Thank you to Jenny Chase for joining us on Cleaning Up. Did you know she has a book? Solar Power Finance Without the Jargon: www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0437#t=aboutBook
Wonderful insight into how you both got going in this tectonic industry. Neither of you should be shy in telling your stories. They are fascinating and educational.
So glad to see Jenny Chase here, I followed her on Twitter where she regularly contributed real world perspectives on solar, based on real numbers, not wishful thinking.
Very interesting interview. In terms of night/day variation, this will be easily solved by batteries and by smart charging of ev's. Seasonal variation is a bigger problem and more like 10-1 ratio of summer generation to lowest winter generation in the uk. However, this can be reduced further by a) tilting utility scale solar panels to position them almost vertically (which I understand reduces the ratio to more like 5:1 and b) vertical solar which reduces it to more like 3:1 or 2:1. This would limit the overbuilding needed and avoid price spikes in winter. Subsidies should prioritise wind and solar that will maximise generation in winter (when demand is highest) and rather than Solar that generates mostly in summer and a tiny amount in winter. In terms of the wind slowdown, I think that is mostly a western phenomenon with Chinese turbine manufacturers (like Goldwind) going from strength to strength and building record size wind turbines at much lower cost than Western OEMS. I bought the book last year when it first came out and whilst the title of the book sounds boring and undersells it, the content of the book is excellent and worth reading for anyone interested in solar, it shows the remarkable growth from minor niche industry to global juggernaut. Its a lot more than a dry look at solar finance. This and John Perlins book (Let it shine) are the two best books on solar energy that I've read and often cover different periods (historical v modern) and complement each other well.
Excellent episode as always. On solution to the winter, or more precisely the Dunkelflaute, that I don’t hear talked about is the fact that in those parts of the world where this is an issue (e.g. Europe), there is already a fleet of conventional power plants that can act as back up. The fixed opex of a German 600MW coal plant that is already built and depreciated and is run 2 weeks in January/February is extremely cheap compared to everything else. Fully agree with Jenny that European energy policy must prioritize Wind.
Michael. Excellent podcast as always. I'd just like to pick up on dunkelflaute which is mentioned a couple of times and what we're going to use to solve the problem. Hydrogen was mentioned, but as we all know it is fairly problematical not least because, if there is an alternative technology that could operate at around double the round trip efficiency, have at least 3 times the energy storage density (just to clarify volumetric) and probably wouldn't need geological storage to make it viable, so could be located more or less anywhere, why on earth would anyone want to use hydrogen. If you would like a bit more info on this, I sent you a Linkedin message on the 30th of March and a follow-up email on the 9th of April, I'd really be interested in your thoughts on these.
PV panels costing $0.10/Watt; lowest LCOE in history; over 1 TW/year manufacturing capacity and growing; no moving parts. The main constraint appears to be human appreciation for the cornucopia arrayed before us. A single panel and small battery brings cell phone charging and LED lighting to a poor village, IF and only if they know it's available. A gigawatt scale plant can best realize its value with real-time pricing. Imagine an energy economy dominated by inexpensive PV. How will people possibly know when power is cheap and it's time to charge the car? Answer: when it's nice and sunny outside! Riding through the dreaded dunkelflaute? Use whatever option is second-best in a PV world. One can foresee lots of spare combined cycle gas capacity left from the current fleet.
Perhaps you could discuss the 'overbuild' in China to 'land grab' its marketshare. Which will end in collapse of many manufacturers. Also no discussion of the UKs terrible FIT contract which they pay in perpetuity. Finally could discuss locational efficiency which is about 5-10% in UK latitudes?
At about 50min you said no one would run an electrolysis factory part time, namely 25% of the year. Couple of thoughts, there will be spare electricity for loads more than 25% and why wouldn’t a factory run part time? We will need the hydrogen and there would be only modest cost to having the factory idle because electrolysis is not labour intensive and can be easily turned on and off. You would need a rather large tank to keep the hydrogen in but there are possibilities if using exhausted gas wells. Just thinking out loud.
V2G and V2H will eventually solve the problem of solar overproduction in sunny seasons. The problem will remain the winter away from equators. There some wind, especially offshore, can help, or small scale nuclear.
Really excellent interview except when dealing with the problem of excess solar production in one half of the year versus underproduction in the other half. For one thing it was very norther hemisphere centric. Let's remember that a majority of the world's population live in climates where most of the year has enough solar to power their grids and battery storage offers enough to make up any shortfall. Moreover, the improving efficiency of solar panels as a silicon technology is almost guaranteed to keep going and thus keep increasing our ability to collect more of the sun's energy. Even in the coldest and cloudiest day of winter the energy from the sun is remarkable. As evidenced by the fact that temperatures would drop to minus 30 degrees centigrade globally within 3 days if the sun ceased to rise or was obscured by a nuclear war. Last but not least, there are many cheap means of storing energy for prolonged periods during the winter. This is a very new problem that will start to be addressed in the next two decades.
The second of yours I have listened to. Both have taught me so much. I do wonder if you would have a wider reach if you did a full but also an edited down version of each podcast. So 10 to 15 mins max. Even if sometimes it generates two shorter ones but with different elements to them as opposed to a part A and a part B on the same topic. .
Why should we be worried about needing to overbuild solar or wind capacity? We've overbuilt fossil fuel power plants anyway. Gas peaker plants are profitable even though they only operate for 4 hours a day!
@@PinataOblongata It should only be stored if that's less expensive than producing additional power. The world is full of under-utilised assets. A bed is only slept in 30% of the time. A car is only driven 4% of the time. A gas peaking plant is only used 15% of the time. A spare room only hosts guests 2% of the time. Office deasks are only used 20% of the time. Airline seats are only 65% filled. Why should renewable capacity be the only type of asset we expect to achieve 100% utilisation?
@@davieb8216 I doubt it has to reach zero cost to be competitive. I also don't think every environmental solution should be expected to be cheaper than a polluting option. Sick of the attitude that we're not going to adopt something cleaner, whether it's in energy generation or product packaging or whatever, just because the solution is 2c dearer per unit. We got money to waste on militaries and prisons, so...
All the people going gaga over solar power advances can never articulate any particular advancement. What happened is that China took over the polysilicon market. They don't have to worry about scrutiny over environmental or labor practices and they have lots of coal plants to power the process of making polysilicon.
@@mdombroski I agree about the extra land. However, with the coming disruption of the meat and dairy industry, there will be many, many times the required land freed up-continental scale stuff. On the other hand, have you really looked at the water usage of nuclear power and the impact of scaling it?
I admit I tapped on this one because I already think so… But I’ll try to be skeptical. 🧐 …23 minutes in…still waiting. 43 minutes in: diverse power sources. Really? Nevermind…
I like solar, i think jenny must be a great person and Id like to know more about her book..... but this interview had two people with raging adhd, and instead of just a fun conversation, its a panic to get to random facts throughout the topic, and then a panic to get to the next topic. SLOW DOWN.
Grid-level solar is the most expensive way to produce reliable, dispatchable electricity and always will be. Now if the goal is degrowth and deindustrialization as it is in Germany, wind and solar are perfect.
Won't solar overcapcity solve the hydrogen exergy problem? Michael is (again) grossly underestimating solar and the proportion of the year which will be negative wholesale prices.. 8hrs per day for 66% of the year is around 25% of the year. Admittedly membrane cost needs to come down for this to become economic.
You won't get free power 66% of the year or every energy generator is bankrupt. Say it's 6 hours per day for 1/3 of the year, that's 8% of the time. No investor is going to build a green hydrogen plant to work just 8% of the year. What you are actually going to do is get free electricity 8% of the time, and pay for it the rest of the time. And that is ignoring the fact that you are in competition for that free power with every other flexible user - batteries, heat pumps, EV charging, thermal storage, desalination, batch industrial processes, etc. So say you get free power 8% of the time, that means the 40% of the cost of green hydrogen that is driven by electricity costs goes down by 8%, giving you a cost reduction of 3.2%.Whoopee! Now let's say not just membranes, but whole electrolyser stacks become quasi-free, just like solar panels. Your problem is, they only account for 11% of the cost of green hydrogen, so that's another 11% cost reduction, for a total of 15%. The rest of your cost is stuff like pipes, flanges, heat exchangers, compressors, tanks, power equipment, civil engineering. Good luck pushing the cost of that stuff down by more than a few percent per year. You can claim I am grossly underestimating this or that, but all this is what the data says. Oh, and finally, it doesn't matter how much solar overcapacity there is, and how cheap it gets - it is always going to be at least 3x cheaper to use it directly than to waste 2/3 and incur a whole bunch of capex and complexity to turn it into green hydrogen. You can't make a 1kg cake that is cheaper than 1kg of flour.
Hi @@MLiebreich, appreciate the reply, I hope it helps the Algo. Of course what I write below depends on location, but I am assuming central/northern european climate and seasons because that's where I live. 1) I didn't mean 66% of the year - I wrote 2/3 of the year * 8 hrs a day = 2/9, which is 22% (true, not 25%) of the year. I think you are grossly underestimating what the overcapacity of solar will be with only a 8% prediction. Solar will be built for that extra 14% delta between our predictions given the learning rates and alternatives. Wind overproduction is also a thing already in Sweden for example which affects prices for the entire Nordpool, along with german solar. 2) You will only operate when prices are low, ie aforementioned 22% + probably another 11% or total 0.33 capacity factor. The energy cost will probably be below the solar LCOE price, which is coming down as noted in the video. Hydorgen producers will be arbitraging energy prices, even with a efficiency of 0.25, there should be money to be made given future seasonal extremes. This however requires that stacks are cheap - and this is the MOST important unknown variable for the future of hydrogen industry - as we've seen for solar learning curve projections are tough to get right. For production facilities daily gas buffering will be required and HP compressors and perhaps liquefaction will run 24h, even on expensive energy (10-15% of energy demand compared to the stacks). As you said CAPEX drives these prices rather than OPEX. This means you need only a third of most of the pipes, flanges, civil, etc. This is the same concept as having batteries etc to buffer Xlinks. Power equipment unfortunately cannot be downscaled as much for hydrogen as the peak duty will still remain during stack operation, unless batteries become that cheap... 3) There are maybe other options for seasonal balance, but they all have downsides. I haven't seen any convincing argument for anything else that can actually manage seasonal storage. Please convince me. a) Gas peaker - fossils can work obviously, but with CCS will be a non-starter. Biofuels should be prioritised for this use, but limited supply. b) hydro - great where it is available, ie scandinavia but won't work in Germany. c) north-south HVDC - will be largest competitor with hydrogen. This is also a huge investment, political risk, etc. 4) Assuming all biofuels are used for seasonal grid balancing, there are currently no solutions for deep sea maritime or aviation that don't involve hydrogen or it's derivatives. Perhaps electrochemical batteries can compete for 50-75% of marine transport, but there is still a huge problem remaining. In summary: Energy will be arbitraged by season even with huge losses inherent in hydrogen production and storage. Energy will be expensive during dunkelflaute.. Stacks will be used ~1/3 of the year, and only when energy is dirt cheap. Plants will be built with buffering of CAPEX intensive equipment to allow for 24h operation of HPC and Liquefaction. Hydrogen derivatives will be used for long-haul shipping and aviation and probably be 2x the current cost as there are no alternatives..... Or we will continue to use fossils.. Short-haul maritime will be dominated by cheap batteries. The cake will sell for more than flour in the winter... // Process engineer who designs and builds fuel supply systems in the maritime industry. (yes I work with pipes, flanges and chemical fuels - there's my bias).
Technology may have advanced enough to release civilization from the confines of the second law of thermodynamics. These confines were imposed on us by Victorian England's scientific and religious culture in their fascination with steam engines. The second law is behind modern refgeration needing electrical energy to compress the refrigerent to force it to release as waste the heat that it has removed from the refrigerator's service interior in the cooling part of the refrigerent's circulation. There is also discarded heat from mechanical friction. Refrigeration by the principle that energy is conserved should produce electricity instead of consuming it. It makes more sense that refrigerators should yield electricity because energy is widely known to change form with no ultimate path of energy gain or loss being found. Therefore any form of fully recyclable energy can be cycled endlessly in any quantity. In an extreme case senario full heat recycling all electric very isolated underground undersea or space communities would be highly survivable with self sufficient EMP resistant LED light banks, automated vertical farms, thaw resistant frozen food storehouses, factories, dwellings, and self contained elevators and horizontal transports. In a flourishing civillization senario small self sufficient electric or cooling devices of many kinds and styles like lamps smartphones, hotplates, water heaters, cooler chests, fans, radios, TVs, cameras, security devices. power hand tools, pumps, and personal transports, would be available for immediate use anywhere as people see fit. Larger equipment would be built for enterprise use. If a high majority thinks our civilization should geoengineer gigatons or teratons of carbon dioxide out of our etnvironment, instalations using devices that convert ambient heat into electricity can hypothetically be scaled up do it with a choice of comsequences including many beneficial ones. Energy sensible refrigerators that absorb heat and yield electricity would complement computers as they consume electricity and yield heat. Computing would be free. A simple rectifier crystal can, iust short of a replicatable long term demonstration of a powerful prototype, almost certainly filter the random thermal motion of electrons or discrete positiive charged voids called holes so the electric current flowing in one direction predominates. At low system voltage a filtrate of one polarity predominates only a little but there is always usable electrical power derived from the source, which is Johnson Nyquest thermal electrical noise. This net electrical filtrate can be aggregated in a group of separate diodes in consistent alignment parallel creating widely scalable electrical power. The maximum energy is converted from ambient heat to productive electricity when the electrical load is matched to the array impeadence. Matched impeadence output (watts) is k (Boltzman's constant, 1.38^-23, times T (tempeature Kelvin) times bandwidth (0 Hz to a natural limit ~2 THz @ 290 K) times rectification halving and nanowatt power level rectification efficiency times the number of diodes in the array. For reference, there are a billion cells of 1000 square nanometer area each per square millimeter, 100 billion per square centimeter. Order is imposed on the random thermal motion of electrons by the structual orderlyness of a diode array made of diodes made within a slab: v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v All the P type semiconductor anodes abut a metal conductive plane deposited on the top face of the slab with nonrectifying joins; all the N type semiconductor cathodes abut the bottom face. As the polarity filtered electrical energy is exported, the amount of thermal energy in the group of diodes decreases. This group cooling will draw heat in from the surrounding ambient heat at a rate depending on the filtering rate and thermal resistance between the group and ambient gas, liquid, or solid warmer than absolute zero. There is a lot of ambient heat on our planet, more in equatorial dry desert summer days and less in polar desert winter nights. Focusing on explaining the electronic behavior of one composition of simple diode, a near flawless crystal of silicon is modified by implanting a small amount of phosphorus (N type)on one side from a ohmic contact end to a junction where the additive is suddenly and completely changed to boron (P type) with minimal disturbance of the crystal lattice. The crystal then continues to another ohmic contact. A region of high electrical resistance forms at the junction in this type of diode when the phosphorous near the ĵunction donates electrons that are free to move elsewhere while leaving phosphorus ions held in the crystal while the boron ions donate holes which are similalarly free to move. The two types of mobile charges mutually clear each other away near the junction leaving little electrical conductivity. An equlibrium width of this region is settled between the phosphorus, boron, electrons, and holes. Thermal noise is beyond steady state equlibrium. Thermal noise transients, where mobile electrons move from the phosphorus added side to the boron added side ride transient extra conductivity so the forward moving electrons are preferentally filtered into the external circuit. Electrons are units of electric current. They lose their thermal energy of motion and gain electromotive force, another name for voltage, as they transition between the junction and the array electrical tap. Inside the diode, heat is absorbed: outside the diode, an attached electrical circuit is energized. Understanding diodes is one way to become convinced that Johnson Nyquest thermal electrical noise can be rectified and aggregated. Self assembling development teams may find many ways to accomplish this wide mission. Taxonomically there should be many ways ways to convert heat directly into electricity. A practical device may use an array of Au needles in a SiO2 matrix abutting N type GaAs. These were made in the 1970s when registration technology was poor so it was easier to fabricate arrays and select one diode than just make one diode. There are other plausible breeches of the second law of thermodynamics. Hopefully a lot of people will join in expanding the breech. Please share the successes or setbacks of your efforts. These devices would probably become segmented commodities sold with minimal margin over supply cost. They would be manufactured by advanced automation that does not need financial incentive. Applicable best practices would be adopted. Business details would be open public knowledge. Associated people should move as negotiated and freely and honestly talk. Commerce would be a planetary scale unified conglomerate of diverse local cooperatives. There is no need of wealth extracting top commanders. We do not need often token philanthropy from the top if the wide majority can afford to be generous. Aloha Charles M Brown Kilauea Kauai Hawaii 96754
"Technology may have advanced enough to release civilization from the confines of the second law of thermodynamics." But, then again, it may not. I know which side I am on the question.
