Renewable Energy Is The Future

[freebeard]

http://evtv.me/2017/07/selfishly-solar/

Quoth Jack Rikard:

Here in the U.S. too, there is an identity crisis that spans ALL the vendors of solar equipment. And it is ALL about the grid. People want their solar systems to be tied to the grid. In this way, if they need more electricity than their solar system provides, they can get it from the grid. And if they produce more at any particular moment beyond their needs, they can “sell” it back to the grid.

But if the grid goes out, they want it to provide electricity to their home. And there in lies the rub. If you are connected to the grid, you wind up powering the grid. And that can be bad.

So the vendors try to be all things to all people. And they try to come up with ways that will be “legal” and tie to the grid politely, but also be useful stand alone or as a backup system.

The whole thing is on-topic.

Indeed, let’s stop looking at the battery as an adjunct to a solar system. Let’s mentally get over it and realize that the battery is the HEART of a home power system. We can use the grid, generators, or solar arrays to put energy INTO it and we use an inverter to convert its output to the familiar 240vac to take energy OUT of it.

Tesla aggregating Powerwall capacity and selling it to utilities is an interesting ploy.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

http://evtv.me/2017/07/selfishly-solar/

Quoth Jack Rikard:


The whole thing is on-topic.


Tesla aggregating Powerwall capacity and selling it to utilities is an interesting ploy.

The battery solves no problem so long as a grid connection is required.

There are inverters that accept both AC and DC input for emergency power. When the grid goes down, it disconnects from the grid and then accepts generator or battery input to continue powering the home.

It's way more cost effective to connect a genset that only cost a few hundred bucks than to estimate how many days you'll be out of power and size a battery bank accordingly.

Going off grid is even more miserable because as I have stated, both me and freebeard would have to size the solar array 5x+ larger than needed in early summer to get through winter. Same goes with battery storage.

The only scenario in which it makes sense to have battery storage is to load shift to avoid peak TOU rates, or you live in Hawaii and it's cheaper to just go off-grid.

[freebeard]

Depends on jurisdiction. From the fine article:

I’ve been working furiously this week on a 48v battery module and controller to work with the Sunny Island 6048 US Inverter. Coming nicely I think. This will be a good combo.

But there is a kind of identity crisis between the Sunny Island and the grid-tied Sunny Boy. In Germany, where they are made, it is actually illegal to use them together. And it’s all about the grid.
....
In 2009 I predicted that we would no sooner free ourselves of the oil companies, than our pals the electric companies who were oh so enthusiastic and encouraging about electric cars would become the new arch enemy. And it has come to pass. Trading one master for another.

In a Pollyanna perfect world, we could of course build a very distributed network on a national scale and power could shunt from area to area as the sun did shine, and local outages could be made up with local rooftop resources and all would be happy. Meanwhile our dear friends at the utility company are doing horrendously cynical backroom deals with “regulators” all too willing to sell out their neighbors for the right amount of cash. Actually any amount will do.

The case in Florida where a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to install solar, which was actually a constitutional amendment assuring utility companies that no one could install solar, was so cynically and deliberately designed that it would do the Democratic National Committee proud. With millions spent by the utility companies to advertise and promote this “rights” movement, it did gain a majority of votes. But that was not enough to pass an amendment and so the deliberately fraudulent ruse was defeated. The author gleefully described it as brilliant political ju-jitsu – that is before it failed and when they thought it would probably pass.

This scenario is currently ramping up across the land and it is now a cottage consultant industry to advise utility companies on specifically how to defeat the desires of their “solar” customers. The self-centered world view of these people is frightening in both its scope and stupidity. But we saw it with the telephone companies over the Internet, the oil companies over the electric cars, and now the utility companies with solar.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Depends on jurisdiction. From the fine article:

I'm not talking about legal requirement to have a grid connection, I'm talking about practical/financial reasons why leaving the grid aren't feasible.

Anyone can disconnect no problem, just stop paying the bill. That doesn't solve the problem of getting sufficient electricity year round at an affordable price using just solar and batteries.

The fact that hardly anyone goes off grid after having previously been connected is evidence of the complexity and expense involved.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

I'm not sure if a grid connection is mandated in my country, yet usually the public lighting tax is collected through the electricity bill. So let's suppose someone would go off-the-grid here, I'm not sure how would be charged the public lighting tax, at all...

[redpoint5]

Sounds like a market opportunity.

[Piotrsko]

Here the street light process is part of the county taxes on your property, bare or built on.