(Replying to PARENT post)

The problem is that electrification of fossil fuel applications is going to significantly increase the demand on our grid. So it’s not enough to get to parity in renewables, but we have to go far beyond our current capacity in order to accommodate a world in which almost every car is electric (whether electric hybrid or green hydrogen) and almost every home uses electric rather than natural gas for heating (not to mention all of the industrial applications that will need electrification).
👤throwaway894345🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

It's going to increase the amount of energy flowing through the grid, but there's plenty of excess grid capacity to accommodate that.

The grid is a technological marvel, but one weakness about it is that it has never included storage except small amount of hydro (which I've heard some claim is because nuclear needed it so that the reactor could stay always on, but I have my doubts on that origin story)

Without storage, every grid component must be sized to maximum expected through put, which can be many many times as large as average throughput. The grid is also the most expensive part of delivering energy, more expensive than generation.

This means that storage, and a lot of electrification means storage, whether that's charging the battery on a car, or heating a hot water tank, or cooling/heating a building which can be used as several degrees of thermal storage, is going to drastically reduce the potential peak load as a ratio to average load.

Electrification has enormous potential to reduce grid cost, and overall energy cost, IMHO.

👤epistasis🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

This isn't a problem, this is the solution.

That was why I mentioned the plan (which I can no longer locate) to target 95% carbon-free electricity and focus on electrification instead of the final 5%. That fossil fuel usage can be shifted from cars or heating or industrial uses and used to provide the 5% of electricity instead at a total cost/carbon/pollution saving.

edit: ah, found it (I think, possibly something else quoted this):

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/solar-futures-study

> In the Decarb+E scenario, an expanded grid electrifies additional end uses (such as motor vehicles and space and water heating in buildings) that had derived energy directly from fossil fuels. In 2035, the grid is 95% decarbonized, but the additional fossil fuel displacement yields total emissions reductions equivalent to a grid that is 105% decarbonized—more cost-effectively than could be achieved by completely eliminating grid emissions in this time frame. These results show the importance of considering flexible, cross-sector approaches to optimizing the speed and cost-effectiveness of overall emissions reductions.

So I was wrong about the specific date, but the same general concept applies regardless of the target date and this was written before the 100% goal was moved to 2035.

👤ZeroGravitas🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

If you can store energy in batteries for days wherever, and store energy for weeks in hydrogen anywhere bigger than a house, and store energy in ammonia for decades and move it wherever there are trained personell, and store energy in NaOH and release it as low grade heat, and store energy in methane and put it through the existing gas network, and all these things cost in the range of $20-100/MWh over and above the energy input...

Do we ever actually need to move our $1-10/MWh peak solar energy through our $100-200/MWh grid?

👤Schroedingersat🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I'm real bullish on electrification of everything, but the necessary service upgrades for me to get a level 2 charger on my property would cost on the order of $5-10k.

Edit: typo corrected, I said level 3 previously

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