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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

#91

Post by jusben1369 »

tedsanders wrote: post #50
dmckeon wrote: post #9

More like: business model of utilities disrupted by distributed energy resources. Also, peak demand in CA is at 9 pm, not noon: https://www.caiso.com/outlook/outlook.html The underlying problem is the mismatch between the old business model: Generate, distribute, and deliver electricity; charge for connection to grid and for electricity delivered and consumed. and the new situation: Generate *or* purchase electricity…

Question: the daily peak is at 9pm, but what time of day is the yearly peak? I imagine the yearly peak might be earlier in the day, because it will occur on very hot days. The time of day of the yearly peak is more important for capacity planning than the time of day of the daily peak.

The peak time in CA in summer is 2 - 5pm. It's driven by office AC. After 5pm many offices up the temperature a few degrees for overnight effectively dropping demand. It can peak again after 7pm due to home AC and washer/dryer/dishwasher but that 2 - 5pm in the height of summer is always the peak.

Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

#92

Post by msandford »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #88
msandford wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you can find a 24kWh 48VDC "industrial" battery (forklifts being the primary use) at around $190 per kWh. http://gbindustrialbattery.com/Forklift_Battery_Sizes_and_Sp... They are more expensive than natural gas backup if you buy them new at retail. But these things get un-useful in an industrial setting quite regularly while still retaining quite a bit of utility for people who just want medium term household en…

This sounds interesting. Looks like these guys will just come out to your house and drop off a $1745 700-pound battery rated at 60 amps at 12 volts (720 watts) for 20 hours, and pick up your previous battery at no charge. They apparently will last up to 7 years even in forklift service. The main drawback seems to be that the forklift batteries are not maintenance-free. Is that your take on it?

I'm more interested in picking up a really big one for a few hundred used. If it can't do a full 8 hour shift anymore but can only do 6 hours it's nearly useless to place that really uses it. But for my purposes an 80% capacity battery is still plenty good.

You are correct that they require maintenance. Thankfully that involves topping off water levels periodically. http://www.giantbatteryco.com/gbweb/ProperBatteryCare.html

They might not deliver quite as happily to a residence as to a business as the battery would likely be located in a less-than-warehouse type location. But it's definitely worth a try!

Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

#93

Post by ramchip »

marshray wrote: post #86
toomuchtodo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can configure inverters to not dump excess current back to the utility. You either charge batteries or you dump the power into a load like an electric water heater. In almost all grid-tied scenarios though, you want to sell the power back to the utility. I'm not familiar with commerical operations, as they would fall under power purchase agreements (PPAs), but with residential installations your meter quite…

> who is going to pay for the spinning capacity (likely natural gas generators) that isn't used That doesn't sound like a bad problem to have. Fukushima showed us how hard it is to turn a nuke on and off quickly, but I would think most hydrocarbon burning and other generation systems could be throttled according to demand. If you really have a problem with too much energy, well, smelt some aluminum or electrolyze wat…

"Spinning Reserve is the on-line reserve capacity that is synchronized to the grid system and ready to meet electric demand within 10 minutes of a dispatch instruction by the ISO. Spinning Reserve is needed to maintain system frequency stability during emergency operating conditions and unforeseen load swings."

http://www.caiso.com/docs/2003/09/08/2003090815135425649.pdf

The poster isn't saying they're producing energy, just that they must be ready to do so at any time.

Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

#94

Post by Zigurd »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #15
dmckeon wrote: post #9

More like: business model of utilities disrupted by distributed energy resources. Also, peak demand in CA is at 9 pm, not noon: https://www.caiso.com/outlook/outlook.html The underlying problem is the mismatch between the old business model: Generate, distribute, and deliver electricity; charge for connection to grid and for electricity delivered and consumed. and the new situation: Generate *or* purchase electricity…

While I agree with you 100%, I think the real challenge is going to be people not wanting to pay for the invisible "availability and distribution" when they've spent their entire life being trained they were paying for the electrons themselves. If I were in that business, I would be putting a lot of marketing dollars into retraining people that the value of availability and distribution is a good percentage of the co…

These are touchy subjects with vertically integrated monopolies. The equivalent to separating the value, and price, of transport from other services in telecom is called "structural separation." Telcos don't like it one bit. They prefer pricing and costs to be opaque. It may be that obfuscating costs and margins in consumer electric service is just as advantageous to the utilities.

Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

#96

Post by ollysb »

jjjeffrey wrote: post #81
njharman wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You frustration is from your false assumption. Businesses are there to make their owners as much money as possible. This frequently does not involve efficiency.

Taking a look at things from society's perspective, society decided that individuals should privately own for-profit businesses because, for a large subset of society's needs, that is the most efficient way to produce these needs. In that sense, capitalism as it exists is meant to serve society. It merely works out that the incentive to maximize profit in this system _approximately_ aligns with society's interest in…

Yeah, poor choice of words on my part, I should have said: Businesses _survive_ because they're the most efficient way to solve the needs of a group of people.

Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

#97

Post by XorNot »

msandford wrote: post #22
artificialidiot wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-inverte…

The problem is cost per delivered kWh over the life of the battery, sans charging inefficiencies.

No Lead-Acid I know of actually beats out grid power in this application yet (you can about break-even, but what's the point?).

Some of the new, cheap Lithium-Ion batteries may do it, but a game-changer would be a low-cost fuel cell of some kind (rechargeable Iron-Air for example would be incredibly cheap).

Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

#98

Post by teeja »

Of course they might "destroy US utilities", which is why some of us appreciate them so much. Of course they won't destroy hydro or wind plants.

There was a time when power generation "had" to be centralized, just as AT&T "needed" to have a telecom monopoly and we "need" to have ISPs. Technology is sweeping us past that necessity; those days are ending.

Now that the utilities have stripped and burned most of the easily-stripped fossil fuel resources (leaving no such easy plundering for future generations) and kept the profits for themselves, we are all starting to enjoy getting a slice of the pie. Dear Utes: don't let the door hit you in the ass.

Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

#99

Post by toomuchtodo »

ramchip wrote: post #93
marshray wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who is going to pay for the spinning capacity (likely natural gas generators) that isn't used That doesn't sound like a bad problem to have. Fukushima showed us how hard it is to turn a nuke on and off quickly, but I would think most hydrocarbon burning and other generation systems could be throttled according to demand. If you really have a problem with too much energy, well, smelt some aluminum or electrolyze wat…

"Spinning Reserve is the on-line reserve capacity that is synchronized to the grid system and ready to meet electric demand within 10 minutes of a dispatch instruction by the ISO. Spinning Reserve is needed to maintain system frequency stability during emergency operating conditions and unforeseen load swings." http://www.caiso.com/docs/2003/09/08/2003090815135425649.pdf The poster isn't saying they're producing ener…

Correct. You're not paying for that field of gas turbines to run. You're paying for them to sit in the field warm until issued to run, because if they're not there, hello blackouts.

Re: Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

#100

Post by JulianMorrison »

A similar cycle will trash the gasoline car industry when electric meets the combination of [cheap, useable] that is sufficient to trigger a demand reduction / supply contraction cycle in the less fungible parts for gasoline cars.
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