SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Solar power grew faster than any other source of fuel for the first time in 2016, the International Energy Agency said in a report suggesting the technology will dominate renewables in the years ahead.
The institution established after the first major oil crisis in 1973 said 165 gigawatts of renewables were completed last year, which was two-thirds of the net expansion in electricity supply. Solar powered by photovoltaics, or PVs, grew by 50 percent, with almost half of new plants built in China.
"What we are witnessing is the birth of a new era in solar PV," Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said in a statement accompanying the report published on Wednesday in Paris. "We expect that solar PV capacity growth will be higher than any other renewable technology through 2022."
Solar Grew Faster Than All Other Forms of Power for the First Time
International Energy Agency
Solar power will only work until the sun burns out, but dinosaurs are forever.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday October 05 2017, @10:04PM
Nobody is going off the grid, at least not in numbers that aren't rounding errors. What they do is, as you note, feed into the grid whether the grid needs it or not and demand to be paid above market rate for the privilege of telling their friends and neighbors they are greener than thou. The problem should be obvious. Each install increases both the taxes and utility bills of the remaining unsubsidized customers. Soon a breaking point will come, but before that economic break hits we probably hit the tech one. Solar is the least useful electricity source, it isn't base load and it isn't peaking power either. As soon as enough solar is connected that the gap is often filled between base and current load something has to give, the grid simply won't be able to accept additional solar in those periods. But because it is erratic it will shift more of the total daily generation to the most expensive peaking sources. This means the payments / credits going to the people with panels will have to start dropping, stretching the repayment period out, or even more subsidies and higher taxes / borrowing.
Averaging the load out for peaks scales in efficiency with size of grid so the more erratic sources of generation (i.e. alt energy) are connected the more you gain from a bigger grid. Alt energy is GOOD for big electric in that aspect.
All this alt energy is just green egoboo and feasting off the taxpayer until somebody solves the storage problem. Solve that and a lot of this stuff actually gets worth discussing on the economic merits.