what on earth does electricity cost near you?

[buickanddeere]

Distributed generation from small scale grid-tied sources has its attractions. Firstly, it should enable a more resilient grid - both in terms of "normal" single point failures, and hostile ones.

Financially, utilities and govts like to see private entities assuming the capital and maintenance costs for these small generation projects. They really like this option when compared to doing traditional mega-projects themselves.

Utilities are really in a no lose situation. Overall, they are viewed as Can't Fail institutions (existence wise), so if huge gains are made in energy efficiency by consumers, or many people install their own alternate energy sources, then they are typically awarded various fairy-tale fees and surcharges to make up for revenue shortfalls.

This thread shows the tremendous range of electricity costs out there. Unfortunately, once a utillity starts down this road of making the same or more money by doing less business, they're hooked.

PV solar cells have continually improved in terms of output and cost. As described, output under cloudy conditions today can be decent. Something some people don't realize is that PV panels do quite well in our Winter conditions. Cells are more efficient at low temperatures, and if they are mounted in an open field, light levels are somewhat increased due to reflected light from snow cover on the ground.

One of the original reasons solar PV was attractive was for remote properties. Installation costs for utility lines have only escalated over the years, while PV system cost has come down. If you care to reside on a remote property (requiring using batteries in your system), then the huge cost of installing utility power lines can be re-directed into owning your own power grid. Not for everybody, but most who go down this road are happy with the results.

Rgds, D.

Grid tie won't stand alone and generate. They need to detect utility power to operate.

 

[dave1949]

Grid tie won't stand alone and generate. They need to detect utility power to operate.

There are hybrid systems that will minimally function in stand alone.

 

[grsthegreat]

were 0.05 - 0.06 /KWH ( forget which one). bills arnt too high.

have 20 acres of trees that keep me in free firewood also

 

[arrow]

We are currently charged around 7 cents per kwh. Then all the fees , taxes and surcharges raise this to .14. Cost per kilowatt is meaningless as a result. It is more like a "unit" of electricity cost 14 cents. The "units" over the last 7 years have ranged from .10 to .24 per unit.

 

[3930dave]

Grid tie won't stand alone and generate. They need to detect utility power to operate.

Yeah, if you have a flaky grid, I'd just go off-grid. With a solid grid, people like "tied" to get away from batteries, and for potential revenue.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

There are hybrid systems that will minimally function in stand alone.

Agreed. Nice for a solid grid that has a once in a decade major problem.

Rgds, D.

 

[dave1949]

Agreed. Nice for a solid grid that has a once in a decade major problem.

Rgds, D.

Those that incorporate a few batteries also work for frequent short duration outages. Probably more a convenience than a necessity for most peoples' situations.

I'm not sure how the "greeness" of off-grid with full battery banks, stacks up against a grid that gets a significant portion of its power from renewable sources such as hydro and wind. If a large component of grid power is from renewables, it may be that a grid-tied system is "greener" overall than an off-grid system.

If the carbon and pollution foot print of the batteries, which have a finite service life, exceeds that of the grid, it could be a close comparison.

 

[weedpharma]

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Per "unit" ? is that per "kilowatt"?\
With the humidity here we need to run a compressor for AC.\
Four months of the year here with short days and cloud cover. Solar panels are just mostly for looks during winter.

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Yes, per kWh

Weedpharma

 

[3930dave]

Green-ness.... well, that depends on who you ask, and what your metrics are

The battery industry has a long history of recovering material, enough so they were exempt from ROHS legislation the last I checked. It is a relatively closed loop industry from a hazardous material standpoint.

Until low cost superconductors come along, one of the Non-Green aspects of generating power remotely (standard practice today) is the transmission losses, regardless of the generating source.

That is one of the green gains of locally generated power, off-grid or tied.

Power going into the grid has to be used, now. Batteries store the generated energy, for when it needs to be used. So, while necessary for today's world, the grid has some built-in inefficiencies.

I think most people have 2 problems with batteries, that come ahead of any green issues.

1) They cost money.

2) They have to be safely stored, and maintained. Costs money/time again.

Rgds, D.

 

[dave1949]

Green-ness.... well, that depends on who you ask, and what your metrics are

The battery industry has a long history of recovering material, enough so they were exempt from ROHS legislation the last I checked. It is a relatively closed loop industry from a hazardous material standpoint.

Until low cost superconductors come along, one of the Non-Green aspects of generating power remotely (standard practice today) is the transmission losses, regardless of the generating source.

That is one of the green gains of locally generated power, off-grid or tied.

Power going into the grid has to be used, now. Batteries store the generated energy, for when it needs to be used. So, while necessary for today's world, the grid has some built-in inefficiencies.

I think most people have 2 problems with batteries, that come ahead of any green issues.

1) They cost money.

2) They have to be safely stored, and maintained. Costs money/time again.

Rgds, D.

Around here, battery banks are usually sized to meet the power demand for two-three days without appreciable solar charging. The usual result is excess capacity at each and every installation 90% of the time; a characteristic shared by the grid, but not for each service end point. The grid capacity excess is shared across many end points. On a percentage basis, there may be more excess capacity in an off-grid system per end point than in the grid.

I don't think the comparison is all that straight forward. Obviously, a value must be assigned to green-ness because green energy is adopted to avoid the costs associated with carbon fuels.