Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

euronews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 365 posts

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

#131

Post by ZeroGravitas »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #71
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but even more so, it's a good sensible rule! People don't even bother to argue why it's bad, they've just seen so many headlines telling them it's bad they don't question it.

I'll question it. Why does it exist? Why can't we just shut off the panels or dump excess energy into a metal rod? Why do we need to have a buyer at all?

It's not a buyer, people are paid to take the energy that would otherwise be wasted. And when energy use is shifted it means you need to generate less later, saving money.

The people who pay that cost to the people using the energy are people running energy generators that suffer wear and tear when they ramp down.

Or sometimes it's a subsidy for the use of clean energy being passed on to ensure the clean energy is actually used, not wasted.

All upside, no problems at all.

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

#132

Post by teamonkey »

friendzis wrote: post #25
theshrike79 wrote: post #2

Distributed energy production / storage is the key for resiliency in the future. Every solar farm doesn't need to be China Size - it doesn't even need to be a "farm", just put them on roofs. 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.

> 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…

This is not how curtailment works.

Curtailment is when an energy company has successfully bid on delivering electricity for the next block of time (an hour, for example) but it can’t provide that agreed amount of power because it would overload the grid. There are various reasons why that would happen: faults and unexpected lack of demand, for example. In that case the company is paid for the energy it was contracted to deliver, only for that period of time, even though it did not provide power.

It is wrong to say that overproducers HAVE to be paid. They don’t. They only have to be paid if there was an agreement to buy that power but for whatever reason the grid can’t take it. Normally if there is a generation surplus, the cheapest companies will win the bid to provide power and the others will simply not be paid.

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

#133

Post by theshrike79 »

friendzis wrote: post #25
theshrike79 wrote: post #2

Distributed energy production / storage is the key for resiliency in the future. Every solar farm doesn't need to be China Size - it doesn't even need to be a "farm", just put them on roofs. 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.

> 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…

Here in Finland electricity prices can drop to under 1c/kWh due to renewables, basically every time it's sunny and/or windy electricity is practically free (the transfer costs are static though).

A few times the price has actually been negative, people got paid for using electricity due to overproduction =)

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

#134

Post by MandieD »

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.

A quick check of OBI (our main home-improvement chain) shows that I can get that 800w "balcony" plug-and-go system for 300-600 EUR depending on the exact panels and inverter I want, and it's all pre-approved. I have fill in a simple, free form online announcing that I've done so or am planning to, and I'm now technically an energy seller - my local utility pays some for power fed back into the network (not nearly the rate they charge for delivering power, but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick). If I don't want to accept 0.08 EUR/kWH, I'm free to plug in a battery for any excess. Our base load when I have my work computer and monitor on during the day is somewhere in the neighborhood of 300w, so I think this would work out well for us. I need to get off my bum and do it.

Shockingly unbureaucratic for Germany.

There is, as one could imagine, somewhat more burden for larger systems that require the involvement of someone who is actually an electrician, but I don't want my neighbors to be able to DIY fire hazards.

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

#135

Post by mbgerring »

te_chris wrote: post #26
theshrike79 wrote: post #2

Distributed energy production / storage is the key for resiliency in the future. Every solar farm doesn't need to be China Size - it doesn't even need to be a "farm", just put them on roofs. 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.

Wild that you're getting downvoted for saying something so obvious. Weird.

Not weird if you’ve been participating in discussions on clean energy since the beginning of this century.

The inevitability of the energy transition has been obvious for so long, and even when it’s done there will be cranks insisting that it’ll never work.

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

#136

Post by mbgerring »

friendzis wrote: post #25
theshrike79 wrote: post #2

Distributed energy production / storage is the key for resiliency in the future. Every solar farm doesn't need to be China Size - it doesn't even need to be a "farm", just put them on roofs. 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.

> 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…

There will be connected batteries in every home solving this problem faster than the fossil fuel lobby can come up with a new talking point about why it’ll never work.

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

#137

Post by mbgerring »

metalman wrote: post #5

to answer the first question in the article "Many consumers want to know how long it will take them to make back the upfront costs of solar" my answer is that the payback is imediate, right from the first moment watching as energy is generated out of thin air, and the sudden relief from getting off the energy angst missery-go-round, and the sheer borring inertness of solar pv as it does the thing with zero detectable…

It’s already possible for consumers to know that, I worked on the software that powers the tools that tell US consumers this at Genability ca 2015.

As far as I know, they never cracked the European market, so if you’re interested in working on that, I’m currently available for hire! Info in profile :)

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

#138

Post by sl-1 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #128
horsawlarway wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home installations just cut it off. In both of these cases. I did my own battery backed installation. When I'm underproducing I can shed load (I turn off my AC - almost always that's enough, and it's automated by relay). When I'm overproducing (ex - my battery is full and my load is still not enough to consume input) I just don't let the panels generate more current than I can consume. Managing grid scale power is di…

My current EV has a 38kW battery. When it's too worn out for car use (SoH around 60-70%), it's still perfectly enough to run _everything_ in my house for multiple days - except for the electric sauna, and I'm smart enough to turn it on if there are production issues :D There's a reason why EV's will never be as cheap as the cheapest ICE shitbox. Just the bare metals in the battery are worth thousands when recycled, e…

If you ever are looking to implement that EV battery as house backup, this repo might be useful: https://github.com/dalathegreat/Battery-Emulator

I did mine with it and old leaf 24kwh battery (~60k km). After all the safety margins I get ~15 kwh out of the battery.

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

#139

Post by linksnapzz »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #58
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also removed the effective ban on onshore wind construction that was introduced a month after he lost the election, restarting after a decade of lost opportunity. This Trump-level idiocy that is just never mentioned, even as people blame the gas burned in england on windy days as a cost of wind curtailment, when the curtailment is more a like a third of the cost. Burning gas to power people who chose not to build…

At the same time they are banning wind turbines leaders (Chinese companies) from opening factories in the UK... [1][2] [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c995xjxk97mo [2] https://www.energyvoice.com/insights/energy-opinion/594763/m...

Once upon a time, Brits could build gensets and reduction gears. In Britain, even.
Post reply on HN