map40
Florida
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Joined: 01/15/2005
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pianotuna wrote:map40,
South Africa has been having problems for about ten years.
We need to wake up and be proactive.
The area of the city I live in has old tired infrastructure. There have been at least 6 outages in the last 12 months. So far they are merely annoying. But I am considering getting a battery and using my back up psw inverter.
Well, all 3rd world countries have always had problems. Southafrica has been deteriorating for a long time, the last big hit in which the roll out black outs became "forever" was just a few years ago.
I agree with you that we need to be ahead of the problems. We will eventually push our grid to the limit and at that point there will years of work to recover.
South America is the perfect example. Argentina and Brasil had great infrastructure, incredible hydroelectric and nuclear power. They were economically strong and were even highly developed in several fields (Cardiovascular Medicine in the hands of Rene Favaloro, Manufacturing engine components for Ferrari, BMW, WV, Porsche and Mercedes; Aerospace industry with Embraer).
They stoped investing in infrastructure and now they don't have the power they need and is destroying their base industry.
From where we are to where they are is 20 years, from there to where Southafrica is another 20 more.
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map40
Florida
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RambleOnNW wrote:APS in Phoenix pays less than retail for excess solar. So customers have to pay more per kWh at night than they receive per kWh when the solar is generating.
Unfortunatly that seems to be the case in several places. It is like that here in Florida too. If I give 2Giga Watts in a month to FPL but I also use 2Giga watts, I owe them close to 30% of the cost. This means that their surcharge for "buying" you electricity and reselling it is 30%. I believe it is calculated as the maximun they can charge before it makes financial sense to install your own battery bank (most solar syste3m in Florida are Panel to Grid, no battery or inverters)
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Boon Docker
Mountain Foothills of Southern Alberta
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time2roll
Southern California
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RambleOnNW wrote:APS in Phoenix pays less than retail for excess solar. So customers have to pay more per kWh at night than they receive per kWh when the solar is generating. Yes and this is drawing more people to zero export inverters. Instead a battery is charged with any excess solar and utilized overnight. Allows direct consumption of all or most generated power. Stops the sell back at a discount.
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Huntindog
Phoenix AZ
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blt2ski wrote:Huntingdog,
Even HERE in the cloudy rainy Seattle area. The few I know that have roof top solar, figure they've paid for the system in savings 3-5 yrs down the road. Use less of the power grid power. Maybe saving a salmon or two or three. Probably not......
The question I would have for your neighbors, is what % savings are they seeing? Yrs before an ROI hits pocket book? No one that I know with a roof top solar expects a full "I'm off the grid" from solar. On some days in summer, they do produce more than the use. I'm having personally a hard time seeing the bad part of residential solar.
It will help. Solve the WHOLE problem being discussed? NO! Every bit helps
Marty I wasn't talking about the financial aspects (though that does't make sense either) but what Ramble was claiming that a certain amount of solar could totally replace non green power. Everyone thinks that solar will produce rated power. Those of us that have solar on our RVs, know that is not true...There is also a belief that a place like Phoenix is 100% perfect for solar.. Also not true. Though their is plenty of sunshine, there is also plenty of heat. As panels heat up, output drops. So when you really need maximum output from the panels to supply the AC, at the hottest part of the day, you will not get rated output.
As a case in point: My RV when at home in Phoenix has NEVER even come close to rated output. About 1300 watts out of 1860 is the best it can do. I have seen slighty more than rated output in May, at 9000 ft. where it is cool.
* This post was
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edited 01/18/23 03:57am by Huntindog *
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Huntindog
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Huntindog
Phoenix AZ
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As a follow up: Virtually no one pays cash up front for rooftop solar here. There are more financial gimmicks than I can count being used. I know of one person who thought he had his house sold...But the buyer backed out after finding out the details of the "leased" solar system on the house. So figuring ROI accuratly is not possible for many.
Just like buying automobiles and RVs, financial tricks can hide the true cost.
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map40
Florida
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Huntindog wrote:blt2ski wrote:Huntingdog,
Even HERE in the cloudy rainy Seattle area. The few I know that have roof top solar, figure they've paid for the system in savings 3-5 yrs down the road. Use less of the power grid power. Maybe saving a salmon or two or three. Probably not......
The question I would have for your neighbors, is what % savings are they seeing? Yrs before an ROI hits pocket book? No one that I know with a roof top solar expects a full "I'm off the grid" from solar. On some days in summer, they do produce more than the use. I'm having personally a hard time seeing the bad part of residential solar.
It will help. Solve the WHOLE problem being discussed? NO! Every bit helps
Marty I wasn't talking about the financial aspects (though that does't make sense either) but what Ramble was claiming that a certain amount of solar could totally replace non green power. Everyone thinks that solar will produce rated power. Those of us that have solar on our RVs, know that is not true...There is also a belief that a place like Phoenix is 100% perfect for solar.. Also not true. Though their is plenty of sunshine, there is also plenty of heat. As panels heat up, output drops. So when you really need maximum output from the panels to supply the AC, at the hottest part of the day, you will not get rated output.
As a case in point: My RV when at home in Phoenix has NEVER even come close to rated output. About 1300 watts out of 1860 is the best it can do. I have seen slighty more than rated output in May, at 9000 ft. where it is cool.
Agreed. Here in FL they sold a lot of systems and convinced people that they would "make money". Nope, they didn't.
Don't get me wrong, I have installed at least 10 solar systems in RVs for friends and I am a firm believer that if you need power Solar is a great resource. But also every system was designed with the posibility to charge from every concievable power source (DC 12V to 450V and AC 110-240V 15-50 AMPS) because we know that solar on it's own is not enough, you need something else.
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RambleOnNW
Pacific Northwest
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Huntindog wrote:blt2ski wrote:Huntingdog,
Even HERE in the cloudy rainy Seattle area. The few I know that have roof top solar, figure they've paid for the system in savings 3-5 yrs down the road. Use less of the power grid power. Maybe saving a salmon or two or three. Probably not......
The question I would have for your neighbors, is what % savings are they seeing? Yrs before an ROI hits pocket book? No one that I know with a roof top solar expects a full "I'm off the grid" from solar. On some days in summer, they do produce more than the use. I'm having personally a hard time seeing the bad part of residential solar.
It will help. Solve the WHOLE problem being discussed? NO! Every bit helps
Marty I wasn't talking about the financial aspects (though that does't make sense either) but what Ramble was claiming that a certain amount of solar could totally replace non green power. Everyone thinks that solar will produce rated power. Those of us that have solar on our RVs, know that is not true...There is also a belief that a place like Phoenix is 100% perfect for solar.. Also not true. Though their is plenty of sunshine, there is also plenty of heat. As panels heat up, output drops. So when you really need maximum output from the panels to supply the AC, at the hottest part of the day, you will not get rated output.
As a case in point: My RV when at home in Phoenix has NEVER even come close to rated output. About 1300 watts out of 1860 is the best it can do. I have seen slighty more than rated output in May, at 9000 ft. where it is cool.
Actually I do know all about solar as we have 9000 watts of non-leased fully net metered solar on our roof covering 100% of our annual electricity usage.
Annual solar output is easily modeled for any location using the NREL program PVWatts:
https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/
Temperature coefficients have gotten better. Even a Chinese panel like the 580 watt JinkoSolar has dropped to -0.34%/deg C. Your flat mounted panels on your RV will have lower output than tilted panels facing south.
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Huntindog
Phoenix AZ
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RambleOnNW wrote:Huntindog wrote:blt2ski wrote:Huntingdog,
Even HERE in the cloudy rainy Seattle area. The few I know that have roof top solar, figure they've paid for the system in savings 3-5 yrs down the road. Use less of the power grid power. Maybe saving a salmon or two or three. Probably not......
The question I would have for your neighbors, is what % savings are they seeing? Yrs before an ROI hits pocket book? No one that I know with a roof top solar expects a full "I'm off the grid" from solar. On some days in summer, they do produce more than the use. I'm having personally a hard time seeing the bad part of residential solar.
It will help. Solve the WHOLE problem being discussed? NO! Every bit helps
Marty I wasn't talking about the financial aspects (though that does't make sense either) but what Ramble was claiming that a certain amount of solar could totally replace non green power. Everyone thinks that solar will produce rated power. Those of us that have solar on our RVs, know that is not true...There is also a belief that a place like Phoenix is 100% perfect for solar.. Also not true. Though their is plenty of sunshine, there is also plenty of heat. As panels heat up, output drops. So when you really need maximum output from the panels to supply the AC, at the hottest part of the day, you will not get rated output.
As a case in point: My RV when at home in Phoenix has NEVER even come close to rated output. About 1300 watts out of 1860 is the best it can do. I have seen slighty more than rated output in May, at 9000 ft. where it is cool.
Actually I do know all about solar as we have 9000 watts of non-leased fully net metered solar on our roof covering 100% of our annual electricity usage.
Annual solar output is easily modeled for any location using the NREL program PVWatts:
https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/
Temperature coefficients have gotten better. Even a Chinese panel like the 580 watt JinkoSolar has dropped to -0.34%/deg C. Your flat mounted panels on your RV will have lower output than tilted panels facing south. How much do those panels produce at night. in a rainstorm. or covered with snow?
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RambleOnNW
Pacific Northwest
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How much do those panels produce at night. in a rainstorm. or covered with snow?
They will contribute power 24/7/365 if some of the the power is stored in batteries or is converted to green hydrogen and stored in salt domes similar to natural gas. Then converted back to electricity or piped in repurposed natural gas lines. There are 3 million miles of natural gas lines in the US; half is unused.
Green hydrogen can be stored in salt domes just like oil & gas. In fact in Delta Utah they are working on just that, a green hydrogen plant with storage in 2 salt dome caverns, room for 300 GWh of storage. And room for 98 more caverns. Compared to the US installed base of utility lithium batteries of 2 GWh. Delta plant will run a mix of natural gas and hydrogen initially in their power plant, going to 100% hydrogen by 2045.
https://www.deseret.com/2022/5/9/2304691........oject-utah-politics-renewables-delta-ipp
SoCalGas is working on mixing hydrogen with natural gas then extracting pure hydrogen from the mix with a membrane. That would make for easy initial hydrogen distribution to gas stations prior to natural gas lines transitioning to 100% hydrogen.
SoCalGas is also going to test a hydrogen fuel cell F-550 Super Duty from Ford.
https://newsroom.socalgas.com/press-rele........h-cutting-edge-f-550-super-duty-hydrogen
* This post was
edited 01/18/23 05:13pm by RambleOnNW *
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