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‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
281–290 of 365 posts
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#282Distributed energy production / storage is the key for resiliency in the future. Every solar farm doesn't need to be China Size - it doesn't even need to be a "farm", just put them on roofs. And don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Yes there are times when solar doesn't produce energy, but there are also times where it OVERproduces.
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…
Conversely prices with rebates have gotten very cheap recently.
I'm getting a 48kwh battery put in with a 3 phase inverter for $6500 AUD in like a week.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
If money ever starts looking particularly illusory, try thinking in terms of the underlying resources that markets allocate. That's 'resources' viewed as expansively as possible, everything from the specialized labor-hours of people who know how to do quality control on bulk-manufactured photovoltaics to the ore used to make ball bearings in the factory all the way to the guy in charge of managing a grain elevator th…
Sadly a lot of people look at our economic system through an ideological lens - how it allocates resources is, to them, driven by political, cultural and social motivations. The fact that by far its most important purpose is resource allocation is often completely ignored. Rising petrol prices here in Australia draw criticism against fossil fuel wholesalers - as if they are doing this solely to screw over Australians…
Any human system is inherently ideological.
"It’s not only our reality which enslaves us. The tragedy of our predicament when we are within ideology is that when we think that we escape it into our dreams, at that point we are within ideology." - Slavoj Zizek
> The fact that these high prices are caused by an actual lack of resources and that the higher prices are driving a reallocation of resources to those who need them most (ie. most willing to pay for them) is not on the radar for many.
This, for example, is a deeply ideological statement. Do I really need something most just cause I can pay more for it? Does the billionaire need the mansion more than the homeless person needs some living space?
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#284energy independence - until the gov taxes you for tapping the sun shining over their land.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not in the US, but in parts of Europe they effectively use AFCI/GFCI breakers for everything.
They are terrible for anything motorized though. The one in my bathroom trips every time I turn off the vent fan.
What tripping curve do your RCDs have? That is not normal if they are the right type, really sounds like something is wrong!
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#286Practical...if you ignore hot water. Once you add that into the mix, you either need a lot of space for a large hot water tank, or a very big battery. Peak charges make tankless resistive water heaters very expensive to run.
Heck, I don't even have anywhere to place a heatpump, let alone a hot water tank.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 decade ago I read what is happening in exactly the opposite way. To me it shows that Milliand and the government at large do very little with no strategic thinking and no plan (same as the guys before in fairness but this government was supposed to be soo different...) and, in this case…
These policies were in their manifesto, they just take some time to enact, even with a majority government.
Democracy fails to work because people expect things to happen overnight.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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
You're clearly an outlier, 99% of installs will not have that problem.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
So it is a good idea because power companies, or anyone else who has you over a barrel, are not going to change this behavior.
Energy independence is good for individuals, not just countries. Just like privately owned cars are horribly inefficient, independence wins out.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#290Uh Electrification is actually probably not the smartest way to get energy independently at the moment.