A biogas turbine for the last few percent of demand??
Peak electricity demand occurs when solar generation has dropped to nearly zero. It's not the last few percent, it's the last 90 something percent demand. This is the entire problem with solar (and wind, though slightly different patterns).
If you're going to "they should just" it, you really need to know at least that. It's just a hard problem even in Australia. The reason these "dirt cheap renewables" have not been pushing electricity prices down to historic lows anywhere in the world is that you've kind of been had by the marketing.
Solar and wind are very important and very cheap where applicable, and with more storage, better grids, and consumers that are better adapted to them they should gradually improve. But they are not going to "just" anything.
Remember how wind and solar was so cheap that it had already killed coal? That was a common mantra I heard maybe 20 years ago. Since then solar panels and wind turbines have become even cheaper and better so surely they must be moving on to just about killing off natural gas too... But no, it turns out 60% of Australia's electricity is generated by fossil fuels today, 40% being coal which is twice the amount that solar generated. How could that be possible decades after coal had been killed by solar? Really was some pretty wild propaganda.
This is not due to government corruption and incompetence and a cabal of coal barons preventing renewables. Nuclear maybe, but solar no. There is electricity generation surplus when solar is working in Australia, they turn off wind turbines and solar panels and try to give the electricity away for free. Cost of solar panels being zero would make approximately no difference to those 20% solar and 60% fossil fuels numbers.
And as much as a cyclist I dislike cars, the nice thing about electric cars is the potential that most often they can be charged at a time when it is convenient for the network. Mind you, cars just sit around 95% of the time.
So it's no longer "just solar" with a biogas turbine for the remaining few % demand, is it? It's solar with batteries to cover 3x the current daily solar output plus perhaps more to deal with multi-day fluctuations.
> That's a new trend and easy to miss
It's not new and not easy to miss, it's obvious they need storage to cover any more demand. This has literally been the biggest issue for solar for at least 20 years.
> but it will push out coal and gas.
Maybe. How much more credible are these claims than the "solar killed coal" idiocy from years ago? I mean solar and battery tech does continue to get better so you can mindlessly point to that and yes if it kept continuing surely it would push out fossil fuels (everywhere including airplanes and ships). But if we are talking actual timeframes and realistic technology projections?
You realize that doesn't address the sum of what I wrote though? That is batteries taking over from gas peaking. Fossil fuels sit somewhere north of 75% of national generation when the sun is down.
> And average prices in the Australian national electricity market are going down as a result:
And electricity peaking is well suited to batteries because it is very high prices and not a long period. It's great if they can be used here to reduce prices, possibly they could be used independently of solar (though solar does make them a lot cheaper to charge).
But you presumably do understand how that is not removing fossil fuels from generation with just "solar and biogas turbines for a few % of peak", or no?
Peak electricity demand occurs when solar generation has dropped to nearly zero. It's not the last few percent, it's the last 90 something percent demand. This is the entire problem with solar (and wind, though slightly different patterns).
If you're going to "they should just" it, you really need to know at least that. It's just a hard problem even in Australia. The reason these "dirt cheap renewables" have not been pushing electricity prices down to historic lows anywhere in the world is that you've kind of been had by the marketing.
Solar and wind are very important and very cheap where applicable, and with more storage, better grids, and consumers that are better adapted to them they should gradually improve. But they are not going to "just" anything.
Remember how wind and solar was so cheap that it had already killed coal? That was a common mantra I heard maybe 20 years ago. Since then solar panels and wind turbines have become even cheaper and better so surely they must be moving on to just about killing off natural gas too... But no, it turns out 60% of Australia's electricity is generated by fossil fuels today, 40% being coal which is twice the amount that solar generated. How could that be possible decades after coal had been killed by solar? Really was some pretty wild propaganda.
This is not due to government corruption and incompetence and a cabal of coal barons preventing renewables. Nuclear maybe, but solar no. There is electricity generation surplus when solar is working in Australia, they turn off wind turbines and solar panels and try to give the electricity away for free. Cost of solar panels being zero would make approximately no difference to those 20% solar and 60% fossil fuels numbers.