Solar Energy Is The Way To Go!

[overland]

Just think if every house and building had solar panels on them. Do you know what would happen? The U.S. would produce far more energy than it could use. Let alone having large areas of solar panels in desert areas. Though there is a combination of mental diseases that are keeping it from happening. Capitalism and Democracy.

There is only one slight drawback. One that is EASLY overcome. Despite what you might hear to the contrary. That is storing the energy to be used for times when there is no sunlight. That can be done with scaled up batteries, capacitors or using excess electricity to heat sodium to run generators during times when there is less sunlight. Power transmission lines would also still have some use in moving power around to where it is most needed.

 

[elektra]

The only drawback I see, is less then half the houses have a roof facing the sun, and of those houses less than half have their entire roof facing the sun, and of those houses less than half live in an area with enough sun to meet the needs of a modern nation.

yea, nobody replied to the stupidity of this post, but it seems worth saying, all we get from the Democrats is the dreams of the ignorant.

 

[Old Rocks]

There are a vast number of near flat roofs, warehouses, shopping centers, manufacturing buildings, ect. These will do just fine, and, in combination with grid scale storage will give us 24/7 energy, at less than the cost of dirty coal.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

I'm as conservative as anyone, but solar power IS in our near future. It is practical, and it's becoming even more so as new manufacturing techniques cause the price of cells to plummet. It's ridiculous to not take advantage of this. Sunlight generates 1,000 watts per sq meter. Even on a cloudy day you get something -- about 35%.

While it's not the route I'd go, what if our government, instead of pumping HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS (trillions?) in Middle East wars, invested that money in the production of Solar panels FOR THE HOME OWNER? I'm not talking about giving that equipment to the utilities, but to the homeowner. NATIONAL energy independence is great, but INDIVIDUAL energy independence is even better.

It is possible. We only need the national will. Personally, I'm sick and tired of helping Muslim fanatics get rich off Americans and Europeans.

 

[Old Rocks]

That requires two things, a distributed grid, and an incentive for businesses to use their roofs for as generators. And, of course, grid scale storage both at the generation point, and the point of use.

 

[fncceo]

Solar energy is the way to go ... BROKE!

 

[Old Rocks]

Fucking dumb, fncceo. So, because the Whippet failed, we should have abandoned all auto building? A great many other solar companies are doing quite well. And, in Texas, they are installing a giga-watt installation, even as solar has become the cheapest form of new generation.

 

[fncceo]

Imagine a mother feeding her child. She does so willingly, and asks for nothing in return. But this mother is capricious, she only feeds the child when she is in the mood. She may overfeed the child one day, and then go for days without feeding that child. The child, being a child, cannot save up the food she brought days ago, it goes wasted on the ground. Now, some will blame the child for not being able to survive on the unpredictable feeding schedule of the mother, saying he's being selfish or wasteful. But, a child is hungry when it is hungry. A child must be fed on demand or it is abuse.

Solar energy seems like a great idea. It is a great idea, I use it myself on the farm. But ... it is not and will never be a substitute for the ability to generate energy on demand. There is no technology in existence or on the horizon that can store electricity from wind or solar on anything resembling a mass scale.

Spending billions of taxpayer dollars propping up companies who flog this 'solution' or demand by legislation that we buy those products is criminal theft.

 

[Old Rocks]

Wrong.

Build your Powerpack Energy Storage Solution | Tesla

And that is just one manufacturer.

 

[fncceo]

Wrong.

Build your Powerpack Energy Storage Solution | Tesla

And that is just one manufacturer.

Let's do some math on that. Telsa markets two versions of the Li-Ion Powerwall, a 7Kw/H and a 10Kw/H. Deep-cycle batteries start to break down if continuously discharged below 50% of capacity so, the effective capacity of the larger Powerwall is 5Kw/H. Now ... an average suburban home uses between 9 and 15 Kw/H in a day (Let's say 10 for simplicity. So, an average home deriving power exclusively from solar will plow through the capacity of two Powerwalls on a regular day. It takes another 10.5Kw/H of solar power to fully recharge those batteries.

A small suburban power plant will furnish power to 10,000 homes and businesses on the grid. So, in an area of guaranteed sunshine 365 days a year (never one cloudy day) it will take 20,000 Tesla Powerwalls to provide power to the grid. A more realistic scenario even in the southwest would be one full sun day out of two so 40,000 Powerwalls.including 4.4 million Kgs of materials. Recharging the full capacity of those 10,000 homes would require 420,000 Kw/H of solar power per day (at 100% efficiency) or 2.1 million solar panels.

Here's the good news. Normal deep-cycle batteries have a shelf-life of three years in commercial use. Tesla offers a 10 year warranty for residential use, no word as of yet of a commercial use warranty. The warranty says the battery will retain 70% of its charge capacity for up to 10 years.

Recycling Li-ION batteries is less toxic than other forms of batteries but the manufacture of Li-ION battteries requires 1.6 Kgs of oil per 1.0 Kg of battery or 7 million Kgs of oil (6.4 million liters) to produce the batteries for a single power plant. Those batteries being replaced every 10 to 15 years.

Telsa currently charges US$5,000 per battery but lets say they get the price point down to half of that -- $2,500 per battery. The cost of batteries alone would be $100,000,000 or $10,000,000 per year over 10 years -- $1,000 a year per home just for the batteries -- the least expensive component in the system.

I used a small powerplant scenario to keep the numbers manageable, but cities require power plants many times that size. The largest coal plant (assume this technology to replace coal versus nuclear or hydro) in the US generates 3.5Gw/H, nearly 9,000 times larger than what we're discussing here.

So, not QUITE there yet.

 

[Old Rocks]

Note that the link is to Powerpack, not the Powerwall.

Build your Powerpack Energy Storage Solution | Tesla

Design Your Powerpack System
Powerpack systems are fully integrated energy storage solutions for commercial, industrial, and utility sites. The system includes one or more Powerpack units, inverters, controllers and supporting hardware.

POWER
kW
+-
DURATION
Hours
+-
System Overview
500 kW2,100 kWh4 hour duration



Includes:

• Powerpack units
• Powerpack inverters
• Powerpack Controller
• Cabling & Site Support Hardware

Total Estimate$902,360
Power and energy ratings are rounded to simplify price estimation. Once your order is placed, we will work with you to finalize your system's precise specifications and price.

Have questions about Powerpack storage for your business or utility?Request a call.

Interested in energy storage for your home? Learn more about Powerwall.

Everything we know about Tesla’s massive commercial battery, the Powerpack

Most recently, Tesla was selected to provide 20 MW/80 MWh Powerpack system at the Southern California Edison Mira Loma substation, making it the largest lithium ion battery storage project in the world. The Powerpacks will charge by drawing energy from the grid during off-peak hours.

But as a better indicator of how the Powerpack fits into solar installation, SolarCity is using Tesla's 52 MWh Powerpack to bring 20 years of power to the Hawaiian island Kaua’i. SolarCity built a 12 MW solar farm to help supply the power.

There are currently 300 MWh of Tesla batteries deployed in 18 countries, Tesla wrote in a blog post.

 

[Mr Natural]

What these companies need to do is come up with roof mounted solar collectors that look and function as shingles.

 

[Old Rocks]

Tesla Solar

Already done.

 

[fncceo]

Note that the link is to Powerpack, not the Powerwall.

Build your Powerpack Energy Storage Solution | Tesla

Design Your Powerpack System
Powerpack systems are fully integrated energy storage solutions for commercial, industrial, and utility sites. The system includes one or more Powerpack units, inverters, controllers and supporting hardware.

POWER
kW
+-
DURATION
Hours
+-
System Overview
500 kW2,100 kWh4 hour duration



Includes:

• Powerpack units
• Powerpack inverters
• Powerpack Controller
• Cabling & Site Support Hardware

Total Estimate$902,360
Power and energy ratings are rounded to simplify price estimation. Once your order is placed, we will work with you to finalize your system's precise specifications and price.

Have questions about Powerpack storage for your business or utility?Request a call.

Interested in energy storage for your home? Learn more about Powerwall.

Everything we know about Tesla’s massive commercial battery, the Powerpack

Most recently, Tesla was selected to provide 20 MW/80 MWh Powerpack system at the Southern California Edison Mira Loma substation, making it the largest lithium ion battery storage project in the world. The Powerpacks will charge by drawing energy from the grid during off-peak hours.

But as a better indicator of how the Powerpack fits into solar installation, SolarCity is using Tesla's 52 MWh Powerpack to bring 20 years of power to the Hawaiian island Kaua’i. SolarCity built a 12 MW solar farm to help supply the power.

There are currently 300 MWh of Tesla batteries deployed in 18 countries, Tesla wrote in a blog post.

Changing from Powerwall to Powerpack (the commercial version of the first without built-in inverter) changes only one factor in the equations -- the number of batteries required. The materials required, the petroleum used to produce it, the cost of the infrastructure, all remain unchanged -- a 50kW Powerpack weighs nearly TWO METRIC TONNES and costs $50,000 per battery.
The Powerpack isn't a more efficient type of battery, just a larger one. A fifty pound bag versus a five pound bag.

Using Li-ION batteries to store solar power is the last gasp of a dying technology. Like making a giant steam engine to do the work of a tiny internal combustion engine. Like trying to make a steam-powered airplane.

Using grid power to charge batteries in non-peak times is LESS efficient then simply generating less power during non-peak times. Burning more coal to charge batteries -- convert AC to DC -- then use that power later -- convert DC to AC incurs a significant efficiency loss which doesn't exist when putting energy directly into the grid. More energy production for less electricity produced.

Battery-supplied grid -- impractical for anything greater than a few hundred homes per station -- is a feel-good, go-green publicity stunt and a tax-payer funded boondoggle. I have no problem with publicity stunts -- only with those stunts which the taxpayer pays the bill.

There is a future for solar and wind in the grid -- but it will only come with commercially-viable artificial photosynthesis. The ability to directly store sunlight energy in chemical form. This technology is decades (or more) away and every penny we piss down the rat hole trying to make batteries do work they were never designed to do is money that won't go into researching ACTUAL technology that could one day replace fossil-fuel energy production.

 

[Old Rocks]

OK, that is your opinion. In the meantime, Tesla will sell those batteries as fast as they can manufacture them. And there are other manufacturers in the game also.

What I see, is a distributed grid being brought into being as these batteries are added both at the generation and use points. As for your hydrogen dreams, dream on. That technology has been bypassed by the much superior batteries.

 

[grapple]

Just think if every house and building had solar panels on them. Do you know what would happen? The U.S. would produce far more energy than it could use. Let alone having large areas of solar panels in desert areas. Though there is a combination of mental diseases that are keeping it from happening. Capitalism and Democracy.

There is only one slight drawback. One that is EASLY overcome. Despite what you might hear to the contrary. That is storing the energy to be used for times when there is no sunlight. That can be done with scaled up batteries, capacitors or using excess electricity to heat sodium to run generators during times when there is less sunlight. Power transmission lines would also still have some use in moving power around to where it is most needed.

Seeing how the person who wrote this is gone for some unexplainable reason, this is for "To Whom It May Concern. Another interesting point about solar panels is that over their lifetimes, they produce more power than it took to create them. (How much more, I don't know) I would call that something very close to perpetual motion. It's no wonder that energy companies oppose them at every turn. It is hard to make money off something like that.

 

[grapple]

The only drawback I see, is less then half the houses have a roof facing the sun, and of those houses less than half have their entire roof facing the sun, and of those houses less than half live in an area with enough sun to meet the needs of a modern nation.

yea, nobody replied to the stupidity of this post, but it seems worth saying, all we get from the Democrats is the dreams of the ignorant.

Are you stupid? Or do you get money in some way from the energy industry. If roofs face the sky, they are basically facing the sun. And even where they aren't, the solar panels don't have to follow the angle of the roof. As for "meeting the needs," most people are away during the day at work. How much electricity are they using then. But would you care to guess what solar panels would be doing the whole time?

 

[Old Rocks]

Here in Portland, there are huge roofs that cover manufacturing facilites, warehouses, and shopping malls. Were these covered with solar panels, a large part of the power needs of the city would be met.

 

[blenkins90]

Elon Musk just announced recently that his solar roof cost (installation and materials) cost less than that of a normal roof. And that's before energy costs.

I believe he also mentioned not too long ago that it was more durable than a normal roof as well. Seems like a good option to me no matter what if that's the case.

 

[Mr. H.]

That requires two things, a distributed grid, and an incentive for businesses to use their roofs for as generators. And, of course, grid scale storage both at the generation point, and the point of use.

And subsidies. Lots of subsidies...