Grid-tied solar

[Redneck in training]

Stanford University is putting 500 million into it's campus solar system and said it will save the University tens of millions of dollars and was actually the less expensive option.

The old campus power plant no longer met environmental standards and the University found it to be cost saving to not replace it.

Powering Stanford

A few weeks back the Chronicle ran this story of Texas investing 500 million in Solar.

Texas Senate approves $500 million for solar power - Houston Chronicle

Based on number of panels installed I estimate that PV portion of the project will cost less than 100 million.

 

[Redneck in training]

Tesla will announce home and grid scale batteries.
Tesla to announce home and utility-scale battery next week: pv-magazine

 

[3930dave]

Tesla will announce home and grid scale batteries.
Tesla to announce home and utility-scale battery next week: pv-magazine

This may not be the game changer that some people are looking for (near infinite storage capacity, for close to zero dollars), but I think Musk is well on his way to shaking up the energy game.

It's about time.

Rgds, D.

 

[KiwiBro]

Tesla will announce home and grid scale batteries.
Tesla to announce home and utility-scale battery next week: pv-magazine

I have to hand it to Musk and others willing to pony up the mega $ to do these kinds of things when the science behind all alternative options is not mature and a massively disruptive alternative could spell disaster for their investment. Given they have a strategic advantage in that they are controlling to some degree the demand on the gigafactory's output via their EV and SolarCity investments perhaps the risks are less.

But even if alternative storage technology matures to the point someone else can prove today that their new idea is easily able to be commercialised, such technology will still be about 3 or 4 years behind where gigfactory is right now in terms of bringing the product to market having overcome all the product standards and adoption issues. So, perhaps it's not as big a gamble as it sounds.

Or perhaps the game-changing threats to the gigafactory are not just from alternative storage science but also the road to market once proven? Perhaps an alternative could piggyback on existing mass-market production techniques somehow, and as such radically reduce the time and cost from lab to market?

Japan is doing some really interesting (the theoretical storage density being about 40x greater than that of lithium-ion) aluminium-air storage that promises (like all-too-many false dawns in this storage market it seems) to be a serious game-changer:
Fuji Pigment Unveils Aluminium-Air Battery Rechargeable by Refilling Salty or Normal Water -- KAWANISHI, Japan, Jan. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

And then there is solid state storage that sakti3 is developing although whilst they have had a hard focus on fast and cheap production methods, they seem to have deliberately avoided large scale and EV storage, rather smaller devices like phones and vacuums, etc. Presumably without the same amount of hoops to jump through as the other markets like EV's and home/grid storage that Tesla and SolarCity are targeting:
Sakti

 

[3930dave]

I have to hand it to Musk and others willing to pony up the mega $ to do these kinds of things when the science behind all alternative options is not mature and a massively disruptive alternative could spell disaster for their investment. Given they have a strategic advantage in that they are controlling to some degree the demand on the gigafactory's output via their EV and SolarCity investments perhaps the risks are less.

It's been a while since one individual has been associated with production and vertical integration on this scale. Musk reminds me of Henry Ford in this respect.

EV and grid power obviously have plenty of consumer and safety regs. Even w/o considering those issues, just the enviro regs you'd have to wade through to begin to set up a new industrial plant this size on US soil is enough to cause most corporations to walk away.

Like him or not, it takes somebody as disruptive as Musk to pull this off.

25 years ago the lithium products that we have now would have looked pretty amazing. 10 years from now, some other chemistry will likely be in their place. I welcome the better energy density that will bring.

Rgds, D.

 

[tjcarguy]

Musk might have put a fortune at risk but his forte' seems to be mining gov subsidies --- Trevor

 

[dave1949]

Results for April 2015.

A good April. Above the model but the lowest April so far.


*********************************** Model Prediction ***********************************************
OLD
_______388____412____509_____374____353____308____ 341___383____394____369____283____331____4,447

NEW Waterville, ME
_______273____322____491_____449____417____375____ 438___542____443____408____350____319____4,827

NEW Portland, ME
_______453____486____523_____452____448____409____ 444___464____466____461____351____368____5,325


GENERATION
Year___Jan____Feb____Mar____Apr_____May____Jun____ Jul____Aug____Sep____Oct____Nov____Dec____Total

2012____NA____NA_____NA____NA_____NA_____NA_____NA ___461_____481____378____400____297____NA
2013____440___375____462____487_____375____379____ 377___470_____476____453____414____278____4,986
2014____360___446____577____525_____361____390____ 395___453_____489____380____295____299____4,970
2015____431___456____612____473


Values are AC kilowatt hours.
Model source: NREL PVWatts Calculator

 

[ultrarunner]

The news this morning is California Governor Brown issued an executive order upping/shortening the time requirement for California to have 50% electricity production from renewables...

Don't look for Solar to go away.

 

[ultrarunner]

Follow the money...

So far all the proposals are for grid tied installations...

More of my friends are going 100% off grid... still a very small number... but who knows what the future holds?

Off topic... there will also be new surcharges on electric vehicles...

The two Doctors that have embraced solar 100% charge their Nissan Leaf and Tesla from homegrown Solar and are not happy to say the least...

Many changes ahead for sure... since the phone company plans to get out of the landline business... this leaves the burden of power poles solely to electric companies...

Add the drought to the mix and $100 a month minimum service connect fees to make up for lost water revenue...

Well.. my friends going off grid along the California coastal redwoods might just be right afterall.

 

[Egon]

But there are places that require attachment to the grid.