Tesla gas can...

Uh,uh, not until the panels are paid for! ;)
I bought the panels before I got the Tesla. So the Tesla accelerates the time to break even and saves even more going forward.
At today's gasoline prices and CA high electricity costs, the panels are perhaps the best investment I have made in our home. Of course, that is after buying the home and its incredible appreciation.
The panels also increased the value of the house, even though around here you don't buy the house, you buy the zipcode.
All good.
 
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I bought the panels before I got the Tesla. So the Tesla accelerates the time to break even and saves even more going forward.
At today's gasoline prices and CA high electricity costs, the panels are perhaps the best investment I have made in our home. Of course, that is after buying the home and its incredible appreciation.
The panels also increased the value of the house, even though around here you don't buy the house, you buy the zipcode.
All good.
Granite countertops do the same thing, but you have to pay off the panels before you get “ free energy”. If you say they increased the value of the house, you have to include their 4% depreciation each year unless some sucker buys your house. No big deal, but you are still in a negative position with energy costs. You can brag after year seven or provide an excel spreadsheet and let us decide. :)
 
Granite countertops do the same thing, but you have to pay off the panels before you get “ free energy”. If you say they increased the value of the house, you have to include their 4% depreciation each year unless some sucker buys your house. No big deal, but you are still in a negative position with energy costs. You can brag after year seven or provide an excel spreadsheet and let us decide. :)
This is a good watch, as it may be a sign of things to come:
 
This is a good watch, as it may be a sign of things to come:

Storage is the solution, either at your house or grid scale. It will come, somebody will throw some billions at it and figure something cost effective out, then solar peaking won't be as much of an issue. Probably short term just adapting electric car batteries is becoming closer to being cost effective as they are getting pretty cheap for their capacity with all the money the auto industry is spending.
https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery...in-2020-while-market-average-sits-at-137-kwh/
 
Storage is the solution, either at your house or grid scale. It will come, somebody will throw some billions at it and figure something cost effective out, then solar peaking won't be as much of an issue. Probably short term just adapting electric car batteries is becoming closer to being cost effective as they are getting pretty cheap for their capacity with all the money the auto industry is spending.
https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery...in-2020-while-market-average-sits-at-137-kwh/

It all adds cost though, and cycling your car batteries isn't going to help with their long-term durability either, they are cycle limited. I mean, it's a fine theory, but in practice, anything you do that's either going to wear out something you use for alternative purposes and may not be available when needed, or, adds capital cost that increases the price beyond what you'd be getting from the grid is untenable.

Storage at scale is a massive problem. Pumped hydro, because of how dilute it is, and batteries, because of their limited lifespan. It's pitched as the universal answer to all things renewable, but having invested serious time in studying electricity systems, delivery, and running the math, the problem is clearly far bigger than most who pitch the solution realize. Not trying to single you out with that, but just trying to put some perspective on this:

If we were to try and smooth Ontario wind output to nameplate, we'd need to over-build by 3x (to pump the water) and then build at least 3 pumped storage projects with reservoirs that are half a kilometre deep, 1km wide and 3.5km long. Then front each of them with the equivalent generation resources of Sir Adam Beck II. The cost of this project would approach $1 trillion dollars, based on PHS estimates I've seen from actual projects. All of this to make a variable resource with a less than 20 year lifespan, behave like a truly dispatchable one that doesn't require all of these insane gymnastics.

Now, buffering solar morning/evening ramps, if solar is just being used to displace peaking capacity (not cutting into baseload), is a far more viable proposition, but it still needs to be able to exist without subsidy in order for it to not drive up the overall cost of generation. This means no FIT's, and home owners getting paid like any other generator. A smart homeowner is going to run the math on that before they invest significant monies into a solar/battery setup.
 
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It all adds cost though, and cycling your car batteries isn't going to help with their long-term durability either, they are cycle limited. I mean, it's a fine theory, but in practice, anything you do that's either going to wear out something you use for alternative purposes and may not be available when needed, or, adds capital cost that increases the price beyond what you'd be getting from the grid is untenable.

Storage at scale is a massive problem. Pumped hydro, because of how dilute it is, and batteries, because of their limited lifespan. It's pitched as the universal answer to all things renewable, but having invested serious time in studying electricity systems, delivery, and running the math, the problem is clearly far bigger than most who pitch the solution realize. Not trying to single you out with that, but just trying to put some perspective on this:

If we were to try and smooth Ontario wind output to nameplate, we'd need to over-build by 3x (to pump the water) and then build at least 3 pumped storage projects with reservoirs that are half a kilometre deep, 1km wide and 3.5km long. Then front each of them with the equivalent generation resources of Sir Adam Beck II. The cost of this project would approach $1 trillion dollars, based on PHS estimates I've seen from actual projects. All of this to make a variable resource with a less than 20 year lifespan, behave like a truly dispatchable one that doesn't require all of these insane gymnastics.

Now, buffering solar morning/evening ramps, if solar is just being used to displace peaking capacity (not cutting into baseload), is a far more viable proposition, but it still needs to be able to exist without subsidy in order for it to not drive up the overall cost of generation. This means no FIT's, and home owners getting paid like any other generator. A smart homeowner is going to run the math on that before they invest significant monies into a solar/battery setup.
I think if you can get a homeowner involved in real time pricing, then having your own set of solar panels and a battery pack can start to pay off for the homeowner and the grid. Someone could produce and store a surplus 10-20 kwh in the sunny peak, sell it the next morning at 7 am. Or when the regulator gets into oversupply problems, pay the homeowner to charge their car or home pack instead of another utility to take the power. We are going to end up with a huge battery storage resource sitting in everyone's driveways in a few years so it would make sense to take advantage of that.
Probably in 10 years battery tech will have prices per kwh down to 1/4 what they are now as with many 1000's of useful cycles as well. Solar power cost efficiency is only going to get better as well.
 
I think if you can get a homeowner involved in real time pricing, then having your own set of solar panels and a battery pack can start to pay off for the homeowner and the grid. Someone could produce and store a surplus 10-20 kwh in the sunny peak, sell it the next morning at 7 am. Or when the regulator gets into oversupply problems, pay the homeowner to charge their car or home pack instead of another utility to take the power. We are going to end up with a huge battery storage resource sitting in everyone's driveways in a few years so it would make sense to take advantage of that.
Probably in 10 years battery tech will have prices per kwh down to 1/4 what they are now as with many 1000's of useful cycles as well. Solar power cost efficiency is only going to get better as well.

I would support that as long as they are paid market rate and not subsidizing it, like what was happening with the FIT program, where the rest of us are now paying to cover somebody's $0.80/kWh FIT contract retirement plan. If the market operator needs to curtail it (like what's happening in that video I linked) because Joe Homeowner doesn't have the storage and the grid doesn't need the power, that needs to be a reasonable consideration for the person buying the system too.

Being paid market though, and it having sufficient value will mean it will need to be:
- Cheaper than gas peaker capacity (a carbon tax would help here)
- Cheap enough to give a reasonable payback period for the homeowner based on that market price

The car idea, while interesting, is intermittent and, as I noted, adds additional wear-n-tear to a dual purpose resource, so tethering intermittent storage to intermittent generation could create a scenario where there isn't sufficient resource capacity, whereas with home batteries at least that storage is static, and it would be more valuable if the grid operator had control over it/access to capacity information to allow for proper planning. Down-cycling used EV batteries into this role I think has promise and reduces waste.

EDIT:

Just to add, right now, this is what we are up against. This is a low demand day, extremely windy, market value for electricity is $0.00:
Screen Shot 2021-04-30 at 1.39.46 PM.jpg


We are also paying for 1,000MW of wind not to produce (actual capability right now is 4,300MW, very close to the 5,000MW nameplate we have). So a solar homeowner would not receive any compensation for selling to the grid in this scenario if they were paid market, and we are being hosed on both the solar contract cost and wind contract cost right now as ratepayers.

The past few days looked like this:
Screen Shot 2021-04-29 at 1.33.34 PM.jpg


Overcast, not windy. Solar capacity (grid-tied) peaked at 111MW (right now it is 239 in comparison, capacity is 478MW). Market rate is $0.02/kWh, gas usage is minimal...etc. Pretty hard thing to look at as a homeowner and think "I should spend $30,000 on panels and batteries and try and make money here". Demand will need to increase significantly and wind capacity will need to decrease to allow the market value to come back up to where that might actually make sense.
 
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I think if you can get a homeowner involved in real time pricing, then having your own set of solar panels and a battery pack can start to pay off for the homeowner and the grid. Someone could produce and store a surplus 10-20 kwh in the sunny peak, sell it the next morning at 7 am. Or when the regulator gets into oversupply problems, pay the homeowner to charge their car or home pack instead of another utility to take the power. We are going to end up with a huge battery storage resource sitting in everyone's driveways in a few years so it would make sense to take advantage of that.
Probably in 10 years battery tech will have prices per kwh down to 1/4 what they are now as with many 1000's of useful cycles as well. Solar power cost efficiency is only going to get better as well.

I have read some articles that suggest the homeowners will not have that option but rather the utility companies. Smart meters and systems will be able to tell when the best times are for charging cars or other uses of electricity. Want to dry your clothes? Sorry you must wait.
 
I would support that as long as they are paid market rate and not subsidizing it, like what was happening with the FIT program, where the rest of us are now paying to cover somebody's $0.80/kWh FIT contract retirement plan. If the market operator needs to curtail it (like what's happening in that video I linked) because Joe Homeowner doesn't have the storage and the grid doesn't need the power, that needs to be a reasonable consideration for the person buying the system too.

Being paid market though, and it having sufficient value will mean it will need to be:
- Cheaper than gas peaker capacity (a carbon tax would help here)
- Cheap enough to give a reasonable payback period for the homeowner based on that market price

The car idea, while interesting, is intermittent and, as I noted, adds additional wear-n-tear to a dual purpose resource, so tethering intermittent storage to intermittent generation could create a scenario where there isn't sufficient resource capacity, whereas with home batteries at least that storage is static, and it would be more valuable if the grid operator had control over it/access to capacity information to allow for proper planning. Down-cycling used EV batteries into this role I think has promise and reduces waste.

EDIT:

Just to add, right now, this is what we are up against. This is a low demand day, extremely windy, market value for electricity is $0.00:
View attachment 55775

We are also paying for 1,000MW of wind not to produce (actual capability right now is 4,300MW, very close to the 5,000MW nameplate we have). So a solar homeowner would not receive any compensation for selling to the grid in this scenario if they were paid market, and we are being hosed on both the solar contract cost and wind contract cost right now as ratepayers.

The past few days looked like this:
View attachment 55776

Overcast, not windy. Solar capacity (grid-tied) peaked at 111MW (right now it is 239 in comparison, capacity is 478MW). Market rate is $0.02/kWh, gas usage is minimal...etc. Pretty hard thing to look at as a homeowner and think "I should spend $30,000 on panels and batteries and try and make money here". Demand will need to increase significantly and wind capacity will need to decrease to allow the market value to come back up to where that might actually make sense.
I did have a quick look at this, this morning. I think the market value for additional electricity is zero, and earlier it was negative priced which I don't understand why hydro is still going? I suppose a small part is in Northern Ontario not servable by Nuclear but it seems like alot.
Ignoring the whole solar FIT thing
I would support that as long as they are paid market rate and not subsidizing it, like what was happening with the FIT program, where the rest of us are now paying to cover somebody's $0.80/kWh FIT contract retirement plan. If the market operator needs to curtail it (like what's happening in that video I linked) because Joe Homeowner doesn't have the storage and the grid doesn't need the power, that needs to be a reasonable consideration for the person buying the system too.

Being paid market though, and it having sufficient value will mean it will need to be:
- Cheaper than gas peaker capacity (a carbon tax would help here)
- Cheap enough to give a reasonable payback period for the homeowner based on that market price

The car idea, while interesting, is intermittent and, as I noted, adds additional wear-n-tear to a dual purpose resource, so tethering intermittent storage to intermittent generation could create a scenario where there isn't sufficient resource capacity, whereas with home batteries at least that storage is static, and it would be more valuable if the grid operator had control over it/access to capacity information to allow for proper planning. Down-cycling used EV batteries into this role I think has promise and reduces waste.

EDIT:

Just to add, right now, this is what we are up against. This is a low demand day, extremely windy, market value for electricity is $0.00:
View attachment 55775

We are also paying for 1,000MW of wind not to produce (actual capability right now is 4,300MW, very close to the 5,000MW nameplate we have). So a solar homeowner would not receive any compensation for selling to the grid in this scenario if they were paid market, and we are being hosed on both the solar contract cost and wind contract cost right now as ratepayers.

The past few days looked like this:
View attachment 55776

Overcast, not windy. Solar capacity (grid-tied) peaked at 111MW (right now it is 239 in comparison, capacity is 478MW). Market rate is $0.02/kWh, gas usage is minimal...etc. Pretty hard thing to look at as a homeowner and think "I should spend $30,000 on panels and batteries and try and make money here". Demand will need to increase significantly and wind capacity will need to decrease to allow the market value to come back up to where that might actually make sense.
I did have a quick look at this, this morning. I think the market value for additional electricity is zero, and earlier it was negative priced which I guess somehow encourages currently producing sources to throttle down. I don't understand why hydro is still going? I suppose a small part is in Northern Ontario not servable by Nuclear but it seems like alot.
Moving forward from the current FIT solar contracts, if people could get sell home produced power at the peak demand or "buy" at the surplus production times it could make renewables much more effective. A fellow I work with used to work at the Bruce nuclear plant and on peak demand days they would fire up their diesel back up power generators to feed into the grid! It made them money, so why not I guess. I'm sure it gets a bit complicated to have 10's of thousands of electricity producers but that's what computers are for. People having home storage also helps the grid as well, as the peak loading should stay lower.
Some places use this concept for household water where municipal water is expensive and/or intermittent and/or the water system can't match peak demands, so each house has storage tanks that can filled from the roof or the municipal system at a slow rate and a house pump to get pressure up. Then in peak demand times people can use their water as they wish at no extra cost to themselves or the water utility. When we were in the Cook Islands we rented houses with these systems and they work quite well. The home owners asked that we didn't waste water as it was the dry season and they had to buy more water until the next rain, but that's part of controlling demand to match supply. I didn't ask if people could run their water meters backwards and pump back into the municipal system, which could cause issues with water quality, but with electricity its less of a problem.
 
Some places use this concept for household water where municipal water is expensive and/or intermittent and/or the water system can't match peak demands, so each house has storage tanks that can filled from the roof or the municipal system at a slow rate and a house pump to get pressure up. Then in peak demand times people can use their water as they wish at no extra cost to themselves or the water utility. When we were in the Cook Islands we rented houses with these systems and they work quite well. The home owners asked that we didn't waste water as it was the dry season and they had to buy more water until the next rain, but that's part of controlling demand to match supply. I didn't ask if people could run their water meters backwards and pump back into the municipal system, which could cause issues with water quality, but with electricity its less of a problem.


I have used similar systems myself in other parts of the world. By utilizing rainfall and the gutter system on the house I could harvest large amounts of water very quickly. Monsoon rains will fill up reservoirs very quickly. I chlorinated the water mainly to curb growth of algae and bacteria. That water was used for everything expect consumption.
 
I did have a quick look at this, this morning. I think the market value for additional electricity is zero, and earlier it was negative priced which I don't understand why hydro is still going? I suppose a small part is in Northern Ontario not servable by Nuclear but it seems like alot.
Almost all of Ontario's sources are on either fixed-rate contracts or long-term compensation agreements with the OEB. This is one of the major issues with our system, our use of the market is primarily to broker imports and exports.

Hydro will go to satisfy demand, it is used to follow load on top of nuclear. So any demand above nuclear will typically be met with hydro.

The market price is exactly what it sounds like, the going rate for a given MWh of electricity at that time, not additional electricity. It means that buying from Ontario (in reality, taking excess Ontario wind) would have no cost, and of course it had no cost because nobody wanted it, which tanked the market value. That's how the system works. If there's demand, the price will come up, but wind tends to produce out of phase with demand.
Ignoring the whole solar FIT thing
Aye, but we can't, because that, and the wind LRP contracts, is what really screwed up the system and tanked market value (mostly wind).
if people could get sell home produced power at the peak demand or "buy" at the surplus production times it could make renewables much more effective.
Yes, in a truly market-based system. But, as I noted, with the current market values, that's not going to be viable, based on those current prices. We'd also have to make changes to allow end users to participate as market constituents, not as end users/consumers like they do presently, which would be some new regulation.
A fellow I work with used to work at the Bruce nuclear plant and on peak demand days they would fire up their diesel back up power generators to feed into the grid! It made them money, so why not I guess.
That sounds a bit out-there. Every kWh produced at the Bruce site is paid $0.077/kWh presently and it was $0.067/kWh previously. Bruce diesel gensets (which are emergency power) wouldn't get paid a premium. There's no way a diesel genset at those prices would make money. Now of course, they do test the backup systems regularly, but my understanding from when I toured the site was that the big backups for Bruce, which are large 20+MW units, are Rolls Royce Jet turbines (which I saw with my own eyes) but they may have some smaller diesel units closer to the main buildings, but again, they wouldn't turn a profit, nor would they produce meaningful power, they are meant to run pumps and cooling systems, not power a grid.

Every kWh fed into the grid from a power plant is monitored by the IESO, and there's no separate entry for "standby diesel gensets" in the Bruce section of the IESO data for the site ;) Any output above and beyond a unit's rated power would show as an artifact (above rated power) for wherever it was connected. And again, because this is grid power, on a fixed-rate contract, there's no financial incentive to do it.
Screen Shot 2021-04-30 at 7.08.42 PM.png

I'm sure it gets a bit complicated to have 10's of thousands of electricity producers but that's what computers are for. People having home storage also helps the grid as well, as the peak loading should stay lower.
Would depend on the weather and the state of those resources, which is why I said that the grid operator would really need to know the status of those units to properly utilize them. Peak loads often happen when we have hot and cold spells as solar rolls off or before it rolls on, but particularly as the evening rolls in and solar collapses and A/C units continue to draw. A bit of storage could help with that, but when it's -30C and still, solar has VERY low capacity in the winter, so you'd have no easy way to charge that storage except from the grid, so what would be the source? That's the kind of stuff that needs to be considered here.
Some places use this concept for household water where municipal water is expensive and/or intermittent and/or the water system can't match peak demands, so each house has storage tanks that can filled from the roof or the municipal system at a slow rate and a house pump to get pressure up. Then in peak demand times people can use their water as they wish at no extra cost to themselves or the water utility. When we were in the Cook Islands we rented houses with these systems and they work quite well. The home owners asked that we didn't waste water as it was the dry season and they had to buy more water until the next rain, but that's part of controlling demand to match supply. I didn't ask if people could run their water meters backwards and pump back into the municipal system, which could cause issues with water quality, but with electricity its less of a problem.
And that may very well work there, but I don't think I'd like that same situation here in Ontario, nor do I believe would most. We want to turn the tap and have water, water our lawns, wash the cars, fill the tub. Same goes with electricity, that's the reason we have massive grids and huge generators, because people have grown accustomed to that convenience. You start with rolling blackouts and demand management and I think you'll find even more outrage than what happened with the GEA rate hikes. Then try charging EV's on top of that? in a place that gets real winter? We are huge consumers of energy, far more than most people realize.
 
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Would depend on the weather and the state of those resources, which is why I said that the grid operator would really need to know the status of those units to properly utilize them. Peak loads often happen when we have hot and cold spells as solar rolls off or before it rolls on, but particularly as the evening rolls in and solar collapses and A/C units continue to draw. A bit of storage could help with that, but when it's -30C and still, solar has VERY low capacity in the winter, so you'd have no easy way to charge that storage except from the grid, so what would be the source? That's the kind of stuff that needs to be considered here.

And that may very well work there, but I don't think I'd like that same situation here in Ontario, nor do I believe would most. We want to turn the tap and have water, water our lawns, wash the cars, fill the tub. Same goes with electricity, that's the reason we have massive grids and huge generators, because people have grown accustomed to that convenience. You start with rolling blackouts and demand management and I think you'll find even more outrage than what happened with the GEA rate hikes. Then try charging EV's on top of that? in a place that gets real winter? We are huge consumers of energy, far more than most people realize.
I'll have to ask him again about the generators, perhaps it was the gas turbines? He was there 10 years ago so maybe his memory is fuzzy?

I do like the water example though, and as you say we have this big massive generation and grid system built for the one day a year(decade?) we need it. It costs lots of money to build and maintain and it can't integrate renewables well. Local energy storage can help shave and fill the peaks and valleys and if the consumer/producer can get in on profiting on these price extremes, you can be sure some people will make the investment.

I guess I think it would be good for people to have the option to opt in on all the price extremes, pay households per kwh they use/store when the grid operator is dumping energy, let people feed the grid when power is extremely expensive. Some of these peak prices make it worth running your electric car through a battery cycle if your not driving anywhere that evening. I think this would result in a lower overall cost as the grid transmission and generation doesn't have to be sized for the worst case, just big enough to keep local supply and prices in a reasonable range. Sure some people will want to continue as is, running the AC, oven, and dryer at 6pm on 38C days, but I don't want to share the costs for their usage habits, I want to profit from them.
With our nuclear based system with renewables spiking at inopportune times, I think having a low entry barrier, free market solution to redistributing that steady state production and spikes to match demand is a good way to go. Otherwise you will just have people pulling the plug on the grid completely in a few years. $100/kwh batteries start to make that possible.
 
I'll have to ask him again about the generators, perhaps it was the gas turbines? He was there 10 years ago so maybe his memory is fuzzy?

I do like the water example though, and as you say we have this big massive generation and grid system built for the one day a year(decade?) we need it. It costs lots of money to build and maintain and it can't integrate renewables well. Local energy storage can help shave and fill the peaks and valleys and if the consumer/producer can get in on profiting on these price extremes, you can be sure some people will make the investment.

I guess I think it would be good for people to have the option to opt in on all the price extremes, pay households per kwh they use/store when the grid operator is dumping energy, let people feed the grid when power is extremely expensive. Some of these peak prices make it worth running your electric car through a battery cycle if your not driving anywhere that evening. I think this would result in a lower overall cost as the grid transmission and generation doesn't have to be sized for the worst case, just big enough to keep local supply and prices in a reasonable range. Sure some people will want to continue as is, running the AC, oven, and dryer at 6pm on 38C days, but I don't want to share the costs for their usage habits, I want to profit from them.
With our nuclear based system with renewables spiking at inopportune times, I think having a low entry barrier, free market solution to redistributing that steady state production and spikes to match demand is a good way to go. Otherwise you will just have people pulling the plug on the grid completely in a few years. $100/kwh batteries start to make that possible.

Not just local energy storage, the pumped storage project at Georgian Bay would make perfect sense if Pickering was refurbished, it would allow us to shunt excess nuclear/hydro (particularly Bruce, which uses steam bypass when demand tanks) into a medium that can then fill for gas peaking during the day. If we had an appropriately sized pool of solar to depress daytime peaking, that storage could also be used to cover those morning/evening ramps.

It's when we start discussing wind that things go sideways, because its output profile is so far out of whack with that of demand. We'd be far better off without it, and have cheaper prices to boot.

As I said, I'm not opposed to unsubsidized solar, it's paying people $0.80/kWh for FIT, which I'm not footing as part of my rates that I'm not happy with. If solar can cost-effectively reduce daytime peaking without cutting into ultra-low emissions baseload, then I'm fine with it.
 
To me the ideal solution is to have a battery bay standardized in every EV, and having the Blue Rhino style replacement people can lease from gas station for 50 miles. If you are so low on your battery you can lease one to plug it in, use it up, then return to a gas station and get a core refund.

What am I thinking, maybe China can pull it off but in the US we cannot even standardize on a plug, a freaking plug, to charge EV.
 
I've been driving a lot this past year. I've seen 3 Tesla cars on the side of the highway in the last week. I do think people are running them out of juice.
The result of peoole not oaying attention....
 
Can't be any more complicated to over-ride than Auto Pilot. 😄
The right way to bypass it would be at the battery pack. I mean if you can hook up a solar panel to an inverter that is also connected to the grid, you can do the same thing except without AC / DC conversion. It is quite simple really.
 
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