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ejpierle t1_j7k4kpp wrote

That's 24x more than what's required to go back to the future!

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WatchmanVimes t1_j7lohtz wrote

29.1 Gigawatts! Great Scott! How could I have been so careless?! Tom how am I gonna generate that kind of power? It cant be done!

Marty: We'll use solar

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T00luser t1_j7l38n8 wrote

lord we have SO much untapped wind capacity in Michigan due to the lakes. but it seems like every turbine is a fight-to-the-death.

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ahz0001 t1_j7krxjb wrote

After this is added, how much will still be generated from coal and natural gas?

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matt7810 t1_j7l65p2 wrote

The US has about 1143GW of total generating capacity and about 4.12 trillion kWh of net generation per year. Each GW of solar energy capacity produces about 1.753×10^9 kWh of electricity per year based on an average capacity factor of 20%.

My personal guess is that coal production will continue to fall while natural gas generation will stay approximately the same because of the demand in 5, 15 minute markets but increasing prices leading to less new projects.

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somdude04 t1_j7lu09s wrote

So roughly 1.25% of annual generation will be this new large-scale solar.

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matt7810 t1_j7m36q1 wrote

Looks like that is approximately correct. Some of that production may be lost to plant activities (to line up with "net generation" definition), so this % may be a bit high, but it is in the ballpark.

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commonemitter t1_j7lvnfq wrote

Solar can never replace base load.

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RemoveInvasiveEucs t1_j7n4csk wrote

Not quite, battery storage is feasible and converts solar into a dispatchsble resource that is even better than baseload. You could run solar+batteries as baseload, but it's less desirable than fully dispatchsble.

And as the report says, there's 9.4GW of batteries to go with the 29GW of solar. As more solar is installed on the grid, the ratio of battery to storage will increase, to make sure that the energy is delivered at the right time. But we are in the early days of solar deployment, so not much storage is needed.

So there is a lot of reason for rejoicing at this news.

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DistinctRole1877 t1_j7k3wye wrote

Where are all these panels made?

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AssroniaRicardo t1_j7l7itn wrote

I look at it this way… The way panels are made and now they’re good for like five decades.. probably longer now.

So I’m OK with buying a crap ton of Chinese made panels it could be the leap that we need until we figure out something better

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ga-co t1_j7lexzy wrote

Are they really good for 50 years?

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fmfbrestel t1_j7lh1om wrote

Depends if you're okay letting your installation drop to 70% or possibly 60% of it's rated power. The panels don't just break after 25 years they just slowly lose power capacity.

I would hope that old solar farms just get new contracts with reduced terms, or new panels added to the existing set (space permitting) to top it back up to capacity.

That's something we'll have to look out for. If companies are throwing away 25-year-old solar panels, just because the power output dropped some, that's shitty and wasteful.

Profitable companies are sometimes shitty but rarely wasteful. So I have hope.

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[deleted] t1_j7llona wrote

[deleted]

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fmfbrestel t1_j7ltav3 wrote

The rate of decline has slowed down a lot. They might get cheaper but there's a fundamental limit to how efficient they can be, and we're already reasonably close.

Still. Free, because it's already there and producing power, albeit at a lower rate, will always beat not free.

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AssroniaRicardo t1_j7mqefv wrote

Most panels after 10 years are still outputting at 95%. Keep them clean.

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ga-co t1_j7lhchv wrote

I’ve always thought it was 1% per year loss of efficiency. I have a few panels on their third year and I feel like I’ve noticed a small drop off in performance.

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fmfbrestel t1_j7lt07c wrote

They tend to lose more in the first 5 years or so, and then the rate of decline flattens out somewhat.

But lots of variables are at play. The hotter the panels get the more they'll degrade, that's a big one. So panels in a field with good airflow around the mountings tend to stay cooler than panels mounted to rooftops with little to zero air flow behind them, and will degrade slower.

Manufacturers don't like losing money to warranty claims, so go take a look at almost any panel manufacturer and their power output guarantees. You'll see a quicker decline in the first few years then the rate of decline will shallow out a lot. And those guarantee figures are always going to be conservative in respect to what they actually expect to happen.

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amoral_ponder t1_j7n6rni wrote

How about energy storage capacity?

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Wy_Guy19 t1_j7ntn6l wrote

I believe it. I do civil site design for commercial scale solar and we're swamped with work. Currently working 5 projects very understaffed and no over time approval it's some BS.

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FindTheRemnant t1_j7npviz wrote

Divide by 3 to get the actual amount of power generated.

Also China says thanks for buying all the solar panels.

0

Budson420 t1_j7kt861 wrote

Okay now do nuclear next

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bnetimeslovesreddit t1_j7kd6wy wrote

Australia has 200GW of power. Just give you a country scale has capacity

For USA that’s very small for 29GW

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[deleted] t1_j7kg0t8 wrote

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bnetimeslovesreddit t1_j7khkbb wrote

Its limits is how fast government can approve projects, find skilled workers or train up new ones and order the parts and deliver them then install them. Then there need to be upgrades to power grids done to reformat things for renewables

Morrison government would take there time and any project that makes labor person look good is being fast track

To answer the question there too many google results to predict how much renewable we will have by 2030. The answers varies

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[deleted] t1_j7kmedp wrote

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bnetimeslovesreddit t1_j7no1pj wrote

If you go back you mentioned by 2030

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[deleted] t1_j7npqca wrote

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Cloud_Matrix t1_j7l55vc wrote

How is adding roughly 1/6th of Austrailia's power generation of solely renewable in a single year small?

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Psychomadeye t1_j7odrhs wrote

How much is Australia adding this year? They will need to grow approximately fifteen percent by year end to keep pace.

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ragnarok62 t1_j7l5bwc wrote

And it’s still failing to power the country adequately.

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