patrick.net

Blue says

Most of these guys are scammers.

Happened again yesterday. I was unloading the car. I just told him we were divorced and the house has been sold and walked away. He kept talking I just ignored him. I should have just turned around and told him you're not making a sale and get off my property.

Panels work in IL, but we don't have enough sun even in the summer for them to be practical. Winter... hell no. I don't want them on the roof as these are fly by night clowns and I'll end up with a roof leak. Definitely don't want them in my yard.

They're pushing this shit because we don't have the grid for EV's. Plain and simple. Unless you're in NM, AZ, NV, CO and Southern CA, you'll still get an electric bill. Panels would take off maybe 20% of my bill year round. So not worth the drywall and roof damage bill from a leak. Don't want the eye sore in my yard.

TL:DR I'm never getting solar panels.

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).