Kauai,Hawaii @ 55% reneable
 

Last Tuesday,PBS Television's NHK Tokyo Television's news program did an encore presentation of a January,2020 report.
*The Hawaiian island of Kauai had attained 55% solar electricity production and night time delivery capacity via Tesla grid-scale battery storage.They were saving $millions by scaling back in diesel fuel requirements.By 2045 they expect to be at 100% solar and zero carbon at the grid.AES Corporation is company involved in the project.
*Kyocera (makers of photovoltaic panels) was offering a product akin the Tesla's Powerwall,allowing Japanese with rooftop PV to store and use solar electricity.
*Japan's Malibu Hotel became the world's first commercial building with the capability to run off BEVs plugged into its EV chargers in the hotel parking lot.The hotel was offering employees incentives to purchase BEVs for themselves.The BEVs shown were exclusively Nissan LEAF cars.In the aftermath of an earthquake/Tsunami event,the hotel would have a few days of available stand-alone power,should the grid go down.

Kauai is the perfect place to go solar. Their solar hours are fairly regularly distributed throughout the year as well as heating/cooling requirements, and grid electricity is among the most expensive in the country.

Doesn't make sense here in the PNW when electricity demand and daylight hours vary a lot by season.

Replacing fossil fuels on power generation is a good measure. I would only take it with a grain of salt if such move becomes an excuse to push a move toward EVs like it has been proposed in Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, even though most of the power supplies in Fernando de Noronha still resort to Diesel-fueled generators.


I'd rather trust Kyocera over Tesla.


My main concern about BEVs is the range-anxiety, but the unstability of the power supply under some environmental conditions is also quite bothersome. A plug-in hybrid OTOH could make sense not only as it addresses more effectively the range anxiety, but also as it may eventually provide backup electric power for the household. I like to consider this ability in a similar way to those old tiller-tractors with a "multipurpose" horizontal single-cylinder Diesel engine usually coupled to the transmission and implements with a set of pulleys and belts. Some even feature a 220-volt power outlet even when they're not coupled to a genset.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nLnCJjxo7...Bdianteira.jpg

Well that's one place that makes sense to do so.
No natural resources besides tons of sun and clear weather and incredibly isolated. Beats running everything off fuel oil.

EVs are perfect for Kauai too. The island is 33 miles long, so there's hardly any reason to have range anxiety.

As I've been maintaining, islands are the perfect place for EVs. There's no way I'd own a gasser on any of the Hawaiian islands, especially considering the plentiful sunshine, moderate temperatures, and high fuel prices.

Yeah all your fuel has to be shipped like 2,000 miles.
Solar panels ship them once and they should last 25 years.

I'm disappointed that more headway hasn't been made on OTEC. Hawai'i had an operational pilot plant in 2015: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion#Hawaii

I came here looking for a place to drop this: www.washingtonexaminer.com: Trump administration approves largest solar farm in US, expected to power 260,000 homes

I always see a concentrated solar plant flying into LAS. My understanding is those are much more cost effective than PV, so I wonder why that isn't being pursued?

I'd like to see pumped hydro tested on a large scale, like Lake Mead.

It's a matter of how often it would be either needed or easy to drive it to the mainland.


As long as sunshine is plentiful, then an EV with built-in solar panels might make sense. The distance to the mainland rendering the chances to ever take such vehicle out of the islands to zero could also be considered.

Hawaii has a single fuel refinery and they had 2 but it closed down many years ago..


the cheapest gas price is 2.25 THAT is way cheaper then california locally it's 2.89

There's never a reason to take a vehicle back to the mainland. Cheaper to sell a vehicle in HI and buy a different one on the mainland if you're moving.

There's also never a reason to have PV on a vehicle. Maybe there's a good reason 1 out of every million vehicles (non-RV), but that's near enough to zero in my estimation.

The only price I see listed in Kauai is $3.55 at the moment. EIA shows the CA average is $2.65.

Sure it may be the case for Hawaii, Fernando de Noronha or other islands too far from mainland, but it doesn't apply to every island. I guess you have never been in Florianópolis for example.


I see no reason to not have PV on a vehicle, as it may also be useful to keep accessories such as the HVAC on without discharging the battery.

The discussion was about Kauai in particular, and then was generalized to all of the Hawaiian islands, so my comments apply to that.

Near Seattle Washington they have the San Juan islands a few miles offshore, and it would make sense that people might want more range when visiting the "mainland". Ferry pricing is reasonable and travel is common.

Regarding PV; it's better placed on a roof or other stationary object ideally situated. The only reason you'd reasonably put it on an EV is if you're offgrid and have need of charging but no grid connected way to do so.

Recently I looked at a smartwatch that came in PV or non-PV varieties. The PV version was like $100 more, and added between 4-14% extra runtime in ideal conditions. Dumb idea unless that last little bit is absolutely essential.

You can't put enough solar on top of a car to power the air conditioning. You could provide enough power to run the blower and the condenser fan, maybe.

HI/CA
 

That sounds familiar.Forty years or so ago,someone reported that oil from the Dutch East Indies was shipped to,and refined on Hawaii,sold at some price,and the same refined product was transhipped to California port of entry,trucked to Yosemite,and sold at a much lower price,in spite of the logistical costs.Maybe it has to Hawaiian State fuel tax?

Electrify this:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-fr...1373422495.jpg

Sure it may depend on the car's size and other factors such as an efficient insulation requiring fewer BTUs to cool down the interior.

A car will always be a poorly insulated green house unless major changes are made, like gold vapor coated windows.
But then you need more power to warm it up in the winter, ifyou have a winter.

.

For comparison.

A 1500 sq ft home footprint requires 2.5 tons of AC.

A 45 sq ft automobile footprint requires 5 tons of AC.

As it been said it all boils down to Insulation.

>

My leaf goes down the road using between a half ton and 1 ton worth of A/C. But you need to over size when your car starts off at at 144F and you want to cool it down while the sun is still shining in.
I did a test where I put an 8,000btu air conditioner in the back seat and trunk area of a car with fold down seats. I opened the trunk, packed towels around the A/C and it barely kept the car comfortable sitting in the sun.

Just considering the higher thermal conductibility of the metal bodies compared to most home-building materials, getting some good insulation is already quite harder.