Tesla Powerwall 2

[Raul]

Just a bit of insight from UK. We had this law in force since early last year. So all new built has to have a degree of solar or super duper insulation to achive a high Energy performance. Now is pushed upon landlords schools etc. Trouble is, some of this sites are not suitable for PV at all. But if you install a 2-3kwp to get the tick from the planners is all good. Apart from the fact that , the system will sit in the shade producing almost nothing over the year and the cost of housing has gone up.
To me this is a con from the politicians, favouring certain groups / institutions.
Thats my two pennies.

[J.P.M.]

Yep, that's the "plan" And landlords will have to deal with rent control to keep housing affordable since ordinary folk can't buy a house anymore

Happy yet Dan ? What's that going to do to the cost of housing? Along with the other coffin nails such as the new HUGE state transfer fees for home sales, higher taxes on new homes and higher fees all around, to pay for that clean green energy that is not rolling in.
Can't build giant bird torching solar collectors, ground arrays in the desert affect endangered species (shade & access roads) and I'm just waiting till off-shore generation has a bad cable and electrocutes a dolphin and 6 sardines.

I wonder if folks like Dan really care, particularly if he's already a homeowner. New home pricing tides lift all selling prices. Current owners (usually older) get to bail at a high price, cash out and move to less expensive places like AZ, NV, etc.

Besides, since younger buyers are often of the opinion they are exceptional and special (having been told that all their lives), and therefore not ordinary, they don't need worry about housing affordability for ordinary folks.

That solar housing mandate is a scam. It will not reduce usage. It will not improve product quality. It will certainly not reduce prices. It will only waylay some of the perhaps draconian style forcing function that electric bills have to induce use reduction a bit while allowing more outfits like Musk, Sunrun, Vivant and the rest of the scumbag peddlers who prey on the solar ignorant more fields of ignorance to plow. Want a smoking gun ? Look who's chimed in in support of the measure.

[jflorey2]

The rules still need to be approved by the building standards commission, so it's not a done deal yet.

It's a done deal. And it will add ~$10,000 to the cost of every home in California.

Would you be OK having to pay $10,000 to subsidize a nearby coal fired power plant? After all, some Californians might think that coal power needs to be saved. Think of the coal miners!

[Mike90250]

... word on the street here is that California is set to announce all new houses must have solar on them, has anyone else heard anything on this.

Yep, that's the "plan" And landlords will have to deal with rent control to keep housing affordable since ordinary folk can't buy a house anymore

Happy yet Dan ? What's that going to do to the cost of housing? Along with the other coffin nails such as the new HUGE state transfer fees for home sales, higher taxes on new homes and higher fees all around, to pay for that clean green energy that is not rolling in.
Can't build giant bird torching solar collectors, ground arrays in the desert affect endangered species (shade & access roads) and I'm just waiting till off-shore generation has a bad cable and electrocutes a dolphin and 6 sardines.

[SunEagle]

If you have fresher data, please post it.



Sure, last I checked we were, see energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors

Also, many of the tools to deal with daily variations in weather can also help with reliability in the face of longer-duration events, I think.
See e.g. ucsusa.org/clean-energy/renewable-energy/barriers-to-renewable-energy#bf-toc-4

Unfortunately my crystal ball is a bit cloudy when it comes to future weather patterns and ash releases.

But as both you and I have stated before the weather patterns are changing.

And historical data on ash releases is not an exact science. I would probably be more accurate picking the 6 numbers of a lottery then to tell you when the next volcano will go violent or how many more storms will rain on CA's solar parade.

By the way while recent ash seems not to be a problem in Hawaii it looks like one RE geothermal plant is shut down. Either way going 100% RE may have a number of stumbling blocks so unless you have enough back up power sources some parts of that island chain could go dark.

[Sunking]

Just ban DAN and get it over with.

[DanKegel]

Hi All,
A bit off topic but the word on the street here is that California is set to announce all new houses must have solar on them, has anyone else heard anything on this.

Yeah, scroll up a bit... to recap:

The rules still need to be approved by the building standards commission, so it's not a done deal yet.

The rules approved today by the energy commission would require solar on many new low-rise buildings, but reduces the solar requirement for buildings that have storage, particularly storage that is responsive to TOU pricing and other utility signals. See:

utilitydive.com/news/california-to-require-rooftop-solar-for-most-new-homes/523200/

docketpublic.energy.ca.gov/PublicDocuments/17-BSTD-02/TN223207_20180417T082650_Final_Project_Report_Grid _Integration_of_Zero_Net_Energy_Commun.pdf
(that url is so long you have to remove the space added at the line break)

energy.ca.gov/title24/2019standards/rulemaking/documents, click on "Revised Energy Code"; chapter 8 mentions PV requirements and how they're reduced if you have storage.
Also, click on "2019 Reference Appendices"; appendix 11 is about PV requirements, appendix 12 is about storage.
The code also takes into account how the value of energy changes over time, I think.

utilitydive.com/news/solar-has-transformed-into-solar-plus-storage-what-will-net-metering-becom/522893/

It's a lot to read.

[DanKegel]

To SK's post - yep, I'm very public. I post a lot about HPV vaccines and climate change, and I've given about five climate change presentations in my life, mostly before tiny groups.
Here's an article about one I did for a tiny neighborhood group:
larchmontbuzz.com/featured-stories-larchmont-village/climate-change-can-local-says-gwnc-sustainability-committee-speaker/

I'm pretty busy at work these days, though, so I haven't done much lately with CCL. (Nor did I ever do much, except for give a few talks, and talk with friends about the problems we face.)

[solar pete]

Hi All,

A bit off topic but the word on the street here is that California is set to announce all new houses must have solar on them, has anyone else heard anything on this.

[Mike90250]

Here we go again, in Kalifornia, energy shortages forcast for late afternoons and early evenings. And the proposed solution includes homeowner grid-interactive storage. And what's that going to cost for new homes AND how do they tax me to make it affordable ? Maybe they can run some lines to my place and I'll sell kwh to them for $4 ea, or wait till the bidding goes way up.
Lets see, Kalifornias energy hunger goes up, and power plants are getting torn down - any guesses how it's going to end ?

http://kfgo.com/news/articles/2018/may/09/california-power-supplies-will-be-tight-this-summer-grid-operator/

California's electric grid operator has forecast power supplies will be tight this summer due to below average hydropower production and reduced generation, according to an assessment released on Wednesday.

[DanKegel]

So NET ZERO is going obsolete?

A bit more on that. California looked at how net zero homes would integrate with the grid,
docketpublic.energy.ca.gov/PublicDocuments/17-BSTD-02/TN223207_20180417T082650_Final_Project_Report_Grid _Integration_of_Zero_Net_Energy_Commun.pdf
The results were interesting, and informed their current proposal. Here's an excerpt from the intro:

-- snip --
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) led a field initiative to measure actual load profiles of ZNE homes and their impact on electrical distribution systems. This effort led to the first ZNE neighborhood in California, with every home on a transformer designed to ZNE. EPRI, along with Southern California Edison (SCE), worked with Meritage Homes, a top homebuilder in the United States, to design, construct, occupy and monitor these homes.

Energy efficiency substantially reduces energy use in the morning and displaces afternoon peaks until the late evening, with little energy use during times of high solar production. This results in high backflow in the morning and creates steep evening ramps. The load profiles of ZNE homes are similar to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) duck curve. The load shape will be quite different between spring/fall, winter, and summer. The initiative also electrified the heating loads to eliminate carbon emissions from fossil fuels, required for reaching the 2050 goals. Preliminary modeling and monitoring results show that peaks and valleys of electricity use are driven by the heat pump water heaters and cooling. The distribution system is planned to accommodate an average of 6.5 kW per home. With electrification of space conditioning and water heating loads as dictated by the project and electrification of laundry, cooking and electric vehicles as chosen by the homebuyers, peak loads as high as 15 kW occur in a single home. The goal was to understand if in net, with load diversity, the transformers, laterals, load blocks and feeders had sufficient capacity using today's planning methods.

To alleviate distribution impact, these homes were set up with controllable loads and with behind-the-meter energy storage. Resource aggregation strategies were developed to connect measurements at the transformer with loads, storage and PV. The results of the testing showed that energy storage when optimized for grid integration (charge in the morning, discharge in the evening) could reduce the peaks and valleys on the distribution network. The connected thermostat could absorb excess solar production through pre-cooling of homes, and a similar strategy is being implemented with water heating. Two important take-aways from the project were that the control strategy of energy storage could either strengthen or in some cases, accentuate distribution problems, and that modeling tools still have a way to go to address the prominent or "needle" peaks that will be more common in future buildings. This report discusses experiences in developing the community, strategies for distributed energy resources (DER) integration, and possible benefits of demand response and energy storage in the future distribution grid.
-- snip --

[Mike90250]

May 2018 Kilauea volcano status

https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/status.html

It's generally very low ash, and non-explosive eruptions. Mostly lava flows from a high elevation pool that started to drain. The main worry is when it gets low enough to contact the water table and start to flash to steam, blowing big chunks of real estate into the sky.

[J.P.M.]

I think part of it is I disagreed with SK and JPM. That alone drove them nuts

But the bigger picture is - they're part of the folks that are convinced that humans aren't causing climate change, and posting any science on the topic - or any news related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions - triggers them pretty hard. The forum's current owner appears to agree with them, too.
The other side of the equation is that SK and JPM are genuinely helpful people, with strong technical skills, and that's very valuable to the forum.
The upshot is, they get a pass for behavior that would get them kicked off quickly on less polarized forums.

Anyway, they've been gunning for me for some time, and seem to attack anything I say, no matter how neutral, factual, or careful it is. C'est la vie.

Dan: Don't flatter yourself by thinking you can get my goat. If I go nuts, it'll be on my terms (or my bride's).

If I do any good around here at all, I believe the biggest public service I may provide is calling B.S. on your stuff when I see it. Maybe doing so will enable those not on to your game to get a heads' up.

You're antics are simply the latest in a string of the type technical wanna be piano players and con men commonly use, the likes of which I've been calling B.S. on since I got the R.E. bug and saw that my task of filtering such B.S. would need more formal ed. if I was to better see the cons. That was one of the big driving forces behind my being an engineer today. Your M.O. is yesterday's news.

FWIW, I only disagree with your stuff if it's B.S. or biased. In a real ironic way, I suspect you and I may share more like minded opinions on more social, political and social issue than SK and I share, but I'd take his opinion with respect to engineering matters in one hot second over anything you have to offer in the same arena. Besides, I think he has some real respect for people if for no other reason than his honesty. WYSIWYG.

As for for my views on climate change, whatever they may be, and since I've not revealed them here, or to most anyone, how the hell do you feel qualified to announce to the world what they are ? You do not have a clue.

And on the other side of your equation as it may relate to your stuff, most of it is generally unhelpful or a useless repeat of what you saw someplace, but you don't have the inclination, background or time to understand why it may be B.S. You have weak technical skills when it comes to R.E. matters, at least in my opinion, and at least some of the forum ownership and admin. appear to agree with me, but I don't disrespect them by presuming to know what they are thinking the way you do to me. All that junk, IMO only, is a burden to the forum rather than of any value as you seem to think others, SK and maybe me included, may provide.

The real upshot to me is, again, IMO only, that you get a pass by the forum owners and admin. by virtue of their good graces and their forbearance when you send the solar ignorant who show up here looking for accurate information down useless, nonproductive and potentially costly paths with your rose colored, pollyanna and biased outlook on R.E. matters according to Dan. I see that as rude behavior.

[DanKegel]

What bothers me is that everyone seems to want to use old data on ash emissions which could be a big mistake if something new explodes.

If you have fresher data, please post it.

IMO it would be smart to not only invest in "storage" systems like batteries but also a type of power generation that is not affected by our changing weather patterns or ash emitters.

Sure, last I checked we were, see energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors

Also, many of the tools to deal with daily variations in weather can also help with reliability in the face of longer-duration events, I think.
See e.g. ucsusa.org/clean-energy/renewable-energy/barriers-to-renewable-energy#bf-toc-4

[SunEagle]

No word on that yet. I did see one guy on yelp saying he had his panels cleaned in February, and mentioned ash as one of the reasons.

More generally, figure 3.5 of
globalvolcanomodel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Global-Volcanic-Hazards-and-Risk-Full-book-low-res.pdf
is a map of the areas of the world which are at risk for >= 1 mm of ashfall from an eruption:
Bildschirmfoto 2018-05-09 um 5.03.48 PM.png
power systems in those areas will want to take extra precautions. Most areas don't have to worry about it much.

But remember, volcanoes can give even fossil-fueled systems a bad day; see e.g.
volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanic_ash/power_supply.html
volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanic_ash/power_generation.html

See also our previous thread on the topic, solarpaneltalk.com/forum/solar/the-pros-and-cons-of-solar-energy/320799-volcanic-activity-its-risk-for-solar-energy-and-possible-mitigations

Since the activity was on the big island I believe the number of solar pv installations is small compared to the more populated islands. That is good for those solar farms because I would hate to have them go useless due to a mild fart of ash. What bothers me is that everyone seems to want to use old data on ash emissions which could be a big mistake if something new explodes.

Almost as bad as using our old weather patterns to predict what will happen since due to our changing climate (which you are very aware of) is also making an impact on all RE production including hydro which have run out of water in the catch basins due to lack of rain.

And yes fossil fuel powered generators are also affected by what is in the air and water but small packaged reactors can ride out a weather event and still produce. IMO it would be smart to not only invest in "storage" systems like batteries but also a type of power generation that is not affected by our changing weather patterns or ash emitters.