21 ms·

A Solar Boom So Successful, It's Been Halted

196 points by dkoch 13y ago

bsirkia 13y ago
The top comment from u/theysayso on the same Reddit thread seems to put things in a good perspective: Other posters have already noted that you can still have the solar panels, you're just not going to get paid for net metering. What people typically want is the best of both worlds, to charge onto the grid when the produce more than they use (and get paid for it) and have the grid available to supply power when they generate less than they use. But maintaining the grid also costs money. If all your ratepayers split, it makes it more expensive for those "left behind". Who gets left behind? Typically people with less money, that can't afford the systems in the first place, apartment dwellers, etc. The other noted challenge are battery systems. You can go completely off the grid but installing the batteries is WAY more expensive, takes and takes up a lot of space. The technology is disruptive, which the article really didn't go in to. For PV to push electrons onto the grid it needs to be at a greater potential. So if your local grid is 120v the PV needs to adjust to 120.1v. Then your neighbor installs one, and this her/his neighbor. If you're on a long radial line the voltage at the head end might be 126 just to get it to be 118 at the tail end. Normally a utility will install capacitor banks to adjust the voltage. Now you have PV going in everywhere totally screwing with the voltage so it becomes a bit of a grid management challenge. You need to know where all that is going in, what its rate of power is at any given moment (clouds/rains suddenly everything changes and the utility has to compensate). So yeah, a sticky problem that could get out of hand pretty quickly. http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1tey5l/a_solar_boom_in_hawaii_proved_so_successful_that/ http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1tey5l/a_solar_b... credit: http://www.reddit.com/user/theysayso http://www.reddit.com/user/theysayso
- bavcyc 13y ago
  Capacitors are typically used for power factor and voltage correction. A minor correction on what theysayso wrote. If the line is long enough, voltage regulators are used to increase the voltage at a certain point. Phasing for lines is checked by a rotation meter, it is either A-B-C or A-C-B. Get it wrong and your motors spin backwards.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Sounds like a fairly typical "reality slap-in-the-face" as almost always happens when new technology is introduced into established infrastructure.
- scotty79 13y ago
  You could power just AC from solar. Or everything, through sort of dual input UPS.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - spiritplumber 13y ago
    Here's a redneck way to build something like that: 1) Get a beefy inverter and a beefy battery - the inverter should be rated at 150% of your load, and the battery should be whatever car battery happens to be on sale. 2) Get a beefy car battery charger. It has to be able to handle 150% of your load as well. 3) You now have a UPS that doesn't discriminate where its power comes from. 4) Get some beefy diodes, as beefy as possible. You'll need quite a few, so buy a 25-pack on digikey. 5) Hook up your solar panels so that they give you 12 volts nominal. Then, use 21 of the diodes to create a shunt that triggers at 14.7 volts (just connect them in series). That is your overcharge protection. 6) Use four more of the diodes to connect the battery charger and solar panel to the battery, in such a way that each power source does not "see" the other (common ground, two diodes in parallel from panel+ to battery+, two diodes in parallel from charger+ to battery+) 7) For the love of God, ground this thing (battery-, charger- and panels- to a metal pipe or a ground connector in a socket). You now have a complete, if small, setup for only calling upon the power grid when your solar panels aren't cutting it. This system can be dismantled into its components quickly, which is nice if you need to charge a battery or need an inverter.
- twelvechairs 13y ago
  Unless subsidised its a long way before home PV makes sense. if I notice PV at the larger or more convenient locations for it in my area (the pool, the storage warehouse, the substation, apartment blocks) I might start to consider whether viable as a cost effective single-house solution.
  - bsirkia 13y ago
    I know that in New England, where I'm from, it's only major state govt subsidies that make home PV economically viable. Even then, it takes 15-20 years to break even.
    - icefox 13y ago
      As someone that lives in Mass (which is in New England) and purchased them in 2011 See http://benjamin-meyer-home.blogspot.com/2011/08/solar-panel-installation.html http://benjamin-meyer-home.blogspot.com/2011/08/solar-panel-... looking at my data i'll be breaking even in about 3 more years (about what I planned which was 4-5 years). And this takes into account the fact that SRECs are worth a bunch less than when I started.
  - matthewbadeau 13y ago
    In Hawaii, PV was subsidized for a long time. Unfortunately they've cut those back earlier this year. (Around January 2013) Since electricity is so expensive[1] here many people could reclaim their investments in as little as 5 years. With the subsidies reduced, it may be 7 years. That's incredibly short if you compared Hawaii to the mainland. [1]http://www.heco.com/heco/Residential/Electric-Rates/Average-Electricity-Prices-for-Hawaiian-Electric,-Maui-Electric,-and-Hawaii-Electric-Light-Company http://www.heco.com/heco/Residential/Electric-Rates/Average-...
    - blazespin 13y ago
      You recoup your investment immediately when you sell, frequently with a healthy multiplier.
  - 13y ago
- crdoconnor 13y ago
  >Other posters have already noted that you can still have the solar panels, you're just not going to get paid for net metering. What people typically want is the best of both worlds, to charge onto the grid when the produce more than they use (and get paid for it) and have the grid available to supply power when they generate less than they use. This ought to be the best of both worlds for the electric grid, too, since solar generates electricity when load is at its highest. However, the grid is not concerned with running efficiently, or with minimizing environmental damage. They're concerned about their net profit. Profits on day-generated electricity are much higher than profits on night generated.
  - grandinj 13y ago
    >This ought to be the best of both worlds for the electric grid, too, since solar generates electricity when load is at its highest. Unfortunately, not. Demand peaks early morning and early evening, when solar is near its minimum. And in winter, solar is near zero at those times. So solar net metering has always been a bad deal for the utilities when you take into consideration the fixed costs they have for maintaining the necessary reserve to cover peak usage.
    - pcl 13y ago
      And in winter, solar is near zero at those times. Note that Hawaii is (mostly) below the Tropic of Cancer, so gets quite a lot of solar radiation even in the winter, and the length of a day only varies by a couple hours throughout the year ([1], [2]). I don't know the math offhand, but even without adjusting the panels, I'd expect that the winter output is probably pretty significant. [1] http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=103&month=12&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1 http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=103&m... [2] http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=103&month=6&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1 http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=103&m...
      - ignostic 13y ago
        We tend to think of Hawaii as sunny and warm all the time, but it's actually just an "above average" place for solar generation. Honolulu gets about 90 sunny days and 181 partially-cloudy days.[1] Phoenix on the other hand gets 211 sunny days and 85 partially-sunny days.[2] It's not just about sunrise and sunset, but UV index and cloud cover. Here's some actual data on actual solar generation: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html This shows that even on the sunnier Oahu and Maui, solar generation is more like Nebraska than California. The fact is that sunny days drop about 30% in the winter and UV index is down.[3] I wasn't able to find real-world MWH in Hawaii per month, but I'm guessing it's about a 50% drop overall with some days actually at ~0. Certainly not 0 for the month, but the fact remains that you need backup power for low-solar periods with more capacity if you want to leverage excess power in high-solar periods. 1 http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Hawaii/annual-days-of-sunshine.php http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Hawaii/annual-days-of-... 2 http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Arizona/annual-days-of-sunshine.php http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Arizona/annual-days-of... 3 http://www.weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Temperature-Sunshine,Honolulu,Hawaii http://www.weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-...
- brownbat 13y ago
  That's not really an accurate picture of net metering. The terms of almost every net metering plan are in the power company's favor, even if the net meterers somehow never bought power. Net metering, as currently implemented, only allows you to earn credits on your bill up to the point where your maintenance fee kicks in. You're earning credits by producing power for the company during the day, when power is expensive. You're burning those credits to keep the lights on at night, when the company's cost of power is nonexistent. No one is paying net meterers market rate for time of day, so the power companies are coming out way ahead on cost of power. Even if that weren't the case, they still baseline your bill to a maintenance fee.[1] Moreover, Hawaii has never had any clue how to balance a grid, so if HECO is now blaming customers for problems with the terrible system they built, my default position is skepticism. [1] HECO's net metering bill guide, including the minimum monthly fee even for no power use: http://www.heco.com/vcmcontent/EnergyServices/NetEnergyMetering/Understanding_Your_NEM_Bill_Summary_Brochure_FC.pdf http://www.heco.com/vcmcontent/EnergyServices/NetEnergyMeter...
  - brownbat 13y ago
    I'm really pulling for a neighborhood microgrid movement in areas with abundant solar, terrible power monopolies, where a bank of vanadium batteries is overkill for one house. Don't get me wrong. Only some power companies are awful monopolies that barely do their job, most work fine. Still, those awful monopolies should face some threat of revolt.
    - masklinn 13y ago
      > I'm really pulling for a neighborhood microgrid movement in areas with abundant solar This is a nice scheme around and between the tropics, and just about nowhere else. Because you need not just abundant sun, but abundant sun year round.
      - brownbat 13y ago
        Germany's already getting a lot out of the source with terrible insolation. Temperate areas would need to lean on storage more. As generation efficiency increases, storage losses matter less. As storage technologies improve, poor insolation matters less. But sure, someone invents a nice kitchen-sized baseline reactor that anyone can run, then this microgrid movement really takes off. Probably not in the next couple weeks. ;)
a3n 13y ago
I think ultimately this will cause people to install these systems to run non-essentials, with automatic switchovers, and optional battery backup fed by solar. And yeah, the switchovers and batteries will be expensive, but once utilities start doing this en masse people who want this bad enough will suck it up and get their personal benefit from using "free" electricity and possibly doing the planet good, rather than from selling electricity back.
- djchen 13y ago
  They mention one person's cost for a PV system with batteries in the article, it was $14,800. (Look for "Hayashi bought a system with batteries"). It also states the buyer will be able to recoup his upfront cost in 2 years thanks to tax credits. That doesn't seem too bad.
revelation 13y ago
There is no technical mystery here. We just need the right legislation to awake utilities from their century-long sleep on infrastructure investment. Americas grid is an embarrassment.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  That's not all we need. We also need the will to fund it. Non-telco electric-type utilities are not sleeping in piles of money.
deleted 13y ago
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deleted 13y ago
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spiritplumber 13y ago
I don't know about net metering, but you can build a serviceable system with 12 volt PV cells, recovered UPSs, and some lead-gel batteries (which you should store outside). You can use car alternator diodes for overvoltage protection. Should I draw a schematic?
- jzwinck 13y ago
  I don't think a schematic is going to solve the problem at hand. It's more of a local political issue.
  - spiritplumber 13y ago
    True. I was just referring to reducing the price of ancillaries.
JDDunn9 13y ago
Hawaii has the highest cost of electric in the nation. I used to live in Hawaii, and working from home, my monthly electric bill was $500-$750. Hawaii also has year-round sun, being close to the equator. The state also has rebate programs for solar panels. When I was looking into it, if you got a 5-year loan, it would be cheaper to buy the panels than pay your electric bill. There's no (legitimate) reason Hawaii's electric should be so high. They just have no incentive to reduce prices, and they have to keep their 6-figure salaries. I knew plenty of people that wanted to build solar/wind farms, but the electric company either wouldn't accept their electric at all, or would give them pennies on the dollar.
- danielharan 13y ago
  The price per kWh is sky-high there - that said, I'm surprised with that high a bill. What on earth was using that much energy?
  - JDDunn9 13y ago
    Wish I knew. I know most people didn't use A/C at all, and I did, so that may have been part of it.
    - Crito 13y ago
      Did you consider options like swamp coolers? I'm not familiar with Hawaii's climate so I don't know if they would be effective, but that power bill is more than many people pay in rent...
      - JDDunn9 13y ago
        I never heard of swamp coolers before. Honestly I think the problem was I just kept my mainland lifestyle. In Hawaii, people keep electric consumption in mind with every purchase. Most people use fans instead of A/C. High efficiency appliances. Even keeping lights off whenever possible. I didn't realize the electric problem until after I had already purchased the large screen plasma TV, A/C, etc.
politician 13y ago
How do we reconcile the fact that base-load generation (e.g. coal, nuclear) is hard to throttle, yet PV is increasingly sapping the profits from peak generation hours (i.e. mid-day) resulting in economic disruptions and perhaps ultimately in off-peak electricity disruptions as base-load generators become increasingly expensive to operate? I personally think that that's the reason the brakes are being put on PV, and not the populist "robber baron" explanation offered by the article.
- danielharan 13y ago
  Peaker plants will be out of business before the base-load generators. Unless we reconcile those, we'll see a death spiral for utilities.
- crdoconnor 13y ago
  Isn't that itself a robber baron explanation? If the grid operator is primarily concerned with profits from peak generation hours, and trying to prevent solar from impinging upon that, it doesn't seem reasonable to legislate a way to protect those profits, ESPECIALLY not when it is environmentally damaging to do so.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    The rate schedules are highly regulated. If they lose the peaks they are going to either get an increase in other rates or throw their hands in the air and turn it all off. The second would be a huge problem. The first is something lots of people are going to complain loudly about.
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      or throw their hands in the air and turn it all off. Resorting to doing that just drives people onto solar on mass.
      - maxerickson 13y ago
edent 13y ago
I've just had panels installed (in the UK)[0] and we use a hot-water converter [1]. If we're generating 2kW, and only using 600W - the excess of 400W is not fed back into the grid; it goes into an immersion heater and gives us hot water. That saves us on burning natural gas, and prevents problems with the grid. Now, depending on where you live, hot water may not be the most pressing problem. But it's slightly more practical that spinning up a fly-wheel :-) [0] http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/12/free-money-from-the-sky/ http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/12/free-money-from-the-sky/ [1] http://www.solariboost.co.uk/ http://www.solariboost.co.uk/
- JelteF 13y ago
  600W + 400W != 2kW
  - edent 13y ago
    These are metric watts, not imperial ;-)
blazespin 13y ago
Government needs to fund grid upgrades if they expect Utilities to support solar.
- Implicated 13y ago
  Because said heavily subsidized utilities can't do it themselves?
  - crdoconnor 13y ago
    They have zero incentive to do so. Ultimately, they should be re-nationalized. Privatized utilities' incentives are completely screwed up.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
There is always the even more expensive choice of going off grid entirely. But that requires a power storage facility of some form. If we are fortunate and can get to reasonable "supercap" sort of technology this will become easier. I note with some interest though that most roof top systems put only enough out that they could, in theory run a Tesla Super Charger to a Tesla battery supply. You could then pick a point in the afternoon where you did the 'switch' and switched over to inverters running off the Tesla battery pack. Providing electrical load from that point until it got below a set charge point on the batteries. Some days you'd probably go from 4PM to 9 or 10PM, others only until 6 or 7. But you would get the benefit of not having to pay for that power when you were running off the Tesla. Elon if you're reading this you should figure out how to make that happen, you'd get better volumes on the batteries with Tesla (better economics of scale) and people could do this without utility participation.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Is the battery technology the same? I'd imagine in cars space is at a higher premium and may have other constraints that seem like they might perhaps be less-than-optimal for houses. I recall seeing large banks of lead-acid(?) batteries in datacenters and at a few houses.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    Sadly no. With a super capacitor charge is stored as charge, and in a battery charge is stored by a reversible chemical reaction. The challenge of running the chemistry back and forth in a battery is what causes them to wear out eventually, and limits charge and discharge rates. When we put solar on our house we looked at putting in a whole house "ups" as it were (the typical off grid setup was not unlike a data center, batteries that carried you until you could get on to generator power) The maintenance and replacement of those batteries is a pain. But in terms of kWh stored and power delivery ability, the packs we were sizing were not unlike that of a Tesla Model S (65 - 75kWh) and Tesla has already got a replacement and refurbishment plan in place, and the packs themselves need no maintenance under normal use. So it seems like an interesting pre-packaged solution, except you'd need a high efficiency house inverter as well but progress there has come from the solar investments.
known 13y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias
diarmuidie 13y ago
One of the big problems with PV and wind power is that they don't offer any inertial load on the grid. This means that once the percentage of these sources increase the grid frequency stability decreases. When using renewables you must still generate a majority of your supply from a big rotating generator. The inertia of the spinning generator keeps the frequency from straying from 50/60hz. In Ireland they broke a record a few years back for having 50% of the electric generation coming from wind power. This was at the upper limit set by the grid operator (eirgrid) because above this level the frequency of the grid becomes unstable. Even though more wind power was available they didn't add it to the grid.
- marshray 13y ago
  Poor, poor, Ireland. That must be just awful for them. Thank God we in America aren't at risk of hitting that 50% figure of energy supplied by wind or solar.
  - diarmuidie 13y ago
    I should point out that it was only for a few hours in the early morning on a windy summers night (low base demand, no AC or heating demand). On average though 2013 renewables provided ~17% of total demand [http://www.eirgrid.com/media/EirGridAnnualRenewableReport2013.pdf http://www.eirgrid.com/media/EirGridAnnualRenewableReport201...]. System Non-Synchronous penetration (SNSP) is a real-time measure of the percentage of generation that comes from non-synchronous sources, such as wind and HDVC interconnector imports relative to the system demand. In the Irish grid this is limited to 50% for stability.
- bavcyc 13y ago
  I think the US uses 10% spinning reserve for generation (might be a NERC requirement?). Some plants (gas and certain hydro) have fast response times. Others (coal, nuke?) have a longer response time. The biggest issue with wind is that the wind gusts so power output is variable. As regards to frequency until your system has enough mass to influence the rest of the grid, the grid frequency is dominate. Even a 2,000 MW generation facility will not influence the grid frequency much, which is why it is important to sync to the grid as you connect.
zmmmmm 13y ago
Just an anecdote, but I had a conversation with a statistician who worked for the electric utilities here in Australia, and he said that solar subsidies had been so successful that it has caused a large and completely unanticipated net drop in power consumption over the summer months. Further, the situation is embarrassing for the authorities because they negotiated massive electricity price rises on the basis of needing large infrastructure improvements to handle future load. These price rises have been very politically sensitive as they are asserted to be part of the cost of the "carbon tax". It is now clear there's no need for even a fraction of the infrastructure they're building, and one consequence has been that there's been a rapid scaling back of solar subsidies to try and make all parties look a bit less foolish. I think the moral of the story is that people are way more enthusiastic about installing this kind of thing than rational analysis would estimate.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- sentenza 13y ago
  Wait a minute. Increased decentralization of power generation _does_ make large network improvements neccessary. This does (in the case of Australia) not have anything to do with load, but with locality and network resilience. The traditional electricity network is a bunch of interconnected star-shaped networks, each with a large power station in the middle. You now not only have to get bigger power lines to where the decentralized "power stations" are, but you also have to increase the overall interconnectedness, to avoid instability (think parts of the network going out of phase with other parts, localized overload and so on) due to the volatility of the renewables. Unlike Australia, some countries with unevenly distributed renewables do indeed also have to massively increase their overland capacity (central Europe).
  - whatusername 13y ago
    Yes and no. As I understand it -- most of the network improvements are to do with Peak Load. (ie -- the days where it's 45 degrees C and every household is cranking A/C). Solar PV definately helps reduce those few days a year Peaks. In the Australian context -- as I understand it -- the Privatization of the Electricity Generators was such that they are legislated to only charge a fixed % of their costs. So the only way for them to make more money is to increase their cost-base (aka "Gold Plating") and then charge their customers the additional fees.
ig1 13y ago
This is nothing new, Germany had similar issues several years ago: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/utilities-giving-away-power-as-wind-sun-flood-european-grid.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/utilities-giving-aw...
skuunk1 13y ago
Unless the energy companies get to make a profit on solar power they will fight it tooth and nail with lobbying and legislation, no matter how good it is for the environment. Why not set up a system where energy companies install and maintain solar panels on peoples' houses and then charge for the maintenance as a service (as opposed to individuals paying for their own panels in order to reduce their power bills)? That way they will be incentivized to not only offer solar power, but to invest in technology to also make it more efficient. Also individual home owners will not need to outlay such a large initial cost.
crazytony 13y ago
I'm a little late to this game but I've heard similar stories years before (maybe California and Germany?) Does anyone know if utilities are changing their installation design books? To me that would be the first place to start. I don't know about Hawaii but I know in other parts of the US massive subdivisions are being put in on a regular basis. I would hope that those new subdivisions would be geared to support this use case.
bavcyc 13y ago
Typical transmission design is a loop for redundancy. Distribution lines will have loops, for the feeders, with an open point such that it is actually a radial system but one that can be fed from 2 substations/circuits. Laterals are the lines where there are no redundant circuits. The other option is networks, which are much more expensive but have much more redundancy. Lateral design: typically a load curve is used to calculate the maximum load for each service point. The system is typically designed to handle close to that amount. If a house has a 200 A main breaker then it can use up to 160 A of current (unless the NEC changed since I did this type of work). Typically a house will never use 160 A even at peak load, but better safe than sorry so a 37.5 kVA transformer is probably used. The power is designed to flow from upstream (substation) to downstream (point of service). The system protection (reclosers, fuses, circuit breakers, etc.) are designed to interrupt over-current from the downstream headed upstream. The exception to this is a network design where protection is designed to protect equipment in both directions. Network design does not happen much at the distribution level, although it is used in major cities. If customer(s) are(is) adding power to the system then at a certain point you will have reverse power flow. And if the system is not designed for this, then bad things could happen and customers are not happy when the electric company causes damages. So the utilities want to be careful. If the rate payers (customers) want a reliable system with the ability to feed power back onto the system then there will be a cost associated with it. For the most part utilities have a monopoly granted by the state and are good at lobbying to protect their interests. What is best for the customer might not be best for the utility.
cpwright 13y ago
My ConEd bill is broken up into delivery and generation charges. I think it is fair for you to be able to sell power back to the grid, but either at the whole sale generation cost; or alternatively the generation cost less the delivery cost. Allowing you to sell it wholesale like any other power producer seems like it could be a reasonable compromise. That amount might fluctuate too much to be something understandable or usable. If the distribution cost is deducted from the amount you net meter, that would also compensate the utility for having to build the infrastructure to handle the reverse power flow. This second alternative, of course, has the disadvantage that the power is "delivered" twice (and thus charged twice).
blaze33 13y ago
Today, there's another thread on the front page [1] related to the Google Fiber "no servers" clause. So, be it information or energy I can't help but notice the similarities there. Our networks were essentially designed, decades ago, for mass production and consumption, I have no doubt we'll end with more distributed energy production and storage means similar to what happens with the rise of fast, symmetric Internet connections but in the meantime we'll see a lot of these stories while the evolution finds its way. Regarding the electricity consumption, we have access to the French realtime data online [2], I don't know if there's the equivalent in the U.S., I'll be curious to see the data for Hawaii. It's interesting to note how the daily consumption patterns differs between summer and winter (we have a lot of electric heating in the winter and little, albeit increasing, AC in the summer). Obviously there's a limit to how much PV you can plug on the grid without proper storage but it doesn't seem that's already a problem. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6949326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6949326 [2] http://www.rte-france.com/fr/developpement-durable/eco2mix/consommation-d-electricite http://www.rte-france.com/fr/developpement-durable/eco2mix/c...
mrfusion 13y ago
I saw a whole house natural gas electrical generator at Costco for only $2000 I think. If the grid wont take you I wonder if someone could use solar panels during the day and use the generator at night. Wouldn't that be cheaper than batteries?
transfire 13y ago
Reduce your load, buy a generator and/or batteries and dump the grid.
- blazespin 13y ago
  This is not feasible with current battery technology. See the article for more information.
D9u 13y ago
What is completely unnecessary is connecting your solar power equipment to HECO's systems. Buy some good deep cycle batteries and store your own power off grid. I live in an area which HECO has chosen not to serve, so that solar is a no brainer. $0.49 per Kilowatt Hour is what HELCO (Hawaii Electric Light Company, HECO's Hawai'i County subsidiary) charges, which is the highest price for electricity in the USA. I certainly don't need a $35,000 solar power system, I'm getting by on a system which cost me about $5k. My basic needs are refrigeration and lights, as well as power for small electronics. For high draw appliances I use a gasoline powered generator. (washer, propane dryer, power tools, etc) Screw HECO!
dhughes 13y ago
It must be nice to have the option of solar panels, at present I have a metre of snow on my roof and that's on the south side. And that's after I spent three hours shovelling off as much as I could before the ice storm hit us today. It snow 15cm before the ice storm now I'm back to square one. I'd like to have solar panels but I can't see how I could keep them from being covered in snow without shovelling them off off at least once per week Dec to Feb.
- oijaf888 13y ago
  Couldn't you just wire up resistance heater wire between the panels? It might take a little while to melt all of them but that would be a pretty simple solution.
Swannie 13y ago
What is the power utilities number one priority? Profit? Supplying power? Providing reliable power? Serving its customers? Buying back power from PV arrays? If you answered any of these, you're wrong. The number one priority (at least in the utility I contracted at) was safety. Safety was front and centre in almost all design decisions related to power system control, and was the dominant company culture. Even "low" voltage distribution of 230v is dangerous without the correct equipment and training. Let's put aside the issues with local transformers and substations - at the end of the day, AC power are relatively straightforward systems (though they are far from simple). The control of those systems is, actually, quite complex, and deals with multiple failure states. Adding PV supply into the mix is problematic. Though well studied, it appears that without better electical signalling (for example, overlaid at the local sub/transformer), Islanding will continue to be an issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islanding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islanding

196 points by dkoch 13y ago

The top comment from u/theysayso on the same Reddit thread seems to put things in a good perspective: Other posters have already noted that you can still have the solar panels, you're just not going to get paid for net metering. What people typically want is the best of both worlds, to charge onto the grid when the produce more than they use (and get paid for it) and have the grid available to supply power when they generate less than they use. But maintaining the grid also costs money. If all your ratepayers split, it makes it more expensive for those "left behind". Who gets left behind? Typically people with less money, that can't afford the systems in the first place, apartment dwellers, etc. The other noted challenge are battery systems. You can go completely off the grid but installing the batteries is WAY more expensive, takes and takes up a lot of space. The technology is disruptive, which the article really didn't go in to. For PV to push electrons onto the grid it needs to be at a greater potential. So if your local grid is 120v the PV needs to adjust to 120.1v. Then your neighbor installs one, and this her/his neighbor. If you're on a long radial line the voltage at the head end might be 126 just to get it to be 118 at the tail end. Normally a utility will install capacitor banks to adjust the voltage. Now you have PV going in everywhere totally screwing with the voltage so it becomes a bit of a grid management challenge. You need to know where all that is going in, what its rate of power is at any given moment (clouds/rains suddenly everything changes and the utility has to compensate). So yeah, a sticky problem that could get out of hand pretty quickly. http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1tey5l/a_solar_boom_in_hawaii_proved_so_successful_that/ http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1tey5l/a_solar_b... credit: http://www.reddit.com/user/theysayso http://www.reddit.com/user/theysayso

bavcyc 13y ago
Capacitors are typically used for power factor and voltage correction. A minor correction on what theysayso wrote. If the line is long enough, voltage regulators are used to increase the voltage at a certain point. Phasing for lines is checked by a rotation meter, it is either A-B-C or A-C-B. Get it wrong and your motors spin backwards.
ams6110 13y ago
Sounds like a fairly typical "reality slap-in-the-face" as almost always happens when new technology is introduced into established infrastructure.
scotty79 13y ago
You could power just AC from solar. Or everything, through sort of dual input UPS.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- spiritplumber 13y ago
  Here's a redneck way to build something like that: 1) Get a beefy inverter and a beefy battery - the inverter should be rated at 150% of your load, and the battery should be whatever car battery happens to be on sale. 2) Get a beefy car battery charger. It has to be able to handle 150% of your load as well. 3) You now have a UPS that doesn't discriminate where its power comes from. 4) Get some beefy diodes, as beefy as possible. You'll need quite a few, so buy a 25-pack on digikey. 5) Hook up your solar panels so that they give you 12 volts nominal. Then, use 21 of the diodes to create a shunt that triggers at 14.7 volts (just connect them in series). That is your overcharge protection. 6) Use four more of the diodes to connect the battery charger and solar panel to the battery, in such a way that each power source does not "see" the other (common ground, two diodes in parallel from panel+ to battery+, two diodes in parallel from charger+ to battery+) 7) For the love of God, ground this thing (battery-, charger- and panels- to a metal pipe or a ground connector in a socket). You now have a complete, if small, setup for only calling upon the power grid when your solar panels aren't cutting it. This system can be dismantled into its components quickly, which is nice if you need to charge a battery or need an inverter.
twelvechairs 13y ago
Unless subsidised its a long way before home PV makes sense. if I notice PV at the larger or more convenient locations for it in my area (the pool, the storage warehouse, the substation, apartment blocks) I might start to consider whether viable as a cost effective single-house solution.
- bsirkia 13y ago
  I know that in New England, where I'm from, it's only major state govt subsidies that make home PV economically viable. Even then, it takes 15-20 years to break even.
  - icefox 13y ago
    As someone that lives in Mass (which is in New England) and purchased them in 2011 See http://benjamin-meyer-home.blogspot.com/2011/08/solar-panel-installation.html http://benjamin-meyer-home.blogspot.com/2011/08/solar-panel-... looking at my data i'll be breaking even in about 3 more years (about what I planned which was 4-5 years). And this takes into account the fact that SRECs are worth a bunch less than when I started.
- matthewbadeau 13y ago
  In Hawaii, PV was subsidized for a long time. Unfortunately they've cut those back earlier this year. (Around January 2013) Since electricity is so expensive[1] here many people could reclaim their investments in as little as 5 years. With the subsidies reduced, it may be 7 years. That's incredibly short if you compared Hawaii to the mainland. [1]http://www.heco.com/heco/Residential/Electric-Rates/Average-Electricity-Prices-for-Hawaiian-Electric,-Maui-Electric,-and-Hawaii-Electric-Light-Company http://www.heco.com/heco/Residential/Electric-Rates/Average-...
  - blazespin 13y ago
    You recoup your investment immediately when you sell, frequently with a healthy multiplier.
- 13y ago
crdoconnor 13y ago
>Other posters have already noted that you can still have the solar panels, you're just not going to get paid for net metering. What people typically want is the best of both worlds, to charge onto the grid when the produce more than they use (and get paid for it) and have the grid available to supply power when they generate less than they use. This ought to be the best of both worlds for the electric grid, too, since solar generates electricity when load is at its highest. However, the grid is not concerned with running efficiently, or with minimizing environmental damage. They're concerned about their net profit. Profits on day-generated electricity are much higher than profits on night generated.
- grandinj 13y ago
  >This ought to be the best of both worlds for the electric grid, too, since solar generates electricity when load is at its highest. Unfortunately, not. Demand peaks early morning and early evening, when solar is near its minimum. And in winter, solar is near zero at those times. So solar net metering has always been a bad deal for the utilities when you take into consideration the fixed costs they have for maintaining the necessary reserve to cover peak usage.
  - pcl 13y ago
    And in winter, solar is near zero at those times. Note that Hawaii is (mostly) below the Tropic of Cancer, so gets quite a lot of solar radiation even in the winter, and the length of a day only varies by a couple hours throughout the year ([1], [2]). I don't know the math offhand, but even without adjusting the panels, I'd expect that the winter output is probably pretty significant. [1] http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=103&month=12&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1 http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=103&m... [2] http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=103&month=6&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1 http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=103&m...
    - ignostic 13y ago
      We tend to think of Hawaii as sunny and warm all the time, but it's actually just an "above average" place for solar generation. Honolulu gets about 90 sunny days and 181 partially-cloudy days.[1] Phoenix on the other hand gets 211 sunny days and 85 partially-sunny days.[2] It's not just about sunrise and sunset, but UV index and cloud cover. Here's some actual data on actual solar generation: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html This shows that even on the sunnier Oahu and Maui, solar generation is more like Nebraska than California. The fact is that sunny days drop about 30% in the winter and UV index is down.[3] I wasn't able to find real-world MWH in Hawaii per month, but I'm guessing it's about a 50% drop overall with some days actually at ~0. Certainly not 0 for the month, but the fact remains that you need backup power for low-solar periods with more capacity if you want to leverage excess power in high-solar periods. 1 http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Hawaii/annual-days-of-sunshine.php http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Hawaii/annual-days-of-... 2 http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Arizona/annual-days-of-sunshine.php http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Arizona/annual-days-of... 3 http://www.weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Temperature-Sunshine,Honolulu,Hawaii http://www.weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-...
brownbat 13y ago
That's not really an accurate picture of net metering. The terms of almost every net metering plan are in the power company's favor, even if the net meterers somehow never bought power. Net metering, as currently implemented, only allows you to earn credits on your bill up to the point where your maintenance fee kicks in. You're earning credits by producing power for the company during the day, when power is expensive. You're burning those credits to keep the lights on at night, when the company's cost of power is nonexistent. No one is paying net meterers market rate for time of day, so the power companies are coming out way ahead on cost of power. Even if that weren't the case, they still baseline your bill to a maintenance fee.[1] Moreover, Hawaii has never had any clue how to balance a grid, so if HECO is now blaming customers for problems with the terrible system they built, my default position is skepticism. [1] HECO's net metering bill guide, including the minimum monthly fee even for no power use: http://www.heco.com/vcmcontent/EnergyServices/NetEnergyMetering/Understanding_Your_NEM_Bill_Summary_Brochure_FC.pdf http://www.heco.com/vcmcontent/EnergyServices/NetEnergyMeter...
- brownbat 13y ago
  I'm really pulling for a neighborhood microgrid movement in areas with abundant solar, terrible power monopolies, where a bank of vanadium batteries is overkill for one house. Don't get me wrong. Only some power companies are awful monopolies that barely do their job, most work fine. Still, those awful monopolies should face some threat of revolt.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    > I'm really pulling for a neighborhood microgrid movement in areas with abundant solar This is a nice scheme around and between the tropics, and just about nowhere else. Because you need not just abundant sun, but abundant sun year round.
    - brownbat 13y ago
      Germany's already getting a lot out of the source with terrible insolation. Temperate areas would need to lean on storage more. As generation efficiency increases, storage losses matter less. As storage technologies improve, poor insolation matters less. But sure, someone invents a nice kitchen-sized baseline reactor that anyone can run, then this microgrid movement really takes off. Probably not in the next couple weeks. ;)

a3n 13y ago

I think ultimately this will cause people to install these systems to run non-essentials, with automatic switchovers, and optional battery backup fed by solar. And yeah, the switchovers and batteries will be expensive, but once utilities start doing this en masse people who want this bad enough will suck it up and get their personal benefit from using "free" electricity and possibly doing the planet good, rather than from selling electricity back.

djchen 13y ago
They mention one person's cost for a PV system with batteries in the article, it was $14,800. (Look for "Hayashi bought a system with batteries"). It also states the buyer will be able to recoup his upfront cost in 2 years thanks to tax credits. That doesn't seem too bad.

revelation 13y ago

There is no technical mystery here. We just need the right legislation to awake utilities from their century-long sleep on infrastructure investment. Americas grid is an embarrassment.

sliverstorm 13y ago
That's not all we need. We also need the will to fund it. Non-telco electric-type utilities are not sleeping in piles of money.

deleted 13y ago

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spiritplumber 13y ago

I don't know about net metering, but you can build a serviceable system with 12 volt PV cells, recovered UPSs, and some lead-gel batteries (which you should store outside). You can use car alternator diodes for overvoltage protection. Should I draw a schematic?

jzwinck 13y ago
I don't think a schematic is going to solve the problem at hand. It's more of a local political issue.
- spiritplumber 13y ago
  True. I was just referring to reducing the price of ancillaries.

JDDunn9 13y ago

Hawaii has the highest cost of electric in the nation. I used to live in Hawaii, and working from home, my monthly electric bill was $500-$750. Hawaii also has year-round sun, being close to the equator. The state also has rebate programs for solar panels. When I was looking into it, if you got a 5-year loan, it would be cheaper to buy the panels than pay your electric bill. There's no (legitimate) reason Hawaii's electric should be so high. They just have no incentive to reduce prices, and they have to keep their 6-figure salaries. I knew plenty of people that wanted to build solar/wind farms, but the electric company either wouldn't accept their electric at all, or would give them pennies on the dollar.

danielharan 13y ago
The price per kWh is sky-high there - that said, I'm surprised with that high a bill. What on earth was using that much energy?
- JDDunn9 13y ago
  Wish I knew. I know most people didn't use A/C at all, and I did, so that may have been part of it.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Did you consider options like swamp coolers? I'm not familiar with Hawaii's climate so I don't know if they would be effective, but that power bill is more than many people pay in rent...
    - JDDunn9 13y ago
      I never heard of swamp coolers before. Honestly I think the problem was I just kept my mainland lifestyle. In Hawaii, people keep electric consumption in mind with every purchase. Most people use fans instead of A/C. High efficiency appliances. Even keeping lights off whenever possible. I didn't realize the electric problem until after I had already purchased the large screen plasma TV, A/C, etc.

politician 13y ago

How do we reconcile the fact that base-load generation (e.g. coal, nuclear) is hard to throttle, yet PV is increasingly sapping the profits from peak generation hours (i.e. mid-day) resulting in economic disruptions and perhaps ultimately in off-peak electricity disruptions as base-load generators become increasingly expensive to operate? I personally think that that's the reason the brakes are being put on PV, and not the populist "robber baron" explanation offered by the article.

danielharan 13y ago
Peaker plants will be out of business before the base-load generators. Unless we reconcile those, we'll see a death spiral for utilities.
crdoconnor 13y ago
Isn't that itself a robber baron explanation? If the grid operator is primarily concerned with profits from peak generation hours, and trying to prevent solar from impinging upon that, it doesn't seem reasonable to legislate a way to protect those profits, ESPECIALLY not when it is environmentally damaging to do so.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  The rate schedules are highly regulated. If they lose the peaks they are going to either get an increase in other rates or throw their hands in the air and turn it all off. The second would be a huge problem. The first is something lots of people are going to complain loudly about.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    or throw their hands in the air and turn it all off. Resorting to doing that just drives people onto solar on mass.
    - maxerickson 13y ago

edent 13y ago

I've just had panels installed (in the UK)[0] and we use a hot-water converter [1]. If we're generating 2kW, and only using 600W - the excess of 400W is not fed back into the grid; it goes into an immersion heater and gives us hot water. That saves us on burning natural gas, and prevents problems with the grid. Now, depending on where you live, hot water may not be the most pressing problem. But it's slightly more practical that spinning up a fly-wheel :-) [0] http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/12/free-money-from-the-sky/ http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/12/free-money-from-the-sky/ [1] http://www.solariboost.co.uk/ http://www.solariboost.co.uk/

JelteF 13y ago
600W + 400W != 2kW
- edent 13y ago
  These are metric watts, not imperial ;-)

blazespin 13y ago

Government needs to fund grid upgrades if they expect Utilities to support solar.

Implicated 13y ago
Because said heavily subsidized utilities can't do it themselves?
- crdoconnor 13y ago
  They have zero incentive to do so. Ultimately, they should be re-nationalized. Privatized utilities' incentives are completely screwed up.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

There is always the even more expensive choice of going off grid entirely. But that requires a power storage facility of some form. If we are fortunate and can get to reasonable "supercap" sort of technology this will become easier. I note with some interest though that most roof top systems put only enough out that they could, in theory run a Tesla Super Charger to a Tesla battery supply. You could then pick a point in the afternoon where you did the 'switch' and switched over to inverters running off the Tesla battery pack. Providing electrical load from that point until it got below a set charge point on the batteries. Some days you'd probably go from 4PM to 9 or 10PM, others only until 6 or 7. But you would get the benefit of not having to pay for that power when you were running off the Tesla. Elon if you're reading this you should figure out how to make that happen, you'd get better volumes on the batteries with Tesla (better economics of scale) and people could do this without utility participation.

MichaelGG 13y ago
Is the battery technology the same? I'd imagine in cars space is at a higher premium and may have other constraints that seem like they might perhaps be less-than-optimal for houses. I recall seeing large banks of lead-acid(?) batteries in datacenters and at a few houses.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Sadly no. With a super capacitor charge is stored as charge, and in a battery charge is stored by a reversible chemical reaction. The challenge of running the chemistry back and forth in a battery is what causes them to wear out eventually, and limits charge and discharge rates. When we put solar on our house we looked at putting in a whole house "ups" as it were (the typical off grid setup was not unlike a data center, batteries that carried you until you could get on to generator power) The maintenance and replacement of those batteries is a pain. But in terms of kWh stored and power delivery ability, the packs we were sizing were not unlike that of a Tesla Model S (65 - 75kWh) and Tesla has already got a replacement and refurbishment plan in place, and the packs themselves need no maintenance under normal use. So it seems like an interesting pre-packaged solution, except you'd need a high efficiency house inverter as well but progress there has come from the solar investments.

known 13y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias

diarmuidie 13y ago

One of the big problems with PV and wind power is that they don't offer any inertial load on the grid. This means that once the percentage of these sources increase the grid frequency stability decreases. When using renewables you must still generate a majority of your supply from a big rotating generator. The inertia of the spinning generator keeps the frequency from straying from 50/60hz. In Ireland they broke a record a few years back for having 50% of the electric generation coming from wind power. This was at the upper limit set by the grid operator (eirgrid) because above this level the frequency of the grid becomes unstable. Even though more wind power was available they didn't add it to the grid.

marshray 13y ago
Poor, poor, Ireland. That must be just awful for them. Thank God we in America aren't at risk of hitting that 50% figure of energy supplied by wind or solar.
- diarmuidie 13y ago
  I should point out that it was only for a few hours in the early morning on a windy summers night (low base demand, no AC or heating demand). On average though 2013 renewables provided ~17% of total demand [http://www.eirgrid.com/media/EirGridAnnualRenewableReport2013.pdf http://www.eirgrid.com/media/EirGridAnnualRenewableReport201...]. System Non-Synchronous penetration (SNSP) is a real-time measure of the percentage of generation that comes from non-synchronous sources, such as wind and HDVC interconnector imports relative to the system demand. In the Irish grid this is limited to 50% for stability.
bavcyc 13y ago
I think the US uses 10% spinning reserve for generation (might be a NERC requirement?). Some plants (gas and certain hydro) have fast response times. Others (coal, nuke?) have a longer response time. The biggest issue with wind is that the wind gusts so power output is variable. As regards to frequency until your system has enough mass to influence the rest of the grid, the grid frequency is dominate. Even a 2,000 MW generation facility will not influence the grid frequency much, which is why it is important to sync to the grid as you connect.

zmmmmm 13y ago

Just an anecdote, but I had a conversation with a statistician who worked for the electric utilities here in Australia, and he said that solar subsidies had been so successful that it has caused a large and completely unanticipated net drop in power consumption over the summer months. Further, the situation is embarrassing for the authorities because they negotiated massive electricity price rises on the basis of needing large infrastructure improvements to handle future load. These price rises have been very politically sensitive as they are asserted to be part of the cost of the "carbon tax". It is now clear there's no need for even a fraction of the infrastructure they're building, and one consequence has been that there's been a rapid scaling back of solar subsidies to try and make all parties look a bit less foolish. I think the moral of the story is that people are way more enthusiastic about installing this kind of thing than rational analysis would estimate.

deleted 13y ago
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sentenza 13y ago
Wait a minute. Increased decentralization of power generation _does_ make large network improvements neccessary. This does (in the case of Australia) not have anything to do with load, but with locality and network resilience. The traditional electricity network is a bunch of interconnected star-shaped networks, each with a large power station in the middle. You now not only have to get bigger power lines to where the decentralized "power stations" are, but you also have to increase the overall interconnectedness, to avoid instability (think parts of the network going out of phase with other parts, localized overload and so on) due to the volatility of the renewables. Unlike Australia, some countries with unevenly distributed renewables do indeed also have to massively increase their overland capacity (central Europe).
- whatusername 13y ago
  Yes and no. As I understand it -- most of the network improvements are to do with Peak Load. (ie -- the days where it's 45 degrees C and every household is cranking A/C). Solar PV definately helps reduce those few days a year Peaks. In the Australian context -- as I understand it -- the Privatization of the Electricity Generators was such that they are legislated to only charge a fixed % of their costs. So the only way for them to make more money is to increase their cost-base (aka "Gold Plating") and then charge their customers the additional fees.

ig1 13y ago

This is nothing new, Germany had similar issues several years ago: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/utilities-giving-away-power-as-wind-sun-flood-european-grid.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/utilities-giving-aw...

skuunk1 13y ago

Unless the energy companies get to make a profit on solar power they will fight it tooth and nail with lobbying and legislation, no matter how good it is for the environment. Why not set up a system where energy companies install and maintain solar panels on peoples' houses and then charge for the maintenance as a service (as opposed to individuals paying for their own panels in order to reduce their power bills)? That way they will be incentivized to not only offer solar power, but to invest in technology to also make it more efficient. Also individual home owners will not need to outlay such a large initial cost.

crazytony 13y ago

I'm a little late to this game but I've heard similar stories years before (maybe California and Germany?) Does anyone know if utilities are changing their installation design books? To me that would be the first place to start. I don't know about Hawaii but I know in other parts of the US massive subdivisions are being put in on a regular basis. I would hope that those new subdivisions would be geared to support this use case.

bavcyc 13y ago

Typical transmission design is a loop for redundancy. Distribution lines will have loops, for the feeders, with an open point such that it is actually a radial system but one that can be fed from 2 substations/circuits. Laterals are the lines where there are no redundant circuits. The other option is networks, which are much more expensive but have much more redundancy. Lateral design: typically a load curve is used to calculate the maximum load for each service point. The system is typically designed to handle close to that amount. If a house has a 200 A main breaker then it can use up to 160 A of current (unless the NEC changed since I did this type of work). Typically a house will never use 160 A even at peak load, but better safe than sorry so a 37.5 kVA transformer is probably used. The power is designed to flow from upstream (substation) to downstream (point of service). The system protection (reclosers, fuses, circuit breakers, etc.) are designed to interrupt over-current from the downstream headed upstream. The exception to this is a network design where protection is designed to protect equipment in both directions. Network design does not happen much at the distribution level, although it is used in major cities. If customer(s) are(is) adding power to the system then at a certain point you will have reverse power flow. And if the system is not designed for this, then bad things could happen and customers are not happy when the electric company causes damages. So the utilities want to be careful. If the rate payers (customers) want a reliable system with the ability to feed power back onto the system then there will be a cost associated with it. For the most part utilities have a monopoly granted by the state and are good at lobbying to protect their interests. What is best for the customer might not be best for the utility.

cpwright 13y ago

My ConEd bill is broken up into delivery and generation charges. I think it is fair for you to be able to sell power back to the grid, but either at the whole sale generation cost; or alternatively the generation cost less the delivery cost. Allowing you to sell it wholesale like any other power producer seems like it could be a reasonable compromise. That amount might fluctuate too much to be something understandable or usable. If the distribution cost is deducted from the amount you net meter, that would also compensate the utility for having to build the infrastructure to handle the reverse power flow. This second alternative, of course, has the disadvantage that the power is "delivered" twice (and thus charged twice).

blaze33 13y ago

Today, there's another thread on the front page [1] related to the Google Fiber "no servers" clause. So, be it information or energy I can't help but notice the similarities there. Our networks were essentially designed, decades ago, for mass production and consumption, I have no doubt we'll end with more distributed energy production and storage means similar to what happens with the rise of fast, symmetric Internet connections but in the meantime we'll see a lot of these stories while the evolution finds its way. Regarding the electricity consumption, we have access to the French realtime data online [2], I don't know if there's the equivalent in the U.S., I'll be curious to see the data for Hawaii. It's interesting to note how the daily consumption patterns differs between summer and winter (we have a lot of electric heating in the winter and little, albeit increasing, AC in the summer). Obviously there's a limit to how much PV you can plug on the grid without proper storage but it doesn't seem that's already a problem. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6949326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6949326 [2] http://www.rte-france.com/fr/developpement-durable/eco2mix/consommation-d-electricite http://www.rte-france.com/fr/developpement-durable/eco2mix/c...

mrfusion 13y ago

I saw a whole house natural gas electrical generator at Costco for only $2000 I think. If the grid wont take you I wonder if someone could use solar panels during the day and use the generator at night. Wouldn't that be cheaper than batteries?

transfire 13y ago

Reduce your load, buy a generator and/or batteries and dump the grid.

blazespin 13y ago
This is not feasible with current battery technology. See the article for more information.

D9u 13y ago

What is completely unnecessary is connecting your solar power equipment to HECO's systems. Buy some good deep cycle batteries and store your own power off grid. I live in an area which HECO has chosen not to serve, so that solar is a no brainer. $0.49 per Kilowatt Hour is what HELCO (Hawaii Electric Light Company, HECO's Hawai'i County subsidiary) charges, which is the highest price for electricity in the USA. I certainly don't need a $35,000 solar power system, I'm getting by on a system which cost me about $5k. My basic needs are refrigeration and lights, as well as power for small electronics. For high draw appliances I use a gasoline powered generator. (washer, propane dryer, power tools, etc) Screw HECO!

dhughes 13y ago

It must be nice to have the option of solar panels, at present I have a metre of snow on my roof and that's on the south side. And that's after I spent three hours shovelling off as much as I could before the ice storm hit us today. It snow 15cm before the ice storm now I'm back to square one. I'd like to have solar panels but I can't see how I could keep them from being covered in snow without shovelling them off off at least once per week Dec to Feb.

oijaf888 13y ago
Couldn't you just wire up resistance heater wire between the panels? It might take a little while to melt all of them but that would be a pretty simple solution.

Swannie 13y ago

What is the power utilities number one priority? Profit? Supplying power? Providing reliable power? Serving its customers? Buying back power from PV arrays? If you answered any of these, you're wrong. The number one priority (at least in the utility I contracted at) was safety. Safety was front and centre in almost all design decisions related to power system control, and was the dominant company culture. Even "low" voltage distribution of 230v is dangerous without the correct equipment and training. Let's put aside the issues with local transformers and substations - at the end of the day, AC power are relatively straightforward systems (though they are far from simple). The control of those systems is, actually, quite complex, and deals with multiple failure states. Adding PV supply into the mix is problematic. Though well studied, it appears that without better electical signalling (for example, overlaid at the local sub/transformer), Islanding will continue to be an issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islanding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islanding