Solar Power - Worth the Investment?

[betty boop]

Art it isn't her personal tax bill, she's living in the Lodge as the Prime Minister of Australia. As you know, she isn't the only person to live or work there. I'm sure that the Lodge could become more efficient in its energy use, I'm sure that it will when we have a Greens PM!

At least Gillard is living there, Howard wasn't allowed to live in the Lodge.

As a leader and someone who has forced this tax upon us, I think I would expect her to lead by example.

Has the lodge fitted solar or did they find it was not worth it ?

Edited October 3, 2012 by :) al

[Art Vandelay]

[quote name= al' timestamp='1349306778' post='772986]

As a leader and someone who has forced this tax upon us, I think I would expect her to lead by example.

Has the lodge fitted solar or did they find it was not worth it ?

precisely my point, and if PV solar is not a practical solution she should at least be buying green choice energy.

[proftournesol]

[quote name= al' timestamp='1349306778' post='772986]

As a leader and someone who has forced this tax upon us, I think I would expect her to lead by example.

Has the lodge fitted solar or did they find it was not worth it ?

I agree with you but as I said we'll have to wait until we have a Greens PM if we are expecting more than greenwash.

[Lloyd]

I notice that there is an outfit in NSW who call themselves Green Solar Solutions.

I don't take offence at that. Some might, who know a bit of history.

However, when people attempt to rebel against the iron logic of nature, they come into conflict with the very same principles they owe their existence as human beings. Their actions against nature must lead to their own downfall.

Does anyone agree with this?

Edited October 4, 2012 by Lloyd

[hochopeper]

I had the opportunity today to attend a presentation titled 'Resilient and Expandable Distribution Network for Smart Community' by Professor Ryuichi Yokoyama from Waseda University, Japan - it was presented to the QLD IEEE Power and Energy Society Chapter and some others who are in the industry in QLD. A similar presentation was given to a group in Sydney this morning. His presentation focused on the power industry in Japan and in particular the changes seen by that industry after the tsunami and the direction that their industry is headed to cope with these changes over the next 10 - 20years. This is the summary of the presentation that was given out before we attended:

The widespread shortage of electricity occurred by the Tohoku Earthquake in March of 2011 has made us keenly aware of the need for households, offices, factories, and local governments to maintain their own power sources that are not completely dependent on electric power companies. In constructing such power sources, locally generated and consumed renewable energy from solar and wind sources would be mainly utilized. However, such power sources would affect the power grid through fluctuation of power output and the deterioration of power quality. Therefore, a new social infrastructure to supply electric power would be required. As a countermeasure of the problem, it would be suitable to create resilient and expandable distribution networks that are of appropriate scale for their respective regions instead of large-scale networks all at once. The network will add new clusters when needed, and have them collaborate with each other where regional governments are the main entities. In this presentation, the current status and features of the government driven developments for smart grids and communities in Japan are introduced, and cluster-oriented expandable networks are discussed focusing on resiliency of the grid against natural disaster. Vital lifelines could be secured even during large-scale natural disasters, if such administrative agencies, hospitals, police stations, schools, evacuation centers, communication bases, and elderly housing facilities were completed centering on the Cluster-Oriented Expandable Network operated by regional governments. This concept is known as “resiliency,†and it will one day be the guideline for building the social infrastructure.

This presentation includes the following subjects.

-Paradigm Shift for Stable Power Supply after Natural Disaster in Japan

-Issues of Large Scale Penetration of Sustainable Energy

-Expectation and Implementation of Smart Grid and Community

-Resilient and Expandable Smart Distribution Network for Disaster and Restoration

-Prospects of Smart Grid and Community

Now I'll give a quick summary of my thoughts and impressions after attending.

In his presentation he discussed numerous issues facing Japan's electricity industry and especially focused on their shift from nuclear power to a mix of LNG and renewables (Japan already has significant hydro generation, will now add wind and solar to that mix) after political pressure after the tsunami in March 2011. This shift in generation technologies is resulting in a considerable rise in energy prices and their manufacturing industry is starting to put political pressure on to keep some percentage of the generation nuclear to keep the electricity prices affordable They are seeing 10-15% per annum increase in prices and still seeing rolling blackouts due to insufficient generation capacity with many of the nuclear generation sites already decommissioned/disconnected (from memory only 2 or 3 of the 38 possible sites were still being operated). This is a working example of the cost pressure that results from changing the generation methods, with Australia's already high electricity prices any additional upward pressure will end up competing with the political pressure for environmental efficiency. In short, prior to the tsunami there was big pressure for lowering CO2 which the Japanese government had set out to achieve through the use of nuclear generation. After the tsunami the pressure was (understandably) to remove nuclear generation and to avoid the cost increases that are currently being seen. In effect, the environmental efficiency has taken a back seat in some ways.

Another interesting point that he made was that the cost to install a 3.5kW solar system in Japan is ~$US7k and may take up to 15years to pay off financially. I thought this may be an interesting for reference compared to the comparatively faster return seen in Australia at current prices.

Another discussion that I found interesting is that there are now communities in Japan that are set up to trial new technologies focused on energy efficiency, reliability and resilience. Two of these communities are sponsored by the motor industry (Toyota and Nissan) where they are using electric powered cars to provide localised storage from solar panels and supply back to the network during periods of peak load. This is working and houses with this implemented and a fully charged car are able to function autonomously (without grid supply) for up to two days! In all of these trials they are coupling battery storage and solar cells in their studies as being crucial. They are already working on the cost of batteries as this is the major stumbling block to this change to allow individual households electricity grid autonomy.

Hopefully these can make for some more interesting (and hopefully relevant to this thread) discussion points.

Chris

Edited October 4, 2012 by zman

[davidsss]

Storing electricity remains one hell of a stumbling block. I think it will take a while to come up with more efficient and environmentally benign ways to store electricity and/or energy. The solar collecting power stations do this by storing heat but battery technology certainly has the potential to be a huge game changer.

One of the biggest problems Japan is facing is the speed of the change following the tsunami and nuclear accident which is forcing prices up. What we should learn from this is that the earlier we make changes the more time we have to make the changes and the less costly it is likely to be. Apart from anything else they are paying for the fact they are no longer getting a return from a pile of investment made in the past which was meant to generate a return for a much longer period of time.

DS

[hochopeper]

Totally agree that changing an industry in a hurry is a hugely expensive way to go about implementing a change. The density of the Japanese population also adds to this issue. They have a far more robust (in terms of redundancy built in to the infrastructure) distribution network than we have in Australia too.

As a side note DS, before all of the nuclear debate kicked off I replied to your question about time of system peak loads not being in the evening, with some graphs, in this post here. It got buried quickly though. I am not sure how this works out for states with daylight saving, Qld doesn't have it so for the southerners reading those graphs that is something to keep in mind.

Also, I had a thought about this post here again today:

Also consider that ~40% of any power created is lost in distribution over the current infrastructure.

Creating toxic waste for a 40% loss doesn't make a lotta sense to me...

Creating lots of smaller power plants helps elleviate that eg solar & wind farms.

Previously I'd responded with this:

Your ~40% is out by almost 1 order of magnitude. I am familiar with the network in Qld between bulk supply from Power Link QLD and the consumer the losses are more like 7%.

I agree that distributed generation is a more logical system. Though with the current way the network can be controlled/operated it is not technically possible to cope with the scale of generation that would be the idealists preference. I believe what would be better is that people could accept the risks associated with managing their own supply and go off-grid. There should be better technology to enable this available in the next few years.

I have decided that there is a confusion here and I should clarify.

The efficiency of a coal fired power station is in the order of 40% - 50%. [this is my guess that is the number you had in mind and you typed your post quickly and I mistook your meaning.]

The efficiency of the transfer of power over the transmission network I do not know exact numbers.

The efficiency of transfer of power over the distribution network is in the order of 7%

Edited October 4, 2012 by zman

[davidsss]

Totally agree that changing an industry in a hurry is a hugely expensive way to go about implementing a change. The density of the Japanese population also adds to this issue. They have a far more robust (in terms of redundancy built in to the infrastructure) distribution network than we have in Australia too.

As a side note DS, before all of the nuclear debate kicked off I replied to your question about time of system peak loads not being in the evening, with some graphs, in this post here. It got buried quickly though. I am not sure how this works out for states with daylight saving, Qld doesn't have it so for the southerners reading those graphs that is something to keep in mind.

Interesting power usage graphs, given the pricing of power though the day I always figured that must be peak demand. It seems to go up during the day and not drop for quite a while after 5pm. I always figured that it must be industry and offices sucking more power than households during the day and the evening dropped a bit. Anyway, food for thought.

DS

[Lloyd]

Nuclear is a silly answer, not only does the waste last for centuries, it has a finite material, uranium, as its fuel. Those who advocate nuclear should be willing to live next to a nuclear waste dump. I support solar and am willing to live under solar panels.

Back to the topic. The question asked, whether solar is worth the investment, is somewhat beside the point for me. Economics is not an explanation of the world, it is but one aspect of the world. For me the economic benefit is secondary, the primary benefit is the environmental benefit which has intangible value.

DS

I am not sure if your logic has ever been questioned before, but so I guess you may also ask whether the people who most support wind farms would be willing to live next to a wind farm. I don't use the word "should".

It is my impression that middle class and upper class people really don't give a toss about the economics. Talk to the other 99% of people who reckon that they need to occupy and live in tents. Show me examples of people working on a basic wage who can afford unsubsidized solar panels.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Lloyd

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

I am not sure if your logic has ever been questioned before, but so I guess you may also ask whether the people who most support wind farms would be willing to live next to a wind farm. I don't use the word "should".

Wind farms tend to be located in remote(ish) farm areas. I was down in Canberra last weekend and my partner asked if we could get close to some of the machines to see how noisy they were. I got within 2km (my guess) and parked. I turned off the engine and we strained our ears. Nothing. No noise at all could be heard. Sure, they MIGHT be audible closer, but it should be possible to site them further than 2km from where people live. FWIW: This was South East of Gulburn and I counted at least 70 turbines in the vicinity.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Zaphod Beeblebrox

[Art Vandelay]

http://www.trade.nsw.gov.au/energy/sustainable/renewable/wind/sustain_renew_wind_atlas_poster.pdf

As the map shows, most of the viable areas in NSW are a long way from population centres.

The coastal strip is mostly all viable but is off limits due to urban development.

[Rob181]

Totally agree that changing an industry in a hurry is a hugely expensive way to go about implementing a change. The density of the Japanese population also adds to this issue. They have a far more robust (in terms of redundancy built in to the infrastructure) distribution network than we have in Australia too.

As a side note DS, before all of the nuclear debate kicked off I replied to your question about time of system peak loads not being in the evening, with some graphs, in this post here. It got buried quickly though. I am not sure how this works out for states with daylight saving, Qld doesn't have it so for the southerners reading those graphs that is something to keep in mind.

Also, I had a thought about this post here again today:

Previously I'd responded with this:

I have decided that there is a confusion here and I should clarify.

The efficiency of a coal fired power station is in the order of 40% - 50%. [this is my guess that is the number you had in mind and you typed your post quickly and I mistook your meaning.]

The efficiency of the transfer of power over the transmission network I do not know exact numbers.

The efficiency of transfer of power over the distribution network is in the order of 7%

A question I have and I am hoping someone much wiser than I can answer is.....for every 1 kl watt (1000 watts) that leaves a power station....how much is the net delivered watts to the end user...bearing in mind most users are usually 100's of kls from the power station...Rob

[JeffK]

I think the transmission loss ie the loss through the major high voltage transmission lines is less than 1%. If the 7% transmission loss stated above is correct that would give an energy at the consumption point of about 92% of the energy at the generation point.

The efficiency of the coal fired power stations quoted above is a little overstated. To the best of my knowledge the actual best efficiency of a coal fired power station in Australia is about 38% based on energy sent out. That is of the energy in the coal burnt the resulting electrical energy sent to the grid is about 38%. There would be gas fired and combined cycle plants that are more efficient than that and there maybe some plants that recover waste heat which would also improve the net efficiency.

Sent from my GT-P7500 using Tapatalk 2

[hochopeper]

Rob181,

Jeff's post above is in line with my understanding. I haven't worked in generation side of the industry so I'll take Jeff's word on the 38%, I knew it was closer to 40% than 50% when I wrote my post above, but I was mostly trying to give a ballpark indication, maybe I was estimating a bit too high.

The 7% number I quoted is a conservative estimate for SE Qld distribution network. Rural areas should expect higher losses in the distribution network.

In your example somewhere just over 330W would be delivered to a consumer for each 1000W of heat created burning coal. Or roughly 920W for each 1000W of electricity that leaves the power station.

Chris

Edited October 5, 2012 by zman

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

A question I have and I am hoping someone much wiser than I can answer is.....for every 1 kl watt (1000 watts) that leaves a power station....how much is the net delivered watts to the end user...bearing in mind most users are usually 100's of kls from the power station...Rob

Depends on many factors. Modern, high Voltage transmission systems incur losses of around 3% per 1,000km. Local losses will add to this figure, but the figures should not be onerous. Figure on around 6% ~ 7% as an average.

[Rob181]

Thanks guys...very much appreciated...makes interesting reading.

The post by Chris detailing the presentation is also very interesting. You would think that in new areas...the grid would be more effective for two way use...that is...sending electricity & receiving it. Given the load graphs...solars could be feeding in during 50% of the peak times reducing the load on power stations during the 1200 to 1700 time period...Rob

[Lloyd]

Wind farms tend to be located in remote(ish) farm areas. I was down in Canberra last weekend and my partner asked if we could get close to some of the machines to see how noisy they were. I got within 2km (my guess) and parked. I turned off the engine and we strained our ears. Nothing. No noise at all could be heard. Sure, they MIGHT be audible closer, but it should be possible to site them further than 2km from where people live. FWIW: This was South East of Gulburn and I counted at least 70 turbines in the vicinity.

Thankyou for that observation. 2 k's is hardly living "next" to them, though - next to is more like a couple hundred metres. Most noise is lost over a couple k's. I have been a couple k's away from a busy airport and heard nothing.

Yeah, most are in rural communities, and as I understand owners of the land are paid for allowing the company to build a turbine in their paddock. Unfortunately they may have neighbours living right next door to that paddock. There was a 4 Corners thing on it maybe about a year ago and people complained bitterly - from severe emotional distress to even having to sell their home and relocate.

There are a lot of factors to address - too many for me to list here. For those interested there is a pdf document issued by the SA EPA, and I hope this link works -

http://www.epa.sa.go...e/windfarms.pdf

So I guess where I am coming from is whether inner city politically correct superior self righteous people would like to have a windfarm in the parklands in their immediate vicinity - and there are quite a few in inner city Melbourne, home of Green Adam Bandt.

Being patronizing only serves to build resentment.

Edit - like most people, I have spent time in a rural setting. Dead quiet, zero ambient background noise at 2am when I pop out for a sly ciggie. I could hear dogs barking from a kilometre away, talking with each other if they sense a Fox on The Run. So, it depends and it depends.

Edited October 5, 2012 by Lloyd

[davidsss]

I am not sure if your logic has ever been questioned before, but so I guess you may also ask whether the people who most support wind farms would be willing to live next to a wind farm. I don't use the word "should".

It is my impression that middle class and upper class people really don't give a toss about the economics. Talk to the other 99% of people who reckon that they need to occupy and live in tents. Show me examples of people working on a basic wage who can afford unsubsidized solar panels.

I said solar and anyway we were debating nuclear. Isn't it fun the way nuclear advocates immediately start blubbering about the noise of a wind farm or the like whenever the waste question comes up? I'll take the noise of a wind farm over the radioactivity of nuclear waste any day.

You said, and I quote: "Waste disposal is not a problem in Oz". In what way is waste disposal not a problem? Do you have a solution to nuclear waste that the rest of the world hasn't yet heard of? The USA have been trying to find somewhere, geologically stable enough to store this poison, for decades, and are yet to find anywhere. The Germans bung it in salt mines and it is already leaking. There is no way to safely store nuclear waste. While we're on the topic, why do you ignore the economics of the whole life cycle of a nuclear plant from mining of uranium, building the plant, operating the plant, decommissionin the plant, security for the fissile material and hundreds, if not thousands, of years of secure (remember radioactive waste can be used for dirty bombs) storage of waste? All this for an energy source which uses a finite resource, uranium, which will not last for long if we all start using it. No wonder I call nuclear silly.

Now, solar, there's an option. The natural resource will not run out for millions of years and when it does we'd better be out of the neighbourhood. Low C02 emissions (always some making panels or power stations but, unlike nuclear, no ongoing emissions as no mining of uranium), more energy hitting the Earth than we use today or for a long time into the future, the ability to have a distributed network for power, lots of potential in Australia for concentrated solar power generation. Plus we can add wind, geothermal, tidal and the like to the mix. Why would anyone bother with nuclear? Oh that's right, hardly anyone is.

DS

Edited October 5, 2012 by davidsss

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Now, solar, there's an option. The natural resource will not run out for millions of years and when it does we'd better be out of the neighbourhood.

DS

That would be a Barnarby (Joyce) kind of moment. The Sun is expected to last many BILLIONS of years, before it turns into a red dwarf and engulfs Venus and probably the Earth.

[Lloyd]

I said solar and anyway we were debating nuclear. Isn't it fun the way nuclear advocates immediately start blubbering about the noise of a wind farm or the like whenever the waste question comes up? I'll take the noise of a wind farm over the radioactivity of nuclear waste any day.

All this for an energy source which uses a finite resource, uranium, which will not last for long if we all start using it. No wonder I call nuclear silly.

Why would anyone bother with nuclear? Oh that's right, hardly anyone is.

DS

It is estimated that Australia has about two billion tonnes of uranium. That is not gunna run out in a hurry. Get your facts correct and I will respond in a considered manner.

[proftournesol]

I understand that all the Lucas Heights radioactive waste is still stockpiled inside the facility as there's nowhere else that's safe to store it. Now that's a small reactor and one that we need for medical isotopes etc but imagine that problem enlarged and multiplied all over the country, as well as the required constant supply of cooling water.

[proftournesol]

It is estimated that Australia has about two billion tonnes of uranium. That is not gunna run out in a hurry. Get your facts correct and I will respond in a considered manner.

I think that you might mean ore rather than uranium, and of course not all of that is extractible at a competitive price.

[Lloyd]

That would be a Barnarby (Joyce) kind of moment. The Sun is expected to last many BILLIONS of years, before it turns into a red dwarf and engulfs Venus and probably the Earth.

The Sun is nuclear in its own way which I don't pretend to understand. Deal with this paradox.

[Lloyd]

I understand that all the Lucas Heights radioactive waste is still stockpiled inside the facility as there's nowhere else that's safe to store it. Now that's a small reactor and one that we need for medical isotopes etc but imagine that problem enlarged and multiplied all over the country, as well as the required constant supply of cooling water.

If nuke were to become politically acceptable outside of the fashionable guilt ridden and cave dweller victim mentality thought process, there would spring up some clever and well funded person who has taken the time to actually get out of their inner city apartment and discover that Oz is HUGE and largely unpopulated. Underground storage in a remote secure location. I reckon that Oz could take the waste from overseas and make a lot of money, if we were allowed to. This is not my idea - it has been suggested before.

Cannot comment on leakages - maybe the designers were secondary school students in a science project, but I speculate.

Edited October 5, 2012 by Lloyd

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

The Sun is nuclear in its own way which I don't pretend to understand. Deal with this paradox.

No need. The Sun is 150 million km away. Any nuclear by-products are well away from any civilisation. It also operates via nuclear fusion, which is very different to the nuclear fission that is used here on Earth. When we finally manage to get a controllable fusion reaction to take place, energy problems on this planet will be largely solved. Fusion is vastly more efficient than fission (about 10 ~ 100 times more efficient) and vastly less waste products result. Sadly, we are twenty years away from useful fusion power. We have been 20 years away, since the 1950s.