Posted on 10/14/2019 12:27:59 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Going solar isn’t necessarily any protection from California’s new “planned” power outages, and local residents and businesses are enduring a lot more than just a few inconveniences.
Bloomberg’s Chris Martin has a story on California’s troubles with one of my favorite headlines ever: “Californians Learning That Solar Panels Don't Work in Blackouts.” Apparently, many of California’s would-be Earth-savers had no idea that just putting solar panels on their roofs doesn’t mean they’ll have power when PG&E switches it off. As Martin explains:
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
PING!
In fairness, there’s a number of things in California that need to be turned off.
Most people don’t know that wind turbines produce very little, if any,energy on frigid winter days. Texas, which produces a lot of wind energy, learned this the hard way in the unusually cold spell in February 2011. Without enough wind to keep the windmills turning, Texas was forced to buy electricity from Mexico, and those nasty neighbors tripled the price for Texas utility companies and their customers.
Solar panels work just fine in blackouts. The problem is that everyone goes with pure Grid Tie systems. In such systems when the grid goes down then so does the inverter which makes such systems worthless during a blackout.
The alternative is to have a battery bank and a system that can charge the batteries. The inverter runs off the batteries. And it has to be able to totally isolate from the Grid. That adds another level of cost and maintenance, but it will work during a blackout.
Stupid people who did no research before spending tens of thousands of dollars on solar.
There are three types of solar installations:
1. Grid-tied
2. Hybrid
3. Battery backup (off-grid).
Most people install grid-tied because it's less expensive - but you would think they would know that when the power goes off, their solar is shut down as well.
Hybrid systems allow the choice of being grid-tied or using battery back up, isolating from the now-dead grid with a switch. The batteries are what makes the hybrid systems expensive (plus the additional electronics, switches).
Off-grid are what they sound like. No grid, all panel to battery.
If you have money to waste it is a good investment.
It's all about power and control. Thanks Tolerance Sucks Rocks.
Vote for demonrats, win stupid prizes
I can’t blame people for thinking that they live in a first world country where the electricity is always on in CA, save for the rare earthquake event. They did not count on the destructive power of socialism, far worse than any natural disaster.
I have a 100 Watt solar panel and a couple of small batteries that store 550 Watt hours of juice. Not going to power any major appliances but keeps the lights on and the tablets, laptops and cell phones charged. It will also power the WiFi, assuming the cable internet is still working.
What everyone is missing is.......most people in California who go solar aren’t doing it because of environmentalism. They’re doing it because our electric bills are outrageous and they are trying to save money. Saving the earth is secondary.
Most California utility customers who opt for solar panels do so because the local utility (PG&E or SoCal Edison) provided subsidies and incentives for installation of solar panels that are connected to the grid. This is because the panels themselves are eligible for tax rebates and taking solar power from these individual homes helps the utility satisfy the state-mandated requirement that they sell X percentage of “renewable” energy.
It is a purely artificial concept that has been forced on the utility companies and subsidized by the government, and has nothing to do with allowing individual customers to power their own homes.
I suspect that a pure “off-grid” solar system that PG&E cannot claim as part of its renewable energy sources, would not be eligible for tax or utility incentives.
They are putting up so many of those turbines on Texas it is amazing. They have learned nothing. Saw three huge cranes working one new field of turbines. I think maybe Texas Farmers just want the birds killed. Lol.
ping
Venezuela
So does a generator.
That’s a reasonable use of solar. Trying to power you entire home is far more difficult and expensive.
I used to work for a company that supplied an adhesive product to a solar manufacturer. I learned all I needed to when I found out that their manufacturing was solely on the grid even though they were in a very large plant with a very large roof and could obviously set up their solar grid for free.
They also had a plant in Mexico which is a far better solar environment than Michigan
The problem with that is the breakeven point is so many years in the future that people lose money by moving early or the panels need to be replaced just about the time they're paid off or the lease ends. So savings never materialize, or there is a net loss. And then there is the issue of selling a house with leased panels, which is almost all of them, because now you have two separate transactions. When we were looking for a home in Arizona I told our agent no houses with solar panels.
Solar and batteries works. Period. It’s expenisve
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