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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

#271

Post by teo_zero »

aaronmdjones wrote: post #250
fc417fc802 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow you regarding unidirectional meters and electricity theft. How does that work?

Between the phasing out of analog meters (the latter half of the last century) and the introduction of smart meters (2010), a lot of electronic prepayment meters produced for the UK market would set a tamper flag if they detected power flowing backwards through them, as a proxy indication of an attempt at electricity theft. These meters will refuse top-ups in this condition, requiring you to contact your energy suppl…

Why would power flowing out of my house into the grid be a theft?

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

#272

Post by otherme123 »

phyzome wrote: post #188
rdtsc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "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, So if I pay $35k for an install, I get a $35k check the first time I connect it to the grid? Pretty sure it doesn't work that way. But it would be a nice subsidy from the government if they were really motivated. I guess you're saying you start to feel good and validated to…

From the article: > According to Solar Power Europe, it takes an average of two to six years to recoup the cost of the system, depending on what you paid for it, its size and where you mount it. And then it just keeps working for decades. There's degradation, but even after 25 years I believe it's down to maybe 85% output, which is still huge for something with essentially no operating costs.

Panel degradation is very easy and cheap to fix. Our original panels costed about $2,000 each 400W (made sense in our circumstances, recoup in 7 years). After a couple decades we just added 2kW more power for about $300. In another couple of decades you will buy the same for less than $100 probably.

The fun part is that we might never recoup the cost of our gasoline backup generator, as it only worked for about 10 hours in 30 years.

Anyone that worries today about degradation has zero real interest in this stuff, just complains for the sake of complaining.

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

#273

Post by PowerElectronix »

noosphr wrote: post #214
PowerElectronix wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm every day more convinced that the only reasonable future of energy production is distributed solar and storage with microgrids at the neighbourhood level or so. Anything bigger in scale is prone to being shittified to the limit by public entities.

We had this in the 19th century. We moved to a centralised grid because when you don't use it to rent seek it is vastly more efficient.

But now we have storage, distributed production, power meters, etc.

It's relatively easy to set up a grid in which several houses produce, storage and exchange energy with a simplified free market pricing system.

Alas, in most countries it's illegal because you aren't allowed to set up such a network. Energy is one of the big control levers the State has over people.

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

#274

Post by noosphr »

PowerElectronix wrote: post #273
noosphr wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had this in the 19th century. We moved to a centralised grid because when you don't use it to rent seek it is vastly more efficient.

But now we have storage, distributed production, power meters, etc. It's relatively easy to set up a grid in which several houses produce, storage and exchange energy with a simplified free market pricing system. Alas, in most countries it's illegal because you aren't allowed to set up such a network. Energy is one of the big control levers the State has over people.

Again this was done in the 19th century. It is horribly inefficient. The only reason why it seems like a good idea today is because power companies are now rentieers instead of service provides.

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

#276

Post by usuryofnicks »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #240
hapticmonkey wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rooftop solar is incredibly popular here in Australia. I think it’s something like 33% of houses have it. We also have a great climate for it. I have solar on my house and am seeing around 50% self sufficiency overall. Of course with this much saturation, the rate you get paid for feeding back to the grid is quickly dropping to zero. So self use is the game now. The problem is now shifting to home batteries and stora…

> We also have a great climate for it. Back when solar was much, much more expensive this sort of thing mattered. Now the panels have plunged in price so much, you just deploy more panels (cost of install and other central stuff is the same) and/or accept the longer payback period. Cold climates do better than one might expect because the colder a solar panel is, the better it works.

>now the panels have plunged in price so much, you just deploy more panels

It's not really, the sun doesen't rise above the horizon for over a month where I live. quadrupling zero output is still zero. The country has massive renewable so by the time solar would generate something, electricity is already super cheap

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

#277

Post by razakel »

teo_zero wrote: post #271
aaronmdjones wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the phasing out of analog meters (the latter half of the last century) and the introduction of smart meters (2010), a lot of electronic prepayment meters produced for the UK market would set a tamper flag if they detected power flowing backwards through them, as a proxy indication of an attempt at electricity theft. These meters will refuse top-ups in this condition, requiring you to contact your energy suppl…

Why would power flowing out of my house into the grid be a theft?

Maybe it looks like you're trying to trick the meter into running backwards?

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

#278

Post by eigenspace »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #55
pjc50 wrote: post #8

Fairly boilerplate article, but the bit that is news is the UK balcony solar permitting. Better longread: https://solarenergyconcepts.co.uk/post/plug-in-solar-uk/ Government press release with a long list of pull quotes: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-make-plug-i... (I note that in the alternate universe where Ed Miliband became PM because he didn't eat a bacon sandwich, we could have had this a dec…

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…

I always blew my mind that people don't mention this more. The UK is blessed with some of the most plentiful and reliable wind resources on earth, and mediocre solar resources at best.

Banning onshore wind turbines was just insanity. Despite the insanity, the UK has made great steps with offshore wind, but offshore wind is expensive and has all sorts of accompanying headaches. Onshore is super cheap and quick to build per unit power by comparison.

Onshore wind turbines are going to be much more important to the future of UK energy independence than balcony solar.

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

#279

Post by carlosjobim »

jopsen wrote: post #239
carlosjobim wrote: post #199

Are Europeans actually building solar panels, or are they buying them?

If the life cycle is 25 years we crunch to find a new supplier (should it be necessary) won't come as urgently :)

Agreed, but the headline should be "Europeans buying mini solar farms", in my opinion.

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

#280

Post by XorNot »

teo_zero wrote: post #271
aaronmdjones wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the phasing out of analog meters (the latter half of the last century) and the introduction of smart meters (2010), a lot of electronic prepayment meters produced for the UK market would set a tamper flag if they detected power flowing backwards through them, as a proxy indication of an attempt at electricity theft. These meters will refuse top-ups in this condition, requiring you to contact your energy suppl…

Why would power flowing out of my house into the grid be a theft?

I assume the scam would be you rewire the breaker so the grid is on the apparent load side. It's not exactly hard to do, just dangerous.
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