This could actually work to the utilities advantage if they embraced the
idea. Prices are higher because demand is higher. With the right pricing
structure, such arbitraging could prevent the construction of generating
facilities to meet peak demand.
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 10:34 PM, Blaze
Blaze Spinnaker blazespinna...@gmail.com wrote:
I think the folks of Shanghai might disagree with that one.
Why Shanghai? What's the news from Shanghai?
- Jed
Here is a graph of U.S. PV solar installations per quarter since 2010. It
shows rapid growth:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/12/more-records-for-quarterly-us-solar-installations
It shows 930 MW in the July-September quarter. That means 930 MW peak
output from the solar
To get kWH/day from peak kW in PV, you multiply by the average full power
equivalent hours per day. In FL, this is 4 hours (mostly due to clouds).
In NM the number is 5. In the continental US as a whole, the number is
probably about 3.5-4. This is for a fixed (not tracking) array. This
number
Bob Higgins rj.bob.higg...@gmail.com wrote:
I have a 5.3 kW peak fixed PV system that provides most of the power for
my house.
Wow! How many square feet is that? How much did it cost?
- Jed
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/Information-SolarFolder/SunHoursUSMap.html
I'm in Zone 6. :(
On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Bob Higgins rj.bob.higg...@gmail.comwrote:
To get kWH/day from peak kW in PV, you multiply by the average full power
equivalent hours per day. In FL, this is 4 hours
On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 3:41 PM, Bob Higgins rj.bob.higg...@gmail.comwrote:
It works great.
Is it cost effective?
Bob Higgins rj.bob.higg...@gmail.com wrote:
To get kWH/day from peak kW in PV, you multiply by the average full power
equivalent hours per day. In FL, this is 4 hours (mostly due to clouds).
In NM the number is 5. In the continental US as a whole, the number is
probably about 3.5-4.
3.5
Here is all kinds of great information about electric power generation:
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/
http://www.eia.gov/energy_in_brief/article/renewable_electricity.cfm
Total U.S. generator capacity is roughly 1,000 GW. So it would take 1,700
years to replace that with solar at the present rate of installation.
Maybe, but the present amount of capacity has doubled 4 times over the last
10 years. If it becomes significantly profitable to install solar over
our
Wind power is much larger than PV solar at present. That does not mean the
future capacity is more, it means wind has been developed longer. See:
http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_installed_capacity.asp#yearly
It is fun to watch the changing graphic map chart at the top right of this
page.
Blaze Spinnaker blazespinna...@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe, but the present amount of capacity has doubled 4 times over the
last 10 years.
Sure. It has great potential.
I would be wary of projecting that kind of growth into the future, because
there may be problems integrating it into the net.
Wind is terrific as well, however it's pretty hard to improve the tech all
that rapidly like solar. It also kills birds, ruins sight lines, etc.
But yes, wind is good.
I love this article in the economist:
There's a company called Solar City and what they do is install panels on
your house and then sell the electricity back to you at a lower rate than
what you pay your utility.
These are the sort of innovative things that are happening.
On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 1:44 PM, Jed Rothwell
Blaze Spinnaker blazespinna...@gmail.com wrote:
Wind is terrific as well, however it's pretty hard to improve the tech all
that rapidly like solar.
It is still moving ahead pretty quickly. Especially offshore installations.
In Northern Europe North Sea offshore installations could produce 4
It kills thousands of times fewer birds than coal smoke does, and steam
from power generator cooling towers do. It kills fewer birds than
reflective glass buildings do. If we could replace all coal with wind
today, it would save far more birds than it kills. It would also save
roughly 20,000 human
I wrote:
At the rate wind is expanding it will not take centuries to catch up with
nuclear power. It is increasing at around 13 GW nameplate per year, or
about 4 nukes.
In other words, at this rate, wind will catch up to nukes and produce ~20%
of our electricity in about 20 years.
It has
Blaze Spinnaker blazespinna...@gmail.com wrote:
Sure, but if the rate of windmill capacity doubled 7 more times or so, I
wouldn't want to be a bird.
This really is not a problem. Birds are evolved to avoid whacking into
large, opaque moving objects. Such as pine trees waving in the wind. In
It is always difficult for me to accept that the living world constantly needs
our intervention, as if the whole of adaptive evolution never took place -
including dramatic catastrophes. Rupert Sheldrake once claimed that some small
birds learned to attack products delivered by the milkman-
Chris Zell chrisz...@wetmtv.com wrote:
It is always difficult for me to accept that the living world constantly
needs our intervention, as if the whole of adaptive evolution never took
place - including dramatic catastrophes.
Well, natural catastrophes wiped out entire species. We don't want
I wrote:
In 2012, total installed nameplate capacity was 60 GW. With a capacity
factor of 30% that's ~18 GW. It produced 3% of U.S. electricity.
Ah ha. It is more than 3% now. That was with 2011 end-of-year capacity. See:
It is about 440 square feet on top of my flat patio roof. It is 2 strings
of 15 in parallel for a total of 30 panels. The total installed cost was
$35k, but I got back $20k from the state of FL (an incentive for growing a
solar business in FL) and then I got back about $2500 in tax credits. So
The way I look this is a little different. I was the first house in my
community of 50k to have PV. When I go to sell my house (which I plan to
do next year), if the solar power is the feature that attracts the customer
that buys my house, then it was paid back in that one instant.
It has been
Individually it's an interesting story, but on a mass scale it doesn't
quite add up - yet.
We need to be installing these solar panels without subsidies (and
including all install costs, labor etc) and still paying less than general
utility fees over 10 years or so.
When that happens, install
Blaze Spinnaker blazespinna...@gmail.com wrote:
We need to be installing these solar panels without subsidies (and
including all install costs, labor etc) and still paying less than general
utility fees over 10 years or so.
I would agree to the no subsidy plan, but only after we level the
Yeah, good points all. The implicit insurance subsidy for Nuclear is
pretty massive.
On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 4:47 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote:
Blaze Spinnaker blazespinna...@gmail.com wrote:
We need to be installing these solar panels without subsidies (and
including all
On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Blaze Spinnaker
blazespinna...@gmail.comwrote:
I also have this weird fear that we might create a drag that slows the spin
of the earth's rotation. :D
If we could work out a global windmill installation that could accomplish
that, I think our energy problems
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/10/business/ray-kurzweil-future-of-human-life/index.html
If we could capture one part in ten thousand of the sunlight that falls on
the Earth we could meet 100% of our energy needs, using this renewable and
environmentally friendly source.
As we apply new molecular
There is a lot to be said for PV solar, but it cannot meet 100% of our
energy needs unless an improved battery comes along. Because the sun goes
away at night.
It can meet a large fraction of our needs, especially in places such as
Nevada, where peak demand occurs when the sun is brightest and
It's actually interesting, but PV batteries are getting so good some
utilities are disallowing systems which feedback energy into the grid via
these batteries because homeowners are actually arbitraging. They're
actually charging their batteries off the grid and then selling back into
it when
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/breaking-the-logjam-on-10mw-of-california-solar-storage-projects
Since this spring, those utilities have been requiring any net-metered
solar power projects that include batteries to go through a lengthy and
expensive process to prove their batteries
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 6:24 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote:
There is a lot to be said for PV solar, but it cannot meet 100% of our
energy needs unless an improved battery comes along.
I think if we found ready sources of energy, demand would increase and we'd
find new ways of
I think the folks of Shanghai might disagree with that one. The only real
use of Solar is to replace fossil fuels.
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 8:30 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 6:24 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote:
There is a lot to be said
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