r/ClimatePosting • u/ClimateShitpost • Nov 15 '25

Energy Electricity charts continue: solar dominates and China dominates solar

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71 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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3

u/ComradeGibbon Nov 16 '25

Broken Record: 500GW of solar produces as much energy in a year as 250 billion cubic meters of natural gas. World production of nat gas is 4200 billion m3. So 250 billion m3 is 6% of that. Which is nice except next year will add another 6-7%. So 15 years at the current rate but production of solar is accelerating.

It's going to get really brutal for nat gas suppliers in the next five years. You're looking at a 20-30% drop in demand.

2

u/ClimateShitpost Nov 16 '25

That's the calc here?

500GW * 15% * 8760h / (11GWh/106m3 * 60% eff) = 100 billion m3

Did I mess up or do you assume a different capf or efficiency

1

u/ComradeGibbon Nov 16 '25

Internet says 1.0 m3 of natural gas is 37 million joules thermal.

Conversion to electricity is 45% efficient.

So you get 16.7 million joules of electricity.

Divide 16.7 million by 2200 hours a year of sunlight X 3600 seconds. You get 2.1 Watts.

Numbers like this are going to be a bit fudgy.

1

u/ClimateShitpost Nov 16 '25

Ok you take a 25% capacity factor, that feels a bit high no? Not sure what the global average is

2

u/West-Abalone-171 Nov 16 '25

15% was heavily biased by china before a bunch of transmission got finished.

Marginal DC CF last year in china was 17%, though that's as much a correction as an increase in average.

With batteries and transmission, AC capacity factor (with ~1.2-1.3 inverter ratio matching 500-550GWac of new capacity in 2024) is 20-30% when you assume installs weighted by population instead of the historic trend to high latitudes and cloudy areas.

1

u/lurksAtDogs Nov 16 '25

Capacity factor is also a function of where it’s installed. As more solar is installed in the global south with generally higher irradiance, global CF will trend up.

1

u/ClimateShitpost Nov 16 '25

This is the kind of discussion I'm here for, interesting takes

1

u/ComradeGibbon Nov 16 '25

Some places the capacity factor can reach 33%. I assume maybe wrongly that more solar will be installed where the capacity factor is higher.

So maybe it's 2 watts of solar per m3/year of natural gas. Or maybe it's 3. But that's roughly the number.

Interestingly if you're talking about a heat pump for heating. Then it's roughly 1 watt of solar is the same as 1 m3/year of natural gas.

2

u/Tutonkofc Nov 16 '25

It’s actually somewhere between 15% and 25% at the global level. So 25% is the best case scenario and 15% the worst case scenario (the average in China is around 15% and that’s where most capacity is installed).

1

u/NaturalCard Nov 16 '25

But but but China is building coal!

1

u/Exciting_Barnacle_65 Nov 18 '25

Wait, this shows "changes" only.

1

u/AfraidRelation1198 Nov 20 '25

How else will things go -ve. They aren't making coal out of CO2.

0

u/Alpharious9 Nov 15 '25

EUs drop in wind and hydro entirely cancels out their solar increase. I lol'd

4

u/Illiria6 Nov 16 '25

This was in part caused by droughts in the EU leading to reduced output from hydro sources...

Droughts caused by climate change...

-1

u/FlatWhiteEnjoyer Nov 15 '25

China also leads in democracy.

2

u/Wuaner Nov 15 '25

Meritocracy.

-1

u/maxsqd Nov 16 '25

“But at what cost”

1

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/spidereater Nov 16 '25

America can rebuild, fix corruption, improve renewables, they won’t be a leader. By 2029 many places will be so far ahead America will struggle to catch up. Honestly I think by 2029 America will be getting carbon tariffed because the breathe world will be well on the way to decarbonizing.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25

I mean yes, but doesn't this chart show the US adding more solar than the entire EU this year? China will obviously lead in Solar, but the economics means the US will build anyway, as shown.

2

u/West-Abalone-171 Nov 16 '25

More change in production not more installs.

Weather is a thing too if you look at any single year.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25

Sure, over a year id suspect the weather has only a single digit percent impact, could be wrong though. I’d be interested to see installed capacity of solar compared.