CA, Dependent On Solar Power, Has Rolling Blackouts In Heat Wave. Hint: The Sun Sets At Night.

#26
#26
FLVOL_79 said:
Solar power is great when you have battery banks to store it..but not so much when you pump it back into the grid to offset your reduction of fossil fuel power..

Science.
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Indeed. Solar helps with peak demand times, the hottest parts of the day are while the sun is up. So solar would be working then. It sounds like they just dont have the capacity.

Best thing for them would individual solar farms to run your own house with the batteries. That way you cant be cut off, the governor isnt dictating temperatures, and theoretically you could sell energy back to the grid.

One thing that has increased demand recently is everyone working from home. In normal times residential power usage plummets during the day as people go to work. Thermostats can be set to go up and then come back down before people get home. But now with people working from home you have individual AC units running to cool a whole house, where as offices have shared AC cooling office spaces shared by many. If there is anyone in those offices, admin, security, HR, whatever, you still have to cool those spaces.

So instead of a balance between residential/office during the sunny part of the day where solar helps, you now getting loading from both.
 
#27
#27
The only solar I see fit for use is my 12v solar trickle charger that I use on 16' dump trailer. Had the battery since 2014 and its been weak once. Oh, and I work in the energy field.
 
#28
#28
LouderVol said:
Indeed. Solar helps with peak demand times, the hottest parts of the day are while the sun is up. So solar would be working then. It sounds like they just dont have the capacity.

Best thing for them would individual solar farms to run your own house with the batteries. That way you cant be cut off, the governor isnt dictating temperatures, and theoretically you could sell energy back to the grid.

One thing that has increased demand recently is everyone working from home. In normal times residential power usage plummets during the day as people go to work. Thermostats can be set to go up and then come back down before people get home. But now with people working from home you have individual AC units running to cool a whole house, where as offices have shared AC cooling office spaces shared by many. If there is anyone in those offices, admin, security, HR, whatever, you still have to cool those spaces.

So instead of a balance between residential/office during the sunny part of the day where solar helps, you now getting loading from both.
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When I lived in Florida I contemplated getting the Tesla house battery. I was going to use solar power just to power my AC and pool while the rest was stored up in a batter for night use or during bad storms. I believe in California they are not allowed to store solar power but they are required to put unused power back into the grid..which is complete bullsh!t.
 
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#31
#31
FLVOL_79 said:
When I lived in Florida I contemplated getting the Tesla house battery. I was going to use solar power just to power my AC and pool while the rest was stored up in a batter for night use or during bad storms. I believe in California they are not allowed to store solar power but they are required to put unused power back into the grid..which is complete bullsh!t.
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Yeah. I hate a lot of the laws that came out from the Obama era on this stuff.

I havent dealt with no storage, but requirements on panel sizes, grid connection, and even minimum grid power usage. I know some where they require you to connect and feed the grid dont even pay you. They charge you for you to provide power to them. All part of Obama's plan to encourage wide spread solar usage.

It's why I will continue to rail against any green based movement that was influenced by Obama. It's only green on white paper. The real world works to ugly for their ivory tower top down nonsense. Especially on solar.
 
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#32
#32
FLVOL_79 said:
When I lived in Florida I contemplated getting the Tesla house battery. I was going to use solar power just to power my AC and pool while the rest was stored up in a batter for night use or during bad storms. I believe in California they are not allowed to store solar power but they are required to put unused power back into the grid..which is complete bullsh!t.
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And pay outrageous rates in the event you did need to pull power back in. They make it very hard and cost prohibitive to change over
 
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#33
#33
LouderVol said:
Yeah. I hate a lot of the laws that came out from the Obama era on this stuff.

I havent dealt with no storage, but requirements on panel sizes, grid connection, and even minimum grid power usage. I know some where they require you to connect and feed the grid dont even pay you. They charge you for you to provide power to them. All part of Obama's plan to encourage wide spread solar usage.

It's why I will continue to rail against any green based movement that was influenced by Obama. It's only green on white paper. The real world works to ugly for their ivory tower top down nonsense. Especially on solar.
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I don't know much about all the red tape associated with solar power but I heard that if you go solar to cut energy costs you still have to pay extra on your energy bill so the energy provider can recoup money that they’re no longer getting from you.
 
#35
#35
C-south said:
I don't know much about all the red tape associated with solar power but I heard that if you go solar to cut energy costs you still have to pay extra on your energy bill so the energy provider can recoup money that they’re no longer getting from you.
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Yeah. There are a lot of places that do that. They call it "hook up fees" and the like. They say the systems weren't designed to go the other way and this causes more maintenance. But from people I have talked to they say that's nonsense. The grids are designed for power to get where it needs to. The only possible concern would be from the transformer to the house. And even then it isnt much of an issue.
 
#37
#37
hog88 said:
Solar is great for individual user applications.
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Agreed. The peaks and valleys of solar can be handled if there is a system behind it. For individual users it's a battery. For large utilities it has to be some other type of power.

One ironic thing with high tech solar is that it has encouraged looking at low tech steam for solutions. You cant store electricity. Not really. You have to transform that energy into something else, chemical in batteries, or heat. How do you store heat in a manner it can be used? Steam. Water has pretty good thermal mass and it's easy to move around. Take excess electricity during the day use it to heat water, then at night you reverse the process to get electricity. There are losses but it's a pretty "simple" and understood method without dangerous chemicals.
 
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#39
#39
LouderVol said:
Agreed. The peaks and valleys of solar can be handled if there is a system behind it. For individual users it's a battery. For large utilities it has to be some other type of power.

One ironic thing with high tech solar is that it has encouraged looking at low tech steam for solutions. You cant store electricity. Not really. You have to transform that energy into something else, chemical in batteries, or heat. How do you store heat in a manner it can be used? Steam. Water has pretty good thermal mass and it's easy to move around. Take excess electricity during the day use it to heat water, then at night you reverse the process to get electricity. There are losses but it's a pretty "simple" and understood method without dangerous chemicals.
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Heating water to boiling point will require some type of vacuum system and there is no way to store steam before it condenses. Even if you could, you would be talking massive storage. Not to mention, you would need an incredible excess of daytime solar power and electrical consumption drops considerably at night. Then you add a turbine and you might as well have a large more efficient big steam plant like we currently use.
 
#42
#42
Rasputin_Vol said:
Solar is good for specific uses. But it is not reliable enough to power a major economy. It is not reliable. If there was ever an industry that literally needed Just-In-Time delivery, it would be the electrical utility industry. Just on a very small scale, when you turn your light switch on in your home, do you want it to stay dark and dim until a good breeze comes along or when the cloud cover breaks apart? Now think if you are a big industrial customer...
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Solar is a good supplement for houses but to try to make it a main source for a business or industry, It just doesn't work. I promise you that the leaders will never have rolling blackouts. Do you think that governor and the state legislators have rolling blackouts?
 
#44
#44
utvolpj said:
76 here but it's usually so hot in the summer that is plenty

Solar absolutely needs to be figured out though. Absolutely no reason for it not to be affordable and easily utilized in states like FL or AZ
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It's pretty affordable now... roughly $1/Watt for a residential system. The problem is that on a grand scale (neighborhoods, small towns, etc), it simply isn't reliable enough for base load or peaking power.
 
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#45
#45
FLVOL_79 said:
I've got like 4000+ sq ft. I'll murder anyone who sets my thermostats to 72.
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So we have the main thermostat at 76 and the master suite at 75. 4000 sq ft under roof. But this house was built in 2014 and is energy star certified. I’m amazed at the power efficiency of this house. I turned off the programs in the thermostats and added a remote temp sensor on each to average two rooms for control of each zone. I also turned off the BS outside air mixer required by code now. FFS I think that’s snake oil.

We never change the temperature we never have to. And it’s comfortable year around in every room. And I **** you not this house uses less energy than our old 1700 sq ft house built in 1994 and is waaaaaay more comfortable with more uniform temperatures through out the house.

In the middle of July and August in TX this house uses right at 3000kWhr per month. That’s less than the old house where we actually set the thermostat lower but the temperature wasn’t as uniform through out the house. Set it lower in summer and warmer in winter. We don’t move it in the new house.

I am amazed at the energy efficiency of our house.
 
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#47
#47
NorthDallas40 said:
So we have the main thermostat at 76 and the master suite at 75. 4000 sq ft under roof. But this house was built in 2014 and is energy star certified. I’m amazed at the power efficiency of this house. I turned off the programs in the thermostats and added a remote temp sensor on each to average two rooms for control of each zone. I also turned off the BS outside air mixer required by code now. FFS I think that’s snake oil.

We never change the temperature we never have to. And it’s comfortable year around in every room. And I **** you not this house uses less energy than our old 1700 sq ft house built in 1994 and is waaaaaay more comfortable with more uniform temperatures through out the house.

In the middle of July and August in TX this house uses right at 3000kWhr per month. That’s less than the old house where we actually set the thermostat lower but the temperature wasn’t as uniform through out the house. Set it lower in summer and warmer in winter. We don’t move it in the new house.

I am amazed at the energy efficiency of our house.
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Ha .. 72 - 68 ... I like to see nipples when you walk in from outside, and my breath when I sleep . Lol
 
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#48
#48
0nelilreb said:
Ha .. 72 - 68 ... I like to see nipples when you walk in from outside, and my breath when I sleep . Lol
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Programable thermostats in my house. Summer is 75 during the day down to 72 at 6pm then 68 at 9:30 to 7am. Upstairs 75 24/7.
 
#49
#49
In lieu of nuclear? Anyone who has actually taken the time to educate themselves on nuclear knows that the cons outweigh the pros. It’s just not an efficient process. If we really wanted nuclear it would have to be subsidized big time, and that wouldn’t solve the safety issues (especially in CA) or the waste disposal issue.
 
#50
#50
OHvol40 said:
In lieu of nuclear? Anyone who has actually taken the time to educate themselves on nuclear knows that the cons outweigh the pros. It’s just not an efficient process. If we really wanted nuclear it would have to be subsidized big time, and that wouldn’t solve the safety issues (especially in CA) or the waste disposal issue.
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Anyone that educated themselves on the subject should know we should be producing the vast majority of our electricity from nuclear power. The benefits completely outweigh the cons.
 
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