Enphase Battery?

[SunEagle]

I haven't seen the specifics of this legislation, but what if the mandate is for 100% "net" renewable? It may still be far too aggressive for some, but it doesn't seem impossible. I draw from the grid at night and on rainy days, but at the end of the year, I produce about 110% of what I consume, therefore I would be meeting a 100% RPS mandate if I was required to comply. I would think that HI has FAR more optimal conditions for solar than Massachusetts, so if they are indeed talking about "net" renewable energy, doesn't it deserve to at least be discussed civilly? On a side note, I am new to this forum and given that it is a free and privately run site, the admins/moderators can run it any way they choose. I get that. That said, it is just my opinion that I have a been a little suprised and dissapointed at some at the tone of some of the discussion. I would hope that everyone would feel confident to express an opinion and have a lively debate about it if others disagree, without being called things like "a fool", "stupid", "whiny green loud mouth", among other things by a moderator! Wow. Again, just a suggestion. We can disagree without being disagreeable and personally attacking others.

I agree that the legislation wording may have a different meaning and that 100% is misleading. Time will tell if the specifics come to light and are understood better.

Maybe some of the "tone" in these posts is not as supportive as you would expect. That could be because of us grumpy old men or it could be coming from years of hands on experience (concerning power generation and distribution) trying to get others to better understand the dynamics.

What most people don't understand is that even a minor issue lasting 1/2 of a second can and has put people in the dark. That is a nuisance to most people but can be very expensive to manufacturing and must be avoided.

The expectations from the customer is for continuous, reliable and steady power 24/7. To provide continuous Gigawatts of power requires a balance of excess % generation and a very quick distribution system to react to changes so that no one loses power for even a brief period of time. That means that even during the daytime the electric suppliers need to be able to increase generation or redirect where it is going based on demand and needs. As far as I know RE doesn't give you that flexibility to quickly increase generation only to decrease it. Fossil fuel generation has that flexibility and while it can be expensive the expectation of 100% grid power needs to be met.

So please hang in there and hopefully this topic and others can be discussed so that we both can learn something new.

[donald]

mostly a + 1 from me, but I do understand some people get frustrated when they know (all of the mods here know a bit about solar) someone is speaking rubbish.

Please, point out the rubbish in this thread.

[kevcor620]

mostly a + 1 from me, but I do understand some people get frustrated when they know (all of the mods here know a bit about solar) someone is speaking rubbish. I would call for less name calling but it is going to happen from time to time, it is a forum of no illusions

Thanks Pete. As a Human Resource Manager, I admittedly have a hyper-sensitivity to discourse. It's an annoying trait of us HR "people persons"

[solar pete]

I haven't seen the specifics of this legislation, but what if the mandate is for 100% "net" renewable? It may still be far too aggressive for some, but it doesn't seem impossible. I draw from the grid at night and on rainy days, but at the end of the year, I produce about 110% of what I consume, therefore I would be meeting a 100% RPS mandate if I was required to comply. I would think that HI has FAR more optimal conditions for solar than Massachusetts, so if they are indeed talking about "net" renewable energy, doesn't it deserve to at least be discussed civilly? On a side note, I am new to this forum and given that it is a free and privately run site, the admins/moderators can run it any way they choose. I get that. That said, it is just my opinion that I have a been a little suprised and dissapointed at some at the tone of some of the discussion. I would hope that everyone would feel confident to express an opinion and have a lively debate about it if others disagree, without being called things like "a fool", "stupid", "whiny green loud mouth", among other things by a moderator! Wow. Again, just a suggestion. We can disagree without being disagreeable and personally attacking others.

mostly a + 1 from me, but I do understand some people get frustrated when they know (all of the mods here know a bit about solar) someone is speaking rubbish. I would call for less name calling but it is going to happen from time to time, it is a forum of no illusions

[kevcor620]

What is foolish is that when they go 100% renewable they will have a choice of going dark at night, running off very expensive "storage" systems or firing up them fossil fuel generators.

RE is not and IMO will not be a 24/7 energy producer for many decades. So if you decide to visit Hawaii in 2045 I would suggest you bring a flashlight. Your gona need it.

I haven't seen the specifics of this legislation, but what if the mandate is for 100% "net" renewable? It may still be far too aggressive for some, but it doesn't seem impossible. I draw from the grid at night and on rainy days, but at the end of the year, I produce about 110% of what I consume, therefore I would be meeting a 100% RPS mandate if I was required to comply. I would think that HI has FAR more optimal conditions for solar than Massachusetts, so if they are indeed talking about "net" renewable energy, doesn't it deserve to at least be discussed civilly? On a side note, I am new to this forum and given that it is a free and privately run site, the admins/moderators can run it any way they choose. I get that. That said, it is just my opinion that I have a been a little suprised and dissapointed at some at the tone of some of the discussion. I would hope that everyone would feel confident to express an opinion and have a lively debate about it if others disagree, without being called things like "a fool", "stupid", "whiny green loud mouth", among other things by a moderator! Wow. Again, just a suggestion. We can disagree without being disagreeable and personally attacking others.

[SunEagle]

.... you can be an utter moron and drive a country, how does that work

Sounds similar to another country near to my heart.

[solar pete]

We are seeing a large upswing in inquirys for hybrid systems, but not a lot are buying as yet as the prices are really quite high. We are building a 30kW hybrid system at my brothers (info coming soon) Andy decided to go with relatively cheap Chinese batteries, as he thinks if these work we will be able to sell them with some confidence.

Our electricity prices have gone through the roof for several reasons, greed being a biggy, which has only served to create a strong solar industry here, so they have created their own monster and now they have to learn to live with it, serves em right imho

By the way we have a huge reserve of natural gas up north but the government in their infinite wisdom sold it off for the next 30 years to the chinese for bugger all a few years back, they thought they were being clever at the time....there should be some sort of test to be a politician, I mean you have to have a licence to drive a car, but you can be an utter moron and drive a country, how does that work

[donald]

Australia has massive natural gas resources.

I know they have built diesel peakers, so they must not have pipelines. I also know they they have exported natural gas while having shortages, obviously making people unhappy. To have 30 cent electricity in a country with Austrlalia's resources is just mismanagement. That price is only a bit under Hawaii.

One interesting effect is that they apparently decoupled GDP growth from electric growth, presumably through efficiency.

Anyway, I don't know much about Australia. We will see what happens with $1/watt solar.

[SunEagle]

Australia is going to be out on the bleeding edge. They have a lot of the characteristics of the U.S. - large space with good sun and wind resources. The exception is not much natural gas (I think). The energy planning in some areas have been idiotic, setting themselves up unintentionally as a great test case.

I agree Australia seems to be a good place to test residential solar energy storage systems.

Just be aware that I reviewed some of those energy storage articles and while some look promising others may be nothing but "vapor ware". I hate to see the sentence "coming soon". My definition of "soon" is usually very different from others.

The whole test will come down to the true cycle life and DOD% against the initial installed cost. Another cost factor will depend on how many kWh the people really need when the sun isn't shining.

A small battery system might be worth it but if you need 12kWh at night, then with a system with a 3 day supply (36kWh) will probably cost around $50,000 which is a lot to spend up front.

IMO a battery system $/kWh cost to generate power will need to be less than that $/kWh electric cost from the grid before it is worth looking at.

[russ]

Australia is going to be out on the bleeding edge. They have a lot of the characteristics of the U.S. - large space with good sun and wind resources. The exception is not much natural gas (I think). The energy planning in some areas have been idiotic, setting themselves up unintentionally as a great test case.

Australia has massive natural gas resources.

[russ]

Any business that does not change with the times is dead - make that DEAD. 25% of electricity in southern Australia is PV?

[donald]

Interesting reading. Thanks for the link.

Australia is going to be out on the bleeding edge. They have a lot of the characteristics of the U.S. - large space with good sun and wind resources. The exception is not much natural gas (I think). The energy planning in some areas have been idiotic, setting themselves up unintentionally as a great test case.

[donald]

Some people are probably aware that E.ON split off it's conventional generation. E.ON is one of the largest non-state owned utilities. The CEO's comment this month at the shareholder's meeting are interesting, starting at the bottom of page 6:

http://www.eon.com/content/dam/eon-com/Investoren/Hauptversammlung/HV15_Speech_Johannes_Teyssen_EN.pdf

[russ]

Here's a paper on this risky uncharted path:

where you guys find this stuff! Sounds like a zombie movie or something.

[SunEagle]

Here is a good place to track Australian solar news and rates:

http://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/c...orage-systems/

Interesting reading. Thanks for the link.