Exponential
Battery prices plummetting, and V2G from EVs, is a path for near tropical regions to get to 90% solar energy. Robotics based manufacturing shifting to those regions is also a likely shift. Northern lattitude quality of life from global warming, is still a nice source of population attractiveness. Hydrogen made from solar is the path to 100% renewables and solar everywhere. Canada is a decent place for solar because of extremely long summer days. Canada can both make H2 in summer, and use H2 in winter. Even near tropical locations would have large spring and fall surpluses to cover near full summer demand from solar. They also need to make H2 from those surpluses.
To me that mostly means free or cheaper than zero electricity during peak time. That’s going to cause a total shift of mentalities as many “too inefficient” things will become a possibility.
I imagine it’ll shift the mentally on electric heating (mainly through heat pumps) first. People have been outright hostile towards it, but once energy’s free or negatively priced at peak, people will want to make the switch. People who own a large reservoir and a decently sized battery might be able to not pay for any heating or electricity in a good month.
As for industry, those that can allow for flexible production schedules will and in parts already have adapted to fluctuating energy prices. Whether that means less production in winter, or just adjust workflow so peak demand is during peak supply
It is a sign of market opportunity and batteries will come into play more.
But it will always be cheaper in the middle of the day so demand shift would be good.
Things like heating, cooling, water, washing, cleaning, charging. All being done in the middle of the day will be the easy wins.
But certainly in high production low usage times the arse is going to fall out of the price. But really how many processes can run for short durations? Most high energy processes are high capital and run 24/7.
Hopefully we will get to the time where atmospheric carbon scrubbing will be acceptable to discuss.
I’ve wondered about this too but it depends on how the utilities choose to structure pricing. Traditionally, negative energy prices have mainly existed in the wholesale market, not for individual energy consumers. But if that situation becomes more common, there may be incentives to adjust pricing structures.
That said, it utilities stand in the way and solar becomes cheap enough, it might start to make sense for energy-hungry customers who have the space to just build out their own system on site.
I am really hoping this can be a game changer for desalination because water shortages are already a major issue in arid places and those problems are not getting better any time soon.
I think the first place that will switch seriously to solar will attract a lot of energy-heavy industries that can have intermittent production but I suspect it will just be a bonus for the first country to do it.
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Could you kindly fuck off
Immediate disregard.
Nuclear is the only real green energy. Solar is too dependent on China and Russias lack of empathy for its citizens
Nuclear is centralized, so it’s not great for energy security. It also relies on the organization running the reactor and securing waste to be run effectively, not cutting corners for the sake of efficiency/profit. It has all of the same problems with mining and manufacturing solar does, so it doesn’t win there either.
I’ve seen that person in several threads now, always shilling for nuclear. I’m not sure why, but it’s always been at the expense of renewables
