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Post by em on Sept 27, 2024 10:22:01 GMT 12
Fuck does no one take heed of what Germany did at least a decade ago ? Massive roll out of subsidised grid-tie solar panels on homes and businesses but no batteries . Long story short the Govt had to pay power Co’s to keep their plants on standby ….and standby is actually full noise so they could generate straight away if a cloudy front came through somewhere in the country . So, lets talk technical. I know that in a standard power network, resonance and harmonics are major issues. This is in the frequency of the power (hertz) because we distribute alternating current power. Electrical engineers can be very strung out trying to manage this. Examples are things like North Harbour Stadium causing an area wide blackout because harmonics caused a supply system trip. Other examples are high powered motors such as wastewater pumps that used variable speed controllers to manage peak start-up currents, but require stringent harmonic filtering. Hell, we can even trip the National Grid because of solar derived electro-magnetic pulses. So, if you have a very large number of dispersed electrical generation points, such as household solar on every house in a new development, and a cloud comes over, how do you handle the sharp dips and surges in the network? I assume the basics of having solar everywhere is so you reduce baseload demand so we can keep more water in the hydrolakes. So, if a cloud comes over Auckland, and they need to open the penstocks down in the Waitaki Valley, how do they actually manage that wave of extra energy surging up a couple thousand kilometers of transmission lines, through the DC-DC interisland link, into the substations and into the local distribution network, all without tripping something? Even better, how do they handle the sudden peaks and drops of power from large scale windfarms? Nephew is a freshly graduated electrical engineer at a refinery near Melbourne. It takes a lot of work to de-energise distribution assets once the power has stopped down through them. It must get devilishly complicated if you have surges and dips of high voltage transmission infrastructure all the time. No idea how the above is managed . Going on memory here , the German power plants were/are steam turbine ? So they had to have the heat ready to go because it takes quite awhile to fire up . So instead of saving money they wasted a shed load paying for steam going nowhere . I cant remember if the feedstock was Gas , Coal , Nuclear or a combination . Anyone here have a grid-tie system that’s owned by the installer ? Do they allow to install batteries and an inverter ? Can you buy the system off them down the track ? GO30’s development idea of a co-op sharing a system is a good idea and could be scaled up in new housing developments . Only downside is there’s no passive income for outside parties if it’s owned by a co-op . I think Hyundai ? Developed a 10 or so home shared solar system for just this purpose . |
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Post by ComfortZone on Sept 27, 2024 11:08:49 GMT 12
No idea how the above is managed . Going on memory here , the German power plants were/are steam turbine ? So they had to have the heat ready to go because it takes quite awhile to fire up . So instead of saving money they wasted a shed load paying for steam going nowhere . I cant remember if the feedstock was Gas , Coal , Nuclear or a combination . Anyone here have a grid-tie system that’s owned by the installer ? Do they allow to install batteries and an inverter ? Can you buy the system off them down the track ? GO30’s development idea of a co-op sharing a system is a good idea and could be scaled up in new housing developments . Only downside is there’s no passive income for outside parties if it’s owned by a co-op . I think Hyundai ? Developed a 10 or so home shared solar system for just this purpose . Thermal coal stations are slow response and output cannot be rapidly varied to suit the whimsies of unreliables surging on and off, they are just left to chug along at the predicted demand so the unreliables actually contribute very little to those networks where coal is principal base load supplier eg Australia. The issue is not the steam, it is the huge thermal mass in the bed of coal.
Nuclear is somewhat faster to respond as the heat generation can be varied rather more rapidly, gas can be combined cycle (GT direct drive with steam generation thru waste heat recovery) or open cycle (GT direct drive only).
There are quite a few "hybrid" grid tied options available but have not seen any of the leasing outfits advertising yet, they are probably out there though
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Post by em on Sept 28, 2024 8:42:56 GMT 12
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Post by ComfortZone on Sept 28, 2024 9:00:28 GMT 12
Just on geography, the Atacama desert is in Chile. At one time it was Bolivian territory, but Chile, with backing of UK mining interests annexed it from Bolivia, along with some of Peru (Chilean army actually occuped Lima for a period in this war) back in the 19th century to this day Peruvian's are mighty pissed off that the Chilean navy has a Peruvian ironclad monitor seized during the war |
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Post by em on Sept 28, 2024 9:27:28 GMT 12
Sorry my bad , Cauchari over the border from Atacama
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Post by GO30 on Sept 28, 2024 15:25:49 GMT 12
For the last few months we've watched a place get developed 5min down the rural road. We thought it was going to Kiwifruit or some other vine crop but just came past to see then bolting up solar panels. Stopped for a suss and fornicate me that is a lot of panels. It's a solar farm and of a scale it has to be going back into the grid.
I think, but don't quote me, it is one they talked about a wee while back about being Iwi funded. I'm going to wonder in for a suss next time I have a few minutes to suss some stats, I bet some will be pretty 'Shitttt....that much'
For out of towners, this place is 3-4minutes from down town Ruawai approx 15 min south of Dargaville on SH12.
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Post by fish on Sept 28, 2024 21:22:27 GMT 12
For out of towners, this place is 3-4minutes from down town Ruawai approx 15 min south of Dargaville on SH12. Hillbilly's need power too, apparently. |
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Post by Cantab on Sept 29, 2024 6:22:57 GMT 12
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Post by Cantab on Sept 29, 2024 8:04:31 GMT 12
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Post by GO30 on Sept 29, 2024 8:53:07 GMT 12
Good spotting, that's the bugger.
What had us a bit ?? as to what it was are what appears to be stop banks around it. It is on the flats and they do flood. I can't imagine floods being common or that deep where the farm is but if you believe one set of science that farm will be 1m closer to the water in a few years so maybe they are stop banks as future proofing just in case.
The road is just behind all the buildings in that website photo so most of the farm is well back out of site. With all the goings on we knew something big but for a while suspected it was another farm gone to the Germans who move in and quickly add peepods and other such things but then it started to drag out.
We considered a solar farm here in rural but the big lines required are just too far away.
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Post by GO30 on Sept 29, 2024 8:56:57 GMT 12
For out of towners, this place is 3-4minutes from down town Ruawai approx 15 min south of Dargaville on SH12. Hillbilly's need power too, apparently. We lived right above the Weiti Boating Club for quite a few years. Thinking back and doing a hill billy comparison analysis with some of the locals up here. Close call and I'd think we have the bigger numbers but as the sun sets over the Whangaparaoa shopping centre I'm confident in saying you'll still hear the banjos  |
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Post by fish on Sept 29, 2024 9:31:03 GMT 12
Hillbilly's need power too, apparently. We lived right above the Weiti Boating Club for quite a few years. Thinking back and doing a hill billy comparison analysis with some of the locals up here. Close call and I'd think we have the bigger numbers but as the sun sets over the Whangaparaoa shopping centre I'm confident in saying you'll still hear the banjos Oh, there is no shortage of Hillybilly's around the Weiti, especially our current Commodore, Jethro. But the Weiti Boating Club is a sophisticated establishment. We've had mains powered electrickery since 1953. |
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Post by ComfortZone on Sept 30, 2024 5:40:42 GMT 12
good commentary on un-reliables and economics newzealandenergy.substack.com/p/free-energyopens Much is made of renewables being “free” in the media and marketing we are bombarded with on an almost daily basis. However, if this is the case, then why are they consistently so expensive?
The truth, as always, is somewhat more nuanced.
Until the Government finds a way to tax us for the solar energy flows from the sun, all energy is in essence free.
It’s the cost of the infrastructure to harness an energy source, and convert it to a useful form, that ultimately sets the price of energy.
The cost of the infrastructure is primarily related to two fundamental qualities of any energy source, energy density and intermittency.
Low energy density = high resource intensity (lots of infrastructure).
Intermittency = the need for redundancy and/or storage (lots more infrastructure).
This is why intermittent renewables, such and wind and solar, inevitably become increasingly expensive as they occupy a larger percentages of generation capacity in any national grid. |
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Post by em on Sept 30, 2024 8:13:17 GMT 12
One trickle down from those solar farms is the double sided panels that catch reflection off the ground and probably the rows of panels behind . They tout up to 25% increased output . They would work very well on our solar arch off the transom catching reflected light off the water , especially in the morning and evening if the boat is hanging the right way .
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Post by fish on Sept 30, 2024 9:25:24 GMT 12
One trickle down from those solar farms is the double sided panels that catch reflection off the ground and probably the rows of panels behind . They tout up to 25% increased output . They would work very well on our solar arch off the transom catching reflected light off the water , especially in the morning and evening if the boat is hanging the right way . Funny you mention that. I use a very old BP 25w solar panel to 'float' the batteries when we aren't on the boat. Not enough to over-charge the batteries and fry them, just enough to match the parasitic loads and battery self discharge. Anyway, It is mounted on the cockpit pushpit vertically, facing into the cockpit. Produces plenty of ergs. The way the mooring is it will catch direct sun in the late afternoon, but as far as I can tell most of the time it is getting reflected light of the white cockpit. Works well, where you would have thought a vertically mounted panel would be a waste of time. |
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