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All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

innerpathing.com

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Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#111

Post by defrost »

euroderf wrote: post #108
defrost wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer, This is literally what local and state government is for; talk to others and get policy moving on excess energy being used to generate bulk stored energy at scale for winter months, be that gas, deep thermal storage, tradable goods to offset winter costs, etc.

Doesn't anyone smelt their own bauxite anymore ? sigh

Ammonia products are easier, particularly with excess peak energy.

Yes, we still have six active bauxite mines providing feedstock for six alumina refineries ... they're optimal as pipelined processing and not great at switching on|off with energy surges.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#112

Post by euroderf »

defrost wrote: post #111
euroderf wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't anyone smelt their own bauxite anymore ? sigh

Ammonia products are easier, particularly with excess peak energy. Yes, we still have six active bauxite mines providing feedstock for six alumina refineries ... they're optimal as pipelined processing and not great at switching on|off with energy surges.

I wonder if ammonia might be doable at residential/DIY scale. Then you have to (a) store it safely, and (b) have a way to use it - not many people have a personal marine application.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#113

Post by indigoabstract »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #27
indigoabstract wrote: post #10

Looking at the posted pictures, it seems like they're living in heaven. Good to know the panels will be good for at least 40 years. Still, I'm kind of left wondering, where will they be in 40 years. Can life really be so predictable?

You can imagine a high probability that someone will be in the home enjoying the power generated.

Yeah, that seems very likely. I just hope it will be them, instead of somebody else, as it sometimes happens when we're making plans and life is also making plans, but different plans.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#114

Post by defrost »

euroderf wrote: post #112
defrost wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ammonia products are easier, particularly with excess peak energy. Yes, we still have six active bauxite mines providing feedstock for six alumina refineries ... they're optimal as pipelined processing and not great at switching on|off with energy surges.

I wonder if ammonia might be doable at residential/DIY scale. Then you have to (a) store it safely, and (b) have a way to use it - not many people have a personal marine application.

Maybe .. but in an urban area with many houses, each with solar panels, it seems inefficient to have mini home chemical process factories, particularly with intermediate steps involving explosive gases.

I'm in favour of home PV and community batteries | larger area "peak" use industries - it's a sensible long term use of cyclic energy production.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#115

Post by euroderf »

defrost wrote: post #114
euroderf wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if ammonia might be doable at residential/DIY scale. Then you have to (a) store it safely, and (b) have a way to use it - not many people have a personal marine application.

Maybe .. but in an urban area with many houses, each with solar panels, it seems inefficient to have mini home chemical process factories, particularly with intermediate steps involving explosive gases. I'm in favour of home PV and community batteries | larger area "peak" use industries - it's a sensible long term use of cyclic energy production.

My use case is Scandinavia. The summer has an absurd oversupply of sunlight (weather permitting). Capturing this for winter usage is the poser.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#116

Post by Ekaros »

theturtle32 wrote: post #110
bdhdbebebeb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were to deliver you 1000 gallons of milk that expires in 10 minutes*, would you pay me or want to charge me for that priviledge. Assume you have enough milk already. * (< 1 millisecond for electricity but hey for the milk analogy say 10 minutes).

I don't think this is an apt analogy. Electricity is pulled, not pushed. (Well, I realize it is actually a bit more complicated than that, but for the purposes of this conversation, I think the generalization is sufficient.) If there is no grid-side demand for the energy from my solar panels, then they're not going to be force-feeding it to a grid that doesn't want it. When you plug a light bulb that's rated to draw…

It is more complicated on grid level. Some inverters might be smart enough, but some are not. Thus there is both push and pull going on. And this can affect voltage and frequency.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#117

Post by orwin »

noahjk wrote: post #96
orwin wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[edit] if you don't produce the exact amount consumed at the exact same time, the current will loose its phase and the effective energy transported will be reduced, while producing surtensions at different grid points (don't quote me on that, but accumulator try to keep the phase, and too much divergence can cause their failure from what I understand. But I'm no physic major and I might be completely wrong). Grid coo…

Interesting! Is there a reason that consumer solar can’t be accounted for as smaller stable nodes in the system (sounds like they are still considered volatile and not a reliable source of inflow power)? For instance, maybe a rooftop solar array can easily be sucked up if the home decides to do a few loads of laundry that day, and therefore since there aren’t enough homes with solar arrays, it’s harder to predict an…

> Is there a reason that consumer solar can’t be accounted for as smaller stable nodes in the system

It's not my subject (i mostly work on automation for the network and security teams), but when i consider some changes we did last year, i think the issue with consumer-grade solar is that we didn't know where installation number XXXX was set, not even which country it was from. That is changing, we will now know if it's near Paris, near Munich, near Barcelona... That will probably help with output prediction. I think at some point there were talk about using geoIP, but that was shut down for some reason (i think it was a mix of geoIP lying, and privacy/GDPR considerations we weren't ready to tackle on yet).

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#118

Post by defrost »

euroderf wrote: post #115
defrost wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe .. but in an urban area with many houses, each with solar panels, it seems inefficient to have mini home chemical process factories, particularly with intermediate steps involving explosive gases. I'm in favour of home PV and community batteries | larger area "peak" use industries - it's a sensible long term use of cyclic energy production.

My use case is Scandinavia. The summer has an absurd oversupply of sunlight (weather permitting). Capturing this for winter usage is the poser.

The obvious (but often incorrect) thought is gravitational potential given mountains.

What are the challenges to incline rail lifting a lot of material up a mountain to roll down later?

Water freezes, slopes with snow can be unstable, cold weather is hard on gears, etc.

Large (in old mine shafts and chambers?) thermal mass storage has potential, not dissimilar to "heavy" (not suitable for EV) recent battery technologies.

Are there any serious tidal races in Scandy lands that can be tapped?

It's a poser alright.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#119

Post by toomuchtodo »

coumbaya wrote: post #103
racked wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are their reasons for not allowing it? Sounds stupid on many levels to forbid it.

Basically it's zoning laws, to not add permanent structures onto agricultural lands, but yeah it's stupid because this is for solar panels without foundations so I don't see the harm. I need to get an appointment with them, see if I can change their minds.

Please consider a blog post and posting it here detailing your journey if you don't mind.
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