This is about progress being made in transitioning to solar power and the issues in the present electrical distribution system.
For definitions of energy terms, and a lot about coal, see my previous diary.
Worldwide growth of photovoltaics is extremely dynamic and varies strongly by country. By the end of 2016, cumulative photovoltaic capacity increased by more than 75 Gigawatts (GW) and reached a total of at least 303 GW, sufficient to supply approximately 1.8 percent of the world's total electricity consumption. The top installers of 2016 were China, the United States, and India. — Wikipedia
In 2018, 100 GW of new solar facilities were installed worldwide. One GW is the size of a fairly large coal or nuclear plant. The rate of installations is increasing.
Over half of the new installations in the US were either wind or solar.
The 10 largest manufacturers of PV panels, measured by Megawatts shipped, are all located in China. There have been several attempts to open solar manufacturing plants in the US but these have suffered under the steadily decreasing market price of the finished modules – by the time they open, they are no longer economical.
14% of power generation in the US comes from renewable sources. In Germany the figure is 38%. Looking just at solar, Germany is even further ahead.
But this is changing very rapidly. Last year, new generation facilities being constructed in the US were 39% solar, which is more than any other single type. More people are employed in solar in the US than in oil, coal, or natural gas – 260,000 as of 2016. Nobody is building new coal plants.
Some new utility-scale generators are solar thermal, where a field of mirrors focus the Sun’s energy onto a boiler that produces steam to run a traditional turbine. These are most common in the Southwest US.
As of 2013, 4.7 GW of photovoltaic (PV) generation was installed in the US. By 2016 that had risen to 14.6 GW.
A note about efficiency
A thermal plant (coal, oil, gas, nuclear) runs at just over 30% efficiency. This is a physical limitation in the “Carnot Cycle” of thermodynamics, which is at the heart of all generation methods that use steam turbines. The transmission of electricity, even over hundreds of miles, is much more efficient, around 95%. By the way, most internal combustion car engines are only about 20% efficient. Motors of the type used in electric cars are about 90% efficient.
Photoelectric panels are currently only about 16% efficient in converting sunlight to electricity. The big advantages they have over all the other sources of energy are that they are completely clean in operation, require little to no maintenance, and the fuel is free.
Where is this happening in the US?
How much the Sun shines in a place is called the “insolation rate”. It takes into account Latitude as well as weather patterns. The desert Southwest has ideal conditions for this, but actually the entire Southern US does pretty well.
But this resource is not being utilized in all the places where it should be. Since utilities are regulated by the states, this is a local state-by-state political issue. The electric utilities bribe lobby hard in the state legislatures to “protect the integrity of their profits service” and they can make it difficult to connect your local resources. But more and more of them are seeing that distributed generation actually can work to improve the reliability of the entire network.
Solar generation capacity in the US is growing at 31% per year. Total solar generation in the US is now 2.09% of the total, at 85 TWH per year (Terawatt-Hours. One Terawatt is 1,000 Gigawatts), of which utility scale accounts for 59 TWH and the rest is distributed, mostly on rooftops.
Yay!
First they ignore you; then they abuse you; then they crack down on you and then you win.
– Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi but Snopes says maybe not
Well...
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