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As technology within the energy space evolves, solar farms have become a key production source across the world. For example, solar farms in the United States produce energy and a whole lot more, and solar farms in Britain have expanded to deliver impressive amounts of energy in their own right. Unfortunately, one solar farm — the largest in the region — and the energy it produces have supposedly proven too much for what the area's power grid can safely handle. Thus, the North Devon-based Derril Water solar park has been temporarily shut down until September, without any warning or input from those behind it, in the hope of keeping the local grid intact.
Per The Guardian, the order to shut down the Derril Water solar park came from the National Energy System Operator, which ordered National Grid to pull the plug for the remainder of the summer. Concerns of a possible thermal grid overload, involving the movement of excessive energy through a system that generates too much heat and can damage key components, backed the order. This comes after issues with the North Devon power grid were highlighted back in 2023, though the necessary improvements scheduled for installation at the end of 2025 have been pushed out to this September at the earliest.
As reasonable as the rationale for temporarily shutting down the Derril Water community solar farm may seem, it comes with major consequences. Energy production and the livelihoods of those involved monetarily with the solar farm are at stake.
Even though the reason for the Derril Water solar farm's shutdown is tied to grid issues, the consequences of its stoppage fall on those with no responsibility for the grid itself. The first issue the shutdown presents is a lack of solar energy production. Not only is this a negative due to a loss of clean energy accumulation, but this translates to a serious dip in revenue, with estimates placing the lost funds at around two million pounds.
With that amount of money lost, those invested in the solar farm will feel the effects of the shutdown in their wallets. Roughly 9,500 individuals will likely lose out on dividends paid to them for their financial investment into the solar farm in the near future. The Derril Water volunteer board of directors told The Guardian that most of those individuals are understanding of the situation and know that the issue lies with the power grid and not the farm itself. Still, there is plenty of frustration going around, especially since grid operators and insurance companies aren't expected to pitch in over the lost revenue.
As effective as they can be, solar farm shutdowns of some kind are occasionally deemed necessary. Sometimes it comes down to solar energy technology, like in the case of California's $2 billion solar plant shutdown, or it can be a connected grid infrastructure issue. In this situation, the North Devon grid seemingly couldn't handle what the Derril Water solar farm could provide.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday August 03, @06:58PM (2 children)
Local scalable demand is going to be the next big thing.
Right now there's not much that scales over a useful range. Bitcoin and other crypto mining, mostly.
If the price they'll pay for raw power is less than the money you'd get mining, go mine...
As a back of envelope guesstimate, couldn't you turn about 1 MWh into about one Olympic-sized swimming pool full of ice cubes? The point not being that its terribly useful, but both solar farms and warehouses go hand in hand with low rural land prices, so if you have "acres of freezers" just stockpile bags of ice and let it melt overnight while the suns down. I'm used to living in places where water is free, obviously you wouldn't do this in a desert. Retail for a bag of ice where I live is a couple bucks, mostly transport costs, but some energy cost, which could drop to $0.
Solar cement production is an interesting idea. Solar copper refining, maybe. Aluminum is a bit too exciting to intermittently solar power. Chlorine production (for bleach, chlorates, perchlorates, etc) if you're close to the sea. This has pretty high capex even if energy cost would occasionally be zero. But long term you might see an industrialization of rural areas. Industry doesn't need huge numbers of assembly line workers anymore and the cheap land plus occasionally free electricity might be very attractive compared to the infinite problems of urban life. Given fancy enough computer software integration, if I owned a fabrication plant I MIGHT be able to schedule a giant plasma cutter table or a heat treating oven to only run while electrical power is near free. Sure, I have to work next door to a solar farm because the infrastructure is hot garbage, but there are worse neighbors to have than a solar farm.
Air liquefaction and separation... I wonder about the capex on this. Could I justify building an argon plant that mostly runs 100% full blast only when power is free? I could distill welding argon all summer long, fill every compressed cylinder I can get my hands on, and maybe coast through the winter? Could anyone compete with me in the welding argon business if my electricity was mostly free? Enough people doing this will make the bottom fall out of the welding gas market and create an inadvertent bubble/boom in hydrotested gas cylinders. The equipment is not cheap nor the loans to buy it and the cost of money is constant even when the sunlight is not. OTOH maybe the world SHOULD only be distilling welding argon out of air in the summer. This may already be going on, LOL, I haven't researched.
Every hype cycle of thermal depolymerization of biowaste into crude oil includes the neighbors being horrified at the stink before the plant shuts down. A TDP plant surrounded by solar panels wouldn't have many complaints no matter the stink. TDP is pretty much hyperaccelerating the natural process of making crude oil using biowaste as a feedstock. IIRC a plant using turkey guts had to shut down as the smell was indescribable, but if there's no one around but miles of solar panels maybe thats OK, unless the clouds of flies interrupts the solar panels LOL.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Monday August 03, @09:38PM (1 child)
In theory, charge a trailer where there's an excess of power, and move it to where it's needed at high demand, then drain it.
You could charge where there's an excess, then discharge where there's grid capacity to take it.
For example, Fiddlers Ferry, a coal fired power station in the north west of the UK, used to get 18000 tons of coal every day. Shipping 18,000 tons of battery storage would produce about 5GWh a day, and clearly has the grid capacity as the power station was a 2GW generator.
However you'd probably get a better return on investment by improving your grid interconnect.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 04, @03:36PM
CSAs around here deliver food to various locations for later pickup. I wonder if people not in the midwest know what a CSA is. In the spring you buy a share of a farmers produce and in the fall you get paid back with food. Return tends to be a bit random as you'd expect but thats half the "fun".
If the local CSA had a vast field of solar panels, if I owned a self driving car, in the later summer/fall I could send the car out there to charge and pick up my food, while I work at home, then it comes home and powers my house air conditioner off the car battery.
I wonder if CSAs will start offering fields of solar panels as one of the farm produce items. An interesting idea.
Of course this turns into traffic jam problems. If an EV held 50 kWh and an acre of panels peaks around half a MW thats a lot of car traffic queuing up to charge at the farm if they convert just a few acres from berries to panels. Of course thats half a million bucks to install and wire turnkey acre of panels, so its a new, bigger financial problem.