I’ve always said this! Make daytime energy 100x cheaper and the market will respond.
Appliances will start building in batteries, behaviors will change , and who knows what else the market will come up with.
Appliances will start building in batteries, behaviors will change , and who knows what else the market will come up with.
The most electricity should cost at night is approximately what it does now, because you can get that from nuclear or hydro, and why wouldn't you unless you have an alternative that costs less than that?
The lowest sustainable daytime price has to pay for the panels, the labor to install them, the land, maintenance, loan interest etc. And a significant part of the consumer price for all sources is the distribution grid. The price difference is not going to be a factor of 100, and you'd be lucky to get a factor of 2 and still be able to pay back your costs, no matter how cheap the panels themselves get.
Perhaps not x100, but likely more than you think too, as european domestic PV installation costs were significantly lower than US installation costs last time I compared them.
I'm not sure what installation costs are now, but here in Germany several local supermarkets are selling PV systems you can install yourself on your apartment balcony for €199:
https://www.archyde.com/the-lidl-parkside-solar-panel-review...
I've seen other things like this with batteries for a similar price, though I can't remember the brand or exact specs.
(1) Transmission: When it is night somewhere, it is daytime somewhere else. All you need is transmission lines. Shipping electricity is so much easier than shipping fossil fuels, 40% of all shipping[1]: https://qz.com/2113243/forty-percent-of-all-shipping-cargo-c.... With vertical panels we can capture power early mornings and evenings, reducing the duck curve, but also for transmitting power long distances. There are long undersea cables being deployed, Denmark Wind to England recently, Morocco to Europe, Singapore to Australia. These can be bidirectional.
(2) CSPs with molten salt storage: In addition to solar panels, we could also leverage CSPs and provide 24/7 power. Hopefully, CSPs follow the same learning rate as panels: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012018/csp-concentrated...
(3) EVs: EVs can absorb power whenever it is overabundant. Power prices go negative 200 million times a year, EVs can charge at that time. Eventually, we'll have 100 - 200m cars, this is a gigantic, distributed and resilience battery. Cars are parked 22 - 23 hours/day, their primary purpose is energy storage, we get to take a ride on them for some time during the day.
(4) Wind: Wind is not daytime only. We can overprovision wind also, which complements with solar. "Offshore wind farms generate electricity from wind blowing across the sea. They are considered more efficient than onshore wind farms, thanks to the higher speed of winds, greater consistency and lack of physical interference that the land or human-made objects can present.": https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012018/csp-concentrated...
We switched from circuit switched networks (the dominant network since 1850 telegraphs till early 2000, about 150 years), to packet switched networks. Packet switched networks transformed telecom infrastructure which led to all the developments we see today and the cost reduction to zero, which was unimaginable to anyone until early 2010s. Telegraph/phone used to cost a lot! We can imagine similar trajectory with electricity, the legacy grid being the equivalent of circuit switched network, which will be replaced with a new grid, with EVs taking the role of energy "switches" (store and forward switches enabled packed switched networked, store energy and supply the grid back with a few hours latency is the role of EVs)
1) Transmission takes time and $$$ to build (especially to get the land). Maintenance ain't cheap either. Longer transmission == greater losses.
2) CSP requires a specialized site and equipment, with limited generation/storage and greater losses
3) EVs as batteries to back up the grid externalizes battery wear to car owners. To compensate owners would probably cost more than just building dedicated battery back up on the grid (which would be much more reliable). This idea has never made sense to me.
4) Wind is a great resource, but also variable. There will be times when the wind doesn't blow at night.
Even demand management can be an externalized cost. If a factory shuts down half the time, then you need twice as many factories to produce the same stuff.
No. It means you might need twice as much of whatever the bottleneck is, assuming that's a real time manufacturing resource which it might well not be. You definitely don't need twice as many whole factories. And if that bottlebeck isn't energy intensive that's not the problem at all, you can just re-arrange the energy intensive parts and you won't even need more factory.