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Open Source.com has raised an interesting issue.
With household and municipal scale electricity generation becoming commonplace, it appears that the energy market is about to experience a major technological disruption. Of course, with disruption comes opportunity, and there's already some clear contenders in the field, from Tesla with their cars and batteries, Suntech with their solar panels, to Vestas with their huge turbines.
There's a big caveat with all of this large-scale investment though, and that's contending with the existing centralized power grids and the utilities that manage them. Open source models are a good fit for this new paradigm, with collaboration replacing monopolies and open systems displacing proprietary vendor controls. High quality open source software tools exist already, including the well-supported PowerMatcher suite, but how will this collection of solutions wrest control of the key "last mile" hardware from the hostile and entrenched utilities?
Any suggestions from the SoyLentil team? If we get it right, all of us could become unfeasibly wealthy...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday April 29 2015, @07:56PM
how will this collection of solutions wrest control of the key "last mile" hardware from the hostile and entrenched utilities?
Until utilities get their act together with the task of integrating a lot of transient power suppliers (local solar), the local solar projects should simply forget about selling back to the utilities.
Put in your own storage, and enough solar to carry your local customers for some relatively high percentage of the time, and contract for backup, to charge your storage.
This whole concept of feeding power back to the utilities is based on some rather fickle laws and it is difficult for utilities to handle when suppliers come on and off line with every passing cloud. Almost all the problems with rooftop solar come about when you try to sell your excess power back to utilities (often at retail rates). This is why there are propriety vendor controls. Its hard to do. Seems easy to joe houseowner, but they only see one side of the equation.
If you want utility grade power put in utility grade projects with storage that can be fed from your solar, or the grid. Wait for the utility to come looking to buy your excess rather than forcing them to do so using some regulatory hammer.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday April 29 2015, @08:23PM
He spent most of his time in grad school poring over Hollerith decks. He told me he was modelling the North American power grid.
If anything drops off line anywhere in the grid - say because a car hits a power pole - all hell breaks loose. It's a significant computational problem to figure out how to keep the whole system online in the face of such transients. It's also a problem that it is expensive to start and stop a generator, but we use most of our power during the day.
Really the best solution would be for new housing not to be on the grid at all, but to be independently powered with solar and wind. Consider that a lot less energy is consumed by heat exchangers than by refrigerant pumps or electric heaters; the reason we don't use exchangers much is due to the greater up-front investment. But if you used a heat exchanger it would be possible to be off the grid.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Thursday April 30 2015, @01:56AM
Yup... you can store a helluva lot of energy in a ton of water... by freezing it in the summer when the sun is shining, then using it later to cool your house with a chilled water loop, or freezing it in the winter, using the condenser coil to heat your house. FYI a ton of water is about 32 cubic feet... that's a standard 4' x 8' sheet of plywood base with a foot of water on it. Basically a children's wading pool.
When I erect a solar patio ( should I get into employment that will allow me to do this ) I intend to do this with multiple refrigeration compressors which I can bring online as panel output permits, and make ice as thermal energy storage. Most of my energy needs are thermal transfer anyway, so I will just use a pool of water and play games freezing it and thawing it to transfer the thermal energy in it in our out of the house. As long as the temperature differentials do not get too large, I do not have to spend substantial energy at the compressor.
Being the whole refrigeration plant is outside, I will be running propane (R290) as the refrigerant. Cheap, non-toxic, easy to get, and mixes well with lubricants. Only downside is it is flammable, so I do not want to use it in unvented areas. This also will give me a backup fuel supply should I decide to ditch my house air conditioning for cooking fuel during an emergency. But, in the meantime, I intend to plumb a keg of beer in the ice reservoir to enjoy on hot summer evenings. I have plenty of CO2 to drive it with as I already carbonate my own water for soft drinks. ( I hate buying beverages in those tiny little bottles and cans that are a royal pain in the ass to recycle ).
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @06:10PM
if you used a heat exchanger it would be possible to be off the grid
What some people fail to note that it is much more efficient to heat yourself than the whole house. Heat pumps are more efficient at heating the whole house if thats what you need. But when you only have to get warm, it is better to wear two sweaters, socks and turn on a 500 watt heater (and/or multiple 200w bulbs) near yourself.
I have this setup and is way more efficient than any other solution. I don't need warm air throughout the house. Just need to keep myself warm. ...but then I'm not married.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday April 30 2015, @07:13PM
We holed up in my office with a 1000 watt electric heater. We only ran the oil furnace to keep the house warm enough that the pipes would not freeze.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by TrumpetPower! on Wednesday April 29 2015, @08:40PM
First, I think it's worth noting that solar customers are the most profitable ones the utilities have. You're familiar with the concept of "buy low, sell high"? The utilities buy green energy (the most valuable kind) from their solar customers with utility credits. The utilities sell that energy to the solar customers's neighbors at peak rates. When the solar customers redeem that energy, the utilities aren't selling back on-peak green energy but off-peak baseload energy, the cheapest kind there is.
Even if you don't pay a dime in electric bills, the utilities are making out like bandits on the arbitrage.
All that writ...your recommendation to drop off the grid is, indeed, the way to go. If you have the capital to invest, no matter where you are in the States, you should be able to get an effective rate of return on an off-grid solution that's better than anything your bank will give you. Depending on where you are, you could be looking at better than a 5% annual return on an off-grid solution, with that investment being rock-solid safe and invulnerable to inflation, especially energy inflation. (If you can go grid-tie, your rate of return is likely doubled.)
That's assuming retrofitting an existing grid connection. If, on the other hand, this is new construction...the capital cost of setting it up from the start as an off-grid property is all but guaranteed to be less than the capital cost of connecting to the grid, making the off-grid solution a no-brainer. Especially for cost-conscious builders, with the "green factor" being a nice added bonus for marketing and upsell possibilities.
The utilities are really screwing the pooch on this one. They're doing everything in their power to maximize the profits of grid defection in their misguided attempts to "recoup expenses." It's the Ma Bell story all over again. How many people don't even have a landline, despite all that Ma Bell did back in the day to stand in the way of, for example, number portability or what-not. If the utilities were smart, they'd embrace the new technology and be at the forefront of rooftop solar installation, maintenance, financing, and the rest -- and also be pushing batteries and anything else that might come along. ("Here, buy or lease this cheap-to-you whole-house backup battery that'll let you go a day or so in the event of a power outage. We'll maintain it and everything. Footnote: we'll backfeed from the battery if it's over 80% full if we feel like doing so.")
Ah, well. Such is life. The grid really is a wonderful resource...but it's not going to survive its current management, and we'll manage just fine without it.
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 29 2015, @09:05PM
The big problem is insurance, a baseball to a panel is a cost someone at my income level can eat with only a little blinking, but the median $30K/yr dude would be pretty much Fed from a simple baseball. Then again that median dude living in his median $300K house he's pretty much screwed the first time the furnace breaks or the roof needs replacing so whats one more expensive appliance, sorta?
I have about $20K of electric company utility stock and they have some cool deals where the dividends go to pay your bill and you get the rest of the cash, basically. Its kinda annoying at tax time to have that much taxable dividend income. Anyway owning $20K of nuke and coal plants isn't cool, but now that solar is about as cheap as traditional power, yeah, $20K or so is pretty much enough capital to go energy independent.
What I don't understand is the distributed nature and why is no one building vast solar plants on former dairy farms or whatever? I'd invest in that. The energy market is about as far from a free market as you can get and is I'm sure corrupt as all hell so that's why this doesn't exist, but in a free world it could happen.
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Wednesday April 29 2015, @09:09PM
I don't know about other panels, but mine are basically bulletproof. They'll protect my roof from hailstorms as big as they come...but, of course, just the parts that're covered by the panels....
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 29 2015, @09:23PM
How about a foot of snow followed by a rain storm? Happened where I live, collapsed quite a couple house roofs. I was outside with my roof rake clearing the snow off in the rain, quite annoying although collapsing the house would have been more annoying. I would imagine it would take a lot less to snap a panel.
How a roof rake in general works around panels is unclear to me. Need to do it in this climate or you'll get ice dams. I suppose I could just panel the unheated garage.
What I'd really like as a product is something like a pagoda for my back yard holding endless rows of 45 degree angle panels as a shaded roof in the summer. I have enough carpentry skill to get far enough to really F that up. I wonder what kind of brick the planning commission and permit offices would shit were I to actually try to implement this as a "patio shade, also holding solar panels" or some kind of BS like that. I've been wanting to build something like that for many years for my patio, maybe in my infinite spare time I could enlarge the patio and cover it.... cover it with solar panels.
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Wednesday April 29 2015, @11:25PM
I can't comment on building codes for places that get accumulations of snow, save to note that that's a truly ancient engineering problem that has very little to do with solar panels.
My panels are installed according to local codes that required that they be attached to the roof trusses. Nothing short of a tornado is going to get them off the roof, and anything that would puncture them would embed itself in the foundation's concrete slab if it hit a part of the roof not covered by panels.
I would hope that installations done in different locations similarly take local hazards into account -- earthquakes in California, snow in New England, and so on. I just know that my panels are up to code and a definite improvement to the safety of my home over not having panels...not that the improvements are to any dangers I'm likely to face, but still....
b&
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 2) by sigma on Thursday April 30 2015, @01:00AM
What I don't understand is the distributed nature and why is no one building vast solar plants on former dairy farms or whatever?
Some are, though as it turns out, it's more efficient to float them on reservoirs instead. You get better cooling of the panels for greater efficiency, less evaporation from the reservoir and a few other benefits besides.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-29/solar-power-plant-at-jamestown-wastewater-site/6431872 [abc.net.au]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:37AM
California Wants To Make It Easier To Cover Old Mines With Renewable Energy [thinkprogress.org]
With all the activity underground, all that above-ground area has just been idle.
There are still lots of ways to be discovered to turn "waste" and "idle" stuff into deliverables.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by sigma on Thursday April 30 2015, @08:07AM
That's assuming retrofitting an existing grid connection. If, on the other hand, this is new construction...the capital cost of setting it up from the start as an off-grid property is all but guaranteed to be less than the capital cost of connecting to the grid.
Do you think there would someday be benefit to municipalities buying the last-mile infrastructure from the utilities and going it alone?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday April 29 2015, @08:56PM
often at retail rates
I thought the whole point was .gov oriented deals where they paid 4x or more retail.
Your load sharing idea is most likely outcome. Probably not even bother with storage or reselling. Too many watts, don't use them. Its just getting too dang cheap.
Power companies will still exist, just like technically you can get a copper pair landline even in 2015, even if seemingly everyone has gone mobile or VOIP.
People are going to be pissed off that I'm currently paying like $5/month for a meter and hookup but I am certain that costs far more which means that price will have to explode to keep the lines hanging on the power poles, while at the same time people who don't use any power co electricity (or a rounding error) in the spring/fall and going to freak about their meter cost.
Eventually it'll be cheaper to have enough capacity to survive the depths of winter unconnected. Then its bye bye power co. Just like happens with steam lines. It would be interesting to have a steam line in the depths of winter, but its just not economically feasible. So we all have individual furnaces big enough to easily survive the coldest winter day.
Most of our infrastructure is going to be removed and recycled in the next century or so. Recycling the telephone poles and everything hanging on them is going to be interesting, along with the high voltage transmission lines.
We'll probably still have giant power plants, surrounded by industrial regions and data centers. Just not wired to houses anymore.
Skyscraper buildings are dead, along with big cities and mega corporations. Once every full time american job that can be outsourced or automated is taken care of, there's not going to be much left. Then either we do something new, which won't need the skyscrapers and big cities, or the torches, pitchforks, and guillotines get rolled out and we also don't need the skyscrapers and big cities. Either way, they're done. Like the chicken with its head cut off that still runs in circles, for a little while, thats the situation with those technologies right now. So don't worry about powering them.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday April 29 2015, @10:14PM
Your load sharing idea is most likely outcome. Probably not even bother with storage or reselling. Too many watts, don't use them. Its just getting too dang cheap.
Well, Night happens.
So, I think local-ish storage is key for community solar. If small household battery plants are economic use them. If subdivision size storage is economic, build it that way.
My point is selling back to the grid is probably not worth the cost and the regulation headaches. The technology for doing so house by house seems premature anyway.
Also, it might be time to think of some service that gets large-ish storage battery installations out of Joe Sixpack's hands. Too many chances for "Hold my beer, and watch this" events.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday April 30 2015, @05:46AM
"Skyscraper buildings are dead, along with big cities and mega corporations."
How do you figure that? Look at just about any rural community - all the young folks leave for the big city. I don't understand it either, but it seems to be pretty universal. You do get some folks moving back to small towns, but usually middle-aged or later.
As for mega-corps: As someone very involved with small business, let me just say that "economy of scale" still works. The sheer inefficiency that a large company can get away with, while a competing small company is just scraping by, is just astounding. Economy of scale will always lead to big companies. It's only nimbleness and innovation that let small companies win in their niches.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.