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Comment by _xnmw | Hacker News Reader

Wow, the fact that "solar has scaled up faster than any other sources of electricity" is news to me, and very encouraging. Can anyone comment on the viability of solar in countries that are not so sunny? Rain, clouds, winter solstice etc.? At what latitude parallels does the cost/benefit curve start to decrease? Obviously solar is more viable near the equator.

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> "solar has scaled up faster than any other sources of electricity"

Every industrial revolution also happened faster then the previous one. Which is related, but indirectly.

Solar came to the fore at the apex of human industrial productivity (i.e. now, as opposed to any time in the past): so it would be very surprising if it didn't scale up faster then every previous energy source.

Which of course makes sense that it did: China is the largest manufacturing base the world has ever seen, solar panels are made in China, and China is one of the most recent major industrial revolutions.

This is one of those observations that doesn't really mean anything on it's own: any technology today which has an advantage should scale up faster then anything which came before, because we can make more stuff then before and have more wealth then before.

There is however a prominent energy historian/fossil shill/degrowther who has as a core thesis that energy transitions do not get faster. So it's good to hear the other side.

https://vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/2016-ERSS-...

Latitude is one factor and population density is another. If the density is low enough and the panels are cheap enough, you can find some essentially worthless land and install the panels there, and the investment will be worth it. For example, there are currently several multi-square-kilometer solar plants in various stages of planning in Finland.

> winter solstice

This is a real problem for solar in some places. But on the other hand two a few other things are (marginally) positives:

These places often have snow which contributes to better energy capture via scattering of light hitting the ground onto the panels.

Lower temperatures can often give better efficiency for the panels.

And most importantly: These places can have 20+ hours of daily sunlight in the summer.

The solar output for Nordic countries during the winter is basically 0. Which is a massive problem, because winter is also when you need the most energy.

During the summer, Nordics are already at solar capacity with electricity prices often dropping negative.

So basically you are producing electricity when it is already abundant and making nothing from it and not producing anything when it is actually needed.

This is why it makes sense to synthesize methane in summer, when electricity is super abundant, to use it in winter when energy is most needed.

Methane? Ammonia? Hydrogen? Molten salt? Sand battery?

What are the options for dwellings of various sizes for the unusual situation at extreme north latitudes ?

They do not live in isolation, >99.99% of the residential homes are connected to the national grid. They can still use hydro, wind, nuclear, and so on.

As for energy storage, for example: I am personally looking at a ground thermal unit which can store heat in the ground during the summer and cool the home at the same time. This stored heat can then be extracted for an increased COP during the cold months thereby reducing energy usage per degree of heating.

Is this any different from a heat pump that has a ground loop ?

Lots of pumps do not have the built-in functionality to do that natively (they need to bypass the heating element as I understand it).

There are add-ons such as https://thermia.com/products/accessories/cooling-module/

> During the summer, Nordics are already at solar capacity with electricity prices often dropping negative.

I expect air conditioning to remedy this. It's already July-in-May here in Hellsinki.

You can look at a world heat map plot of solar irradiance. That's one factor.

The other factor is seasonal variability, which is a harder problem to solve than low irradiance. Low irradiance can be solved by installing more panels, which will automatically be solved with future price declines.

Note the actual title of the graph is "Wind and Solar have scaled faster ...", which is a big part of the answer. The two techs (and now batteries) are very complementary.

Also, an underrated factor in cost/benefit of renewables (and nuclear) is interest rates and risk, as you borrow money up front and pay it off over decades.

This is a big factor in why Solar is deployed further north than you'd think it should if the earth was being managed by a benelovent dictator.

So as costs decrease solar deployment spreads both north and south.

depends: in EU, bc of unified grid, southern countries can provide electricity to northern ones + let's not forget abt nuclear which is still huge. + Wind can help too in N, Europe. For other countries that can't have such a cooperation, it's indeed harder

Grid is unified but you can't just transfer all electricity from producing areas to consuming areas, the capacity isn't there. You can't do that even within single countries let alone between countries. Say, connections from north to south in Sweden or north to south in Germany are woefully insufficient already now for current needs.

The energy intensive production has to be built close to the supply.

FWIW, the EU and ENTSO-E are quite aware of deficiencies in transfer capacity and are working on it.

The UK is about to spend £30Bn on transmission infrastructure. I'd be very surprised if other countries weren't doing similar.

https://inews.co.uk/news/business/national-grid-green-upgrad...

Sure, but these investments will still not enable large transfers between countries. Solar from Spain will not get transferred to Germany via power lines.

Sure, the goal isn't to replace entirely all energy needs, it's just that in winter some countries will overproduce while others underproduce. There are still other energy sources like nuclear in france or hydro&wind that will help smoothe the production/demand

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