How cheap does solar power need to get before it takes over the world?

?? Zinc-manganese (alkaline) batteries were first invented in 1899, and have been used literally for over century. Rechargeable alkaline chemistries have been around for about 50 years and a LOT of research has gone into them.

The money available for innovation in both field is quite large - and progress is being made in both areas. The steady 5% improvement in li-ion energy density for example will make EV's more and more practical especially since there are already EV's that meet people's needs for range and cargo. It will just take a while to see significant progress.

That's what a peaker does. It enables unreliable storage by having fast-response power available for deficits.

Hmm. I don't see anyone "throwing up their hands at the prospect of substantial storage improvements" - indeed, I just returned from a conference where about a dozen speakers discussed the research going into stationary power storage systems. Nor has anyone ever tried to sell me a nuclear reactor. We had one just down the beach here, but it had to shut down due to a bum heat exchanger. I'd be all for a replacement; we could use the baseline power.

 

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Exactly. And in all that time, apparently, the mechanism of charge storage had not been investigated. And that is the situation I keep running into, over and over, in this arena. Alternating with descriptions of the inadequacy of the prospects and available established tech.

So that's the context for this:

Compared with what?

Which is not what storage is being "pitched" for in this thread. To repeat: it is being "pitched" to provide baseline power, at night and during bad weather.

 

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For cheap, storage of electrical energy, it is hard to beat the "Edison Battery," especially with Stanford's 2012 charge/discharge speed advances. A "modern" battery powered car can do 20% as well in all electric range!

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Ni/Fe Batteries
Characteristics
This rechargeable battery was introduced in 1900 by Thomas Edison. It is a very robust battery which is tolerant of abuse and can have very long life even if so treated. It is often used in backup situations where it can be continuously charged and can last for 20 years. Also called Nickel Alkaline of NiFe batteries. The open circuit voltage of these cells is 1.4 V, and the discharge voltage is about 1.2 V.

Advantages: Very robust. Withstands overcharge and over-discharge. Accepts high depth of discharge - deep cycling.
Can remain discharged for long periods without damage, whereas a Lead Acid battery needs to be stored in a charged state. The ability of this system to survive frequent cycling is due to the low solubility of the reactants in the electrolyte - Potassium hydroxide (KOH). Lifetime of 30 years possible. Less expensive than Nickel- Cadmium cells

Shortcomings: Low cell voltage. Very heavy and bulky. They cells take a charge slowly, and give it up slowly. In Edison's Version but {in Stanford's version: 2 minutes to full charge & 30 seconds for full discharge! Now that is a rugged battery!}
Low coulombic efficiency, typically less than 65% Steep voltage drop off with state of charge. Low energy density.
High self discharge rate.
Except for a few inserts by Billy T the above comes from: http://www.mpoweruk.com/nickel_iron.htm

With full discharge in 30 seconds, perhaps it should not be called a battery, but a "chemical capacitor." Let's hope the life time is still 20 or so years, even with 10,000 deep discharge cycles.

Final comment by Billy T:
As the tungsten filament light bulb is now phasing out; in a 100 years, Edison will be known for his battery, not a light bulb.

 

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True, but each body makes only about 100W and modern societies use very much more than that per person.

 

OK I certainly won't quibble about whether the human population finally maxes out at 11bn or 12 or 15bn. It was the "several quadrillion" that made my eyebrows shoot up.

When you say human waste heat does not dissipate into space quickly, I'm not sure I follow this. Why is human waste heat any different from the heat accumulated due to, say, solar irradiation of the Earth? The way I have always understood it, the day side of the Earth is heated by the sun and the night side loses heat by IR radiation into space. Where will human waste heat build up that inhibits it radiating into space by this mechanism?

 

Solar panels to produce electricity are great in my view ( gained from personal experience).
Heating takes a lot of energy as does refrigeration.

Heating water using solar heat collectors is an area where one can reduce grid electricity consumption.

However being realistic those corporations supplying electricity to the grid irrespective of how they produce their electricity, be it via coal, oil, gas or yellow cake, are really not interested in seeing consumers use less electricity and I therefore suspect those corporations will not be saying anything nice about solar panels or supporting consumer subsidies to have solar hot water services installed on existing roofs or making them compulsory on new dwellings.

Overall the Sun is a real big competitor who will outlast all the energy supply corporations and given the chance make huge inroads into profits of said corporations.

I guess they already have worked that out and we will hear why it wont work.

Why they should worry when the percentage of solar is relatively small I am not sure unless there is an undelying belief (fear) that solar may well take a larger market share than they care to hand over.


Alex

 

Question:
On the average month, we use about 3000kwh of electricity. The house and shop are all electric. The heat load in winters(jan-feb) usually kicks the monthly kwh up to 4000kwh or 5000kwh.
If I were to give up yard space for a solar array, how many kw should I consider?

 

But wait a minute. That might hypothetically have been true for the ludicrously wrong estimate of the size of the human race in that 1960s Malthusian study, but I thought we had just agreed that the actual number will be only a tiny fraction of that, viz. 10-15bn.

So why are you still talking in terms of "will", rather than "would have been"?

 

It would be nice, if when driving some chemical process to make liquid fuel, the total cost of it was less than than of the solar process of growing sugar cane that is then converted in plastics and liquid fuel for cars, etc.

Note that even when burning the crushed cane (a residue from the cane that has been converted to alcohol) one gives credit to the heat in excess of distillation process needs that makes electric power too. Nearly 10% of Brazil's electric power is made this way. That crushed cane, is solar dried, and a store of chemical energy. Most of Brazil's electric power is hydro-electric, but when the rains don't fall, less water needs to be released from the dams as crushed cane is making part of the electric demand. It is a naturally timed system: The cane chemical energy store is greatest in the late fall when the rains are becoming less as winter approaches.

 

The idea is to place panels on your roof rather in your yard.
You are going to need a lot of panels.
Do you really want to work out how many or just pointing out that it is impractical to use solar in your case.

Alex

 

I would remain tied to the grid---a few years ago, we voted to pay more per kwh to build out the wind farms.
I had thought solar impractical (especially at over $3 per watt installed, and the size of the array. It seems that I had calculated via peek usage.
It seemed as though the payback was about 10 years, some components only have a 5 year warranty, so the 10 years may be optimistic?
I have just re-roofed the buildings with metal shingles which I'd rather not have holes drilled into. (pity I didn't go with standing seam------the metal shingles were a compromise with my beloved spouse whose aesthetic found standing seam "ugly".)
("there is no accounting for taste"----------taste is qualitative not quantitative.)
ergo: "The yard".
We have many cloudy cold days most winters here in Iowa, and that is when I would rather have the added production.
The house and shop are superinsulated(r 38-44 walls and r 60-80 ceilings. and the house has a lot of thermal mass.
I had built a greenhouse/solar collector which provides most of the house and shop heating load late Feb - early Nov.

I had thought that the industry could hit $1/watt----which would put payback within the least or the warranties.
That is beginning to seem unlikely.

So far, Alex it's just an idle curiosity.

 

A 40 kilowatt array would reduce your electric bill by about 80% depending on your location. Cost would be about $140,000.

 

This is the fourth "miracle battery" that has been announced in 2016 that I have heard of - and it's only April. I generally see about five batteries a year that will make EV's cheap and long-range, make home storage a no-brainer etc. I saw the first such article back in 1985 in an IEEE publication.

 

Now that I have quoted you there is much more in the quote than appears as your post.
I dont know what is going on there????

Never make holes in a roof I say.

If you were to seriously consider solar I suggest invest in one panel and determine just how much electricity it will actually produce over 12 months.

One can do sums but a real test run is the way to go.

However the grid is hard to beat for many reasons. It is cheaper and simple.
I did not have access to the grid and started with a generator added batteries later and finally panels.

For most folk it would be a challenge and frankly it was a challenge setting everything up and it is high maintenance, you need to clean the panels, clean the battery terminals, check the water levels, maintain the back up genny build a shed to put it all in... A power point connected to the grid is hard to beat.

Alex

 

True Stamford researchers have announced 1000 fold increase in charging / discharge speed* in 2016, but only in their small lab protype. The original NiFe rechargable battery (the Edison Battery) drove a car 1000 miles on a single charge, more than 100 years ago. (See car at top of post 23.)

Musk's Tesla Model 3 ships at the end of 2017 and claims to be able to go 215 miles on one charge, but many think it will be lucky to have a 200 mile range.
I.e. 20% of the range demonstrated 100 years ago. Not to make now too much of that battery's 30 year life with thousands of deep discharge cycles.

* full charge in 2 minutes and full discharge in 30 seconds! If achieved in larger scale, it is really more like a reversible "chemical capacitor" than a battery!

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A 12 V version uses 10 cells. This early version had insulators between the cases.
Perhaps it was one that was still going strong after 30 years. If doing deep discharges, it probably needed some distilled water every few months. Note the fill caps.

 

Take a look at a typical roof sometime! They are full of holes even without solar.

No need to do that; such numbers are readily available from places like NREL. A more important number is how much someone uses over 12 months.

I've used solar power for 15 years now and now generate all my power via such a system. Never cleaned the panels. You can if want to, of course; you'll see a few percent improvement (mainly because the water cools the panels down and they become more efficient.)

Agreed there. Power is really pretty cheap compared what it costs to generate your own.

 

I have no doubt that a Model 3 would provide a similar range at 15mph with minor mods (solid tires, removal of accessory loads etc.)

We recently did a demo project that demonstrated charging a cellphone-size battery to 90% in 90 seconds. It wasn't hard. We used A123 LiFePO4's and off the shelf AC-DC converters. Of course, few people would want to put up with the connectors, heat dissipation, reduced energy storage and power supplies needed to do that for consumer items.

Inherently different animals.