Scientific American article on distributed power

[russ]

Sunking, I'm actually a little surprised--here I had you pegged as a brutally down-to-earth no-nonsense kind of guy. I didn't think you'd get taken for something like this.

He is and there is information out there as I have read the same. Find it yourself.

PV is never going to be more than a blip on the radar - still in the less than 1% of total power generation? Still the smallest producer of RE? In both cases, yes.

[pleppik]

But the big picture is to put small nuclear plants distributed strategically in and around a city. These are small passive units that can be fit in your house basement and you would not even know they are there.

We can check to see where that one stands in 2034, too.

At least with PV, the technology already exists and is being mass-produced. You can argue about how much incremental improvement is left, but nobody doubts you can make it work.

AFAIK (and please send a link if you've got one, because I looked and couldn't find anything), nobody has built a mini-nuke outside the lab, much less gotten anywhere within a light-year of commercializing it. I know there are some people excited about the idea and some research grants floating around, but that's about it.

Sunking, I'm actually a little surprised--here I had you pegged as a brutally down-to-earth no-nonsense kind of guy. I didn't think you'd get taken for something like this.

[inetdog]

But the big picture is to put small nuclear plants distributed strategically in and around a city.

Every church, synagogue and mosque should have one!

[Shockah]

And they will be operated by the utility.

Back to square 1 ...

[russ]

the big picture is to put small nuclear plants distributed strategically in and around a city.

And they will be operated by the utility.

[Sunking]

Well I am real familiar with distributive power and its long term plans. First phase is installing Smart Meters so POCO can turn on/off you various appliances like air conditioners and have a look inside your home. But the big picture is to put small nuclear plants distributed strategically in and around a city. These are small passive units that can be fit in your house basement and you would not even know they are there. It looks a lot like cellular telephone service. If one reactor shut downs the surrounding reactors can make up for the loss until repairs are made.

[Shockah]

Shockah - You just peed on bill's green parade - the greens need to have certain truths to pray to - getting rid of the utilities seems to be one of those. That ain't gonna happen in the near future - if ever.

There is one ray of hope for the greens in Hawaii ... if Tesla was to build their Battery Factory HERE ... but that aint ever gonna happen either... damn real estate is too expensive

[russ]

It's not happening very quickly... and will never gain momentum on Oahu.
A realistic indicator is: The largest PV supplier on the island does not stock off-grid components.

As long as batteries/storage is involved, it will never be cheaper to go off-grid here.
Along with the highest KWH costs in the nation, so is everything that is imported/shipped in.
Don't expect to be buying batteries at California prices anytime soon.

Shockah - You just peed on bill's green parade - the greens need to have certain truths to pray to - getting rid of the utilities seems to be one of those. That ain't gonna happen in the near future - if ever.

[Shockah]

Maybe when HI power gets above $1.00/kWh?

... and at that point Matson will have already doubled their shipping charges, causing the cost of batteries to triple.

There is never going to be a win/win with off-grid conversions here.

[Shockah]

It's already happening in Hawaii; it's actually cheaper on a 20 year basis to go completely off-grid due to high power costs, good insolation and (fairly recent) restrictions on grid tied solar.

It's not happening very quickly... and will never gain momentum on Oahu.
A realistic indicator is: The largest PV supplier on the island does not stock off-grid components.

As long as batteries/storage is involved, it will never be cheaper to go off-grid here.
Along with the highest KWH costs in the nation, so is everything that is imported/shipped in.
Don't expect to be buying batteries at California prices anytime soon.

Maui and the Big-Island of Hawaii have more Off-Grid activity due to having more rural properties.

Frustrated Oahu HECO customers like to chat about off-grid independence. But once they learn of the costs (particularly batteries), and discipline required by off-grid, they quickly get a hold of their emotions.

There are a few PV Installers jumping on the Off-Grid marketing campaign...
but only as a result of desperation because HECO's regulations has taken the knife out of their bread-and-butter.

[russ]

It's already happening in Hawaii; it's actually cheaper on a 20 year basis to go completely off-grid due to high power costs, good insolation and (fairly recent) restrictions on grid tied solar.

That is a specific situation - like CA high TOU or tier costs - nothing to do with grid parity in a general discussion.

[russ]

Agreed.(And before you trot out the "It takes energy to refine the silicon" argument, you may want to research what % of the total cost of a PV system goes into the energy to refine silicon, and just how thick the active layer of a solar cell is.)

Nice attempt to put words in my mouth but we are talking about major changes - there is no major change available there.

[inetdog]

It's already happening in Hawaii; it's actually cheaper on a 20 year basis to go completely off-grid due to high power costs, good insolation and (fairly recent) restrictions on grid tied solar.

The chances of grid parity for off grid installation with batteries is certainly better in HI than anywhere else in the US, but even with POCO power at $.50/kWh those who say it is cheaper to go off grid are making some very optimistic assumptions about battery life and cost which current mainstream (i. e. working) technology does not support.

Dereck (Sunking) will be glad to do the math for you on that, using proven designs for long term off grid PV.

Maybe when HI power gets above $1.00/kWh?

[billvon]

One interesting thing I've noticed is how many people are interested in going off-grid, even knowing that it's more expensive than grid power. It seems that to some people, there's some real value to being "energy independent" on a personal level. If the storage technology ever gets to the point where going off-grid is only a slight cost premium (1.5x instead of 5x-10x) I think we'll see a lot of ordinary suburban folks cutting the cord. The utilities are right to be worried about the possibility of a death spiral of stranded assets sometime in the future.

It's already happening in Hawaii; it's actually cheaper on a 20 year basis to go completely off-grid due to high power costs, good insolation and (fairly recent) restrictions on grid tied solar.

[pleppik]

What you suggest isn't going to happen without a major improvement in PV technology as well as storage technology

Agreed.

neither of which are going to be here in the next 20 years.

I'll check back in 2034 and see what happened.

I agree with you that this level of change is not going to happen in the next five years. But 20? I dunno, maybe. We're not talking about breaking the laws of physics here, just continued improvements in technology. 20 years ago, PV modules cost $8-$10/watt (in inflation-adjusted dollars). I think $1/watt would have seemed like a pipe dream back then.

(And before you trot out the "It takes energy to refine the silicon" argument, you may want to research what % of the total cost of a PV system goes into the energy to refine silicon, and just how thick the active layer of a solar cell is.)