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Renewable energy statistics just keep topping each other. Solar power is getting cheaper. Battery storage capacity is getting better. And wind farms are getting bigger.
2019 saw the world’s biggest (at the time) offshore wind farm come online, as well as construction of the biggest offshore wind farm in the US off the coast of Atlantic City.
But a new figure blows all of these out of the water. Last week, British renewable energy developer SSE announced construction of Dogger Bank Wind Farm off the eastern coast of England in the North Sea.
With a capacity of 3.6 gigawatts (GW), Dogger Bank will be three times bigger than the world’s biggest existing wind farm, the nearby 1.2 GW Hornsea One.
Located near a seaside town called Ulrome, which is 195 miles north of London, Dogger Bank will have three separate sites—Creyke Beck A, Creyke Beck B, and Teesside A—each with a 1.2 GW capacity, and construction is slated to take two years.
The project is a collaboration between SSE and Equinor, a Norwegian energy company.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:35AM (26 children)
Can renewables give me 2kW sustained and 6 kW surge 24/7? I am all for getting off the grid but battery capacity just doesn't seem to be there. From what I saw batteries still cost about $1 per watt-hr, so if I wanted enough for one day's lib consumption (~50 kWh) id need to spend $50k on batteries alone. Then solar panels are like $2 per watt...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @09:30AM (3 children)
Domestic solar power installed cost should be around $30000 + $1 /watt. If you are really* using 50Kwh / day you'll need at least 10Kw.
Deep-cycle lead-acid is about $150 /Kwh, but you need to double it and only use half the capacity if you want them to last, so call it $300 /Kwh.
How much storage you need depends on how tolerant you are to load shifting.
* The average household only uses about 25Kwh /day.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @12:38PM (2 children)
oops. That should have been $3000 + $1/watt
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:13PM (1 child)
Hmm, that is way cheaper than what Ive been seeing. What is the catch? I was looking at this: http://offgridpowerboom.com/goal-zero-yeti-3000-review/ [offgridpowerboom.com]
It's a 3 kWh generator (ie, special battery) for $3k.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @09:58PM
That Yeti is cool for camping, but is not what you would connect to fixed solar/battery installation.
Deep cycle AGM lead-acid batteries : 12V x 100Ah = (approx) 1Kwh
https://www.amazon.com/Powermall-Battery-Applications-Trailer-Universal/dp/B083FM3QBK/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=deep+cycle+lead+acid+batteries&qid=1579598398&sr=8-5 [amazon.com]
Might of been a little low on the panels, or maybe Home Depot is a bit high :
https://www.homedepot.com/c/cost_install_solar_panels [homedepot.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by EventH0rizon on Tuesday January 21 2020, @10:48AM (6 children)
I don't mean to sound pushy, but 50 kWh a day? Do you actually see that number on your current power bills.
We're a family of three 100% off the grid in a large home - our typical daily load is anywhere from 8 - 12 kWh.
I've seen graphs over the years suggesting that batteries were set to reach meaningful price parity in 2020, and as far as I can tell that has happened (well here in Australia at least). I don't think it would have been as feasible to do what we are doing now 10 years ago, for example. The rate of technical improvement in this space has clearly helped people like us get off the grid.
I hope this helps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @12:41PM
A family of 4 in a detached house with electric heating (water heat pump) in cold, cold Canada, is about 20,000kWh/year. That gives you 55kWh/day. If only using air heat pump for heating, that would be most likely closer to 75kWh/day.
And yes, it's possible to augment your heating with thermal solar panels heating your concrete basement (heat store) during winter. But when it's -30C outside, you need to heat your house one way or another. And burning wood is not something allowed if you live in a city.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @12:52PM
AGM lead-acid is getting close to parity, more from electricity prices rising and feed-in tariffs falling than from any improvements in batteries. Main problem is the uncertain life, If you use them hard, they die quicker.
Tesla's Powerwall (tm) ($8000 for 7Kwh) is not sensible. It will never pay for itself.
Last time I ran the numbers, if the batteries lasted forever you could afford to pay up to about $400 per Kwh of storage. Given the limited life of lead-acid, and having to at least double the capacity so as not to kill them, $150 per Kwh was pretty close to price parity. But that involved you taking on the risk of battery failure.
Adjust those figures up or down a bit depending on whether you are prepared to go completely off-grid and save the connection charge as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @01:59PM
Yes, well when it is 32 C with 95% humidity you will be running the 400 W per room AC if you do not want to soak everything with sweat.
Also, don't forget an electric oven is 5 kW and stove is 1 kW per burner. To be fair I also have a machine learning rig for work that can use another 5-10 kWh per day, that will be an additional source of consumption.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:37PM (2 children)
We're just now building a house, and considered going off-grid. Briefly. It just doesn't make financial sense for us: battery storage is still way to expensive to make sense.
While we do have a lot of sunshine, when it gets stormy in the Winter or Spring, it is entirely normal to have 3-4 days of heavy cloud cover. Since we have electric (heat-pump) heating, 10kwh/day is probably a fair estimate for Winter. So I would want around 30kwh of storage, costing around $30k. That amount of money would pay for - literally - decades of power from the local electric company.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by EventH0rizon on Tuesday January 21 2020, @08:46PM (1 child)
Total cost of our system (ground mounted panels, batteries, etc) was around $AU 47k. So your $30k ($US ?) sounds about right.
One factor to consider in deciding whether or not the ROI happens soon enough is the stability of the cost of grid-connected power.
In our part of the world this has been rising steadily, year on year. Each years rise brings the ROI horizon that much closer to us closer to us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @09:38PM
Can you really put a price on independence from the grid though? I expect more power outages like we see in california going forward. Plus they are connecting everyone's meters to wifi which is bound to end in tears.
(Score: 1) by thecapt on Tuesday January 21 2020, @10:56AM (4 children)
That is why something like hydrogen cracking would really work, for 50kwh you would need 20 litres of hydrogen, weighing a couple of kilos to power your fuel cell.
Yes, converting from one fuel to another is wasteful, but if you are using wind and solar, then so what, you aren't burning non-renewables.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 21 2020, @11:37AM (2 children)
> converting from one fuel to another is wasteful
Waste == heat, which in uk is a (the?) major source of fuel consumption anyway.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 21 2020, @04:55PM (1 child)
Well, does it?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 22 2020, @11:19AM
> Well, does it?
(Waste == heat) ? Thank you : bugger off;
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:41PM
I saw a program on the Discovery channel years ago about an engineer who did that with his home. He stored his excess power in hydrogen tanks in his backyard and ran it back through a fuel cell when he needed electricity. Ran his car off hydrogen too, as I recall.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @12:43PM
Yes? But maybe if you plan a little ahead, you could run that dryer during daylight instead?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday January 21 2020, @12:43PM
Renewables like solar and wind actually work really well in countries where you've got large battery-equivalents to take up the load when there's no sun/wind. By this I mean countries with lots of hydro and similar, where you keep the lakes full and run off solar or wind when it's available, and only run the hydro when there's no sun or wind.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:39PM (7 children)
Holy cow you use a lot of power. The average US household uses 900kwh/mo. Are you refining bauxite in your backyard?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:01PM (1 child)
It's above average but not that bad, especially considering I work from home. The average in the US south is about 40 kWh per day:
https://www.chooseenergy.com/news/article/the-states-that-use-the-most-and-least-amount-of-energy-per-household/ [chooseenergy.com]
I'd say the extra on top of the average is almost entirely due to working from home.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @04:57PM
I'm in California and use less than the state average--just a bit more than 12kWh/day. I'm not trying to brag though. Winter is peak usage time. That energy use doesn't consider that I'm burning through some firewood. Summer is actually low use time, because our micro-climate is so dry that we use evaporative cooling which draws very little power (but it makes my water bill go up a bit). I suspect the South has high figures because it's unbearable without refrigeration-cycle A/C. Their climate is very hot and *humid* during the Summer, so "swamp coolers" don't work.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:43PM (4 children)
Holy cow the average American household uses a lot of power -- my European bill comes down to 1971 kWh per year (at a price of 0.2554 euro per kWh).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @09:42PM (1 child)
So do you cook at home? Running an electric oven for 1 hr per day uses that much electricity...
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday January 22 2020, @07:55PM
Cooking normally on gas -- rarely use the oven for that.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday January 22 2020, @11:06AM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday January 22 2020, @07:42PM
Yes. Heating oil for central heating, at the moment (looking to change to scrap wood pellets, perhaps in combination with a heatpump, in future) gas for cooking -- heating your house on electricity results in ridiculous bills over here.