Re:California's Last Nuclear Power Plant to Be Shut Down
by toomuchtodo on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @02:38AM
(#11951978)
Storage is not 20-30 cents/kWh. Storage alone, provided by Solar City in Hawaii, is 14.5 cents/kWh as of this year [1]. These costs will only continue to decline [2].
The price of natural gas will increase again [3] (and currently, its closer to 7-10 cents/kWh, not 6); when that does, it only makes renewables more competitive. Renewables will never get more expensive than they are today; coal will be gone in the next 3-5 years, and natural gas not far behind.
[1] http://cleantechnica.com/2016/02/19/solarcity-deploy-tesla-e...
[2] http://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/26/ev-battery-costs-already...
Re:California's Last Nuclear Power Plant to Be Shut Down
by pstrateman on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @03:48AM
(#11952171)
That's certainly an improvement from 20-30 cents/kWh.
However for solar PV with storage to replace natural gas their combined cost is going to need to be less than 6 cents/kWh.
The combined cost of solar PV and storage is currently 20-50 cents/kWh.
Do you really see a 10x performance/cost improvement right around the corner?
Re:California's Last Nuclear Power Plant to Be Shut Down
by toomuchtodo on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @12:59PM
(#11955367)
> Do you really see a 10x performance/cost improvement right around the corner?
I see batteries under $100/kWh in <5 years.
The grid cannot realistically be more than about 20-30% solar PV without matching storage.
Storage is expensive, like 20-30 cents/kWh expensive.
It's just not competitive with natural gas which is available for ~6 cents/kWh.