Category: General

EVs Are on the Road to Mass Adoption

“Adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is gaining serious momentum around the world. Multiple countries, including the United States, have already passed a passenger EV tipping point— when sales reach critical mass…” — RMI

“In one year, the world extracts 40 percent more oil than the total weight of all the ore needed to electrify the world’s entire transportation system.” — RMI

I post these references for myself, to reference the next time someone says, “but what about all the minerals needed to make the EVs…”

Ski report: Mt. Rainier, camp Muir

Because I’ve been asked enough times about our June 7th ski trip and have it already composed:

There’s [barely] continuous snow from the Paradise parking lot to camp Muir, but one needs to be careful to stay to climber’s right of the main route, else you’ll be booting a half mile. We left the Paradise parking lot (~5,400′) around 6:30AM on slightly firm snow and arrived at Muir (10,200′) around 11AM.

The top 500′ of snow immediately below Muir was still firm and moderately sun cupped. It’s skiable, but it’s not fun and don’t expect to look pretty doing it. Once we got below the sun cups, the snow was mashed potatoes the rest of the way down. Starting at 6:30 was too late, we should have planned to arrive at Muir by 10AM.

Ivanpah falls victim to Swanson’s Law

Ivanpah, the largest Concentrated Solar Power plant in the USA has announced they are closing in early 2026. That followed PG&E announcing they plan to terminate their Ivanpah PPA contracts. The reasoning is simple: the PPA price from Ivanpah is estimated at $0.135/kWh. The PPA price on building a new solar PV plant is about $0.05. Ivanpah finds itself in a similar position as existing coal and nuclear power plants, where continuing to operate them is decreasingly economic.

The demise of Ivanpah is a harbinger for the remaining CSP plants. The first seven phases of SEGS were decommissioned by 2021 and replaced with PV, leaving 2 CSP phases remaining. Crescent Dunes went bankrupt in 2019, was reopened in 2021, and now discharges only at night.

The history of CSP builds in the USA is short:

BuiltOperatingCapacityStorage MWhCapacity Factor
Solar One19811982-19867 MW0
SEGS1983-19901984-2021160 MW019%
Solar Two19951995-199910 MW0
Nevada Solar One20062007-72 MW018%
Ivanpah20102014-2026377 MW024%
Genesis20102014-250 MW028%
Solana20102013-250 MW1,50034%
Mojave20112014-250 MW026%
Crescent Dunes20112016-2019
2021-		110 MW1,10020%
Concentrated Solar Power plant history

There’s a few fun facts to notice in the table:

  1. Our CSP plants were all built before 2011.
  2. Only Solana and Crescent Dunes are paired with storage.
  3. The capacity factor of CSP, ranging from 18-34% is comparable (not better) than PV solar.

The thing that changed around 2010 that caused the death of new CSP plants was Swanson’s Law. Swanson’s law is the observation that the price of solar photovoltaic modules tends to drop 20 percent for every doubling of cumulative shipped volume. By 2010, the cost to deploy new PV versus new CSP had tipped firmly towards PV:

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By 2020, the cost to deploy utility scale CSP was 5 times higher than PV, which nearly guarantees no more CSP will be built. To remain competitive, existing CSP plants need an edge in the marketplace. Solana and Crescent Dunes have storage, so they can sell their electrons at night when the cheaper solar PV is offline. Solana is further East in Arizona where it sells exclusively to APS where they’re still competitive. From out here in the cheap seats, it’s hard to see a long runway for Genesis, Mojave, SEGS 8&9, and NSO.

Nevada Solar One is an interesting case. They have a 20-year PPA that started in 2007 and so expires in 2027. From the NREL project page, their 2023 LCOE of $0.20/kWh isn’t very competitive, especially against their PPA sell price of $0.14. Using their production numbers I was able to calculate their total project revenue of $313M. That repays the $266M in construction costs but will fall short of also covering all their operating costs. I’ve read they have a 40-year lease on the land. The smart money is to raze the site and deploy PV–which has a much lower LCOE, doesn’t consume natural gas, and isn’t a water pig.

WiFi 6 and WiFi 7 speed

Empirical speed tests (Mbps):

  • Device | Download | Upload
  • U6-Lite | 284 | 170
  • U6-Pro | 447 | 439
  • U7-Pro | 933 | 845
  • Ethernet | 1000 | 1000

TLDR;

The backbone of my home LAN has been 1 Gbps wired Ethernet for decades. The wired backbone is the fastest part of the network while the WAN and WiFi have typically been a fraction the LAN speed. Because the wired network is fastest, I run wires to each Access Point, getting the wireless traffic onto the wires ASAP for the best performance.

WiFi versions 5, 6, and 7 were released in 2013, 2021, and 2024 respectively. When WiFi 6 arrived, I upgraded the (3) APs with the U6-Lite model for a nice speed bump. WiFi 6 was finally “fast enough” that I can’t recall carrying a computer to the wired connection since.

On February 19th, I cross-graded my fiber internet from CenturyLink to Quantum’s. Improvements include shedding the need for PPPoE and getting two public IPs. That timing coincided with WiFi 7 hardware availability so I also picked up a U7-Pro.

To capitalize on the new WAN and WiFi speed, my aged USG-3P router was the slow link so I also upgraded it. Now when I plug into the wired Ethernet, my speedtest results are consistently within a couple percent of the 940 Mbps service cap. Today I carried my M3 laptop around the house to measure the speed of each AP and was surprised to see that WiFi 7 can nearly saturate my WAN connection…when I’m sitting near the AP with no obstructions.

Feb-26: first solar plus day

February 26th was the first day of 2025 that I produced more energy than I consumed.

I typically start producing surpluses in late March, but an unseasonably warm (55°F) sunny day combined with the new panels moved the timeline forward.

Update (March 23rd): despite every day of the past week being mostly overcast, I have still produced 8% more electrons that we consumed over the past week.

Screenshot

Empirical data meets theoretical

Over the years I’ve read enough citations that I’ve accepted it on faith that solar panel performance degrades about 2% in the first year and then 1% every year thereafter. Today I had a chance to test that.

Yesterday afternoon I hauled 6 new solar panels up onto my roof and wired them up. Today they’re producing so I spot checked against the production of my existing 290W panels from 2016. The rule of thumb above plus math suggests that those 8 year old panels have degraded about 9% and likely produce about 290W * 91% = 264W. The new panels are rated at 405W so I’d expect each old panel to produce 65% as much as a new one.

Today is an overcast day, which may affect production differently on the new versus old panels, but when I average the production of 10 old panels to 210W and divide that by the average of the 6 new ones at 320W, I get 65.6%. I find it very satisfying when reality matches theory so closely.

What is Net Metering?

A question I’m often asked about my solar is, “how exactly does Net Metering work?” Here in the state of Washington, the rules for Net Metering are enshrined in RCW 80.60.030. Go forth and read, if you’re the nerdy type. For everyone else…

Every year on March 31, my Net Metering kWh balance resets to zero. When the sun shines I harvest kWh. I also run the heat pumps, toaster oven, and charge my phone and car, all of which consume kWh. If I consume more than I produce, I pay my utility (Seattle City Light) for the kWh they provide, just as everyone else does. If I produce more kWh than my house and car consume, then SCL adds those surplus kWh to my Net Metering balance.

In practice, each year in April I produce as much energy as I consume. From May to September I generate surpluses and build up kWh credits. As winter progresses my solar production falls off and I start depleting the kWh credits. In most years, I exhaust my credits by January and have to start buying kWh.

On March 31st, if there’s any kWh credit balance, it gets wiped away as a free gift to SCL. Therefore, under net metering it rarely makes economic sense to produce any more kWh than one consumes.

My average consumption for the past couple years has been about 2,000 kWh more than I produce, resulting in bills of about $400 per year. That is why I just spent $900 on 6 new 405W solar panels to grow my array. With a rated capacity of 2,400 kWh, I expect them to produce about 2,000 kWh per year, getting me very very close to my target of Net Zero energy.

A new roof and an SPD in every panel

In the summer of ’24 I replaced my North roof (project info). A complication was that the roof was under my solar array. The following graph explains another complication, the cause of my desire to add more solar panels:

The blue bar is my household energy (all electric) consumption and green is electricity to power our electric vehicles. In most years, I produce enough solar (yellow) to nearly power the house. In the last two years the house power consumption has been less and that extra solar was car fuel. I’ve calculated my Levelized Cost Of Electricity at $0.05/kWh. That’s a substantial discount from grid power so it’s advantageous to buy more panels and produce more fuel for the cars.

As part of the roofing project, I removed and rebuilt my solar array (details here) and upgraded two of my subpanels. What I didn’t know when I did the work in the summer of 2024, was that the soon-to-be-adopted 2023 electrical code requires that all electrical panels have a SPD (Surge Protective Device). By the time I scheduled my final inspection, the newer code was in force and that was the only correction Inspector Friendly required of me.

Despite not being required (grandfathering), I had already installed a SPD in the main panel, since it seemed to me like really cheap insurance. I had also installed a Midnight Solar (MNSPD-300-AC) SPD in my PV combiner box, so now I have 4 SPDs. It feels a tiny bit excessive, until I think about how much it would cost to replace a panel full of AFCI/GFCI combo breakers.

PSA: crypto & pig butchering

First they befriend you online. They provide an extraordinary level of online attention and [usually] romantic interest. They casually “let slip” how much money they’re making from their crypto “investments.” They encourage you to also make money investing in crypto. After investing a little bit to test the waters, you earn unbelievably good returns. They have fattened up your confidence with time, a romantic relationship, and investment gains. After you invest more, they ghost you and both your money and relationship is gone.

The “pig” in this story is the victim and the butcher is a Chinese captive working in a forced labor camp in Myanmar or Cambodia. These scams particularly target the elderly, so do your part and raise awareness with those you love.

Lectric XP brake upgrade

I have a Lectric XP 2.0 e-bike I purchased in 2022. I ordered it with the cargo package (front and rear racks & baskets), intending to use it to reduce car trips for local errands and grocery shopping. Without any planning I can easily carry home two grocery bags on it. With a couple bungee cords, I can carry home a fair bit more.

The rather basic single-piston brakes with 160mm rotors that came with it are good enough to stop the bike and I on most terrain. However, I live in Seattle and we have good sized hills out here. When riding down a hill with a load of groceries, a fair degree of planning is required to bring the bike to a stop on time. It seems Lectric was made aware of this deficiency because the XP 3.0 has upgraded the brakes to 180mm rotors and hydraulic brakes.

Today I upgraded my XP 2.0 with a TEKTRO 203mm rotor on the front and I replaced the Zoom single-piston calipers with XTECH HB-100 hydraulic dual-piston calipers. The improvement in stopping power was immediately noticeable and I’m looking forward to testing my next grocery run.