By: Tom D. Tamarkin & Barrie Lawson
Over the next 50 years, utility companies in the United States must replace approximately 440 Gigawatts (GW) of baseload generation capacity to provide electricity nationwide. Significant electrification of the transportation segment through electric cars and trucks can potentially quadruple the amount of needed power.
This paper explores the system requirements to replace this generation capacity with a photovoltaic only generation scheme. Topics include the definition of peak power demand, time of use issues, reserve power requirements, storage to provide power when there is no sunlight, and the various engineering challenges associated with managing a large area synchronous AC power grid.
This analysis considers the factors involved in dimensioning solar power generating plants. To illustrate the issues involved the example considers the case for supplying the entire electric power needs of the USA from solar energy without the use of fossil fuel, nuclear or other back up. To simplify the calculations, the example considers a single very large hypothetical solar power installation providing all the country’s power although in practice, generation would be dispersed in a network of smaller installations throughout the country each one closer to the point of need. Depending on the location of the solar arrays, some modifications or additions to the electricity grid distribution network may be required but these have been ignored for the purposes of this study.
In reality, such a future solar only electricity supply would most likely be generated by a mix of energy sources including several large T&D grid connected solar power installations as well as many domestic installations.
The example used for this study is a conventional solar power plant consisting of a large bank of solar panels, each made up from an array of individual photovoltaic (PV) cells, feeding the electricity grid network during the day and charging a bank of batteries which will provide the power during the hours of darkness.
The example shown below is a grid connected PV system (batteries not included) which is inactive at night when power is provided by traditional “spinning reserve” of steam driven turbines which make up part of the grid system. An off-grid system like the one considered here also requires a large battery bank to store energy during the day in order to maintain the supply during the night.
Demand Assumptions
Capacity
Sources including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), The Department of Energy (DOE), The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) and IndexMundi give estimates of the annual electrical energy demand or consumption in the USA in 2013 ranging from 3,633 to 4,886 TeraWattHours (TWh) or 12.4 to 16.7 Quads. A quad is 1.055 X 1018 Joules or 1.016 BTU (1 quadrillion BTU.)
The calculations are based on current demand only and do not include future growth. The drive towards the greater use of electric vehicles will increase this demand significantly over and above normal growth and, since most people recharge their batteries at night when the Sun is not shining, this will require a major restructuring of both the generation and storage capacities of the national grid to cope with the increased demand and its changed profile.
Power
For convenience it is often useful to convert this energy demand into the equivalent average rate of power generation or consumption. This measure assumes constant power generation 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. The power delivered is given by the energy consumed divided by the time, in this case, 1 year or 8760 hours. Thus the estimates given for average power consumed range from 415 to 535 GigaWatts (gW).
For the purposes of this example an annual energy demand of 3854 TWh corresponding to a power usage of 440 gW average generation is assumed.
Demand profile
But life is not so simple. The demand is not constant, but varies during the day and also suffers seasonal variations as well as regional variations. There are many published demand profiles reflecting these variations. The profile shown below, compiled by U.C. Berkley, is reasonably representative and offers the possibility of simpler assumptions than some other profiles. It shows that the demand during 12 daylight hours is approximately double the demand during the 12 hours of darkness. This means that 2/3 of the energy is consumed during the day and 1/3 at night.
Assuming that the demand is to be exclusively satisfied by solar power alone, the night time demand would have to be generated by the solar panels during the day.
So with an average (continuous) power demand of 440 gW, the daily energy demand is 24 X 440 = 10,560 gWh. But all of this energy will have to be captured during the 12 hours of sunlight, that is, in half the time, so that the solar power generation capacity must be 880 gW.
Of the 10,560 gWh of energy produced during the day, two thirds (7,040 gWh) will be used directly by consumers and one third (3,520 gWh) will be used to charge the battery for subsequent discharge to satisfy the consumers during the night.
The corresponding power demand will be 586.7 gW during the day and 293.3 gW during the night.
It is assumed that the daily demand profile matches the timing of the hours of sunlight, but this is not necessarily the case. However it does not significantly affect the conclusions of this study.
In practice, the solar energy captured would be more in the summer and less in the winter so that more solar panels and larger batteries would be needed in the winter and fewer in the summer. An allowance can be made for this but for the purposes of this example, these variations have been ignored.
System Requirements
From the above we can conclude that solar generating power capability of 880 gW and a battery energy capacity of 3,520 gWh will be required to satisfy the demand.
But public utilities always need a plant margin to cover, maintenance, breakdowns, unplanned peak demands and other emergencies and this is typically 20%.
Also there will be a 10% efficiency loss in the inverters necessary to convert the DC solar energy generated by the PV arrays to the AC supply connected to the distribution grid. In addition there will be a further charge-discharge round trip Coulombic efficiency loss in the batteries of about 5%. To be generous, let’s say an extra 25% of energy must be generated to cover these two efficiency losses as well as the plant margin.
Thus the generating power will need to be at least 1,100 gW or 1.1 TW and the battery capacity will need to be 4,400 gWh to allow for the efficiency losses and the plant margin.
What does this mean in practice?
The Available Solar Energy
The actual amount of solar energy impinging on the solar panel depends on several factors.
The solar energy reaching the Earth’s atmosphere, known as the irradiance, is 1,367 W/m2 normal to the Sun’s rays. By the time it reaches the ground after absorption by the atmosphere it is reduced to 1,000 W/m2 normal to the Sun’s rays. This corresponds to the energy impinging on a flat plate on the ground when the Sun is directly overhead.
But outside of the tropics, the Sun is never directly overhead and, apart from mid-day, it is never even at its highest point as it appears to move from East to West due to the rotation of the Earth. If the Sun is not directly over the plate, the energy intercepted by the plate will diminish with the actual amount intercepted being proportional to cosΘ times the “normal” incident energy, where Θ is the angle of deviation of the Sun’s rays from the normal 90° incidence. (See Solar Power – Geometry)
Then there is no Sun at all during the night.
Finally the angle to the Sun, as well as the number of daylight hours, decreases (In the northern hemisphere) during the winter months as the Earth orbits the Sun.
Taking all of these factors into account, the average of the time varying solar energy received on the ground is called the insolation and figures have been published for the actual insolation at various geographic locations by several sources.
NREL is one such source which publishes a range of charts showing the daily average solar power received during each month of the year, plus yearly averages, for different solar array types and configurations at various locations in the USA. The chart below is typical and has been used, with others in the series, in the calculations which follow.
For the purposes of this study, the location chosen for the solar plant is somewhere in the South West, the sunniest part of the country, since this will require the smallest solar array. For a tilted flat plate array, as specified below, the chart shows that the average solar energy intercepted throughout the year by the array is around 6 kWh/m2/day in the South West. If the plant were to be located in the colder northern states, the energy intercepted would drop by a third to around 4 kWh/m2/day so that the solar array would have to be about 50% larger to capture the same amount of energy. Other charts in this series show how the insolation decreases during winter months and increases during the summer.
The Solar Array Configuration
Several configurations of solar panels are available.
Fixed Array
The simplest and least expensive solar array is constructed from a series of fixed flat plate collectors all facing south and tilted towards the Sun at an angle corresponding to the latitude of the site.
Tracking Array
The efficiency can be improved by 30% or more by means of tracking systems which ensure that the solar panel is always pointing directly at the Sun. Two axis systems track the apparent changing azimuth and elevation of the Sun as the Earth rotates during the day and continues its year long journey around the Sun. This option is quite complicated and very expensive. See more about Solar Tracking.
The Electrical Energy Captured
From the NREL charts, the annual average insolation (solar energy received) in the South West of the USA is between 5 and 6 kWh/m2/day for a fixed array tilted towards the Sun and 7 to 8 kWh/m2/day for steerable two axis solar panels able to track the Sun across the sky, maintaining the Sun’s rays as close to normal as possible to the surface of the array. Let us assume 6 kWh/m2/day for a fixed array and 8 kWh/m2/day for a two axis tracking array.
Conversion Efficiency
The current generation of mass produced commercial PV cells for converting solar energy into electrical energy have a conversion efficiency of around 15%.
This means that the above fixed array can generate the equivalent of a 24 hour average continuous power output of (6÷24) X 0.15 kW/m2 during each hour or 37.5 Watts/m2.
Similarly a two axis tracking array can generate an average of 50 Watts/m2 during every hour.
During hot sunny days the PV cell output will increase due to the increased solar radiation, but at the same time the cell temperature will also rise causing the cell output power to fall due to the decrease in the conversion efficiency. See (Solar Cell Operating Characteristics).The PV cell output power typically reduces by about 0.5% for every degree Celsius increase in PV cell temperature. The precise output power achieved from the cells depends on the conditions, but to optimize the power output, water cooling is often employed to keep the cell temperature as low as possible.
The calculations in this example assume STC (Standard Test Conditions) PV cell ratings, that is a cell temperature of 25 °C without external cooling. Local conditions may necessitate cooling to get the best out of the solar arrays and this would increase the cost and complexity of the installation.
Energy Lost During Charging
Because of the mismatch during charging between the voltage generated by the PV array and the voltage of the battery being used to store the charge there is a potential energy loss which can be as high as 10% of the captured energy. This loss can normally be reduced to about 1% by using Maximum Power Point Tracking, an electronic technique designed for this purpose.
The Solar Array Dimensions
To generate the system requirements of 1,100 gW, a fixed solar array would have to have an area of 1,100,000,000,000/37.5 sq meters, made up from 29.333 billion, 1 meter square panels, covering an area of 29,333 km2 or a square with sides of 171.3 km long. This is about the size of Belgium and 50% bigger than Israel, just for the silicon PV cells.
Similarly, using the more expensive tracking array could reduce this area to 22,000 km2 or a square with sides of 148.3 km.
Solar Array Manufacturing
Note that If 1 square metre PV panels were manufactured at the rate of 1 per second, it would take 930 years to manufacture 29.3 billion panels.
It takes energy to make PV panels, especially the highly efficient, old-school crystalline silicon kind. Even just creating the silicon crystals requires heating rock or sand to around 1650 °C (3,000 °F), and that’s not counting the creation of the electronics that connect the silicon wafers to the grid, and the mounting hardware that holds the whole thing together. And then there’s the energy used to ship the panels and install them.
A study by researchers from the Netherlands and the USA (Fthenakis, Kim and Alsema, 2008), which analyses PV module production processes based on data from 2004-2006 finds that it takes 250kWh of electricity to produce 1m2 of crystalline silicon PV panel. The solar panels considered above typically produce around 300kWh electricity per year, so it will take almost a year to “pay back” the energy cost of the panel.
Service Area
The total area covered by the solar array will significantly larger than the area of the panels to allow for installation, maintenance access and periodic cleaning. The space required for the batteries is in addition to this.
Site Location
The example above assumes that the entire solar generating capacity is located in a region with the most advantageous solar conditions. What if the plant were to be located in the cloudier and chillier North East?
From the NREL solar maps, we can see that the average daily solar radiation would be reduced from 6 kWh/m2/day to 4 kWh/m2/day. Thus the average electrical power produced by the PV cells with the same efficiency of 15% will reduce from 37.5 W/m2 to 25 W/m2 and the number of one square meter solar panels required to produce the same electric power would consequently increase by 50% to 44 billion covering an area of 44,000 square kilometers or a square with sides of 210 km. Bigger than Denmark, the Netherlands or Switzerland.
On the other hand, because of the higher PV cell temperatures experienced in the South West, installations would probably require local cooling systems to optimize the power output, whereas installations in the North East would benefit since they could get by without PV cell cooling. Cooling requires additional power to pump and chill water.
The required battery capacity would be largely unaffected by the location, but the cooling requirements could change. In the warmer southern regions forced cooling will most likely be required, but in the milder northern conditions we could expect this requirement to be reduced though probably not eliminated.
The Battery
Storage Requirements and AC Power Grid Engineering Challenges
The battery is no less complicated.
Thomas Edison is reputed to have said “When people get into the battery business they automatically become liars”. That was before he got into the battery business himself. It may not be true today but there’s plenty of room for misunderstanding the battery specifications, particularly with modern Lithium batteries.
Let’s just look at the capacity here. The battery’s capacity is the amount of energy it can hold. Unfortunately this is not all usable energy since it is not advisable to keep the battery at its fully charged level with a 100% state of charge, nor should a Lithium battery be discharged to below 2 Volts.
The most stressful operating state of a battery is when it is fully charged. Lithium batteries in particular are at risk of damage from even slight overcharging and Battery Management Systems (BMS) must provide precise control of the charging process to avoid this.
Lithium batteries also suffer damage at low states of charge (SOC) because the active chemicals in the battery undergo irreversible changes at low voltage affecting both the battery’s life and its safety. See Lithium Battery Failures and SOC.
Thus a Lithium battery should operate between about 20% and 95% state of charge so that its useful capacity will be around 75% of its theoretical or installed “nameplate” capacity. In the example that follows, the capacity is considered to be the usable capacity. Battery manufacturers however usually specify the nameplate battery capacity as its total energy content or theoretical capacity rather than its useful energy content. You need to know this.
Currently, Lithium ion batteries suitable for grid storage are available from several suppliers in 40 foot containers with various energy storage capacities of around 1 mWh and costing $750,000 or more each. They usually include cooling and an electronic converter unit delivering AC power at 480 Volts 60 Hertz or similar. To store 1 mWh during a charging period of 12 hours, the average charging power must be 1mWh ÷ 12 = 83.33 kW. Similarly the battery must be capable of delivering a power of 83.33 kW during 12 hours of discharge.
These charge – discharge rates assume the full plant margin of 25% is being generated and used.
Under normal circumstances the actual base load charge – discharge power without the plant margin requirement will be 66.67 kW. However these are the average power deliveries and the peak power availability and demand could vary considerably from the averages.
To store 4,400 gWh would need 4.4 million of these 40 foot containers costing $3,300,000,000,000 or $3.3 trillion. As a quick error check on the numbers calculated above, the total power handling capability of 4.4 million containers each supplying a power requirement 66.67 kW will be 4,400,000 X 66.67 kW = 293.3 gW, matching the requirement outlined in the Demand Profile above.
For 4.4 million containers, the containers would cover an area of 130.8 million m2 = 130.8 km2 or a square with sides 11.44 km long; but adequate access space must also be provided, adding substantially to the total.The standard container exterior dimensions are 12.193 m X 2.438 m giving an area of 29.727 m2
There could be some cost and space savings if the batteries were installed in a purpose built building, but this could hamper the planned long term battery replacement program. (See Battery Ageing next)
Note: If the manufacturer’s specified 1 mWh battery capacity is the installed capacity rather than the usable capacity considered here, one third more, or a total of 5.7 million containerized batteries would be required to store the required 4,400 gWh of energy.
In warm climates, extra battery capacity (and consequent solar generating capacity needed to provide it) will be required to power forced cooling of the battery to slow its ageing process and thus avoid its premature failure.
Battery Aging
All batteries suffer deterioration with age and their end of life is generally specified as being when the capacity has reduced to 80% of what it was when it was new. For lithium batteries the lifetime is typically between eight and ten years but depends on the usage conditions. Higher temperatures accelerate battery ageing and thus reduce battery life.
For high power applications, the required battery capacity is usually specified as sufficient to cover the end of life performance. This means that the capacity when new must be 25% higher in order to meet the end of life requirements. Since the calculation above already includes a plant margin factor, there is some leeway here, but in any case it would be prudent to adopt another 10% margin to avoid end of life failures. See more about Battery Life (and Death)
The biggest problem however comes from the finite life of the battery, since the entire installation will have to be replaced every 8 to 10 years.
Battery Recycling
Unlike the situation with lead acid batteries, there are currently very few recycling plants able to recycle Lithium batteries to extract the useful chemicals. In any case, taking a Lithium Cobalt cell as an example, the Lithium content in the LiCoO2 cathode material is only 7% by weight. Lithium is between 20 and 100 times more abundant in the Earth’s crust in terms of the number of atoms than Lead and Nickel, so that the demand for recycling is less. See Battery Chemistries.
Note that if these 44 million containerized batteries were manufactured in China, it would take 587 round trips of twenty days each way on the largest container ships to deliver them to the USA.
See more about Solar Power
This is just goofy. I use about 18 kwh per day, which requires 3kw of panels, say 4kw to cover losses. That’s just 12 panels that fit nicely on anyone’s roof. Panels cost about $0.75 per watt so $3000 for the panels, plus $1000 for the inverters and another $1000 for installation. Add one of Tesla’s home batteries and I can provide all my own power, 24/7.
PV prices are continuing to drop and there is no end in sight. Appliances and light bulbs continue to get more efficient and appliances will eventually load shift as necessary.
Yes, we should continue to use coal, natural gas, nuclear, etc., but solar and wind work and are cost competitive even today, and that will continue to improve.
With regard to cars, I recently picked up a low mileage used Nissan Leaf Electric Vehicle (EV) for $9k. I can charge it for $0.12/kwh at home and get 4 miles/kwh so it costs me $0.03 per mile for ‘fuel’, compared to our big SUV that got about 8 mpg or or about $0.45 per mile for fuel.
The technology is here now and works. It will only get better.
Greg commented: “This is just goofy. I use about 18 kwh per day, which requires 3kw of panels, say 4kw to cover losses. That’s just 12 panels that fit nicely on anyone’s roof. Panels cost about $0.75 per watt so $3000 for the panels, plus $1000 for the inverters and another $1000 for installation. Add one of Tesla’s home batteries and I can provide all my own power, 24/7….”
What’s “goofy” is people like you actually believe this. Aside from the Tesla “Powerwalls” not being ready for consumers nor able to provide 18kwh 24X7 power unless you triple up on them and the panels your figures are not realistic. What you propose costs closer to $30K but doesn’t come close to 24X7 availability for even a 7kwh. It’s the cool aid that drive people into making statements and decisions based on false narrative.
Chinese production pricing is $0.50/watt. Wholesale pricing is available at $0.75/watt. Complete system packages are available wholesale at $1.27/watt, delivered, plus installation, which takes one to two days. If you want pay $30k for such a system, that’s up to you.
Greg commented: “…Chinese production pricing is…..If you want pay $30k for such a system, that’s up to you.”
Panels + inverters + controls + PowerWall + permits = $30K after rebates in my neck of the woods as attested to by numerous neighbors who have made the plunge (without the $7K Powerwalls of course). City codes discourage DIY…if you could. That would be for only one usable 2.3kw 3.3kw peak Powerwall that does little to provide house power and we’re in the sun belt. What you described….after losses to and from the storage…..would require minimum 5 Powerwalls and five times the panels to keep you “off the grid” and that would be minimal reliability and no conventional backup. My neighborhood doesn’t even have the land or rooftop area for that many panels. I won’t pay anything for solar as my 10K/ day max averages $55/month (with all fees/taxes) and the payback won’t be there for a long time even as efficiency increases. You are in the kool aid fantasyland hyped by the Cult of Warmists. If your math was reality many more would be going “off the grid” solar. Go get a quote for your 18kw/day self sufficient power and see what it would really cost instead of your back of the napkin musings.
markl: And that doesn’t factor in the loss of efficiency from environmental factors, plus the degradation over time. Nor has he budgeted in anything to replace those panels and batteries every 10 to 15 years.
Heck, it cost $15,000 to cover my roof (2,00 sq ft.) with asphalt shingles. Start you solar panel estimates from there.
I think you have your prices wrong… An installed system for a 4 kW system would be more like 12 to 15,000. I got a quote for an 8kw around 17,000….before the 30% subsidy. On top of that you need to get them cleaned say 200/yr. a cost to remove and reinstall when you need the roof replaced say 300/yr. …so economies are dwindling.
Not all roofs are suitable for solar…..some don’t have sufficient south exposure. Or trees blocking the panels. Also there a lot of penetrations so leaks are big concern.
If everyone got a system….grid prices would skyrocket. Rooftop solar isn’t the idea solution.
In California, rooftop solar is the solution for power companies to partially meet their governmental mandate of 33% ‘renewable’ power generation requirement by 2020 – through net metering.
That’s why they are pushing home PV systems so hard. Of course in California, hydro power is not considered renewable. You won’t see any proposals submitted for hydro or nuclear in our lifetimes, the cleanest way to generate any electricity. California’s dirty little power secret is that the 25% imported coal generated power from Arizona and New Mexico is also not counted. California still cannot regulate interstate commerce, so they’ll wait for the EPA to do that with federal environmental regulation.
I welcome the California mass rooftop experiment. It will be very interesting to gather real world experience for some factors including electrical output, system maintenance and depreciation cost, additional roofing maintenance, fire and weather damage, and homeowner injury and death rates.
I suspect that insurers will be keenly interested in some of these, and will begin to adjust policies and rates accordingly.
Greg says:
The technology is here now and works. It will only get better.
Super! Since it’s now, go for it. Report back w/your results.
If it is as amazing as you want to beieve, why does the govt have to subsidize it?
This is nothing more than a green dream.
I can’t believe solar panels pay back their own energy costs. Aren’t the people (Fthenakis, Kim, etc 2008) who published this number biased by benefitting from use of alternative energy? I would really look for another study on energy costs.
Well, do the math. Typical panel is 250 watts. You get about 6 equivalent sun hours per day so 1.5kWh per day. That’s 548kWh per year. Over a 25 year life span, that’s 13,687kWh = 13.7 mWh. Typical solar panels are said to take about 500 kWh/square meter to make, thus the payback is said to be 2 to 4 years.
“Chinese production pricing …” and “Well, do the math. ”
Okay Greg do that math for the system you have installed.
My last job before retiring was in China. I am not impressed with quality of electrical equipment made in China. A typical PV system nevers produces any electricity. Some work for a few years but never meet claims of expected production. The reason I am skeptical is that I have been looking for decades and yet to see actual data that indicates that PV systems are not junk.
The power industry will sell power made in large utility scale PV systems. Not because we think it is a good idea but because it is good marketing. We are also regulated which means we pass the cost on to the consumer.
Quite an interesting site (although it covers Australia):
http://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/7kw-solar-pv-systems-prices-output-return-on-investment
I know some who have installed 3 to 5kWh systems, and they consider these to be too small in everyday operation. I suspect that if you calculate that you require say 4kWh, you should add 50% as a ‘safety’ margin. It would also pay dividends if there is a year on year power depreciation/degradation since one has to build this in, or otherwise the system performance could become critical sooner than you might expect.
Personally, I consider that solar is only any good for low grade applications such as heating water whether this be domestic hot water systems, or a swimming pool. But there is no way that solar will heat an outdoor swimming pool for use in winter months. But for 6 months of the year, solar is good for heating swimming pools in a sunny climate.
Greg, you lucky man, you. In Europe a 250 W panel delivers about 250 kWh/a, which is the equivalent of 28.5 W/h day and night or 2h 45 min of nameplate capacity every day. In Europe panels also wear out and one is well advised to calculate with 20 % less nominal capacity for the second half of a panels life, if you always paid for proper maintenance. Over a 25 year life span that would be 5625 kWh, 41 % of your magic panel.
During the months of winter you get practically nothing, of course, in these parts.
A typical solar panel is rated at 250 watts under standard operating test conditions. That is all together different than the amount of energy produced by a “typical panel” per period time which is dependent on the solar energy photon flux striking the panels which is the whole point of the article we present.
No in western Colorado we get an average of 4.2 KW/day/1KW panel, That’s383KW for your 250 watt panel at .08/KW, or $30.64/year. Mine cost $1500/250 watts, so will pay back in 48.9 years and be long dead by then.
1) You are applying peak power to all hours of daylight. Power production drops significantly as you approach sunrise and sundown.
2) You are not calculating in the loss of efficiency from environmental factors, plus the cost of regular cleaning,.
3) You are not factoring for losses in efficiency over time.
Pay off is way more than 2 to 4 years. In fact you will be lucky if you get the thing paid off before you have to replace it.
Forgot to mention that you are apparently assuming that there will be no clouds over your house, ever.
Y’know, Google itself “googled:” this scenario quite recently, using their own paid scientists, and concluded that it can’t possibly work. If among the biggest boosters of leftist crap reached the same conclusion as the rest of us, I’m inclined to believe them. The article was clearly intended to drive the same point home. This is a “pipe dream” for the gullible and touches reality nowhere. Nothing in the article itself suggests that the author believes this is a realistic scenario- to the contrary, the author is ridiculing the very idea!
Short term, there is no realistic substitute for nukes, and breeder reactors will stretch the problem off into the foreseeable future well beyond our lifetimes and those of our children. This course of action will buy a lot of time for our grandchildren to assess their possible futures and plan accordingly.
That is, if you actually believe CO2 is a problem. If you don’t, as I don’t, then let our very effective economic system determine. based on market values. which is the most effective path forward. Free people are very good at deciding what is best for themselves and their progeny.
Google made statements a number of years ago about replacing coal with solar. They even put PV on the roof of their headquarters and had a web site so we all could monitor how well they worked. Not very well. Greenwashing is about putting PV panels in the wrong place to make electricity but the right place to take a picture with a company logo.
Please see the article published in IEEE Spectrum written by two Ph.D. scientists working for Google. Their conclusions are noteworthy near the end of the article. At: http://fusion4freedom.us/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change/
Not ‘Ph.D. scientists’ but really stupid engineers. Engineering is about the practical application of science. While I have demonstrated that in the field of producing power it would be really stupid of me to suggest hair brained ideas about server farms. What did I learn as Freshmen, it is unethical to take money by misrepresenting your background.
My conclusion is that google hires con artists.
The Google Ph.D. scientists that wrote the article sub-titled: “Today’s renewable energy technologies won’t save us. So what will?” are Dr. Ross Koningstein and Dr. David Fork. The article admits solar, wind, et al, are not viable solutions for baseload power; nor is political hot air. Again I have posted the original article at this link. It is useful to read the article and especially the last few paragraphs including the one highlighted in background color before developing an opinion. These folks are looking at the issues as a matter of science. Others in Google look at the collateral issues as a matter of “political economics” based on government subsidized largesse including tax credits, stimulus grants and loan guarantees as well as the perceived PR value of hood winking the public into believing Google is Green beyond their bank accounts and stock performance. IEEE Spectrum article published at: http://fusion4freedom.us/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change/
This; “The solar panels considered above typically produce around 300kWh electricity per year, so it will take almost a year to “pay back” the energy cost of the panel.” reminded me of a question; Why isn’t there a measure of the Environmental Cost of Capital? Every dollar/pound/euro requires an expenditure of energy to repay (make whole after it’s been spent). Why isn’t there a way to impute some CO2 value against what’s spent trying to reduce CO2?
The energy cost of the panel is only a small portion of the energy cost of the entire solar installation.
It looks like the USA will need about 350 nuclear power plants. Where does the uranium reserve stand? How many years do we have once we go nuclear because we ran out of natural gas and coal?
[200 – 400 years of coal reserves remain at today’s rates. Or more. .mod]
The US has huge reserves of uranium. We also have a surplus of lawyers to slow things. Fortunately, the nuclear industry lawyers are better. Meanwhile the jobs associated with mining go someplace else.
We also have excess capacity to produce fuel.
Given that every PV solar cell in line of sight of an EMP explosion will be instantly and totally destroyed, it is imprudent to count on PV solar for more than a few percent of baseload generating capacity.
How would they be impacted by a Carrington Event? The Carrington Event was a severe solar magnetic storm that occurred in 1859.
Changes brewing in California, where the honeymoon may be over for rooftop solar.
Local news reporting So. Cal. Edison and other California utilities planning to raise rates for customers using rooftop solar in the future. Current customers grandfathered in.
California Utilities Say Solar Raises Costs for Non-Users
“You get into a situation where you have a transmission and distribution system with nobody paying for it,” said Akbar Jazayeri, vice president of regulatory operations at Edison, a unit of Edison International and California’s second-largest electric utility.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-12-17/california-utilities-say-solar-raises-costs-for-non-users
“While the rays of sun are free, the technology needed to harness them, convert them into electricity and transfer that electricity to where it is needed is not,” said Caroline Choi, Edison’s vice president for Energy and Environmental Policy.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/solar-678341-electricity-edison.html
Southern California Edison says they do encourage renewable energies but solar customers use the power grid more than standard customers and should therefore pay not more but their fair share to maintain and upgrade the grid.
http://www.kmir.com/story/29927878/proposed-fees-for-solar-customers
(my bold in KMIR article)
Steve P commented: “Changes brewing in California…..”
Now we will be told that providing our own electricity is a minor cost to providing the managing and distribution of the energy we produced. We are taking a well running/capable/reliable/inexpensive energy system and force converting it into being costly/inefficient/unreliable to comply with a failed theory supported by useful idiot environmentalists that believe humans are subservient to nature. California deserves it.
I’m not understanding the purpose of the absurd premise? There is no reason to contemplate a solar only energy economy. Solar has a place, but so does every other form of energy production.
We’ll never make an environmentalist out of you. Fossil fuels must be eliminated. Nuclear power is spawn of the Devil. Hydroelectric dams must be removed so that the little fishies can swim free. Only wind and solar are acceptable. Now. Just wait.
I think using a tracking system instead of a fixed plate array could have additional advantages, over and above the increase in efficiency.
I also think a clever system of negative and positive feedback could make the tracking more or less autonomous and automatic. Although the complexity may be in the mechanism, rather than in the tracking calculations needed on a continuous basis.
One of these additional advantages would relate to protecting the panels from various potentially damaging events, such as hail, extreme winds, snow, etc. By turning them edgewise to the direction of hail or winds, they would have a great deal more protection than if they were fixed in place. Turning them upside down during snow would allow clearing them by simply inverting the panel to it’s functional right side up position.
Turning them upside down periodically could also allow a sprinkler system to clean the panels of dust and windborne dirt.
I can think of a few other reasons to have them movable, but these examples are in response to specific criticisms I have heard in the past.
Having a centralized location may be possible if it is possible to build a thing I read about a number of years ago…a superconducting grid of distribution and transmission lines.
It had previously occurred to me that we could locate nuclear plants in very remote locations, perhaps even on Antarctica, if transmission losses could be drastically reduced or eliminated.
Considering that transoceanic communication cables were laid down over a hundred years ago, it should be possible to create such things if it was deemed necessary.
Menicholas
For an order of magnitude (to copy one of Willis’ useful phrases) estimate of the cost of a current-technology superconducting “designed and tested” assembly, look at the cost of the “small and short” Superconducting Supercollider ring. Only a few dozen miles long, that “loop” underground in TX was admittedly requiring also magnetic vacuum bottles connected end-to-end, and the individual magnetic assemblies were a bit cheaper because they were individual superconducting loops, not a long-end-to-end conductor. However, a simpler conductor does not need the elaborate “steering” and “aiming” ability of the supercollider. But the price will (in today’s dollars) be comparable.
There was a tracking system designed about 20 or 30 years ago that did tracking without any electronics. It depended on weight, fluid, and deferentially covered solar thermal panels. It looked pretty low cost to me.
Here it is: Stephen Baer. 1979. That is almost 40 years ago: http://www.google.com/patents/US4175391
Carbon fibers have 1/5th the resistance of copper plus much higher strength. That means the economical transmission distances (based on losses only) goes from 300 miles to 1,500 miles. Going to DC transmission gives you about 2,000 miles. Maybe 2,500. .
More details on the solar tracker: http://www.zomeworks.com/photovoltaic-tracking-racks/
I gave a link to the solar tracking site – Zomeworks – and it didn’t get posted.
The sooner Donald Trump gets into the Oval Office the better the chance will be to avoid the destruction of America’s cheap energy system that has served America so well until Obama started his green devilry!
As much as I would like to throw solar panels on the roof, if just as a fun hobby to offset electric costs, I would loose more than I would gain when the city ups my property value and I end up paying several hundred dollars more in property tax every year. Say I paid for a $10,000 system, I would pay $500 in a permit on top of the system and then and extra $300 every year in property tax increase. Even though panel prices are dropping, it cost more to have them than what they could save.
Some one mentioned Polywell up thread. Here is a group working on it:
http://protonboron.com/portal/
For more on “Polywell” see the Fusion Innovative Confinement Concepts (beyond the mainline approaches of magnetic tokomak and laser driven inertial) under fusion science of my extensive website on fusion. Scroll down to the section titled “Inertial Electrostatic Confinement.” Note the first entry which is a very well done lecture by Robert Bussard, Ph.D. at Google on his Polywell concept. The lecture was given about 6 months prior to Dr. Bussard passing away from cancer. Also note the other approaches to fusion in this section. Most likely to succeed in the short term to produce a sustained net energy gain in a demo environment is Plasma Jet Magneto Inertial Fusion (PJMIF.) Section is at: http://fusion4freedom.us/innovative-confinement-concepts/
Well that is odd. I mentioned a group doing Polywell – with a link and the comment disappeared. Look up “Polywell Proton Boron”. To find them.
For more on “Polywell” see the Fusion Innovative Confinement Concepts (beyond the mainline approaches of magnetic tokomak and laser driven inertial) under fusion science of my website on fusion. Scroll down to the section titled “Inertial Electrostatic Confinement.” Note the first entry which is a very well done lecture by Robert Bussard, Ph.D. at Google on his Polywell concept. The lecture was given about 6 months prior to Dr. Bussard passing away from cancer. Also note the other approaches to fusion in this section. Most likely to succeed in the short term to produce a sustained net energy gain in a demo environment is Plasma Jet Magneto Inertial Fusion (PJMIF.) Section is at: http://fusion4freedom.us/innovative-confinement-concepts/
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
A bit of a slog, but well worth the effort if you want to know. Fairly simplified and understandable. Complexities of the real world will make it harder. The batteries really are impossible in the engineering sense. We cannot get there from here. Thomas Edison took on the problem of batteries in the 1890s. He made little progress. Progress since can only be described as discouraging. The best possible batteries we have devised so far are simply inadequate.
I’m not being pessimistic when I assert solar energy will never amount to a significant portion of what we use for our societies.
We aren’t even to a half-percent in the USA.
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/encyclopedia/solar/
Understanding this:
is very important to understanding why being against fossil fuels is the same as being against people, and for suffering, enslavement, and death of our fellow man.
Pay special attention to the light-gray fractions in the graphic.
We simply must have large scale power plants generating electricity from coal and nuclear fission, and we must have liquid hydrocarbon fuel. The only practical source of hydrocarbon fuel so far is petroleum.
We cannot change the overall system until we change these underlying facts.
Solar will be with us forever (practically). We will use it. It still will never be a significant part of our overall energy use. There will always be better options. (Better means several things, but mostly cheaper and easier.)
Wind, however, is a farce. We are hurting ourselves and future generations with our daft efforts toward windmills, and we are killing birds and bats while we harm ourselves. It is hard for me to take wind seriously. There are so many problems it just isn’t worth considering. Engineers have made so many improvements, but taken together, the whole lot still amounts to net-negative. Overall energy gained from an average windmill is unlikely to exceed the energy expended making and maintaining it. Thus the enormous tax-funded incentives and subsidies. I’ll cite T. Boone Pickens as a positive example of it, putting his money where his mouth was until it hurt too bad and he lost too much money in it, and Warren Buffett as a negative example where he invests in wind energy while the tax-incentives make it profitable for him, and he sells before things turn south, leaving the hardships of wind power to less-financially savvy persons with higher ideals regarding “renewables.” Warren Buffett is a hypocrite, and a cruel one at that.
Wind blows, but windmills suck, and the wind-power political-industrial complex is playing us all for suckers.
The LLNL chart posted above is excellent. We use this well done energies flow chart in our treatment of energy alternatives at: http://fusion4freedom.us/why-fusion-is-the-only-solution/ Thank you for posting it.
“The Google Ph.D. scientists…”
Yes, Tomer, I read the article and the resumes. Hence my criticism. Too be fair, I went back a read it again. I am really tired of school children, actors, and Ph.D. scientists who never bother to set foot in a classroom to study the environment engineering suggesting hairbrained solutions. Let me sum up the article. They were stupid. Further more the Google Ph.D. scientists are still stupid, they failed to learn the correct lesson. I am an not an expert in the field of climate change but I am an expert in engineering solutions to mitigate it.
The first tool is Life Cycle Analysis, LCA, which is the cradle to grave assessment of the environmental impact of doing something. The research for power plants has been done and it is so old that it is on microfiche. A second tool is Root Cause Analysis (RCA). This a regulatory requirement for nuke plant to find the root cause when a problem occurs and correct it.
Other tools are integrated safety analysis, process safety, and hazard analysis. Solutions for climate change should avoid unintended consequences. This rules out solutions using hydrogen and anhydrous ammonia outside a carefully setting.
The reason I am skeptical climate change is that there are so many practical solutions that we are not using because they are not politically correct but we are hell bent of ineffective solutions like wind and solar. The Google Ph.D. scientists did pick up on wind and solar being a bad choice but missed the possibility that there is not a significant problem to start with.
My wife and I are slowly going blind with cataracts. This is a real problem. I did not look to Google Ph.D. scientists for innovative solutions. However, did a google search to learn more about cataracts surgery. There are many innovations in the cataracts surgery field. Not one of the MD’s had the arrogance to suggest that innovation in their field of expertise translated to solving climate change.
So Tomer you may want to be more skeptical of Ph.D. scientists who are stupid to think that having a very narrow focus of study does not infer a large gap in general knowledge.
I wonder about the math in this article. For example, the author states:
“Note that if these 44 million containerized batteries were manufactured in China, it would take 587 round trips of twenty days each way on the largest container ships to deliver them to the USA.”
That means that each of these “largest container ships” would have to carry 44,000,000/587 or roughly 75,000 shipping containers, (each 40′ long) on each trip. Very large ships indeed.
Other thing you never see in analyses of PV is the effect of clouds on output on windy days. Anyone who’s ever experimented with PV knows that cloudy conditions can take your output down to 10% of nameplate or less, and in high winds the change from sun to cloud can take place in literally seconds for a small installation, probably still less than a minute for a large one. That’s a much worse variability than is typically experienced with large wind turbines,especially as it happens so fast that it would be hard to fire-up a standby generator in time. .
To grasp the insanity of all this, consider that our President has reportedly agreed that China is to be allowed to construct all the new coal-fired power plants they wish through year 2030 at their current clip of more than one new plant going on line each week while vowing the we will shutter our coal-fired plants now. The end result of our “going whole-hog solar” would be to transfer probably the entire wealth of the U.S. to China purchasing solar cells and batteries manufactured in China using electric power generated by Chinese, coal-fired power plants.
TonyL September 4, 2015 at 10:51 am
K A – B O O M !
Hydrogen is a violent explosive. It has an explosive range (in terms of mixture composition) of 10% – 90%. This is vastly worse than methane or propane. Hydrogen can leak out of the smallest holes, even holes so small they will contain oxygen or methane. Hydrogen will diffuse into metals, causing them to become brittle. This embrittlement guarantees the above mentioned leaks. For those in the know, Hydrogen power is nobody’s idea of a good time.
And yet for decades hydrogen was supplied to houses all over the country without the problems you outline. One of the reasons town gas was replaced with natural gas in the UK was the low calorific value of town gas. A major problem after the introduction of natural gas was the increase in ‘violent explosions’.