Solar power & Wind Power for residental use

[KennyG]

Are any of these really new challenges for the power industry? You have all kinds of different power suppliers out there running different types and sizes of plants during different periods of supply and demand, fuel prices up and down, maintenance, etc. If you don't do it better than the next guy you don't succeed, it's called capitalism. There is not guarantee that if you invest in a big power plant it's going to run at 100% profit making potential for you or the next guy. Rules against solar are rules against true capitalism, but that is the way things are going these days, with industry buying the government.

The challenges today are decidedly different. The grid and generation system that was designed to cope with daily, weather related and seasonal variations in demand now has harder to predict variations in supply layers over it. Nothing in the US electricity industry today resembles capitalism. Some states block individual solar installations, some give them unfair advantages with full net metering. The wind industry gets production credit subsidies and mandates to purchase, resulting in negative wholesale electric prices and mandated shutdowns. No matter how efficient a plant is, it can't afford to pay for the privilege of generating.

The perfect example of market distortion and unintended consequences is that wind farms have very little net carbon reduction in some cases because they have forced nuclear plants to shut down and increased the generation from low capital cost gas plants.

 

[MossRoad]

Top 9 Things You Didn't Know About America's Power Grid | Department of Energy

 

[buickanddeere]

Are any of these really new challenges for the power industry? You have all kinds of different power suppliers out there running different types and sizes of plants during different periods of supply and demand, fuel prices up and down, maintenance, etc. If you don't do it better than the next guy you don't succeed, it's called capitalism. There is not guarantee that if you invest in a big power plant it's going to run at 100% profit making potential for you or the next guy. Rules against solar are rules against true capitalism, but that is the way things are going these days, with industry buying the government.

There will always be night and cloudy days, so there will always need to be traditional power production. In a world with optimized solar production the peak demand for traditional sources would simply shift from current sunny days and night might become the key profit making times.

This is all really well beyond the scope of the initial post.

Are you in the industry and know the costs and technical challenges of generating power ? Take away the subsides and green disappears. Subsidized green power competing against conventional is not capitalism.
Night is the absolute worst time to try and make $$$ selling electricity. Anytime on a weekend is 2nd worst. Your statement proves how little you know about power generation, distribution and usage.

 

[Egon]

Top 9 Things You Didn't Know About America's Power Grid | Department of Energy

Electrical power Canada.
[video]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Canada[/video]



Let me add a little about oil & gas subsidies in Canada.
[video]http://www.pembina.org/reports/fossil-fuel-subsidies.pdf[/video]

 

[JCByrd24]

Buickanddeere, You are suggesting other industries aren't subsidized which I highly doubt. I'm not in the industry so I don't know for sure. Do you, including tax benefits etc.? At the end of the day, setting aside subsidies, solar is competition that has the real advantage of getting power from the sun. The traditional industry isn't going to like that. Just like you. That doest mean it should be discouraged.

Isn't it hard to make $$ selling at night because the demand is so low and supply so high? If the day time load matched the night time load better because solar balanced that load then overall less total capacity would be needed and that over supply and low price at night would be reduced. Sure if it happened overnight some company would go out of business but if it slowly implemented over time as is happening it would just result in less new plants being built to meet the huge sunny day demand. The system would work more efficiently overall. Some energy companies see this and are investing in solar. The value of that peak daytime demand is high and solar provides it for cheap.

 

[dragoneggs]

I suggest anyone contemplating going to solar to do your own homework and make sure you understand the ROI. This will vary greatly depending on your specific locale. I studied solar energy engineering and was excited to build my own house with solar as at least part of my energy plan. Granted I was trying to make it work in the Seattle area and the proposition was a joke. The ROI period was longer than the expected lifespan of the system. Also know I am talking here about late 80's technology but I don't think the equation is too much different now. I know solar energy technology has advanced since then, but don't buy into it based on a salesman's impressive pitch. Do the math yourself. You really need to be in certain favorable areas to make the numbers work unless you get significant subsidies to lower the capital expense. I do love the concept of solar probably more than most, but it isn't free even after you pay off the non-recurring costs... the panels don't last forever.

 

[buickanddeere]

Buickanddeere, You are suggesting other industries aren't subsidized which I highly doubt. I'm not in the industry so I don't know for sure. Do you, including tax benefits etc.? At the end of the day, setting aside subsidies, solar is competition that has the real advantage of getting power from the sun. The traditional industry isn't going to like that. Just like you. That doest mean it should be discouraged.

Isn't it hard to make $$ selling at night because the demand is so low and supply so high? If the day time load matched the night time load better because solar balanced that load then overall less total capacity would be needed and that over supply and low price at night would be reduced. Sure if it happened overnight some company would go out of business but if it slowly implemented over time as is happening it would just result in less new plants being built to meet the huge sunny day demand. The system would work more efficiently overall. Some energy companies see this and are investing in solar. The value of that peak daytime demand is high and solar provides it for cheap.

Why do you keep asking me for the same info over and over again. Then refuse to believe the facts you are about electrical generation, electrical distribution and electrical consumption ? There have several very knowledgeable replies from other posters also addressing the topic of green power not being the " solution". You refuse to address their answers, why ?

 

[KennyG]

JCB

The problem now is that the electric market and the renewable subsidies distort the market. They place a disportionate penalty on high capital base load generation (large coal and nuclear) and favor construction of natural gas plants (especially lower efficiency units). This is even worse in the US than Canada because the US subsidies are based on generation, not construction which means the renewables can sell electricity at negative rates (pay to generate) and still have positive cash flow.

Wind is an even bigger problem than solar because it does generate at night when the power isn't needed. Nuclear plants in the Midwest regularly have to pay to avoid the costs of shutdown and startup and sometimes are forced reduce power or shut down simply because there is no market. The subsidies were originally intended to support start up of a new technology but now have become an apparent permanent factor in the market.

Hawaii is the optimum place for residential grid connected solar because of the mild climate and very high cost of electricity. However, they have had to place moratoriums on solar installation because the variation of generation has threatened the stability of the grid.

It's a complex problem and will probably have some very high system costs before we can add a lot of distributed generation to the system.

 

[buickanddeere]

Ken. Well said .

 

[Egon]

Why do you keep asking me for the same info over and over again. Then refuse to believe the facts you are about electrical generation, electrical distribution and electrical consumption ? There have several very knowledgeable replies from other posters also addressing the topic of green power not being the " solution". You refuse to address their answers, why ?

Well; do you ever answere a question requireing facts??