So much for a Nissan Leaf!

[houstonscott]

That's a fair question, Bob. Yes, I use the grid as a battery. I don't use the grid for free. The basic charge for a residential customer service connection is $9.36 per month for 0 to 100 kWhs. Above 100 kWhs an additional service connection fee of ~$0.07 per kWh is charged. That is separate from the supplier charge of ~$0.08 per kWh for all kWhs used. I paid ~$5500 to get connected to the grid, setting four poles and running the wire, etc. That wasn't free. :laughing: There are many months when all I pay is the minimum $9.36 basic service connection fee. If my monthly usage exceeds what I generated, I pay the regular rates for those kWhs. If I generate more in a month than I use, those kWhs are "banked" as a credit that I can draw from in months where usage exceeds generation. Unused credits expire when they are over twelve months old. I will never get a check from the power co. for excess generation under Maine's grid-tied rules. A proposal to raise that basic service connection fee to $24 per month for 0 to 100 kWhs takes some serious justification that I don't believe is possible. Also, if I am a grid "free rider" then so are all the non-solar camps and second homes in Maine that stay connected but use less than 100 kWhs monthly for half the year while paying the minimum $9.36 per month. A small administrative fee to track banked solar credits in their billing system would be understandable. The bottom line I believe, is the power company sees a lot more solar generation in their future and is trying to fundamentally alter their billing structure to account for that. The current system assumes revenue in excess of the monthly minimum, that revenue will decline in coming years. It is absolutely wrong to "give back" that higher monthly minimum in the form of lower rates for power consumed as is proposed in the new rate structure. That is putting an unfair burden on those who do generate most of their own power, and would turn high usage customers into grid "free riders" themselves. Grid-tied users collectively lower grid infrastructure costs, high usage customers create higher grid infrastructure costs. It may well be that the power co. needs to charge more for the basic service connection to cover their operational costs. They don't need to lower per kWh rates to high usage customers to accomplish that however. That is basically dividing customers into "good" and "bad" groups. That construct has no place in a monopoly utility IMO.

Invest in the power company and the numbers get even better. HS

 

[SPIKER]

Around here the Elec COOP has already gone and upped our rural service fees I am now paying between 40 and 55 per month for my farm when I have very little usage there. The fees and taxes for those fees are 90% of my bill.

The Solar and Wind industry has slowed down quite a bit since 2009 bit on that in this article
Where Clean Energy Dollars Go: Live Coverage of #BNEF2014 - Bloomberg

Someone was talking about the DC vs AC which was settled back between Tesla & Edison (Westinghouse vs Edison Electric) when AC can travel great distances without needing to build hundreds of small generation plants. Even HF DC the new style systems has same basic limitations underlying them that they had back in the 1880's when the battle raged. There are methods of creating HF AC (which actually switch DC from + to -) with little to no sweep time between the switch from + to - but there are limitations as capacitance and inductance become issues. Then there requires a lot more tech at each and every point to turn that into something a home (with existing equipment) can use.

Many other good sources exist to find out the trends going for Electrical Generation both Global and US/North American issues. This site has some good links and great place to start.
FS UNEP Centre | Frankfurt School UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance


Mark

 

[3930dave]

You all realize that there isn't the electric infrastructure to charge electric cars. You would have to double the number of power plants in this country. Last year the NE was one power plant away from blackouts. We can just with the narrowest of an edge supply electricity for heat, and lighting. Electric cars are out. HS

If true, that's a pretty lame position for a first world country to be in. Did all those people suddenly start using Heat and Light ?

Post de-regulation, a big problem in some parts of the USA is sorting out actual shortages from manipulated ones....

California electricity crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The California electricity crisis, also known as the Western U.S. Energy Crisis of 2000 and 2001, was a situation in which the United States state of California had a shortage of electricity supply caused by market manipulations, illegal[5] shutdowns of pipelines by the Texas energy consortium Enron, and capped retail electricity prices.[6] The state suffered from multiple large-scale blackouts, one of the state's largest energy companies collapsed, and the economic fall-out greatly harmed Governor Gray Davis's standing.

Drought, delays in approval of new power plants,[7] and market manipulation decreased supply. This caused an 800% increase in wholesale prices from April 2000 to December 2000.[8] In addition, rolling blackouts adversely affected many businesses dependent upon a reliable supply of electricity, and inconvenienced a large number of retail consumers.

California had an installed generating capacity of 45GW. At the time of the blackouts, demand was 28GW. A demand supply gap was created by energy companies, mainly Enron, to create an artificial shortage. Energy traders took power plants offline for maintenance in days of peak demand to increase the price.[9][10] Traders were thus able to sell power at premium prices, sometimes up to a factor of 20 times its normal value. Because the state government had a cap on retail electricity charges, this market manipulation squeezed the industry's revenue margins, causing the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and near bankruptcy of Southern California Edison in early 2001.[11]

The financial crisis was possible because of partial deregulation legislation instituted in 1996 by the California Legislature (AB 1890) and Governor Pete Wilson. Enron took advantage of this deregulation and was involved in economic withholding and inflated price bidding in California's spot markets.[12]

The crisis cost between $40 to $45 billion.[13]


Off-grid is definitely not for everybody.... a pretty simple acid test is if/how an individual maintains their vehicles...... The typical consumer doing zero maintenance on cars is likely not a good candidate for owning a battery bank - not that the maintenance is a big deal.... it's more work owning a hamster....

Personally, I would have taken the $5500 that Dave paid the utility company, and put it into an off-grid battery bank. But, that's just me.

Rgds, D.

 

[houstonscott]

If true, that's a pretty lame position for a first world country to be in. Did all those people suddenly start using Heat and Light ? Post de-regulation, a big problem in some parts of the USA is sorting out actual shortages from manipulated ones.... California electricity crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The California electricity crisis, also known as the Western U.S. Energy Crisis of 2000 and 2001, was a situation in which the United States state of California had a shortage of electricity supply caused by market manipulations, illegal[5] shutdowns of pipelines by the Texas energy consortium Enron, and capped retail electricity prices.[6] The state suffered from multiple large-scale blackouts, one of the state's largest energy companies collapsed, and the economic fall-out greatly harmed Governor Gray Davis's standing. Drought, delays in approval of new power plants,[7] and market manipulation decreased supply. This caused an 800% increase in wholesale prices from April 2000 to December 2000.[8] In addition, rolling blackouts adversely affected many businesses dependent upon a reliable supply of electricity, and inconvenienced a large number of retail consumers. California had an installed generating capacity of 45GW. At the time of the blackouts, demand was 28GW. A demand supply gap was created by energy companies, mainly Enron, to create an artificial shortage. Energy traders took power plants offline for maintenance in days of peak demand to increase the price.[9][10] Traders were thus able to sell power at premium prices, sometimes up to a factor of 20 times its normal value. Because the state government had a cap on retail electricity charges, this market manipulation squeezed the industry's revenue margins, causing the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and near bankruptcy of Southern California Edison in early 2001.[11] The financial crisis was possible because of partial deregulation legislation instituted in 1996 by the California Legislature (AB 1890) and Governor Pete Wilson. Enron took advantage of this deregulation and was involved in economic withholding and inflated price bidding in California's spot markets.[12] The crisis cost between $40 to $45 billion.[13] Off-grid is definitely not for everybody.... a pretty simple acid test is if/how an individual maintains their vehicles...... The typical consumer doing zero maintenance on cars is likely not a good candidate for owning a battery bank - not that the maintenance is a big deal.... it's more work owning a hamster.... Personally, I would have taken the $5500 that Dave paid the utility company, and put it into an off-grid battery bank. But, that's just me. Rgds, D.

Yeah, courts ruled against CA and told them to pay up, they signed the contract then wouldn't pay. Screw California, wish Enron had shut them down. Pay your bill California, had they payed Enron would still exist. HS

 

[dave1949]

Personally, I would have taken the $5500 that Dave paid the utility company, and put it into an off-grid battery bank. But, that's just me.

Rgds, D.

LOL I did consider that. We made choices in our house that would work for off-grid, and came very close to going off-grid initially.

The stopper for me was something it's hard to put a dollar value on. I considered the case of me meeting an early demise and leaving Sharon with something she isn't equipped for or interested in managing, and really no good service person to call on to do the normal checks and maintenance. To my knowledge, eight years later I'm still here :laughing: and that person still doesn't exist. There is an army of people who will plow the driveway or mow the grass, maintain your off-grid system--not so much but I expect its coming someday.

Another financial consideration is resale value. I believe an off-grid house will take a hit in resale value, so will a bermed passive solar home. Not as much as earlier, but the differential is still there. On the other hand, a home with a grid-tied system gets a value boost.

 

[buickanddeere]

You all realize that there isn't the electric infrastructure to charge electric cars. You would have to double the number of power plants in this country. Last year the NE was one power plant away from blackouts. We can just with the narrowest of an edge supply electricity for heat, and lighting. Electric cars are out. HS

Are talking about if every vehicle on the road was electric and drivers charged during daytime at work? Or if everybodies 2nd vehicle used for short distance commuting etc . There is plenty of grid capacity to charge those after 9:00PM at night with 3.3KW chargers . Even the 6.6 and 8Kw fast chargers would be ok.

 

[3930dave]

LOL I did consider that. We made choices in our house that would work for off-grid, and came very close to going off-grid initially.

The stopper for me was something it's hard to put a dollar value on. I considered the case of me meeting an early demise and leaving Sharon with something she isn't equipped for or interested in managing, and really no good service person to call on to do the normal checks and maintenance. To my knowledge, eight years later I'm still here :laughing: and that person still doesn't exist. There is an army of people who will plow the driveway or mow the grass, maintain your off-grid system--not so much but I expect its coming someday.

Another financial consideration is resale value. I believe an off-grid house will take a hit in resale value, so will a bermed passive solar home. Not as much as earlier, but the differential is still there. On the other hand, a home with a grid-tied system gets a value boost.

Everyone's situation and priorites often differ. I didn't have to read too many of your posts to know that you would have a good set of reasons for making the decision that you did, connecting to the grid.

I'd hope you've seen enough of my posts to get a sense of what I'm about, but it's worth being explicit. My comment about the $5500 was never a criticism of your decision, rather an expression of my preferences, along with what hopefully comes across as some reasoning for doing so....

Thanks for taking the time to outline your thoughts and experience with your system Dave. It is valuable info and perspective for me, or anybody else who is even half serious about investing their own money in alternative energy.

While I consider battery maintenance to be trivial, you raise a good point about the availability of capable service people, in the general market. Any competent electrician (or for that matter, auto mechanic) should be able to handle basic maintenance on a battery bank. At a minimum, connections need to be kept corrosion free, and properly torqued, and flooded cells need to be topped up. Beyond that, tracking cell specific gravity is a good idea for the long haul, but just doing the basics will go a long way towards extending battery life.

It used to be that an average high school student that even half paid attention in grade 10 chemistry would have been able to maintain a battery..... but I'm mostly just showing my age by making that comment.... :laughing:

Resale can be a polarizing issue..... it's a matter of finding the right buyer, but that can tend to take longer, which is not what most people want to hear. KISS has a broader market appeal, for sure.

Rgds, D.

 

[Pilot]

So what do you Leaf drivers do when you or your spouse forgets to plug in your car? How often do you need to run farther than usual some days? Do you have a backup gas powered car? How far do you commute? Do you limit your driving or plans in the winter when you'll want the heater, need the headlights and the battery power is temperature limited? How often after using the car do you find you need to run an errand but can't because the battery is low? Do you bundle up in winter so the heater won't run down the battery? Do you have A/C and do you use it? How fast does the heater or A/C run down the battery? Do you run with parking lights as dark approaches to avoid headlights putting additional drain on the battery because you are getting low on electrons? Would you have bought the car if you had had to pay the true cost, i.e., had there been no government kickback?

Based on known reserves of lithium we could run out pretty quickly if everyone converted to an electric car overnight, but as prices rise supply will increase with newer discoveries, technology will be developed to get lithium more cheaply or from previously difficult / expensive sources and the market will adjust, which is exactly what has happened to oil (fracking, horizontal drilling) and many other essential resources. I'm not optimistic about breakthrough discoveries in battery technology because they have been working on that for 40+ years and so far, no magic bullet. Could happen, but I'm not holding my breath.



And the grid in many places can't handle a massive shift to electric cars. They won't all be on their 8Kw chargers at night, many will be charged during the day at work or at some government sponsored charging site like Oregon is installing. And many will want a quick charge, drawing even more power. Huge outages that have happened were often complicated by the grid operating almost at capacity, so it's clear we are already grid limited and the greens want to shut down coal fired power plants without pushing for realistic replacements.

Grid: We are shutting down coal fired power plants faster than we are replacing them and replacements are sometimes challenged by those who think we should go totally for wind and solar. Just remember when they talk of a XX megawatt or wind plant they are referring to the maximum power the operation could produce under optimum conditions, not everyday conditions.

And as these plants become more common, the environmental effects will become more important. Solar changes the environment by shading the ground over tens of thousands of acres. Before logging timber we had to do surveys to identify threatened or endangered plants or slugs to ensure the logging would not disturb the existing habitat, in spite of the fact that in some cases logging might have improved the habitat, as shown by the plants or critters being more common in disturbed areas. The same standards will be applied to solar or wind plants when the politics change a little and the politics are the only thing allowing the environmental effects of these operations to be ignored, even though we know wind systems kill millions of birds, some of which are endangered eagles.

 

[Pilot]

So what do you Leaf drivers do when you or your spouse forgets to plug in your car? How often do you need to run farther than usual some days? Do you have a backup gas powered car? How far do you commute? Do you limit your driving or plans in the winter when you'll want the heater, need the headlights and the battery power is temperature limited? How often after using the car do you find you need to run an errand but can't because the battery is low? Do you bundle up in winter so the heater won't run down the battery? Do you have A/C and do you use it? How fast does the heater or A/C run down the battery? Do you run with parking lights as dark approaches to avoid headlights putting additional drain on the battery because you are getting low on electrons? Would you have bought the car if you had had to pay the true cost, i.e., had there been no government kickback?

Based on known reserves of lithium we could run out pretty quickly if everyone converted to an electric car overnight, but as prices rise supply will increase with newer discoveries, technology will be developed to get lithium more cheaply or from previously difficult / expensive sources and the market will adjust, which is exactly what has happened to oil (fracking, horizontal drilling) and many other essential resources. I'm not optimistic about breakthrough discoveries in battery technology because they have been working on that for 40+ years and so far, no magic bullet. Could happen, but I'm not holding my breath.



And the grid in many places can't handle a massive shift to electric cars. They won't all be on their 8Kw chargers at night, many will be charged during the day at work or at some government sponsored charging site like Oregon is installing. And many will want a quick charge, drawing even more power. Huge outages that have happened were often complicated by the grid operating almost at capacity, so it's clear we are already grid limited and the greens want to shut down coal fired power plants without pushing for realistic replacements.

Grid: We are shutting down coal fired power plants faster than we are replacing them and replacements are sometimes challenged by those who think we should go totally for wind and solar. Just remember when they talk of a XX megawatt or wind plant they are referring to the maximum power the operation could produce under optimum conditions, not everyday conditions.

And as these plants become more common, the environmental effects will become more important. Solar changes the environment by shading the ground over tens of thousands of acres. Before logging timber we had to do surveys to identify threatened or endangered plants or slugs to ensure the logging would not disturb the existing habitat, in spite of the fact that in some cases logging might have improved the habitat, as shown by the plants or critters being more common in disturbed areas. The same standards will be applied to solar or wind plants when the politics change a little and the politics are the only thing allowing the environmental effects of these operations to be ignored, even though we know wind systems kill millions of birds, some of which are endangered eagles.

 

[3930dave]

Are talking about if every vehicle on the road was electric and drivers charged during daytime at work? Or if everybodies 2nd vehicle used for short distance commuting etc . There is plenty of grid capacity to charge those after 9:00PM at night with 3.3KW chargers . Even the 6.6 and 8Kw fast chargers would be ok.

Some parts of the USA grid may actually be pretty shaky, but IMO, that really isn't a big factor over all (meaning continent wide).

The funny part of this debate (to me) is the All-Or-Nothing argument.... Let's pretend for the moment that nobody dislikes the Tesla offering...... keep pretending, and let's say Tesla could magically drop the price to $20,000 next week. What percentage of commuters would then run out and buy a Tesla ? At the end of a year of $20,000 pricing, I'd be surprised if even 15% of the commuting fleet had flipped to Tesla.

My point..... I'm not slagging Tesla at all..... just making the point that people are creatures of habit - most will not change their buying patterns that quickly. Any sustained market has their Early, Middle, and Late Adopters - there is no reason that cheap electric vehicles would behave any differently.

Rgds, D.