I don’t have data but I have a hunch most blackouts in PR are weather related. In that case (stormy skies), solar probably won’t help much.
Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout
151–160 of 251 posts
Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Likely because they have building codes that prevent the construction of houses from matchsticks.
It has nothing to do with construction and everything to do with rainfall. I can throw a lit road flare into my back yard and nothing will happen, because I don't live in a glorified desert. PR is an order of magnitude wetter than where I live.
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Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout
#153I don’t have data but I have a hunch most blackouts in PR are weather related. In that case (stormy skies), solar probably won’t help much.
Don’t most storms happen at night? So really it’s the battery doing the work either way.
Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout
#154Does anyone have a good link/step-by-step for doing some sort of home solar system where: - it's sufficiently small-scale that no building permit is required - it looks nice enough that neighbors won't complain - the wiring is essentially plug-and-play The best approach I've been able to come up with is to purchase a medium size battery pack such as is used for glamping (glamour camping), plug it into the wall and co…
There is a ton of DIY solar info online, but it is very much regionally dependent. Both for permits and system design. Here in Florida, I can get high output from an average panel, but there are a lot of permit issues (and rightly so, a poorly installed panel can become a severe hazard in a hurricane). Where I lived in Michigan, there weren't many permitting or zoning issues, but I'd need 3-4x the number of panels to…
Michigan unfortunately represents a mismatch of when you need power vs when power is generated. Arizona, Texas, New Mexico are sweet spots. High power demand in the summer (A/C), relatively high proportion of sunny days.
Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
For very specific examples you can look towards the EU's decades long stance on immigration which resulted in the refugee crisis since (and before) 2015, as well as countless integration and immigration issues (cf Sweden, France, Italy, etc.). The socialist and left wing coalition have consistently voted against measures to improve border security and tighten the restrictions for people wanting to enter [1]. As peopl…
The refugee crises are largely "Push" driven not "Pull" driven.
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Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout
#156I don’t have data but I have a hunch most blackouts in PR are weather related. In that case (stormy skies), solar probably won’t help much.
Don’t most storms happen at night? So really it’s the battery doing the work either way.
The amount of battery capacity required to sustain power demand for this to be scaled to a meaningful population is high (PR average daily power demand is ~50 GWh per day). Most power outages in PR take 48 to 72 hours to fix. You would need batteries that can store 150 GWh of power. That’s a LOT of money to install.
Even this assumes that you wouldn’t want any breathing room on battery capacity (i.e., every power outage will be fixed in under 72 hours).
Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Voetsek to any champagne socialist that wants to ruin yet another country I take it you don't consider the country to have veen ruined under apartheid - aka socialism for whites, rugged-capitalism for everyone else.
Care to explain how an ethno-nationalist government implemented socialism? > I take it you don't consider the country to have veen ruined under apartheid Wether or not I consider the country to have been ruined under apartheid is irrelevant to the fact that the ANC is dragging it back to the stone age. The ANC was handed a functioning economy, solid infrastructure, and hope for a better future - there are now rolling…
Your responses are filled with non-specific references to online memes that suggest that you don't actually understand the problem in any deep sense (i.e you just have a gripe). I'm not going to defend ANCs policy decisions, but you can just point to specific decisions they made and the resulting outcome. You can't just handwave and repeat socialism/capitalism/Trotskyites like some mantra and expect everyone to take you seriously.
Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout
#158I would love to have just enough solar to flatten my peak usage on the hottest days of the summer. They naturally coincide with tons of sun. I don't need a huge system to be all solar all the time or even care about credits from the power company. I just don't want a $300 bill in the summer and a $50 bill in the winter. Has anyone designed a good solution for this?
We put 7.8kw on our roof on a snowy mountain town in Canada in a tight valley. In 12 months it generated $950 worth of power at $0.13/kwh, and we now have no power bill for our house and all heating and cooling with a heat pump.
We tore out the old natural gas furnace and had the line disconnected, saving us about $2k/year for the heating.
Game changer.
Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout
#159I would love to have just enough solar to flatten my peak usage on the hottest days of the summer. They naturally coincide with tons of sun. I don't need a huge system to be all solar all the time or even care about credits from the power company. I just don't want a $300 bill in the summer and a $50 bill in the winter. Has anyone designed a good solution for this?
I'd love to have some form of solar work out cost-wise for me here in Seattle -- there just aren't enough sunny days throughout the year to make solar financially make sense, even over a 20-year period. At least from what the solar calculators I've found on the web would have me believe.
That is wrong. I’m over 2000km north of you in a tight valley that snows a lot. The 7.8kw system on my roof will be paid back in about 7 years.
Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
True energy independence in even a small capacity has a value beyond just money.
True [x] independence in even a small capacity has a value beyond just money. ..water.. ..food.. ..housing.. ..information.. I get what you are trying to conveying, I just wanted to highlight the semantic generality of the statement if it stands alone.
If you have a house in the countryside, then water and food are relatively easy. You've got your own well and septic system for water, and plenty of room to stock up on food, plus you can supplement your diet by growing your own vegetables and raising chickens, fishing or hunting as seasonally appropriate per your local regulations.
The well and septic system require no real effort on your part once installed, though you may find harvesting your own food to be too time consuming or labor intensive to really be actually independent.