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Comment by phtrivier

2 days ago

LCOE is only fair with storage taken into account, which is hard because storage does not necessarily exist in capacities to make a comparison with non intermittent sources relevant.

The joke is that the LCOE of solar is "Infinity / kWh" at night if the battery is empty, "-Infinity / kWh" at noon if the reservoir is full, and "NaN / kWh" when there is not enough câbles.

That being said, the answer to "which carbon -light electricity source should we build ?" is "YES".

I, too, long for the days where we have batteries massive enough to not even care any more.

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phtrivier

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gpm  2 days ago

This was true a couple of years ago.

This is no longer true.

Storage has become a lot cheaper very rapidly. The LCOE of solar with storage covering the night is now competitive.

  • phtrivier  1 day ago

    Not entirely sure: everywhere I read about solar + storage, there are huge errors bars. Eg : https://www.lazard.com/media/eijnqja3/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...

    Solar+storage : from 50$/MWh to... 131$/MWh !

    Go make a decision with something like that.

    The trend is clear, for sure, and it will make sense to extrapolate... Up to a point, as usual. (baring one of the "breakthroughs" that make it to the HN top page on e in a while and never materialize... Sigh)

  • IshKebab  2 days ago

    Night, sure. Doesn't work in winter though. (Not that that means we should stop building solar - we're still far from the point where it wouldn't make sense to build any more solar because we can't store the energy.)