incredible milestone, but getting the power where it needs to go and storing it at scale are still the biggest problems. making the power is solved, moving it is next.
I think I'm missing your point. I'm under the impression that electricity has never been easy or cheap to move very far, and it's not clear to me how solar-generated electricity is different in that respect.
You're mixing up two different things. Moving electricity with HVDC is easy and cheap... building the grid infrastructure is, well, not so easy or cheap.
The system cost depends on connection queues, transmission buildout, substations, transformers, planning permission, curtailment, etc.
Production of transformers, cables, and labour capacity are bottlenecks. Planning is a bottleneck.
It annoys me grid issues get screamed at the top of the lungs in solar/wind, but powering AI DCs is crickets.
If grid concerns are that great then subsidize home solar + storage.
Oh wait! Power companies hate that.
Really? This is all posturing for maintaining regulatory capture and increasing monetary draws from government subsidies they go to the power companies and not with their customers.
Have solar + storage handle 60-80% of home electric needs, and the existing grid and generation fill the gaps.
Yeah, if the power companies want to install solar/wind/storage, they need to do changes. But hey, the LCOE of those is comprehensively less than coal/nuclear, even combined gas cycle now in many cases. So the utility company will do all of that because that way it makes more money.
Does this include residential solar? How do they measure or estimate that?
> How do they measure or estimate that?
I suppose they can compare actual grid usage with household data to estimate off-grid usage.
incredible milestone, but getting the power where it needs to go and storing it at scale are still the biggest problems. making the power is solved, moving it is next.
I think I'm missing your point. I'm under the impression that electricity has never been easy or cheap to move very far, and it's not clear to me how solar-generated electricity is different in that respect.
You're mixing up two different things. Moving electricity with HVDC is easy and cheap... building the grid infrastructure is, well, not so easy or cheap.
The system cost depends on connection queues, transmission buildout, substations, transformers, planning permission, curtailment, etc.
Production of transformers, cables, and labour capacity are bottlenecks. Planning is a bottleneck.
solar farms are often far from cities. moving that new power across the country is the real test.
Not for residential power...
It annoys me grid issues get screamed at the top of the lungs in solar/wind, but powering AI DCs is crickets.
If grid concerns are that great then subsidize home solar + storage.
Oh wait! Power companies hate that.
Really? This is all posturing for maintaining regulatory capture and increasing monetary draws from government subsidies they go to the power companies and not with their customers.
home solar is great. but big cities still need a massive grid update to use pure green power.
Why?
Have solar + storage handle 60-80% of home electric needs, and the existing grid and generation fill the gaps.
Yeah, if the power companies want to install solar/wind/storage, they need to do changes. But hey, the LCOE of those is comprehensively less than coal/nuclear, even combined gas cycle now in many cases. So the utility company will do all of that because that way it makes more money.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48492306