This piece overlooks the fact that utilities can install solar power cheaper than a residence can. This will always be the chase. Electricity will drop in price accordingly.
Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
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Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
#22This is nice if it leads to a switch to cheaper localized non monopolistic electricity. However, I wonder if the chain reaction could lead to widespread utilities bankruptcies and maybe even cascate to another debt crisis affecting the already fragile financial and government sectors.
To be honest, that would be an awesome thing to watch it unfold.
More likely that you'd see an informal/distributed 48VDC grid spring up. Less than 50V isn't considered "real" wiring by the NEC and goes largely unregulated. Think low voltage path lighting, doorbell wiring, thermostat wiring, etc.
So if you and your neighbors can share power via 48VDC with no approval then you can run your own inverters to power your household stuff. There are plenty of grid-following micro-inverters that can be purchased fairly inexpensively.
Forklift batteries cost a few grand but give you many kilowatt-hours worth of energy storage. Considering that the average US house seems to use about 1kW of power on average a 40kWh battery pack would allow huge amounts of flexibility to decide when to run a generator, use solar cells, wind turbines, etc. http://www.midwestlifttrucks.com/offgrid.html
Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
#23I doubt most people can afford enough solar and battery storage to power all the air conditioning needed for the longer, hotter summers we are having. We'll just use less coal which is a great thing, until the coal industry starts getting subsidies to stay alive in a few decades (which is certainly going to happen considering their political power). Grid-tie is a much better answer for people and utilities though. So…
While you may doubt, I am quite confident. Forklift batteries are readily available and not terribly expensive. Heavy, yes, but you weren't going to put the batteries on your roof for a bunch of other reasons anyhow.
Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
#24I doubt most people can afford enough solar and battery storage to power all the air conditioning needed for the longer, hotter summers we are having. We'll just use less coal which is a great thing, until the coal industry starts getting subsidies to stay alive in a few decades (which is certainly going to happen considering their political power). Grid-tie is a much better answer for people and utilities though. So…
One can do wonders for indoor climate with better house design and appropriate handling. The reliance on air conditioning everywhere amazes me.
(But then, Europe is not too humid.. nobody uses private air conditioning.)
Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
#25I doubt most people can afford enough solar and battery storage to power all the air conditioning needed for the longer, hotter summers we are having. We'll just use less coal which is a great thing, until the coal industry starts getting subsidies to stay alive in a few decades (which is certainly going to happen considering their political power). Grid-tie is a much better answer for people and utilities though. So…
Cooling in the summer requires much less energy compared to heating in the winter. It's also a lot more of an optional comfort than a critical survival need.
Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
#26I work in this space. I think it is worth noting that, yes this is true for some players, particularly at middle management and executive levels. However it is equally work noting that some of the resistance is just conservative engineering. Would you just grab the latest 0.1 release of the hot new database and throw it up on your production systems because everyone keeps talking about the promise of it? This is a re…
I wouldn't want my electric grid engineers (or any other kind of infrastructure) to be anything less than skeptical of change.
Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
#27How long before the utilities (likely successfully) lobby to make PV/DER illegal, I wonder.
Soon, I'd wager. As I see it, the purpose of this report is FUD, which is usually the opening move of any protectionist initiative.
Edit: alternately, they'll push to tax it to high hell, or at least argue that they own sunshine (like water utilities do over rainwater collection) and should therefore be paid by PV users.
Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
#28Something that would be interesting: a map estimating the areas in which a typical suburban home roof covered with PV panels would produce enough energy to power a typical suburban home's worth of electrical usage, assuming some level of battery technology. I'm not actually sure what it'd look like. Seems like there might be a tradeoff between hotter areas, which have both higher PV output and higher peak electricity…
Everywhere, in the near future. Graphene PVs promise to be ultra-efficient, and could double up as very high capacity supercapacitors.
Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
#29This piece overlooks the fact that utilities can install solar power cheaper than a residence can. This will always be the chase. Electricity will drop in price accordingly.
But transmission losses will be lower when generation is closer to the point of use, and storage costs may be too (eg, hot water tank or "accumulated" AC in a well-insulated house, vs. expensive batteries).
Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
#30Ironically widespread availability of solar power could lead to increased pollution. Purely hypothetically, if somehow it became popular for people to generate some, but not all, of the power they need from solar panels then perhaps people would pay less money to the power companies. Power production becomes less profitable and there's less demand for expanding supply. Meaning that the cheapest power production that…
That used to be coal. Now it's natural gas. The gap has grown large enough in some places that coal plants get converted to run on natural gas.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coal_plant_conversion_p...