Solar Breakthrough

[Legendary Gamer]

I never really put much stock in Solar Power. Granted it works in some implementations. However, the yields from it have generally been lackluster. Now... this gives me some serious hope:
1000 Times more Solar Power

 

[yinzerniner]

I never really put much stock in Solar Power. Granted it works in some implementations. However, the yields from it have generally been lackluster. Now... this gives me some serious hope:
1000 Times more Solar Power

Interesting article and possible technology but the headline is misleading AF. It’s 1000x more efficient than the base material in solar conductivity, not 1000x more than existing technologies.

Even given that solar has improved a ton in the last 5 years to the point where even in climate zone 4 and above payback time for small array with backup can be around 10-15 years. But the bigger help is the backup part since lifepo packs are widely available.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Yeah, I'd hold the phone on buy orders of this company for the meantime.

is barium titanate (BaTiO₃), a material known for its ability to convert light into electricity, though not very efficiently on its own.

So my first thought while reading the above statement was "no its not", then the addendum of the last part made me confused...

So then we got

The layered structures generated up to 1,000 times more electricity than the same amount of standalone barium titanate.

And we basically have a number that for all intents and purposes is zero... multiplied by a 1000, translation dont go "ooh and ahh" quite yet as semiconductor based cells such as silicon is still more efficient.

Efficiency IMO is not a what's holding solar back, even if you double the efficiency to nearly 50% what do you do? Have half the space necessary. and there still is an upper bound on how much energy it can put out. Two things solar needs is 1) cheap storage solutions aka batteries, or 2) much cleaner life cycle of product. Because solar is not something for high population densities e.g. think NYC.

 

[HeadRusch]

Cool. As someone who has tried to use portable solar panels during power-down scenarios to keep a Goal Zero Yeti charged, I can say its been an epic fail. If you are using one of these while camping or on the beach or in an off-grid scenario, it's a bit of a different story...you can hope for good weather

Power Down scenarios usually mean bad weather, and bad weather means "you can forget relying on solar". if your panels aren't flying away you are dealing with cloud cover and rain and snow and whatever else, get a branch casting shade on one part of a panel and your whole array goes down, or you miswire it and give youself a nice shock (Fun to dick around with, terrible to RELY on).

These days the smart move is to not buy $500 worth of solar panels and hope there's sunlight without cloud cover, and instead spend $150 or less and get an alternator charger to recharge a LiFePo (Goal Zero. Ecoflo, Oupes whatever there's a bajillion of these things now) battery bank completely full just by idling your car or driving around a bit. Unlike portable gasoline generators which many buy but then NEVER use and never think to use the gas they have allocated for them.....your car usually has fresh fuel. If you have an EV, you probably already have the means to juice up a battery bank or just keep your fridge running directly, which is a kinda cool byproduct of EVs.

But improvements in panels helps a lot no matter what.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Yeah, I'd hold the phone on buy orders of this company for the meantime.


So my first thought while reading the above statement was "no its not", then the addendum of the last part made me confused...

So then we got

And we basically have a number that for all intents and purposes is zero... multiplied by a 1000, translation dont go "ooh and ahh" quite yet as semiconductor based cells such as silicon is still more efficient.

Efficiency IMO is not a what's holding solar back, even if you double the efficiency to nearly 50% what do you do? Have half the space necessary. and there still is an upper bound on how much energy it can put out. Two things solar needs is 1) cheap storage solutions aka batteries, or 2) much cleaner life cycle of product. Because solar is not something for high population densities e.g. think NYC.

Not to mention solar nor wind can handle base load of most power grids require...rainy day, snowy day, winter.... all those factors.

Solar and Wind are compliments, but they can not replace other better options. Also, Wind is expensive still and solar.. as noted 10-15 year ROI.....

 

[yinzerniner]

Cool. As someone who has tried to use portable solar panels during power-down scenarios to keep a Goal Zero Yeti charged, I can say its been an epic fail. If you are using one of these while camping or on the beach or in an off-grid scenario, it's a bit of a different story...you can hope for good weather

Power Down scenarios usually mean bad weather, and bad weather means "you can forget relying on solar". if your panels aren't flying away you are dealing with cloud cover and rain and snow and whatever else, get a branch casting shade on one part of a panel and your whole array goes down, or you miswire it and give youself a nice shock (Fun to dick around with, terrible to RELY on).

These days the smart move is to not buy $500 worth of solar panels and hope there's sunlight without cloud cover, and instead spend $150 or less and get an alternator charger to recharge a LiFePo (Goal Zero. Ecoflo, Oupes whatever there's a bajillion of these things now) battery bank completely full just by idling your car or driving around a bit. Unlike portable gasoline generators which many buy but then NEVER use and never think to use the gas they have allocated for them.....your car usually has fresh fuel. If you have an EV, you probably already have the means to juice up a battery bank or just keep your fridge running directly, which is a kinda cool byproduct of EVs.

But improvements in panels helps a lot no matter what.

Yeah the blackout backio scenario for solar and batteries would have to be via constant charging and monitoring, not on demand. Fossil fuel generators are still the best since there’s so much captured energy in dino juice.

Something like the venerable Honda generator still costs less than similar power battery backups and will outlive us all.

 

[Gorilla]

I refuse to click any any more "Solar Breakthrough!!!!" articles. Every single one of them reads like some monumental new discovery has occurred and then nothing comes of it or it turns out that it is impossible to achieve in a real world setting. I'm not solar bashing. If I ever buy the land I want I will almost certainly build my own solar array. But we get these articles constantly and to my knowledge solar has been and continues to be a very slight upwards trend.

 

[Twisted Kidney]

Collecting solar energy isn't really the shortcoming, it's storing the power.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I refuse to click any any more "Solar Breakthrough!!!!" articles. Every single one of them reads like some monumental new discovery has occurred and then nothing comes of it or it turns out that it is impossible to achieve in a real world setting. I'm not solar bashing. If I ever buy the land I want I will almost certainly build my own solar array. But we get these articles constantly and to my knowledge solar has been and continues to be a very slight upwards trend.

Here is an analogy I like to use for stuff like this:

I remember my young teenage self back in ~1993 some time reading this new article about how researchers had been able to create these chips that were fast like RAM but able to persistently store data like a hard drive or floppy disk.

Wow, amazing - I thought. I dreamed of the near future when we would all have storage devices that operated at RAM speeds.

Then nothing happened, and I forgot about it.

Then in 2009, 16 years after my 13 year old self first read about the scientific breakthrough of flash NAND, I bought my first SATA SSD.

People need to interpret research and scientific breakthroughs for what they are. Something was proven to be feasible in a lab setting when surrounded by scientists and engineers. That doesn't mean they are anywhere near an actual product coming out of it.

We usually split up things into Research and Development. The research guys get grants, and come up with novel new ideas and test to see if they are possible. As conceptually difficult as this work can be, the next step - development - is often even more so. It can take decades to take things learned in a new discovery and refine them and turn them into something that is practically usable as a product.

And that's how we should look at these stories. It is still news worthy, but it is in its absolute infancy. Anything that comes out of it likely won't be seen by users until a decade or more down the line, and when it finally hits the market (if they are able to make it work) it will feel more evolutionary than revolutionary.

 

[DarkStar02]

Not to mention solar nor wind can handle base load of most power grids require...rainy day, snowy day, winter.... all those factors.

Solar and Wind are not compliments, but they can not replace other better options. Also, Wind is expensive still and solar.. as noted 10-15 year ROI.....

It depends on where you live. Here in CA I'm paying $0.50/kWh so the pay back period on my system (that I installed) only 4.3 years.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Collecting solar energy isn't really the shortcoming, it's storing the power.

Either that, or creating a global network of superconductors that dynamically shares the collected solar power. The sun is always up somewhere.

 

[OutOfPhase]

It depends on where you live. Here in CA I'm paying $0.50/kWh so the pay back period on my system (that I installed) only 4.3 years.

Took me 6 (did not install myself).
Lots of sun, insane electricty costs.

 

[Lakados]

Collecting solar energy isn't really the shortcoming, it's storing the power.

There have been promising advancements in using solar to power electrolysis machines that generate hydrogen, then storing the hydrogen to power generators.
Less efficient than batteries, of course, but hydrogen storage is a lot easier to add than batteries are.

 

[yinzerniner]

There have been promising advancements in using solar to power electrolysis machines that generate hydrogen, then storing the hydrogen to power generators.
Less efficient than batteries, of course, but hydrogen storage is a lot easier to add than batteries are.

Never understood why hydrogen didn’t take off more wrt energy storage and vehicle propulsion. It could use mostly the same infrastructure as gasoline, burns “clean” in that it creates water, and like you said could be generated easily via renewable resources.

As to the others in sunnier climates ie zones 1, 2 and 3, didn’t realize that the payoff was that quick. Maybe because the electrical grid everywhere in the last 5 years has gotten so shitty with natural disasters and maintenance financing.

 

[Lakados]

Never understood why hydrogen didn’t take off more wrt energy storage and vehicle propulsion. It could use mostly the same infrastructure as gasoline, burns “clean” in that it creates water, and like you said could be generated easily via renewable resources.

As to the others in sunnier climates ie zones 1, 2 and 3, didn’t realize that the payoff was that quick. Maybe because the electrical grid everywhere in the last 5 years has gotten so shitty with natural disasters and maintenance financing.

It's the pressure tanks.
Liquid Hydrogen needs to be stored at temperatures of -423°F, which isn't cheap to maintain.
Hydrogen in its gaseous form is typically stored at pressures between 5,000 and 10,000 psi, which generally requires specialized tanks and monitoring.

Natural Gas and Propane are stored at less than 300 psi, and consider all the regulations around those, especially if you have any of the larger tanks on your property.
Now try convincing your neighbours that the even more flammable substance stored at 20x that pressure is perfectly safe to live next to...
You can store Hydrogen at lower pressures matching those of a propane or Natural Gas tank, but it's not overly efficient, as a generator will still need it to be around 3,000 psi to use.

Hydrogen is gaining momentum now because the costs associated with building tanks to store hydrogen at the required pressures have decreased substantially.

Hydrogen is an awesome fuel source in a safe and controlled environment, sadly, the average home and vehicle are neither.
So the main drawback with Hydrogen is how do you store it safely, and how do you manage situations where it is leaking, boiling off, or the tank is spontaneously ruptured.

 

[mullet]

I hope this is true, but we have all been down this road so so so many times, I gave up decades ago.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Not to mention solar nor wind can handle base load of most power grids require...rainy day, snowy day, winter.... all those factors.

Solar and Wind are not compliments, but they can not replace other better options. Also, Wind is expensive still and solar.. as noted 10-15 year ROI.....

Solar is absolutely fantastic... if it is used on a per home basis, with appropriate safeguards i.e. batteries and a system designed for what YOU use electrically. Once you start trying to make it the grid, you run into massive issues as you mention. And the TBF moment is the ROI on solar is highly variable based on the labor cost of installation, if you're able enough to do the work yourself, the ROI is quite low.

Also wonder what the deal is with this article and why they are posting it as if it's new, this was first posted 3 years ago
https://pressemitteilungen.pr.uni-halle.de/index.php?modus=pmanzeige&pm_id=5273

 

[Nicklebon]

Hydrogen in its gaseous form is typically stored at pressures between 5,000 and 10,000 psi, which generally requires specialized tanks and monitoring.

I've got 8 scuba tanks, 4 aluminum 2 steel, in my garage at 3K psi another 4 HP steel tanks @ 3442psi. These are all on a 5 year hydro test cycle which is nothing special. For my compressor/fill station I've 4x 6000psi cascade steel cylinders which are on a 10year hydro test cycle. High pressure gas tanks are not exactly specialized, certainly not big deal, and something the scuba and welding world has dealt with for decades.

I should add that 2 of the cascade bottles are 80% O2 which is actually far more dangerous than H2.

 

[Gorilla]

I've got 8 scuba tanks, 4 aluminum 2 steel, in my garage at 3K psi another 4 HP steel tanks @ 3442psi. These are all on a 5 year hydro test cycle which is nothing special. For my compressor/fill station I've 4x 6000psi cascade steel cylinders which are on a 10year hydro test cycle. High pressure gas tanks are not exactly specialized, certainly not big deal, and something the scuba and welding world has dealt with for decades.

Yeah, but you're talking about hydrogen (a pesky small element) not oxygen or argon or CO2 or other easily stored stuff. Also, tiny leak and possible big bada boom. Scuba tank leaks, maybe you get slammed by a compressed air tank, maybe you even die from the blow, hydrogen leaks and maybe your house is gone, plus the surrounding neighborhood.

 

[Nicklebon]

Yeah, but you're talking about hydrogen (a pesky small element) not oxygen or argon or CO2 or other easily stored stuff. Also, tiny leak and possible big bada boom. Scuba tank leaks, maybe you get slammed by a compressed air tank, maybe you even die from the blow, hydrogen leaks and maybe your house is gone, plus the surrounding neighborhood.

LMFAO O2 is FAR more dangerous than H2. Argon is inert though it will displace air in a confined environment as will CO2. Seriously, most of the H2 fear mongering is just FUD. I'll also add the scuba industry is beginning to use (read experiment) HP H2 to replace He due to cost so who knows maybe we'll end up deFUDing H2.

 

[DogsofJune]

Solar is absolutely fantastic... if it is used on a per home basis, with appropriate safeguards i.e. batteries and a system designed for what YOU use electrically. Once you start trying to make it the grid, you run into massive issues as you mention. And the TBF moment is the ROI on solar is highly variable based on the labor cost of installation, if you're able enough to do the work yourself, the ROI is quite low.

Bingo. I simply want something available when the grid fails, and my sub system does that. I have 20KWh of battery, with solar panels. With this setup, I can power key things for a week and a half without charging, I only need three hours of sunlight to charge, and can kick on the generator or fire up the truck and inverter in extreme needs. I'm pretty sure I will have some charge from solar in that time.
I'd have no issue with setting up an off grid system for an out of the way spot.

I have a transfer switch that kicks in when the power goes out and doesn't feed the grid. I'm fuckin golden.
My hybrid inverter has multiple inputs, grid, PV and generator. I can set the system up to run PV power first, then grid when PV isn't enough and battery as backup. Best damn UPS for key parts of the house. Although, It won't support the whole house and certainly nothing in split phase.
Sit in the basement with a fan, with internet, TV, device charging, not lose my frigerated or frozen food, cook... Shoot my own porn movies. Sky is the limit.


Sit in my basement and watch this world fall apart while watching old episodes of Star Trek.

This article is trash. They have made advances in panel tech, but not to those claims. If you can get 22 to 24% efficiency out of solar panels, you are doing ok. Batteries however have indeed changed the playing field. Being in KS, I wish wind generators weren't such trash. High maintenance bastards

 

[Lakados]

I've got 8 scuba tanks, 4 aluminum 2 steel, in my garage at 3K psi another 4 HP steel tanks @ 3442psi. These are all on a 5 year hydro test cycle which is nothing special. For my compressor/fill station I've 4x 6000psi cascade steel cylinders which are on a 10year hydro test cycle. High pressure gas tanks are not exactly specialized, certainly not big deal, and something the scuba and welding world has dealt with for decades.

I should add that 2 of the cascade bottles are 80% O2 which is actually far more dangerous than H2.

Hydrogen gas is reactive though, so under pressure it does less than stable things with steel and aluminum.

In vehicles, think Gremlin but less combustible and more expensive.

And for homes, think of those giant tanks, not the little ones.

And yeah if you know what your doing its fine, but would you trust the average Walmart American to handle and fill your scuba tanks?

 

[LukeTbk]

I am not sure if the 30-40% raw performance of solar is the value that this is meant to compared too (1000 time that would make no sense) or what this would change.

How much material you need to have a significant electricity production from the sun, is maybe more what this could bring as a change ? Maybe a very thin membrane of what its used to today will only have 0.04% return (or cannot be made) and this is able to do 10-15% ?, changing the weight, shape, cost of installation massively, you can vinyl like install it easily on everything for cheap, that could be a game change.

Or imagine if it make it possible for thick coat of paint material able to return anything, resistant enough to be put on almost everything (resistant enough to paint urban surface, returning a bit of power and cheap enough cover a lot surface that capture a bit of sun heat ....)

 

[THRESHIN]

Solar is absolutely fantastic... if it is used on a per home basis, with appropriate safeguards i.e. batteries and a system designed for what YOU use electrically. Once you start trying to make it the grid, you run into massive issues as you mention. And the TBF moment is the ROI on solar is highly variable based on the labor cost of installation, if you're able enough to do the work yourself, the ROI is quite low.

Also wonder what the deal is with this article and why they are posting it as if it's new, this was first posted 3 years ago
https://pressemitteilungen.pr.uni-halle.de/index.php?modus=pmanzeige&pm_id=5273

I have been working at a very large power plant for 15 years. This is spot on how solar and wind should be handled with current tech. Would be great if the rest of the world would listen to this wisdom, but hey can't win them all right?

I have a theory that this could change one day if we figure out large capacity storage. Use wind and solar to charge up whatever it might be then it could be used for peaking power. I can't see it being cheap but technology usually surprises us there.

 

[Nicklebon]

Hydrogen gas is reactive though, so under pressure it does less than stable things with steel and aluminum.

In vehicles, think Gremlin but less combustible and more expensive.

And for homes, think of those giant tanks, not the little ones.

And yeah if you know what your doing its fine, but would you trust the average Walmart American to handle and fill your scuba tanks?

O2 is HIGHLY reactive much more so than H2. In fact if using gas that is more than 40% O2, air is 21%, then everything involved, think hoses, valves, cylinders, and fittings, must be O2 clean to reduce likelihood of death and destruction. Also, just to be clear H2 is stored in steel and aluminum tanks so please, stop with the FUD. As far as vehicles go perhaps you should look into CNG these have been a thing for decades now, admittedly more so in Europe, with a very good track record for safety. The technology isn't the problem holding back H2. The problem is you say hydrogen and people see the Hindenburg and fail to realize that even there most of the passengers and crew survived. FUD pure and simple.


Oh as for filling tanks ... Clearly you've never been to a dive shop. Want to know who fills tank? The new guy ... usually some sad sack high schooler or college burnout. This is why I spent $$ and fill at home. Also, just to be clear, most tank issues, read ruptures, pop offs ... etc, will occur during fills.

 

[yinzerniner]

. The problem is you say hydrogen and people see the Hindenburg and fail to realize that even there most of the passengers and crew survived. FUD pure and simple.

It’s weird that in today’s day and age there isn’t more public outcry against the crazy cheap hoverboards, scooters, e-bikes, etc that use garbage LIon batteries and unregulated chargers which explode and burn down buildings everywhere. Seems like since everyone is familiar with lithium ion in their other devices it has anesthetized the shock when one has thermal runaway and creates real havoc.

 

[Lakados]

O2 is HIGHLY reactive much more so than H2. In fact if using gas that is more than 40% O2, air is 21%, then everything involved, think hoses, valves, cylinders, and fittings, must be O2 clean to reduce likelihood of death and destruction. Also, just to be clear H2 is stored in steel and aluminum tanks so please, stop with the FUD. As far as vehicles go perhaps you should look into CNG these have been a thing for decades now, admittedly more so in Europe, with a very good track record for safety. The technology isn't the problem holding back H2. The problem is you say hydrogen and people see the Hindenburg and fail to realize that even there most of the passengers and crew survived. FUD pure and simple.

And if you grabbed some random ass stranger off the street and handed them 100lb tank of 90% O2 and told them to power their car from it as they drove their rusted out shit box around the city... Would you trust that?

 

[Nicklebon]

And if you grabbed some random ass stranger off the street and handed them 100lb tank of 90% O2 and told them to power their car from it as they drove their rusted out shit box around the city... Would you trust that?

As much as I trust them with 20 gallons of gasoline or using a natural gas appliance in a multi tenant building. The end user plays very little part in this and that very little part they do play is insignificant.

 

[Tsumi]

Cool. As someone who has tried to use portable solar panels during power-down scenarios to keep a Goal Zero Yeti charged, I can say its been an epic fail. If you are using one of these while camping or on the beach or in an off-grid scenario, it's a bit of a different story...you can hope for good weather

Power Down scenarios usually mean bad weather, and bad weather means "you can forget relying on solar". if your panels aren't flying away you are dealing with cloud cover and rain and snow and whatever else, get a branch casting shade on one part of a panel and your whole array goes down, or you miswire it and give youself a nice shock (Fun to dick around with, terrible to RELY on).

These days the smart move is to not buy $500 worth of solar panels and hope there's sunlight without cloud cover, and instead spend $150 or less and get an alternator charger to recharge a LiFePo (Goal Zero. Ecoflo, Oupes whatever there's a bajillion of these things now) battery bank completely full just by idling your car or driving around a bit. Unlike portable gasoline generators which many buy but then NEVER use and never think to use the gas they have allocated for them.....your car usually has fresh fuel. If you have an EV, you probably already have the means to juice up a battery bank or just keep your fridge running directly, which is a kinda cool byproduct of EVs.

But improvements in panels helps a lot no matter what.

Kinda funny you mention power outage scenarios as having really bad weather for wind and solar.... here in California, it's basically the exact opposite. PGE shutdowns are usually due to hot weather (very sunny) combined with high winds, especially after all the recent fires. Very rarely does a storm actually cause power outages. But yeah, most of the rest of the US, if there's a power outage due to a storm, solar and wind generally isn't going to help.

 

[yinzerniner]

As much as I trust them with 20 gallons of gasoline or using a natural gas appliance in a multi tenant building. The end user plays very little part in this and that very little part they do play is insignificant.

I for one welcome our great hydrogen future full of hydrogen station fights

 

[OKC Yeakey Trentadue]

Interesting article and possible technology but the headline is misleading AF.

Yeah, that's for sure. The sun emits about 1000w/m² on earth meaning that's the most a one meter square panel could EVER get with perfect efficiency. Most panels are like 20% efficiency and that has changed too much.

Storage for several days of overcast is the issue, one of many issues actually.

 

[Calavaro]

Collecting solar energy isn't really the shortcoming, it's storing the power.

No need to store it. Just generate all the power you can, send it to grid.
Interconnect the grid across networks, states, and countries, west to east and east to west. Permanent power. No storage solution needed for immediate use.
Classic, polluting power should be shut down and solar panels installed as a matter of first priority for world wide benefits.
As you do that, bring up small, strategically placed, Thorium power plants as backup power.

 

[OKC Yeakey Trentadue]

No need to store it. Just generate all the power you can, send it to grid.
Interconnect the grid across networks, states, and countries, west to east and east to west. Permanent power. No storage solution needed for immediate use.
Classic, polluting power should be shut down and solar panels installed as a matter of first priority for world wide benefits.
As you do that, bring up small, strategically placed, Thorium power plants as backup power.

There is not enough copper in the world to create the massive transmission lines required for that kind of on demand instant flexibility across the United States.

Transformers are also a huge issue. There is already a backlog of them now and such an infrastructure would need massive upgrades to the transformers and other components.

Finally, you would have a huge inertia issue of going mostly solar. (Edit) Electronics are very sensitive to frequency change and the grid would constantly have to be shut down for larger fluctuations in usage or component failure.

 

[THRESHIN]

No need to store it. Just generate all the power you can, send it to grid.
Interconnect the grid across networks, states, and countries, west to east and east to west. Permanent power. No storage solution needed for immediate use.
Classic, polluting power should be shut down and solar panels installed as a matter of first priority for world wide benefits.
As you do that, bring up small, strategically placed, Thorium power plants as backup power.

this is so wrong i feel like its a troll

 

[Marees]

No need to store it. Just generate all the power you can, send it to grid.
Interconnect the grid across networks, states, and countries, west to east and east to west. Permanent power. No storage solution needed for immediate use.
Classic, polluting power should be shut down and solar panels installed as a matter of first priority for world wide benefits.
As you do that, bring up small, strategically placed, Thorium power plants as backup power.

How did this work for Spain (i am serious)

Or do you recommend that a highly interconnected europe wide grid would solve this issue

 

[Marees]

How did this work for Spain (i am serious)

Or do you recommend that a highly interconnected europe wide grid would solve this issue

additional solar now makes electricity more expensive
(& electricity costs in winter would be astronomical to compensate for solar capacity in summer not available in winter)

https://x.com/PendulumFlow/status/1932178546463813762

When solar was first added to the Texas grid, it was great. By 2020 it covered 42% of demand during net peak load.

But as more was added, it pushed the peak later into the evening when solar drops off. Now, even though solar production is 5x higher, it only covers 4% of the net peak. New capacity in winter basically contributes zero at peak times

All new solar capacity can do is eat into the profitability of dispatchable generation, which then has to charge more due to a smaller window to recover fixed costs. In other words, additional solar now makes electricity more expensive. In fact, 50% of ERCOT’s electricity costs now occur in just 14% of the time.

There’s a metric called ELCC that captures this. Basically how much a generator helps meet peak demand. Solar’s ELCC is dead and buried.

"But batteries!"

All batteries can do is help balance the chaos + make dispatchable power less profitable. Adding complexity to fix complexity is like farting to hide the smell of .

Due to the drop in solar radiation in winter, if solar and batteries where to cover summer demand then electricity costs in winter would be astronomical because the fixed overheads of the dispatchable resources would the need to be covered just in winter while maintaining the capacity to cover 100% of peak demand during a cloudy week when the batteries are flat.

 

[Tsumi]

additional solar now makes electricity more expensive
(& electricity costs in winter would be astronomical to compensate for solar capacity in summer not available in winter)

https://x.com/PendulumFlow/status/1932178546463813762

While I would generally be suspect of articles like that, the logic is sound. Infrastructure has fixed costs regardless of how much it is used. Batteries won't work for covering peaking power sources until they can store enough energy to cover months of usage rather than days or weeks.

 

[Calavaro]

There is not enough copper in the world to create the massive transmission lines required for that kind of on demand instant flexibility across the United States.

Transformers are also a huge issue. There is already a backlog of them now and such an infrastructure would need massive upgrades to the transformers and other components.

Finally, you would have a huge inertia issue of going mostly solar. (Edit) Electronics are very sensitive to frequency change and the grid would constantly have to be shut down for larger fluctuations in usage or component failure.

There is plenty of raw materials, including copper to build interconnected grids. It's not a new grid you build, but expand and refine the current one. The challenge is technical (and political), not raw material shortages. If every house and commercial building was required to install solar panels it would be a great start, inexpensive too.
We obviously have the technical capabilities to adapt and refine the grid to solar. Right now the grid is squarely refined to massive, centrally placed, inefficient, not to mention, polluting plants. It's also weak and prone to cascade failures if only a small percentage of generating plants go down. Texas has proved that a few times already.
Fluctuation in use we know down to the minute mostly, doesn't matter if it is solar, coal, nuclear or farts that generate the electricity. The use is the same.
Frequency change (and voltage changes)? You mean the normal, everyday slight deviation that is already solved? Happens no matter the source of the power.

How did this work for Spain (i am serious)

Or do you recommend that a highly interconnected europe wide grid would solve this issue

Spain is one country, not very interconnected to a bigger grid.
The key is east-west (and thus west-east) interconnectivity. Follow the sun. And of course solar is not the only source of generated electricity. Thorium reactors make up for the shortfall in strategic places. And other renewables are also useful, like wind or geothermal where it makes sense. In fact, offshore windpower itself probably can supply the current electricity needs for the entire planet, several times over.

 

[OKC Yeakey Trentadue]

This sounds like an energy solution that Whoopi Goldberg on the View came up with.

If you are constantly changing where the power is coming from while travel across and through several counties while powering all those cities in each of those counties, you power lines would have to be MAASIVELY larger to fill that demand.

The reason Texas has had grid outages is BECAUSE of the massive switch to solar and wind. There will always be an inertia problem with thise kind of energy solutions.

 

[jfreund]

LMFAO O2 is FAR more dangerous than H2. Argon is inert though it will displace air in a confined environment as will CO2. Seriously, most of the H2 fear mongering is just FUD. I'll also add the scuba industry is beginning to use (read experiment) HP H2 to replace He due to cost so who knows maybe we'll end up deFUDing H2.