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Another one down:
I doubt this will be the last.
I doubt this will be the last.
The future of energy generation and storage
- Thread starter Value Collector
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Another one down:
I doubt this will be the last.
500 customers doesn't sound like enough critical mass to be sustainable.
Maybe (as awful as it sounds, eg banks), bigger but fewer suppliers would be better for economies of scale and possibly easier to regulate.
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No disagreement from me on that one.
The plethora of small retailers might create an illusion of competition but ultimately it's adding costs and complexity.
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More discussion on the capacity allowance.
www.abc.net.au
Surely an appropriate formula could be found that incentivises renewables while still paying for availability ?
Something like
Capacity_payment = Base_Rate + Capacity_Available /(Price + Emissions) .
Base_Rate is what everyone gets, the other variables reward higher capacity but punish high prices and high emissions.
Hydro would come out pretty well, having a low price (relatively) and zero emissions, while the other sources would sort themselves out accordingly.
'Shouldn't be paying to keep coal and gas': Green energy backers attack capacity market proposal
Renewable energy advocates are warning against locking in extra payments for coal and gas, saying it could derail the switch to clean power.
www.abc.net.au
Surely an appropriate formula could be found that incentivises renewables while still paying for availability ?
Something like
Capacity_payment = Base_Rate + Capacity_Available /(Price + Emissions) .
Base_Rate is what everyone gets, the other variables reward higher capacity but punish high prices and high emissions.
Hydro would come out pretty well, having a low price (relatively) and zero emissions, while the other sources would sort themselves out accordingly.
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I thought about writing a lot but in short, the big problem is politics.
It's as simple as that. Doesn't matter what option anyone comes up with, someone will want to tear it down for purely political reasons.
Anything less than 100% renewable and that puts one group offside.
Go to 100% and that puts another group offside.
Then there's those who've ideological desires to build nuclear, dam every last creek or build new coal.
Then there's the deniers. Those who deny that oil and gas reserves are relatively limited. Those who deny that nuclear is expensive. Those who deny this that and everything else if it suits whatever thing they want to build.
My view personally is that winter 2023 will kill the politics off.
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I'd like to hear the long version some time if you have the time and motivation, as to what you would do from an engineering perspective if politics wasn't an issue.I thought about writing a lot but in short, the big problem is politics.
It's as simple as that. Doesn't matter what option anyone comes up with, someone will want to tear it down for purely political reasons.
Anything less than 100% renewable and that puts one group offside.
Go to 100% and that puts another group offside.
Then there's those who've ideological desires to build nuclear, dam every last creek or build new coal.
Then there's the deniers. Those who deny that oil and gas reserves are relatively limited. Those who deny that nuclear is expensive. Those who deny this that and everything else if it suits whatever thing they want to build.
My view personally is that winter 2023 will kill the politics off.
Is a capacity allowance a good idea ? What form should it take ?
Knobby22
Mmmmmm 2nd breakfast
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Nuclear is expensive and not that safe but Bill Gates backed Terra power is developing the future modern reactor that will be cheaper and safer and produces less waste. My attitude is countries like Germany would benefit greatly from removing their reliance on coal and gas. Australia has less of of a need.I thought about writing a lot but in short, the big problem is politics.
It's as simple as that. Doesn't matter what option anyone comes up with, someone will want to tear it down for purely political reasons.
Anything less than 100% renewable and that puts one group offside.
Go to 100% and that puts another group offside.
Then there's those who've ideological desires to build nuclear, dam every last creek or build new coal.
Then there's the deniers. Those who deny that oil and gas reserves are relatively limited. Those who deny that nuclear is expensive. Those who deny this that and everything else if it suits whatever thing they want to build.
My view personally is that winter 2023 will kill the politics off.
How Bill Gates' company TerraPower is building next-generation nuclear power
How TerraPower, co-founded by Bill Gates, is designing next gen nuclear power plants that it says are safer, cheaper and more efficient.
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Certainly a lot of politics in this discussion.
www.abc.net.au
"He (Combet) said the most important consideration should be the protection of consumers, claiming the current market was a "shemozzle" that was letting down everyone."
Former carbon pricing mastermind Greg Combet backs proposed fix for Australia's energy crisis
Former federal climate change minister backs proposed fix for crisis-riddled national electricity market, calling for ideology to be taken out of debate.
www.abc.net.au
"He (Combet) said the most important consideration should be the protection of consumers, claiming the current market was a "shemozzle" that was letting down everyone."
wayneL
VIVA LA LIBERTAD, CARAJO!
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A thread on the nuclear waste question that came across my timeline fwiw.
Knobby22
Mmmmmm 2nd breakfast
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This is pretty cool.
wayneL
VIVA LA LIBERTAD, CARAJO!
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I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked! </sarc>
www.thetimes.co.uk
California’s solar panel pile mounts up at landfill sites
Millions of solar panels in California risk being dumped on landfill sites as they reach the end of their life cycles.Over the past two decades, more than 1.3
www.thetimes.co.uk
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I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked! </sarc>
California’s solar panel pile mounts up at landfill sites
Millions of solar panels in California risk being dumped on landfill sites as they reach the end of their life cycles.Over the past two decades, more than 1.3
Solar panels only have a lifespan of 10-25 years. So what happens to them once they expire?
Solar panels are considered to be an environmentally friendly way to make electricity. But most only last a decade and then end up in landfill, despite being recyclable.
www.abc.net.au
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Another issue will be, when the panels are removed will people bother replacing them, if they aren't subsidised? The labour cost alone these days will be high, the only person I know who has had any problems was the guy over the road his inverter broke and he wasn't going to bother fixing it until I suggested he check if it is still covered by warranty, which it was.I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked! </sarc>
California’s solar panel pile mounts up at landfill sites
Millions of solar panels in California risk being dumped on landfill sites as they reach the end of their life cycles.Over the past two decades, more than 1.3
Next time it goes, or the panels fail, I'm sure it won't be repaired.
In W.A there is no more feed in tariff for new domestic solar installations , so I doubt there will be the same uptake as earlier, when feed in tariffs were reasonable.
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The problem in Germany is much like the problem elsewhere including Australia.
Too much attention has been given to fuzzy words and not enough attention has been given to hard numbers.
Or in practical terms too much politics and ideologies of various sorts without sufficient attention paid to the hard facts no matter how inconvenient they might happen to be.
Getting straight to the point on the facts:
Oil and gas are problematic in terms of resources and geography. That does not mean we're about to run out of either, to be clear there's quite a bit of them on earth, but bottom line is the majority of reserves are in non-Western countries and that's the issue. Non-Western governments directly control most of it and that brings supply and price risk due to politics, bearing in mind it's not just producers versus the West but it wouldn't be the first time one producer fired missiles at another.
Yes wind and solar most certainly do work. They generate electricity and they're also rather cheap, indeed they're considerably cheaper than coal, oil or gas at present international prices. Problem is they don't work constantly, they're intermittent, which means they're useful either as a supplement to some other power source, to save fuel, or in conjunction with storage in which case they do become a real alternative as such.
On the subject of storage well again more brutal reality. Batteries have plenty of supporters and yes they sure do work indeed for the record I've got one at home so I'm sure not saying they're a bad idea. As a source of short duration peak power, frequency control and so on they're now the best available technology to the point that even hydro operators are seriously looking at them.
For bulk energy storage though the reality is batteries are orders of magnitude too costly and that's unlikely to change in the medium term at least. There's also the physical side with the reality that global battery capacity is still rather small compared to individual hydro projects. There's an order of magnitude difference there which even the optimists aren't expecting to change this decade.
Electricity must be produced in real time as it is consumed. Regardless of the source that aspect remains true. Yes we can store coal in a heap on the ground, we can store oil in a tank, water behind a dam or we can have a reversible chemical reaction in a battery but none of those are storing AC power directly. What they're doing is storing something that can be used to make AC power but AC power as such is not stored, it's still made in real time as it's used and that being so, the ability to produce it must at all times at least match the actual rate of consumption, preferably with at least a bit to spare to cope with the inevitable mishaps.
The other hard fact of relevance is that no individual generation source has 100% reliability. Not wind, not solar, not coal, not nuclear, not hydro, gas or anything else. They all have significant periods of unavailability - around 20% of the time as a ballpark figure for coal in the real world, closer to 10% if it's in top shape and all possible efforts are made to address any issues quickly. For an "old clunker" it'll be significantly higher. Nuclear not much different to coal. Hydro, oil and gas generally lower outage rates but they still have outages as such, they don't work constantly.
Put all that together and what's required is a system that:
1. Can withstand individual components being taken out of service for maintenance or failing without impacting supply.
2. Does not rely on oil or gas to major extent. Exception of places which have an abundance of supply not exposed to international trade.
3. If intermittent generation is used, it's backed by adequate storage, non-intermittent generation backup or a combination of the two.
4. If storage is used, it has been sized to the task based on thorough analysis. If backup generation is used then it must have available sufficient fuel.
5. It needs to actually be operated in accordance with technical requirements.
EU countries and the UK have run into trouble primarily on account of points 2, 4 and 5. That is, yes they have wind, solar, coal, nuclear, hydro but they're nonetheless reliant on gas to significant extent.
Plus they seemingly didn't allow for an extended period of low wind yield and resultant high reliance on that gas-fired backup generation with associated fuel consumption.
Plus due to the issues with Russia haven't operated gas facilities in accordance with technical requirements. Gas storage was being drained out well before the war started.
Put the above together and there's a crisis.
It's not that wind and solar couldn't have worked indeed they have worked and continue to do so. It's just that humans didn't make allowance for technical reality and in due course the inevitable happened. It's a bit like the tailgating driver or the share trader who's only ever seen a bull market, failing to have plans in place to deal with natural variability works just fine until suddenly it ends really badly.
Most failures globally are much the same. Humans being humans, they tend to push it to the absolute limit until it breaks. Run it at 85% and it's extremely reliable, run it at 100% and you've got an unacceptably high probability of failure now. Run it beyond 100% and failure's a given. Look at real failures and I've yet to see one that wasn't preceded by running beyond firm capabilities, usually for quite some time before the inevitable happened.
On the engineering side it's all really just a number crunching exercise. So long as it's designed such that it works reliably and is built and operated to that design then it works. Everything else is then about which of the available options are most acceptable from other perspectives - economics, environment and anything else. Other things of relevance being, for example, regional development that might bias toward a particular approach or, in the specific case of hydro, if there's some other reason to want a dam built (eg water supply) then that may make it the best option even if it otherwise wouldn't be.
The problem isn't wind and solar and nor is it any other particular source. The problem is humans taking shortcuts combined with a trigger, in this case politics, blowing it up.
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I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked! </sarc>
California’s solar panel pile mounts up at landfill sites
Millions of solar panels in California risk being dumped on landfill sites as they reach the end of their life cycles.Over the past two decades, more than 1.3
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I'm "puzzled" (nah..) at the horrors expressed over millions of solar panels finally needing to be recycled. Obviously nothing lasts forever . Solar panels are no different. Interestingly enough new generations of PV have every opportunity of being less resource intensive but in the meantime there are a number of industries being developed to recycle solar panels and extract the valuable resources.
July 18, 2022 Anne Fischer
Image: LaBella Associates
From pv magazine USA
The question about what to do with solar panels at the end of their useful life is about to become moot as Rystad Energy analysis shows the incredible value of materials that can be extracted in the recycling process. Rystad estimates that recyclable materials from PV panels at the end of their lifespan will be worth more than $2.7 billion in 2030, up from only $170 million this year, and the value will approach $80 billion by 2050.
PV recycling is still in early stages, but it has been successfully implemented in Europe where the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive requires 85% collection and 80% recycling of the materials used in solar panels. In the US, California-based Solarcycle recently raised $6.6 million in growth funding to advance its solar recycling platform. Investors include some solar veterans such as SolarCity founders Peter and Lyndon Rive, and former CEO/CTO of Sunpower, Tom Dinwoodie.
www.pv-magazine.com
nuwaysolar.com.au
www.pvindustries.com.au
There’s big money in recycling materials from solar panels
Recycling solar panels keeps them out of landfills, but also provides much-needed raw materials with Rystad Energy projecting a value approaching $80 billion by 2050.July 18, 2022 Anne Fischer
Image: LaBella Associates
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From pv magazine USA
The question about what to do with solar panels at the end of their useful life is about to become moot as Rystad Energy analysis shows the incredible value of materials that can be extracted in the recycling process. Rystad estimates that recyclable materials from PV panels at the end of their lifespan will be worth more than $2.7 billion in 2030, up from only $170 million this year, and the value will approach $80 billion by 2050.
PV recycling is still in early stages, but it has been successfully implemented in Europe where the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive requires 85% collection and 80% recycling of the materials used in solar panels. In the US, California-based Solarcycle recently raised $6.6 million in growth funding to advance its solar recycling platform. Investors include some solar veterans such as SolarCity founders Peter and Lyndon Rive, and former CEO/CTO of Sunpower, Tom Dinwoodie.
There’s big money in recycling materials from solar panels
Recycling solar panels keeps them out of landfills, but also provides much-needed raw materials with Rystad Energy projecting a value approaching $80 billion by 2050.
Solar Panel Recycling | NuWay Solar
Nuway Solar educates people on solar panel recycling. How replacing old solar panels helps us protect the environment and save more on the power bill. Call us to know more
nuwaysolar.com.au
Home - PV Industries
PV Industries is leading the way in solar panel recycling in Australia.
www.pvindustries.com.au
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The above links are good for Aus, but problem is, in the USA, its generally a disposable throwaway society, so landfill is much easier for them.I'm "puzzled" (nah..) at the horrors expressed over millions of solar panels finally needing to be recycled. Obviously nothing lasts forever . Solar panels are no different. Interestingly enough new generations of PV have every opportunity of being less resource intensive but in the meantime there are a number of industries being developed to recycle solar panels and extract the valuable resources.
There’s big money in recycling materials from solar panels
Recycling solar panels keeps them out of landfills, but also provides much-needed raw materials with Rystad Energy projecting a value approaching $80 billion by 2050.
July 18, 2022 Anne Fischer
View attachment 144498
Image: LaBella Associates
Share
View attachment 144499 View attachment 144500 View attachment 144501 View attachment 144502 View attachment 144503
From pv magazine USA
The question about what to do with solar panels at the end of their useful life is about to become moot as Rystad Energy analysis shows the incredible value of materials that can be extracted in the recycling process. Rystad estimates that recyclable materials from PV panels at the end of their lifespan will be worth more than $2.7 billion in 2030, up from only $170 million this year, and the value will approach $80 billion by 2050.
PV recycling is still in early stages, but it has been successfully implemented in Europe where the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive requires 85% collection and 80% recycling of the materials used in solar panels. In the US, California-based Solarcycle recently raised $6.6 million in growth funding to advance its solar recycling platform. Investors include some solar veterans such as SolarCity founders Peter and Lyndon Rive, and former CEO/CTO of Sunpower, Tom Dinwoodie.
There’s big money in recycling materials from solar panels
Recycling solar panels keeps them out of landfills, but also provides much-needed raw materials with Rystad Energy projecting a value approaching $80 billion by 2050.
Solar Panel Recycling | NuWay Solar
Nuway Solar educates people on solar panel recycling. How replacing old solar panels helps us protect the environment and save more on the power bill. Call us to know more
Home - PV Industries
PV Industries is leading the way in solar panel recycling in Australia.
And they have big numbers as well.
Mick
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If you noticed one of the early players in recycling PV cells is a US company.
The recycling will happen because there are valuable resources in the PV panels. And as also noted Governments will develop policy to encourage/ensure effective recycling.
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I am aware that not everyone sees any good at all in the Evil Murdoch press, but Robert Gotliebson creates a most interesting narrative which, if it has any skerrick of truth, would be a game changer for Victoria and Australia..
From the article
The problem is, even if Andrews is defeated in the November election, there is no guarantee that the replacement power brokers will ever let this report see the light of day, as they are just as complicit.
Politics guaranteed to screw anything up.
Mick
From the article
So, if even a modicum of what he writes, the Napthine Liberal government can take as much, if not morte than the existing Labour government for the problems Victorians now face.
The problem is, even if Andrews is defeated in the November election, there is no guarantee that the replacement power brokers will ever let this report see the light of day, as they are just as complicit.
Politics guaranteed to screw anything up.
Mick
