Solar power is getting cheaper every year

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Innovation will bring the solutions on board. Sitting hand wringing and demanding the stays quo will not.

Here's an example of replacing a diesel generator with wind power and a storage solution.

RENEWABLES:

On Kodiak Island, flywheels are in and diesel is 99.8% out

image_asset_11843.jpg


Matson Inc.'s massive electric crane and the Pillar Mountain wind farm dominate the shoreline near the city of Kodiak.

KODIAK, Alaska -- Darron Scott, CEO of the Kodiak Electric Association, unlocked the door to a small building on a gravel road along Chiniak Bay and pointed to two innocuous metal boxes tucked into a corner beyond a bank of computers.

"Those are the flywheels," Scott said, turning on a computer screen to follow the ebb and flow of the system's electrical output.

More than a mile down the coast, a 340-foot-tall electric crane operated by Matson Inc. shipping company lifted a series of heavy metal cargo containers from the shore and transferred them onto the deck of a waiting ship.

Each time the regenerative crane raised a container into the air, it pulled electricity from the flywheel energy storage system. As it lowered its load, electricity flowed back to the flywheels.

"It's sort of like a Toyota Prius," Scott explained. "When you hit the brake [on the car], you actually make power, which goes back into the battery.

"Well, the crane does the same thing," he said. "When the crane drops the load, it will actually inject power back into the flywheels, which helps speed them back up again. The flywheel has just enough time to get recharged as the crane gets ready to pick up the next box for the next lift."

KEA's two flywheels can each store up to 1 megawatt of electricity. That's enough power to lift a heavy cargo container from the dock and move it to the ship.

http://www.eenews.net/stories/106003...Utility Dive
 
Minnesota first to adopt 'value of solar' approach for community solar

Dive Brief:

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has adopted a “value of solar” approach for determining how community solar customers will be paid for the power the projects produce, according to Midwest Energy News.

The value of solar methodology incorporates external factors such as avoided transmission investments, the health and environmental effects of clean energy, and the extent to which solar power can ease the burden on the electric grid.

Minnesota is the first state in the nation to adopt a value of solar approach for community solar. Prior to Minnesota’s move, Austin Energy is the only utility in the country that used a value of solar calculation.

Dive Insight:

Community solar has been touted as one of the strongest potential markets for solar power growth, and Minnesota is seen as one of the states with the most potential. But the state’s community solar program has faced problems getting established.

In April, an independent engineer appointed by the Minnesota PUC said Xcel Energy was throwing up roadblocks to the development of community solar in the state.

In a blog, environmental advocacy group Fresh Energy said value of solar rates would increase pricing transparency for solar garden customers, stakeholders and regulators while reducing financing costs and improving access to community solar for low and middle income subscribers.

Fresh Energy expects 400 MW to 450 MW of community solar projects to enter service by the end of 2017, policy director Allen Gleckner wrote.

As part of the ruling the PUC also to continue to prohibit co-located gardens and limit the size of them to 1 MW. Originally the community solar program had allowed for the co-location of up to five 1-MW projects.

To date, only three community solar projects, totaling less than 1 MW, have come online in Minnesota. Xcel expects 200 MW of community solar to enter service by the end of 2016, rising to 400 MW to 450 MW by the end of 2017.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Innovation will bring the solutions on board. Sitting hand wringing and demanding the stays quo will not.

Here's an example of replacing a diesel generator with wind power and a storage solution.

RENEWABLES:

On Kodiak Island, flywheels are in and diesel is 99.8% out


I could not scrutinize the article as the link doesn't work for me, but from the sounds of it, they still have diesel backup for those times where the flywheels cannot provide enough juice or when the recharging is not enough.

That's exactly the same principle for using the peaker plants. So while on a small scale, keeping that diesel powered generator operational costs very little, the same cannot be translated to the huge power plants.
 
The concept of huge central located power plants is a dying one. Though they will never be gone completely distributed energy is the future.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Innovation will bring the solutions on board. Sitting hand wringing and demanding the stays quo will not.

Here's an example of replacing a diesel generator with wind power and a storage solution.

RENEWABLES:

On Kodiak Island, flywheels are in and diesel is 99.8% out

image_asset_11843.jpg


Matson Inc.'s massive electric crane and the Pillar Mountain wind farm dominate the shoreline near the city of Kodiak.

KODIAK, Alaska -- Darron Scott, CEO of the Kodiak Electric Association, unlocked the door to a small building on a gravel road along Chiniak Bay and pointed to two innocuous metal boxes tucked into a corner beyond a bank of computers.

"Those are the flywheels," Scott said, turning on a computer screen to follow the ebb and flow of the system's electrical output.

More than a mile down the coast, a 340-foot-tall electric crane operated by Matson Inc. shipping company lifted a series of heavy metal cargo containers from the shore and transferred them onto the deck of a waiting ship.

Each time the regenerative crane raised a container into the air, it pulled electricity from the flywheel energy storage system. As it lowered its load, electricity flowed back to the flywheels.

"It's sort of like a Toyota Prius," Scott explained. "When you hit the brake [on the car], you actually make power, which goes back into the battery.

"Well, the crane does the same thing," he said. "When the crane drops the load, it will actually inject power back into the flywheels, which helps speed them back up again. The flywheel has just enough time to get recharged as the crane gets ready to pick up the next box for the next lift."

KEA's two flywheels can each store up to 1 megawatt of electricity. That's enough power to lift a heavy cargo container from the dock and move it to the ship.




use this link.
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060038577
 
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=============copied from the youtube (I do NOT agree with EVERYTHING here)====================
=============the (1) was already posted here==================================================

Tony Seba's Clean Disruption Keynote presentation at the Swedbank Nordic Energy Summit in Oslo, Norway, March 17th, 2016.

The keynote, based on the book 'Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation' assert that four technology categories will disrupt energy and transportation by:
1- Batteries / Energy Storage
2- Electric Vehicles
3- Self-Driving Vehicles
4- Solar Energy

The outcome of the Clean Disruption is that by 2030
• All new vehicles will be electric.
• All new vehicles will be autonomous (self-driving).
• Oil will be obsolete
• Coal, natural gas and nuclear will be obsolete
• 80+ per cent of parking spaces will be obsolete.
• Individual car ownership will be obsolete.
• All new energy will be provided by solar (and wind)

Clean Disruption is a technology disruption. Just like digital cameras disrupted film and the web disrupted publishing, Clean Disruption is inevitable and it will be swift.
 
Thanks for the link. They took advantage of their natural conditions and location, hydro being the primary source of electricity (76%)and wind as secondary (23%). Can you apply the same to the whole nation? I doubt it, yet the policy is driving that movement.

From the article, and this is a location that is pretty much ideal for wind:

Quote:
"If we went too much further with the wind, we'd have situations where the lights would go out because it's just too variable at times," he said.

"We had an issue last November," Scott recalled. "We had hydro and wind running just like normal. And just over a couple of seconds, all the wind stopped. The wind went from 20 miles an hour to nothing in just a matter of two or three seconds."

Everything came up. The flywheels fired, the batteries fired, the hydro started picking up over time, and everything worked perfectly," he explained. "And we stayed above our trip points. Because the next line of defense is that you start turning people's power off to keep things stable. And obviously we don't want to go there.


So in this small community, the batteries and the flywheels can be made to work. You cannot use this as an example to go nationwide. They even give a hint (what I bolded) as to how the power companies will deal with the power disruptions.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
The concept of huge central located power plants is a dying one. Though they will never be gone completely distributed energy is the future.
Do you remember when all we had were mainframe computers? Then came the minicomputer era which got gobbled by PC's. Now phones and cloud power our information infrastructure.

One could see similarities with the energy distribution. I do not know if in 19th century people tried to generate their own power locally or not but centralized power became more economical resulting in utilities all across the nation. Eventually technology will allow local power generation to certain extent.

Technology trends are like bell-botoom pants. They eventually come back :)
 
Originally Posted By: Vikas
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
The concept of huge central located power plants is a dying one. Though they will never be gone completely distributed energy is the future.
Do you remember when all we had were mainframe computers? Then came the minicomputer era which got gobbled by PC's. Now phones and cloud power our information infrastructure.

One could see similarities with the energy distribution. I do not know if in 19th century people tried to generate their own power locally or not but centralized power became more economical resulting in utilities all across the nation. Eventually technology will allow local power generation to certain extent.

Technology trends are like bell-botoom pants. They eventually come back :)


Here we have computer geeks thinking they have power all figured out. Dangerous stuff.

You think phones power the information infrastructure? There's a network of fiber with supercomputers directing all that traffic.

But I guess anyone can put engineer in their profile on the internet.
 
The manipulations and roadblocks that utilities put in the path of development for distributed energy will only strengthen DE. It will push the consumer to full off grid power if the situation is right.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
The manipulations and roadblocks that utilities put in the path of development for distributed energy will only strengthen DE. It will push the consumer to full off grid power if the situation is right.


A lot more fires and electrocutions though. If you are indeed an industrial electrician you understand that.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
The manipulations and roadblocks that utilities put in the path of development for distributed energy will only strengthen DE. It will push the consumer to full off grid power if the situation is right.


A lot more fires and electrocutions though. If you are indeed an industrial electrician you understand that.

I don't know why you say that. Why would it be any different than running a generator? Any worse than a car owner doing their own work? Currently in Illinois no license is needed to do electrical work. But people who are out of their knowledge area usually hire someone to do the work.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
The manipulations and roadblocks that utilities put in the path of development for distributed energy will only strengthen DE. It will push the consumer to full off grid power if the situation is right.


A lot more fires and electrocutions though. If you are indeed an industrial electrician you understand that.

I don't know why you say that. Why would it be any different than running a generator? Any worse than a car owner doing their own work? Currently in Illinois no license is needed to do electrical work. But people who are out of their knowledge area usually hire someone to do the work.


You are exposing your lack of training and experience

It's amazing I was able to ferret this out on one post. These wind and solar generators don't want to use an independent source of protection. They think the software in the inverter is enough. This software is written by people who aren't power system protection experts. I've been thru this in my job. You have too many trying to become experts too quick.

It's going to be impossible to model a power system with more DG than centralized generation. Do you understand we need to create computer models to predict what'll happen in emergency scenarios?

I hate teaching people so I'm going to stop at that.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
This site has some of the rudest people I've seen on forums.


When lives, property and national security are at stake you need to be rude.

All of a sudden everybody is a power expert. It ain't like bricking some stupid phone. You kill people when things go wrong. You blackout the country when things go wrong.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Not all storage is overly expensive. Some actually save money compared to the old way of generation vs new with storage.


Here's something that I posted earlier, on the levelised cost of storage.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/4141423/Levelised_Cost_of_Energy_Stora

Li storage is about $250/MWh (25c/KWh) round trip with free electricity, versus wholesale prices around 4.

The little cherry picked "replaced a diesel generator", which in and of itself probably costs 25-40c/kWh makes sense, but in the scale of the thread, means that "off peak" renewables for the mass market consumer are going to be very expensive.

The traditional high daytime prices are going to be replaced with high night-time prices as solar takes over.

Edit, as an example, I'll use YOUR suicide plug solar set-up....when is the cheapest time of the day for you to run your air con/clothese drier ?

Clearly during the day, when the sun is shining.

When is it more expensive to run these ?

Clearly when the sun is gone, and you are importing.

Have you and your family changed the way that you run your day to take advantage of the "free" energy ?

Multiply by the number of families and businesses, install smart meters (they AREN'T being installed to make billing easier), and you'll be paying more.
 
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Cherry picking goes both ways right? I was just showing an example of the thinking that needs to be done to get out of the "we can't do it any other way" crowd. The change is coming, you can have foresight.

Both Harbor Freight and Menard's have their solar systems on sale now.....
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Innovation will bring the solutions on board. Sitting hand wringing and demanding the stays quo will not.

Here's an example of replacing a diesel generator with wind power and a storage solution.


I'm definitely not wringing my hands and certainly not demanding the status quo, I already gave an example with hydro electric as a storage medium (and a good one). However this flywheel idea, while novel and viable for this small application, definitely doesn't make sense for large scale stuff. There will need to be some other intermediate developed that is more cost effective than battery storage for applications where HE can't be utilized. That is, if we want power to remain in the realm of affordable.
 
The use of flywheels and local wind power do show the way DE power can work. Just because you can't scale it up to Gw range doesn't make it worthless.
 
Originally Posted By: Vikas
[Do you remember when all we had were mainframe computers? Then came the minicomputer era which got gobbled by PC's. Now phones and cloud power our information infrastructure.


Yes, and now we have a massive mess of cell towers (supporting infrastructure) belonging to a few centralized companies, we've moved the medium, in large, from copper to wireless, and shifted the infrastructure from POTS CO's to towers, but the concept of it still belonging to a few big players has survived. IMHO, like the phone companies, Utilities WILL find a way to remain profit centres in all of this, as their survival depends on it.

Originally Posted By: Vikas

I do not know if in 19th century people tried to generate their own power locally or not but centralized power became more economical resulting in utilities all across the nation. Eventually technology will allow local power generation to certain extent.


Our local utility was one of the first to invest heavily in hydro electric, since we had GE locally. We have five hydro electric dams which historically provided more than enough electricity to power the area. The city was nicknamed "the city of lights" back in the day because of this. We were one of the first to have electric street lights due to our local generating capacity. One of the first to have electric trollies (which we no longer have). That infrastructure has remained; that is, our local utility can still generate enough power locally to power us with HE (though we have a 10MW solar install) but we, as rate payers, pay the going rate set by the Ontario Energy Board, so despite our generation all occurring here, we get screwed just like everybody else on rates.

Hydro in Ontario seems to be trying to go the other direction with HydroONE trying to buy up all the small remaining local utilities to make them part of its big mess. They have been trying to buy our local utility. That means that regardless of local generating capacity, you'd still be intimately tied to "big brother", which our moron premier is [censored]-bent on selling off so that it becomes an entirely profit-driven private entity.

These things can turn into a gong show FAST.
 
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