5 ms·

This is during peak air conditioning load, and air conditioning is used most when when... wait... the sun is out.

by jpitz 9y ago

luckydude 9y ago
Yeah but this article is silly. Solar isn't a given, you can have a cloudy day. Or days. So the grid already has to be prepared to deal with this. It's a known problem, happens every night. The company that solves storage in a meaningful way is gonna get rich. By meaningful I mean at scale and portable. I know you can pump water up to a reservoir and let it back out to generate power but that's not portable. Anyone know if someone has an answer other than Musk's powerwall (which is kinda cool in that it is the definition of portable, completely distributed, but also sort of limited). Seems like a fun problem to work on.
- jpitz 9y ago
  No, seriously, during summer, peak residential and commercial load correlates with solar heating. Unless you have residential load-shedding installed in your footprint, coordinating with industrial loads is your best bet to reduce peak demand. The article isn't silly. It's a known problem, but utilities and operators move at a glacial pace due to their scale and regulatory issues. This can make it difficult for startups to get sales and stay afloat. Lots of people are trying to get rich in this space and it turns out to be a non-trivial set of problems. And yes, it is a fun problem to work on. I would encourage anyone who is interested to get into the storage / smart grid management space.
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    It's not really a problem at all...the WECC utility companies have ample reserves, CA will just buy MW from APS, BPA, and PGE on the EIM (run by CAISO)...I'm not sure how this process is affected by utility company and operator "pace" in the slightest, in fact the ability to buy energy and transfer it from one BA to another happens every second...how would you envision this industry being "disrupted"?
    - luckydude 9y ago
      So the problem that I (and I think others) see is a time where solar is providing more than 50% of our power. Or 100% of our power if that makes it more clear. Then where do you pick up the slack? Maybe your point is that we get it long distance from places that are not covered in clouds?
      - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
        That's the whole point of an energy market and a grid system...if Cali can't cover their own energy needs (which they don't do already btw), they'll purchase however many MWs are needed from AZ, OR, WA, NV, or UT
- mikeyouse 9y ago
  On a really dark cloudy day, you're still generating something like 30-40% of the energy as you would in bright sunlight. Eclipses are much tougher since even on cloudy days, there's enough variance over a region that your output would rarely drop more than 50% (there's a mitigating benefit to clouds where they reflect a lot of light back to the earth). During an eclipse though, something like 5,000 square miles of land drop to 0%.
pishpash 9y ago
But again, the sun is not out during an eclipse.
- jpitz 9y ago
  The temperature change outdoors is detectable, but brief. Also, buildings even the effect out, due to mass and retained heat. https://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2006/faq.php https://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2006/faq.php "Typically, how big a temperature drop do you get during a total solar eclipse? It would probably be equal to the typical daytime minus nighttime temperature difference at that time of year and location on the Earth. It would be modified a bit by the fact that it only lasts a few minutes, which means the environment would not have had much time to thermally respond to its lowest temperature, so it would probably only be 3/4 or 1/2 the maximum day-night temperature difference."

This is during peak air conditioning load, and air conditioning is used most when when... wait... the sun is out.

by jpitz 9y ago

This is during peak air conditioning load, and air conditioning is used most when when... wait... the sun is out.

Yeah but this article is silly. Solar isn't a given, you can have a cloudy day. Or days. So the grid already has to be prepared to deal with this. It's a known problem, happens every night. The company that solves storage in a meaningful way is gonna get rich. By meaningful I mean at scale and portable. I know you can pump water up to a reservoir and let it back out to generate power but that's not portable. Anyone know if someone has an answer other than Musk's powerwall (which is kinda cool in that it is the definition of portable, completely distributed, but also sort of limited). Seems like a fun problem to work on.

jpitz 9y ago
No, seriously, during summer, peak residential and commercial load correlates with solar heating. Unless you have residential load-shedding installed in your footprint, coordinating with industrial loads is your best bet to reduce peak demand. The article isn't silly. It's a known problem, but utilities and operators move at a glacial pace due to their scale and regulatory issues. This can make it difficult for startups to get sales and stay afloat. Lots of people are trying to get rich in this space and it turns out to be a non-trivial set of problems. And yes, it is a fun problem to work on. I would encourage anyone who is interested to get into the storage / smart grid management space.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  It's not really a problem at all...the WECC utility companies have ample reserves, CA will just buy MW from APS, BPA, and PGE on the EIM (run by CAISO)...I'm not sure how this process is affected by utility company and operator "pace" in the slightest, in fact the ability to buy energy and transfer it from one BA to another happens every second...how would you envision this industry being "disrupted"?
  - luckydude 9y ago
    So the problem that I (and I think others) see is a time where solar is providing more than 50% of our power. Or 100% of our power if that makes it more clear. Then where do you pick up the slack? Maybe your point is that we get it long distance from places that are not covered in clouds?
    - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
      That's the whole point of an energy market and a grid system...if Cali can't cover their own energy needs (which they don't do already btw), they'll purchase however many MWs are needed from AZ, OR, WA, NV, or UT
mikeyouse 9y ago
On a really dark cloudy day, you're still generating something like 30-40% of the energy as you would in bright sunlight. Eclipses are much tougher since even on cloudy days, there's enough variance over a region that your output would rarely drop more than 50% (there's a mitigating benefit to clouds where they reflect a lot of light back to the earth). During an eclipse though, something like 5,000 square miles of land drop to 0%.

pishpash 9y ago

But again, the sun is not out during an eclipse.

jpitz 9y ago
The temperature change outdoors is detectable, but brief. Also, buildings even the effect out, due to mass and retained heat. https://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2006/faq.php https://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2006/faq.php "Typically, how big a temperature drop do you get during a total solar eclipse? It would probably be equal to the typical daytime minus nighttime temperature difference at that time of year and location on the Earth. It would be modified a bit by the fact that it only lasts a few minutes, which means the environment would not have had much time to thermally respond to its lowest temperature, so it would probably only be 3/4 or 1/2 the maximum day-night temperature difference."