Solar power: why hasn't this improved

[flacaltenn]

We know how to approach the theoretical max efficiencies for solar PV design. We knew that YEARS ago. A panel built from Gallium Arsenide vs silicon crystal would get us to within 20% or so of the physics. But that would mean TONS of arsenic and a doubling of cost versus growing silicon crystal. Sometimes -- the theoretical limit doesn't yield a product.

The issue of inefficiency is more difficult to overcome. Even with panel efficiencies climbing (slowly now compared with 10 years ago), the installation math for a daytime peaking only system has to be rated almost twice as neccessary to guarantee a minimum power requirement. That gets you thru weather related difficulties such as clouds, preciptn, and sun angle thru-out the year and efficiencies related to converting DC power from the panels to AC for the home wiring and selling back to the grid.

So you BUY more panel than you end up using.. And "off-grid" installations are a whole 'nother animal, requiring tons of battery storage and the eco implications of that. A "off-grid" supermarket would require a tractor trailer full of battery storage to make it thru the night and an installation "overdesign" by a factor of almost three.

The grid load in California at 10PM in the summer is 80% of the load at 1PM. That means that PV solar could provide a MAX of 20% of daytime peaks. That's why you see the mandates for 20% renewables by 2020 and all that nonsense. You cannot turn off nat gas, coal, nuclear plants like a light switch. So there is duplication of spending for the MAIN sources of power. Would we reach 20%? Not likely because of geography, grid design, ect...

So you're right. It's time to put up or STFU.. Government should NEVER be subsidizing run of the mill stuff that's already designed. It actually stifles the perfection of tech, because the subsidy warps price to prefer larger markets at the bottom price. If they want to play market makers, they should only fund R&D for increased performance, or new technology. And the solar market NOW is anything but new technology.

I challenge the bold part above, link? Second off, 1PM is not peak time, that is usually considered to be between 4-6pm. And third how do you figure that this even concludes that you could only use 20% during peak? Comparing using solar during the day vs not being able to use it at night makes no sense. Theoretically California could use all their day time electricity through solar panels, and switch to other uses at night.

The factoid came from daily charts that I watched in Cal to predict brown-outs at my company. Specifically from the CA Indep Sys Oper (CALISO), the bozos tasked with waking up each morning and trying to find power a state that OUTLAWED long term contracts. Anyway.. You can view the hourly Load management at

California ISO - Todays Outlook

Be aware that this IS NOT peak summer, it IS a weekend, and NOT that typical summer day that I described. Depending on when you view it will give different results. I HAD to study it for years to protect one of clients from losing experimental data. My observations ARE correct for MOST summer days/nights in Cal. Although I did leave out the WORKDAY qualifier which was what I was most concerned with in the 3rd world of Cal Silicon Valley.

PEAK SUMMER LOADS are the "best case design" for any scenario involving solar when considering the swing from day to night.. And 10PM is the "evening peak" in most all load charts. Look it up..

Furthermore a report came out earlier this year that showed how the entire country could switch completely to green energy by using most of the daytime electricity through solar. .

REALLY? the ENTIRE country? Folks in the NorthEast will be very employed sweeping snow loads off panels won't they? Even tho the installed capacity would have to rated at more than TWICE the average PEAK SUMMER LOADS to guarantee that promise due to weather variations and sun angles? And that you'd be shedding MORE than 1/2 of that produced capacity during the peak summer to waste?

You need to be careful with naive scenario pronouncements such as this that have little connection to hour by hour, month by month variations in demand. But such is the "religious fervor" of the addicted..

Supplementing is with wind power, that can run during the day and through part of the night, and finally, since neither of these store electricity, using hydro electric to provide for power at night, and in case of any shortfalls in solar (clouds) and wind (no wind), since hydro electric stores electricity very very well (all the water behind the dam is potential energy that can be used at any time).

Left out of this "analysis" is the energy and inefficiencies associated with PUMPING that water that requires a HUGE over capacity of wind/solar to run the "storage". Again causing severe economic issues with land usage to site those generators, provide basins for the storage and all the enviro consequences associated with that. Doesn't work in Kansas or much of the flatlands too well either. Actual engineering considerations for where and how frequent these opportunities would be are staggering sober -- compared to your raw enthusiasm..

The real reason that they said 20% by 2020 is simply cost. To switch the entire country, the upfront cost would be in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars. Sort of like building every power plant in the country all at once. Then you add in that tens of thousands of power plant workers would be laid off in the period of time, and the idea is just not good. Basically what that 20% figure represents is, all new sources of energy should be green, that way no one gets laid off

Bull -- the percentages are based on actual math science using the RELIABILITY, load cycle demands and opportunities to propose a mix that actually works -- NOT COST. When trying to balance wind/solar with the back-up MAIN power generators that must stand idle waiting to be used (nat gas, nuclear, coal, hydro, ect.)

Speaking of wind -- take a gander at Figure V-F in the CALISO report at:

http://www.caiso.com/Documents/2005SummerAssessmentReport.pdf

Wind only available on 4 of the 10 peak summer 2004 days. It only exceeded 50% of AVERAGE capacity on only 2 of 10 peak days.. That's AVERAGE -- not even peak capacity.

That's a LOT of jobs just managing the REAL generators that have to be jerked around to make wind power look useful..

You cannot melt the grid down for 2 hours a day for renewables and switch the other generators on/off like light bulbs..

So if you have articles pretending to claim this is solved.. By all means please share.

 

[asterism]

Liberals think if you throw money at a project it all of sudden creates demand. If the plan doesn't work, they blame republicans for their lack of foresight and market intuition claiming a victim status(wasn't so shovel ready as we thought) when in reality markets determine success or failures. Liberals don't understand the concept of low cost producer and that is why solyndra failed. It failed to meet that criteria and lost the race, filing for bankruptcy.

Hmmm...... We threw a whole bunch of money at some big dams prior to WW2. Bet there was major opposition to this from the shellbacks of that period. Complaints about the waste of money, ect. At least until that electricity started making the aluminium for the planes of WW2.

Yeah -- and now there are shellbacks who want all the dams torn down.. MOST of Sierra club for instance. But there is sooo much eco-naut discussion about hydroelectric that it's not even on most lists of "alternative sources".. Except when govt officials pad their "alternative" capacities to show how green they are...

Make up your minds --- "shellbacks"...

Shellback?

Better than being a lowly WOG!

 

[flacaltenn]

Hmmm...... We threw a whole bunch of money at some big dams prior to WW2. Bet there was major opposition to this from the shellbacks of that period. Complaints about the waste of money, ect. At least until that electricity started making the aluminium for the planes of WW2.

Yeah -- and now there are shellbacks who want all the dams torn down.. MOST of Sierra club for instance. But there is sooo much eco-naut discussion about hydroelectric that it's not even on most lists of "alternative sources".. Except when govt officials pad their "alternative" capacities to show how green they are...

Make up your minds --- "shellbacks"...

Shellback?

Better than being a lowly WOG!

Very Cool.. I wondered where OleRocks picked that phrase from. My two trusty box turtles were offended by his remarks. Gee maybe Shellbacks are a better investment than GreenBacks..

 

[martybegan]

Even the most efficient solar cells available today, are very inefficient.

everything is inefficient. 50% of all power run through power lines is lost before it gets to your house. I believe (bad memory) that through leaks in your house the average consumer wastes 15% of their heating and cooling cost. A 15 year old fridge uses roughly twice as much as a new energy star fridge does. Every single appliance is your house produces net heat (including fridges and freezers), which is the last thing you want during the summer (in most places).
The only thing that could be said to be remotely efficient, is natural gas heating.

From wikipedia:

Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 6.6% in 1997[10] and 6.5% in 2007.[10] In general, losses are estimated from the discrepancy between energy produced (as reported by power plants) and energy sold to end customers; the difference between what is produced and what is consumed constitute transmission and distribution losses.

Where the hell did you get 50%?

 

[martybegan]

We know how to approach the theoretical max efficiencies for solar PV design. We knew that YEARS ago. A panel built from Gallium Arsenide vs silicon crystal would get us to within 20% or so of the physics. But that would mean TONS of arsenic and a doubling of cost versus growing silicon crystal. Sometimes -- the theoretical limit doesn't yield a product.

The issue of inefficiency is more difficult to overcome. Even with panel efficiencies climbing (slowly now compared with 10 years ago), the installation math for a daytime peaking only system has to be rated almost twice as neccessary to guarantee a minimum power requirement. That gets you thru weather related difficulties such as clouds, preciptn, and sun angle thru-out the year and efficiencies related to converting DC power from the panels to AC for the home wiring and selling back to the grid.

So you BUY more panel than you end up using.. And "off-grid" installations are a whole 'nother animal, requiring tons of battery storage and the eco implications of that. A "off-grid" supermarket would require a tractor trailer full of battery storage to make it thru the night and an installation "overdesign" by a factor of almost three.

The grid load in California at 10PM in the summer is 80% of the load at 1PM. That means that PV solar could provide a MAX of 20% of daytime peaks. That's why you see the mandates for 20% renewables by 2020 and all that nonsense. You cannot turn off nat gas, coal, nuclear plants like a light switch. So there is duplication of spending for the MAIN sources of power. Would we reach 20%? Not likely because of geography, grid design, ect...

So you're right. It's time to put up or STFU.. Government should NEVER be subsidizing run of the mill stuff that's already designed. It actually stifles the perfection of tech, because the subsidy warps price to prefer larger markets at the bottom price. If they want to play market makers, they should only fund R&D for increased performance, or new technology. And the solar market NOW is anything but new technology.

I challenge the bold part above, link? Second off, 1PM is not peak time, that is usually considered to be between 4-6pm. And third how do you figure that this even concludes that you could only use 20% during peak? Comparing using solar during the day vs not being able to use it at night makes no sense. Theoretically California could use all their day time electricity through solar panels, and switch to other uses at night.

The factoid came from daily charts that I watched in Cal to predict brown-outs at my company. Specifically from the CA Indep Sys Oper (CALISO), the bozos tasked with waking up each morning and trying to find power a state that OUTLAWED long term contracts. Anyway.. You can view the hourly Load management at

California ISO - Todays Outlook

Be aware that this IS NOT peak summer, it IS a weekend, and NOT that typical summer day that I described. Depending on when you view it will give different results. I HAD to study it for years to protect one of clients from losing experimental data. My observations ARE correct for MOST summer days/nights in Cal. Although I did leave out the WORKDAY qualifier which was what I was most concerned with in the 3rd world of Cal Silicon Valley.

PEAK SUMMER LOADS are the "best case design" for any scenario involving solar when considering the swing from day to night.. And 10PM is the "evening peak" in most all load charts. Look it up..



REALLY? the ENTIRE country? Folks in the NorthEast will be very employed sweeping snow loads off panels won't they? Even tho the installed capacity would have to rated at more than TWICE the average PEAK SUMMER LOADS to guarantee that promise due to weather variations and sun angles? And that you'd be shedding MORE than 1/2 of that produced capacity during the peak summer to waste?

You need to be careful with naive scenario pronouncements such as this that have little connection to hour by hour, month by month variations in demand. But such is the "religious fervor" of the addicted..

Supplementing is with wind power, that can run during the day and through part of the night, and finally, since neither of these store electricity, using hydro electric to provide for power at night, and in case of any shortfalls in solar (clouds) and wind (no wind), since hydro electric stores electricity very very well (all the water behind the dam is potential energy that can be used at any time).

Left out of this "analysis" is the energy and inefficiencies associated with PUMPING that water that requires a HUGE over capacity of wind/solar to run the "storage". Again causing severe economic issues with land usage to site those generators, provide basins for the storage and all the enviro consequences associated with that. Doesn't work in Kansas or much of the flatlands too well either. Actual engineering considerations for where and how frequent these opportunities would be are staggering sober -- compared to your raw enthusiasm..

The real reason that they said 20% by 2020 is simply cost. To switch the entire country, the upfront cost would be in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars. Sort of like building every power plant in the country all at once. Then you add in that tens of thousands of power plant workers would be laid off in the period of time, and the idea is just not good. Basically what that 20% figure represents is, all new sources of energy should be green, that way no one gets laid off

Bull -- the percentages are based on actual math science using the RELIABILITY, load cycle demands and opportunities to propose a mix that actually works -- NOT COST. When trying to balance wind/solar with the back-up MAIN power generators that must stand idle waiting to be used (nat gas, nuclear, coal, hydro, ect.)

Speaking of wind -- take a gander at Figure V-F in the CALISO report at:

http://www.caiso.com/Documents/2005SummerAssessmentReport.pdf

Wind only available on 4 of the 10 peak summer 2004 days. It only exceeded 50% of AVERAGE capacity on only 2 of 10 peak days.. That's AVERAGE -- not even peak capacity.

That's a LOT of jobs just managing the REAL generators that have to be jerked around to make wind power look useful..

You cannot melt the grid down for 2 hours a day for renewables and switch the other generators on/off like light bulbs..

So if you have articles pretending to claim this is solved.. By all means please share.

was going to reply to this but you did it pretty well.

The best plants for quick start are natural gas plants. For Coal and Oil you would have to keep them at hot standby, which uses fuel. Also remember that it is not only a question of night, but of clouds, which would require near instantaneous switchover from solar to standby plants.

Add the need to maintain these plants to the equation and your costs for power generation soar.

 

[mawlarky]

I think that the best use of solar power can be made if the collectors are used as stand alone units which charge up batteries which in turn can be inverted to a suitable appliance running voltage and the enrgy from the batteries can also be used to directly power low voltage/low energy lighting such as LED lamps.
I also think that people need to concentate more on energy saving as well as how the energy is produced, a little bit of research does go a long way. Although I do not have solar panels for electrical generation I do use solar tubes for heating water/central heating and a couple of small wind turbines for almost all my electrical needs, this is only posible through use of low energy lighting and careful insulation etc. I understand that wind turbines as a stand alone setup would not suit everyone but solar panels do offer a great opportunity to rid yourself from the rat race of energy supply companies when used as stand alone independant units, the idea of feeding into a grid is a bit pointless imo plus there will be no energy loss as a stand alone generating system.
When we get power failures here in Ireland which is quite often I still have my lights on whereas most others are sitting in darkness waiting for their freezers to thaw out, this is another advantage of a stand alone system.

 

[saveliberty]

I think the best use of solar power is for calculators. Nobody runs those things in the dark.

 

[mawlarky]

I think the best use of solar power is for calculators. Nobody runs those things in the dark.

Most people will be out working when the solar panels are doing their thing which is why I prefer to store the daylight energy for nightime use via batteries, it does work. Same rules apply when connecting to a grid system, no sense generating sparks when you are not at home to use them.

 

[asterism]

I think the best use of solar power is for calculators. Nobody runs those things in the dark.

Most people will be out working when the solar panels are doing their thing which is why I prefer to store the daylight energy for nightime use via batteries, it does work. Same rules apply when connecting to a grid system, no sense generating sparks when you are not at home to use them.

Most people are "out" working? You mean you don't think people consume energy at an office or on a construction site?

 

[mawlarky]

I think the best use of solar power is for calculators. Nobody runs those things in the dark.

Most people will be out working when the solar panels are doing their thing which is why I prefer to store the daylight energy for nightime use via batteries, it does work. Same rules apply when connecting to a grid system, no sense generating sparks when you are not at home to use them.

Most people are "out" working? You mean you don't think people consume energy at an office or on a construction site?

I doubt if the office or construction site will be connecting up to the solar panels and storage batteries at your home. Let the office and construction site generate their own sparks.

 

[asterism]

Most people will be out working when the solar panels are doing their thing which is why I prefer to store the daylight energy for nightime use via batteries, it does work. Same rules apply when connecting to a grid system, no sense generating sparks when you are not at home to use them.

Most people are "out" working? You mean you don't think people consume energy at an office or on a construction site?

I doubt if the office or construction site will be connecting up to the solar panels and storage batteries at your home. Let the office and construction site generate their own sparks.

Ah. So your plan isn't to conserve energy, just transfer the cost? How is that going to work? What about shift workers? What about people who work from home? What about retirees and homemakers?

This is just like the mass transportation nuts who think they are saving gas by riding the bus.

 

[martybegan]

I think that the best use of solar power can be made if the collectors are used as stand alone units which charge up batteries which in turn can be inverted to a suitable appliance running voltage and the enrgy from the batteries can also be used to directly power low voltage/low energy lighting such as LED lamps.
I also think that people need to concentate more on energy saving as well as how the energy is produced, a little bit of research does go a long way. Although I do not have solar panels for electrical generation I do use solar tubes for heating water/central heating and a couple of small wind turbines for almost all my electrical needs, this is only posible through use of low energy lighting and careful insulation etc. I understand that wind turbines as a stand alone setup would not suit everyone but solar panels do offer a great opportunity to rid yourself from the rat race of energy supply companies when used as stand alone independant units, the idea of feeding into a grid is a bit pointless imo plus there will be no energy loss as a stand alone generating system.
When we get power failures here in Ireland which is quite often I still have my lights on whereas most others are sitting in darkness waiting for their freezers to thaw out, this is another advantage of a stand alone system.

Battery storage is grossly inefficent based on the mateirals required for creation, and the operational life of said batteries. The size of batteries required to run your house overnight would probably fill most of your basement at the current level of technology.

 

[asterism]

I think that the best use of solar power can be made if the collectors are used as stand alone units which charge up batteries which in turn can be inverted to a suitable appliance running voltage and the enrgy from the batteries can also be used to directly power low voltage/low energy lighting such as LED lamps.
I also think that people need to concentate more on energy saving as well as how the energy is produced, a little bit of research does go a long way. Although I do not have solar panels for electrical generation I do use solar tubes for heating water/central heating and a couple of small wind turbines for almost all my electrical needs, this is only posible through use of low energy lighting and careful insulation etc. I understand that wind turbines as a stand alone setup would not suit everyone but solar panels do offer a great opportunity to rid yourself from the rat race of energy supply companies when used as stand alone independant units, the idea of feeding into a grid is a bit pointless imo plus there will be no energy loss as a stand alone generating system.
When we get power failures here in Ireland which is quite often I still have my lights on whereas most others are sitting in darkness waiting for their freezers to thaw out, this is another advantage of a stand alone system.

Battery storage is grossly inefficent based on the mateirals required for creation, and the operational life of said batteries. The size of batteries required to run your house overnight would probably fill most of your basement at the current level of technology.

And then there is the energy used to create and transport these batteries. There's no true savings, just a transfer of cost.

 

[mawlarky]

I think that the best use of solar power can be made if the collectors are used as stand alone units which charge up batteries which in turn can be inverted to a suitable appliance running voltage and the enrgy from the batteries can also be used to directly power low voltage/low energy lighting such as LED lamps.
I also think that people need to concentate more on energy saving as well as how the energy is produced, a little bit of research does go a long way. Although I do not have solar panels for electrical generation I do use solar tubes for heating water/central heating and a couple of small wind turbines for almost all my electrical needs, this is only posible through use of low energy lighting and careful insulation etc. I understand that wind turbines as a stand alone setup would not suit everyone but solar panels do offer a great opportunity to rid yourself from the rat race of energy supply companies when used as stand alone independant units, the idea of feeding into a grid is a bit pointless imo plus there will be no energy loss as a stand alone generating system.
When we get power failures here in Ireland which is quite often I still have my lights on whereas most others are sitting in darkness waiting for their freezers to thaw out, this is another advantage of a stand alone system.

Battery storage is grossly inefficent based on the mateirals required for creation, and the operational life of said batteries. The size of batteries required to run your house overnight would probably fill most of your basement at the current level of technology.

My 48 battery system all of which are recovered from a scrapyard cost very little and will run my home for weeks without any charging from the wind turbines, the batteries range between 60 and 100 AH each and run 12/24 volt led lighting directly with my entire lighting consumption using only 200 watts when everything is switched on. Other items such as fridge, t.v and computer etc are all low consumption items run via 2 x 1kw invertors which run at nowhere near their capacity, the only item I use of the mains supply are a kettle and washing machine. I have never run out of capacity yet since I live in a reliable wind area.

 

[martybegan]

I think that the best use of solar power can be made if the collectors are used as stand alone units which charge up batteries which in turn can be inverted to a suitable appliance running voltage and the enrgy from the batteries can also be used to directly power low voltage/low energy lighting such as LED lamps.
I also think that people need to concentate more on energy saving as well as how the energy is produced, a little bit of research does go a long way. Although I do not have solar panels for electrical generation I do use solar tubes for heating water/central heating and a couple of small wind turbines for almost all my electrical needs, this is only posible through use of low energy lighting and careful insulation etc. I understand that wind turbines as a stand alone setup would not suit everyone but solar panels do offer a great opportunity to rid yourself from the rat race of energy supply companies when used as stand alone independant units, the idea of feeding into a grid is a bit pointless imo plus there will be no energy loss as a stand alone generating system.
When we get power failures here in Ireland which is quite often I still have my lights on whereas most others are sitting in darkness waiting for their freezers to thaw out, this is another advantage of a stand alone system.

Battery storage is grossly inefficent based on the mateirals required for creation, and the operational life of said batteries. The size of batteries required to run your house overnight would probably fill most of your basement at the current level of technology.

And then there is the energy used to create and transport these batteries. There's no true savings, just a transfer of cost.

If they could increase the storage efficency and the cost of production it would become viable, it just isnt so right now.

 

[martybegan]

I think that the best use of solar power can be made if the collectors are used as stand alone units which charge up batteries which in turn can be inverted to a suitable appliance running voltage and the enrgy from the batteries can also be used to directly power low voltage/low energy lighting such as LED lamps.
I also think that people need to concentate more on energy saving as well as how the energy is produced, a little bit of research does go a long way. Although I do not have solar panels for electrical generation I do use solar tubes for heating water/central heating and a couple of small wind turbines for almost all my electrical needs, this is only posible through use of low energy lighting and careful insulation etc. I understand that wind turbines as a stand alone setup would not suit everyone but solar panels do offer a great opportunity to rid yourself from the rat race of energy supply companies when used as stand alone independant units, the idea of feeding into a grid is a bit pointless imo plus there will be no energy loss as a stand alone generating system.
When we get power failures here in Ireland which is quite often I still have my lights on whereas most others are sitting in darkness waiting for their freezers to thaw out, this is another advantage of a stand alone system.

Battery storage is grossly inefficent based on the mateirals required for creation, and the operational life of said batteries. The size of batteries required to run your house overnight would probably fill most of your basement at the current level of technology.

My 48 battery system all of which are recovered from a scrapyard cost very little and will run my home for weeks without any charging from the wind turbines, the batteries range between 60 and 100 AH each and run 12/24 volt led lighting directly with my entire lighting consumption using only 200 watts when everything is switched on. Other items such as fridge, t.v and computer etc are all low consumption items run via 2 x 1kw invertors which run at nowhere near their capacity, the only item I use of the mains supply are a kettle and washing machine. I have never run out of capacity yet since I live in a reliable wind area.

This seems a little to perfect of a response to be true, also considering you user name...

 

[flacaltenn]

I challenge the bold part above, link? Second off, 1PM is not peak time, that is usually considered to be between 4-6pm. And third how do you figure that this even concludes that you could only use 20% during peak? Comparing using solar during the day vs not being able to use it at night makes no sense. Theoretically California could use all their day time electricity through solar panels, and switch to other uses at night.

The factoid came from daily charts that I watched in Cal to predict brown-outs at my company. Specifically from the CA Indep Sys Oper (CALISO), the bozos tasked with waking up each morning and trying to find power a state that OUTLAWED long term contracts. Anyway.. You can view the hourly Load management at

California ISO - Todays Outlook

Be aware that this IS NOT peak summer, it IS a weekend, and NOT that typical summer day that I described. Depending on when you view it will give different results. I HAD to study it for years to protect one of clients from losing experimental data. My observations ARE correct for MOST summer days/nights in Cal. Although I did leave out the WORKDAY qualifier which was what I was most concerned with in the 3rd world of Cal Silicon Valley.

PEAK SUMMER LOADS are the "best case design" for any scenario involving solar when considering the swing from day to night.. And 10PM is the "evening peak" in most all load charts. Look it up..



REALLY? the ENTIRE country? Folks in the NorthEast will be very employed sweeping snow loads off panels won't they? Even tho the installed capacity would have to rated at more than TWICE the average PEAK SUMMER LOADS to guarantee that promise due to weather variations and sun angles? And that you'd be shedding MORE than 1/2 of that produced capacity during the peak summer to waste?

You need to be careful with naive scenario pronouncements such as this that have little connection to hour by hour, month by month variations in demand. But such is the "religious fervor" of the addicted..



Left out of this "analysis" is the energy and inefficiencies associated with PUMPING that water that requires a HUGE over capacity of wind/solar to run the "storage". Again causing severe economic issues with land usage to site those generators, provide basins for the storage and all the enviro consequences associated with that. Doesn't work in Kansas or much of the flatlands too well either. Actual engineering considerations for where and how frequent these opportunities would be are staggering sober -- compared to your raw enthusiasm..

The real reason that they said 20% by 2020 is simply cost. To switch the entire country, the upfront cost would be in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars. Sort of like building every power plant in the country all at once. Then you add in that tens of thousands of power plant workers would be laid off in the period of time, and the idea is just not good. Basically what that 20% figure represents is, all new sources of energy should be green, that way no one gets laid off

Bull -- the percentages are based on actual math science using the RELIABILITY, load cycle demands and opportunities to propose a mix that actually works -- NOT COST. When trying to balance wind/solar with the back-up MAIN power generators that must stand idle waiting to be used (nat gas, nuclear, coal, hydro, ect.)

Speaking of wind -- take a gander at Figure V-F in the CALISO report at:

http://www.caiso.com/Documents/2005SummerAssessmentReport.pdf

Wind only available on 4 of the 10 peak summer 2004 days. It only exceeded 50% of AVERAGE capacity on only 2 of 10 peak days.. That's AVERAGE -- not even peak capacity.

That's a LOT of jobs just managing the REAL generators that have to be jerked around to make wind power look useful..

You cannot melt the grid down for 2 hours a day for renewables and switch the other generators on/off like light bulbs..

So if you have articles pretending to claim this is solved.. By all means please share.

was going to reply to this but you did it pretty well.

The best plants for quick start are natural gas plants. For Coal and Oil you would have to keep them at hot standby, which uses fuel. Also remember that it is not only a question of night, but of clouds, which would require near instantaneous switchover from solar to standby plants.

Add the need to maintain these plants to the equation and your costs for power generation soar.

Yep.. Full back-up required to be available nearly all the time. But wait -- there's more.

There is the market management of all this. Remember when Calif outlawed long term contracts and had to buy all new sources every morning? How did THAT work out for them? Not knowing WHO will be supplying your backup power tomorrow? IMAGINE the market mayhem trying to line up even DAILY contracts and allotments when the wind/solar grid source fluctuates every 20 minutes!!! How do you even BUY back-up power at 10 minutes notice? And what if your favorite supplier is tapped out?

These eco-nauts don't know that keeping the lights on is as complicated as it really is..

 

[martybegan]

The factoid came from daily charts that I watched in Cal to predict brown-outs at my company. Specifically from the CA Indep Sys Oper (CALISO), the bozos tasked with waking up each morning and trying to find power a state that OUTLAWED long term contracts. Anyway.. You can view the hourly Load management at

California ISO - Todays Outlook

Be aware that this IS NOT peak summer, it IS a weekend, and NOT that typical summer day that I described. Depending on when you view it will give different results. I HAD to study it for years to protect one of clients from losing experimental data. My observations ARE correct for MOST summer days/nights in Cal. Although I did leave out the WORKDAY qualifier which was what I was most concerned with in the 3rd world of Cal Silicon Valley.

PEAK SUMMER LOADS are the "best case design" for any scenario involving solar when considering the swing from day to night.. And 10PM is the "evening peak" in most all load charts. Look it up..



REALLY? the ENTIRE country? Folks in the NorthEast will be very employed sweeping snow loads off panels won't they? Even tho the installed capacity would have to rated at more than TWICE the average PEAK SUMMER LOADS to guarantee that promise due to weather variations and sun angles? And that you'd be shedding MORE than 1/2 of that produced capacity during the peak summer to waste?

You need to be careful with naive scenario pronouncements such as this that have little connection to hour by hour, month by month variations in demand. But such is the "religious fervor" of the addicted..



Left out of this "analysis" is the energy and inefficiencies associated with PUMPING that water that requires a HUGE over capacity of wind/solar to run the "storage". Again causing severe economic issues with land usage to site those generators, provide basins for the storage and all the enviro consequences associated with that. Doesn't work in Kansas or much of the flatlands too well either. Actual engineering considerations for where and how frequent these opportunities would be are staggering sober -- compared to your raw enthusiasm..



Bull -- the percentages are based on actual math science using the RELIABILITY, load cycle demands and opportunities to propose a mix that actually works -- NOT COST. When trying to balance wind/solar with the back-up MAIN power generators that must stand idle waiting to be used (nat gas, nuclear, coal, hydro, ect.)

Speaking of wind -- take a gander at Figure V-F in the CALISO report at:

http://www.caiso.com/Documents/2005SummerAssessmentReport.pdf

Wind only available on 4 of the 10 peak summer 2004 days. It only exceeded 50% of AVERAGE capacity on only 2 of 10 peak days.. That's AVERAGE -- not even peak capacity.

That's a LOT of jobs just managing the REAL generators that have to be jerked around to make wind power look useful..

You cannot melt the grid down for 2 hours a day for renewables and switch the other generators on/off like light bulbs..

So if you have articles pretending to claim this is solved.. By all means please share.

was going to reply to this but you did it pretty well.

The best plants for quick start are natural gas plants. For Coal and Oil you would have to keep them at hot standby, which uses fuel. Also remember that it is not only a question of night, but of clouds, which would require near instantaneous switchover from solar to standby plants.

Add the need to maintain these plants to the equation and your costs for power generation soar.

Yep.. Full back-up required to be available nearly all the time. But wait -- there's more.

There is the market management of all this. Remember when Calif outlawed long term contracts and had to buy all new sources every morning? How did THAT work out for them? Not knowing WHO will be supplying your backup power tomorrow? IMAGINE the market mayhem trying to line up even DAILY contracts and allotments when the wind/solar grid source fluctuates every 20 minutes!!! How do you even BUY back-up power at 10 minutes notice? And what if your favorite supplier is tapped out?

These eco-nauts don't know that keeping the lights on is as complicated as it really is..

This is where the smart metering comes in. If you can realtime demand, it makes it easier to realtime supply, reducing the need for excess emergency supply.

That being said, I know there is some resistance to smart metering, mostly due to people thinking that it allows the government to see what you use power for. It can only give total flow, not what type of appliance you are using at any given time.

 

[asterism]

Battery storage is grossly inefficent based on the mateirals required for creation, and the operational life of said batteries. The size of batteries required to run your house overnight would probably fill most of your basement at the current level of technology.

And then there is the energy used to create and transport these batteries. There's no true savings, just a transfer of cost.

If they could increase the storage efficency and the cost of production it would become viable, it just isnt so right now.

True. Operative words there being "if" and "could," and that's why solar and wind aren't capable of being anything but niche production means in the forseeable future. No government crony capitalism scheme of any size will solve that problem.

 

[martybegan]

And then there is the energy used to create and transport these batteries. There's no true savings, just a transfer of cost.

If they could increase the storage efficency and the cost of production it would become viable, it just isnt so right now.

True. Operative words there being "if" and "could," and that's why solar and wind aren't capable of being anything but niche production means in the forseeable future. No government crony capitalism scheme of any size will solve that problem.

It requires research, i agree. The problem is that government seems to want to skip the development phase and go right into engineering phase, with technology that isn't adequate yet. The research needed is in the materials field, we know the theories, what we don't have is the equipment to do it yet.