1d ago

Sometimes we create our own problems.

224 comments

I see this posted a lot as if this is an issue with capitalism. No, this is what happens when you have to deal with maintaining the power grid using capitalism as a tool.
Power generation needs to match consumption. Always constantly the power grid must be balanced. If you consume more than you can generate, you get a blackout. If you generate more than you use, something catches fire.
Renewables generate power on their own schedule. This is a problem that can be solved with storage. But storage is expensive and takes time to construct.
Negative prices are done to try and balance the load. Its not a problem, its an opportunity. If you want to do something that needs a lot of power, you can make money by consuming energy when more consumption is needed. And if you buy a utility scale battery, you can make money when both charging and discharging it if you schedule it right.
That's not renewables being a problem, that's just what happens when the engineering realities of the power grid come into contact with the economic system that is prevalent for now.
- Capitalism does solve it. Eventually. It takes the information in steps and gets to a solution that experts were talking about decades before. This is not a good way to do things.
  It tends to overinvest in the thing that has the most immediate ROI. That's been solar. Wind/water/storage/long distance distribution are all important pieces of this, too, and this has been known in climate and civil engineering fields for a while. Solar can't do it all by itself.
  A sensible system would even out the investment in each. The wind often blows when the sun isn't shining, so you don't need as much storage to do the in between parts. Water not only provides an easily adjustable baseload (nuclear does not adjust very well), but it also doubles as storage. In fact, if we could link up all the hydro dams we already have to long distance transmission, we wouldn't need any other storage. Though that isn't necessarily the most efficient method, either.
  What capitalism does is invest in solar, find that causes negative prices, and then invest in the next best ROI to solve that. Perhaps it's storage. That results in a lot more storage than would otherwise be needed than if wind/water/long distance distribution were done alongside it. Or maybe the next best ROI is wind, but there are still lulls lacking in both sun and wind--as well as periods where you have too much of both--so you still need storage.
  And what capitalism really doesn't want to do long distance transmission. It's not just big, but it's horizontal construction. That means rights to the whole route have to be purchased. It means environmental concerns along the entire route have to be thought out. It means soil has to be tested for stability and footings made to suit for the entire route. Capitalism almost has to be beaten into submission for anyone to build anything horizontally. (See also: trains and highway systems, both of which came with substantial government investment and incentives).
- I can't ragebait if you people are being logical 😒
- Also, fwiw, you can curtail wind turbines incredibly quickly. They're the quickest moving assets on an electrical grid typically. So you are using them to balance the grid quite often. You can just pitch the blades a bit and they slow or stop. it's not really a tech problem, but a financial one like you said.
  I'm not sure much about solar curtailment, other than the fact that they receive curtailment requests and comply quite quickly as well.
  
  Wind turbines like solar and BESSs are inverter-based resources (IBRs), so any of them can curtail quickly.
  
  I'm not sure much about solar curtailment, other than the fact that they receive curtailment requests and comply quite quickly as well.
  Here in the EU, the DC-AC transformers are mandated to shut down if the grid frequency is out of bounds.
- I see this posted a lot as if this is an issue with capitalism. No, this is what happens when you have to deal with maintaining the power grid using capitalism as a tool.
  The framing of it as the problem being that the price is going down rather than that excess power is feeding into the grid is what makes it an issue with capitalism. The thing you should be questioning is why MIT Technology Review is talking about some consequence of the problem that only exists because of capitalism instead of talking about the problem itself.
  And before you downvote/object with some knee-jerk reaction that I'm being pedantic, consider this alternative way of framing it:
  The opportunity is that solar panels create lots of electricity in the middle of sunny days, frequently more than what's currently required, so it is necessary to develop new flexible sources of demand so that the excess energy doesn't damage the power grid.
  That's pretty vastly different, isn't it?
  
  I don't like using the term capitalism because it is too vague. Political corruption protecting oligarchy/big corporations is the problem.
  Inflation resulting from start of full war on Russia and resulting oil/diesel price spike forced the wrong policy of higher interest rates. The theory in the past is that increasing austerity on consumers reduce their driving, and preventing business investment also reduces expanded demand for scarce FFs.
  In the dynamics of energy disruption, high interest rates are the biggest cost obstacle for renewables and less new renewables is more oil/FF extortion power. At 2000 sun hours/year, $1/watt solar installation, could get a 16 year payback = 100% overall profit at 3c/kwh price. 2c/kwh at 3000 sun hours/year. Every 2% in interest costs, increases required price by 1c/kwh.
  Protection of existing assets/supply scarcity is not affected by higher interest rates. New oil wells do have a big upfront cost, but they also have a huge power and maintenance requirement that is paid for with the product taken out of the ground, with ROI protections if renewables can be suppressed, including with high interest rates.
  Political corruption favouring scarcity over abundance is the problem. Cheap energy or steel is a huge competitive and life quality advantage. Use cheap inputs for more productivity and happier life with cheaper cost.
  
  That's pretty vastly different, isn't it?
  Not really. It's like saying toast falls butter side down, vs toast falls non-buttered side up?
  Perhaps some are conditioned for an emotional response, rather than a rational one, upon hearing certain words? That's why you suggest to avoid them, even to describe the same issue?
  
  People are emotionally driven animals at the end of the day. As much as we try to argue otherwise, it's our default state. It's not conditioning, it's nature. If you believe yourself to be otherwise, then you're susceptible to being emotionally exploited without even realizing it. I had a coworker rant in circles for 2 hours the other week about how he's very rational and how people need to stop reacting emotionally to things, while also going on about how Democrats are snowflakes and Republicans use facts and logic in their arguments, and how despite having trans friends, he'll never see them as their actual gender because "basic biology" and people shouldn't expect others to accommodate things like calling them by the right name.
  That said, how you frame a problem can vastly affect how people consider solving it. A great example is one that somebody else posted in this thread talking about how sime companies that see electricity as an expense rather than something that reduces profits are actually moving towards building their own renewable energy infrastructure because it'll drive their expenses down in the long run.
  
  MIT Technology Review is talking
  they did talk about this many years ago. This is a very old screenshot that has been around the internet for probably a decade at a guess. You might notice the check mark because this was from a time that twitter actually vetted sources. There's nothing wrong with a publication having bad takes on occasion. That does happen now and again.
  The telling part is the fact that this one single tweet keeps being reposted repeatedly, with the reply as if this is a substantive criticism of capitalism.
- Nice comment! Thanks.
- Just to be clear this can't be solved with storage. Currently it can be but not permanently.
  For ease of argument let's say the grid runs 100% on solar with batteries that last a day. For 100% solar you need to build power for when demand is highest, winter, and supply is lowest also winter. Come summer demand is lowest and supply is highest. You can't store all that energy in summer because you got fuck all to do with it.
  It's a really weird cost saving exercise but basically when supply is massively abundant it has to be wasted. No one is going to build that final battery that is only used for 1 day every 10 years.
  Bringing it all together. In a 100% renewables grid with solar, wind, hydro and batteries a lot of electricity will be wasted and it will be the cheapest way to do it. Cheaper than now.
  Quite a few people talk about this on youtube. Tony Seba and rethinkx is the best place to start in my opinion.
  
  You can’t store all that energy in summer because you got fuck all to do with it.
  Main value of H2 electrolysis is solving (more economic return from renewables than just curtailing) this problem. Also provides exportable energy to cover winter clean power/heat needs.
  
  I'll be interested to see what happens with this.
  New forms of industry will work out if you got very low capital costs and high energy costs. The factory is going to be running, what? At most 25% of the year? Probably more like under 10 and unpredictable. That's going to be so weird for profitability.
  I feel like storing the hydrogen itself could be an issue. Storing methane seems way easier so I wonder if that happens instead. But is it cheap to make a device that can make huge amount of hydrogen or methane? I have no idea and no one seems to know what's going to happen yet.
  I just expect most of it to be dumped. Because it's 1 less thing to buy.
  
  To get $2/kg 300 bar H2, $500/kw electrolyzer capital costs, and 2c/kwh electricity input costs are needed. China is pushing down to $300/kw on electrolyzer costs. Just as seasonal negative prices happen in some locations, stabilizing to 2c/kwh is the path H2 enables. $2/kg H2 means 6c/kwh CHP power cost from Fuel Cell, and 10c/kwh electric only power output. Competitive with electric utility service, and fast charging vehicle stations. It's competitive at $4/kg in many jurisdictions, in fact.
  Factories already operate mostly daytime. Solar output is seasonal with more variability the further from equator you go. Having solar cover 100% of summer cloudy day generation at low AC use, can result in 2c/kwh or less prices on sunny days, and in Spring and fall where there is no HVAC demand. Running FF electricity just in winter/backup is path to significantly lower emissions, and lower cost of FF energy from less use. Factories with long shifts running half on solar is still low overall energy input costs, if they can sell what they make.
  H2 storage is a solved problem. Lined pipe and pressure vessels. If factories are ever automated to the point where labour cost is nearly irrelevant compared to energy costs, then they too can become variable loads. H2 electrolysis and desalination and battery charging are all highly automated processes that benefit from those conditions today.
  The forever advantage of green H2 production is that it is containerizable. Can be transported seasonally to where renewable surpluses will occur. I guess self mobile robots could do the same, though.
  
  Hydo power can be used as storage, and can generate power on-demand. I'd recommend avoiding YouTube if you want reliable information.
  
  Yes it can, I didn't say otherwise. I'm not sure what your point is.
  The electricity grid is about matching supply and demand. Hydro is not going to stop massively amount of wind and solar being wasted in a 100% is it?
  Also most grids don't have enough hydro storage or inertia to solve to problem by itself.
- This is a problem that can be solved with storage. But storage is expensive and takes time to construct.
  true. thing is, they've seen it coming for a decade, and knew it needed to happen. It shames me that we're just now trying to pick up the storage side when we've had ample evidence the need was growing rapidly.
  
  batteries were (are) expensive and have been decreasing in cost partially because of electric vehicles investing in batteries earlier than necessary would give money to research that would otherwise be funded by others (a bad idea in capitalism unless you need the research quickly) and loans were cheap.
- Then tell me why the mechanism to control production via the solar panels themselves hasn't been implemented? I've seen several viable options, including covers that are manual or even automated and powered by the excess energy...
  
  Then tell me why the mechanism to control production via the solar panels themselves hasn't been implemented?
  Why would you want people to tell you things that are untrue?
  
  South Australia has run into this problem and implemented a solution.
  When the solar exports in a section of the grid exceeds the local transformer's limits, a signal is sent to all of the inverters in that section to limit the export rate. The same signal can be send to all solar inverters in South Australia if the entire grid has too much renewable energy.
  This signal only limits the export to the grid, so the homeowner can always use their own solar power first. The permitted export is guaranteed to be between 1.5kW and 10kW per phase.
  The was a minor oversight during implementation. Homeowners on wholesale pricing would often curtail or switch off their solar inverters if the prices went negative. If the grid operator sent a signal to reduce the export rate, it would override the homeowner's command and force a 1.5kW export during negative pricing (costing the homeowner to export). No-one considered that anyone might not want to export solar all of the time.
- Something catches fire lol what, as if they can't just disconnect the solar cells if they run out of batteries
  
  You can do. If you don't that's when you get the fire, or more likely a whole bunch of breakers flip and you are in a black start situation.

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