At COP28 in Dubai, there was an intensity of debate, a tsunami of evidence, a profusion of advocates, an electrifying urgency and a grasp of consequences we lack in New Zealand. Rod Oram reports.
I thought your point was that solar doesn’t help peak generation? Batteries are far cheaper per amount stored than they were 10 years ago, and power is more expensive.
Also one massive difference now compared to 10 years ago is that many banks will lend you cheap money in order to install solar (among other things), including battery systems. The only criteria is that you have a mortgage with them. Solar is massive business at the moment, when I checked it seemed there are dozens of companies doing solar and battery installs in Wellington alone.
The highest peak demand recorded in New Zealand was 7,100 MW, recorded between 18:00 and 18:30 on 9 August 2021.[70] The previous record was 6,924 MW, recorded between 18:00 and 18:30 on 29 June 2021.[71][72]
Correct, solar isn’t doing very much at that time of day, meaning you need a house battery to store and release energy in order to actually use the energy you generate.
Now, it’s not cost effective to size your battery to the point where you never need power from the grid, so most people will likely spec them to see them through the evening peak, most of the time. On days of peak demand, I imagine most of them would end up using power from the grid.
Things get even more absurd when you introduce EVs into the mix, because you then would be charging batteries off your batteries in order to use the car the next day.
The whole energy storage thing can be done much cheaper, and without the nasty chemicals in batteries, at grid scale with hydro.
I agree we are a long way from not needing a grid. I think the point of residential solar is that if you have solar panels on lots of houses, then part of the peak can be managed by stored power in batteries. You do this by using variable cost power (like some companies already do) along with battery systems that can schedule power from the battery for high cost times. All this technology already exists ,and means we don’t need more capacity (especially long distance line capacity) for moving the power, or for producing it because the issue is peak production not total production.
Pumped hydro is a great idea for power storage but the poster-child project has been cancelled now so it remains to be seen what will come of that.
I thought your point was that solar doesn’t help peak generation? Batteries are far cheaper per amount stored than they were 10 years ago, and power is more expensive.
Also one massive difference now compared to 10 years ago is that many banks will lend you cheap money in order to install solar (among other things), including battery systems. The only criteria is that you have a mortgage with them. Solar is massive business at the moment, when I checked it seemed there are dozens of companies doing solar and battery installs in Wellington alone.
From Wikipedia
Correct, solar isn’t doing very much at that time of day, meaning you need a house battery to store and release energy in order to actually use the energy you generate.
Now, it’s not cost effective to size your battery to the point where you never need power from the grid, so most people will likely spec them to see them through the evening peak, most of the time. On days of peak demand, I imagine most of them would end up using power from the grid.
Things get even more absurd when you introduce EVs into the mix, because you then would be charging batteries off your batteries in order to use the car the next day.
The whole energy storage thing can be done much cheaper, and without the nasty chemicals in batteries, at grid scale with hydro.
I agree we are a long way from not needing a grid. I think the point of residential solar is that if you have solar panels on lots of houses, then part of the peak can be managed by stored power in batteries. You do this by using variable cost power (like some companies already do) along with battery systems that can schedule power from the battery for high cost times. All this technology already exists ,and means we don’t need more capacity (especially long distance line capacity) for moving the power, or for producing it because the issue is peak production not total production.
Pumped hydro is a great idea for power storage but the poster-child project has been cancelled now so it remains to be seen what will come of that.