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posted by takyon on Sunday April 19 2015, @09:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the home-power-is-killing-energy dept.

Diane Cardwell reports in the NYT that "many utilities are trying desperately to stem the rise of solar power, either by reducing incentives, adding steep fees or effectively pushing home solar companies out of the market."

The economic threat has electric companies on edge. Over all, demand for electricity is softening while home solar is rapidly spreading across the country. There are now about 600,000 installed systems, and the number is expected to reach 3.3 million by 2020, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. In Hawaii, the current battle began in 2013, when Hawaiian Electric started barring installations of residential solar systems in certain areas. It was an abrupt move — a panicked one, critics say — made after the utility became alarmed by the technical and financial challenges of all those homes suddenly making their own electricity. "Hawaii is a postcard from the future," says Adam Browning, executive director of Vote Solar, a policy and advocacy group based in California.

But utilities say that "solar-generated electricity flowing out of houses and into a power grid designed to carry it in the other direction has caused unanticipated voltage fluctuations that can overload circuits, burn lines and lead to brownouts or blackouts."

"At every different moment, we have to make sure that the amount of power we generate is equal to the amount of energy being used, and if we don't keep that balance things go unstable," says Colton Ching, vice president for energy delivery at Hawaiian Electric, pointing to the illuminated graphs and diagrams tracking energy production from wind and solar farms, as well as coal-fueled generators in the utility's main control room. But the rooftop systems are "essentially invisible to us," says Ching, "because they sit behind a customer's meter and we don't have a means to directly measure them." The utility wants to cut roughly in half the amount it pays customers for solar electricity they send back to the grid. "Hawaii's case is not isolated," says Massoud Amin. "When we push year-on-year 30 to 40 percent growth in this market, with the number of installations doubling, quickly — every two years or so — there's going to be problems."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Monday April 20 2015, @12:38AM

    by arashi no garou (2796) on Monday April 20 2015, @12:38AM (#172976)

    Because that's the way this is headed. Not that long from now the norm is going to be off-grid local generation with grid ties becoming mostly vestigial, just the same way that everybody'd got mobile phones and landlines are dying off more and more. Yes, there'll be a place for the grid for a long time, just as landlines aren't going away any time soon...but the days of the dominance of the grid are at an end.

    That's exactly how I see the future of the power grid, though realistically I think it will be about 40 years from now before we see more off-grid homes and businesses than on-grid. One of the biggest targets of the modern cyberterrorist is a nation's power grid; take down the grid and you send any country into third world anarchy for a while. There was an indie movie called "Goodbye World" that dealt with this (though it wasn't so much a terrorist attack as it was a domestic hacker screwing up his digital suicide note). If you take away the grid though, you take away the ability for a bad actor to cause a big impact. Granted, most metropolises will still be on the grid even with solar/wind/battery setups on the roof of every skyscraper, but a massive grid meltdown won't cripple a city like it would right now.

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  • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday April 20 2015, @02:24AM

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Monday April 20 2015, @02:24AM (#172998)

    That's exactly how I see the future of the power grid, though realistically I think it will be about 40 years from now before we see more off-grid homes and businesses than on-grid. ...

    I think it is going to eventually have to be that way if we are going to retain any quality of life. Power centralized over a massive grid is just too economically inefficient and too environmentally unsound to continue forever. I believe the future will be small co-ops, independent individuals and such using whatever combinations of power generation works best for them. Any individual or any combination of solar, wind, tidal, water power, geothermal, maybe even small gas, coal or even nuclear or whatever will be powering homes, neighborhoods and businesses. Big Power, with its layers of costly administration, will have to go.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by frojack on Monday April 20 2015, @04:42AM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday April 20 2015, @04:42AM (#173015) Journal

    I think it will be about 40 years from now before we see more off-grid homes and businesses than on-grid.

    Maybe for people in Arizona. A lot of us just don't have that kind of sun.
    It will take a dramatic improvement in solar efficiency vs cost (which, remember, is always just 10 years away) to make this practical on most of North America.

    Still, micro solar is probably never going to be as efficient as the larger projects like TrumpetPower was talking about. Even at a reduction in costs or an improvement in efficiency, a utility scale project can move to that newer technology whereas Joe Homeowner may not be able to.

    Probably the solution for those that have the sun, and the utility scale solar projects, is to get ahold of their local government, and start turning the tables on these companies. Always remember they need customers more than customers need them.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by bziman on Monday April 20 2015, @12:39PM

      by bziman (3577) on Monday April 20 2015, @12:39PM (#173108)

      You don't need Arizona's sun to make solar practical. Solar worked great for me in northern Virginia. It's a fifteen year payback for that installation, but the prices have fallen by 50% in the six years since I did it, so it would be quicker now.

      Here in Colorado, it was instant because I did a lease at zero up front cost and I pay a fee to the solar company each month per kilowatt hour... and a minimum 30% discount off what the local coal plant charges.

      People keep saying solar isn't ready, and if you live in the Pacific Northwest or northern New Hampshire, that may be true, but for most of the country it works great.

      My coop in Virginia was helpful... they gave me a smart meter for free that helps them handle load. The power company in Colorado is slow and evil, but aside from taking forever, they were also fairly easy to work with (though my solar company handled that here).

      The only good reason to ignore solar is if you are worried about your coal stock... I recommend dumping that and writing the loss off your taxes.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 20 2015, @02:27PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday April 20 2015, @02:27PM (#173133) Journal

        Germany is doing fine with solar and their insolation is much worse than most of the US.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 20 2015, @09:45PM

        by frojack (1554) on Monday April 20 2015, @09:45PM (#173296) Journal

        So you apparently think it will be SOONER than 40 years where there will be more off grid homes than on grid?
        (That is the factoid I was addressing after all).

        Well lets look at Colorado
        Intially it looks like CO is doing well on renewable energy.
        http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=CO#tabs-4 [eia.gov]

        But the more you dive into it you find out Solar is tiny:
        http://www.eia.gov/renewable/state/Colorado/ [eia.gov]
        If the wind didn't blow in Colorado, you would have vanishingly small renewable energy production.

        So No way is Colorado getting near 50% of homes running solar. Your state is the King of Coal.

        Play with those tables and stats for a while. Its pretty enlightening.

        Arizona generated more power from Hydro than Colorado does. Go Figure.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 2) by tempest on Monday April 20 2015, @02:43PM

    by tempest (3050) on Monday April 20 2015, @02:43PM (#173140)

    a massive grid meltdown won't cripple a city like it would right now.

    At this point that would be my main drive for solar if I had my own house. It never fails some drunk guy hits a power pole somewhere and knocks out electricity at least once a year. That's just an occasional inconvenience, but I've been lucky where I'm at. There have been enough power outages lasting weeks for people in this region that I'd think of it more as a form of insurance.