mastodon - Collegamento all'originale
When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say β€žHow wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.β€œ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.

reshared this

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

friendica (DFRN) - Collegamento all'originale

Elena ``of Valhalla''

@Jan Wildeboer 😷 eh, to be fair both things are true at the same time

if at any single minute (or even second) you have more production on the grid than consumption and you're out of
* batteries (and other storage) that can still be recharged
* factories and other big consumers that can increase their use of energy on demand when there is more of it available (and thus cheaper)
* private customers with smart homes that can run things like their AC now and store that energy as air temperature for later (or water heaters, etc.)
then you do need to shut down some renewable plants, otherwise things will end up in blackouts and/or fires.

But also, it's perfectly fine! Especially solar panels that don't have big moving parts can do so basically instantaneously, *without suffering any consequence* (and wind and hydro require just a few minutes to bring their big chunks of spinning metal to a halt). True, some energy will be wasted, but then a lot of light from the sun is hitting built surfaces that don't have solar panels on them, and that's also wasted, isn't it?

On the other hand, if you have to do so more often than β€œnow and then”, (and you still have times when energy is scarce), then on a longer time scale it's time to build more (and more. and MOAR) of the above things, so that the basically free energy can be put to a good use.

@Jan Wildeboer 😷
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Jan Wildeboer 😷

@valhalla The current incentive system (at least here in the EU) is completely wrong, though. In times of excess electricity from renewables, you are forced to shut wind/solar down and the electricity companies then have to pay you for NOT generating electricity. This disincentivizes from building storage capacities that would allow for better capture and use of renewable electricity. Things are changing, though.
@Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

friendica (DFRN) - Collegamento all'originale

Elena ``of Valhalla''

@Jan Wildeboer 😷 yeah, I suspect that the incentive system is lagging behind reality by a few years, and needs to be brought up to date.

At least for smaller, home-sized plants, now the incentive is in favour of having batteries (it is here in Italy, I don't know elsewhere in EU), but I suspect that as a system it has a bit less inertia than that of bigger plants.

@Jan Wildeboer 😷
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Jan Wildeboer 😷

@valhalla And you are perfectly right. When more and more private homes reduce their dependency on the grid by installing solar and batteries, that is a bottom-up approach that will change policy over time. And it shows you that electricity can be more of a flat rate system, where the infrastructure cost is shared, but electricity itself is more less for free for domestic settings. Industry consumption of electricity is a very different thing.
@Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

The Penguin of Evil

@valhalla Interesting. The UK actually favours adding battery storage because you can profit from arbitrage on an industrial scale (and we've had people doing that with pumped storage even before batteries were a meaningful thing). The more we get negative prices the more the "store it and sell it at peak" people make.

Where it all comes undone here is a lot of our wind generation is one end, and industry the other (due to a failure of energy pricing models)

@Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Ausgelaugter Affe

friendica (DFRN) - Collegamento all'originale

Elena ``of Valhalla''

@Azelastin-Affe @Jan Wildeboer 😷 I knew I was doing it wrong when my new solar panels started to produce more than I was using this late winter, but could still not push energy to the grid (here in Italy there is a couple months wait between the installation of the panels and the installation of the proper meter)!

I should have baked cake! not ironed clothing!

(to be fair, most of my cake recipes require some hours of advance planning, ironing clothing was the thing I could do on demand. and I still needed to do it.)

@Jan Wildeboer 😷 @Ausgelaugter Affe
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Mike Stone

I'm constantly amazed by this. I live in Arizona (in the United States). It's a desert where 115F (46C) is common. The sun beats down on us to the point being without AC can be a death sentence, and you'd be shocked at the number of people here who have only negative opinions of solar power. It should be ubiquitous. Every structure should be lined with it with batteries in every building. It's just not the case, and it's nothing short of flabbergasting.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Jan Wildeboer 😷

(No need to reply with "not me!", I know you know better. I exaggerated with the inclusive "we" to make my point clear. The majority of people out there don't have thinking about a better, more decentralised and self-balancing grid to make electricity more of a flat rate commodity on their priority list.)
Questa voce Γ¨ stata modificata (1 settimana fa)
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Open Risk

@Reinald in the biophysical domain scarcity is more or less anchored on the planetary boundaries (and within reason, renewable energy is not constrained by them πŸ’š, though it gets more complicated with supply chains and waste etc)

In the human domain, what can I say, this magical silicon stuff is something humanity doesn't deserve. For decades visionaries waxed lyrical about its incredible potential and in practice all that happens is deeper levels of dystopia. Something's gotta give

@Reinald Kirchner
in reply to Reinald Kirchner

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Open Risk

@Reinald

one would have to do the calculation but its not inconceivable that everybody of the 11 billion could have at least *some* "yacht" experience in their lives (and 50% would get sea-sick and hate it 🀣 ).

Of course if we keep inventing materially wasteful status symbols to play paleolithic social dominance games via "ownership" and exlcusion, we do run against hard limits. So-called "space tourism" comes to mind as obvious example.

@jwildeboer

@Jan Wildeboer 😷 @Reinald Kirchner
in reply to Reinald Kirchner

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Eliza MB

@Reinald @openrisk
Batteries come with their own set of problems, which is not to say these are insurmountable, specifically social and environmental costs in acquiring the raw materials.

The real difficulty, as I see it, is that we can produce excess energy for half the year but consumption in the other half exceeds production. Can we run energy intensive industries for just half the year? Otherwise we need ways to store energy for the other half.

@Reinald Kirchner @Open Risk
in reply to Eliza MB

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Reinald Kirchner

@OneInterestingFact @openrisk
Raw material: same issue like any other raw material humans dig from earth. Can be handled.

Lithium: there are other chemical partners, Natrium gets better, and for stationary use it is allready good to go.

Seasonal storage: don't forget wind and solar go together. When we have low solar harvest, we tend to have more wind. Seasonal storage is not yet solved, but there are quite some promising approaches.

Flow batteries don't deliver yet.

@Open Risk @Eliza MB
in reply to Eliza MB

friendica (DFRN) - Collegamento all'originale

Elena ``of Valhalla''

@Eliza MB @Reinald Kirchner @Open Risk @Jan Wildeboer 😷 I believe that in some places companies can get discounted energy, but if there is excess demand they will get disconnected to rebalance the grid. It's a bit of a niche thing, because not every company can be disconnected at a whim, but it is an option for low production times.

on the other end of things, if the price companies pay is more volatile than that for individuals/families, some industries are encouraged to plan their most energy intensive activities for the times when energy is less expensive.

Both are things that are being done *now*, not new ideas, we only need to have more of them.

@Jan Wildeboer 😷 @Reinald Kirchner @Open Risk @Eliza MB
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Simo βœ”οΈ

I have tought for many years about the supposed abundance of digital goods, and one problem is that the situation is incorrectly stated. Digital goods are asymmetrical. They are aboundant after creation. But they don't pop into existence done. Creation relies on scarce resources (time/people). So the imbalance is what it makes it hard to deal with, and a pure capitalistic approach tries to extend that scarcity beyond creation, to make a profit.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Adams Digital Representation

I've found that efficiency incentives are not the same as profit incentives, at least not directly. Profit incentives tend to form centralized systems that operate on optimizing for their own version of efficiency, which can look very different from what is prioritized for those outside those systems. This isn't just for energy, food is another big one. We can all technically grow our own produce. Nature gives us a "framework" to follow. Energy is more abstract, it's of our design.
in reply to F4GRX Sébastien

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Jan Wildeboer 😷

@f4grx And with enough storage capacities to fill the gaps we don't need these huge rotating machines, dictating the frequency, any longer ;) That is the fear of Big Grid. That we can get to a point where the concept of Base Load simply stops being relevant.
@F4GRX Sébastien
Questa voce Γ¨ stata modificata (1 settimana fa)
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Krijn Soeteman πŸŽ™ πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ

ik ben vooral ook verbaasd over de bizarre manier hoe gekeken wordt door veel Nederlanders over het afschaffen van de saldering. Met dank aan bepaalde schreeuw-media en het daarna overnemen van hetzelfde narratief door de rest.. en dan allemaal boze middelbare mannen (vooral) die echt heel goed verdienen. Brr
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Peter H

So so so right.

Just imagine immediately after pulling fossil sources from the ground we burn it to generate power. Then complain we have to much power available and should stop drilling and pumping.

We've been storing fossil for decades and don't find that strange at all. So why is storing renewables so difficult or strange?

Well, because if we store it, we can use it when renewables are scarce (night / no wind) and the fossil/nuclear lobby really doesn't want that to happen.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Cyclone Dusk

... yeah i don't get it either.
i don't understand their pants-on-head woo-woo gasoline fume huffing logic.
there are tons of energy intensive processes that are WORTH DOING but are NOT TRADITIONALLY PROFITABLE that we *could* use that electricity for. Like recycling! Or thermal depolymerization so we can LITERALLY UN-MAKE THE PLASTIC.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

cauZation

It's fair to claim that the 'American Experiment' is based on the wealthiest controlling root, vital infrastructure, to setup and continue abuses such as this. #PlannedObsolescence #education, #UltraProcessedFoods diminishing vitality range - especially brain function based on gi tract depletion - conditioning into trickle-DOWN economics, without symmetrical return.

Since a Mamdani/Bernie/AOC team needs scale, a #DemocraticSocialist #Revolution is required. So how to get started?..

#education #revolution #plannedobsolescence #ultraprocessedfoods #democraticsocialist
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

James Vasile

We need constant reliability and have legacy constraints. Utilities *should* be cautious and slow to change. It's moving, but it's not entirely clear how you get from current state to a better grid, given regulator/rate-payer caution and ignorance. If all loads are now DC from a grid perspective, maybe we need an entirely new grid. And in some place we are doing that.

The grid started as disjoint, private, local (often coop) efforts. The new grid might well start the same way.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

Sheddi

You might already know this, but on both days last weekend the UK grid was so awash with renewable electricity that prices went negative. Customers on price-tracking tariffs were paid to use electricity for most of the day.

mastodonapp.uk/@energystatsuk/…

Energy Stats UK (@energystatsuk@mastodonapp.uk)

Attached: 1 image National average pricing for Octopus Energy Agile Tariff: Sat 11-04-2026 Min: -11.4p (14:30) Max: 15.3p (18:30) Avg: -2.2p Avg Excl Peak: -4.1p Peak 4pm-7pm: 10.
Energy Stats UK (Mastodon App UK)
Questa voce Γ¨ stata modificata (1 settimana fa)
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

wafrn - Collegamento all'originale

Steven Berson

Ummm, grids need to maintain specific frequencies, or else they start shutting down. That happens in both underloads & overloads. That's the "bad" thing, independent of any economic ideology - no "brainwashing" needed to comprehend - and the things that usually get shut down in those moments heading to overload are peakers running on natural gas, not the plants doing the baseline loads. So either battery capacity is there or not, and plenty of capitalists would be happy to sell more of that stuff too. What is missing is regulatory flexibility in many places, seems to me too many people are denied legal avenues if they want to just power part of their residence or business off- grid.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

katalogeur

Multiple forms of solar energy and the tech to utilize it are now available to all around the world. Yet, because "where's the money in that", we still tear up the Earth instead.

Millions of homes sit empty while millions are homeless. Stores throw "out of date" food into the garbage.

If only there was somewhere we could mine sanity, huh?

Questa voce Γ¨ stata modificata (1 settimana fa)
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale

The Casual Critic

of course in reality this does happen, but it's also a matter of where your generation and storage are. You can't absorb excess supply from Scottish wind farms with EVs in London, for example.

Grids are definitely getting smarter, but maintaining grid stability with additional renewables and increased electrification is neither trivially easy nor cheap.

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