This is a great article that uses real data to see how our grid world perform with greater wind, solar and storage. It shows that we can easily achieve a 95% renewable grid with a modest level of storage.
What i really like about this, is it has been running for 2 years now, and it is pragmatic about its aims (ie, not 100%), it aims for reality (this is real data that is collected weekly), and it looks at the cost (in $$ and CO2-e).
He sets some targets (60% Wind, 45% Solar + storage), then works off of the actual data to scale the wind & solar generation, to see how it would meet demand. excess is accumulated in storage (theoretical battery storage and actual hydro), and shortfalls is taken from storage.
The really nice part shows where “other” is required, in Australia’s case, existing fossil fueled peaker plants.
I often use his 1st year report to have the discussion with “non-believers” to show what is possible, and where the gaps are to achieveing a renewable grid.
Have a read and let me know what you think.
Australia’s solar market is un-price-gougey enough and electricity costs enough that I don’t think anyone would really consider not putting solar on a new build with a battery ready inverter. An investment that yields 50% return in the first year is a no brainer.
Virtual power plants seem a bit too silicon-valley, no need to demand people to submit to someone else controlling the AC when you can just ask instead. I don’t see anything wrong with a bounded variable time of use/feed-in tarriff (ie. Electricity will cost at least x, at most y, time-average z over the year, you get 30% of retail for feed-in and the prices are published day ahead). Let people own their own charger, inverter, and battery and decide for themselves what thresholds are for the controller (or opt into software).
(VPPs) Yep, but i guess if it doesnt work, we may need something different? VPPs can take advantage of wholesale swings in cost to better leverage the market. Maybe that is how a business is encouraged to put in charging capabilities (capex), they become part of a VPP, that will soak solar during the day. (jots idea down in my tech-bro notebook)
VPPs will likely work, and likely be foisted on us (fincance ghouls need something to leech off of). I was just dreaming of a better world where instead of calling it arbitrage and extracting the surplus value via a trading market, people could just go “I’ll set my car to charge on eco” and not have their value extracted.
As I get older, I realise it is because no one can be knowledgeable about everything, this is a niche that we know, and there will be many that don’t understand or really care.
Money pimuts it into something they understand, they want more for doing nothing, so they do it.