The cost of solar panels is plummeting, and this will flood the power grid with cheap electricity. But that’s just Act 1. We won’t stop building solar at the limits of the grid - we’ll build a lot more.
This post explains why we'll keep building more,
All I’m hearing is excuses not to invest in battery storage at the grid level.
Grid scale storage will be built en masse the moment it becomes economical, or when governments decide to use tax payer money to do it or subsidize it.
That’s fair, but the reason it’s not economical right now is mostly poorly thought out contracts and subsidies. We are already paying for this mess.
From the calculations I’ve seen in recent scientific reports, that doesn’t seem to be the case, barring major economic changes on a global level.
Even the cheapest grid scale storage solutions are an order of magnitude more expensive than constructing more electrical generation capacity.
Particularly closed cycle fossil gas thermal plants have a massive advantage in markets where variable renewable electricity generation (wind, solar…) achieve high degrees of market penetration due to the volatility they cause in the grid.
Hydro, transmission and nuclear are currently the most accessible non-fossil options to counteract the disadvantages of solar & wind.
Is your area not undergoing a massive expansion? I’m in NW Florida, hardly a hotbed of environmentalism, and brother, business is booming.
I fully expect the 20-miles between the edge of town and my camp to be covered in the next decade. Any non-residential and non-commercial land is getting bought up and covered. I expect to see solar panels all they way in the space between the interstate and the state highway, already a few spots where you can see clear from one road to the other over the panels. Very exciting!
Where I live (Sweden) our grid has been essentially fossil-free since the early 90’s, thus we haven’t had the same need. Particularly since our electricity prices (excluding grid fees) already dip into the negatives in the summer, and solar is useless in the winter (<3hrs of light and snow cover).
Unfortunately though, recent politically motivated shutterings of nuclear plants during the 2010s combined with higher volatility in continental Europe has led to the volatility of our own electricity market skyrocketing, and more decentralized electricity production has led to huge increases in grid fees (state monopoly).
During a recent winter we had prices (when accounting for taxes and fees) in excess of 1$/kWh. This, in a country where almost all heating is electric, is disastrous. For context, we live in a small villa with a geothermal pump, and despite keeping indoor temps as low as 12°C at times we ended up with 1000s of USD equivalent in power bills for the winters 22/23 and 23/24.
Quite sad really.
I wish we could. That capacity is already booked. The batteries we are deploying needs to be used as local storage. And this is before the EU mandate on solarpanels on all roof tops has taken effect. The grid can’t expand at that rate, unfortunately.
What do you mean? Worst case put the batteries with the panel?
That’s what we are reduced to. That is what I mean. I also say that in the EU directive called EED, the union demands that, starting 2026, every public body needs to put PV-cells on the roofs of the buildings they use.
That will be noticeable.
And a good idea, right?
As long as we find a way to make use of the excess electricity produced, yes. Today we don’t have enough intermittent energy users. For storage, or otherwise.
There are initiatives calling for/demanding an expanded hydrogen infrastructure, for instance, so that could be one thing. I believe Germany is the leading country of such initiatives.
Yes, it’s a rocky road but it looks like it’s going forward IMO!
Plug in EVs are the most immediate solution to battery storage.
But they are not home at peak solar.
But generally they would be parked, right? At the office, or transport hubs? Maybe that’s where the batteries need to be installed. Take the responsibility off private citizens and install it where there’s going to be a mass of cars parked.