Dear Randall, X-Air, and WeatherCat users concerned about global warming,
I priced solar to do my whole house and get away from the electric company.
It would cost me $23,000 to do this and take me 13 years to break even.
My average electric bill is $150.00 per month sometime more and sometimes less
That's if the batteries and solar panels and inverters would last that long.
That is one of the reasons why the California legislature?s actions are really unfair. Effectively, they are forcing purchasers of new homes to pay the cost of solar whether or not it makes any sense. It is a kind of tax imposed on people who simply might not be able to afford a home with that extra expense.
However, there is a more serious issue which is what I was alluding to and I hoped I could find my old posting that explained it. Alas, try for all I'm worth I can't find it. So I'll recreate it. Solar can be used in one of two ways: 1.) with batteries to provide a self-contained system or 2.) to provide power to supplement the public power grid. Option-1 is rare outside of specialized applications like RVs. Option-2 has a serious problem that is reported in the Sacramento Bee article mentioned above. Here is the solar radiation output from October 10, 2016:
By October trees block the sun so the morning data is missing. However, it is the afternoon data that is important. At 1pm (effective noon under daylight savings,) the solar radiation is almost 1000 Watts/meter
2. By 2pm it is under 800 Watts/meter
2 and by 3:30 pm it is under 600 Watts/meter
2. The reason for this is that some of the solar radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, so the shorter the path taken by those rays the more radiation reaches your solar panels. As the afternoon progresses the sun's ray travel through more atmosphere and arrive weaker at your panels. By 3:30 the same solar panels would generate 40% less power.
Here is the electrical demand for the same day October 10, 2016 from the California ISO:
These graphs have been made available since California's first electrical power crisis around 2001 and can be viewed on this web page:
http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspxAs you can see, when solar power is waning, user demand is growing. So there is a limit of how much solar power can be practically used on a power grid. It turns out California is already close to that limit. Quoting once more from the Sacramento Bee article:
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article210886434.html"Even at the utility-scale cost of 5 to 6 cents a kilowatt hour, there is growing concern that the massive commitment to solar in California is creating such a glut of mid-day electricity that prices during the day are plunging, and sometimes below zero. We are literally paying people to consume electricity during some midday hours.
Electricity system operators say they will increasingly have to curtail these large, inexpensive, solar producers because we have too much mid-day power. The Energy Commission mandate will pile even more expensive power onto that excess. Costs for society will go up, and the value received will go down."Without some sort of battery system, California is producing already too much solar power at noon, but doesn't have the solar power it needs at the end of the day when demand is highest. There simply isn't any other sort of renewable power source that can be counted upon to fill that gap. So most the power that is produced at peak demand isn't renewable. Since California has very little nuclear power, most of the electricity is producing greenhouse gases, including the power being used to recharge electric cars in the evening.
The political rush to force utilities to accept renewable energy hasn't had the effect intended. Because there wasn't a comprehensive plan, solar isn't being used effectively and it appears there is insufficient generating capacity for the evening hours. As a result the state has warned us about rotating blackouts. This is precisely what can be expected when politicians meddle with complex technologies like the power grid. You wouldn't let your legislator tell your doctor what do to. Why are the public allowing legislators to tell power engineers how to operate the power grid?
TED - A printable, flexible, organic solar cell Turn ON subtitles.
This is the final injury which really deserves careful consideration. Is existing solar technology adequate or should we wait for some of the newer solar technology that is in development but looks very promising.
There is a lot of very angry debate insisting that action must be taken on global warming. However, this very debate fails to grasp the seriousness of the situation. As Randall points out, renewable energy is extremely expensive and the global economy is very fragile. We absolutely cannot afford to make large investments in one technology only to have to scrap it and switch to something else. We need a very carefully crafted plan that take into account as many of the issues as possible in one pass. As the trendy saying goes:
"failure is not an option." At the moment there isn't even a coordinated attempt to succeed. As another trendy saying goes:
"None of us are as stupid as all of us put together." Perhaps it is time that humanity make a concerted effort to earn it's scientific name:
Homo Sapien (Wise Man.)
Edouard