Comments on: Why Solar PV Without Subsidies Is A No-Brainer (UBS Study Part 2)

By: globi

globi — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 13:09:00 +0000

Still it doesn’t change the fact that Germany would need to install about 100 GW of PV in order to cover the entire electricity demand on very sunny days (Germany’s day demand is at least 70 GW (average demand is 68 GW based on Germany’s electricity consumption). Max PV power doesn’t go above 70% of total German PV capacity).
Also, 70 GW demand is without moving night-loads to daytime. Besides, it’s simply much more sensible to throttle rare PV peaks. (Having batteries in the basement to store rare PV peaks, is like having a back-up car in the basement for those rare cases when the subway is not running.)

100 GW of German PV won’t happen (at least not any time soon), since Germany is currently choking the build up of PV, with drastic FIT reductions. In addition, FIT for PV in Germany will be stopped completely at 52 GW.
Given the fact that consumers don’t even install efficient devices even though they are relatively cheap and have short pay back period, they will simply not invest in a much more expensive PV system and battery-back-up with a much longer payback period. Most people don’t know and don’t care how much electricity they consume and how electricity is being produced.
Italy has very high electricity prices and lots of sun (grid parity has been reached a while ago), but hardly anyone is installing PV. (Italy has almost solely large FIT-financed PV systems).

Of course and unfortunately, big companies always lobby governments to get whatever favors they can think of.

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:23:00 +0000

Your first paragraph is wrong. The chart shows that two years ago, solar and wind on the chosen day were almost completely filling daytime peak load, Two years on, with twice as much solar, the renewables (with assured priority) will be cutting into the fossil production assuming the same weather.
On the second, you are missing the mismatch between the points of view of utilities and consumers. The latter have no incentive to worry about what happens to the utilities’ bottom lines when they install PV and batteries. They will do it anyway as long as it pays, and watch the utilities squeal and run to the government for help, as is happening in Germany and (with greater success) in Spain.

By: globi

globi — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:36:00 +0000

Even on the sunniest days in Germany, the fossil power plants still need to increase their output during daytime, so installing batteries in German households would simply add costs and increase fossil fuel consumption (batteries do not have a 100% efficiency):http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o263/Daneelo/ET%20graphs/GermanEnergy/EEX_2012-05-11.gif

And even if PV-installations in Germany were quadrupled, it would still make much more sense to move night loads (e.g. electric water heater, freezers) into the day time than installing useless batteries.
Besides, France has been exporting surplus nuclear power at night to Swiss pump storage lakes for decades, why shouldn’t Germany do the same with future PV power?