After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

Re:After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit by CydeWeys on Wednesday July 08, 2020 @01:53PM (#23772377)

Good points. I still think that, overall, money talks, and the vast majority of solar installations are not managed nearly as incompetently as this one was (i.e. not forgetting to take into account sand in a desert). So the fact that close to 100% if not 100% of new solar installations are PV over solar thermal really does mean that once you take all these factors into account, PV is still more cost-effective.

The storage issue is interesting, but doesn't matter so much to most plants since they tie into a larger balanced grid, and battery storage is coming down in cost at the same exponential rate as PV. These same advantages are not accruing to solar thermal. So I do think we are seeing the death knell for solar thermal, even when energy storage is desired alongside peak production.

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Re:After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit by Jedd on Thursday July 09, 2020 @09:55AM (#23780233)

Agree up to a point.

Storage can't be ignored - and the 'balanced grid' that we're all part of relies heavily on burning fossil fuels for both baseload coping with peaks (sun goes behind a cloud or the horizon, or the wind stops for a while). As we decom more of the fossil fuel systems, a more robust & scalable storage system, even a relatively ephemeral one, will become more compelling. (my prediction : )

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