Assuming that 12 hours of sun, you just need 2Gw solar production and 12Gw of battery to supply 1Gw during the day of solar, and 1Gw during the night of solar,
Again, I think you might not understand the difference between W and Wh. The SI unit for Wh is joules.
When describing a battery, you need to specify both W and Wh. It makes no sense, to build a 12GW battery, if you only ever need 1GW of output.
If you want more exact details about the batteries that array used, click on the link in my comment.
The array has a 380 MW battery and 1.4Gwh of output with 690Mw of solar production for 1.9 billion dollars. Splitting that evenly to 1 billion for the solar and 1 billion for the battery, we get 2.1Gw solar for 3 billion, and 12.6Gwh for 9 billion.
So actually, the solar array can match the nuclear output for 12 billion, assuming 12 hours of sun.
For 17 billion, we can get a 3.3Gw generation, and 15.6Gwh of battery. That means the battery array would charge in 7-8hrs of sun, and provide nearly 16hrs of output at 1Gwh, putting us at a viable array for just 8hrs of sun.
Can solar + battery tech do what nuclear does today, but much faster, likely cheaper and with mostly no downsides? That is a clear yes. Is battery and solar tech advancing at an exponential rate while nuclear tech is not? Also a clear yes.
Nuclear was the right answer 30 years ago. Solar + battery is the right answer now.
That means the battery array would charge in 7-8hrs of sun, and provide nearly 16hrs of output at 1Gwh
How many days a year does that occur? How much additional storage and production do you need add, to be able to bridge dunkelflautes, as is currently happening in germany, for example (1)?
That’s why I mentioned the 90%, 99%, etc. If you want a balanced grid, you don’t need to just build for the average day (in production and consumption), you need to build for the worst case in both production and consumption.
The worst case production in case for renewables, is close to zero for days on end. Meaning you need to size storage appropriatelly, in order to fairly compare to nuclear.
So you agree that solar + battery resolves 90-99% of power needs now at a drastically reduced cost and build time than nuclear today?
I expect that 10% will get much closer to 1% in the next decade with all the versatile battery/solar tech coming onboard, but to compensate for solar fluctuations, you use wind, you use hydro, and you use the new “dig anywhere” steady state geothermal that is also being brought online today. We can run more HVDC lines to connect various parts of the country also. We are working on some now, but not enough. With a robust transmission system, solar gets 3hrs of “free” storage across our time zones. With better national connections, power flows from excess to where its needed, instead of being forced to be regional.
Worst case? You burn green hydrogen you made with your excess solar capacity in retrofitted natgas plants.
There are lots of answers to steady-state that are green and won’t take 15-20 years to come online like the next nuclear plant. We should keep going with them, because they can help us now and in the future.
Again, I think you might not understand the difference between W and Wh. The SI unit for Wh is joules.
When describing a battery, you need to specify both W and Wh. It makes no sense, to build a 12GW battery, if you only ever need 1GW of output.
If you want more exact details about the batteries that array used, click on the link in my comment.
The array has a 380 MW battery and 1.4Gwh of output with 690Mw of solar production for 1.9 billion dollars. Splitting that evenly to 1 billion for the solar and 1 billion for the battery, we get 2.1Gw solar for 3 billion, and 12.6Gwh for 9 billion.
So actually, the solar array can match the nuclear output for 12 billion, assuming 12 hours of sun.
For 17 billion, we can get a 3.3Gw generation, and 15.6Gwh of battery. That means the battery array would charge in 7-8hrs of sun, and provide nearly 16hrs of output at 1Gwh, putting us at a viable array for just 8hrs of sun.
Can solar + battery tech do what nuclear does today, but much faster, likely cheaper and with mostly no downsides? That is a clear yes. Is battery and solar tech advancing at an exponential rate while nuclear tech is not? Also a clear yes.
Nuclear was the right answer 30 years ago. Solar + battery is the right answer now.
How many days a year does that occur? How much additional storage and production do you need add, to be able to bridge dunkelflautes, as is currently happening in germany, for example (1)?
That’s why I mentioned the 90%, 99%, etc. If you want a balanced grid, you don’t need to just build for the average day (in production and consumption), you need to build for the worst case in both production and consumption.
The worst case production in case for renewables, is close to zero for days on end. Meaning you need to size storage appropriatelly, in order to fairly compare to nuclear.
So you agree that solar + battery resolves 90-99% of power needs now at a drastically reduced cost and build time than nuclear today?
I expect that 10% will get much closer to 1% in the next decade with all the versatile battery/solar tech coming onboard, but to compensate for solar fluctuations, you use wind, you use hydro, and you use the new “dig anywhere” steady state geothermal that is also being brought online today. We can run more HVDC lines to connect various parts of the country also. We are working on some now, but not enough. With a robust transmission system, solar gets 3hrs of “free” storage across our time zones. With better national connections, power flows from excess to where its needed, instead of being forced to be regional.
Worst case? You burn green hydrogen you made with your excess solar capacity in retrofitted natgas plants.
There are lots of answers to steady-state that are green and won’t take 15-20 years to come online like the next nuclear plant. We should keep going with them, because they can help us now and in the future.