Some key insights from the article:
Basically, what they did was to look at how much batteries would be needed in a given area to provide constant power supply at least 97% of the time, and the calculate the costs of that solar+battery setup compared to coal and nuclear.
I you live where sun is abundant all year round… In which case (Las Vegas?) I would question the choice of having humans living in a fucking desert in the first place. But man I wish I could cover my needs between October and March here in Europe but no battery will help me store so much for so long :-/
Does the wind blow year round? I’m imagining a similar case for wind, then you can say that for the union of these two sets, renewables are cheaper than legacy energy
Maybe bump that number slightly for places with hydro that can serve as a battery
I would have loved that but having a wind turbine is… not easy. Permits, psychotic attitude from neighbours… but that have been my go-to given we don’t have a stream to go hydro. I’m still happy with covering 8 ou of 12 months with our setup but it’s still unnerving to swallow the costs of the setup + utilities for winter months…
Residential wind for electricity generation is not really recommendable afaik, but it could be viable for some amount of heat generation, potentially: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/02/heat-your-house-with-a-mechanical-windmill/
“bad” solar areas are actually amazing for 9 months, and if you heating needs are met by other means, then winter can keep the lights on and still do cooking. The path to meeting winter heating needs is hot water and “heated dirt/sand” storage with hydronic floor heating (where more water is delivered at 30C is easier to manage than radiators at 80C) that can be stored during ample fall solar with no heat or cooling load.
Exactly that. My worst case winter month (not even by day and I like to be warm every day) is generating less than 25% of consumption. Not that other winter months are much better.
I feel you… I got a nice 3k€ to pay for electricity just for winter months and that’s with a quite performant heat pump. But at least zero emissions here…
I’ve got solar with net metering. But apparently I leave in a much gentler environment still, compared to you. Got a small house (<150sqm), winters reach -20°C and have sustained -10°C for multiple weeks and yet the bill hasn’t reached past 1400€/mo before solar panels. Everything in the house is runs on electricity.
With 2 electric cars… Belgium here so it’s not the tundra either but the house is sizeable and doesn’t share walls. Hot water alone was 150/200 kWh a month. It all adds…
Still a lot. I have to say my cost was before the “recent” hikes. Though my house doesn’t share walls either.
theres also nothing much going on LV too, limited schools and and private physicians.