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sidd

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3050 on: September 04, 2018, 12:20:51 AM »
NREL has a discussion on the area of land required to power USA with PV: 10 million acres.

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35097.pdf

2008 paper

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508002796

"we find that the base case solar electric footprint is equal to less than 2% of the land dedicated to cropland and grazing in the United States, and less than the current amount of land used for corn ethanol production."

later(2013) more detailed estimate covering CSP, tracking, thermal, with references:

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56290.pdf

Images at landartgenerator for various technologies:

http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127

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NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3051 on: September 04, 2018, 12:56:10 AM »
NREL has a discussion on the area of land required to power USA with PV: 10 million acres.

Now find me a company which will guarantee a Solar PV inverter for more than 30 years??

I did a lot of digging.  For home I'm seeing 5 years to 25 years with a realistic 10-15 year average for a copper wound inverter.

Digging out this section in a book on very large scale PV installations in the desert, I find.

Quote
33 % of secondary material content in aluminium parts
30 years of inverter lifetime with 10 % of materials

Inverters are the Achilles heel of solar PV.  If we use buildings there will be hundreds of thousands of them with, eventually, failures every day.  Who is going to pay for these.

Then there is the panel useable life.  Who is going to do the replacement on these panels.  Granted power stations don't last forever, but Solar PV fitted to buildings requires quite a lot of work over a very large area to maintain.

I'm not saying that it is impossible.  I'm just saying that simplistic models that just factor in space and sunlight and power output, without factoring in all the duration realities of the components and the sheer scale of the deployment is not going to help the business case.
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gerontocrat

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3052 on: September 04, 2018, 01:12:10 AM »
Now find me a company which will guarantee a Solar PV inverter for more than 30 years??

I'm not saying that it is impossible.  I'm just saying that simplistic models that just factor in space and sunlight and power output, without factoring in all the duration realities of the components and the sheer scale of the deployment is not going to help the business case.

So inverters have to be replaced. So what. It is the nature of machines. In a conventional power station, apart from the building itself everything has to be replaced every few years or so. I was told to use 15 years for the average life expectancy of the plant and machinery of a power plant when calculating the depreciation charge. Did it stop the power stations from being built? No.

Meanwhile, I found a nice report from Germany dated 27 August 2018 entitled PHOTOVOLTAICS REPORT. Good stuff in it, and not too technical. Nice graphics - example attached

https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Photovoltaics-Report.pdf
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3053 on: September 04, 2018, 01:27:23 AM »
...
Then there is the panel useable life.  Who is going to do the replacement on these panels.  Granted power stations don't last forever, but Solar PV fitted to buildings requires quite a lot of work over a very large area to maintain.
..

Think ‘solar roof,’ not panels.
Quote
Tile warranty
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Weatherization warranty
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Class F ASTM D3161 (best wind rating)

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https://www.tesla.com/solarroof
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sidd

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3054 on: September 04, 2018, 01:50:35 AM »
Re:solar PV degradation

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf

Looks like 0.5%/yr, 92% original capacity after 20 yrs.

sidd

jacksmith4tx

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3055 on: September 04, 2018, 04:42:24 AM »
For residential PV I recommend micro-inverters or per-panel optimizers.
Micro-inverters have a advantage in that if you lose 1 or more panels you don't lose the whole string, each panel/micro-inverter can be monitored plus you maximize power if you have some shading during the day. SolarEdge uses optimizers so you get better performance if you have some shading, each individual panel/optimizer can be monitored BUT it still uses a central inverter which if it fails you still lose the whole string. Last time I checked Enphase offers a 25yr warranty and SolarEdge give a standard 12yr warranty but you can buy a 25yr extension.
https://news.energysage.com/solaredge-vs-enphase-warranty/
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NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3056 on: September 04, 2018, 12:41:09 PM »
So inverters have to be replaced. So what. It is the nature of machines. In a conventional power station, apart from the building itself everything has to be replaced every few years or so. I was told to use 15 years for the average life expectancy of the plant and machinery of a power plant when calculating the depreciation charge.

Average life expectancy for depreciation accountancy is not always the same as the actual replacement timeline for the equipment.  However I'll accept it in the absence of a better metric.

However, as I keep on repeating, PV has never met the scale of traditional power generation.  Using partial power generation metrics and solutions to replace global scale power generation is not going to cut it.

Quote
As of December 31, 2016, there were about 8,084 power plants in the United States

If we were to replace those power plants with PV installed on buildings, we could increase that number from single digit thousands to hundreds of thousands or even millions for the inverters required.  With their unending cost for maintenance.

In case you are not aware, we are approaching peak coppoer where:

Quote
Globally, economic copper resources are being depleted with the equivalent production of three world-class copper mines being consumed annually.[2] Environmental analyst Lester Brown suggested in 2008 that copper might run out within 25 years based on what he considered a reasonable extrapolation of 2% growth per year.[9]

Moving to PV on this scale will not be a reasonable per year growth of 2%.  It will be an exponential explosion of copper usage.

Even with wind power, there are studies as to what it will do to the quality of copper supplies.

The need to really resolve our dependence on fossil fuels, for the benefit of the planet, does not allow that we go off and assume that everything we need to do Solar or Wind or any other "easy" solution, will just be there when we want it.

I know that, as a society, we've become used to just going out and "getting" what we want in order to do what we need.  On the global scale, that is not an option.  You must analyse all aspects of the solution before running down a blind alley where you run out of money, resources and willpower, to deliver the "beneficial" solution you sought.

In this case it would be far more beneficial to use out of town arrays with HVDC motors driving AC generators.  I do not see a situation where we can just turn every building into a power source and "carry on" as if there were no other challenges.  Our available resources do not allow.
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NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3057 on: September 04, 2018, 12:51:49 PM »
Looks like 0.5%/yr, 92% original capacity after 20 yrs.

sidd

On the surface, yes, but a slightly deeper dive into the figures shows that in the first few years the degradation is higher, slowing as the panels age. Also it shows that the newer thin film products which hare taking over are degrading at a higher level with up to 17% loss after 25 years.

Now here is the issue.  Do you add another 17% to your global power capacity rather than replacing every panel in the system to get that 17% back?  Do you keep on doing this up to 100 years, by which time you have at least doubled the amount of surface area in use?  If you started with 6m KM^2 under solar PV, would we have space to put in another 6m KM^2?  Would the people finally realise that their PV solar solution was going to, eventually, cover their country with part defunct solar panels?

There is a big difference between extremely power dense power stations and extremely sparse PV power arrays.  The approach has to be different and it has to be built in from the ground up as part of the maintenance schedule.

Otherwise it will fail and we cannot afford that.

PV is not a quick fix sticking plaster that we can just foist onto the next generation.  If we do it, we have to do it properly, to last, with a sustainable approach.

That is not reflected here.
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NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3058 on: September 04, 2018, 12:54:55 PM »
For residential PV I recommend micro-inverters or per-panel optimizers.
Micro-inverters have a advantage in that if you lose 1 or more panels you don't lose the whole string, each panel/micro-inverter can be monitored plus you maximize power if you have some shading during the day. SolarEdge uses optimizers so you get better performance if you have some shading, each individual panel/optimizer can be monitored BUT it still uses a central inverter which if it fails you still lose the whole string. Last time I checked Enphase offers a 25yr warranty and SolarEdge give a standard 12yr warranty but you can buy a 25yr extension.
https://news.energysage.com/solaredge-vs-enphase-warranty/

The UK has ~26 million homes.  If we estimated 10 panels per home, that's 260 million optimisers.

Who's going to replace them all, on a rolling basis, 25 years from now?  Even if we could get the 26 million homes installed in the next 25 years...
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oren

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3059 on: September 04, 2018, 03:09:44 PM »
The UK has ~26 million homes.  If we estimated 10 panels per home, that's 260 million optimisers.

Who's going to replace them all, on a rolling basis, 25 years from now?  Even if we could get the 26 million homes installed in the next 25 years...
I don't dig your point about maintenance of solar panels as such a prohibitive undertaking. What about nuclear plant maintenance? Horribly expensive. What about power plant maintenance? Not cheap either. And all the associated fossil fuel mining? Somebody is doing that. And moving all that coal and oil and gasoline and diesel around the globe and around the UK? Using your rhetoric could make it seem impossible to do, and yet humanity is doing it cheerfully on its way to hell.
In (almost) each of these homes you mentioned there is a refrigerator (10 years life?), TV (5 years life?), cell phone (3 years?), paint, furniture, stove, faucets, whatever. All of these fall apart from time to time. The nation is already fixing them on a rolling basis. Once the systems are already deployed, it's very doable.
Deploying solar panels in mass, on every roof and wall and other available surfaces, is the real challenge. But I doubt a shortage of copper or other such basic materials is what will prevent it.

Quote
If you started with 6m KM^2 under solar PV, would we have space to put in another 6m KM^2?
I believe thse numbers are erroneous. The Internet has many calculations arriving at hundreds of thousands of km2. And that when you include all other forms of energy, not just electricity. And when you include growth in energy demand to 2030. It's not accurate science, but I do believe your number is an order of magnitude too high.
In addition, building and road surfaces should be roughly sufficient as solar panel locations, in terms of required area. (I do mean roofing road surfaces though, not surfacing the road itself). So the picture you are painting is way too harsh. It doesn't mean it will happen like magic, and perhaps it will not happen at all, but these are not good enough reasons to cross it out.

Edit: here's one such calculation.
https://www.businessinsider.com/map-shows-solar-panels-to-power-the-earth-2015-9
« Last Edit: September 04, 2018, 04:12:26 PM by oren »

NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3060 on: September 04, 2018, 05:18:26 PM »
as such a prohibitive undertaking. What about nuclear plant maintenance? Horribly expensive.

The UK has 15 operating reactors.  15, no matter how expensive, is a number that you can plan for and work with.  26 million is not.  Especially when you have to request access to the private homes, have to work with the owner to change their roof with the risk of damage.

I work in an environment where we understand the sheer scale of stuff.  There comes a point in time where sheer volume of numbers exceeds both the time and the capacity to cope with it.

Remember, you are talking about basing your baseload power on this.  You can't let it slip by 15% - 20% simply because you can't get round all the houses in the country in 2 decades.

I'm not talking, specifically about cost.  I'm talking about the sheer size of the undertaking.  If you lose 17% of one Nuclear plant output, you can resolve that plant and move on.  If you lose 17% of 1/15th of the UK you have to replace the _entire_ solar panel infrastructure on 1,700,000 homes in order to fix it.  Or you need to add 295,000 homes worth of totally new panels to mitigate the loss. 

if you lose 17% of the entire UK housing stock (guaranteed at around 30 years), you need to add 4.4M homes worth of area in solar panels, or go and replace the panels on all 26 million homes.

That is just the panels.  If we want to use inverters or interconnects we are talking 52 million, minimum, every 15 - 25 years.

The UK can't even put in smart meters in a decade.  Convince me we're going to be able to handle this level of component replacement on a 15 to 25 year cycle.  Because experience says we won't.



The Internet has many calculations arriving at hundreds of thousands of km2. And that when you include all other forms of energy, not just electricity. And when you include growth in energy demand to 2030. It's not accurate science, but I do believe your number is an order of magnitude too high

I did do the figures.

First, every article I saw on the internet was different.  One thought you could power the world for 25,000 square miles.  Another half a millions sq km.

The all assumed that the peak capacity of the panel, at 20%, for the whole day.  I posted the curves.   The very best locations will see panels get up to 50% of peak for the longest time with a bulge to peak power and a sustained peak power for 1-2 hours.

None of them calculate in the 25% improvement with gimballed panels.  Gimballed panels require around 500% more space than flat panels.

I assumed that we would have to use gimballed panels because they become more important at more northerly and southerly latitudes.

Hence my figure in spacing is WAY higher than the "internet" calculations, but I doubt very much I'm off by an order of magnitude.  I may be high, but when you factor in ALL of the considerations brought on by time of year, angle of the sun, latitude, time at peak power, time at very low power, weather, shading even from minor clouds and a host of different factors gleaned from dozens of vertical articles on solar issues, you are not getting the power the simplified articles on the net give you.

Today I manage projects.  One of the skills required for managing projects is the ability to do a T shirt appreciation of the scale of the task you are presented with.

My T shirt for solar PV falls under "A scale of engineering rarely seen on this planet before".

To then take that T shirt and stick it in a 90C wash and shrink it to fit "perception", doesn't, in my experience, mean it is viable.
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oren

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3061 on: September 04, 2018, 05:51:39 PM »
Thanks for the clarifications. I'll let this one rest for a while. Hopefully as time goes by we will have some more hard data from actual solar farms to help resolve these questions.

Archimid

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3062 on: September 04, 2018, 06:28:51 PM »
I'll agree that there are challenges but  repair rate of inverters because there are 25 million of them is not one of them.  There are over a billion cars on the road today all operating thousands of mechanical parts at high temperatures and levels of stress. Somehow we manage. As solar capacity grows, so will the repair rate.
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Archimid

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3063 on: September 04, 2018, 06:44:55 PM »
Quote
The all assumed that the peak capacity of the panel, at 20%, for the whole day.  I posted the curves.   The very best locations will see panels get up to 50% of peak for the longest time with a bulge to peak power and a sustained peak power for 1-2 hours.


Overbuild the panels, supplement with wind and store the energy. Back up fossil fuel can be used in conjunction with the batteries and the trickle charge of the panels to cover low solar/low wind days. Problem solved. This can be done today in many markets. If fossil fuels paid for their trash disposal this could be done today in all the markets.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

SteveMDFP

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3064 on: September 04, 2018, 06:55:29 PM »


In case you are not aware, we are approaching peak coppoer where:

Quote
Globally, economic copper resources are being depleted with the equivalent production of three world-class copper mines being consumed annually.[2] Environmental analyst Lester Brown suggested in 2008 that copper might run out within 25 years based on what he considered a reasonable extrapolation of 2% growth per year.[9]

Moving to PV on this scale will not be a reasonable per year growth of 2%.  It will be an exponential explosion of copper usage.

Widely-distributed solar generation will certainly use *some* copper.  I'm a little skeptical that this is likely to present a limiting resource.
-copper is widely recycled, if copper prices rise, recycling will capture more
-telephone lines and coax cable installations are being replaced with optical fiber.  Less consumption and more recycling both arise from this change.
-on a per-household basis, with every room being wired for AC current, the additional copper to connect panels to AC current wouldn't be more than a few percent of the total copper in the house, I'd think.

And, longer-term, graphene is equal to copper in conductivity.  This is a tad speculative for widespread use, but graphene prices are coming down fast, and may present a ceiling price for copper for use in electrical conduction in the future.

NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3065 on: September 04, 2018, 06:56:27 PM »
Quote
The all assumed that the peak capacity of the panel, at 20%, for the whole day.  I posted the curves.   The very best locations will see panels get up to 50% of peak for the longest time with a bulge to peak power and a sustained peak power for 1-2 hours.


Overbuild the panels, supplement with wind and store the energy. Back up fossil fuel can be used in conjunction with the batteries and the trickle charge of the panels to cover low solar/low wind days. Problem solved. This can be done today in many markets. If fossil fuels paid for their trash disposal this could be done today in all the markets.

I don't disagree.  But I'd rather use nuclear than any fossil fuels to provide the fallback. But that is just me.

I don't like oversimplification because it always has a "gotcha" at the end.  That problem can then be used by the cynical, the dishonest or the morally bankrupt to perpetuate the carbon fuel situation.  Not something I want to happen.
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NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3066 on: September 04, 2018, 07:02:10 PM »
Widely-distributed solar generation will certainly use *some* copper.  I'm a little skeptical that this is likely to present a limiting resource.

A decent 25kw inverter can weigh as much as 70kg.  Most of that weight is copper.

I did link the article which raised the issue of copper scarcity just by the volume of wind turbines going up.  Solar is a completely different situation.

However if it drove the widescale adoption of graphene for inverters and we could get the reliability, I'd withdraw that objection.

However, on current technology, it is prohibitive.  I have, over the years, checked this out.  I work in IT and am aware of the scarcity of copper components and the compromises it has driven in IT systems.  I also do a lot of DIY and can see the difference in copper pipes and cables.  Price is not negligible and pipes are moving to plastic because of it.
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Bruce Steele

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3067 on: September 04, 2018, 07:56:21 PM »
Oversimplification , Would efforts to reduce nighttime energy use impact the overbuild that solar seems to require?
How to reduce nighttime electric use ?
Laundry during daytime with efforts at outdoor drying , cloths lines
Dishwashing during daylight hours
Home lighting LED
Computer by daylight
Limit TV hours
Volt meters for individual appliances
Go to bed early
Wake up early
Use the sun while it's there
Solar thermal storage for water and heating
Air conditioning during daylight
 
Why is it we don't spend more time on trying to live within the constraints of a different energy system?   
As a personal observation grid tied solar easily becomes little more than a dependably cheap utility bill.
Batteries and off grid must be a completely different experiance . The off grid experiance is perhaps the lifestyle changer that might inspire the using the sun while it's there options listed above?

oren

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3068 on: September 04, 2018, 08:07:12 PM »
Another hour or two of Daylight Savings Time throughout the year could also help.

sidd

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3069 on: September 04, 2018, 08:38:38 PM »
Re: land use for tracking panels

The second NREL report i posted contains estimates for both 2 and 3 axis trackers.

Re: maintenance/relacement cycle for PV

Look at the car industry. 17 million new cars sold in the USA. Billions of components, all needing maintenance and replacement. Yet somehow the task gets done. And a PV istall has order of magnitudes fewer parts.

sidd

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3070 on: September 04, 2018, 08:44:38 PM »
...
A decent 25kw inverter can weigh as much as 70kg.  Most of that weight is copper.
...

From the internet:
Quote
Single-family homes in the United States use an average of 422 pounds of copper in their construction.
So (very approximately), adding about 1/3rd more Cu/house.
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etienne

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3071 on: September 04, 2018, 10:16:01 PM »
Well, in Luxembourgish standard, 10 kW inverter could be enough. Don't know how big your roofs are.

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3072 on: September 04, 2018, 10:43:24 PM »
oren

California tried year round daylight savings time in the mid 1970's. It proved unpopular when the airwaves were flooded with tales of toddlers flattened beneath traffic as they groped their way to school in the dark.  :(


Bruce
Plug in 115 V Wattmeters might sell well if priced reasonably. I think measuring the amperage would provide more information than voltage, unless something like Enron starts playing games again.
I'd be happy do do the early morning stuff, but for the Biblical Admonitions.


Job 24:14
"The murderer arises at dawn; he kills the poor and needy; and at night he is a thief"
Psalm 127:2
It is vain for you to wake up early.

If Franklin hadn't plagiarized the old, "Early to bed ... wealthy and wise" bit from John Clarke, the world would be joining me in waking at the crack of noon. 8)


Neil
An additional 70 kg of copper/home might cause a big spike in copper prices, but at least it would be in an easily recyclable form. As long as they don't go back to residential aluminum wiring I'm OK. ;)


Terry

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3073 on: September 04, 2018, 10:46:38 PM »
Well, in Luxembourgish standard, 10 kW inverter could be enough. Don't know how big your roofs are.
~ equal to the dimensions of the floor. ::)
Terry

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3074 on: September 05, 2018, 01:44:23 AM »
So (very approximately), adding about 1/3rd more Cu/house.

So, with 126.22 million homes in the US that is a brand new requirement for copper of 8 million metric tons.  Total global supply of copper was 22.5 million metric tons of copper in 2016 and every ounce of it was already accounted for before it was mined.

Scale and scope.
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NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3075 on: September 05, 2018, 02:08:11 AM »
Look at the car industry. 17 million new cars sold in the USA. Billions of components, all needing maintenance and replacement. Yet somehow the task gets done. And a PV istall has order of magnitudes fewer parts.

sidd

There are 175,000 auto repair businesses in the US.  This does not include company/fleet auto repair shops.

There are ~500 electrical supply companies in the US.  Which means there are at least 350 times as many auto repair facilities in the US (excluding fleet), than there are Electricity companies to support infrastructure.  Even then not all of those companies actually support the grid, some only resell the power.

In the UK we failed to get a smart meter to every home within a decade.

Equating motor vehicles, which are taken to the repair centres, with home/business power generation grids, to which the repair company would have to travel, is not comparing apples with apples.

Cars have been around for over 100 years and the infrastructure has grown up around them.  When a car reaches its useful life it is junked and a new car is bought.  Cars do not need to be installed in the home/business and the car owner goes to the place of sale and drives it away.

Let us try another alternative.  There are 555,900 people employed as Plumbers, Pipelayers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters in the US.  If 10% (1.2million homes), required their water main to be replaced, how long do you think it would take?
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3076 on: September 05, 2018, 02:37:50 AM »
Another hour or two of Daylight Savings Time throughout the year could also help.

Or stop being a slave to the clock, and instead go back to planning each day by the sun. ;)
We need to be more flexible — and more earth-aware.
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sidd

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3077 on: September 05, 2018, 03:20:58 AM »
Lets look at something an average household might replace every ten years. Say a washing machine. or a water heater. or a dryer.

100million households in USA. that means evry year 10 million replace each of these. That 30 million replacements a year. The plumbers seem to get it done. So do the suppliers.


sidd

jacksmith4tx

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3078 on: September 05, 2018, 05:06:37 AM »
This report was just released which examines several current and future energy scenarios.
Electric Power Research Institute
https://www.epri.com

Developing a Framework for Integrated Energy Network Planning
https://www.epri.com/#/pages/product/3002010821/

In the white paper there are 7 topics covered in depth:
Capacity expansion 
Distributed energy resources
Distribution planning
Integrated resource planning
Production cost
Renewable integration
Transmission planning

Over 70 pages of research including 10 Key Resource Planning Challenges:
1. Incorporating operational detail.
As emerging power system resources (primarily solar and wind) replace synchronous generators (for example, coal, natural gas, and nuclear) that traditionally have provided needed operational reliability services, resource planners will need to explicitly consider operational reliability capabilities of candidate resources and methods to mitigate potential impacts.

2. Increasing modeling granularity.
Computer models for conducting long-range resource planning need to include finer geographic resolution and temporal granularity to address new resource planning challenges.

3. Integrating generation, transmission, and distribution planning.
Future resource planning will benefit from closer interaction of planners across the entire electricity supply chain to understand how decisions at one planning level may impact other levels as well as the ability to make trade-offs between potential investments in each of these subsystems to optimize the future overall electric power system. Closer integration driven by value reverses the recent trend to separate generation, transmission, and distribution planning to promote a competitive environment.

4. Expanding analysis boundaries and interfaces.
Electric companies are beginning to be asked by regulators and external stakeholders to address issues outside of their electric service territories and in other parts of the economy as part of their resource planning activities. Efficient electrification of end-use sectors such as transportation, in which electricity historically has played little role will further expand these boundaries.

5. Addressing uncertainty and managing risk.
There is a growing need for resource planners to account more explicitly for key uncertainties when developing resource plans and to adopt new approaches for managing evolving corporate risks.

6. Improving forecasting.
Improved and more granular forecasting is critical for robust long-term resource planning. More accurate forecasts of electric load, VER production, DER adoption, future natural gas prices, and weather are high priorities.

7. Improving modeling of customer behavior and interaction.
Robust system planning in the future will need to incorporate deeper understanding of electric customer behavior, incentives to change customer behavior, and how customer behavior may impact the performance of emerging customer resources for energy supply, storage, and demand.

8. Incorporating new planning objectives and constraints.
Future resource plans will need to be optimized to achieve objectives beyond traditional least-cost resource adequacy—including resiliency, flexibility, and new environmental and societal objectives while adhering to system operational reliability constraints.

9. Integrating wholesale power markets.
Increasingly, planners will need to consider the evolution of wholesale power markets that provide opportunities for companies to buy and sell energy, capacity, and ancillary services along with the impact of these markets on the economic viability of resources that provide reliability services and other desired system attributes.

10. Supporting expanded stakeholder engagement.
In recent years, public involvement in company resource planning has increased dramatically. Electric utilities are engaged now more than ever in designing extensive stakeholder engagement processes related to resource planning and responding to stakeholder comments.
Science is a thought process, technology will change reality.

gerontocrat

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3079 on: September 05, 2018, 11:37:18 AM »
Developing a Framework for Integrated Energy Network Planning

Over 70 pages of research including 10 Key Resource Planning Challenges:


Don't forget Challenge #11 Production of new mnemonics and other tools to support the new growth industry "Sustainable Management Consultancy Blah-Blah".
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
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gerontocrat

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3080 on: September 05, 2018, 01:49:43 PM »
Developing a Framework for Integrated Energy Network Planning
Over 70 pages of research including 10 Key Resource Planning Challenges:

Don't forget Challenge #11 Production of new mnemonics and other tools to support the new growth industry "Sustainable Management Consultancy Blah-Blah".

Meanwhile - maybe a practical next step in renewables.... (and it was a failure by a NASA project that started the ball rolling. Keeping Science open-source has never been more vital).

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/05/groundbreaking-spinning-wind-turbine-wins-uk-dyson-award
Groundbreaking 'spinning' wind turbine wins UK Dyson award
The O-Wind Turbine captures wind from any direction and, unlike traditional turbines, could be effective in cities

Quote
A ‘spinning’ turbine which can capture wind travelling in any direction and could transform how consumers generate electricity has won its two student designers a prestigious James Dyson award. Nicolas Orellana, 36, and Yaseen Noorani, 24, both MSc students at Lancaster University, have created the O-Wind Turbine which – in a technological first – takes advantage of both horizontal and vertical winds without requiring steering.

Conventional wind turbines only capture wind travelling in one direction, and are notoriously inefficient in cities where wind trapped between buildings becomes unpredictable, making the turbines unusable. Using a simple geometric shape, O-Wind Turbine is designed to make the most of multi-directional wind, generating energy even on the windiest of days. The turbine is a 25cm sphere with geometric vents siting on a fixed axis. It spins when wind hits it from any direction. When wind energy turns the device, gears drive a generator which converts the power of the wind into electricity. This can either be used as a direct source of power or fed into the electricity grid.

The students hope the turbine – which could take at least five years to be put into commercial production – will be installed on large structures such as the side of a building or balcony, where wind speeds are at their highest.

Orellana first became interested in the challenge of multidirectional wind after studying Nasa’s flawed Mars Tumbleweed rover. Six feet in diameter, the inflatable ball was designed to autonomously bounce and roll like tumbleweed across Mars’s surface to measure atmospheric conditions and geographical location. But like traditional wind turbines, it was powered by unidirectional wind blows which severely impaired the rover’s mobility when faced with obstructions, often throwing it off course and ultimately resulting in the failure of the project.

By exploring the limitations of the Tumbleweed, Orellana and Noorani were able to develop three-dimensional wind turbine technology. They then identified how cities could use this technology to harness energy to produce electricity.
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3081 on: September 05, 2018, 01:58:52 PM »
By 2023, the World Will Have 1 Trillion Watts of Installed Solar PV Capacity
By then, 1.4-cent solar contracts will be “old news.”
Quote
WoodMac analysts simulated 625 auction-tariff scenarios and found a median price of 2 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2022.
"Bid prices will continue their downward march pretty much everywhere. More sub-2-cent PV bids are likely, both in leading low-cost markets and in emerging markets that are launching solicitations. By 2022, awarded prices as low as $14/MWh will be old news," they write in the report.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/by-2023-the-world-will-have-one-trillion-watts-of-installed-solar-pv-capaci
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NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3082 on: September 05, 2018, 02:54:31 PM »
So we're now saying that there are enough electrical engineers for PV to be able to replace PV components on this scale?

How long did it take to get the shops and engineers and the volume of work balanced for washing machines?  70 years?

As Musk is finding out with ramping up Model 3 production.  Stats and presentations and spreadsheets are wonderful things.  But the second you introduce humans into the mix, it all goes to hell and has to be managed back into something approaching the nice streamlined spreadsheet.

if I were talking about this type of PV and planning it, I would demand at least 150% contingency.

I will repeat the reality of the electrical industry, in the UK, as it happens in the home.  10 years to try and fit smart meters.  Abject failure.

How long did it take to balance the needs of washing machine manufacturers and washing machine consumers?  Decades.
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crandles

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3083 on: September 05, 2018, 03:27:44 PM »

I will repeat the reality of the electrical industry, in the UK, as it happens in the home.  10 years to try and fit smart meters.  Abject failure.

How long did it take to balance the needs of washing machine manufacturers and washing machine consumers?  Decades.

Umm. Did supply and demand mean that the required engineers grew as needed over that time? If there was a shortage of engineers did those engineers find they could charge more for their services and this higher rate of pay bring extra people into the industry?

Replacing PV parts Hmmf I am inundated with people cold calling to offer services I don't want: New inverter that produces 25% more electric, yeah right, cleaning services. Hmm, yes this is a different problem.

If consumers find their system is running poorly or failing due to components, I am sure they will want replacements and the demand will be met in the normal way as with any other product.

>"smart meters.  Abject failure."
Are people demanding them? The comments I hear is they are the most useless thing ever. If I switch kettle on I am using more electric, and these smart meters tell me this. Real 'No sh!t Sherlock!' information. So perhaps the demand for these things isn't there and that is why it is an abject failure.


jacksmith4tx

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3084 on: September 05, 2018, 04:54:24 PM »
About those smart meters...
When Texas rolled out their smart meters it spawned several new consumer activist groups. I'm sure if you do a vien diagram of anti-smart meter groups, the anti-vaxers and anti-GMO crowd there would be a lot of overlap. Check out https://stopsmartmeters.org/ . Note the ad for your own personal EMF detection device at only $165! Wireless Kills!!

Back to reality...
The biggest failure of the utilities/government in the roll out of smart meters was they didn't give the consumers a way to monitor and analyze their data. I think it might have gone much better if every consumer received a in-home monitor/display device that could show the users actionable data.
Useful information might include:
Historical consumption data compared to current usage & day-ahead or week-ahead forecasting of estimated demand.
Real time price signals so people can better schedule their usage and save money.
Break out how their electricity is being generated by type(fossil fuels, wind, solar, nuclear, bio) in percentages and in watts in historical and real-time data.

I have a smart meter and I also have a in-home monitoring device from Rainforest Automation that has some of these features (https://rainforestautomation.com/our-products/) but I also use the ERCOT SmartMeterTexas website to download my historical data (15min. resolution). Put this all together and I managed to cut my usage between 2011 and 2018 by over 70%.

A few other observations:
Utilities can now remotely disconnect meters from the grid without sending a service crew to do it manually. Sometimes this for not paying their bill and I assume they could do this to avoid blackouts and brownouts if the grid is unstable which would be a critical feature of a managed Demand Response. Smart meter software can be remotely updated to incorporate new features like behind the meter usage meta-data. Meta-data like voltage or current spikes/drops could help spot potential equipment failures and alert the consumer to schedule maintenance and avoid expensive repairs. 
Science is a thought process, technology will change reality.

NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3085 on: September 05, 2018, 08:52:06 PM »
>"smart meters.  Abject failure."
Are people demanding them? The comments I hear is they are the most useless thing ever.

Correct but they are mandated by EU directive and the utility companies have to supply them.  People don't want them but the "governments" have decided this is a great way to get people to reduce their energy consumption, thus allowing them to meet their Paris accord target without doing all that much.

It's going great in France though.  ONE company, the government.  Job done.
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NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3086 on: September 05, 2018, 09:02:09 PM »
Umm. Did supply and demand mean that the required engineers grew as needed over that time?

Almost certainly.  However, bet on Solar and here is the picture.

You spend 20 years rolling out Solar on a world scale.  5 Years later and Inverters start to fail on an epic scale.  10 years after that, the panels themselves start to degrade and need to be either replaced or to have new capacity AND inverters installed.

The difference being that if you need to wait for a plumber or a washing machine, it's no big deal.  However if 15% of your grid goes down in winter, you don't have 6 months to replace it, you have a few days.

When you are talking about this scale of engineering you need to factor in the capacity to maintain it.  However all of these articles just talk about getting it there.  They don't talk about the sheer cost and effort to keep it maintained.

Nuclear is condemned for the ongoing maintenance cost and the decommissioning cost.  What is the cost of renewing half your Solar grid every 60 years and your inverters 2-3 times in-between.

I'm old enough to remember the 3 day week in the UK where we had days of power outages.

You do not bet on baseload power when you don't know if you can actually keep it up to speed and you also need to factor in the need to virtually double the size of it before you start refreshing all the panels.

If we go with these wonderful estimates which do not factor in all the issues, we'll wind up, 35 years from now, putting in coal fired stations to balance it out.  Coal, in 35 years, is going to do a LOT more damage than it does today.

I am absolutely not saying we can't use large chunks of solar.  Just don't try and sell me on the whole "it can do it all" story.  I don't and never will, believe it, with the technology we have today.
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

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etienne

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3087 on: September 05, 2018, 10:30:59 PM »
Comments here about PV maintenance are not all fair. We supervise systems that are 15 years old with almost no failure, I wouldn't say so from a 20 years old system where panels started to have problems after more or less 17 years, but 2 of 7 strings (these are inverters with 1 string) have no issue after such a long time. Most of the time, there is more than one inverter on a production site, so when there is a failure, you only loose part of the production, comparing the production of different inverters  on the same site is even the best way to find out if there are failures, dirt...
Panels do break, but it seems easy to find the broken ones with an infra-red  camera. Didn't try it yet, but it seems quite easy excepted that you need to put the camera on a drone and here you have different legal problems/processes to manage.
I feel that PV systems are easier to repair than washmachines, excepted that they are often on a roof.

etienne

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3088 on: September 05, 2018, 10:37:25 PM »
Smart meters don't bring much regarding energy saving because they still are in a place where you don't see them. I read a long time ago a study saying that the best way to save electricity was to have the meter visible in the entrance hall. With the old ones, you could hear them turn and so people knew if they forgot a light somewhere when leaving the house.
I understood that the aim of smart meters is not energy saving, but the creation of a smart grid, so that electricity might have a different price at peak and low times.

sidd

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3089 on: September 05, 2018, 11:37:15 PM »
"PV systems are easier to repair than washmachines"

No moving parts. I am familiar with two people who have put in largish systems, 1 acre and 3 acres in PA.
PA you get average of 5.5 hrs full sun daily, and need about 5 acres per megawatt of power.

One is an Amish farmer, that particular community dont connect to the grid, electric in the barn but not in the house, drives a buggy to work. Runs a metal shop, makes nice trailers. Used to get power off a big old diesel engine, he saw a payback time on the PV of less than three years in fuel costs. He don't need no steenking electrician to change out an inverter or anything else, he could probably have built the racking himself. Built an outhouse for batteries, using the LiFePO4 chemistry.

The other runs a high end machine shop, buncha 5 axis CNC. Got a PPA with PPL that PPL tried to renege on, he took em to court and won, but took him a while. He dont need anybody to fix his gear either.

The big outfits have their own techs on staff. Replacing an inverter is not a big deal. Nor is replacing a panel.

I know  a couple community solar projects in PA and OH and they outsource maintenance. Not an issue.

sidd

NeilT

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3090 on: September 06, 2018, 12:28:51 PM »
"PV systems are easier to repair than washmachines"

No moving parts. I am familiar with two people who have put in largish systems, 1 acre and 3 acres in PA.

This is the problem.  These internet articles talk about a scale which replaces ALL baseload power with PV.  It is the Scale that is the issue.  I'm well aware of the effort to replace inverters, I can do it myself and do all my own electrical work, plumbing work and moderate engineering work in upgrading an 1850's era home that last saw any upgrades in the 1950's.  My father and his 3 brothers are electricians.

I'm also aware of scale.  Something I have real issues getting over to people in IT where we are only talking about shifting data around.  Try as I might, it is almost impossible to get over to people, who should know, just how long it takes to move or restore extremely large amounts of data.  Witness when Kings College London had a SAN failure and were still restoring data 3 months later.

So, putting it on a human footing and talking about baseload power for the whole world.  First of all you need ALL the power required for each time of day, day/night, in ALL the key locations in the world.  Because Baseload is Baseload, it is always on.  You either store it (and we're talking about just how impossible that might be on the batteries thread), or you transmit it from somewhere else.  There are 24 hours in the day but only 5-6 hours of full power ( in summer) at most locations.  So we'd need at least 4-5 major locations in the world.  Each one would have to be the full size of the required baseload of the grid, assuming no way of storing and having to transfer long distance.  Now we're at 4-5 times the calculated size without talking about line loss.

If we use available land, then we can concentrate on a few very high power inverters.  If we go with the "easy" option of using buildings, then we can increase the number of inverters exponentially.

If we have open land for panel, replacement is easy, if we use available buildings it is exponentially more hard to replace them.

It all comes down to scale.  Just like the fairy story of wind.  I read the article in the Guardian about the new Irish sea wind farm coming on line officially.  it's 659 MW.  Great.

Current power generation, by wind, of our UK installed 20GW???

1.038GW.  We're burning coal again, 2.384GW of it.  We're paying billions to put in "capacity".  Theoretically we should be burning no coal and almost no gas today.  But if the wind doesn't blow?  If the hemisphere is cloudy?

Renewables are not easy.  Approaching them as if they are only leads to disaster and those who want to keep us on fossil fuels rubbing their hands.  My preference is to avoid that scenario.
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

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crandles

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3091 on: September 07, 2018, 01:55:09 AM »
Large-scale wind and solar power 'could green the Sahara'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45435593

But not sure about it being realistic:

Quote
The scientists modelled what would happen if 9 million sq km of the Sahara desert was covered in renewable energy sources.

They focussed on this area because it is sparsely populated, and it is also exposed to significant amounts of sun and wind and is close to large energy markets in Europe and the Middle East.

According to authors' calculations, a massive installation in the desert would generate more than four times the amount of energy that the world currently uses every year.

Previous studies have shown that installing wind and solar can have an impact on temperatures - but the key difference with this research is the impact on vegetation.

"Our model results show that large-scale solar and wind farms in the Sahara would more than double the precipitation, especially in the Sahel, where the magnitude of rainfall increase is between 20mm and 500mm per year," said Dr Yan Li, the lead author of the paper from the University of Illinois, US.

"As a result, vegetation cover fraction increases by about 20%."

Who would pay for it if most of the energy wasn't needed?

sidd

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3092 on: September 07, 2018, 07:17:09 AM »
ISO-NE price spike ameliorated by solar:

"Distributed solar reduced New England wholesale power costs by nearly $20 million dollars during a heat wave from July 1 to July 7 ... "

" ...  the amount of solar produced during the week-long July heatwave was the equivalent of removing 1.37 million homes from the grid. "

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/distributed-solar-saved-iso-ne-consumers-20m-during-july-heatwave-report/531336/

Background: ISO-NE prices hit 2.6K$/MWH, natgas was offline

"Real-time power prices topped $2600/MWh in ISO-New England on Monday ... "

" ... planned for 22,800 MW of demand at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, but real demand topped 23,100 MW ..."

sidd



rboyd

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3093 on: September 08, 2018, 08:35:55 PM »
Southeast Asia’s sustainable development path under threat

Excellent piece on the issues with large scale hydro-electric dams in areas subject to large climate change variability (too much rain in the case of South East Asia, but could also be too much drought in SW US and Brazil etc.). Also, does not mention the issue of the breakdown of the lush vegetation in the area producing large amounts of CO2/methane for years after they have been flooded by a new dam.

Seems much of the development is also for energy exports, so only probably benefitting an elite, while rivers like the Mekong are severely affected.

Good point from the World Bank stating that a large dependence upon dams for energy/water places countries at a higher risk to climate change. More dams in Canada may be good (as "US" rainfall moves north) but not in places like Brazil or Asia.

https://energytransition.org/2018/08/southeast-asias-sustainable-development-path-under-threat/

Archimid

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3094 on: September 10, 2018, 03:15:18 AM »
Tesla Energy is quietly setting its sights on peaker plants

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-energy-peaker-plants/

Quote
Behind the spotlights trained on the Model 3 production ramp and Elon Musk’s online behavior, Tesla’s Energy business is quietly growing and spreading its reach. Tesla notes that its deployment of stationary batteries, which are designed to supply electricity to residential homes, businesses, and even the power grid, surged 450% in the first six months of 2018 alone. These figures are well in line with Elon Musk’s statement during the Q2 2018 earnings call, when he noted that Tesla Energy is growing at such a pace that it would likely catch up and exceed the company’s electric car business in the future.
...

Tesla’s energy storage solutions are starting become more and more accepted by utility companies, particularly since battery technology has reached a point where it now has the potential to replace inefficient and dirty “Peaker” power plants, which are powered on when the demand for electricity is at its highest. Straubel believes that battery solutions such as those offered by Tesla Energy are poised to outcompete conventional peaker plants.

“I think what we’ll see is we won’t build many new peaker plants, if any. Already what we’re seeing happening is the number of new ones being commissioned is drastically lower, and batteries are already outcompeting natural gas peaker plants,” Straubel said.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Archimid

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3095 on: September 10, 2018, 01:50:28 PM »
Thanks, that last post has actual useful information.

>Do you have anything resembling objective academic or scientific data, research and analysis which pointedly confirms what Tesla CTO JB Straubel says or what that 'cheap biased' internet advertising website claims?

A 450% increase in battery installation is reported by Tesla. Usually that is accepted as a fact. I see no reason why it wouldn't be true. Their production capacity greatly increased as the battery production of  Model 3 increased. It makes sense that they increased installations and it makes sense that the installation rate will increase.

Do you have a good reason to believe that they didn't install as much as they claim they did?

Quote
I think it is noteworthy that the first "big battery" installed now in South Australia that the Govt has ordered/approved the building two new Gas Fired "peaker" power plants to meet their electicity demand requirements.

Yeah, Tesla is production constrained as is the battery market. Peaker plant substitution is a gradual process. As the grid is stabilized by batteries at increasing granular levels the need for peaker plants will make less sense all the time and in more markets. Small moves, Ellie. Small moves.

Quote
Would you like information explaining why Tesla Powerwalls are one of the most expensive on the market and do not necessarily represent good value for money over the short and long term?

Sure.

Quote
If Tesla Powerwall 2 is so shit hot why does one of their resellers offer this and in fact RECOMMEND it as their #1 solution?

Probably because it is available and more profitable for them. Good. I hope a million more energy storage businesses, each with their own recommended #1 solution.

Quote
There is much more information out there from similar websites and genuine solar energy installers with direct hands on experience for several decades in this field. There is also more objective knowledge available from renewable energy Govt backed entities like ARENA and University researchers

Of course there is. However, there is also lag between the moment things happen and the time science can gather information, clean it, process it, and publish it. Whatever lag science has, it is a small portion of the lag most forms of government have.

There is also the concept of  "forward looking statements". That is the vision of the future an entity wants to create.  With out a vision for the future, how can you create it?

In the case of Tesla and peaker plants, it is an inevitable conclusion of the growth of home, business and grid stabilizing batteries and renewable energy sources. No doubt for most market the volume of batteries is not large enough to create a tipping point. Thankfully that is changing.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3096 on: September 10, 2018, 08:07:45 PM »
4 ways Mars Inc. will slash emissions and still grow – plus other insights from the maker of M&Ms
Quote
To manage the company’s growth year after year while also meeting its sustainability goals, Winston told me, Mars has to invest significantly in both energy efficiency and renewable energy. It uses a four-pronged strategy to accomplish that.

1. Invest in technology upgrades

Mars looks for ways to reduce energy demand through adoption of more energy-efficient technologies. This includes low-hanging fruit such as lighting upgrades, but also more capital-intensive improvements to manufacturing equipment.

2. Make operations more efficient

Ultimately, energy demand not only depends on the efficiency of the technology, but also how it’s used on the factory floor. Mars works with its employees to optimize the operation of equipment to minimize waste while improving productivity.

3. Rethink manufacturing processes

Reinventing how things are made can reduce energy demand. Mars invests in innovation improve its manufacturing processes – for example, in its baking and drying of pet food – to minimize energy use.

4. Procure renewable energy

Mars also looks for solutions to decarbonize its energy supply, working with developers and utilities to procure renewable energy through Power Purchase Agreements, or PPAs.
...
Here’s the thing: Leaving energy production to the pros, Mars is able to scale the renewable portion of its energy supply quickly by partnering with other investors in large projects. That includes a 60-megawatt wind project in Scotland that will produce enough power to cover all of Mars’ annual electricity demand in the United Kingdom.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2018/08/30/4-ways-mars-inc-will-slash-emissions-and-still-grow-plus-other-insights-maker-mms
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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3097 on: September 11, 2018, 01:54:56 AM »
The state of California is the fifth largest economy in the world.

California governor commits to 100 percent clean energy
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The law requires utilities to source 60 percent of their power from renewable energy by the end of 2030, up from a prior goal of 50 percent. By 2045, all of the state's electricity must come from renewable or other zero-carbon sources.

In 2017, 32 percent of California's retail electricity sales were served by renewable energy facilities, according to the California Energy Commission.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-california-cleanenergy/california-law-will-wean-power-sector-off-fossil-fuels-by-2045-idUSKCN1LQ28J

Cross-posted from the Paris Agreement thread.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Archimid

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3098 on: September 11, 2018, 11:57:21 AM »
So if you don’t want to believe Tesla you have to wait until someone does some sort of  international survey and gives an estimate. That may take years and not be possible at all without using Tesla’s data.

 It makes sense that their battery installations increased because now gigafactory is operational.  It also makes sense that energy installations will keep increasing as Gigafactory expands.

I have no reason to believe a 450% increase isn’t true. It was expected.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

jacksmith4tx

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #3099 on: September 11, 2018, 08:02:42 PM »
My solar panels might outlive me (hope not!) but when I do retrofit the array I expect it to be about 25% as large as it is now and 1/2 the cost due to increased efficiency. Maybe something like this will become available.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180910093533.htm
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Solar power: Golden sandwich could make the world more sustainable

Scientists have developed a photoelectrode that can harvest 85 percent of visible light in a 30 nanometers-thin semiconductor layer between gold layers, converting light energy 11 times more efficiently than previous methods.

In the pursuit of realizing a sustainable society, there is an ever-increasing demand to develop revolutionary solar cells or artificial photosynthesis systems that utilize visible light energy from the sun while using as few materials as possible.

The research team, led by Professor Hiroaki Misawa of the Research Institute for Electronic Science at Hokkaido University, has been aiming to develop a photoelectrode that can harvest visible light across a wide spectral range by using gold nanoparticles loaded on a semiconductor.

I would hope Gold is just a stepping stone to something far more common and less environmentally harmful than heavy metal mining.
Science is a thought process, technology will change reality.