[C8]

10 years ago we were told the "intermittency" problem of solar and wind would be solved by now. Germans were working on some super smart grid, new forms of very efficient batteries were just around the corner. Hot water tanks in every home.

People posted all kinds of cool graphs showing declining costs, energy being sent to peak parts of the nation as it needed it- a total linked in system of wires directed by smart tech- pulling it from here, sending it to there.

Some of those graphs were really pro looking too and I did admire that.

So is this still possible? Did it get killed by evil utilities? Were the boosters ignoring basic limits of energy that will always be there?

[GHung]

10 years ago we were told the "intermittency" problem of solar and wind would be solved by now. Germans were working on some super smart grid, new forms of very efficient batteries were just around the corner. Hot water tanks in every home.

People posted all kinds of cool graphs showing declining costs, energy being sent to peak parts of the nation as it needed it- a total linked in system of wires directed by smart tech- pulling it from here, sending it to there.

Some of those graphs were really pro looking too and I did admire that.

So is this still possible? Did it get killed by evil utilities? Were the boosters ignoring basic limits of energy that will always be there?

I've been reading and laughing my way through virtually the same freakin thread here for years. The gridweenie mentality is astoundingly frustrating.
I SOLVED THE INTERMITTANCY PROBLEM GOING ON 20 YEARS AGO. I simply adopted a 'just do it' mentality, all-the-while wondering at (1) how easy it was and (2) what TF the rest of you are thinking.
Double JEEEEEZ! The technology exists already. The problem isn't the technology or its costs. As always, the problem is people.

[vtsnowedin]

10 years ago we were told the "intermittency" problem of solar and wind would be solved by now. Germans were working on some super smart grid, new forms of very efficient batteries were just around the corner. Hot water tanks in every home.

People posted all kinds of cool graphs showing declining costs, energy being sent to peak parts of the nation as it needed it- a total linked in system of wires directed by smart tech- pulling it from here, sending it to there.

Some of those graphs were really pro looking too and I did admire that.

So is this still possible? Did it get killed by evil utilities? Were the boosters ignoring basic limits of energy that will always be there?

Boosters always fail to give due credit and consideration to logistic problems that stand in the way of their dream proposal. That is just a fact of life. Power walls and smart grid meters have been invented in the last ten years along with viable plug in EVs but they have not been built out sufficiently as that takes time and money the boosters always under estimate. I think the progress made over the last decade is impressive and the next decade will bring major improvements.

[Newfie]

I have not looked at current offerings but a 2KW wind turbine should not be that big a deal if you have a windy site. 2KW on a windy winter night charging the same battery wall the solar panels charge during summer days would be ideal especially if you can send excess to the grid. IIRC 2KW needs about a ten foot diameter blade circle.

The “problem” with wind is site selection. The reason they want to site the turbines off shore is the is dramatically stronger off shore. When we had our boat at a marina the turbine was almost useless, considered removing it. Down here it is wonderful. We see a lot of small residential turbines that never rotate.

They just put up a bunch of new light poles here. Chinese. Each has a turbine on the top and, I think solar on the light head. It’s truly amazing how many turbines do not spin even on a windy day.

BTW, average USA home consumption is 30kw, we use 2kw.

[vtsnowedin]

BTW, average USA home consumption is 30kw, we use 2kw.

Over what time period or is that peak load.
Last month my power bill was for 341 KWHs or 12 kwhs per day. Now a 2KW generator in a place that the wind blows 25% of the time or 6 hours per day would make that 12kwhs so is big enough for my needs and I think anyone could get by with that or even quite a bit less. Of course you can have several calm days in a row so solar PV feeding the same battery set or a grid tie in will still be needed for full service.

[Newfie]

Daily. I picked it up from a short blurb.

Predicting power out of wind generators is tricky. Wind energy goes up, and down, as the square of speed.

VERY ROUGHLY my gen makes:
40 [email protected] 40 k
10 [email protected] 20 k
2.5 amps @ 10 k

10 k or 13 mph or 20 kph is a pretty good breeze to land lubbers. 20 knots is good sailing but you are reefed down. 40 knots and trees are breaking and you do NOT want to be out.

[vtsnowedin]

Daily. I picked it up from a short blurb.

Predicting power out of wind generators is tricky. Wind energy goes up, and down, as the square of speed.

VERY ROUGHLY my gen makes:
40 [email protected] 40 k
10 [email protected] 20 k
2.5 amps @ 10 k

10 k or 13 mph or 20 kph is a pretty good breeze to land lubbers. 20 knots is good sailing but you are reefed down. 40 knots and trees are breaking and you do NOT want to be out.

What voltage does your wind turbine operate at? I've seen home owner units in 12, 24, 32, and 120 volt configurations.
Sixty feet up a Jacobs tower in North Dakota you don't want a 40K wind either. BTDT.

[vtsnowedin]

Back to PV for a moment. This morning coming back from picking up some seed potatoes I passed a solar PV farm of about two acres in size. I noticed thy have turned out some sheep inside the chain link fence to keep the grass and weeds mowed.
Perfect deal for the sheep .Chain link fence means no coyote or dog danger and plenty of shade under the panels provides shelter. Just add a water tub with float valve in the corner and we have multi-tasked land use.

[JuanP]

Back to PV for a moment. This morning coming back from picking up some seed potatoes I passed a solar PV farm of about two acres in size. I noticed thy have turned out some sheep inside the chain link fence to keep the grass and weeds mowed.
Perfect deal for the sheep .Chain link fence means no coyote or dog danger and plenty of shade under the panels provides shelter. Just add a water tub with float valve in the corner and we have multi-tasked land use.

In Uruguay we have wind generators in fields where cattle, sheep, and goats graze. It works great.

[REAL Green]

In Uruguay we have wind generators in fields where cattle, sheep, and goats graze. It works great.

Pretty normal stuff, Juan, so what is your point?

[Newfie]

Daily. I picked it up from a short blurb.

Predicting power out of wind generators is tricky. Wind energy goes up, and down, as the square of speed.

VERY ROUGHLY my gen makes:
40 [email protected] 40 k
10 [email protected] 20 k
2.5 amps @ 10 k

10 k or 13 mph or 20 kph is a pretty good breeze to land lubbers. 20 knots is good sailing but you are reefed down. 40 knots and trees are breaking and you do NOT want to be out.

What voltage does your wind turbine operate at? I've seen home owner units in 12, 24, 32, and 120 volt configurations.
Sixty feet up a Jacobs tower in North Dakota you don't want a 40K wind either. BTDT.

12vdc, the rectifier is in the generator head. Controller in the engine compartment. Dump resistors. We don’t have hot water or I could use the wind and solar dump to heat water.

[MonteQuest]

The problem lies in the fact that wind provides only 1% of the world's primary energy and about 2.4% in the US. Despite massive growth rates in installed capacity, wind, solar, and geothermal are only increasing their share of the world energy pie .1% - .3%/year. Currently, at just 2% in 2019, up from 1.7% in 2018. New demand for energy nearly outstrips all gains. Sources: REN21 Renewables Status Report 2019. EIA. The REN21 2020 report will be out in June.

[vtsnowedin]

The problem lies in the fact that wind provides only 1% of the world's primary energy and about 2.4% in the US. Despite massive growth rates in installed capacity, wind, solar, and geothermal are only increasing their share of the world energy pie .1% - .3%/year. Currently, at just 2% in 2019, up from 1.7% in 2018. New demand for energy nearly outstrips all gains. Sources: REN21 Renewables Status Report 2019. EIA. The REN21 2020 report will be out in June.

Those numbers are rapidly changing. Dare I say they are growing exponentially?
California being case in point. They now have so much solar power installed both in front of and behind the meters they are occasional forced to pay Arizona to except excess solar power to keep enough of their flywheel inertia on line to meet the demand spike at sundown.

Solar power in California includes utility-scale solar power plants as well as local distributed generation, mostly from rooftop photovoltaics. It has been growing rapidly because of high insolation, community support, declining solar costs, and a Renewable Portfolio Standard which requires that 33% of California's electricity come from renewable resources by 2020, and 50% by 2030.[1] Much of this is expected to come from solar power via photovoltaic facilities or concentrated solar power facilities.

In 2017, California reported a total of 24,331 GWh in solar electricity generation, approximately 11.79% of all electricity produced. This represented 44.4% of the state's non-hydro renewable energy generation.[2] At the end of 2017, California had a total installed solar capacity of 11,229.9 MW, making it the highest solar power generating state in the nation.[3] SEIA currently estimates that California's solar capacity powers 4,885,000 homes in the state, and employs 100,050.

It is estimated that the state will add an additional 13,670 MW of capacity over a period between 2017 and 2021.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_California

[vtsnowedin]

Not the source I read before but a reasonable explanation of California's solar overload problem.
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/10/10960848/ ... duck-curve

2) Overgeneration and curtailment

When the duck gets really fat, its belly starts hanging closer to the bottom of the chart — net load gets closer and closer to zero around midday. That means all the peaker plants get shut down, all the intermediate plants get shut down, and some of the base load plants start to get ramped down too.

And then a few hours later, they all get ramped back up.

For one thing, that's expensive. For another, grids need a certain amount of reserve power online at all times as a buffer in case of accident or disruption. If so much solar comes online that it starts to eat into those reserves, solar will be "curtailed," i.e., the grid will stop accepting it. (Curtailment also happens for economic reasons.)

In Hawaii, where 10 percent of customers now have rooftop solar, the duck's belly has hit bottom a few times, as this story by Jeff St. John details. Check out the red line:
nessie curve
(GTM)

As you can see, net load was negative there for a few hours on August 8 — there was "backfeed" into the grid, which can mess with voltage and stability.

In Hawaii, the duck's back is so low, and the ramp up to its head so high, they've started calling it the "Nessie curve," after the Loch Ness Monster.

These worries have led Hawaiian Electric Co. (HECO) to pull back on solar and institute new interconnection standards. (Right now, somewhat insanely, the grid has no communication with most of those solar panels and no ability to control or predict them.)

[MonteQuest]

The problem lies in the fact that wind provides only 1% of the world's primary energy and about 2.4% in the US. Despite massive growth rates in installed capacity, wind, solar, and geothermal are only increasing their share of the world energy pie .1% - .3%/year. Currently, at just 2% in 2019, up from 1.7% in 2018. New demand for energy nearly outstrips all gains. Sources: REN21 Renewables Status Report 2019. EIA. The REN21 2020 report will be out in June.

Those numbers are rapidly changing. Dare I say they are growing exponentially?

No, they are not. When I first started tracking renewables in 2004, they comprised only .5% of our primary energy. When I posted that fact back then, the response was the same as yours. 'They will grow exponentially.' They didn't.

In the 16 years that have passed that "exponential growth" has just been from .5% to 2% of total market capture. It's only been in the last year that the growth rate has risen from .1%/yr to .3%/yr. While installed capacity is growing leaps and bounds, capture of market share of the overall energy pie is barely moving. The IEA says renewables are growing too slowly to meet climate goals and energy needs. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said the low penetration of renewables for transportation and heat in homes and industry — where most of the world’s energy is consumed — is a major “blind spot."

[MonteQuest]

There aren’t growing exponentially in the USA, either. In 2008, wind. solar, and geothermal comprised 1% of our primary energy. 12 years later, it’s just 3.5% as of April 2019.

[vtsnowedin]

There aren’t growing exponentially in the USA, either. In 2008, wind. solar, and geothermal comprised 1% of our primary energy. 12 years later, it’s just 3.5% as of April 2019.

You are quoting all energy not just solar electricity production and yes as yet there are no solar planes or steel mills.

[vtsnowedin]

And it can be exponential growth just the doubling time is six years.

[MonteQuest]

You are quoting all energy not just solar electricity production and yes as yet there are no solar planes or steel mills.

Well, let's look at electricity then. Wind, solar, geothermal comprise just 8.3% of the electrical pie, growing that share only .4% from 2018. Solar PV went from 1.9% to 2.4%.



In the USA, wind is 7.3%, solar PV 1.7%, and geothermal .4%= 9.4% of all electrical power generation. Source: EIA 2019

Isn't all energy the issue?

[MonteQuest]

And it can be exponential growth just the doubling time is six years.

That's true. The base was just so small. But they are not "rapidly changing" which was what I was responding to. .3% divided by 70 = 233 years for a doubling time, today. The Law of diminishing returns is at play. They also didn't grow at a fixed rate from 2004 to 2020.