What is the biggest challenge for solar energy?

The grid isn't optimized for it, and the base generation is highly incompatible with the fluctuations wind and solar create. There are very real costs to rapidly cycling power demands on steam turbine driven generators, regardless of what fuel is used to generate the steam. Each heat/cool cycle causes microfractures in the shafts to grow just a bit, and those have to be bored out periodically to remove the cracks, and there is only so much metal that can be safely removed.

So, storage is an issue. If no storage/grid tie is possible, utilizing the full output of the panels to heat or cool a mass for night/cloudy days could be helpful in a home situation.

> What do you think is the biggest problem with solar energy?

Stupid people.

(Also the biggest problem with everything else. It's almost, but not quite, the only problem.)

> How can this problem be solved with our existing knowledge and resources?

Well we can't throw all the stupid people into a volcano. Let's get that out of the way right off.

Instead, we distract and hypnotize them with the Farnsworth device (Philo, not Hubert). We miniaturize it and make it portable. Then we can plug them into virtual Skinner Boxes and hopefully modify their behavior to make them less destructive.

We have to maintain tight operational security. If they ever find out what we're doing to them they will attempt to destroy us, or, failing that, to destroy themselves to spite us (that's how goddamned stupid they are!)

(However, it turns out you can talk about the plan in public with complete candor as long as you pretend you're joking. The only risk is that some of the stupid people will get confused. But since they are confused anyway it's usually moot.)

It's unpleasant to treat the bulk of humanity as ignorant and insane children who shit in camp, but the evidence is undeniable, the real question is how do we manage the stupid people?

In the Tao Te Ching (book of wisdom, thousands of years old) it says:

    With the best kind of leader
    When the work is finished
    The people all say
    "We did it ourselves."

Storing the energy for when the sun doesn’t shine. There are many options. The DOE is aiming to get the cost down by a factor of 10 by the end of the decade which is ambitious and not necessarily realistic…

There is no big problem with solar energy. In the US at least the industry is installing as much new solar as possible.

Take a look at this EIA webpage [1]. Of all the new installed capacity in 2021, solar constituted 39%, followed by wind with 31%. Natural gas comes at a great distance, with 16%, and the next one is not really a source of electricity. It's batteries, with 11%. Nuclear comes with 3%. So, the only new installed capacity that can produce CO2 emissions is natural gas, with 16%.

EIA does not have the split for 2022 yet, but a quick google returned [2], that shows solar kept its share of 39% through the first half of 2022. It would have been higher, but for the supply constraints. Going forward, it is expected that new solar installation will increase significantly, not in small part due to the Inflation Reduction Act.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46416

[2] https://www.seia.org/research-resources/solar-market-insight...

I think it is political will and long term thinking.

Even today, aerial view of any place shows what a missed opportunity lies below. So many parking lots that could be covered ones with solar panels on their roofs(who invests on adding the panels? If I want to, would I be allowed to?) Same goes to the roofs of several businesses, supermarkets etc. It is not their core business to buy solar panels and invest for the longer term. Many times they are leased places, and the owner is some faceless corporate entity.

If a local politician thinks for the long term instead of what gets him/her elected the next term, they could change the city code to mandate opening up of such rooftops for community solar projects.

Secondly, the power grid needs to be strengthened/modernised to accommodate localised power generation. This ineens heavy investment.

Of course there will be the oil&gas companies that will fight every step of the way to keep the status quo because they are set to lose if people generate their own energy..

The economic advantage in delaying. Given the large build outs and that you don't want to replace panels for 15+ years, a Moore's law like rate of improvement often seems like a reason to wait and pay less for better panels that will have a higher productivity.

Seasonal storage. To store surplus energy from summer for use in winter.

In a sense, fossil fuel has never been needed as energy source. It’s only been needed as a storage vehicle, to be able to move energy around in time and space.

> What is the biggest challenge for solar energy?

If you factor in all the cycle energy (making, disposing, replacing…), What is the real current total energy balance of solar energy (versus others)?

I'm wondering because solar is very tech intensive. So if you build a 1 billion dollars farm, 10 years later the technology is a lot more efficient. Are you going to replace it all?

To be honest, this is more like a question too: How big of a problem is this , energetically speaking?

Efficient allocation is one big problem. Given the assumption that solar panel production will lag the optimum demand for a good while, the panels we do produce should be installed in places which maximize their output, modulo efficiency of transmission to a population centre. So, Sahara desert is out of the question, but Northern Europe is not ideal either. Arizona, Nevada and Texas should be blanketed.

Battery seems bigger problem to me, when comes to solar energy.

If something like "Astrophage"(from Project Hail Mary) would really solve such problem.

Not an electrical engineer so would love to see opinions on cross-continents grids and challenges with it, because I think that could solve lot of storing energy problem but seems like might introduce new transmission problem !

Scaling up manufacturing faster. The skills required to install solar (installing ground mount racking, installing panels, wiring panels to inverters, wiring inverters to utility service entrance) can be taught in under a year, the bottleneck is how fast panels come off the fab.

Solar-cell efficiency versus cost to produce is a big challenge. Mostly because the power generated is an average based on unpredictable weather days. So you need higher efficiency and lower cost to offset that and make it worth the price for consumers.

Permitting to build the solar farms and any necessary transmission lines are the number one challenge. See the opposition to solar projects in hawaii or transmission line project in Maine. Classic nimby stuff.

Sadly not a technical problem that is easily solved.

Working at night.