An interesting problem is highlighted on that graph: solar seems to be peaking around mid-day, but energy demand peaks at 5 - 7 pm when solar is pretty weak. The curves showing pre- and post-solar have almost identical peaks; solar hasn't yet successfully reduced peak load. (The California energy system posts a similar graph, with a similar shape: http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx , made worse by the fact…
Advice to entrepreneurs: finding a cost-effective way to store solar energy for 4 hours will be worth more than another 2% increase in efficiency. And inventing instant-on conventional-fuel plants will also make a huge difference in GHG emissions. This is a solved problem. It's called pump storage[1], and is in use world wide. The US has some existing pump storage power plants (eg [2]), but typically they are used to…
Who's afraid of Solar PV?
51–60 of 60 posts
Re: Who's afraid of Solar PV?
#52An interesting problem is highlighted on that graph: solar seems to be peaking around mid-day, but energy demand peaks at 5 - 7 pm when solar is pretty weak. The curves showing pre- and post-solar have almost identical peaks; solar hasn't yet successfully reduced peak load. (The California energy system posts a similar graph, with a similar shape: http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx , made worse by the fact…
Capturing energy should only come till after solar PV's generates surplus electricity. If solar panels continue to become cheaper and more efficient it's likely no revolutionary capturing technology needs to be developed. There are plenty of simple, cost effective energy capturing technologies currently in use today (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup)
Re: Who's afraid of Solar PV?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can see how that's true if the car owner's continue to pay the capital costs of the battery - the part I'm taking issue with is where you say that it would likely that the car owners would have the capital cost of their battery packs paid for by taking part.
My back of the envelope calculations elsewhere in the thread were $1571/yr savings per car (10% overall reduction in grid cost); the Model S battery replacement insurance is $12k per car, which is a ~7.5 year payback (by which time, they claim the pack will be at 70% effectiveness). Elsewhere someone corrected me that the peak grid usage in a year is actually significantly higher - the figures I was looking at were a…
No matter how you slice the numbers though, the fact remains that if it's economical to pay for someone's car-optimised battery pack, then it must be even more economical to build a giant fixed battery.
(Since we know that the latter isn't economical, then that also indicates a problem with your numbers - I suspect that for one thing, insurance couldn't be economically provided at $12k/pack if all of those packs were being used for daily peaking storage).
Re: Who's afraid of Solar PV?
#54An interesting problem is highlighted on that graph: solar seems to be peaking around mid-day, but energy demand peaks at 5 - 7 pm when solar is pretty weak. The curves showing pre- and post-solar have almost identical peaks; solar hasn't yet successfully reduced peak load. (The California energy system posts a similar graph, with a similar shape: http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx , made worse by the fact…
We don't need any breakthroughs. Electric cars could handle the entire peak load with today's technology, the right incentives, and capital flowing in the right place. The peak load for South Australia was 1.8 gigawatts. There are 1,275,041 motor vehicles registered in SA. If you could get all of them turned into electric cars plugged into the grid, it would be a 1.4 kW power drain per vehicle, which is less than the…
FWIW, I forwarded the article and these comments to my friend who works in the energy sector in South Australia. His comment:
"The comments talk about electric cars effectively being used as batteries to help supply the grid during peak times which is a concept I haven’t heard of. Electric cars being plugged in overnight to increase the night-time demand would certainly help as you would significantly increase the base-load demand, thereby improving the load factor of the network. This then distributes the fixed infrastructure costs over a higher number of kWh lowering the per/unit cost of energy."
Re: Who's afraid of Solar PV?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
My back of the envelope calculations elsewhere in the thread were $1571/yr savings per car (10% overall reduction in grid cost); the Model S battery replacement insurance is $12k per car, which is a ~7.5 year payback (by which time, they claim the pack will be at 70% effectiveness). Elsewhere someone corrected me that the peak grid usage in a year is actually significantly higher - the figures I was looking at were a…
No matter how you slice the numbers though, the fact remains that if it's economical to pay for someone's car-optimised battery pack, then it must be even more economical to build a giant fixed battery. (Since we know that the latter isn't economical, then that also indicates a problem with your numbers - I suspect that for one thing, insurance couldn't be economically provided at $12k/pack if all of those packs were…
I suspect you're right, and it may well mean it doesn't make outright financial sense today.
The key is probably that the $12k replacement program is an investment in Tesla; they're cash starved, and are willing to sell the batteries at a loss in return for the cash advance. Also, they're betting on the batteries being ~half price in 10 years.
From further reading, they'd be $30k - 2.5 times the price - to buy upfront today.
But that doesn't mean that the subsidy doesn't exist - if 1% of consumers would buy a Model S due to its other advantages, maybe 2-3% would if that purchase returned $1500 a year back to them.
So while you're right that it's not outright going to pay for itself in 2012, it probably halves the gap between a Model S and a BMW in the same class, and it's only going to get better as battery/PV technology improves.
Re: Who's afraid of Solar PV?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We get new sunlight every day, but the fresh water that we have is all we have." Actually, we get new fresh water every other day - it's called rain.
I can tell you've never been to Australia. EDIT: http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap10/continents.... (Sorry for the horrible background, the data is there)
The data is very interesting, but as I read it it confirms that even in Australia there is a lot of fresh water coming down each year, and the problem is how to convert it into usable fresh water. Just like with solar irradiation: There is a lot of it coming, but it's very difficult to turn it into usable energy.
PS I've never been to Australia, but I'd like to come someday :)
Re: Who's afraid of Solar PV?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can see how that's true if the car owner's continue to pay the capital costs of the battery - the part I'm taking issue with is where you say that it would likely that the car owners would have the capital cost of their battery packs paid for by taking part.
My back of the envelope calculations elsewhere in the thread were $1571/yr savings per car (10% overall reduction in grid cost); the Model S battery replacement insurance is $12k per car, which is a ~7.5 year payback (by which time, they claim the pack will be at 70% effectiveness). Elsewhere someone corrected me that the peak grid usage in a year is actually significantly higher - the figures I was looking at were a…
Wouldn't the increased cycling of the batteries significantly decrease their lifespan?
Re: Who's afraid of Solar PV?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
As another South Australian I have to say this article makes me a little concerned about further price rises of mains power to make up for the shortfall. Although the long term benefits of Solar are amazing the short term situation for power infrastructure here could be a problem. *Edit: I can see a flatter usage profile should probably mean cheaper power, but still I think there is some justifiable paranoia in worry…
Another South Australian. Power is just the next thing to be disrupted by technology changes. I think we need smart meters and a more market driven approach to retail pricing. Peak electricity costs can go through the roof and people will respond by shifting their usage to alternatives or different times when there is less demand and prices are lower. Unfortunately there is no market transparency and we are paying fo…
My energy provider (SDGE in Southern California, USA) takes a fairly straightforward tiered approach to energy cost. First, they take your house arrangement (sqft, year built, etc.) and compare to similar homes. This establishes a baseline energy usage for your house profile.
Using 0-100% of your "allocation" is one price. It's about 2x the cost to use 101-149%. 150-199% is an even higher rate. Etc.
Doesn't solve peak usage or distribution issues, but it's a (relatively) easy concept to understand. The detailed statements pretty clearly explain how much each "allocated unit" of energy costs.
Re: Who's afraid of Solar PV?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
It only end ugly for the water companies. On the contrary, it ends beautifully for the customer.
Not really. The water company is raising prices on everyone because we're not using as much, but they still have same overhead. If the whole community hadn't conserved, we'd have gotten more water for the same or lower cost.
>The water company is raising prices on everyone because we're not using as much //
If they're like the UK water companies then they'll be moaning they're suffering but still be making vast profits.
It's like "we can't fix the pipe network without increasing water bills and we already put them up 10% this year; oh and we made 20% more profit this year so we must be serving our customers well ....".
Re: Who's afraid of Solar PV?
#60>> The unspoken fear of all utility managers is the “Death Spiral Scenario”. >> In this nightmare, a utility commits to build new equipment. >> However, when electric rates are raised to pay for the new plant, the rate shock moves customers to cut their kWh use. We have a "death spiral" in water prices in my local (southern California) water district. There was a drought. People were asked to conserve. People conserv…
If the water utilities are smart they'll increase the fixed "connection charge" component of their bills to cover more of the fixed infrastructure costs.
Yes. That is why the water part of my bill is sometimes only $10, but the connection charge is $120. It's a worst case scenario in the few months where I hardly use water.