this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
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Based on current deployment rates, it is likely that solar will surpass wind as the third-largest source of electricity. And solar may soon topple coal in the number two spot.

Looking ahead, through July 2028, FERC expects no new coal capacity to come online based on its “high probability additions” forecast. Meanwhile 63 coal plants are expected to be retired, subtracting 25 GW from the 198 GW total, and landing at about 173 GW of coal capacity by 2028. Meanwhile, FERC forecasts 92.6 GW of “high probability additions” solar will come online through July 2028.

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[–] Mihies@programming.dev 2 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

What batteries exactly? The capacity required is huge.

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

No one will ever have the idea of simply having more batteries right? It's all in capacity not quantity, because quantity would be to easy right? Got it.

[–] Mihies@programming.dev 1 points 4 hours ago

Where do you have TWhs of batteries? As you said, both quantity and capacity matters, when lower capacity you need bigger battery which is harder to put somewhere.

[–] axexrx@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

They can be distributed though. I Install solar, most of the systems we install with batteries end up selling back a significant portion of their charge to the grid (iirc our system wide average is 40% nightly resale)

So not only is each house with a battery not using grid power at night, its powering almost half of an equivalently sized house.

Granted, batteries are still on the expensive side, so these systems aren't coming enough ( I think we're at ~10% of our systems have a battery)

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

A competent government that believes in basic science, would give tax breaks to encourage this.

[–] Mihies@programming.dev 1 points 4 hours ago

Sure, but even then we don't have a solution today. It's all in the fuzzy future.

[–] Mihies@programming.dev 1 points 11 hours ago

Yeah, that's a step in correct direction, but can you guarantee that everybody can be powered 24/7 through renewables/batteries, specially during winter? Unless that's the case you still need a shit-ton of non-renewable energy that's coming either from fossil fuels or nuclear. And if you want to avoid (co2) emissions, then you need nuclear to cover everybody, and if you have nuclear then it has to run 100% 24/7. OTOH if you don't have nuclear, you'll emit all sort or crap during those periods. And so on. Also, it's not just that batteries are sort of expensive, they are big. Also you are talking houses, but masses live in apartments where placing solar panels or batteries isn't possible (at least in quantity).

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 0 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Also not renewable, are incredibly environmentally destructive, and have short lifetimes - kinda the opposite of what the push for “renewables” is supposed to be about lol.

[–] Mihies@programming.dev 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Are you talking about batteries?