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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 bee
by 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 agoWait 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 agoYes 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.
- g8oz 13y ago>> Unlike Australia, some countries with unevenly distributed renewables do indeed also have to massively increase their overland capacity (central Europe). Only in neighborhood circuits where residential PV is significant. Utilities don't want to. Government should force them.