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Understanding Solar Energy

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261 points chmaynard | 1 comments | 20 Mar 25 12:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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bryanlarsen ◴[20 Mar 25 14:23 UTC] No.43423941[source]▶
Great article. Unfortunately his California duck curve graph only shows 2023. A graph including 2024 shows how batteries are dramatically flattening the duck curve:

https://cdn-ilcjnih.nitrocdn.com/BVTDJPZTUnfCKRkDQJDEvQcUwtA...

https://reneweconomy.com.au/battery-storage-is-dramatically-...

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Calwestjobs ◴[20 Mar 25 17:00 UTC] No.43425755[source]▶
Hot water tank heated by electricity and powering on at noon is flattening curve. You can say hot water tanks are cheapest, simplest and fastest deployed energy storage device.

Solar + hot water tank can provide any house in US with 100% solar hot water (from PV!) for 80% of time, remaining 20 % of time you can have 10-99% solar heated water.

So we should focus on saying to people that if they buy solar and add electric heating element to hot water tank, then PV system will pay itself much sooner and their batteries will last longer. Becasue it is known and predictable load, you need hot water every day. And hot water is order of magnitude more energy then TV, lighting...

By lowering household usage like this we can make energy transition faster, cheaper.

Also proper construction - house heated only 10 days in a year - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KHScgjTJtE

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epistasis ◴[20 Mar 25 17:26 UTC] No.43426144[source]▶
Converting a gas water heater to electric and/or solar is one of the best bang for the buck on decarbonization too. Something that should be done before buying an electric car or swapping out your gas furnace for a heat pump. Though I'm terrible at following my own advice, I still have a gas water heater, just because I needed to replace my car and furnace before I needed to replace my water heater. That said, the sunk cost fallacy applies to carbon emissions just as hard as it does to dollars so I have little excuse for not replacing it except laziness (and space on the breaker panel...)
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ipdashc ◴[20 Mar 25 18:39 UTC] No.43427222[source]▶
Is it a fallacy though? It doesn't make sense to buy a new EV if you still have a gas car that's working fine. In the same vein, I wouldn't want to throw out my gas furnace or water heater to replace with electric, creating waste and requiring the manufacturing of a new unit
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1. Retric ◴[20 Mar 25 20:11 UTC] No.43428313[source]▶
You’re incorrect, buying a new EV when you have an ICE car doesn’t actually destroy the ICE vehicle.

There’s a bunch of different possibilities to consider, but if you drive more than the average person buying an EV and selling your ICE is great for the environment. If you rarely drive then keeping an old ICE car out of the hands of a frequent driver has real value etc.

As to the environmental impact vs retrofitting an ICE vehicle into an EV, the grid has gotten a lot cleaner over time so many of the old assumptions around EV’s are outdated. Comparing the emissions from extracting, transporting, refining, and then burning gas vs the same with EV’s built with a cleaner grid and more electrified infrastructure now heavy favors EV’s. And these calculations just keep favoring EV’s more every year.