patrick.net

WookieMan says

Unless you're in NM, AZ, NV, CO and Southern CA, you'll still get an electric bill.

For most homeowners in the Florida Panhandle, the break-even point for installing solar, after accounting for the significant federal tax credit and favorable net metering policies, is typically around 6 to 9 years. After this period, the electricity generated by your solar panels is essentially free, leading to substantial long-term savings over the system's 25+ year lifespan

https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1918722555126382727

@JessePeltan
How much of NYC would you need to cover in solar panels to turn it into a net exporter of electricity?

NYC uses about 50 TWh of electricity per year.

NYC has ~780 square kilometers of land area, and a GHI of 4 kWh/m^2/day, giving a primary solar resource of ~1,100 TWh/year - more than 20x electricity demand.

Let's assume we only place panels over existing impervious surfaces on buildings and parking lots.
(the impervious part of the first 45.5%)

That brings our area to 261 sq km and our solar resource to 380 TWh/year.

With 23% efficient panels and 14% system losses (for dust, inverter losses, etc.) we get 75 TWh/year.

We would need to cover ~2/3 of the impervious surfaces in the "buildings & lots" category to generate as much electricity as NYC consumes.

This leaves open all existing sidewalks, streets, parks, vacant land, airports, etc. and doesn't include any vertical surfaces which could allow for capture of a larger fraction of NYC's primary solar resource.

The power density of solar PV is high enough to turn the densest city in the U.S. into an exporter of electricity.

For maybe 3-5 hours a day in the shoulder seasons…. CA completely destroying NEM tariffs to instigate private installations of BESS and TESS in order to carry the grid load through the non-production / under-production daily intervals that non-reliable solar power inherently has is proof of that.

Patrick says

The power density of solar PV is high enough to turn the densest city in the U.S. into an exporter of electricity.

In June when it's sunny. In December it would be lucky to get 1/5th of that power. Throw in a NY blizzard and it goes to almost 0% due to snow cover and clouds.

Build it in Nevada and run wire to connect to the grid. There's easily 1-2k sq miles of land with no agriculture you could build it on. Little rain, lots of sun, low risk of hail storms. Plenty of places with no neighbors. Highest demand is in the summer anyway. MT would be another great candidate on south facing slopes. It's not all mountains and is easily accessible. It stays sunny until almost 10pm in May to August when AC is used the most.

Solar is supplemental and will never be a replacement unless there were huge battery substations for when it's dark. Then you hope the next day is sunny. Which is why Nevada is the best spot for a massive solar farm. Low environmental issues if any really. Same with Montana in the Northern sections. You'd have to find land without cattle on it, but most projects are lease based anyway. Fence off the panels at the solar companies expense and cattle go around it.

Making an already shitty city in NYC have panels on everything would be stupid IMO. Put them in the Atlantic with flashing buoy's 5 miles off shore so it's not an eye sore. We put in oil rigs, not sure what would be complicated out that. Update navigational charts. Not a big deal.

And yes there are harsh storms in NY area. Somehow oil rigs get blasted with hurricanes and don't break. Same can't be done with panels? Rant over. I'm just sick of seeing solar panels. There are areas where it can work. Not on my neighbors roof or a parking garage.

WookieMan says

Build it in Nevada and run wire to connect to the grid.

Yeah buddy, the Florida panhandle actually gets a grade of a B for solar energy versus a grade of an A for the southwest (Las Vega$, Phoenix, etc), which is the Saudi Arabia of solar power.

For commercially viable wind energy, sustained wind speeds of around 9 mph (or 4 meters per second) are typically needed. In the Florida Panhandle, average annual wind speeds are often below this threshold (e.g., Pensacola and Apalachicola typically range from 7.8 to 8.9 mph).

While taller (50 to 100 meters), more advanced turbines could potentially harness higher wind speeds at greater elevations, this technology is still being explored for the region.

Need more efficient wind turbines like use less friction bearings for the power generators, maybe even magnetic bearings. Just like we need more efficient solar energy.

Offshore wind is viable for the Florida panhandle as well as offshore wave generators, but then you have to account for hurricanes.

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AD says

For commercially viable wind energy, sustained wind speeds of around 9 mph (or 4 meters per second) are typically needed. In the Florida Panhandle, average annual wind speeds are often below this threshold (e.g., Pensacola and Apalachicola typically range from 7.8 to 8.9 mph).

Yeah, we're higher than that. 7-8mph is the floor generally even at night. This spring the average has been probably 15-17mph with days averaging 20mph. Which is why we have some of the largest wind farms near me.

I'm in a town so don't notice it as much due to houses and trees, but with a high profile vehicle I'll drive and be like WTF it's windy. Wind looks cool at first when you see it, but it's ugly after a while. It does produce 24/7 here with varying rates of production except for the rare off day. They're always spinning and these are the big MF'rs.

My only beef is the power gets wired into different big cities including Chicago. We never have long power outages, but we get random 5-10 second outages as I think different generation of power takes over once every 3 months if something isn't producing. It's annoying, but outside of a tornado I don't think we'd ever lose power for more than 10 minutes. One of the few things IL does right.

WookieMan says

Yeah, we're higher than that. 7-8mph is the floor generally even at night.

right now its 15 mph at a heat index of 95 (85 degs, 73% humidity) in Panama City Beach

this system would be perfect year round in Panama City Beach if it is true that it can charge batteries at 5 mph , and its not just a trickle charge

AD says

It's CA so generally clear skies, but I don't buy the solar number. And no Nat Gas on the chart. Didn't CA have a leaky power plant with Nat. Gas? Is this just all non-CO2 producing electric. They all produce massive CO2 to create if that's the issues. I don't think it is. We need CO2. I mean do you want to breath? CO2 creates O2. We need more of it.

I've looked into solar a few times. Each time, for me, the problem seems that I just don't use enough solar to get the economies of scale to amortize the fixed costs. I run about 8 kWh / day with most of it after the sun goes down.

PG&E doesn't charge an infrastructure fee, but instead rolls those costs into a higher fee per kWh over and above the generation. For non-solar people that promotes conservation, as it increases the incremental cost. (i.e.: instead of $50/month + 12¢ kWh, where we could use lots of kWh for cheap, we now pay $0/month + 45¢ kWh, so every additional kWh is expensive.)

When solar started, solar people had a net of 0 kWh of generation from the power company and so paid for no infrastructure. As more and more homes went solar and paid for no infrastructure (while simultaneously using infrastructure 24/7 in either using power from the grid at night or putting power on the grid during the day) the remaining non-solar customers were forced to foot the entire infrastructure bill between fewer and fewer people. This was a virtuous cycle for the people pushing for solar. As more people went to solar, the non-solar people were also forced to go solar because of rising prices of sharing the infrastructure costs between fewer and fewer people remaining non-solar.

So, recently, credits for pushing onto the grid have been adjusted so that solar customers no longer have a free ride. You now get very little for pushing your generation onto the grid during the day but still pay for generation (and thus infrastructure) for taking energy from the grid at night. The main result of this is that new solar installations now come with batteries so that you aren't forced to sell your power back onto the grid at very low prices. I can't help but think this pricing scheme is resulting in needless battery installations just to dodge paying for infrastructure while simultaneously — again — forcing the non-solar customers to pay the entire cost of the infrastructure.

I think the (very inefficient and wasteful) end game is that people will go completely off the grid even in towns and cities where shared infrastructure would obviously be more efficient. Each home will have a large personal array of solar panels, a large personal battery, and a personal generator for periods of low generation days. As inefficient as that sounds, it'll be lower cost than participating in the incompetent and corrupt power company aided by the even more incompetent and corrupt government.

Eman says

heat pumps are only just getting started and will save oodles of energy for space and water heating and even clothes drying

If you're talking about reducing load on the electricity grid through efficiency, then I have to disagree completely. My old-fashioned natural gas heater, water heater, and dryer use very little electricity. And my car puts no load at all on the electrical grid (well, except for running the gas pump).

Solar panels are heavily subsidized and don't include provisions for depreciation when the batteries and hardware wear out and the owners have to engage future costs (likely in 7 to 20 years) for both hazmat disposal of the old rigs and buying entire new rigs at future inflated costs. There are also the curves of deteriorating performance with age.

They are sold on the presumption and promise that they will always work as optimally as new forever.

Hail destroys thousands of acres of eyesores

https://x.com/DallasTexasTV/status/1772799624941568261

Patrick says

Covering a single flat parking lot with a huge array of panels is a hell of a lot more sensible than dozens of homeowners each individually putting small arrays on their sloped roofs.

SunnyvaleCA says

Covering a single flat parking lot with a huge array of panels is a hell of a lot more sensible than dozens of homeowners each individually putting small arrays on their sloped roofs.

Why? No transmission line loss with the roof solar.

HeadSet says

SunnyvaleCA says

Covering a single flat parking lot with a huge array of panels is a hell of a lot more sensible than dozens of homeowners each individually putting small arrays on their sloped roofs.

Why? No transmission line loss with the roof solar.

Have you seen the hassle involved with getting permits and whatnot for each individual house? Multiply by 100 to have an array as large as the one pictured over the parking lot. The transmission is mostly only shortened if your house has batteries, which is yet another thing that works better at scale. For a supermarket or other mall situation, maybe not build a structure over the parking lot (unless you want that shade for its own benefit), but you could certainly put the panels on the supermarket or mall flat roof.

The biggest benefit of home solar and large battery system is that you can go completely off the expensive and not-always-reliable public grid. That said, I'd rather concentrate on making the public grid work better. Seems like a regression to have each home handle its own electricity independently. Are we going back 200 years and having each home supply its own food too?

Transmission loss can’t be an issue at around a city distance.
At this rate most solar panels businesses bankrupt. It’s better to have few larger installations like above to deal with eventual bankruptcy business by few owners than too many house owners for no additional benefits to the community.
I suspect, they hurt the roof in some cases and add additional costs to the property maintenance.

SunnyvaleCA says

Seems like a regression to have each home handle its own electricity independently. Are we going back 200 years and having each home supply its own food too?

Maybe have the cities and suburbs use a central system, while the rural folks can have their private solar just like they can grow much of their own food.

SunnyvaleCA says

Have you seen the hassle involved with getting permits and whatnot for each individual house?

That may be a local Cal issue. I have visit 7 "net zero" homes here in coastal VA.

Bd6r says

Hail destroys thousands of acres of eyesores

https://x.com/DallasTexasTV/status/1772799624941568261

Another reason to limit solar panels to urban areas like parking lots and to deserts.

Deserts get very little hail, but farmland gets quite a bit.

Patrick says

Bd6r says

Hail destroys thousands of acres of eyesores

https://x.com/DallasTexasTV/status/1772799624941568261

Another reason to limit solar panels to urban areas like parking lots and to deserts.

Deserts get very little hail, but farmland gets quite a bit.

I drove by this disaster a while ago, it looks apocalyptic. I do not think those can be recycled, they will just bury it in landfills and have cadmium telluride and lead leach from it in an environmentally friendly fashion.

Bd6r says

I drove by this disaster a while ago, it looks apocalyptic. I do not think those can be recycled, they will just bury it in landfills and have cadmium telluride and lead leach from it in an environmentally friendly fashion.

Yeah, they've been popping up here in Northern IL. They're designing these ones so they can go vertical if there's severe weather like hail so they don't get smashed. They clearly don't understand IL weather though. Tornados, microburst and derechos happen all the time where we live. Basically high wind events on the low end at 70mph up to an F5 tornado.

Also the power isn't used in the area it's produced in. They build them near existing transmission lines and send it to Chicago and the suburbs here. So we get the eye sore and no benefit to our electric bills.

Back to wind, if there's a major tornado that skirts the edge my town and hits one of those solar farms, those panels are going to be flying everywhere. We just have cornfield around us, so debris is of little concern without a direct it. I could see those things getting flung 1/4 to 1/2 mile in an F5.

They cut off all trees when building solar farms, even hundreds of years old oaks. Very green indeed. The retards who allow devastation of their inherited family farms get paid something like 600 per acre per year for this and it is 20-30 year contracts. Often contracts do not have clause for panel removal at the end of land lease. Neighbors are usually pissed off since land next to them is dead and may become toxic in future. Hopefully all subsidies are removed so we do not have to suffer this.

Bd6r says

They cut off all trees when building solar farms, even hundreds of years old oaks. Very green indeed. The retards who allow devastation of their inherited family farms get paid something like 600 per acre per year for this and it is 20-30 year contracts. Often contracts do not have clause for panel removal at the end of land lease. Neighbors are usually pissed off since land next to them is dead and may become toxic in future. Hopefully all subsidies are removed so we do not have to suffer this.

Oh the public is pissed off around me about it. First is land usage and the loss of farmland. Second is the potential toxins. Third is there's literally no benefit to our community and an eye sore as the electric goes to Chicago. Make Chicago do it. There's 150 acres at the South Works steel mill in Chicago that will never be built on because of blacks. Yes black people and bad neighborhood. The EPA already has said the land is trash.

The other thing is they're going to contract all the work to someone else outside the area and create no new jobs on the proposed stuff around me. They've also been bribing local organizations to pump projects. As a board member I voted no on something that would benefit kids. They try and pull at certain organizations heart strings. I just said I don't want solar panels. We get enough donations from other sources. It felt dirty.

We need to stop subsidizing anything considered green. Because it really is not. You cannot get net zero on your home without panels on the ground or massive battery banks. I'll take natural gas back ups for my home. Wind while equally as ugly it takes up way less land and I'd prefer that over solar as the land around here could still be farmed and we have consisted wind day and night. Still no subsidy for that. Figure out how to raise capital.

SunnyvaleCA says

Each time, for me, the problem seems that I just don't use enough solar to get the economies of scale to amortize the fixed costs. I run about 8 kWh / day with most of it after the sun goes down.

Similar to my situation over ten years ago when I purchased a system that might eventually pay for itself (under NEM 2.0). Fast forward to now where PG&Es top rate (non TOU) is $.51 /kWhr.
365 days x 8 kWhr x $.51/kWhr = $1,489
Install was about $10k so almost 15% return tax free.
I would be remiss to not thank the angry tax payers of Pat.net for subsidizing this purchase.

Solar power that isn't bullshit:







Exowatt P3

Most of it is in a standard shipping container. Produces 25,000 kilowatts each.

Fresnel lenses heat a big ass ceramic brick in the container to 1,000°C. An industrial fan blows air across the hot brick. Hot air drives a Stirling engine.

Fresnel & Stirling systems are 200+ year old tech. Industrial fan what? 120?

24/7 dispatchable electrical power. 3 - 4 cents per kw. Total, not just LCOE bullshit.

Ceramic brick is good for 50 years continous operation.

They are striving to get that down to 1 cent over time and scale.

Everything is 100% made in America.

www.exowatt.com

EBGuy says

SunnyvaleCA says

Each time, for me, the problem seems that I just don't use enough solar to get the economies of scale to amortize the fixed costs. I run about 8 kWh / day with most of it after the sun goes down.

Similar to my situation over ten years ago when I purchased a system that might eventually pay for itself (under NEM 2.0). Fast forward to now where PG&Es top rate (non TOU) is $.51 /kWhr.
365 days x 8 kWhr x $.51/kWhr = $1,489
Install was about $10k so almost 15% return tax free.
I would be remiss to not thank the angry tax payers of Pat.net for subsidizing this purchase.

Prices for system have come down quite a bit from a decade ago, but now there's no real benefit for selling energy back to the power company. You wind up having to get expensive batteries for storage. Also, energy is only $0.45 kWhr off-peak. I also don't run above the "too much use" threshold that also incurs higher prices. There are also other fees.

Note that home solar still requires you be connected to be dependent on the grid. If the grid goes down, you're house goes down even if you have $5k of batteries. I think the better solution is that go completely off grid, but that'll take even more batteries. It's also crazy to see how badly the electricity grid is run such that non-shared solutions are starting to look viable.

If home solar panel were a good idea, then large share installations on the top of flat supermarket roofs would be the first place to put them... not every homeowner doing their own private installation custom to each house.

You can get basic system for less than 2 k. Fossibot 3600 or ecoflow delta 3600 for 1000 to 1500$. Get 3-400 $ worth of solar panel to create 1000 watt per hr electricity n store it. Wire for 100 $

30% tax rebate .

You can use it daily and and if power goes out in emergency. Lot quieter than gas or oil generators. Also if use less grid electricity, you pay less also to.

Patrick says

Yes like most of the Green Energy mandate. None of it is executed with pragmatic wisdom or sophisticated execution.
It was just flung off the end of a fork at those that resisted it the most. With no forethought on the hazardous encroachment or ineffective utilization.

Patrick says

They do it in CA but mostly over school parking lots. I've only seen two business parking lots covered by panels, but every fucking school has them. And this is in the state with insanely high energy costs.Does this mean that school
boards are more business-savvy than businessmen? 🤡

RWSGFY says

Patrick says

They do it in CA but mostly over school parking lots. I've only seen two business parking lots covered by panels, but every fucking school has them. And this is in the state with insanely high energy costs.Does this mean that school
boards are more business-savvy than businessmen? 🤡

It just means that school boards have more of “other peoples” money to spend than businesses do, also not targeting a certain rate of return as high as what the rest of the business does. Schools in CA also have a bunch of guidelines and goals from the state that they have to meet regarding energy use and renewable energy.

Kaiser hospitals have this too. Other large parking lots will probably adopt it over time, it's nice because it provides shade and rain cover as well as energy.

Id put one at my house if there were room

Call me back in twelve years when all of those panels start to fail and become biohazard waste.

That is, if they haven't blown off in a storm or been pelted and destroyed in some other manner in the meanwhile.

Ceffer says

Call me back in twelve years when all of those panels start to fail and become biohazard waste.



At that time, it becomes a cash king in recycling fees for the state.

MolotovCocktail says

www.exowatt.com

I love this. Thought for years myself about ways to simply focus light to make steam, or giant thermal masses of water or stone to even out summer and winter demand.

https://www.exowatt.com/solutions

Eman says

I did the math of Tesla solar panels. Cost is $17.4K after tax incentives. It would cover my monthly electricity bill of $230/mo on average. Add in a powerwall will increase the cost by $8k. Without the powerwall, it’s about 15% ROI. What am I missing?

Have you pursued this further?

Here in California you get very low value for selling electrons back to the utility company. (This changed in the last few years to be very low.) So, you need the batteries because you want to keep your own electricity and use it at night. How long do the batteries last? Who knows, but to be effective at saving money they need to be charged and discharged daily, which will probably tend to wear them out.

AD says

So?

And the CCP who make the panels and their chips hold the big red button for setting them off. Kublai Khan's flaming birds.

https://t.me/tribunalsandexecutions/533914

MolotovCocktail says

So?

can put these on the roof of our home in Florida panhandle as we already are connected to the grid

so we can generate our own electricity on sunny days, perhaps enough to not need electricity from Florida Power and Light