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by oezi
669 days ago
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I am sorry to say that I don't understand why solar without battery and solar+battery leads to different cost for firming in the Lazard. Shouldn't solar with battery already be pretty firm? Remember we primarily want to reduce carbon emissions and we do have a lot of fossil plants already around. |
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CAISO, 1st column, 1st bar: - blue is the cost of solar - beige is the cost of firming intermittency using gas
CAISO, 2nd column, 1st bar: - blue is the cost of solar+battery (max 4 hours) - beige is the cost of firming intermittency using gas
Using batteries improves the ELCC (contribution to meet peak demand), but it is not enough, so it has to be compensated somehow. Want to get a higher ELCC? Get a larger battery (and install more solar panels). Be aware, this is not a linear relationship: getting from 10 % to 20 % of renewables is cheaper than getting from 70 % to 80 % (this is why the costs are lower when the penetration rate shown in the slide is low). You reach a point where you just waste energy or need to pay to use it, like in Germany, Netherlands or Denmark.
There is no best energy source. There are different networks, energy mixes, needs, etc. Under CAISO, it is just more convenient to go with nuclear. Under SPP, solar has a very high ELCC and a very low penetration, which makes it convenient just to install solar, but up to which percentage?
Overall, some mix of renewables and nuclear, depending on the network, seems a reasonable solution. Otherwise we would need to go with fossil power plants to meet the remaining demand (carbon capture seems wishful thinking) or to over provision renewables while building incredibly large storage systems (be aware that there are places where fluctuation are not on a daily or weekly basis, but on a seasonal basis - good luck storing the energy for ~3 months using lithium ion batteries because you live in a polar region).
The book "How to avoid a climate disaster" (Bill Gates) has a chapter just for that. I would recommend it.