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    Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

    (www.newyorker.com)
    353 points dmazin | 14 comments | 09 Jul 25 12:31 UTC | HN request time: 1.658s | source | bottom
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    jillesvangurp ◴[10 Jul 25 08:46 UTC] No.44518778[source]▶
    The article doesn't mention a technology that deserves some attention because it counters the biggest and most obvious deficiency in solar: the sun doesn't always shine.

    That technology is cables. Cables allow us to move energy over long distances. And with HVCD cables that can mean across continents, oceans, time zones, and climate regions. The nice things about cables is that they are currently being underutilized. They are designed to have enough capacity so that the grid continues to function at peak demand. Off peak, there is a lot of under utilized cable capacity. An obvious use for that would be transporting power to wherever batteries need to be re-charged from wherever there is excess solar/wind power. And cables can work both ways. So import when there's a shortage, export when there's a surplus.

    And that includes the rapidly growing stock of batteries that are just sitting there with an average charge state close to more or less fully charged most of the time. We're talking terawatt hours of power. All you need to get at that is cables.

    Long distance cables will start moving non trivial amounts of renewable power around as we start executing on plans to e.g. connect Moroccan solar with the UK, Australian solar with Singapore, east coast US to Europe, etc. There are lots of cable projects stuck in planning pipelines around the world. Cables can compensate for some of the localized variations in energy productions caused by seasonal effects, weather, or day/night cycles.

    For the rest, we have nuclear, geothermal, hydro, and a rapidly growing stock of obsolete gas plants that we might still turn on on a rainy day. I think anyone still investing in gas plants will need a reality check: mothballed gas plant aren't going to be very profitable. But we'll keep some around for decades to come anyway.

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    1. HPsquared ◴[10 Jul 25 08:53 UTC] No.44518828[source]▶
    Any country relying on international cables for electricity would need to build and maintain full local backup power capacity. The combined cost of cables + backup may be more than storage cost. (Of course there are many factors which affect all these costs)
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    2. CrossVR ◴[10 Jul 25 09:54 UTC] No.44519224[source]▶
    Norway, Denmark and The Netherlands are all part of the European Union. Would you make the same claim if we were talking about US states? (With Texas being a special exception)
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    3. HPsquared ◴[10 Jul 25 10:36 UTC] No.44519435[source]▶
    It's a risk management thing. "Can a trade dispute or undersea 'accident' lead to mass blackouts?"
    4. pjc50 ◴[10 Jul 25 10:45 UTC] No.44519496[source]▶
    You might say "any country relying on international pipelines for gas would need to build and maintain full local backup capacity", except they didn't. Hence the Russia/Ukraine war causing all sorts of problems.
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    5. adrianN ◴[10 Jul 25 11:13 UTC] No.44519669[source]▶
    To be fair, many countries have several months worth of gas reserves.
    6. kzrdude ◴[10 Jul 25 11:20 UTC] No.44519740[source]▶
    There is one error there, Norway is not in the EU
    7. berkes ◴[10 Jul 25 11:29 UTC] No.44519788[source]▶
    > maintain full local backup power capacity.

    Not necessarily. If connectivity is broad and the network graph is decentralized, rerouting should cover some of the backup.

    For example, if Luxembourg goes to war with Belgium, and Belgium shuts down the lines to Luxembourg, then they can reroute via Germany or France (provided they have lines there, obv). But if Spain gets beef with France, and France cuts the lines, they cannot easily reroute. So Spain would need more backup and more independence (and prolly cables to Italy and Africa?). Point being:

    8. supplied_demand ◴[10 Jul 25 11:59 UTC] No.44519998[source]▶
    ==the Russia/Ukraine war causing all sorts of problems.==

    Problems, yes. Catastrophes, no. It's not clear that they "needed" full backup capacity.

    9. m4rtink ◴[10 Jul 25 13:01 UTC] No.44520531[source]▶
    Most states have sizeable underground gas storages, often reusing old oil and gas fields. The capacity being from weeks to months of normal use, possibly much longer with some rationing. This mostly turned out to be sufficient to enable a quick switch to LNG and other sources.
    10. ColonelBlimp ◴[10 Jul 25 14:19 UTC] No.44521407[source]▶
    Norway is member of the European Economic Area, not of the European Union, together with Iceland and Liechtenstein.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area

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    11. jillesvangurp ◴[10 Jul 25 15:55 UTC] No.44522413[source]▶
    It helps to have stable bi-lateral relationships between countries that choose to connect their grids and economies. This kind of stability is a good thing. The current instability with long relationships being questioned and falling apart is a bad thing. And where you say cost, I say investment. Because energy is a valuable commodity and being able to buy/sell energy via cables has value.

    Most renewable energy investments have decent, easy to calculate returns on investment. That's why this stuff is so popular with investors. And that's also why I don't think current policy changes in the US matter long term. It just slightly increases the time to a return on investment. But you still get a return. So, companies will continue to look at batteries, solar, and indeed cables with or without government support. And even a little bit of tariffs (aka. taxes) won't stop that.

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    12. gmueckl ◴[10 Jul 25 16:16 UTC] No.44522629[source]▶
    Recent history is a very, very good reminder that political relationships between countries (or more generally political powers) are extremely fragile and the only reliable constant in these kinds of systems is change and stability isn't permanent, unfortunately.

    Even the EU with it's very tight integration between member states is seeing a lot of pressure to tear itself apart again from the inside, despite the very real costs thĺis would bring.

    13. megaman821 ◴[10 Jul 25 18:45 UTC] No.44524179[source]▶
    "Full capacity" backup looks different when you have sufficient batteries on the grid. Building enough backup generation to hit peak capacity would entail a lot more gas plants than building enough to hit average capacity and using batteries to supply the peaks.
    14. armada651 ◴[13 Jul 25 05:30 UTC] No.44547770{3}[source]▶
    It is practically the same, you're beholden to all the laws of the European Union without having a say in them. Kind of like Puerto Rico, which is still considered a US State despite having no votes in congress.