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‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

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Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#101

Post by formerly_proven »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #91
formerly_proven wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation in germany is essentially the same, but that's why net supply by these is limited to 800 W. I don't think anything changes w.r.t. earth leakage, why would the presence of the solar supply change anything from the RCD and fault point of views, respectively?

Not expert but one difference is that in Germany the standard wiring is radial circuits with 16A MCBs while in the UK it's ring wiring with 32A MCBs. So in the UK we have 2.5mm^2 wires in a ring on a 32A MCBs... Of course a 2.5mm^2 wire is rated ~20A so any issues with the ring (sockets still work since connected from the other branch) can burn the wire before the MCB trips...

The "standard" wiring is 1.5mm² on 16A MCBs which are rated to trip at 1.13-1.45x nominal current (so 18-23 A). So this is already mildly improper because you can pull elevated currents continuously and dramatically shorten the life of the insulation.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#103

Post by tapoxi »

mr_mitm wrote: post #83
friendzis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Yes there are times when solar doesn't produce energy, but there are also times where it OVERproduces. When solar OVERproduces you have to literally pay someone to consume that energy, most probably wind farms, which could be producing energy instead. So you pay actually twice. When the solar underproduces, you need to bring in alternative sources, but those now have to c…

> When solar OVERproduces you have to literally pay someone to consume that energy, Can't we just throttle the solar panel? In a worst case, you just pull the plug. It's not like a nuclear power plant which needs to be shut down carefully, or am I misunderstanding something?

Yes that's exactly how it works, it's called curtailment.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#104

Post by ElevenLathe »

pstuart wrote: post #84
friendzis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Yes there are times when solar doesn't produce energy, but there are also times where it OVERproduces. When solar OVERproduces you have to literally pay someone to consume that energy, most probably wind farms, which could be producing energy instead. So you pay actually twice. When the solar underproduces, you need to bring in alternative sources, but those now have to c…

When there's an OVERproduction of energy, that really means there's an UNDER-availability of storage. Battery tech continues it's march towards cheaper prices, and alternatives such as thermal storage are making inroads as well. It borders on criminal to have abundant energy production be disservice.

I'm no energy markets analyst, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think the next major breakthrough for solar (not the slow, inevitable rollout we're seeing now) will be when somebody figures out an economical way export this periodic overproduction. There is basically never a time when humanity as a whole has an overproduction of free energy, but at present we also don't have a way to make money turning this surplus into a tradable product (like oil, coal, LNG, etc.) because all the electric-powered processes for making such products (ammonia, methane, primary aluminum production, etc) require big hunks of capital equipment that lose money unless they're operated more or less continuously. Battery, thermal, pumped hydro, etc. help here, in that enough of it can theoretically turn off-and-on solar/wind power into a continuous load to power your aluminum smelter or whatever.

Even better though, would be a cheap electrically operated methane plant that you could afford to run intermittently. This, plus a peaker natgas generating plant make, effectively, a battery of infinite size, or you can sell it to any of the many eager buyers of natgas.

Building a small, prefab, plant like this, if possible, would seem to be mainly a problem of scale, and therefore it seems likely that China will get to it pretty soon.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#105

Post by bokohut »

Several recent HN posts about "time" and these correlate superbly in relation to the now obvious, to nearly all, global energy issues. Those proactive in a reactive world are often mocked and laughed at until as such passage of time is achieved for those only reactive to learn of the proactive's hindsight choices. For those in the United States aware of the 'behind the scenes' energy grid issues this insight reflects that prices will not be dropping for those electrons we all so depressively require daily just like our air and water. Energy grid decentralization is occurring with the actions of each individual and this article supports exactly that because no one alive can survive in our modern world without those electrons. "Necessity is the mother of invention" only now resonates for some while the futurists here that acted long ago acutely understand this growing trend.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#106

Post by jandrese »

pjc50 wrote: post #76
conorcleary wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used 240w modules built in 2010-2012 are worth $60-100 CAD at the moment in small quantities. There will be hundreds of thousands hitting the market (as long as they didn't hit the ground with careless removals) in ~2030+ as microFIT contracts in Ontario expire. There is no clear path to switching these arrays to Net Metering, as of yet. Prepare for all sorts of unrecycled solar panels and potential loss of renewable…

Could you elaborate on this? Why would people remove a working solar system?

Buildings get torn down. Roof needs a replacement and the owner doesn't feel like it is worthwhile to redo the solar install for panels that only have 5 years of warranty left, or maybe they want to replace them with higher power models with a fresh warranty. There are any number of reasons why someone might need to offload otherwise functional solar panels.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#107

Post by jandrese »

pjc50 wrote: post #16
derelicta wrote: post #3

A shame local companies where I am from have year long backlogs.

The "balcony solar" system is going to be available in Lidl for no-approval self-install. Limited to 800W.

Depends on your locality. The Fossil fuel industry is lobbying hard against this and is successful in some places.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#108

Post by myrmidon »

PowerElectronix wrote: post #94

For european individuals, yes. For european nations, not in the least. They try to avoid independent consumers and producers of energy with all the regulations they can throw to them.

What nations are you talking about? E.g. in Germany, you can buy up to 7kW of panels, screw them onto your roof, wire them up with controller and battery and feed up to 800W into local grid, no one is gonna stop you or anything (only thing you need to do is register online with the grid operator if you have >2kW of panels).

Legislation is, in fact, specifically made so people (i.e. landlord) actually can't easily stop you from doing this.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#109

Post by zdragnar »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #96
oliwarner wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

British industry and standards bodies think this is an unsafe plan. Of course they would because it's work being taken away from them but it would be allowing people to plug generators into ring finals with unidirectional breakers. It's not even guaranteed that the circuit is protected by anything newer than fuse wire or an MCB. No guaranteed earth leakage detection. No guaranteed surge protection. Relying on the che…

I find it interesting because often the best way to achieve a safe building code is to learn by allowing with basic guard rails and iterating as things happen. This isn’t ideal for the rare individual impacted by the “things happening,” but collectively we refine and iterate. Our current standards weren’t arrived at by navel gazing - we got the codes we have by experience. It’s hard to realize that from the present t…

Are there lessons on safety that need to be learned here? We already know what the happy path looks like, and we've plenty of lessons on what the unhappy path will look like.

It isn't as if electric charge coming from balcony solar panels is some new magical-seeming type of electricity.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#110

Post by leonidasrup »

pjc50 wrote: post #54
RealityVoid wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When solar OVERproduces you have to literally pay someone to consume that energy, most probably wind farms, which could be producing energy instead. You don't have to do this with solar, you can just disconnect the panel and have it go a bit hotter. For producers that have a long-ish bringup time, yes, you might need to do this at time.

The situation is slightly complicated by dispatch order, and domestic solar isn't usually dispatchable at all. Grid-scale farms are. Wind farms don't consume energy, but there is a real issue with how often they have to be "curtailed" (paid to turn off). That is to a great extent due to issues with grid connectivity between Scotland and the rest of the UK, which are (slowly) being worked on.

Wind curtailment is the deliberate reduction of electricity output from wind turbines, despite their capability to generate power under existing wind conditions. This practice is typically implemented by grid operators to maintain the stability of the electrical grid or to address specific operational constraints.

https://www.enlitia.com/resources-blog-post/what-is-wind-cur...

"paid to turn off" Wind energy providers in some countries are compensated for curtailment, this a form of subsidy for renewables. It can be payed directly by the goverment, or it is added to the price of electricity for consumer.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/renewable-curtailment-c...

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