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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

#61

Post by conradev »

sanderjd wrote: post #25
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...

Six months for "permanent industrial electric service" sounds pretty reasonable, actually.

Oh, yes, I misread. 6-18 weeks still is a high enough barrier to drive a lot of people away.

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

#62

Post by kylehotchkiss »

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.

You are correct :) Thank you for mentioning non-export additions! I'll give those a look.

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

#63

Post by kylehotchkiss »

quickthrowman wrote: post #52
hex4def6 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 with…

Wouldn't it be like

Grid Battery Where the house is powered by inverter directly on the battery (and maybe a second inverter for primary solar to grid?)

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

#64

Post by r00fus »

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.

Not sure if your utility allowed for planned usage changes (ie, planning to buy an(other) EV, planning to install heat pump). This is what my installer submitted to justify my 180% over-specced solar install. This is PG&E in CA.

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

#65

Post by senectus1 »

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…

Its like reading or watching/listening to Murdoch news/sky news in Australia. sounds like the exact same bullshit mindset.

I'm so, very sick of it.

This narrative is going to ruin us all. The rich and powerful will be ruined as well, it'll just take a little bit longer.

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

#66

Post by sanderjd »

conradev wrote: post #61
sanderjd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Six months for "permanent industrial electric service" sounds pretty reasonable, actually.

Oh, yes, I misread. 6-18 weeks still is a high enough barrier to drive a lot of people away.

The residential one seems a bit high, but the industrial one doesn't seem crazy to me.

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

#67

Post by hcknwscommenter »

One Jack Rickard, RIP, who was quite an opinionated jerk imho, coined the concept of "selfish solar." The idea was that solar was on its way to becoming so cheap that one should just install enough panels and batteries such that you basically never use the grid, it's just a backup for uncommon events. Basically grid use drops to that 1 or 10% of the time the sun doesn't shine for days. I think we are there on the panel side, and will be there soon on the battery side. Selfish solar could make sense but it would change the economics of solar and electric grids substantially. If everyone went selfish solar, grid electricity and infrastructure would become prohibitively expensive. We are decades away from that or at least one decade (IMHO), but we need thoughtful regulation on this point. Will we get it? I suppose time will tell.

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

#68

Post by killingtime74 »

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.

If you get more can't you disconnect from the grid? Then they can't stop you. You need batteries of course. Or stay connected with existing system and have more solar that is only connected to batteries separately, no grid.

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

#69

Post by quantified »

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…

The closing sentence summarizes the article:

> Rooftop solar offers an alternative to a monopoly that can no longer be considered natural.

Electricity generation can no longer be considered a natural monopoly. That sounds like an endorsement of rooftop solar.

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

#70

Post by smadge »

L-four wrote: post #17
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…

They likely mean wasting the embodied energy and materials.

And opportunity cost of having unused capacity in one location and unmet demand in another location.
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