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This doesn't make sense - NYT article about a solar installation in the US

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Ed.Kloonk:

--- Quote from: james_s on October 30, 2021, 06:18:08 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on October 30, 2021, 04:18:39 am ---The time from now until 2040/2050 is a long time to provide what ever cabling is needed to be just enough for normal supply. Nobody is going to do it on the off chance electric cars become a big hit.

Temporary, localized drop outs are the future because the ramp-up of loads have become orders of magnitude bigger than what we have gotten used to. I'm not disagreeing with you. But infrastructure occurs after development. Always will.

--- End quote ---

Off chance? It has already happened, electric cars already are a huge hit. The area where I live is absolutely crawling with Teslas, the model 3 is one of the top selling cars in the world.

--- End quote ---

The question I have is how prepared was Texas in regards to being able to charge and run all those cars? The power supply seems to have coped. Unless it snows, of course.  :palm:

Bassman59:

--- Quote from: PaulAm on October 30, 2021, 06:50:42 pm ---There''s this odd belief in the US that electric utilities exist to generate and distribute electricity.  That may have been true at one point, but today their sole purpose is to generate money.
--- End quote ---

Indeed. And they're regulated so they try to buy their way onto each state's regulatory agencies.


--- Quote ---My electric bill is split between distribution and generation charges.  The distribution charges are always greater than the actual cost of electricity.  Despite having the highest (or maybe second highest) electricity rates in the country, we got nailed by a 5 day outage earlier this year from Summer storms.  "We'll do better" they say, just let us raises our rates some more!
--- End quote ---

The original reason for the separate generation and distribution charges was that somehow, magically, there would be "competition" in the generation market, and customers could choose who generated their power. Since there is only one set of cables that come to your house, the local provider was responsible for maintaining them.

I know there were attempts to form co-operatives for generation, but I honestly don't know where or if anyone has a choice for their power generation.


--- Quote ---I get oodles of ads about "green investment" and "green power" by the utility.  It's fine when they put up the farms and charge you a premium.  For local solar arrays, they are phasing out net metering and will eventually be charging for every watt that goes across their meter.  When I put up my array, I could only put up about half of my yearly demand, and I had to fight for that.
--- End quote ---

The utilities are generally against customer-rooftop solar power. They certainly don't want anyone over-generating and they don't want to pay retail rates from the customers with solar who are tied into their grid. Also the utilities are our "battery" so they need the ability to spin up and spin down generators "quickly" as solar production drops and rises.

But basically they are just annoyed that they don't get the guaranteed profits that come with being a monopoly.

NiHaoMike:

--- Quote from: Someone on October 30, 2021, 01:06:19 am ---Will people play nice with their vehicle charging and only do it during off peak when there is sufficient grid/network capacity? (no, they won't, just like most people drive in peak hour and create the traffic jams).

--- End quote ---
Provide incentives to move demand off peak and it will happen to some degree. One example is Ohmconnect.

--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on October 30, 2021, 08:03:20 pm ---The power supply seems to have coped. Unless it snows, of course.  :palm:

--- End quote ---
Incentives to try to match demand to supply would also help a lot with that. Going further, they should also have programs that give customers the option to be first in line to be disconnected and run on generators or other backup supplies, getting paid to do so.

rstofer:

--- Quote from: Someone on October 30, 2021, 02:48:38 am ---For all the talk of moving to electric transport there hasn't been any planning on how the grid will support that and where the generation will come from. Technically possible, yes, but the free market won't deliver it as the current market they play in is largely for show/theatrical (monopoly distributors, cartel generators).

--- End quote ---

None of the electric public utility systems in the US are 'free market'.  They are all controlled by Public Utility Commissions.  The PUCs tell the utility what to do, when to do it and how much extra they can charge for the results.

Most people work during on-peak hours, that's why the demand is called 'on-peak'; buildings are up and running.  Charging at home, after work, will be during a period of reduced demand.  But, not to worry, if things get out of hand, the utilities will move to Time Of Day billing.  They already have tariffs (regulations) in place and the rates are available as an option (at least here in Northern California with PG&E).  They will just convert everybody.  For the most part, the revenue meters have already been converted to Smart Meters which are read over the power line so getting instantaneous or interval demand is trivial.  You may note that there hasn't been a meter reader (person) in the neighborhood for a decade or more.

I'm not the least bit concerned about grid capacity to charge EVs and you have never seen a utility representative worried about it either.  All you see is EV naysayers stating their opinion about the inadequacies.  EVs already have a programmable start time (or end time) as part of the firmware.  That's cool!  Tell the car you want it fully charged by the time you finish your cup of coffee in the morning (end time) and it will start the charging as required.  It remains for the car owner to have a large enough charger to get it done.

At a very high level, there must be a plan to make it work because the auto manufacturers are investing billions of dollars in new plants to build EVs.  Internal combustion vehicles simply won't be available in the near future.  Like them or not, you will eventually be driving an EV.

Gasoline here is $5/gallon and if a car gets 20 MPG, that's about $0.25/mile.  If we take 3.7 miles per kWh and $0.25/kWh this works out to $0.07/mile.  And no semiannual smog check!  And we can drive in the HOV lanes without a passenger required!

What's really cool is when you have a solar array under a power purchase agreement at, say, $0.15/kWh.  That brings the cost of driving a Bolt down to about $0.04/mile.  Try that with a gas driven SUV.  And the EV will accelerate faster from a stop light - something I do from time to time.

rstofer:

--- Quote from: NiHaoMike on October 30, 2021, 09:14:02 pm ---Incentives to try to match demand to supply would also help a lot with that. Going further, they should also have programs that give customers the option to be first in line to be disconnected and run on generators or other backup supplies, getting paid to do so.

--- End quote ---

Running on generators is contradictory to the goal of reduced emissions.  That would be the absolute worst way to provide power.

Work from home is pretty popular and I'll bet houses are more efficient than office buildings because the workers pay their own utility bills.  A laptop doesn't require all the features of the modern office building.  I think I would work from the patio for about half the year.  Poke at a spreadsheet while watching the dogs run and play.  Pretty easy life!

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