Once again, you guys have nailed it. Totally unsurprising yet absolutely remarkable that the media hasn't picked this up and made it prime-time news! Thank and keep up the great work!
Another excellent video Tony & Adam. You need to be on talk shows. Get in touch with social media influencers. I will share this myself as much as possible.
Here is how bad coal and natural gas prices are: a retail customer getting a loan from a bank to build rooftop solar (which is the most expensive kind) can save money. Retail customers (who get the worst deal) can even almost break even on an off grid capable solar and battery system. Grid scale installations can do far better.
Most LCOE calculations are based on the assumption that the power plants operate as baseload generators (that they can sell all the electricity they use). Extract from the "Projected Costs of Generating Electricity" by the IEA: "A standard capacity factor of 85% was used for all combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGTs), coal-fired, fuel cells and nuclear plants under the assumption that they operate in baseload. It is clearly understood that many CCGTs are frequently used in mid-load or even peak load rather than in baseload, and that coal-fired power plants habitually only achieve 50-60% load factors in major markets. Nevertheless, the 85% assumption is used as a generic assumption for CCGTs and coalfired power plants as it allows for the straightforward comparison of the costs of three technologies that could be used as baseload" Baseload LCOE figures should only be used to compare baseload options not too compare baseload to peak load or mid-load. Perhaps it's is the fault of these companies that produce these reports that they don't make this more clear or perhaps it's regulators/investors faults for not reading the assumptions/fine print.
Japan's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant Unit 6 is the world's fastest-built nuclear power plant, taking only 39 months for completion, while of Korea's Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant Reactor 3 took 49 months to build. Borrowed money times build time accounts for 80% of the price of a nuclear plant. Only the 20-year builds allowed and created in the United States and some other western democracies result in the unacceptable costs of some large nuclear plants. Last Energy (USA) is contracting to build standardized nuclear plants in Europe at a cost-competitive with ALL sources price, and it will provide a reliable base load, as well as energy density TWO MILLION times that of batteries, solar, and wind. The world will NEVER build all the solar and wind needed to power the planet, and it is not on schedule to do so. Fossil fuels accounted for 80% of global power generation in 2021 and 81% of global power generation in 2022.
I started in the RE industry, 16-years ago, selling wind generations systems, sold over 2k of them, then went to solar as I could see the industry shifting more to solar, and have sold tens of thousands of solar panels and BOS equipment. I've seen the industry change a lot since then and have been extremely happy with the mass adoption of solar, wind + BESS. I'm throwing a huge party in the early 2030's, when the last coal plant shuts down and most gas plants will be shut down, in favor of wind and solar power plants.
German plans for renewable energy include a substantial increase in gas plant capacity for backup. So I think it is accurate to say we will use a lot less gas in the future but capacity will increase and we will have to build lots of new gas plants.
Those people are modern day Luddites. Too thick to realise how thick they are or venal and corrupt? I think the latter with a bit of the sky pilot thrown in.
I was doing some solar math because the Chinese have been making the price of Lithium batteries lower and lower. I sized up how much electricity I use now, and to duplicate this in a totally off-the-grid solar system I could put together myself from off the shelf components . . . 6 385-watt solar panels $1068 13,440 watt hours of lithium ion batteries $1732 3,000 watt inverter for AC power $313 charge controller $100 battery management system $50 Total $3263. System would last 20 years. Monthly energy cost over 20 years: $13.60! My current electric bill with PG&E in Northern California is about $41.50
How much kWh does your setup produce on a bad day (acknowledging that you are located in an advantageous area.) This would be the benchmark for the size of the PV capacity.
i think it will be the emerging countries that will lead the way .as they have need for electricity with out disrupting any thing , villages will have autonomous power .
Curious why hydro is included with thermal and nuclear? The marginal cost of dispatch of hydro is negligible, placing it high in the order of merit. Some hydro (i.e. dams, not run of river) is also firm rather than intermittent. So why would the capacity factor for firm power with close to zero marginal cost of dispatch be materially lowered by the advent of super-cheap intermittent wind and solar augmented by cheap (but not free) battery storage?
@@musaran2 You are not completely wrong - but firm power is still not base power. We will need reserve power and that is where hydro, coal and natural gas may still play an important part. Of course, that is only 2-5% market utilization. :)
Because the "fuel" cost for hydro is essentially free, the LCOE will be dependent upon the ongoing finance cost (of initial construction) as well as operation and maintenance. It's a little confusing, but I believe RethinkX's analysis is primarily focused on new projects, which would mean new hydro would carry significant interest costs. It may be perfectly reasonable to continue to operate "paid for" hydro sources, but foolish to build new ones.
@@dc14522 While "fuel" costs may be free, the infrastructure is not. Even if you consider the cost of the construction of the Dam as "free", Dams require maintenance, upgrades, etc. If you recall in the video, Tony mentioned that just the operating costs exceed the cost of solar/wind/battery solutions. Dams have also been found to destroy ecosystems, fish populations, and other unexpected side effects. That all comes with costs as well...
@@jomama55ful I agree Joe... listening to another interview, Tony explicitly says that the operation costs of hydro are higher than the total cost of wind and solar.
A similar thing happened during the 90s in Romania. The regime would not restructure the economic sectors and their industries, especially the primary and secondary sectors, because the government would not want to tell people that what their doing is worthless, i.e. no one would buy the output, and in doing so they wouldn't want to be the ones who tell the nation that there is no Santa Clause, so the state continued to subsidise these industries
Saw Tony's video 5 yrs ago. It was a 💡 moment for me. I had to rewind and watch "God parity" a couple of times because the concept was shocking. Yet, here we are within reach today, with solar, wind & Tesla battery tech. Awesome.
Wonder why Germany is covered with windmills and solar panels and yet mines and burns lignite the worlds dirtiest coal for much of it's power. Weird huh?
At work when we calculate LCOE or make a business case we simulate the yearly cashflows for our wind farms by simulating how much electricity we will sell each year. The energy system at which is operating and its electricity market so its capacity factor varies. Not sure how others do it.
I think that it is time to focus on Africa and start creating a strategy to anergize the continent with solar, wind and storage solutions. This could be the missing element to bring Africa out of powerty.
We know, that there is daily (24 hours) no solar energy for ~6-8-10 hours. It means, in an SWB system the night should be supplied on wind+battery. Wind is also a random resource. If you add ~25% battery to the system (depending on the power need of the electricity network in a given area ... e.g. if a system has max. 30 GW peak-load, the battery size should be ~30 GWh), ... it can at a discharge rate of 4C really produce 100% of the required consumption. But only 15 minutes lang. In this case the rest of the time must be served by wind energy. This works many times (maybe in ~98% of the cases, if big areas are connected together ... but ~2% in a year means ~170 hours, or ~1 week) and the wind comes in the USA from the "wind belt", the sun from the south of California) ... but an electricity system must be redundant, robust and reliable, because it can happen, that somewhere "the wind doesn´t blow, the sun doesn´t shine (night) and after 1-2 hour the batteries are empty). To build a nationwide, balanced electricity network is naturally possible, but it shouldn´t be forgotten, that a very robust additional network is necessary ... and some buffer (controllable sources, with energy storage ...) are also needed. And so the cost of the system will be much higher ... (it´s clear, that some controllable resources say ~1/3 of the peak power won´t work more yearly, than ~100-200 hours ... but they must exist ...).
My cohorts in the pv industry add the time zone coverage across the grid to, bottom line, claim that pv can cover 90% of all loads by interconnection across the grid. There is a 40% drop in night demand in some seasons and no less than about a 20% drop across the national grid.
Your argument mostly makes since to me, but what determines how much battery capacity to install? I am not clear if RethinkX believes there is no case where wind+solar+battery are insufficient, but battery production seems to be the limiting factor that could throw a wrench in their argument. I would think that within the next decade (maybe next two decades) while battery production is still ramping up, that we need to preserve some conventional energy production to keep the limited supply of batteries packs topped off at all times when renewables drop the ball for whatever reason. Also with electric cars ramping up, I don't think we will be able to assume night time demand will remain low like it is right now. People will be charging at night.
I'm sure LCOE affects wind power far more than for instance coal plants. A coal plant has life span of more than 50 years while wind power has a 10 year life span. It's also far more easier to maintain a coal plant than for instance an off-shore wind farm.
Current wind is at least 20 years (as it s solar), recyclable (as it s solar) and is far easier and cheaper to maintain and operate (not sure what you re smoking)(as it s solar). Edit: Do your research, invest in Tesla
@@Glenhh The first industrial revolution is responsible for the creation of our current social/economic/political system. It was the sixth time in our evolution that technology convergences fundamentally changed our relationship to our environment, and thus our society as a whole, because the human species IS a behavioral product of its environment. The arrival of the digital autonomous era will render our current system obsolete once again, and our society will inevitably change in our values, beliefs, and behaviors once again.
Totally thought provoking and relevant. One quibble, I wouldn't put too much long-term investment into Tesla Power as long as it's using lithium. Liquid metal batteries have the capacity to knock lithium off its pedestal in stationary power on cost, longevity and its use of common, local materials. Huge potential in grid-scale, stable power storage on demand. Also, autonomous vehicles are not even close to being as revolutionary as sustainable urbanism to fight climate change in our cities. That would include electrified public transit and urbanizing the suburbs with super energy efficient buildings and platting human-scaled walkable, multi-zoned communities. AEVs are still cars that require massive, subsidized road infrastructure.
Tesla is invested in long term contracts with lithium mining suppliers, but the stationary storage market typically uses LIFEPO4 only because it presently has the best cost. Tesla is not going to stubbornly stick to lithium technology for stationary storage, but only for vehicles.
yeah but, aren't renewable like wind and solar also vulnerable to this type of error in the lcoe calculation? After all, it is a grave mistake to assume that a wind farm will be producing electricity at 100% capacity for its lifetime. So the calculated lcoe for wind and solar are also incorrect, just as with lcoe for fossil fuel power plants.
I’d love to see an annual or bi annual update on the numbers. There is still so much talk about building additional fossil fuel and nuclear assets, especially after the Ukraine war. We need this information getting out more! An annual update with some press might be an excellent way to do that?
Thank you Andy thank you Tony! Genius presentation (as usual) This is a new channel I guess?? I'm a subscriber of the other channel but I'm glad I found this one... If you need to spread the word on this new channel maybe you could do an interview with some of the channels that know what's going on, my top 10 or so would be: Solving The Money Problem, Now You Know, , Just Have a Think, Tesla Daily, BestinTesla, , Warren Redlich, Munro Live, T-Study, 2 THE FUTURE with Jixuan & Sebastian, Meet Kevin, Fully Charged Show Some smaller some larger but all of those channels IMHO really know what's going on and would all love the chance to have an interview with you guys would be AMAZING and be the best publicity your channel needs! Anyway continued success with the channel however you you choose to promote it... ;-)
I'm confused. I was always taught that "Hydropower" was a CLEAN energy source, and should be lumped in with Solar, wind and battery storage. However, Dr. Dorr and Mr. Seba are saying that hydropower is bad, and should be lumped in with coal, gas and nuclear. Which is correct? I live outside of Portland, Oregon, and we use hydropower from the Columbia River to power our electricity. Should we complain, and demand wind and solar for our local needs?
I don’t believe Mr Seba & Dorr are saying that hydropower is bad. They are saying that it is uncompetitive from a cost perspective with wind, solar, & battery (SWB). People will buy the lowest cost electrical power they can and thus SWB will take a growing segment of the market. Hydropower has high fixed costs and as it is less able to compete on price, it will produce less, yet incur the same fixed costs and thus the Cost of Electricity Produced (or LCOE) will further rise.
A map is a nice thing to have, but in the end the actual terrain is what's important. We have seen the price of electricity both increase and decrease as more and more intermittent sources are connected to the grid. Solar is a complete waste in many parts of the world, and wind demands a substantial overprovisioning or (still) very expensive storage solutions. If geologically possible, nuclear + hydro seem like the overall best solution with nuclear creating an incredibly stable base-load and hydro offering great peak capacity both in short-term (a few hours) and long-term (as in months). Compare this to wind/solar in a best-case scenario offering peaking-capacity for at most a few hours. Still winter is lasting for many months and the wind can be weak for days at a time.
Rethinkx report doesn't focus on upcoming gen 4 nuclear reactors much, why is that? Today's nuclear, despite having massive construction cost and delays, is still cheaper than coal. Upcoming rector designs won't need such massive capital investments because they would be small and modular (could be made in factories for cheaper at scale). The fuel cost of nuclear is negligible. Nuclear is alot more space efficient and consistent. The upcoming reactors would also provide alot of waste heat more than 500c which could further help in many industrial processes.
These guys are right but for the wrong reasons. Conventional generators are having their capacity factors degraded mainly because they have to follow and cover the intermitency and stochasticity from wind and solar. The latter cannot survive in the grid without the former's backup (if we still want reliable 24/7 supply). If someone is being subsidized by ratepayers and taxpayers these are wind and solar, as they don't incur in any integration-to-grid costs, consumers do. Conventional LCOE would be lower if we got rid of wind and solar (as we should, they only add unnecesary costs, disrupting the grid's operation).
The decreasing price of electricity storage invalidates your claim. Also, your claim is BS because it relies on externalizes the cost of climate change to everyone else outside of power generators and users.
I'm OK with some aspects of this, but I'm not sure that these two understand just how much battery capacity is needed when all baseload "fossil" (gas, coal) and nuclear are no longer producing power. Keep in mind that much of the battery manufacturing capacity will be used for electrification of transportation over the next decade. The industry will need to more than double that amount again, to store all of the INTERMITTENT wind and solar. Otherwise just plan for outages (Texas winter 2021). Also, again consider electrification of transportation. That will add more demand to the grid. At least in the short term, this might buy natural gas plants some lifetime/profit that would otherwise be ceded to solar and wind. My back of the napkin estimate is that in Texas you would need about 20,000 MWh of storage just to get through a typical evening with no fossil baseload. Tesla's biggest utility battery storage system to date is the 730 MWh planned for Moss Landing (CA). So we would need ~30x of those to cover a typical Texas usage through the evening. Maybe the better solution is something like a Tesla roof + Powerwalls on every house (as much as possible) and then some peakers (batteries and/or gas turbines) for weather outliers.
11% of this year's new capacity is projected to be grid battery. Also, the TX freeze failure had nothing to do with renewables. PV there was over 100%. Offshore wind also overperformed and covered the onshore turbine freeze. ERCOT has admitted to all this.
@@LeonardBachman distorted economics heavily favors renewables. As a result there is minimal investment on the fossil side not only for winterization but also for general upgrades and availability. As such, the fossil side cannot longer properly provide base load and that is a shortcoming that resulted in the outages. Moreover this will most definitely result in more future outages at least until battery storage is available at scale.
Clear explanation that coal/gas/hydro/nuclear output will be reduced every year and definitely during the day due to PV output and that will make electricity prices go negative. Germany buys energy from France mainly at night, but pays France $150/MWh to take the surplus. Coal cannot follow the demand, but gas/hydro and nuclear can. Problem with renewables is that the following systems are needed: PV, private and large scale, Wind, on- and off-shore, Batteries, Extra grid to move surplus to other places, Overbuild for VRE (variable renewable ...), Subsidies for private and commercial renewables, Stored hydro for storage, Land for PV, wind and battery fields, New gas-fired stations for firming or "top up", etc. Adding up the LCOE figures for every renewable may even make nuclear look cheap!
I fully agree with the LCOE calculation in the video. What the video does not explain though is that gas plants are needed as backup for renewables. With pure market prices the price of electricity in these backup situations might skyrocket. So it might be useful for governments to pay some fixed price per month to gas plant operators just for offering the capacity (to avoid extreme peak prices).
Disagree. Storage is the answer, not gas plants running at very low utilization and receiving corporate welfare from the government, the funds of which are sourced forcefully from taxpayers under threats of violence (imprisonment).
And the price per kwh of oil goes up as the prices of solar, wind, storage and efficiency goes down. More SWStE gets sold, per unit cost goes down further.
Four hours of storage for solar will not replace baseload power generation. This will limit growth until battery prices drop. Which is occurring but this will be a bit of a limiting factor for solar. I imagine with a mix of wind and solar this can be overcome.
In their Energy Report, they specify that the mature system will most likely have a few days of storage depending on geography. But at 4 hours of storage a lot of existing infrastructure is completely disrupted. But the idea is that between wind and solar, most places will always have an input, solar during the day, wind is more common at night, that it would be very odd to go more than a few days without enough input. The other takeaway I got, is that if you design a system for the winter months, like to where your solar, wind, and battery operates flawlessly in the most difficult time of the year, that it will provide super abundant energy the rest of the year. Four hours of base load storage will absolutely change the economics of base load power plants.
@@riley_oneill I have no doubt that 100% renewables will be possible within ten years. Also LCOE projections for fossil fuels is a fluffed number. Building new conventional power is an idiot's pursuit and should not be underwritten by rate payers. But we cannot retire fossil fuel generation yet. This video should be required viewing for any public utility commission.
There's a formula ... Because capital cost of construction for wind and solar and battery is so low, build 4 times the needed generation, where that is the median of the daily high demand for electricity, and then build 70-90 hours of storage assuming no generation to match that. What you get is a resilient generation system, and many days where it is generating more energy than it knows what to do with. Either dump that on the grid and kill off fossil fuel and nuclear generation, or drive it into water electrolysis to produce Hydrogen at long term storage.
@@QuantCoder do you understand how much 70-90 hours of storage is? For a while country? We currently don’t have anything big enough to do that even for a town.
Please would you do some TED talks? Your important information and analysis need to have a much wider audience, and TED is allowing fossil fuel disinformation to spread.
What if coal plants add electricity storage to let them run more continuously, enabling selling that electricity when renewables are off-line? How would that change things?
Ah yes, wind and solar with capacity factors about 20% - 40% (in mainstream LCOE they assume always maximum) without considering costs for batteries, bakcups and network adjustaments are better for use 😂
You need to promote the real fundamental issue of electricvehicles and such. There needs to be ev battery replacability that is credible safe and secure. This will remove value negative attitudes. Of course reparability will reduce insurances. This is not on topic but your the team to promote these issues, sorry and well done.
Brilliant. And then there's this... * Let's talk about STANDARD EQUIPMENT...shall we...??? Here's a first for you. Here goes. You're out camping - of course, in your new EV truck or jeep. You run out of battery power. Guess what happens? Unlike all the ICE cars in the past the NEVER carried and extra gas and/or siphon hoses, etc., every other EV'r out there is gladly rushing to you aid because they now TWO THINGS: 1. That most of their friends back at camp have portable solar systems set up all around camp charging their devices and their friends EVs. And 2. That it FINALLY dawned on Tesla et. al. to make ALL their EVs capable of "Bringing Aid & Comfort" to their fellow road warriors. In fact, it is vital that ALL EVs are (at some point) forced by regulators and NHTSA to make said charging functions STANDARD EQUIPMENT.
IDK I’m not a professional, this isn’t investment advice but: Invest in battery, solar and wind power companies. Like Tesla, Enphase, First Solar, Plug Power, Vestas Wind
Avoid shorting. The timing of the penny finally dropping is too irrational, and then the market acting on it can be slow as molasses. Old habits die hard.
They may still be correct in the long run as solar and battery costs come down, but they are using some sleight of hand for their claims today. 4 hours of storage is not enough to get through a night or a week of bad weather, therefore the claim that solar wind and batteries is cheaper is invalid. A fair comparison would have to include enough battery storage to entirely eliminate the need for fossil powered peaker plants. You can't compare unreliable solar wind and batteries to fossil and nuclear on a strictly LCOE basis. The capital costs of rarely used fossil plants should accrue to the unreliable solar wind and batteries. When the wind stops blowing and the sun don't shine for days on end and the batteries are expended then on demand fossil or nuclear plants will be needed. The fact that these plants are peaker plants is the fault of the unreliable solar and wind therefore their cost should be counted against solar and wind not compared with them. It's almost evil to blame fossil and nuclear plants increasing LCOE's when it's the subsidized solar and wind power that reduces their usage driving up their LCOE, while they are still needed as backup because of the unreliability of solar and wind.
Assuming all these facts are correct, where is the evidence that Solar, Wind and Batteries are any different. This is half a story and that makes me sceptical.
Another point causing doubt...Why are batteries being presented in this vid as an energy source like wind, solar? It's not an energy source, it's simply a way to store energy. You still have to input energy into the batteries. There's also no end of life considerations for the wind and solar tech...which right now, is only about 15 years tops.
The economics of solar, wind, and battery make it different. That is his whole point. The economics have already won out and no one is noticing. The economics for solar/wind/battery will only get better. This is his entire point.
![Lil Uzi Vert - Chill Bae [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D7F42F_JM3U/mqdefault.jpg)
This Matters!
Imho we will have one video about it tomorrow from SMR
@@flaviosalatino8192 it's uploaded tho 😂🙏🏻👌🏻
Where does Michael Sullenburger's estimates for solar fit into real world solar lcoe calculations? Just bought his book Apocalypse Never.
@@redstar151 right on time as a clock
Once again, you guys have nailed it. Totally unsurprising yet absolutely remarkable that the media hasn't picked this up and made it prime-time news! Thank and keep up the great work!
Another excellent video Tony & Adam. You need to be on talk shows. Get in touch with social media influencers. I will share this myself as much as possible.
Here is how bad coal and natural gas prices are: a retail customer getting a loan from a bank to build rooftop solar (which is the most expensive kind) can save money. Retail customers (who get the worst deal) can even almost break even on an off grid capable solar and battery system. Grid scale installations can do far better.
Agreed. I put solar on my house 8 years ago and I'm about break even today... it's all gravy for the next 15 to 20 years of the panel's life.
Most LCOE calculations are based on the assumption that the power plants operate as baseload generators (that they can sell all the electricity they use). Extract from the "Projected Costs of Generating Electricity" by the IEA:
"A standard capacity factor of 85% was used for all combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGTs), coal-fired,
fuel cells and nuclear plants under the assumption that they operate in baseload. It is clearly
understood that many CCGTs are frequently used in mid-load or even peak load rather than in
baseload, and that coal-fired power plants habitually only achieve 50-60% load factors in major
markets. Nevertheless, the 85% assumption is used as a generic assumption for CCGTs and coalfired
power plants as it allows for the straightforward comparison of the costs of three technologies that
could be used as baseload"
Baseload LCOE figures should only be used to compare baseload options not too compare baseload to peak load or mid-load. Perhaps it's is the fault of these companies that produce these reports that they don't make this more clear or perhaps it's regulators/investors faults for not reading the assumptions/fine print.
Japan's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant Unit 6 is the world's fastest-built nuclear power plant, taking only 39 months for completion, while of Korea's Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant Reactor 3 took 49 months to build. Borrowed money times build time accounts for 80% of the price of a nuclear plant. Only the 20-year builds allowed and created in the United States and some other western democracies result in the unacceptable costs of some large nuclear plants. Last Energy (USA) is contracting to build standardized nuclear plants in Europe at a cost-competitive with ALL sources price, and it will provide a reliable base load, as well as energy density TWO MILLION times that of batteries, solar, and wind. The world will NEVER build all the solar and wind needed to power the planet, and it is not on schedule to do so. Fossil fuels accounted for 80% of global power generation in 2021 and 81% of global power generation in 2022.
Why does this only have 16k views at this point?
The ambiguous title discourages clicks.
I started in the RE industry, 16-years ago, selling wind generations systems, sold over 2k of them, then went to solar as I could see the industry shifting more to solar, and have sold tens of thousands of solar panels and BOS equipment. I've seen the industry change a lot since then and have been extremely happy with the mass adoption of solar, wind + BESS. I'm throwing a huge party in the early 2030's, when the last coal plant shuts down and most gas plants will be shut down, in favor of wind and solar power plants.
German plans for renewable energy include a substantial increase in gas plant capacity for backup. So I think it is accurate to say we will use a lot less gas in the future but capacity will increase and we will have to build lots of new gas plants.
Matt Canavan, Angus Taylor, and Scott Morrison need to have a look at this with a local perspective.
Ha! They’re too busy doing what they’re told by the fossil fuel lobby,
We get the government we deserve. We’re idiots.
Those people are modern day Luddites. Too thick to realise how thick they are or venal and corrupt? I think the latter with a bit of the sky pilot thrown in.
This is brilliant. It is not afraid to be as clear and simple as possible. Respect.
I was doing some solar math because the Chinese have been making the price of Lithium batteries lower and lower. I sized up how much electricity I use now, and to duplicate this in a totally off-the-grid solar system I could put together myself from off the shelf components . . .
6 385-watt solar panels $1068
13,440 watt hours of lithium ion batteries $1732
3,000 watt inverter for AC power $313
charge controller $100
battery management system $50
Total $3263.
System would last 20 years. Monthly energy cost over 20 years: $13.60!
My current electric bill with PG&E in Northern California is about $41.50
Tesla.
Might want to factor in how much your energy usage may increase in the future.
@@twichy4life1 Why? Solar panels and batteries are available in small increments.
How much kWh does your setup produce on a bad day (acknowledging that you are located in an advantageous area.) This would be the benchmark for the size of the PV capacity.
Well done for saving up enough money for your system.
Can’t believe this doesn’t get more press coverage. Thank you for the report!
i think it will be the emerging countries that will lead the way .as they have need for electricity with out disrupting any thing , villages will have autonomous power .
Curious why hydro is included with thermal and nuclear?
The marginal cost of dispatch of hydro is negligible, placing it high in the order of merit. Some hydro (i.e. dams, not run of river) is also firm rather than intermittent.
So why would the capacity factor for firm power with close to zero marginal cost of dispatch be materially lowered by the advent of super-cheap intermittent wind and solar augmented by cheap (but not free) battery storage?
They forecast that energy cost will drop to bellow what it cost to even transport.
In that context, anything centralized is doomed.
@@musaran2 You are not completely wrong - but firm power is still not base power. We will need reserve power and that is where hydro, coal and natural gas may still play an important part.
Of course, that is only 2-5% market utilization. :)
Because the "fuel" cost for hydro is essentially free, the LCOE will be dependent upon the ongoing finance cost (of initial construction) as well as operation and maintenance. It's a little confusing, but I believe RethinkX's analysis is primarily focused on new projects, which would mean new hydro would carry significant interest costs. It may be perfectly reasonable to continue to operate "paid for" hydro sources, but foolish to build new ones.
@@dc14522 While "fuel" costs may be free, the infrastructure is not. Even if you consider the cost of the construction of the Dam as "free", Dams require maintenance, upgrades, etc. If you recall in the video, Tony mentioned that just the operating costs exceed the cost of solar/wind/battery solutions. Dams have also been found to destroy ecosystems, fish populations, and other unexpected side effects. That all comes with costs as well...
@@jomama55ful I agree Joe... listening to another interview, Tony explicitly says that the operation costs of hydro are higher than the total cost of wind and solar.
This research needs to be shared to every decision maker on an URGENT basis ! 👍
I like how you used the credit bubble as analogy of whats happening right now
absolute not comparable, just make it sound good
@@thetruthalwaysscary overvalued assets with the blessing of so called experts so it sounds right to me
A similar thing happened during the 90s in Romania. The regime would not restructure the economic sectors and their industries, especially the primary and secondary sectors, because the government would not want to tell people that what their doing is worthless, i.e. no one would buy the output, and in doing so they wouldn't want to be the ones who tell the nation that there is no Santa Clause, so the state continued to subsidise these industries
Saw Tony's video 5 yrs ago. It was a 💡 moment for me. I had to rewind and watch "God parity" a couple of times because the concept was shocking. Yet, here we are within reach today, with solar, wind & Tesla battery tech. Awesome.
Wonder why Germany is covered with windmills and solar panels and yet mines and burns lignite the worlds dirtiest coal for much of it's power. Weird huh?
It's not "covered", and it burns half the coal (or lignite) of ten years ago, inspite of having shut down the nuclear power plants.
Moron allert!
Thank Russia for shutting down its natural gas deliveries following Germany’s support for Ukraine.
Nothong weird about it. Coal use is higher than it would be if they were still receiving gas from Russia. Blame it on Putin.
At work when we calculate LCOE or make a business case we simulate the yearly cashflows for our wind farms by simulating how much electricity we will sell each year. The energy system at which is operating and its electricity market so its capacity factor varies. Not sure how others do it.
12:20 If CF=0, then coal LCOE skyrockets to infinite. Exactly!
I think that it is time to focus on Africa and start creating a strategy to anergize the continent with solar, wind and storage solutions. This could be the missing element to bring Africa out of powerty.
We know, that there is daily (24 hours) no solar energy for ~6-8-10 hours. It means, in an SWB system the night should be supplied on wind+battery. Wind is also a random resource. If you add ~25% battery to the system (depending on the power need of the electricity network in a given area ... e.g. if a system has max. 30 GW peak-load, the battery size should be ~30 GWh), ... it can at a discharge rate of 4C really produce 100% of the required consumption. But only 15 minutes lang. In this case the rest of the time must be served by wind energy.
This works many times (maybe in ~98% of the cases, if big areas are connected together ... but ~2% in a year means ~170 hours, or ~1 week) and the wind comes in the USA from the "wind belt", the sun from the south of California) ... but an electricity system must be redundant, robust and reliable, because it can happen, that somewhere "the wind doesn´t blow, the sun doesn´t shine (night) and after 1-2 hour the batteries are empty). To build a nationwide, balanced electricity network is naturally possible, but it shouldn´t be forgotten, that a very robust additional network is necessary ... and some buffer (controllable sources, with energy storage ...) are also needed. And so the cost of the system will be much higher ... (it´s clear, that some controllable resources say ~1/3 of the peak power won´t work more yearly, than ~100-200 hours ... but they must exist ...).
My cohorts in the pv industry add the time zone coverage across the grid to, bottom line, claim that pv can cover 90% of all loads by interconnection across the grid. There is a 40% drop in night demand in some seasons and no less than about a 20% drop across the national grid.
Your argument mostly makes since to me, but what determines how much battery capacity to install? I am not clear if RethinkX believes there is no case where wind+solar+battery are insufficient, but battery production seems to be the limiting factor that could throw a wrench in their argument.
I would think that within the next decade (maybe next two decades) while battery production is still ramping up, that we need to preserve some conventional energy production to keep the limited supply of batteries packs topped off at all times when renewables drop the ball for whatever reason.
Also with electric cars ramping up, I don't think we will be able to assume night time demand will remain low like it is right now. People will be charging at night.
@@nitetrekker That s exactly what they say it s going to happen...
@@nitetrekker At night you use the energy surplus of the day. That s why batteries for both the grid and homes.
I'm sure LCOE affects wind power far more than for instance coal plants. A coal plant has life span of more than 50 years while wind power has a 10 year life span. It's also far more easier to maintain a coal plant than for instance an off-shore wind farm.
Current wind is at least 20 years (as it s solar), recyclable (as it s solar) and is far easier and cheaper to maintain and operate (not sure what you re smoking)(as it s solar).
Edit: Do your research, invest in Tesla
Isn't this the kind of stuff that Cathie Wood preaches daily?
Yes, she definitely knows Tony Seba. He has talked about this and other big changes for a long time.
@@Glenhh Met him once. You ever get the chance and want to scare yourself? Ask him about the convergence of AGI and automation.
@@davefroman4700 No need, I’m already aware and scared. 😂 But exited at the same time, what’s the worst that can happen? We’ll die no matter what.
@@Glenhh The first industrial revolution is responsible for the creation of our current social/economic/political system. It was the sixth time in our evolution that technology convergences fundamentally changed our relationship to our environment, and thus our society as a whole, because the human species IS a behavioral product of its environment. The arrival of the digital autonomous era will render our current system obsolete once again, and our society will inevitably change in our values, beliefs, and behaviors once again.
@@davefroman4700 I know.
Totally thought provoking and relevant. One quibble, I wouldn't put too much long-term investment into Tesla Power as long as it's using lithium. Liquid metal batteries have the capacity to knock lithium off its pedestal in stationary power on cost, longevity and its use of common, local materials. Huge potential in grid-scale, stable power storage on demand. Also, autonomous vehicles are not even close to being as revolutionary as sustainable urbanism to fight climate change in our cities. That would include electrified public transit and urbanizing the suburbs with super energy efficient buildings and platting human-scaled walkable, multi-zoned communities. AEVs are still cars that require massive, subsidized road infrastructure.
Tesla is invested in long term contracts with lithium mining suppliers, but the stationary storage market typically uses LIFEPO4 only because it presently has the best cost. Tesla is not going to stubbornly stick to lithium technology for stationary storage, but only for vehicles.
This is horrifying. Thank you for the report and for bringing this to attention!
OK so who do we short?
That's all you got from this ? STOP WATCHING MOVIES THO.
Do your research, invest in Tesla.
Fantastic information and presentation. We (investors who want to be on the RIGHT side of change) really appreciate your research.
Wow, the world has to know this. It is a bomb.
yeah but, aren't renewable like wind and solar also vulnerable to this type of error in the lcoe calculation?
After all, it is a grave mistake to assume that a wind farm will be producing electricity at 100% capacity for its lifetime.
So the calculated lcoe for wind and solar are also incorrect, just as with lcoe for fossil fuel power plants.
I’d love to see an annual or bi annual update on the numbers. There is still so much talk about building additional fossil fuel and nuclear assets, especially after the Ukraine war. We need this information getting out more! An annual update with some press might be an excellent way to do that?
Money will talk sooner or later
Smart calculations. Thanks!
Coal has fallen to sub 4% in UK. Wind is over 50%.
Thank you Andy thank you Tony! Genius presentation (as usual) This is a new channel I guess?? I'm a subscriber of the other channel but I'm glad I found this one... If you need to spread the word on this new channel maybe you could do an interview with some of the channels that know what's going on, my top 10 or so would be:
Solving The Money Problem, Now You Know, , Just Have a Think, Tesla Daily, BestinTesla, , Warren Redlich, Munro Live, T-Study, 2 THE FUTURE with Jixuan & Sebastian, Meet Kevin, Fully Charged Show
Some smaller some larger but all of those channels IMHO really know what's going on and would all love the chance to have an interview with you guys would be AMAZING and be the best publicity your channel needs! Anyway continued success with the channel however you you choose to promote it... ;-)
Brilliant. You're seeing what will be obvious to everyone in 2050, now.
tell me you didn t undertand a word without telling me you didnt undertand a word! xD
Excellent information, sad this video has only 3000 views, needs to be 3B so the people could see what the oil-igarchs are up to
For a few decades, the benefits of renewable energy may be mostly used up, cleaning up the wreckage.
Thank you. Great approach to the REAL LCoE. Congrats1
I'm confused. I was always taught that "Hydropower" was a CLEAN energy source, and should be lumped in with Solar, wind and battery storage. However, Dr. Dorr and Mr. Seba are saying that hydropower is bad, and should be lumped in with coal, gas and nuclear. Which is correct? I live outside of Portland, Oregon, and we use hydropower from the Columbia River to power our electricity. Should we complain, and demand wind and solar for our local needs?
I don’t believe Mr Seba & Dorr are saying that hydropower is bad. They are saying that it is uncompetitive from a cost perspective with wind, solar, & battery (SWB). People will buy the lowest cost electrical power they can and thus SWB will take a growing segment of the market. Hydropower has high fixed costs and as it is less able to compete on price, it will produce less, yet incur the same fixed costs and thus the Cost of Electricity Produced (or LCOE) will further rise.
A map is a nice thing to have, but in the end the actual terrain is what's important. We have seen the price of electricity both increase and decrease as more and more intermittent sources are connected to the grid. Solar is a complete waste in many parts of the world, and wind demands a substantial overprovisioning or (still) very expensive storage solutions. If geologically possible, nuclear + hydro seem like the overall best solution with nuclear creating an incredibly stable base-load and hydro offering great peak capacity both in short-term (a few hours) and long-term (as in months). Compare this to wind/solar in a best-case scenario offering peaking-capacity for at most a few hours. Still winter is lasting for many months and the wind can be weak for days at a time.
Outstanding stuff!
You never know. Something new could be just around the corner.
Rethinkx report doesn't focus on upcoming gen 4 nuclear reactors much, why is that? Today's nuclear, despite having massive construction cost and delays, is still cheaper than coal. Upcoming rector designs won't need such massive capital investments because they would be small and modular (could be made in factories for cheaper at scale). The fuel cost of nuclear is negligible. Nuclear is alot more space efficient and consistent. The upcoming reactors would also provide alot of waste heat more than 500c which could further help in many industrial processes.
Will this kill investmennt in the nascentt Fusiion power sector?
These guys are right but for the wrong reasons. Conventional generators are having their capacity factors degraded mainly because they have to follow and cover the intermitency and stochasticity from wind and solar. The latter cannot survive in the grid without the former's backup (if we still want reliable 24/7 supply).
If someone is being subsidized by ratepayers and taxpayers these are wind and solar, as they don't incur in any integration-to-grid costs, consumers do. Conventional LCOE would be lower if we got rid of wind and solar (as we should, they only add unnecesary costs, disrupting the grid's operation).
Well put
Why do you think renewables need a backup?
The decreasing price of electricity storage invalidates your claim. Also, your claim is BS because it relies on externalizes the cost of climate change to everyone else outside of power generators and users.
I'm OK with some aspects of this, but I'm not sure that these two understand just how much battery capacity is needed when all baseload "fossil" (gas, coal) and nuclear are no longer producing power. Keep in mind that much of the battery manufacturing capacity will be used for electrification of transportation over the next decade. The industry will need to more than double that amount again, to store all of the INTERMITTENT wind and solar. Otherwise just plan for outages (Texas winter 2021).
Also, again consider electrification of transportation. That will add more demand to the grid. At least in the short term, this might buy natural gas plants some lifetime/profit that would otherwise be ceded to solar and wind.
My back of the napkin estimate is that in Texas you would need about 20,000 MWh of storage just to get through a typical evening with no fossil baseload. Tesla's biggest utility battery storage system to date is the 730 MWh planned for Moss Landing (CA). So we would need ~30x of those to cover a typical Texas usage through the evening. Maybe the better solution is something like a Tesla roof + Powerwalls on every house (as much as possible) and then some peakers (batteries and/or gas turbines) for weather outliers.
11% of this year's new capacity is projected to be grid battery. Also, the TX freeze failure had nothing to do with renewables. PV there was over 100%. Offshore wind also overperformed and covered the onshore turbine freeze. ERCOT has admitted to all this.
@@LeonardBachman distorted economics heavily favors renewables. As a result there is minimal investment on the fossil side not only for winterization but also for general upgrades and availability. As such, the fossil side cannot longer properly provide base load and that is a shortcoming that resulted in the outages. Moreover this will most definitely result in more future outages at least until battery storage is available at scale.
When I google LCOE, a lot of time I get Lazard. Are they making the same errors in calculations?
anyone else here from Best in Tesla?
How about russia and their revenue reliance in oi and gas?
The best education on the planet 🌎
Clear explanation that coal/gas/hydro/nuclear output will be reduced every year and definitely during the day due to PV output and that will make electricity prices go negative. Germany buys energy from France mainly at night, but pays France $150/MWh to take the surplus. Coal cannot follow the demand, but gas/hydro and nuclear can. Problem with renewables is that the following systems are needed:
PV, private and large scale,
Wind, on- and off-shore,
Batteries,
Extra grid to move surplus to other places,
Overbuild for VRE (variable renewable ...),
Subsidies for private and commercial renewables,
Stored hydro for storage,
Land for PV, wind and battery fields,
New gas-fired stations for firming or "top up", etc.
Adding up the LCOE figures for every renewable may even make nuclear look cheap!
Hey rethinkx, now this is 2years old - show us the graphs again with new data!
13:56 Gas LCOE is 4.5x higher than IEA estimate for 2030, Nuclear LCOE is 13.5x and Hydro is 9x higher than IEA projections. That's not insignificant!
How about doing a research on how city car tunnels will improve city economics due to less time wasted in transit?
I fully agree with the LCOE calculation in the video.
What the video does not explain though is that gas plants are needed as backup for renewables.
With pure market prices the price of electricity in these backup situations might skyrocket.
So it might be useful for governments to pay some fixed price per month to gas plant operators just for offering the capacity (to avoid extreme peak prices).
Disagree. Storage is the answer, not gas plants running at very low utilization and receiving corporate welfare from the government, the funds of which are sourced forcefully from taxpayers under threats of violence (imprisonment).
The bigger the investment in future stranded assets, the bigger the economic downturn when they actually become stranded.
Thanks, guys. Another stunning report.
Won't OPEC just cut oil production to maintain prices?
And the price per kwh of oil goes up as the prices of solar, wind, storage and efficiency goes down. More SWStE gets sold, per unit cost goes down further.
Four hours of storage for solar will not replace baseload power generation. This will limit growth until battery prices drop. Which is occurring but this will be a bit of a limiting factor for solar. I imagine with a mix of wind and solar this can be overcome.
In their Energy Report, they specify that the mature system will most likely have a few days of storage depending on geography. But at 4 hours of storage a lot of existing infrastructure is completely disrupted. But the idea is that between wind and solar, most places will always have an input, solar during the day, wind is more common at night, that it would be very odd to go more than a few days without enough input.
The other takeaway I got, is that if you design a system for the winter months, like to where your solar, wind, and battery operates flawlessly in the most difficult time of the year, that it will provide super abundant energy the rest of the year.
Four hours of base load storage will absolutely change the economics of base load power plants.
@@riley_oneill I have no doubt that 100% renewables will be possible within ten years. Also LCOE projections for fossil fuels is a fluffed number. Building new conventional power is an idiot's pursuit and should not be underwritten by rate payers. But we cannot retire fossil fuel generation yet. This video should be required viewing for any public utility commission.
There's a formula ... Because capital cost of construction for wind and solar and battery is so low, build 4 times the needed generation, where that is the median of the daily high demand for electricity, and then build 70-90 hours of storage assuming no generation to match that. What you get is a resilient generation system, and many days where it is generating more energy than it knows what to do with. Either dump that on the grid and kill off fossil fuel and nuclear generation, or drive it into water electrolysis to produce Hydrogen at long term storage.
@@QuantCoder do you understand how much 70-90 hours of storage is? For a while country? We currently don’t have anything big enough to do that even for a town.
ICE vehicles fall in the same general category.... BEV's is/was the way to go YESTERDAY!
Dear Tony and Adam
Please share your thoughts on biogas electricity generation. Thanks
Great work guys, I hope our leaders are listening.
If you are reading this comment, share this far and wide!
I would be less suspicious if the wind, solar, and storage numbers were discussed. The presentation seemed a little biased IMO.
Using four hour battery storage seems highly unrealistic.
Please would you do some TED talks? Your important information and analysis need to have a much wider audience, and TED is allowing fossil fuel disinformation to spread.
This is insane
What if coal plants add electricity storage to let them run more continuously, enabling selling that electricity when renewables are off-line? How would that change things?
Ah yes, wind and solar with capacity factors about 20% - 40% (in mainstream LCOE they assume always maximum) without considering costs for batteries, bakcups and network adjustaments are better for use 😂
Number Game - how long this last? Is it math stupid or people using math for unrealistic way create catastrophe?
You need to promote the real fundamental issue of electricvehicles and such. There needs to be ev battery replacability that is credible safe and secure. This will remove value negative attitudes. Of course reparability will reduce insurances.
This is not on topic but your the team to promote these issues, sorry and well done.
👍
I will have to work hard to make a battery storage item like a megapack from tesla
Brilliant. And then there's this...
*
Let's talk about STANDARD EQUIPMENT...shall we...???
Here's a first for you. Here goes. You're out camping - of course, in your new EV truck or jeep. You run out of battery power. Guess what happens? Unlike all the ICE cars in the past the NEVER carried and extra gas and/or siphon hoses, etc., every other EV'r out there is gladly rushing to you aid because they now TWO THINGS: 1. That most of their friends back at camp have portable solar systems set up all around camp charging their devices and their friends EVs. And 2. That it FINALLY dawned on Tesla et. al. to make ALL their EVs capable of "Bringing Aid & Comfort" to their fellow road warriors.
In fact, it is vital that ALL EVs are (at some point) forced by regulators and NHTSA to make said charging functions STANDARD EQUIPMENT.
Good idea! I never thought about it! Thanx!
US battery capacity is 10 minutes. You guys are outright liars. Not that I mind. My coal mining shares are going ballistic.
holy shit.. now how do i make money off this?
IDK I’m not a professional, this isn’t investment advice but: Invest in battery, solar and wind power companies. Like Tesla, Enphase, First Solar, Plug Power, Vestas Wind
If you've got the balls you could short some fossil fuel companies.
Resist the hype.
short the power utilities
Avoid shorting.
The timing of the penny finally dropping is too irrational, and then the market acting on it can be slow as molasses.
Old habits die hard.
In some cases, your life will be threatened for spreading this information.
This is crap. Pull the subsidies out of renewables and then you will see the bubble pop.
They may still be correct in the long run as solar and battery costs come down, but they are using some sleight of hand for their claims today.
4 hours of storage is not enough to get through a night or a week of bad weather, therefore the claim that solar wind and batteries is cheaper is invalid. A fair comparison would have to include enough battery storage to entirely eliminate the need for fossil powered peaker plants.
You can't compare unreliable solar wind and batteries to fossil and nuclear on a strictly LCOE basis. The capital costs of rarely used fossil plants should accrue to the unreliable solar wind and batteries. When the wind stops blowing and the sun don't shine for days on end and the batteries are expended then on demand fossil or nuclear plants will be needed. The fact that these plants are peaker plants is the fault of the unreliable solar and wind therefore their cost should be counted against solar and wind not compared with them. It's almost evil to blame fossil and nuclear plants increasing LCOE's when it's the subsidized solar and wind power that reduces their usage driving up their LCOE, while they are still needed as backup because of the unreliability of solar and wind.
I do not find these two convincing.
For good reason. Not an engineer among them. Grifters.
Assuming all these facts are correct, where is the evidence that Solar, Wind and Batteries are any different. This is half a story and that makes me sceptical.
Another point causing doubt...Why are batteries being presented in this vid as an energy source like wind, solar? It's not an energy source, it's simply a way to store energy. You still have to input energy into the batteries. There's also no end of life considerations for the wind and solar tech...which right now, is only about 15 years tops.
@@ronlambert5392 Batteries replace fossil-fueled peaker power plants.
@@ronlambert5392 He is calling it, an energy system. They are part of a system.
The economics of solar, wind, and battery make it different. That is his whole point. The economics have already won out and no one is noticing. The economics for solar/wind/battery will only get better. This is his entire point.
Whats going to under cut solar, wind and batteries, apart from of course the next generation of them?
Such nonsense.