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Topic: Solar Plus Storage

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[Episode #229] – US Distributed Solar Potential

Jul 24 2024

What is the full potential for distributed solar power in the US?

Many models have been developed to explore how a decarbonized US energy system could look, consistently finding that solar power would be the dominant source of electricity. Yet, we don’t really know the full potential for distributed solar. Even the term “distributed solar” isn’t very well-defined, potentially referring to many different kinds of solar power installations.

In today’s conversation, we review the available estimates for small rooftop and ground-mounted systems typically found on buildings, solar panels on canopies over parking lots, and innovative floating solar arrays over bodies of freshwater. Additionally, we explore emerging options such as installations on brownfield sites, agricultural lands, and alongside roadways.

Then we add it all up to see how big of a role distributed solar could actually play in a fully decarbonized US electricity system—with a surprisingly large result! But you’ll have to be a premium member and listen to the end to find out what it is.

In this episode, we are joined by Robert Margolis, a Senior Energy Analyst with the Strategic Energy Analysis Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (or NREL), which is part of the US Department of Energy. With more than 20 years of focused research on solar in the US, and his deep familiarity with energy technology and policy and energy-economic-environmental modeling, he is one of the top experts on the potential for distributed solar in the US.

Guest:

Robert Margolis is a Senior Energy Analyst in NREL’s Strategic Energy Analysis Center. Since joining NREL in 2003, he has served as key advisor to the U.S. DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office. In this role he has helped to define and carry out a broad analytical agenda focused on examining the potential for and challenges related to wide-spread adoption of solar energy. He led the Solar Futures Study (2021), the On the Path to SunShot Study (2016), and the SunShot Vision Study (2021). His main research interests include energy technology and policy; research, development, and demonstration policy; and energy-economic-environmental modeling.

On the Web: Robert’s page at NREL

Geek rating: 4

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[Episode #122] – Hybrid Power Plants

May 27 2020

Mini Episode

The days of worrying about the intermittency of solar and wind farms are quickly receding into the past as battery storage systems are added to existing plants, and new renewable plants are increasingly equipped with large battery storage systems from the outset as so-called “hybrid” power plants. In fact, 25% of all new solar PV plants waiting to connect to bulk power systems are now hybrid plants incorporating battery systems, and on the California wholesale power market, 96% of solar PV and 75% of wind projects launched in 2019 were paired with batteries. All at prices that beat the cost of conventional power plants.

But figuring out the best way to deploy utility-scale battery storage systems isn’t just a matter of dispatchability and system balancing. In fact, it turns out that tax credit incentives and market rules are far more significant determinants. That’s one finding of a new research paper led by several researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who modeled various ways of pairing battery storage systems with utility-scale wind and solar farms. In this episode, we explore the details of this modeling with one of the paper’s authors and speculate that it might actually be better to deploy large scale storage systems independently of wind and solar farms, if market rules were more supportive of the strategy.

Geek rating: 8

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[Episode #78] – 3-Year Anniversary on the Jonathan Koomey Omnibus

Sep 19 2018

Mini Episode

Veteran energy researcher Jonathan Koomey rejoins us for another anniversary show! In this episode we talk about California’s new plan to obtain 100% carbon-free power; the potential for “peak gas” as utility-scale solar-plus-storage and wind plants beat gas on price in the US; the outlook for nuclear power in the West; how to know when the numbers you’re seeing aren’t right, and how to understand data; and the degree to which energy transition can help us stay below 2 degrees C of warming. We also discuss some of the confusing issues with energy data and how that influences our forecasts for primary energy consumption, and we’ll talk about the future need for climate modeling. It’s a wide-ranging, fast-paced romp through all sorts of geeky energy topics that definitely deserves its Geek Rating!

Geek rating: 10

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[Episode #72] – The Future of Solar

Jun 27 2018

Mini Episode

The cost of solar has dropped so quickly that we’re suddenly in a world nobody really anticipated. Utility power procurement is having to pivot to solar under $0.03/kWh…including dispatchable solar with storage, displacing not just coal and nuclear, but natural gas power plants, which everyone assumed we would continue building for decades to come.

So what’s next for solar? Are we ready to phase out its incentives? Do we still need solar advocacy? And are we at risk of solar becoming so cheap that even solar developers can no longer afford to build it? Does the sun actually need to be tamed?

Our guest in this episode has a unique point of view on these issues. Adam Browning is the co-founder and Executive Director of Vote Solar, a non-profit advocacy organization in the US with the mission of bringing solar energy into the mainstream, and he knows the history and the current prospects of solar better than most.

Geek rating: 5

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