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consider the implications for a post scarcity future (slrpnk.net)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net
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[–] 10 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I hate to be the akshully guy but the big problem isn’t economics but usage. We can’t store electricity at any kind of meaningful scale so generation needs to be balanced to meet demand. Unused excess power needs to go somewhere, hence the negative prices (the market way of saying, “please somebody take this electricity it’s doing more harm than good on the grid”).

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I like the system where the excess power is used to pump water into a reservoir up a mountain and when power is needed it runs it down a turbine into a lower reservoir.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Most places where this can be done, it is already being done. The low hanging fruit for pumped hydro was all picked decades ago, and at great cost to the ecosystems it destroyed in the process - turns out that drowning thousands of acres in massive man-made lakes had a bit of an impact on the plants and animals that lived there.

    Not saying that the benefits weren't worth the cost, that's a whole different debate. But there's little to no opportunity to scale this energy storage tech beyond it's current footprint.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Shutting down solar is super easy. You just need a switch. Wind is a bit more complicated, but it is basically stopping the rotor. The reason for negative prices are subsidies. So they can sell to the government or get some extra money as to be able to operate them properly.

    Also we do not need to store insane amounts of electricity. As soon as your grid is large enough weather balances itself out fairly well. For the EU the worst production of solar and wind combined was still 897GWh in a day last year. The average was 1770GWh per day. So worst case it was half the average prodcution. If you go weekly it is 9335GWh and 12423GWh respectivly so even less. So you really only need a good enough grid and something like a days worth of storage. That actually ends up being pretty reasonable, as soon as you consider stored hydro and other flexible electricity generation.

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