What are the benefits of solar development and how does it affect? Basically, people as of now, are searching for some kind of solution to continue aiming less power usage. Therefore, there are many information that we are going to learn from solar development. It is about how this system can be installed and where can it placed. However, there are some matter that bother in my mind, why people keeps seeking this alternative energy source?

From a few 10s of Watts to hundreds of Watts per square meter reach the ground on any day of the year. Efficient use of this energy combined with new storage developments make absolutely sense to me. Large scale power outages - forget about it. Dirty energy production and huge transmission losses - forget about it. See solar energy as free and largely unused energy delivered right to your home. The only thing missing is the right technology to make use of it.

 

The amount of solar energy falling on your house roof (even allowing for a poor 15% solar panel efficiency) is double or triple your household energy use.

If new roofing was made fully solared by area each home would become a net energy producer providing energy to fuel industry. It also allows decentralisation of homes and small industry, which is another thing we need in the future to get people out of overcrowded cities with all their transportation and distribution problems.

 

If new roofing was made fully solared by area each home would become a net energy producer providing energy to fuel industry. It also allows decentralisation of homes and small industry, which is another thing we need in the future to get people out of overcrowded cities with all their transportation and distribution problems.

We will never decentralize the population because it requires extra energy to resist one of the most basic laws of distribution physics. We need to find ways to make large cities more efficient but the artificial movement of people and production will never work for very long.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law

Empirical examples of the power law

There is evidence that the distributions of a wide variety of physical, biological, and man-made phenomena follow a power law, including the sizes of earthquakes, craters on the moon and of solar flares,[2] the foraging pattern of various species,[3] the sizes of activity patterns of neuronal populations,[4] the frequencies of words in most languages, frequencies of family names, the species richness in clades of organisms,[5] the sizes of power outages, wars, and many other quantities.[1]

 

We will never decentralize the population because it requires extra energy to resist one of the most basic laws of distribution physics. ...

It's all fine to have a "law" but we ARE decentralising, and at quite a rapid rate.

Country areas are growing at phenomenal rates, from people moving away from cities to somewhere cheaper and with a better lifestyle.

The internet and the concept of "working from home online" have both played a large part, and their part will grow further in the future. The whole idea of "having to move to the city to get a job" was a thing of the 20th century. In the 21st century most of those city/office jobs can be done from home.

 

It's all fine to have a "law" but we ARE decentralising, and at quite a rapid rate.

Country areas are growing at phenomenal rates, from people moving away from cities to somewhere cheaper and with a better lifestyle.

The internet and the concept of "working from home online" have both played a large part, and their part will grow further in the future. The whole idea of "having to move to the city to get a job" was a thing of the 20th century. In the 21st century most of those city/office jobs can be done from home.

A lot of those centuries old farms, are being sold out to developers. The new farm kids, can't afford to invest in farming; so they sell to the highest bidders.

Speculators buy up the land, part it out, then build homes. That people can't afford.

 

It's all fine to have a "law" but we ARE decentralising, and at quite a rapid rate.

Country areas are growing at phenomenal rates, from people moving away from cities to somewhere cheaper and with a better lifestyle.

The internet and the concept of "working from home online" have both played a large part, and their part will grow further in the future. The whole idea of "having to move to the city to get a job" was a thing of the 20th century. In the 21st century most of those city/office jobs can be done from home.

It's not just law that we created, it's the multiplicative growth process of dynamic systems. The last thing we need to to spend a huge about of effort creating systems that in short time will implode due to the artificial limits needed to sustain them. While electronic communication is cheap the movement and manufacturing of real goods that actually produce wealth are most efficient when clustered near large centers.
The people moving are just creating new city structures that will in short time transform into even more complex versions of the cities they left.

 

Yes and no. There is truth about industrial centers, but the power grid doesn't have to follow a specific design. I suspect the power grid, in time, will become the "storage" device when solar and other systems are not keeping up. Meanwhile, those system that are generating an excess will sell the power back (at a discount of course), there are already federal laws on the books for something like this. Instead of an industrial model, the power grid may start to follow the internet model, lots of small redundant nodes. It will require some technology changes, but I feel it is inevitable. I've said this many times here and elsewhere, this planet is awash with energy, we are just now figuring how to use it properly. Solar is not the only thing going either.

 

It's not just law that we created, it's the multiplicative growth process of dynamic systems. The last thing we need to to spend a huge about of effort creating systems that in short time will implode due to the artificial limits needed to sustain them. While electronic communication is cheap the movement and manufacturing of real goods that actually produce wealth are most efficient when clustered near large centers.
The people moving are just creating new city structures that will in short time transform into even more complex versions of the cities they left.

I think that is all largely correct. But I think your premise is that "decentralisation can't happen because it causes less efficient distribution". That is valid only if distribution is the most important factor that outweighs all other factors.

My premise is that "decentralisation IS happening, and the issues with distribution etc are secondary and will generally sort themselves out".

People move out of cities because they can buy cheaper housing AND cheaper food etc, and get the same/similar income from working from home. So decentralisation will continue.

If your distribution law was paramount then food and facilities in the cities would be cheaper than anywhere else, but generally they are not. Because wages and real estate costs are so much higher in the cities the cost of foods and services etc are inflated.

They key issue of course is the WAGES. If people can get city-ish wages but live in the country paying cheap country prices, that is an excellent choice of lifestyle and people ARE making that choice.

 

If your distribution law was paramount then food and facilities in the cities would be cheaper than anywhere else, but generally they are not. Because wages and real estate costs are so much higher in the cities the cost of foods and services etc are inflated.

Basic food stuffs are actually cheaper in most cities than in small towns because of the competition to increase sales and profits by volume.
http://nsaglobal.org/index.php/articles/supermarket-industry/24-food-cheaper-in-cityno-baloney

I grew up in the country and our idea of a good lifestyle was moving to the city.

 

Hmmm, that is not my experience. You can buy property cheap, and as for food, if you are willing to barter it is almost free.

A house where I was finished being raised is in the neighborhood of $10K.

 

Basic food stuffs are actually cheaper in most cities than in small towns because of the competition to increase sales and profits by volume.
http://nsaglobal.org/index.php/articles/supermarket-industry/24-food-cheaper-in-cityno-baloney

I grew up in the country and our idea of a good lifestyle was moving to the city.

That's not even close to true here in Australia! I moved from city to country some years back, to take advantage of low prices. Here are some of the figures I remember;

item; city country
steak; $28/kg $17kg
good vegetables; $16/kg $9/kg
steak dinner in restaurant; $30 $12
3bed house weeks rent; $320 $120
3bed house sale price; $350k+ $110k

Every item and service is significantly cheaper in the country, apart from fuel which has very low margins and dsitribution costs raises the price, but even fuel was only 4-6 percent higher in the country.

I would be VERY suprised if a restaurant steak dinner in New York (or Fillet in a NY supermarket) is cheaper than in a country city of 50k population!

 

That comes pretty close to my experience. The poorer areas of the USA are not just a little cheaper, they are almost 3rd world cheaper. Even places like Walmart tend to lower their prices a bit in these areas.

Being an Air Force brat, I did get to travel some.

 

I wasn't really comparing the cost of raw food at the farm to that of a big city or land prices in areas where space is restricted. Farming has moved to the same type of power law distribution with the loss of smaller family farms (from prices being too low to make a profit) being consolidated into larger and larger Agra-businesses as the cost of raw food production requires less energy per unit as size increases.

Large scale solar decentralization to home/local based production will require a large number of gas-station like storage systems to consolidate power during good weather or to store power forwarded from other sunny stations when the local conditions are poor. The systems will not be just passive wiring and transformers like the sub-stations of today but each will have to be in effect a mini-utility with a reserve capacity for at least a few days.

I agree with Bill that storage is the key technology for solar because without cheap storage the total costs will kill any possible gains in capacity and could destabilized the power grid.

http://www.eurelectric.org/media/53...orage_finalcover_dcopy-2012-030-0574-01-e.pdf

 

...
Large scale solar decentralization to home/local based production will require a large number of gas-station like storage systems to consolidate power during good weather or to store power forwarded from other sunny stations when the local conditions are poor. The systems will not be just passive wiring and transformers like the sub-stations of today but each will have to be in effect a mini-utility with a reserve capacity for at least a few days.
...

Cool, back on topic. Re decentralising the power production then we have to assume the grid can handle a lot of variance in power delivery.

With todays model of large power stations, the bulk of electricity usage is in the middle of the day to industry, transported over very large distances.

To my thinking at least, if local generation (house roof solar) produces significant energy in the middle of the day that just HELPS the existing distribution system, not makes it worse. In the event of a rainy day the local industries are just getting their power from long distance grid (same as before), but on a sunny day some fo the local industries power will be supplied from local sources.

Regarding the distributed power storage, maybe some of that should be the burden of the industrial users. If they install local storage within their factory facility they could buy cheaper power from local solar when it is available AND of course their own solar.

 

The main problem with large amounts of solar without storage is the lack of kinetic inertia that tends to destabilize the grid as power reverses direction quickly from one node to the other. Home solar grid-inverters are designed to see the grid as a current sink. Without storage to control power flow the inverters will cause the local grid segment voltage to rise as they push power into the grid that can't be used locally.

If the requirement is pure MPPT inverter ramp rates are usually fast to match the PV ramp rates. On a inertia-less solar energy system the ramp-up rate can be controlled to emulate inertia by leaving a buffer of extra power from the upper MPPT level to the lower level output set-point but that ramp rate is controlled by the instantaneous power level on the panels once that input level goes below the current inverter output power set-point. In a PV storage-less system with emulated inertia from reduced power, MPPT becomes secondary and the prediction of what the output level should be becomes the major problem during times of rapidly changing light conditions and low reserve base-power. Even a small about of storage allows systems to run at close to MPPT again under most conditions when other sources of power are idled.

http://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/ceic/pd..._07_05_lvu.pdf
http://energy.sandia.gov/wp/wp-conte...ds/093669c.pdf

A very good study about the effects of adding storage to large scale PV systems. http://rael.berkeley.edu/sites/defau...c%20plants.pdf

 

But that really works down to technology developments. I suspect (without knowing) that things like air conditioners will absorb most home generated power overall. In the long run I suspect stuff like this will reduce the unexpected loading on the grid.

 

But that really works down to technology developments. I suspect (without knowing) that things like air conditioners will absorb most home generated power overall. In the long run I suspect stuff like this will reduce the unexpected loading on the grid.

I know the two gentlemen who developed the Solar Shingle.

I participated in the development and marketing of this very efficient and cheap product which was first tested in the New England.

The Solar Shingle comes in several sizes but the the ones used in the test homes roofs were 24 inches by 12 inches and 1 and 7/8ths inches thick.

They are attached in a tongue and grove like system and before they are set upon a roof...and this is attached to a standard tar shingle roof prevelent in the North East...a special and relatively inexpensive...Roof Bid with a Flexable Plastic Grooved Grid...is draped and locked down to the roof. Metric Roof Bids and Metric Solar Shingles are also available.

These Solar Shingles are designed to warm themselves always above 10C. thus when it snows the snow will melt faster than it can build up.

A Ballon Construction home...which represents a large percentage of still standing 1900 to 1930 constructed two story homes...with East and West facing main roofs at between 80 and 90 degrees...with Slip Cut gutter system to prevent ice build up as well as not allow large ice slide off...will generate between 270% to 480% of household electrical usage that does not include Heat or Hot Water.

Cost effectiveness is specific to only 7 years of use.

Unfortunately...this Solar Design is in the process of being purchased by a very large Energy Conglomerate.

Split Infinity....p.s...it is known that after this system is purchased the cost will increase by 1800% or more...or it may never see the light of day.

Split Infinity

 

But that really works down to technology developments. I suspect (without knowing) that things like air conditioners will absorb most home generated power overall. In the long run I suspect stuff like this will reduce the unexpected loading on the grid.

It's more of a control loop problem that can be fixed by emulated inertia from energy storage systems.

The home will power the AC until a cloud slowly passes overhead, at that point the locally generated power drops to a low value causing a sudden movement of power to that home. If it's a single isolated case the effect will be small on a grid with no storage but what if you repeatedly lose and regain 30% of total grid power in a few seconds over a large area without the large synchronous base-load generators to make up the slack? The effect could be wide fluctuations in voltage and frequency as the remaining synchronous mechanical generators struggle to keep-up with the rapid changes from asynchronous solar power inverters.

Another factor is that most home grid inverters have circuits to prevent islanding, they drop off-line when the voltage or frequency is out of a narrow range and can take 5 mins to re-qualify a reconnect to the utility. This is a good thing if the grid is mainly centralized but can cause a cascading trip with a large about of intermittent resources on a distributed grid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1547#Risk_of_System_Disturbance
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/hpsp_grid_workshop_2012_ellis_snl.pdf

 

Again, you are talking technology issues that are not insurmountable. I would qualify them as fairly easy to solve on the long term.

Just curious, how many rolling blackouts due to too many air conditioners during summer months have you been through? Then there was the one during winter I had, I raised hell after it lasted more than an hour (I have pipes on my outer walls). They had promised 30 minutes to an hour, I suspect someone forgot.

A single cloud will cause shifting loads, tis true, but this isn't the line stopper of an issue you portray, it is the total loading on grid that matters more.

The fact is the infrastructure is in bad need of an upgrade as is. Given this is the case, I don't see a problem with updating to the 21st century.

 

Again, you are talking technology issues that are not insurmountable. I would qualify them as fairly easy to solve on the long term.

I know it sounds like I'm dumping on solar but I think we underestimate the potential effects of high solar or wind RE on the grid to our long term peril because every watt of power from them must be must be backed up by reliable power from storage or base-load generators.