solar energy, 1.65 cents per kWh

I wonder how many years of operation it will take to achieve that averaged price. Some of the big solar projects here in California aren't penciling out very well in real life.

Only "some"? So most are working great then, eh?

I've seen curves for average daily power use from conventional generation i n California. It seems to be working so well a dip is observed during the day. Some people seem to think it is a problem that reserve capacity is st ill required for the afternoon peak, but I'm not sure why that is a problem . It's not that any costs are higher, just that the capital costs are not lower... ok, so what? The problem that is created is that the more rapid r ate of demand increase is harder to supply than the more gradual increase.

Solar is a good match for charging EVs during the day. That automatically provides capacity time shifting. Better would be in home batteries that al low the daytime energy to be used at peak times. That will only be useful to home owners if the utility lets them combine time of use service with ne t metering. My utility doesn't allow this.

On a sunny day (1 Jul 2019 18:46:13 -0700) it happened Winfield Hill wrote in :

Has anybody forgotten what happened to that solar plant on that Caribbean island when that hurricane hit it?

And how about 1 meter of ice happening just this week in the south of Mexico?

And in Germany hail the size of golfballs for that matter last week or so?

Diversification of power generation systems is ESSENTIAL.

wind:

Chernobyl, I forgot Ch.. oh, and F*ckupshima and that new island and

As to testing for radiation these days holiday trips to Chernobyl are very popular, you could leave your transistor there, and come back the next year to pick it up, Would be a real world test,.

:-)

"Self Consumption" is the up and coming mode of operation rather than selling back to the utility so much. i.e. taking care of you own energy needs. And, since there are usually batteries involved in this type of system, you have backup power for the critical loads at least. i.e. Lights, cold beer and TV.

And utilities want to use distributed energy for when they brown out. Normally these DG systems will immediately shut off (anti-island) when the grid browns or blacks out but now, with the newer system ( for example Sunspec) the utilities can have the smaller solar generation systems be ready to be called upon to "ride through" for several seconds and continue selling back to grid while the voltage and/or frequency would normally be out of IEEE 1547 specs. In addition to that is to be able to shift real power to VARs up to +/- 30 degrees for power factor help.

Lower cost for PV is a good thing, especially for those who want a home or off grid cabin, etc.

The one that comes to mind was a thermal solar project which used molten mi neral salt at 550C to transfer heat from the mirror focus to the steam gene rating system. It was a proof of principle prototype, so they didn't bother putting in the big insulated tanks to keep the molten salts molten over-ni ght, and they burn a lot of natural gas every morning to get melt the salt mixture so they can get it moving.

Not impressive - but still quite big. You need a lot of mirror area to get something that can work at all.

in California. It seems to be working so well a dip is observed during th e day. Some people seem to think it is a problem that reserve capacity is still required for the afternoon peak, but I'm not sure why that is a probl em. It's not that any costs are higher, just that the capital costs are no t lower... ok, so what? The problem that is created is that the more rapid rate of demand increase is harder to supply than the more gradual increase .

y provides capacity time shifting. Better would be in home batteries that allow the daytime energy to be used at peak times. That will only be usefu l to home owners if the utility lets them combine time of use service with net metering. My utility doesn't allow this.

If electric cars achieve decent market penetration, the car batteries could be co-opted as mass storage for the utilities. We've talked about this her e, and you really don't like the idea, but quite a few people see it as rea l possibility.

Those are bidding prices, how many of these projects will finally produce any profit in the end and how many companies will go bankrupt?

Things to consider are for instance how long will a particular PV array survive in a specific environment. With sufficient operation time with zero primary energy cost this would eventually give some profit. But the question is, how much will the production drop during the years and how many completely failed panels needs to be replaced during the next 10 to 50 years ?

How are interest rates going to develop in the future ? The rates might be low now, but may increase in the future. Any local currency devaluations may make spare parts more expensive locally.

How much dust or contamination will be collected on the panels, especially at low latitude locations, where the panels are nearly horizontal ? How often will it rain, flushing the panels at least partly ?

How much manual labor is needed to clean the panels and do other maintenance to panels and electric system (corrosion, lightnings) ? What is the cost of such workforce now and in a few decades ?

Those companies bidding for a fixed MWh price are taking a huge risk.

We've had solar cells since 1954. They've been used in remote locations ever since then - satellite arrays were the first example, but terrestrial locations weren't far behind. We've built up quite a bit of data.

There's commercial experience of this. The bids probably have looked at it.

Our experience of this goes back most of the way to the 1960's.

Even the gulf states have meteorologists.

There is experience of this, going back a few decades now.

Probably not true. There will be some residual uncertainties, but most of the "risks" you have listed are well-known and should be pretty predictable.

In space, the output drops a lot in a few years due to radiation, thus the panel must be oversized before launch, so that sufficient amount of power at end of mission. In space, you do not have humidity and pollutants to worry bout.

On the ground, there is not much radiation, but the humidity and pollutants are present. The panels operate at quite high temperatures and this should reduce the MTBF figures as in other electronics.

The old days, the solar cells were extremely expensive, so proper packaging them into proper panels was not an issue.

Today, solar cells are cheap (especially from China) so proper packaging relative costs are significant.

How many experience of cheap panels do we have ? It seems that panels are intended for about 20 years, can that really be achieved. However, with better packed (hermetically sealed ?) more expensive panels would extend the life time significantly, handling the original investment cost.

For expensive panels yes, but at most 5 years experience for cheap panels.

I assume you are referencing to the Persian Gulf. It might rain heavily during one day every or every few years.

However, the dust situation can be quite nasty. Finding your way from the terminal to your plane might be a problem, fortunately the jet engines did not mind about the dust :-).

That experience for well made panels might be so relevant for current cheap panels.

There seems to be a similar system in India. Looking at the list of successful bidder companies, there are some that do not have decades long presence in India and the local political, labor and environment conditions.

ote:

it.

The current generation of Chinese solar cells are cheap because they are ma nufactured in very high volume. This shouldn't be equated with corner-cutti ng.

The Chinese wouldn't have invested a huge amount in setting up high-volume production lines if there was a risk that the product wouldn't last long in the field, because people would then stop buying them - and all the expens ive investment would have had to be reworked to produce a product that peop le would keep on buying.

Probably.

Packaging doesn't seem to have had much effect in the past. We have a lot o f experience in encapsulating electronic components, and solar cells do see m to take advantage of thsi.

A layer of dust is the same kind of problem for any solar cell - it stops l ight getting through to the active layer.

And the local meterologists will have records of the rainfall every day for decades.

They'll have dust-fall records as well.

They aren'r cheap because they are shoddy, but cheap because they have been produced in high volume (which means that they had better not be shoddy, o r all the output of that high volume prodcution machinery wouldn't sell).

f the "risks" you have listed are well-known and should be pretty predictab le.

But they can buy local advice. They'd be mad not to.

Yeah, I suppose nothing else on the island was damaged by the 175 mph winds? Since it is so dangerous to be there in a storm, why build anything or worse, try to live there!!! Oh my!

I guess Guadalajara is a place to avoid when building things that can't take 6 feet of ice, like... well, buildings!

Sounds like no one should live in Germany either. BTW, they seem to play golf a bit differently than we do.

n in California. It seems to be working so well a dip is observed during t he day. Some people seem to think it is a problem that reserve capacity is still required for the afternoon peak, but I'm not sure why that is a prob lem. It's not that any costs are higher, just that the capital costs are n ot lower... ok, so what? The problem that is created is that the more rapi d rate of demand increase is harder to supply than the more gradual increas e.

ly provides capacity time shifting. Better would be in home batteries that allow the daytime energy to be used at peak times. That will only be usef ul to home owners if the utility lets them combine time of use service with net metering. My utility doesn't allow this.

In Australia as well as in the US, they get very high prices for peak gener ating capacity that is only called on infrequently and for a short time. I think Jeff posted a link to a page where you could see the marginal price of electrical generation during the day. Peak rates are much higher than o ther times. This sounds like you should be paid very large rates for those short times.

on in California. It seems to be working so well a dip is observed during the day. Some people seem to think it is a problem that reserve capacity i s still required for the afternoon peak, but I'm not sure why that is a pro blem. It's not that any costs are higher, just that the capital costs are not lower... ok, so what? The problem that is created is that the more rap id rate of demand increase is harder to supply than the more gradual increa se.

lly provides capacity time shifting. Better would be in home batteries tha t allow the daytime energy to be used at peak times. That will only be use ful to home owners if the utility lets them combine time of use service wit h net metering. My utility doesn't allow this.

ld be co-opted as mass storage for the utilities. We've talked about this h ere, and you really don't like the idea, but quite a few people see it as r eal possibility.

Yeah, of course. The utilities are only going to do this if it is cheaper than using their own batteries which means I would not be adequately compen sated for the wear and tear of my batteries which are much more expensive t han the utility's. Before you go into a cost analysis, remember that I am not pay a rate for buying millions of kWh of storage. I am paying for auto parts from a auto manufacturer. $22,000 for 100 kWh is what I was told fo r a Tesla battery. I think the utility would get a far better rate and so would not adequately compensate a car owner. What you are suggesting is a bit like connecting a belt to the driving wheels of an ICE to drive a gener ator to make electricity. No one is going to wear out their expensive auto engine when they can buy a generator much more cheaply.

I will likely ignore your reply since you insist on ignoring the realities of this issue and won't acknowledge the facts that I provide.

That perception also hold w.r.t. you.

Building the PV modules from the cells seems to be quite an important art... Connecting the cells together, adding bypass diodes properly and choosing good diodes are really important for module life. We have seen poorly manufactured modules that delaminated and only lested a few years although the cells themselves were fine. There's quite a bit involved in doing it correctly. And PV companies come and go these days. Enough so that you have to be careful that the company is still going to be around to honor their many year warranties. Kyocera was very good at not letting their batches of modules leave customers high and dry several years ago. Now they aren't sold here in the US anymore I don't think. I was lucky to get a couple palettes of modules for 35 cents per watt or so.

te:

You've missed the point about economies of scale. About twenty years ago Ge rmany put everybody else's photovoltaic cell production lines out of busine ss, by investing a lot in production line that churned out cells in ten tim es the volume that anybody else did. That did involve inventing better ways of getting them together, but it halved the unit.

They had a virtual monoply for a few years before other manufactures invest ed in similar manufacturing hardware.

A few years ago now, China pulled the same trick, and wiped the floor with that generation of manufacturing plants. The Chinese-manufactured cells see m to be cheap enough to used for utility generation, so therre's now probab ly a big enough market to justify another factor of ten ramp-up in manufact urering scale, with it's likely consequence of another halving of the unit cost.

End-of-line bargain.