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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
Yeah, here's the problem with that: the grid is not designed for distributed generation like people selling back power generated with a grid-tied solar or wind panel. The legislation that forced that was akin to legislating that the Federal government must make a contract to produce a certain amount of unicorns per year.

Not going to happen.

When too many people "sell back" power, the line voltage rises uncontrollably, because the generation is no longer balanced with the load. Even 20% of people doing that is enough to upset the apple cart and start popping breakers and reclosers all over the place.

Grid-tied power generation is a fantasy. People should be consuming the power they generate, not "selling it back" as if it were some commodity like corn that can be stored.

25 posted on 01/17/2014 7:09:53 AM PST by backwoods-engineer (Blog: www.BackwoodsEngineer.com)
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To: backwoods-engineer

I quite agree. But there still needs to be strong enough batteries or capacitors to store energy long enough to be practical.

An alternative so good that it should be in large scale mass production right now is the use of flexible, thin sheet aerogel insulation. It would so lower energy consumption, especially for high consumption appliances, that using just solar energy and batteries would be very practical.


31 posted on 01/17/2014 7:38:43 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy (There Is Still A Very Hot War On Terror, Just Not On The MSM. Rantburg.com)
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To: backwoods-engineer
Grid-tied power generation is a fantasy. People should be consuming the power they generate, not "selling it back" as if it were some commodity like corn that can be stored.

I have multiple battery banks and I am designing some relay circuits to charge them in turn, and when they are all charged I will dump my extra power into a resistive load to heat the house in winter. That's sort of a waste compared to selling it to the power company at full retail price, but I don't have a massive array to make that worth while, nor do I believe it is the right thing to do. In fact I think it is a scam: to sell unreliable power to the power company and be paid many times more than a reliable producer is paid.

35 posted on 01/17/2014 10:01:01 AM PST by palmer (Obama = Carter + affirmative action)
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