You say the logic of distributed battery + solar being so cheap will mean this trend will continue, which I agree with, given the current cost analysis.
But isnt this just an artifact of how electricity is priced for individual consumers? If real mid-day market electricity costs (=0€/MWh) were even slightly reflected in consumer billings, the cost analysis would be completely different
I have a rooftop solar array providing about 2/3rds of our electricity demand. The electricity bill has dropped by about 40%.. the taxes and fees are still being billed especially T&D charges but the energy side is going down
Well there's lots of electricity prices. Some are definitely dropping, and some are going up. But the trend in spot market is for prices to go down as you bring in more zero- marginal cost supply.
Note that cost, and prices - and value - are different things (I have an earlier post on that topic a few months back)
Thanks for this column and for the excellent education on wind power in your others. For the long-term trajectory *in rich Westernized countries* I recommend Liebrich's discussion[1] which adds some detail. Beware Jacobson's prophecies, which don't grapple with the political-economic complexities as Liebrich's do. C.f. https://gregor.us 's excellent work on the persistence of fossil fuel long-term across the world.
You are absolutely correct on the risk of hollowed-out demand; note also that billing structures are designed for high-inertia turbines and arbitrary peaks rather than instant-dispatch batteries and predictable evening peaks.
A simple way to estimate the contribution of rooftop solar is to look at the Caiso demand trend[2] on 8 April 2024 (just after the equinox), when there was a partial eclipse. It jumped about 5GW above trend line an hour before solar (not clock) noon. We also know that California has about 20 GW each of utility-scale and behind the meter solar, and that each is growing about 2GW annually. We had negative demand on the last *winter solstice*! We are deploying storage incredibly fast, but not fast enough to keep up with solar, which means ...
... everyone should ask the question: "what can we do with an absurd overabundance of power 4 hours/day"? One maximalist answer is Terraform Industry's.[3] You can be less ambitious and still exciting ...
Hello Jerome
You say the logic of distributed battery + solar being so cheap will mean this trend will continue, which I agree with, given the current cost analysis.
But isnt this just an artifact of how electricity is priced for individual consumers? If real mid-day market electricity costs (=0€/MWh) were even slightly reflected in consumer billings, the cost analysis would be completely different
Electricity prices are not dropping.
I have a rooftop solar array providing about 2/3rds of our electricity demand. The electricity bill has dropped by about 40%.. the taxes and fees are still being billed especially T&D charges but the energy side is going down
Well there's lots of electricity prices. Some are definitely dropping, and some are going up. But the trend in spot market is for prices to go down as you bring in more zero- marginal cost supply.
Note that cost, and prices - and value - are different things (I have an earlier post on that topic a few months back)
Thanks for this column and for the excellent education on wind power in your others. For the long-term trajectory *in rich Westernized countries* I recommend Liebrich's discussion[1] which adds some detail. Beware Jacobson's prophecies, which don't grapple with the political-economic complexities as Liebrich's do. C.f. https://gregor.us 's excellent work on the persistence of fossil fuel long-term across the world.
You are absolutely correct on the risk of hollowed-out demand; note also that billing structures are designed for high-inertia turbines and arbitrary peaks rather than instant-dispatch batteries and predictable evening peaks.
A simple way to estimate the contribution of rooftop solar is to look at the Caiso demand trend[2] on 8 April 2024 (just after the equinox), when there was a partial eclipse. It jumped about 5GW above trend line an hour before solar (not clock) noon. We also know that California has about 20 GW each of utility-scale and behind the meter solar, and that each is growing about 2GW annually. We had negative demand on the last *winter solstice*! We are deploying storage incredibly fast, but not fast enough to keep up with solar, which means ...
... everyone should ask the question: "what can we do with an absurd overabundance of power 4 hours/day"? One maximalist answer is Terraform Industry's.[3] You can be less ambitious and still exciting ...
[1] https://mliebreich.substack.com/p/decarbonizing-the-last-few-percent
[2] https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/demand and set the date pulldown
[3] https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2024/10/04/terraform-industries-master-plan/