The bottom line is that "overbuilding" renewables and discarding surplus electrons generated with no fuel cost is more economic than anything else, including "right-sized" fuel burning generation that is throttled to match demand.
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Solar PV News
- Thread starter mspohr
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If priced right, much of the surplus could be consumed.
Such as with the bright sunny spring day here today, there is no need for us to run our heat pump to cool or heat the house and home electricity use is minimal. But happy to heat the power hungry hot tub more often in TOU fashion, as doing at the moment with home solar PV, if the grid is giving the electrons away for practically free.
Such as with the bright sunny spring day here today, there is no need for us to run our heat pump to cool or heat the house and home electricity use is minimal. But happy to heat the power hungry hot tub more often in TOU fashion, as doing at the moment with home solar PV, if the grid is giving the electrons away for practically free.
I think there is a lot that could be done with TOU to consume surplus. Hot water, car charging, home heating and cooling as well as many industrial processes. I'd love to have free car charging and I'm flexible.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
While rooting around the large rabbit hole that is the CAISO website, I found some interesting information about how the Western EIM (Energy Imbalance Market) is able to reduce the oversupply curtailment by moving power around the area it has influence over. A couple slides showing the reduced curtailment over time, and their expanding geographic region.
Seems like a very "low hanging fruit" approach to using some of that power that would otherwise be curtailed. And when I say low hanging fruit, I mean its just coordinating the wheeling of power between regions versus constructing storage. Anyone who looks at the EIM website will find out rather quickly that the low hanging fruit, in this case, is an insanely complicated process. I think the bottom line WRT the EIM is that it provides a valuable service that will be more valuable over time as is expands and the grid has more intermittent renewable power generators and batteries that all need to be coordinated.
Seems like a very "low hanging fruit" approach to using some of that power that would otherwise be curtailed. And when I say low hanging fruit, I mean its just coordinating the wheeling of power between regions versus constructing storage. Anyone who looks at the EIM website will find out rather quickly that the low hanging fruit, in this case, is an insanely complicated process. I think the bottom line WRT the EIM is that it provides a valuable service that will be more valuable over time as is expands and the grid has more intermittent renewable power generators and batteries that all need to be coordinated.
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One thing that can be done is to run pumps that push water uphill to a reservoir. That is effectively long term storage as you can generate power from it later by gravity feeding it through turbines.
Usually I think they consider that as giant scale, but it may be possible to have something smaller like just an old fashioned water tank on your property and a micro turbine.
Thanks for this. And thanks for the CAISO exploration mission.
I did have a surface observation before I dive in - unless I'm missing something, it appears that the amount of "avoided curtailment" in 2016 was far greater than in subsequent years, including this year. That doesn't seem to match with "reduced curtailment over time," so I'm guessing that I'm misreading or misinterpreting what I'm seeing.
Answering my own question here, but I put together a couple of charts showing the "avoided curtailment" for years 2016-2019, both by quarter and by year. 2016 appears to be anomalously higher with an improving trend only looking at 2017-2019. Obviously there are other factors at play here, like additional storage. It might be more sensible to look at avoided curtailment as a percentage of total curtailment, but even that would be difficult because it needs to be plotted against the addition of new participants entering the Western EIM. Anyway, here are the charts.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
^^ Clean energy growth rate is quite a bit faster than curtailment growth rate.
It actually looks like curtailment is leveling off in terms of GWh per year. As EIM evolves we can hope for decreases.
It actually looks like curtailment is leveling off in terms of GWh per year. As EIM evolves we can hope for decreases.
Just saw this news posted on Reuters about solar and wind operations on Federal lands.
Trump admin slaps solar, wind operators with retroactive rent bills
Trump admin slaps solar, wind operators with retroactive rent bills
Agree with the hope for decreases, but my chart doesn't show amount of curtailment, it shows "avoided curtailment," that is, how much the EIM has stopped. You would expect with the solar growth rate, that we'd see a faster increase in the amount of "avoided curtailment" through the EIM. But it's complicated, I get it.
Italians Can Now Install Rooftop Solar PV Systems For Free | CleanTechnica
The Italian government has allocated €55 billion ($60 billion) in stimulus perks through the Relaunch Decree on Economic Stimulus Measures to help revive the country’s economy as it slowly exits its Covid-19 lockdown,” pv magazine reports.
The new policy builds off of what was already called an “eco-bonus,” which is a tax rebate for certain green projects. Sustainably focused building-renovation projects can now get a 110% tax rebate instead of a 65% rebate, and PV installations and storage systems associated with such projects also get 110%, instead of the previous 50%. If not linked to qualifying renovation projects, the tax rebate will remain at 50%.
The Italian government has allocated €55 billion ($60 billion) in stimulus perks through the Relaunch Decree on Economic Stimulus Measures to help revive the country’s economy as it slowly exits its Covid-19 lockdown,” pv magazine reports.
The new policy builds off of what was already called an “eco-bonus,” which is a tax rebate for certain green projects. Sustainably focused building-renovation projects can now get a 110% tax rebate instead of a 65% rebate, and PV installations and storage systems associated with such projects also get 110%, instead of the previous 50%. If not linked to qualifying renovation projects, the tax rebate will remain at 50%.
Solar PV looks to take a large step forward with perovskite/silicon tandem panels set to hit the real world next year with initial 26-27% efficiency. Efficiency increases of 1% annually are anticipated. Residential markets will be targeted first with 400+ watt 60-cell solar modules.
Oxford PV develops perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells
Oxford PV develops perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells
Britain's largest solar farm poised to begin development in Kent
Britain's largest solar farm poised to begin development in Kent
Britain's largest solar farm poised to begin development in Kent
For Americans and other aliens, Kent is the southeasternmost county of England, "The Garden of England".
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/SolarGIS-Solar-map-United-Kingdom-en.png
But don't be fooled by the colors. If it were keyed like a map of the USA like
https://www.nrel.gov/gis/assets/images/solar-annual-dni-2018-01.jpg
... all of the UK would be in the <4 section.
Of course the UK gets much more solar energy in summer than winter (e.g London 0.52kWh/m^2 in December, and 4.74kWh/m^2 in July*),.but electricity demand is lowest in summer, so the main value of PV will be complementing the massive wind capacity.
* Solar power in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia
Wikipedia so it must be true said:
EIA Electric Power Monthly - May 2020 (to March 2020)
Solar lags wind by a lot, but continues to grow.
328.4MW of new utility scale solar was added, taking the total to 39,196.6MW. Planned 12-month solar capacity additions decreased by 366.6MW to 12,596.7MW.
Including estimated small-scale generation, in March solar was was 9,723TWh, 3.14% of US generation compared to 2.70% a year ago. That brought the rolling share to 2.71%, up from 2.27% a year ago.
12 month rolling estimated solar plus wind generation was 10.31% of generation.
Utility Solar:
Capacity (MW):
Generation (GWh):
Small Scale Solar:
Capacity (MW):
Generation (GWh):
Total Solar:
Capacity (MW):
Generation (GWh):
Solar lags wind by a lot, but continues to grow.
328.4MW of new utility scale solar was added, taking the total to 39,196.6MW. Planned 12-month solar capacity additions decreased by 366.6MW to 12,596.7MW.
Including estimated small-scale generation, in March solar was was 9,723TWh, 3.14% of US generation compared to 2.70% a year ago. That brought the rolling share to 2.71%, up from 2.27% a year ago.
12 month rolling estimated solar plus wind generation was 10.31% of generation.
Utility Solar:
Capacity (MW):
| Period | Prior | Change | New | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | 38,868.2 | 328.4 | 39,196.6 | 0.84% |
| YTD | 37,329.1 | 1,867.5 | 39,196.6 | 5.00% |
| Rolling | 33,113.2 | 6,083.4 | 39,196.6 | 18.37% |
| Plan +12mo | 13,291.7 | -366.6 | 12,596.7 | . |
Generation (GWh):
| Year | Month | YTD | Rolling | Month % | YTD% | Rolling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 5,885 | 13,392 | 64,945 | 1.80% | 1.34% | 1.55% |
| 2020 | 6,314 | 16,520 | 75,363 | 2.04% | 1.70% | 1.83% |
| Difference | 429 | 3,128 | 10,418 | 0.24% | 0.37% | 0.28% |
Small Scale Solar:
Capacity (MW):
| Period | Prior | Change | New | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | 23,919.2 | 339.6 | 24,258.8 | 1.42% |
| YTD | 23,210.8 | 1,048.0 | 24,258.8 | 4.52% |
| Rolling | 20,284.2 | 3,974.6 | 24,258.8 | 19.59% |
Generation (GWh):
| Year | Month | YTD | Rolling | Month % | YTD% | Rolling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2,925 | 6,886 | 30,605 | 0.90% | 0.69% | 0.73% |
| 2020 | 3,409 | 8,312 | 36,467 | 1.10% | 0.86% | 0.88% |
| Difference | 484 | 1,426 | 5,862 | 0.21% | 0.17% | 0.16% |
Total Solar:
Capacity (MW):
| Period | Prior | Change | New | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | 62,787.4 | 668.0 | 63,455.4 | 1.06% |
| YTD | 60,539.9 | 2,915.5 | 63,455.4 | 4.82% |
| Rolling | 53,397.4 | 10,058.0 | 63,455.4 | 18.84% |
Generation (GWh):
| Year | Month | YTD | Rolling | Month % | YTD% | Rolling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 8,809 | 20,277 | 95,551 | 2.70% | 2.02% | 2.27% |
| 2020 | 9,723 | 24,832 | 111,829 | 3.14% | 2.56% | 2.71% |
| Difference | 914 | 4,555 | 16,278 | 0.45% | 0.54% | 0.44% |
Solar parks have better biodiversity impact than intensive monoculture farming
A research project in the Netherlands is seeking to assess the impact of large scale PV projects on soil quality and biodiversity. Principal scientist Wim Sinke, of Dutch research center TNO, says well-designed and operated and maintained solar parks could prove to have better outcomes than monoculture farming.
A research project in the Netherlands is seeking to assess the impact of large scale PV projects on soil quality and biodiversity. Principal scientist Wim Sinke, of Dutch research center TNO, says well-designed and operated and maintained solar parks could prove to have better outcomes than monoculture farming.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Hard to believe cheap heterojunction is on the horizon. I can barely breathe from excitement.
I hope, hope, hope this pans out !!!!
Ironic.
Absolutely. It would have such a a huge impact on small-scale solar. And even if they can just raise efficiency while holding the cost per Watt of the panels, it would still have a substantial impact due to the increased power density.
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