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Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

economist.com

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Re: Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

#51

Post by richardc323 »

PlunderBunny wrote: post #9

> "lots of self-generated power will ultimately be wasted." This is sunlight falling on a roof. If you convert it into electricity but then don't use that electricity, is it really a waste? It's like saying that the overflow from my water tank that collects rain water off the roof is 'wasting' water. It could be argued that it's a waste in the sense that the generated electricity could have gone to someone else if th…

You are reading that very narrowly. The paragraph is simply pointing out that solar power is cheaper when built out in a centralised way because of: * economies of scale for construction and maintenance * higher utilisation. They don't spell it out exactly, but it is pretty clear fro m the context that, "lots of self-generated power will ultimately be wasted", is eluding to a wider geographic area needing more panels to satisfy all demand when each house has an independent system, rather than being grid tied.

Re: Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

#52

Post by quickthrowman »

hex4def6 wrote: post #37
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #33

This reminds me that utilities can limit the size of your rooftop solar system, which locks you into whatever your usage you had at install time. Because of that it's difficult for me to actually achieve net zero electric usage and it's more cost effective for me to remain on a gas furnace instead of upgrading to a heat pump. This is such a shame. I wish I could just get 2 more KWh.

I assume you mean 2kW not 2kWh. And you can; look up "Non-export addition". These are solar panels that are set to zero-export; they will either charge a battery or the current house loads, but never backfeed into the grid.

> they will either charge a battery or the current house loads, but never backfeed into the grid.

I’m not sure I understand how this works unless you split off loads into a subpanel that is fed by a UPS which is fed by solar panels, and also isolated from your utility connected electrical service.

As far as I understand it, you can’t have power generated by solar panels feeding loads in your grid-connected panel without backfeeding the grid, same deal as a generator backfeeding a grid-connected panel. You have to kill the MCB or service disconnect to prevent backfeeding.

If you have links with info on how this work (one-line diagram would be extremely useful) I’d be curious. I sell and run commercial electrical work, FWIW. I’ve done zero solar jobs so my understanding could definitely be wrong!

Re: Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

#53

Post by jsbisviewtiful »

PlunderBunny wrote: post #9

> "lots of self-generated power will ultimately be wasted." This is sunlight falling on a roof. If you convert it into electricity but then don't use that electricity, is it really a waste? It's like saying that the overflow from my water tank that collects rain water off the roof is 'wasting' water. It could be argued that it's a waste in the sense that the generated electricity could have gone to someone else if th…

> "lots of self-generated power will ultimately be wasted."

Takes like this are why corporations will plunge humanity into a painful end through climate change.

Re: Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

#54

Post by [deleted] »

conradev wrote: post #7
flyinghamster wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ComEd, the main electrical provider in northern Illinois, actively encourages homes and businesses to install solar power and offers net metering to solar-equipped customers. https://www.comed.com/smart-energy/my-green-power-connection...

> After ComEd receives confirmation that the project has passed municipal inspection, it can take anywhere from 6 to 18 weeks to complete the permanent residential electric service and up to 6 months for a permanent industrial electric service, depending on the amount of work required. 6 month turnaround sounds pretty weak. https://secure.comed.com/MyAccount/MyService/Pages/RequestIn...

[deleted]

Re: Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

#55

Post by richardc323 »

r00fus wrote: post #21
PlunderBunny wrote: post #9

> "lots of self-generated power will ultimately be wasted." This is sunlight falling on a roof. If you convert it into electricity but then don't use that electricity, is it really a waste? It's like saying that the overflow from my water tank that collects rain water off the roof is 'wasting' water. It could be argued that it's a waste in the sense that the generated electricity could have gone to someone else if th…

The hubris in this article is unreal: it's posing that privately owned utilities are a good thing and that bypassing them is some crime that's done by ratepayers. I hope that business model dies in a fire. Instead the entire paradigm of centralized generation may need to be called into question and we should instead be focusing on a hybrid centralized baseline + local generation and storage. Places like China do fine…

Wow. Did you read the next three paragraphs to the end of the article:

| Policymakers are now attempting to come up with solutions. “You can make solar play nice with the grids,” ...

| Yet the best solution would be for energy firms to respond to the competition and sort themselves out.

The article is talking about: * how solar is disrupting the traditional utility model * in countries where the utilities provide a poor service wealthy people are doing there own thing producing their own power with PV * how this leads to less customers for the utility leading to more expensive power for people who cannot afford to generate their own power * that solutions like grid-tied home PV instead of independent systems provides a better outcome for everyone in the area.

I don't think it it to much of a stretch to say that the article is advocating for, as you say, "a hybrid centralized baseline + local generation and storage."

Re: Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

#56

Post by PlunderBunny »

richardc323 wrote: post #51
PlunderBunny wrote: post #9

> "lots of self-generated power will ultimately be wasted." This is sunlight falling on a roof. If you convert it into electricity but then don't use that electricity, is it really a waste? It's like saying that the overflow from my water tank that collects rain water off the roof is 'wasting' water. It could be argued that it's a waste in the sense that the generated electricity could have gone to someone else if th…

You are reading that very narrowly. The paragraph is simply pointing out that solar power is cheaper when built out in a centralised way because of: * economies of scale for construction and maintenance * higher utilisation. They don't spell it out exactly, but it is pretty clear fro m the context that, "lots of self-generated power will ultimately be wasted", is eluding to a wider geographic area needing more panels…

Fair enough.

I think this is true of a lot of things that are 'in our house' (or on our property). A fatuous hypothetical example might be a large central refrigerator shared between multiple properties.

The apartment building I live in has large central boilers for the hot water, to save space in the apartments. This benefitted the property developer, and is probably more energy efficient (although, just like our solar power example, transmission loss needs to be accounted for), but has downsides for the apartment residents.

A better example is private vehicle ownership, as opposed to public transport. It's a good example of something that has moved from a more centralised control to individual control, with benefits and downsides.

Re: Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

#57

Post by elzbardico »

r00fus wrote: post #21
PlunderBunny wrote: post #9

> "lots of self-generated power will ultimately be wasted." This is sunlight falling on a roof. If you convert it into electricity but then don't use that electricity, is it really a waste? It's like saying that the overflow from my water tank that collects rain water off the roof is 'wasting' water. It could be argued that it's a waste in the sense that the generated electricity could have gone to someone else if th…

The hubris in this article is unreal: it's posing that privately owned utilities are a good thing and that bypassing them is some crime that's done by ratepayers. I hope that business model dies in a fire. Instead the entire paradigm of centralized generation may need to be called into question and we should instead be focusing on a hybrid centralized baseline + local generation and storage. Places like China do fine…

What you said sounds nice, unfortunately that's not how it works in the real world.

Re: Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

#58

Post by rstuart4133 »

4d4m wrote: post #3

I mean, what power grid provider makes it easy to work with them to sell solar back to the grid? Bogus fees, negative rate metering, and lobbying against the consumer drives consumers to ever-cheaper solar and storage options. This is self inflicted behavior from monopolies that ignore user research.

We are going through the same thing in Australia. In fact I suspect it's happening everywhere with solar.

The current solutions look to be market based, which boils down to getting rid of "one fixed price per kWh" and moving to something closer to paying whatever the wholesale market is charging. Not exactly that as the wholesale market is wild. It can varying by over a factor of 1000 during the year. What has happened is time of use charging which boils down to different fix rates for different times of the day. Controlled loads, which translates to the supplier being able to forcibly turn off things in your house. If you agree to that for your car charger for example, you get to pay about USD $0.05/kWh to charge your car. And there are demand charges, which means you don't pay per kW/h used but rather your peak draw in kW over a 3 month period.

Net metering was never a thing here, but now they can forcibly turn off the feed-in. In return they where used to set the maximum feed-in very conservatively based on how much the grid could absorb form every panel in the suburb at the worst possible time, now they will take the maximum your wiring supports.

Finally they now allow households to form themselves into power plants, that sell the power they generate / store directly on the wholesale market.

Meanwhile, the story is talking about grids disallowing net metering as a big step. It ain't a big step. It wasn't even a first step for Australia, as the distortions it caused were obvious so it was never allowed.

It looks to me like Australia has largely solved the day to day "grid instability" problem the article talks about. We do have places whose yearly average is 70% renewable, and they are fine. I'm not so sure about how them solving the "sun hasn't shined and the wind hasn't blown" for a week issue. It's not insurmountable as even on cloudy days, solar outputs 20% of peak. However, right now the solution in that 70% state is gas peakers.

Re: Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

#59

Post by Gigachad »

henearkr wrote: post #35
dgacmu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to. If you don't draw the energy from the panels, nothing happens. It's not like a turbine where you'd have to dump the energy into a dummy load. Solar power not used is simply not produced.

Nice, in this case the solution is really easy, just a switch that the grid operator can turn off to cut the solar panels off the grid when there is not enough demand.

That's how it does work now, at least in Australia, the energy meter on your house is connected to the internet and when the market rate goes negative (oversupply) solar production gets disconnected.

If you've got a battery you can continue to charge it, as well as consuming power from your own panels, but you won't feed back power at these times.

Re: Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

#60

Post by conradev »

0_____0 wrote: post #14
conradev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After ComEd receives confirmation that the project has passed municipal inspection, it can take anywhere from 6 to 18 weeks to complete the permanent residential electric service and up to 6 months for a permanent industrial electric service, depending on the amount of work required. 6 month turnaround sounds pretty weak. https://secure.comed.com/MyAccount/MyService/Pages/RequestIn...

How long do you expect it to take? Related: I've been trying to get my electric company to register the meters they installed in August so I can get billed properly. It's been months of back and forth. I just want to pay them money for electricity, it's all I want from them.

California can permit standard residential installations same-day with SolarAPP+
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