How Cheap Can Solar Get?

AG47

Solar is now cheaper to produce a giga wat of electricity than nuclear

The question is will silver run out as the world turns to solar

Mistermeaner

The uk would need to dedicate approx 2000-2500km^2 to generate all its needs , give or take (approx 1% of its surface area)

Currently approx 2% of the uk is 'built on'

Assuming we will need double capacity to cope with instantaneous demand we need solar panels on every inch of every building.



All available on google:

Uk energy consumption approx 2-2.5 billion MWh

Uk solar insolation approx 1MWh/m^2 (generous)

wotsthat

AG47 wrote: »

Solar is now cheaper to produce a giga wat of electricity than nuclear

The question is will silver run out as the world turns to solar

No it won't.

System

C cells, c cells on the sea floor

wotsthat

Mistermeaner wrote: »

The uk would need to dedicate approx 2000-2500km^2 to generate all its needs , give or take (approx 1% of its surface area)

Currently approx 2% of the uk is 'built on'

Assuming we will need double capacity to cope with instantaneous demand we need solar panels on every inch of every building.

All available on google:

Uk energy consumption approx 2-2.5 billion MWh

Uk solar insolation approx 1MWh/m^2 (generous)

There's no reason to assume advances in technology won't reduce consumption per capita or increase solar efficiency. Smarter houses that can manage energy use during the day are still in their infancy - perhaps they'll be able to cycle the washing machine, tumble dryer, hot water and spare electric car battery during the day just leaving demand for lighting, cooking and the telly in the evening.

Plus of course solar will only ever be part of the UK's energy mix.

System

We could import Saharan solar, and we could store it chemically or physically at night

paddyrg

Storage and transportation of electricity is actually very difficult and inefficient. Of most use to us is being able to generate electricity flexibly and on demand - hydro power for instance is expensive per unit but can be switched on as demand is needed, then overnight use the surplus cheap nuclear electricity to pump the water back uphill!

Nuclear is actually very good at providing the consistent power baseline

Solar is ideal for the Middle East, as a huge proportion of energy usage is air conditioning, and yet more is desalination for drinking water. These both are perfectly fine with peak solar production. Here in the UK, our demand profile is more around making cold things warm, making dark places light, and so would require lots of inefficient storage. There's a lot of research going into capacitive storage, and improved battery technologies (ie chemical storage), but it's a long way off still.

cells

Mistermeaner wrote: »

The uk would need to dedicate approx 2000-2500km^2 to generate all its needs , give or take (approx 1% of its surface area)

Currently approx 2% of the uk is 'built on'

Assuming we will need double capacity to cope with instantaneous demand we need solar panels on every inch of every building.



All available on google:

Uk energy consumption approx 2-2.5 billion MWh

Uk solar insolation approx 1MWh/m^2 (generous)

A typical solar farm in the UK or Germany only achieves 6 watts average per sqm.

UK electricity demand is about 40,000,000,000 watts average


Thus the UK would need to cover 6,700 square KM in solar panels or about 3 x your figure. The reason for the discrpincy is that real solar farms in the real world space their panels and tilt them to the sun which improves panel performance but greatly reduces energy density.

Or for England to meet England need you need to cover 4 x area of London with non stop solar farms. Roofs can meet about 1 of those 4 units of London the other 3 would need to be ground mount


If transport is also electrified you can add 50% to that figure. If Heating is electrified you can more than double that figure.

This is also somewhat an low guess as it does not factor in the great losses that would happen in the batteries that would be needed to make any of this sane

cells

MatthewAinsworth wrote: »

We could import Saharan solar, and we could store it chemically or physically at night

not likely

the lines to carry that power is very expensive. This is why nukes are placed fairly close to demand and not 1,000 miles away. & due to the nature of solar the line would only be used at about 1/3rd its capacity. The losses would also be scary big

Batteries on the solar side would help in utilizing the line towards 100% but the line would still be too expensive.



Chemical or physical storage on the scales required is unfeasible as things stand.

cells

wotsthat wrote: »

There's no reason to assume advances in technology won't reduce consumption per capita or increase solar efficiency. Smarter houses that can manage energy use during the day are still in their infancy - perhaps they'll be able to cycle the washing machine, tumble dryer, hot water and spare electric car battery during the day just leaving demand for lighting, cooking and the telly in the evening.

Electricity consumption per capita, in the UK, will hopefully go up.
Because transport needs to be electrified and possibly later heating too.

Worldwide electricity consumption per capita will have to go up lots more as poor people dont want to be poor

Solar may increase its efficiency a little more but it cant pass physical limits and it certainly cant go above 100% efficient


A bigger concern if solar does become the primary source of energy for the world will be the mass coverage of land by black solar panels. If a few parts per million co2 molecules is heating the world what will it look like if we were to paint the whole of France black? I can forsee in the future each solar panel will have to have a companion mirror to try and even out the heating impact of painting the earth black with PV panels