. So, rather than snaking along highways, it's probably better to cluster all the panels close together just outside (or, as you also suggest, integrated into) a major population center.

janandonly• 3 years ago

The USA poured several millions in the research for solar panels for their space program.

Then Germany created tax incentives for producers to scale-up production.

Then China started investing in production capacity, to the extent that now in 2024 the forecast is that more solar panel GW capacity will be produced than has been installed until now worldwide.

Sources:

* A Dutch podcast on this subject: https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/goed-nieuws-schone-ene...

* How Solar Energy Became Cheap (2019), Gregory Nemet: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ecaf.12365

* Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition (2022), Rupert Way et al. https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/publications/no-2021-01-empiricall...

* Bloomberg: The Supply Chain to Beat Climate Change Is Already Being Built. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-09-06/solar-...

kachurovskiy• 3 years ago

Did estimates for my roof months ago, 30k euro for a 10kW array with no storage, "pay-back" time 15 years. Why make a hundred holes in my roof if investing same amount in stock market will 4x in the same time period? Add leak and lightning risks, repairs and maintenance. I would do it for 10k but not for 30k. And of course you're not allowed to DIY it.

pjc508• 3 years ago

Odd. I paid £5.5k for a 4kW array several years ago, I'd have assumed it was cheaper now. Possibly you hit a "breakpoint" where the non-unit cost got a lot bigger. Maybe permitting? I chose 4kW because that was the largest size that didn't require extra paperwork.

simonjgreen• 3 years ago

I have just done a 10kW array for £9k. And I'm estimating payback in < 3 years. It has got cheaper :)

detourdog3• 3 years ago

Different scene in the USA he government incentives in USA and Massachusetts made it a great investment.

I have the same size array and I think it was $48K USD 8 years ago before tax credits. I have now sold more SRECs than the initial cost of the array. I also rarely receive an electric bill. Finally it was installed on a standing seam roof so no roof penatrations.

I haven't noticed any decrease in production and will expect that most of the cost of the original install to be on physical installation and when it comes to replace the equipment I can tell it will be cheaper and more performant then my existing system.

Planetary concerns exist but I feel that we are world full of manufacturing crimes and there is no reason to hold solar to higher standard. I also think that the decentralization that solar provide an efficiency that isn't obvious on it's face.

liveranga• 3 years ago

It's amazing watching the live dashboard for Australia's energy grid: https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=1d&interval=30m

Looking at the annual data is amazing too: https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=all&interval=1y

In 2022 our electricity grid was 34.9% renewables already, with wind and solar pretty close in proportion.

n3storm• 3 years ago

Humanity will soon declive despite any ecofriendly form of energy generation

dmbche• 3 years ago

"With no cloud cover and access to the sun’s rays 24/7, Space Based Solar Power (SBSP) could be harnessed around the clock and transmitted back to Earth as microwaves, before being converted back into electricity."

I had not heard of this - it's very interesting!

ceejayoz9• 3 years ago

Never played SimCity 2000? https://simcity.fandom.com/wiki/Microwave_Power_Plant

antuneza• 3 years ago

Energy != Electricity... What does energy generation even mean?

KevinChen6• 3 years ago

This seems to paint a picture of a bright future in which humanity will enjoy the benefits of cheap energy. If solar energy can replace oil, will the pattern of the world change as a result? If the world changes as a result, what impact will this change have?

xbmcuser2• 3 years ago

Apart from solar being cheaper people don't consider the fact that electricity itself will also keep getting cheaper as price for solar keeps falling. It is going to change the world dramatically as the world electrifies because of it. As cost of production as well as the running cost for a lot of stuff will start dropping yearly. We are still few years from that point though as worlds yearly electricity usage growth has yet to be eclipsed by solar and wind annual capacity installations.

pjc508• 3 years ago

Electricity has got more expensive lately: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267500/eu-monthly-whole...

People underestimate how cheap natural gas used to be; as a byproduct of oil drilling it can be nearly free, and in some place is just flared because it was too cheap to bother capturing. That all changed when the Russians attacked.

bityard2• 3 years ago

Solar panels will get cheaper to buy due to the scale benefits of mass manufacturing, but that's about it. That only translates to cheaper electricity for those of us who can DIY their own solar setup. A standalone installation (not tied to the grid) is less flexible has a huge advantage in simplicity and is far cheaper.

Otherwise, the cost of the panels is not the biggest cost in most solar installations. Anyone investing in solar has to pay for permits, workers, electricians, inspections, mounting and distribution equipment, etc, and these costs are relatively static, roughly tracking inflation. The payback on any decent-sized solar installation is still years or decades down the road, even if the panels themselves were given away for free.

Where power companies successfully deploy solar to lower overall production costs (like mind does), I can promise you they are not at all incentivized to pass those savings back to the end users. Those profits go to shareholders, unless the regulators step in and demand otherwise.

Ingaz• 3 years ago

I don't think it's a positive news. Instead of eliminating deserts let's make them even more terrible so there will be no hope in future to make them green

Solar will soon eclipse other forms of energy generation

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