The Ogro is using renewable energy near firing surf. I don't even think his remark was that political or partisan. Them actions gettin' they speak on.FecalFace said:
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Solar Panel Fires
- Thread starter GromsDad
- Start date
I've never said there's anything partisan about his comment, just though he may want to know why the power output reading in his lunar test was -0-.Sharkbiscuit said:
He makes plenty of unprovoked jabs at me, he can take it. :wave2:
I just wish they'd drop them on the local surfline cam and a few others nearby.Sharkbiscuit said:
I'm not sure of the accuracy of this, but I've read comments from some of the solar techs that *any* shadowing on even a portion of the panel reduces the output far out of proportion to the area being shaded. Dirty panels have lower productivity. As well, cloud cover has an outsized impact on productivity.
No grid. Next year. Mixed blessing. The first stage of development. Oh well. We got a lot of good uncrowded years out of it. We'll still maintain solar, we're at the absolute end of the line so will be the last to get service when the power goes off which it does pretty often.
In a small system the amount of battery storage is the key. The system is sized based on battery storage needs.
In a small system the amount of battery storage is the key. The system is sized based on battery storage needs.
Oh yes they do and on the rare day the waves are actually good the place is unsurfable because so many inlanders invade because they saw it on the cam.slash said:
As a lurker, this thread is pretty interesting. I work in home efficiency on the east coast and it's pretty intriguing hearing the ideas on renewables coming from the west coast market we green folk consider the holy grail.
I don't exactly see the opposition to net metering. If your connected to the grid and have a base rate that pays for maintenance, even if you're not using it, then why would you not want the opportunity to sell your product / excess energy? Why is my kwh worth any less than theirs?
yes, that does lead to potentially overloading the grid as seen in hawaii. some places were / still are requiring permits for solar installations even for residential. Hopefully, we can develop a method for large scale energy storage... batteries can be mechanical or chemical too. Duracell : chemical, hoover dam : mechanical, hydrogen : ?
That being said, current deep cycle batteries for residential battery based systems suck. Expensive, heavy as shiat, have a limited lifespan, and require more components and maintenance (something that can fudge the less tech savy owner). I'm not for battery based at all right now. this is the area that really needs work, but tesla is on to some interesting stuff developing a home battery that can accept about any voltage/amperage thus eliminating need for charge controllers and high capacity inverters...
As far as the fires go... solar panels will not catch on fire. Shitty wiring could certainly cause a spark and trigger a blaze, but a solar panel sitting on top of your roof ain't gonna do nothing. They are not immune to the laws of physics and science. I've ta'd for a class teaching photovoltaics; for a demonstration I personally went outside during peak sun, disconnected our six panel string from the combiner box, and stuck the positive lead in my mouth. Nothing. Current will not flow = no chance of short if there is no circuit.
"A tree falling is louder than the forest growing" is perfect in identifying the case with bad roof racking installs. Putting penetrations in your roof is never a good idea UNLESS you know what your doing with proper flashing, sealing, etc. Penetrations lead to potential moisture issues and I could see how fire could be attracted to thsee areas (fire code??) There's bad installs done by bad installers, hopefully they dont ruin the market and understand the critical need for quality , especially in there field right now.
For the payback, if my calcs are correct...a $12000 4.5 kwh non-battery grid tied system (yes, that is very real figure including install, racking, components, wiring, etc.) with a 30% federal rebate = $8400. If power rate is $0.12/ kwh and you see 5 hrs of peak sun a day then you should pay back the system in just over 8.5 years. I'm sure your rates are higher on the west coast and sure there is some sort of local and/or state incentive as well. This is also not factoring in if you are allowed to sell back your excess energy... not too bad to me considering many panels have 20 year /80% eff warranties.
Shading and disproportionate efficiency loss... yep that's a big issue, but don't put em in the shade! Or break out the clippers! My bud works for a commercial installer over here and they are working with a company that has developed a roll-on application that sees a directly proportionate efficiency loss compared to the area shaded..
The birds on fire... yea that's an issue for the commercial solar thermal. Cool technology though. 392 MW Field of mirrors in the mojave concentrating death/light beams on tower to heat up molten sodium to create steam for turbine.... sodium has such high specific heat that it can create pressurized steam throughout the night... pretty cool if you ask me. Bird deaths were actually due to attracting bugs, their food. Still an issue for sure.
Main thing for me is this a job creating industry. Why fight innovation, the inevitable, and a way of lowering power costs for everyone including industrial/commercial sector (=cheaper stuff)? Not to mention geopolitical effects...
I don't exactly see the opposition to net metering. If your connected to the grid and have a base rate that pays for maintenance, even if you're not using it, then why would you not want the opportunity to sell your product / excess energy? Why is my kwh worth any less than theirs?
yes, that does lead to potentially overloading the grid as seen in hawaii. some places were / still are requiring permits for solar installations even for residential. Hopefully, we can develop a method for large scale energy storage... batteries can be mechanical or chemical too. Duracell : chemical, hoover dam : mechanical, hydrogen : ?
That being said, current deep cycle batteries for residential battery based systems suck. Expensive, heavy as shiat, have a limited lifespan, and require more components and maintenance (something that can fudge the less tech savy owner). I'm not for battery based at all right now. this is the area that really needs work, but tesla is on to some interesting stuff developing a home battery that can accept about any voltage/amperage thus eliminating need for charge controllers and high capacity inverters...
As far as the fires go... solar panels will not catch on fire. Shitty wiring could certainly cause a spark and trigger a blaze, but a solar panel sitting on top of your roof ain't gonna do nothing. They are not immune to the laws of physics and science. I've ta'd for a class teaching photovoltaics; for a demonstration I personally went outside during peak sun, disconnected our six panel string from the combiner box, and stuck the positive lead in my mouth. Nothing. Current will not flow = no chance of short if there is no circuit.
"A tree falling is louder than the forest growing" is perfect in identifying the case with bad roof racking installs. Putting penetrations in your roof is never a good idea UNLESS you know what your doing with proper flashing, sealing, etc. Penetrations lead to potential moisture issues and I could see how fire could be attracted to thsee areas (fire code??) There's bad installs done by bad installers, hopefully they dont ruin the market and understand the critical need for quality , especially in there field right now.
For the payback, if my calcs are correct...a $12000 4.5 kwh non-battery grid tied system (yes, that is very real figure including install, racking, components, wiring, etc.) with a 30% federal rebate = $8400. If power rate is $0.12/ kwh and you see 5 hrs of peak sun a day then you should pay back the system in just over 8.5 years. I'm sure your rates are higher on the west coast and sure there is some sort of local and/or state incentive as well. This is also not factoring in if you are allowed to sell back your excess energy... not too bad to me considering many panels have 20 year /80% eff warranties.
Shading and disproportionate efficiency loss... yep that's a big issue, but don't put em in the shade! Or break out the clippers! My bud works for a commercial installer over here and they are working with a company that has developed a roll-on application that sees a directly proportionate efficiency loss compared to the area shaded..
The birds on fire... yea that's an issue for the commercial solar thermal. Cool technology though. 392 MW Field of mirrors in the mojave concentrating death/light beams on tower to heat up molten sodium to create steam for turbine.... sodium has such high specific heat that it can create pressurized steam throughout the night... pretty cool if you ask me. Bird deaths were actually due to attracting bugs, their food. Still an issue for sure.
Main thing for me is this a job creating industry. Why fight innovation, the inevitable, and a way of lowering power costs for everyone including industrial/commercial sector (=cheaper stuff)? Not to mention geopolitical effects...
The math is a lot tougher without the use of other people's money. I daresay if your state reaches its cap in its net metering program and stops offering those deals to new installs the demand will drop off significantly. This has apparently already happened in a couple markets, enough so to force a couple of the big solar vendors to drop those markets altogether. Taken to its logical conclusion this can and will happen in other markets as we go.
Net metering only works for a utility when the market share of solar customers is a small percentage. It won't work when that market share gets large. You're running into the fundamentals of supply/demand. By the time the supply during peak production hours outstrips the demand the value per unit of that supply drops like a rock. Productive capacity you can't use or store has no value in the market.
The real problem remains the infrastructure for the grid itself. The transmission and distribution networks incur overhead and they must be maintained because unlike on-demand carbon and nuklar systems, solar and wind are both unreliables. So even if the households aren't using a lot of power they still have to pay their share of the fixed overhead.
Short of going off grid there's no getting around those fixed costs. Which will actually be billed at higher rates to the ultra-low users who aren't buying a lot of power.
Net metering only works for a utility when the market share of solar customers is a small percentage. It won't work when that market share gets large. You're running into the fundamentals of supply/demand. By the time the supply during peak production hours outstrips the demand the value per unit of that supply drops like a rock. Productive capacity you can't use or store has no value in the market.
The real problem remains the infrastructure for the grid itself. The transmission and distribution networks incur overhead and they must be maintained because unlike on-demand carbon and nuklar systems, solar and wind are both unreliables. So even if the households aren't using a lot of power they still have to pay their share of the fixed overhead.
Short of going off grid there's no getting around those fixed costs. Which will actually be billed at higher rates to the ultra-low users who aren't buying a lot of power.
Definitely agree it's much harder and pretty close to not cost effective if those incentives and subsidies were not on the table. And absolutely agree the net metering concept is only realistic for areas with small % of people taking part and sooner than later will meet its demise in some of the more energy progressive states like california. I think it's just a good way to boost up the funding and interest in solar innovation and research in the short term. States like nc ,even though we're supposedly right up there with california, have hardly any reason to go solar and the industry could really benefit from a 5 year allowance on net metering. In 2000 average market available roof top panels were at 11% efficiency and now we are seeing 20-22% efficient market available panels with 30-40+% efficiency panels coming out of lab research and NASA. Who knows what we could see in 5-10 years on the market if they have some support. And if gas and coal companies get major subsidies then why not have a moderately even playing field? I also agree on the unescapable cost of maintaining the grid.In my opinion, the grid should be federally maintained and paid for by the tax payer. The production of energy could be free market maybe? Energy storage is the beast though. Wasted energy has no value, correct. What do we do with this excess energy in a fiscally conservative mindset? Well we have designed inefficiencies/ dead loads like the bazillion streetlights no one sees on at 3 am? I'm not sure of the answer for energy storage. Id like to see an adoption of hydrogen, and use excess grid energy to produce compressed hydrogen as a reusable battery without the limited lifespan of conventional batteries. This tech is waaaay far away to be near cost effective, but if the energy keeps on coming....
I was speaking with an official of our local power utility today and he was surprisingly all for residential solar because it meant less up-sizing of transmission lines... that's another beast, how much energy is lost/wasted transporting that energy 30 miles from the power plant... 230 kv still gonna lose a lot. Interesting to see what will happen with the energy economy. I don't wanna see us waste our reserve oil and coal now when it could be really useful in the future in some hard times. And I like the environment, it does good stuff for me.
I was speaking with an official of our local power utility today and he was surprisingly all for residential solar because it meant less up-sizing of transmission lines... that's another beast, how much energy is lost/wasted transporting that energy 30 miles from the power plant... 230 kv still gonna lose a lot. Interesting to see what will happen with the energy economy. I don't wanna see us waste our reserve oil and coal now when it could be really useful in the future in some hard times. And I like the environment, it does good stuff for me.
IIRC PG&E charges, or is planning to charge, something like $10/month to connect to the grid. I have a 2 bedroom, 1 car garage house that is ~1000 sf total. All my appliances aside from the fridge are gas, and my bill averages ~$30/month. I may need less solar panels to generate enough power, but I imagine there are other fixed costs regardless of home size, so the economy-of-scale will work against me. Even with subsidies I'd probably be looking at least 10 years to pay itself off, and I still have to shell out $10/month to connect to the grid. That doesn't include replacement and maintenance costs either.
Even if I lived in a bigger house and had some rugrats I don't think my bill would too much higher. I don't see how it would ever pencil out for me to be worth it- it's not like my $1/day electricity habit is hurting me too much
No microwave? What are you a fvckin' commie?grapedrink said:IIRC PG&E charges, or is planning to charge, something like $10/month to connect to the grid. I have a 2 bedroom, 1 car garage house that is ~1000 sf total. All my appliances aside from the fridge are gas, and my bill averages ~$30/month. I may need less solar panels to generate enough power, but I imagine there are other fixed costs regardless of home size, so the economy-of-scale will work against me. Even with subsidies I'd probably be looking at least 10 years to pay itself off, and I still have to shell out $10/month to connect to the grid. That doesn't include replacement and maintenance costs either.
Even if I lived in a bigger house and had some rugrats I don't think my bill would too much higher. I don't see how it would ever pencil out for me to be worth it- it's not like my $1/day electricity habit is hurting me too much
It isn't worth the effort and cost for low end consumers.
I don't do microwaves, flouride in water, immunizations, my walls are lined with tin foil, and I can see Santa Cruz from Morro Bay because the earth is flat BRO!!!In all seriousness the last place I lived had a microwave. I mostly used it to warm up plates. Now I set the plate on the burner when I'm done for a few seconds. Especially crucial for eggs :cookin:
Yes, but you can see how people who have a lot of usage and who might believe that the inflation rate for grid energy is going to vastly outpace the rate of consumer inflation would be using a different equation to pencil out their feasibility.
We've had solar installs for pools and hot water heaters in this region for 40 years, so there is a demonstrated history for what happens to rooftop solar systems that don't get repaired or maintained and there is a demonstrated history for what the resale value is the older solar systems, both in operating and non-operating condition. I'm sure the newer PV systems will establish their own value patterns but the consumer behaviors with respect to repairs and maintenance and replacements may be similar to how people have historically behaved with home repairs.
We've had solar installs for pools and hot water heaters in this region for 40 years, so there is a demonstrated history for what happens to rooftop solar systems that don't get repaired or maintained and there is a demonstrated history for what the resale value is the older solar systems, both in operating and non-operating condition. I'm sure the newer PV systems will establish their own value patterns but the consumer behaviors with respect to repairs and maintenance and replacements may be similar to how people have historically behaved with home repairs.