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Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout

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Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout

#51

Post by numpad0 »

lukan wrote: post #14
numpad0 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar output is also proportionate to area of sunlight projection. This means the theoretical capacity available to you is proportionate to real estate, area of planetary surface, under your ownership.

And the area you own is theoretical proportionate to your avaibale money. So yes, rich people can obviously have more of it all, like with everything else that money can buy. But is this really a point worth going in deeper here? I see the point as in "solar power plus battery is good", creates resillence, please more of it. Unfair distribution of wealth is a different problem. And here concreteley the article lacks…

It's not just redistribution, land is an already heavily overcommitted resource on Earth. China, for example, holds basically same amount of land as US, for its 4x population, and they house the people in things like dozens per each clusters of 50-story condominiums.

In places like that - that but not necessarily specifically China or Asia, local proprietors would head to forested mountains unfit for residences, and actively desertify it to put on PVs to collect incentives, if incentivized. The cost is externalized and paid collectively in such forms as raised atmospheric CO2 levels and micro disasters like mountain landslides.

Resilient solar-battery off/micro-grid is great if you live "by yourself" in relative sense and doing so would allow removal of electrical transmission lines with own costs and externalities, but it's far from panacea, if not opposite - it's a specific and somewhat radical solution to specific problems.

Now, as to whether such dystopian Bladerunner cities on Earth that has to rely on fission/fusion should exist in real life, it's probably deeply wrong that they do. But we're not cutting down Earth's population by 90% to fix that, and wealth redistribution is a minor part of the reason it would be wrong.

Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout

#52

Post by soco »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #49
chilldsgn wrote: post #27

I don't know much about electrical grids, but I'm wondering if something like this concept could help South Africa with its endlessly struggling electrical grid problems. My city constantly has power outages and the majority of people cannot afford installing solar into their homes.

They tried that - especially companies like BMW - and they got no permits, because the state run power company wants money for providing nothing. The problem is also that thieves steal the copper cables, even for micro-grids. You can not tech your way out of social/cultural problems. Socialist cultural rot is real and the only way out is to eradicate cultures that encourage that mindset. All the ingredients are there…

Could you please explain the "socialist cultural rot" and the "eradicate cultures"? You might mean something totally sensible but this wording is quite triggering to me.

Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout

#53

Post by lukan »

numpad0 wrote: post #51
lukan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the area you own is theoretical proportionate to your avaibale money. So yes, rich people can obviously have more of it all, like with everything else that money can buy. But is this really a point worth going in deeper here? I see the point as in "solar power plus battery is good", creates resillence, please more of it. Unfair distribution of wealth is a different problem. And here concreteley the article lacks…

It's not just redistribution, land is an already heavily overcommitted resource on Earth. China, for example, holds basically same amount of land as US, for its 4x population, and they house the people in things like dozens per each clusters of 50-story condominiums. In places like that - that but not necessarily specifically China or Asia, local proprietors would head to forested mountains unfit for residences, and…

"local proprietors would head to forested mountains unfit for residences, and actively desertify it to put on PVs to collect incentives, if incentivized."

Can you give me one example, where PVs contributed to desertification?

Usually it is the contrary, in the shade of the PVs, more can grow than in direct burning sunlight.

And there are plenty of non forest land, or literal dessert land tp put PV there and if forest gets cut, than for other reasons than PV. And china is actually quite active in combating desertification with green belts and recently, PVs.

Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout

#54

Post by KaiserPro »

pjc50 wrote: post #50
danans wrote: post #31

Based on what I see in the photo in the article, PV array codes in Puerto Rico must be quite different from those in California, because the arrays seem to cover almost the entirety of the roofs. In California fire access codes [1] prevent the entire roof from being covered like in PV that. 1. https://energycodeace.com/site/custom/public/reference-ace-2...

What's the rationale for that? It's not a rule in the UK. I'm not sure who's going to be walking on the roof of a building that's on fire.

looking at the linked doc, its so that the roof can easily be opened to let smoke out.

I'm not an expert, but I've not seen in the UK (well apart from thatched roofs) firefighters opening the roof to get access.

Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout

#55

Post by mc32 »

cinntaile wrote: post #30
happymellon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, South Africa's electrical problems have been long term political.

That's the case everywhere in the world, it's not a tech issue. The tech exists.

It’s a corruption issue where certain people use it as a personal bank. Lots of deferred maintenance, no build out, but lots of greed -not just a little.

Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout

#57

Post by PicassoCTs »

soco wrote: post #52
PicassoCTs wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tried that - especially companies like BMW - and they got no permits, because the state run power company wants money for providing nothing. The problem is also that thieves steal the copper cables, even for micro-grids. You can not tech your way out of social/cultural problems. Socialist cultural rot is real and the only way out is to eradicate cultures that encourage that mindset. All the ingredients are there…

Could you please explain the "socialist cultural rot" and the "eradicate cultures"? You might mean something totally sensible but this wording is quite triggering to me.

Everywhere socialist movements like the ANC take hold- there sets in a "im going to extract as much as i can from the state as he extracts from me - while giving him nothing" mindset. Its prevalent in the older generations in the eastern european block countries, china - its almost universal where the socialist experiment was run. The idealized society does not mesh and work with human nature at all, in fact it brings out the worst.

The old people of china, still steal paper towels on public toilets, because "take it all, while its there, before its gone" is the mindset encouraged. They brought you the tourists-"buffet rush"-genre of videos on youtube.

Of course this leads to dysfunction and misery- which then leads to conspiracy - of "they took it". Its ultimately another version of low-thrust society unable to function. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-trust_and_low-trust_socie...

A ugly side-effect that lingers for decades. Re-distribution and retribution, do not increase the size of the cake. Hard work rewarded does!

Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout

#58

Post by wuming2 »

m4r1k wrote: post #40

Meanwhile, in third-world, overly bureaucratic Italy, one has to wait several months to get all the paperwork in order to take advantage of a solar installation. Self-deployed solutions are also limited to 800 watts, which is peanuts in today's world.

You have clearly never spent anything but holiday time in a underdeveloped county. If ever. You won’t draw similarities otherwise. Completely different standing points.

Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout

#59

Post by AdamN »

happymellon wrote: post #39
cinntaile wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the case everywhere in the world, it's not a tech issue. The tech exists.

Not always, sometimes its logistics, sometimes outside forces which create time pressures. Not everything can be solved by money, sometimes its a mythical man month/9 women can't produce a baby in 1 month issue. However in this scenario, its pure neglect which is causing power issues.

In this case though, high reliability electricity delivery is very doable. Many countries achieve 3 9s or higher. Sure there are the issues like the recent Spain/Portugal blackout but even that has some political roots.

Re: Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout

#60

Post by metalman »

technological advances for off/tied grid solar are now maturing into high quality solutions for all scenarios, costs are in free fall. I was an ultra early adopter of solar pv in 1991 in Takilma, Oregon living in a school bus,and continue to live off grid in Nova Scotia. As to Peurto Rico, my first question was answered by a quick look at a topograpgical map, and Peurto Rico looks a lot like Nova Scotia....lots and lots of hills and little valleys and rivers, which means that for them topography has a big part to play, also looking at pictures of the instalations there, basic roofing is clearly a price consideration before other things, so developing solar that assembles into a physical roofing product, that entirely replaces other roofing, would be important for anyone who is carefullt crunching numbers on a new build in a choice location, add in charging for cars and scooters which can double as extra house power when needed and the inevitability of the comming switch becomes obvious.
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