Why We Have No Wind or Solar Power

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

The cheapest thing is to offer rebates for more efficient stuff and play commercials telling people to reduce power consumption. At ~2-3c/kWh w/ the high end being ~8c/kWh, it's pretty damn cheap, esepcially considering that it's replacing power from peaker plants.

I think the utilities have their billing structure bass-ackwards. The residential customer that uses the least amount of electricity pays proportionally the HIGHEST "facilities charges" and the HIGHEST amount/kwh. AND I just got notice that my utility is requesting rate increases which will hit the- you guessed it- small residential customer the hardest, with both higher facilities charges and "distribution charges" for the small user than the big one. Soooo... the rewards go to the biggest users? The economic incentives to conserve are what? (besides just paying for less kilowatts).

I think the utilities should provide incentive in the other direction. Say, if you consistently reduce usage over a 12 mo period, or use less than "average", or ? Gimme a break on my facilities charge, or distribution charge, or gimme a free appliance inspection, or window plastic kit, or SOMETHING, for having reduced my average consumption by nearly 50% over what it used to be!

[Duffman]

Roflwaffle,

I am not going to quote your posts because it’s pretty long, but I’ll start at the bottom and work my way up.

You refer in post 103 “You really think someone of middle eastern descent”. If drawing a connection of the habitants of the middle east region being of the Arabian race (because it’s pretty clear we are not talking about the Israelis) or identifying members of Al-Qiada being Arab as well makes me a racist then I guess I can live with that, my fiends won’t hold it against me. If you want to Ad Hominum me on that then fine.

Regarding the NREL link, I can do a 40% duty cycle, there will be rare cites that will give you that, it definitely represents a best case solution. There will be a lot of sites that give you 30% and there will be many sites that give you less, real world examples reflect that. If you go to that site, they are pretty clear as to what they are doing for the most part wrt formulas, but if you open their sheet they multiply their O&M by 0.6 and never explain why, I corrected that and lower the production to 40 and 30% duty cycles which I think are again fair to generous and resulting in 4.27 cents and 5.7 cents/kWh. What about what I have done do you not like? I didn’t open your links as I think that 5 cents/kWh is a very fair price for nuclear, most of my links put it in that ballpark, it all depends on the interest rate. That said how is nuclear any more expensive than wind on a kWh basis? Yet if you look at the NREL link from post 78, they clearly state their cost does not account for backup generation. Again I will concede, not a problem, keep your wind under 5-10% and I will accept your ballpark 5 cent cost for wind. Crank up the wind capacity and now you have to idle some reserves which destroys winds ability to deliver ballpark 5 cent power, additionally studies for carbon footprint go out the window as well.

Regarding the German experiment, we don’t know how much overcapacity they had for their small scale, but I bet their bio-gas and hydro capacity together was close to the required capacity.

More to follow.

[Duffman]

Roflwaffle,
Again continued from the bottom up.

I’ve let this distributed grid go on long enough, you need to pick your battle here, are you going to generate only in good locales or are you truly going to distribute and generate everywhere including some really crappy sites. See links for graphic example of my next point.

Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States

Now take those wind speeds from the calculations in post 78 and find your 42% sites and your 33% sites (8.4 and 5.8 m/s wind). Are they not geographically clustered? Does the bulk of the power fall in one time zone? Are there not great areas of the eastern portion of the country that are completely unsuitable?

Check out the seasonal variations:
Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States

This was the same thing that I was trying to reflect in the Danish data, that was not a fluke.

Now lets look at solar:
America's Solar Energy Potential

Again it’s largely geographically clustered (again time zone issues) and again the N. East is totally piss poor. I don’t have an American link for seasonal variation but I think a Canadian one really illustrates it better anyway.

https://glfc.cfsnet.nfis.org/mapserv...illement&NEK=e

Yes the Ice storms are a result of T&D failure, natural disasters happen. There were people in Quebec that were without power for 40 days, most at least 10-20. My uncle who lives on the island of Montreal (big big city) was around 20 days. This happened because Hydro-Quebec generates far away from the consumption. And yes Hydro-Quebec does have a HVDC line in its system.

Again more to follow.

[Duffman]

Roflwaffle,
Again continued from the bottom up.

The next point was already addressed but let me say this. The U.S. is full of white people, black people, Indians, Chinese, and yes Arabs meaning they are everywhere there, nothing more intended.

Yes there are underwater cables, but they don’t work everywhere. I’m not getting into this buried cable debate, its so far down the rabbit hole.

Next point was pretty well covered earlier, the Midwest all falls in the same time zone, and it is possible that a large weather system can effect half of the country at a time, its not common but its not impossible either, you have to prepare for all possibilities. Anybody who has ever done a physics experiment knows that you add your measurement errors together, you hope they all cancel each other out but Murphy's law states that they can all work against you at the same time, so you have to add them all up.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I think the utilities have their billing structure bass-ackwards. The residential customer that uses the least amount of electricity pays proportionally the HIGHEST "facilities charges" and the HIGHEST amount/kwh. AND I just got notice that my utility is requesting rate increases which will hit the- you guessed it- small residential customer the hardest, with both higher facilities charges and "distribution charges" for the small user than the big one. Soooo... the rewards go to the biggest users? The economic incentives to conserve are what? (besides just paying for less kilowatts).

I think the utilities should provide incentive in the other direction. Say, if you consistently reduce usage over a 12 mo period, or use less than "average", or ? Gimme a break on my facilities charge, or distribution charge, or gimme a free appliance inspection, or window plastic kit, or SOMETHING, for having reduced my average consumption by nearly 50% over what it used to be!

We have exactly what you're talking about here in CA. The people that use the most get charged the most, and we're talking about a big difference too, something like a ~10+c/kWh increase for each tier. For instance we're at ~8-10c/kWh for the first ~200-400kWh/month, but after that it jumps to 17-19c/kWh, then ~30c/kWh, etc...

[Frank Lee]

Good for them! We're about 10 years behind Cali in EVERYTHING here in the midwest.

[jamesqf]

Since this is getting overly long, I won't bother to quote individual messages, but there are a few points that need elaborating.

First, claims that e.g. Denmark gets 20% of its electricity from wind or Germany gets whatever percent from renewables ignores the fact that these countries aren't electrically independent. They're all interconnected in the European grid, the UCPTE system. That means that while Denmark may very well get 20% of its electricity from wind when averaged over the course of a year, it's only able to do this because it has the grid - French nuclear plants, Swiss hydro, everyone else's coal & natural gas - to draw on when the wind isn't blowing. This is a perfect example of the point I've been trying to make. Denmark (which is only a small fraction of Europe) can float its 20% wind on the system because of all the other reliable generation out there. If the grid doesn't have that reliable generation, it doesn't work.

As for the Arab/racism question, it actually has little to do with race or nationality (and that at second hand). It's about religion: those people have chosen to follow a religion which tells them to attack & subjugate unbelievers. It's not "terrorism", either: that's just a tactic that some of the jihadists have chosen to use at this point in time.

[order99]

Good points all...

As to Denmark's energy status- it's true that they (like most of us) depend on non-renewables. Still, 20%>0%, right? I don't see any reason to phase out non-renewables immediately, but Alternative sources can only help things out...eventually (assuming we gradually increase use of Solar/Wave/Wind/Geo sources) our mass-consumption should rely far less on coal and oil. This won't happen overnight, our infrastructure needs to be overhauled-power storage needs to be improved among other things-but it can happen over the course of a mere Decade or so, given enough incentive.

[conradpdx]

Concrete I was talking about grid tied systems with battery back up. Not off grid and then also having to pay for power lines brought to your remote property. Most people don't live in non grid area's. Picking a friend that lives outside of civilization as an example doesn't prove anything.

And here ya go links to the $1000 starter system.

Inverter--- $320 dollars not the greatest but it's a start and it's stackable, so could be used as you expand your system cheaply. Then once you get a few more panels past the initial investment you can spend more on a better one (about $3000 for a top of the line Fronius)

panels---$695.00. for the first one.

Ok I was off by about $100.00 and I'll give you other $100.00 for building your own frame and some caulk and screws for mounting it on your roof.

Granted it isn't alot of power being generated, but as I stated before it's a start and if you invested your savings back into the system you'd have a decent sized array in 5-10 years (3-4 panels more if you put extra money into it). Forgive me for being vague on this but there's a lot of factors to consider on the payback of such things---as you're all to happy to point out).

This isn't even including the government incentives that currently exist which you could get bigger for the same amount money, but they require professional installation. The beauty of this one is that it's plug and play. But too bad it's illegal to run your meter backwards without a contract with the power company, which typically requires large arrays to be approved for.

The problem I'm pointing out isn't the price of the technology or even grid issues (though I admit I've strayed a little bit at times--easy to do in this thread) but that the current regulations for net metering doesn't make it cost effective for Joe (six-pack or plumber, or lion, or whatever---couldn't resist sorry). Sure you can eliminate your electric bill but to do so for most people would require you to overbuild the system and add storage--as it stands any excess power is given to the grid for free. The power companies make money with no overhead for themselves with every Net-0 house. Which is exactly why they are some of the biggest supporters of this movement. But it will be a cold day in hell when they suggest paying people for that power, which is why it needs to be legislated.

This might be different in different service areas, but Oregon is pretty forward thinking on this issue and this is how it is done here. My problem lies in the fact that if I'm going to invest in a system why is breaking even the best I can do? Is this a free market economy or not?

I'm all for being altruistic and doing, spending, and donating for good causes. But I don't think spending money to give product to an energy company to sell for free as being altruistic. It's just stupid

[Concrete]

conradpdx,

my example of my friends system was only to point to a real installation
and note you are probably off by orders of magnitude in price
and Duffman is undeniably right
- if every one has a system that is even remotely able to provide power on an average day
their will be tremendous power generation swings and over building

but you also make a second point for me
- let me say it your way... but from the grids persective

Joe normal thinks he can build what ever DIY jacked up system and pump that
wacked power into the grid. expects me to filter it and monitor it and transfer it
for free! I'm all for being altruistic and doing, spending, and donating for
good causes. But I don't think spending money to give product to an energy hack
to be their backup power for free as being altruistic. It's just stupid

not meaning to be too crude here - but that is what your arguments sound like to me
be glad they will even let you tap your system in

as for the PV system - my question is not the price
it is do you have one?


Frank,

50% conservation is still half a power bill - congratulations
I'm working at it - but I'm lucky to break even year on year - family is growing
should have stopped at 2 kids

besides - you have found the one thing the government has not found a way to tax
conservation

so there is at least one incentive for you