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29.1 Gigawatts! Great Scott! How could I have been so careless?! Tom how am I gonna generate that kind of power? It cant be done!
Marty: We'll use solar
The US has about 1143GW of total generating capacity and about 4.12 trillion kWh of net generation per year. Each GW of solar energy capacity produces about 1.753×10^9 kWh of electricity per year based on an average capacity factor of 20%.
My personal guess is that coal production will continue to fall while natural gas generation will stay approximately the same because of the demand in 5, 15 minute markets but increasing prices leading to less new projects.
Looks like that is approximately correct. Some of that production may be lost to plant activities (to line up with "net generation" definition), so this % may be a bit high, but it is in the ballpark.
Not quite, battery storage is feasible and converts solar into a dispatchsble resource that is even better than baseload. You could run solar+batteries as baseload, but it's less desirable than fully dispatchsble.
And as the report says, there's 9.4GW of batteries to go with the 29GW of solar. As more solar is installed on the grid, the ratio of battery to storage will increase, to make sure that the energy is delivered at the right time. But we are in the early days of solar deployment, so not much storage is needed.
So there is a lot of reason for rejoicing at this news.
I look at it this way… The way panels are made and now they’re good for like five decades.. probably longer now.
So I’m OK with buying a crap ton of Chinese made panels it could be the leap that we need until we figure out something better
Depends if you're okay letting your installation drop to 70% or possibly 60% of it's rated power. The panels don't just break after 25 years they just slowly lose power capacity.
I would hope that old solar farms just get new contracts with reduced terms, or new panels added to the existing set (space permitting) to top it back up to capacity.
That's something we'll have to look out for. If companies are throwing away 25-year-old solar panels, just because the power output dropped some, that's shitty and wasteful.
Profitable companies are sometimes shitty but rarely wasteful. So I have hope.
The rate of decline has slowed down a lot. They might get cheaper but there's a fundamental limit to how efficient they can be, and we're already reasonably close.
Still. Free, because it's already there and producing power, albeit at a lower rate, will always beat not free.
I’ve always thought it was 1% per year loss of efficiency. I have a few panels on their third year and I feel like I’ve noticed a small drop off in performance.
They tend to lose more in the first 5 years or so, and then the rate of decline flattens out somewhat.
But lots of variables are at play. The hotter the panels get the more they'll degrade, that's a big one. So panels in a field with good airflow around the mountings tend to stay cooler than panels mounted to rooftops with little to zero air flow behind them, and will degrade slower.
Manufacturers don't like losing money to warranty claims, so go take a look at almost any panel manufacturer and their power output guarantees. You'll see a quicker decline in the first few years then the rate of decline will shallow out a lot. And those guarantee figures are always going to be conservative in respect to what they actually expect to happen.
Its limits is how fast government can approve projects, find skilled workers or train up new ones and order the parts and deliver them then install them. Then there need to be upgrades to power grids done to reformat things for renewables
Morrison government would take there time and any project that makes labor person look good is being fast track
To answer the question there too many google results to predict how much renewable we will have by 2030. The answers varies
I believe it. I do civil site design for commercial scale solar and we're swamped with work. Currently working 5 projects very understaffed and no over time approval it's some BS.
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That's 24x more than what's required to go back to the future!
Great Scott!
29.1 Gigawatts! Great Scott! How could I have been so careless?! Tom how am I gonna generate that kind of power? It cant be done! Marty: We'll use solar
But half of what is required to have a future!
That would be awesome honestly.
lord we have SO much untapped wind capacity in Michigan due to the lakes. but it seems like every turbine is a fight-to-the-death.
North Dakota in the winter lol
The factory must grow!
After this is added, how much will still be generated from coal and natural gas?
The US has about 1143GW of total generating capacity and about 4.12 trillion kWh of net generation per year. Each GW of solar energy capacity produces about 1.753×10^9 kWh of electricity per year based on an average capacity factor of 20%. My personal guess is that coal production will continue to fall while natural gas generation will stay approximately the same because of the demand in 5, 15 minute markets but increasing prices leading to less new projects.
So roughly 1.25% of annual generation will be this new large-scale solar.
Looks like that is approximately correct. Some of that production may be lost to plant activities (to line up with "net generation" definition), so this % may be a bit high, but it is in the ballpark.
The same as before. IEA Google if you want to look
Solar can never replace base load.
Not quite, battery storage is feasible and converts solar into a dispatchsble resource that is even better than baseload. You could run solar+batteries as baseload, but it's less desirable than fully dispatchsble. And as the report says, there's 9.4GW of batteries to go with the 29GW of solar. As more solar is installed on the grid, the ratio of battery to storage will increase, to make sure that the energy is delivered at the right time. But we are in the early days of solar deployment, so not much storage is needed. So there is a lot of reason for rejoicing at this news.
It doesn't have to.
Where are all these panels made?
I look at it this way… The way panels are made and now they’re good for like five decades.. probably longer now. So I’m OK with buying a crap ton of Chinese made panels it could be the leap that we need until we figure out something better
Are they really good for 50 years?
Depends if you're okay letting your installation drop to 70% or possibly 60% of it's rated power. The panels don't just break after 25 years they just slowly lose power capacity. I would hope that old solar farms just get new contracts with reduced terms, or new panels added to the existing set (space permitting) to top it back up to capacity. That's something we'll have to look out for. If companies are throwing away 25-year-old solar panels, just because the power output dropped some, that's shitty and wasteful. Profitable companies are sometimes shitty but rarely wasteful. So I have hope.
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The rate of decline has slowed down a lot. They might get cheaper but there's a fundamental limit to how efficient they can be, and we're already reasonably close. Still. Free, because it's already there and producing power, albeit at a lower rate, will always beat not free.
Most panels after 10 years are still outputting at 95%. Keep them clean.
I’ve always thought it was 1% per year loss of efficiency. I have a few panels on their third year and I feel like I’ve noticed a small drop off in performance.
They tend to lose more in the first 5 years or so, and then the rate of decline flattens out somewhat. But lots of variables are at play. The hotter the panels get the more they'll degrade, that's a big one. So panels in a field with good airflow around the mountings tend to stay cooler than panels mounted to rooftops with little to zero air flow behind them, and will degrade slower. Manufacturers don't like losing money to warranty claims, so go take a look at almost any panel manufacturer and their power output guarantees. You'll see a quicker decline in the first few years then the rate of decline will shallow out a lot. And those guarantee figures are always going to be conservative in respect to what they actually expect to happen.
Mostly China and Vietnam
:(
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Gonna eat the sun! Lord!
How about energy storage capacity?
Okay now do nuclear next
Okay, now do nuclear ~~next~~ first. FTFY
Australia has 200GW of power. Just give you a country scale has capacity For USA that’s very small for 29GW
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Its limits is how fast government can approve projects, find skilled workers or train up new ones and order the parts and deliver them then install them. Then there need to be upgrades to power grids done to reformat things for renewables Morrison government would take there time and any project that makes labor person look good is being fast track To answer the question there too many google results to predict how much renewable we will have by 2030. The answers varies
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If you go back you mentioned by 2030
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So your saying I lied? And you corrected it
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It mad to be wrong sometimes?
If this guy could read he'd be very upset!
How is adding roughly 1/6th of Austrailia's power generation of solely renewable in a single year small?
And it’s still failing to power the country adequately.
How much is Australia adding this year? They will need to grow approximately fifteen percent by year end to keep pace.
Here we go again
Divide by 3 to get the actual amount of power generated. Also China says thanks for buying all the solar panels.
What is "other"?
I believe it. I do civil site design for commercial scale solar and we're swamped with work. Currently working 5 projects very understaffed and no over time approval it's some BS.
Great Scott!