diy solar

diy solar

EarthShot

svetz

Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
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The DoE is taking a play on "moonshot" to "EarthShot" and is starting to talk about them: [ref]

The climate crisis calls for a different kind of moonshot. The Department of Energy's “Energy Earthshots” will accelerate breakthroughs of more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions within the decade. They will drive the major innovation breakthroughs that we know we must achieve to solve the climate crisis, reach our 2050 net-zero carbon goals, and create the jobs of the new clean energy economy. The Energy Earthshots target the remaining solution points of the most challenging technical problems across our energy economy.

ref
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm today announced the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s new goal to reduce the cost of grid-scale, long duration energy storage by 90% within the decade. The second target within DOE’s Energy Earthshot Initiative, “Long Duration Storage Shot” sets bold goals to accelerate breakthroughs that store clean electricity to make it available anytime, anywhere and support more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions.


ref
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $52.5 million to fund 31 projects to advance next-generation clean hydrogen technologies and support DOE's recently announced Hydrogen Energy Earthshot initiative to reduce the cost and accelerate breakthroughs in the clean hydrogen sector. Clean hydrogen is a form of renewable energy that—if made cheaper and easier to produce—can have a major role in supporting President Biden's commitment to tackling the climate crisis.
 
Some more data...

ref
The 90% reduction will be based on the baseline of the $162/KWh cost for a 100MW lithium-ion battery in 2020.
So the goal is $16.20/kWh

ref
90% Clean Grid by 2035 Is Not Just Feasible, But Cheaper, Study Says

ref
To achieve the 90% Clean case by 2035, 1,100 GW of new wind and solar generation must be built, averaging about 70 GW per year (Figure ES-4). Recent U.S. precedents for natural gas and wind/solar expansion suggest that a renewable energy buildout of this magnitude is challenging but feasible. New renewable resources can be built cost-effectively in all regions of the country
Well, that's a load of wishful thinking... without storage in place more solar/wind won't do squat... well... yeah that part still needs to be done but without storage it's not a replacement.
 
Fusion reactors are the key to solving our problems. A lot of stuff is happening in this area, it ranges from several multi billion dollar prototype reactors all the way to the reason why the USA and China are battling it out to get bases and mining operations setup on the moon.
Check out the He3 connection.
 
Fusion reactors are the key to solving our problems.

Nuclear isn't off the table. Despite 75% of Americans not wanting nuclear, in the last ~70 years there have been less than 60 accidents in the U.S. that caused more than $50k damage. Not all countries have been so fortunate of course and those accidents can be very expensive (e.g., Chernobyl is linked to the collapse of the Soviet Union from both an economic and social viewpoint). There are safer designs now too (e.g., Terrapower) that can reduce those risks.

But, from the graph to the right wind and solar win hands down.

The world hasn't converted yet because of the energy storage problem,
we need 24x7 power, not just while the sun shines.

But, the point of the "energy shot" is to reduce it to $16.20/kWh in a
decade. It only needs to fall to < ~$20kWh to supply 100% of our
needs economically [ref]. When that happens other power sources
will be too expensive to run except in specialized applications.

Pumped hydro and compressed air are already under $20/kWh, but
they're dependant on natural geography and not available
everywhere. The winner might not even be LFP. Sulfur batteries
have LCOE estimates as low as $10/kWh, there's also other very
promising flow-battery chemistries and molten metal batteries.

The usual criticism is there isn't enough area for solar. But at current panel efficiencies with just 50% of residential rooftops in the U.S., it could supply the entire countries needs. Add in the rooftops of commercial buildings, schools, etc there's way more roof space than needed. Similarly, just 65% of the road surface area in the U.S. would provide enough surface area to power the U.S., so there's more than enough surface area available for solar conveniently near existing power grids. [ref]
 
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The current price is 15.5¢ per Wh?​


Fresh from AliExpress: 1641560286075.png

$7389.20 / (48 pieces x 3.2V x 310 Ah) = 15.5¢/Wh

Somehow doubting they're really new & Grade A for that price, but possibly?

From the information above any ESS under $20/kWh makes solar & wind a cost-effective energy solution. So, if it's really down to $155/kWh at the start of the year.... then we're making some progress. Looks like the big competitive savings will come with new battery technologies.

From the article linked above, ESS needs to be under $20/kWh to be competitive with nuclear, has to be under $5/kWh to be competitive with 2019 natural gas prices (which have almost tripled since then).
 
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Well, that's a load of wishful thinking... without storage in place more solar/wind won't do squat... well... yeah that part still needs to be done but without storage it's not a replacement.
Sure it will.

Most energy is used during daylight hours.. most businesses close in the evening, stores shut down, etc. While I would agree the lack of storage wouldn't achieve the stated goals, more solar and wind sure would help with at least the daytime energy use.

There are companies working on flywheel storage as well.. Amber Kinetics is one that will (is?)be offering 32kWh of storage for about $10,000.

We are a capitalistic society and capitalism is what drives innovation. If there is no need for massive storage, no one is going to invest resources to make it.
Once we create a problem (lots of solar but no storage), capitalist innovation will come forth to solve the problem.
 
Most energy is used during daylight hours.. most businesses close in the evening, stores shut down, etc.
I agree that statement is a bit harsh, thanks for the reality grounding. ; -)

But it's a misconception that most energy is used during the day (although it's a close thing during the
summer in the south). The chart to right is average usage in the southeast for the four quarters of the
year (ref) in millions of kWh. Also note that consumption is still pretty high around 6 pm when most solar
is winding down.

Let's ignore the summer peak (yellow line). Take the average night-time as 70 and the high as 105. So, to supply
the nighttime use you still need 70/105 = 66% of the day-time power. To get rid of non-renewable energy
you need to supply both the night and day-time use.
1641586942290.png

In 2020 the U.S. consumed 3.8 million MWh. 97,275 MWh was from PV and 122,478 MWh was from wind, about 5%. So you're right that we have a long way to go where we can keep building out and seeing benefit from it. I just like to see when they're designing sites with ESS in mind.

It's also not as simple as turning off fossil fuel energy generation during the day. While natural gas turbines can be spun up/down fairly quickly to meet demand, not all can (nuclear in particular is very sluggish) so they have to run day and night. The reason why so many utilities are installing ESS today is reduce/eliminate the cost of peaker plants (ref).
 
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