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U.S. solar will pass wind in 2025 and leave coal in the dust soon after (pv-magazine-usa.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Based on current deployment rates, it is likely that solar will surpass wind as the third-largest source of electricity. And solar may soon topple coal in the number two spot.

Looking ahead, through July 2028, FERC expects no new coal capacity to come online based on its “high probability additions” forecast. Meanwhile 63 coal plants are expected to be retired, subtracting 25 GW from the 198 GW total, and landing at about 173 GW of coal capacity by 2028. Meanwhile, FERC forecasts 92.6 GW of “high probability additions” solar will come online through July 2028.

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[–] 2 points 1 year ago (8 children)

What batteries exactly? The capacity required is huge.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    They can be distributed though. I Install solar, most of the systems we install with batteries end up selling back a significant portion of their charge to the grid (iirc our system wide average is 40% nightly resale)

    So not only is each house with a battery not using grid power at night, its powering almost half of an equivalently sized house.

    Granted, batteries are still on the expensive side, so these systems aren't coming enough ( I think we're at ~10% of our systems have a battery)

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Yeah, that's a step in correct direction, but can you guarantee that everybody can be powered 24/7 through renewables/batteries, specially during winter? Unless that's the case you still need a shit-ton of non-renewable energy that's coming either from fossil fuels or nuclear. And if you want to avoid (co2) emissions, then you need nuclear to cover everybody, and if you have nuclear then it has to run 100% 24/7. OTOH if you don't have nuclear, you'll emit all sort or crap during those periods. And so on. Also, it's not just that batteries are sort of expensive, they are big. Also you are talking houses, but masses live in apartments where placing solar panels or batteries isn't possible (at least in quantity).

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  • [+] -3 points 1 year ago* (3 children)
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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    Are you talking about batteries?

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  • [+] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I think you are wrong then. First, even Li-ion batteries are recyclable to a huge amount, usually the problem is that different manufacturers pack them differently without any blueprint and then it's much harder to recycle them. Then there are a ton of different chemistries with ones really harmless (i.e. using sodium instead of lithium) but they come with less energy density. Which isn't that important when it comes to energy storage for the network purpose but it's important when it comes to cars and portable electronic devices. Also different chemistries have different lifetime, i.e. LFP batteries have better durability and are less fire prone than the standard li-ion.

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  • [+] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    You have some valid points. Yes, economical aspect is crap, countries should push laws demanding that producers guarantee recycling and/or state clear lifecycle of the battery (actually it should be applied to all products). Even still, there are companies that do recycle batteries for profit, so it's not that absurd. But you miss the whole other aspect with different chemistries, many even harmless to the environment. You are focused only on current li-ion it seems which are not very network storage friendly anyway.

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