Slashdot Mirror
The Myth of Going Off the Power Grid
Lasrick writes: Dawn Stover uses Elon Musk's announcement that Tesla will soon be unveiling plans for a battery that could power your home as a starting point to explore the idea that "going off the grid" is going to solve climate change. "The kind of in-house energy storage he is proposing could help make renewables a bigger part of the global supply. But headlines announcing that a Tesla battery 'could take your home off the grid' spread misconceptions about what it takes to be self-sufficient — and stop global warming." Stover worries that shifting responsibility for solutions to climate change from governments to individuals creates an 'every-man-for-himself' culture that actually works against energy solutions and does little to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, "smart grid" technology would be much more efficient: "With a smarter grid, excess electricity generated by solar panels and wind turbines could be distributed to a network of on-the-grid home and car batteries. Some utilities have also experimented with using home water heaters as an economical substitute for batteries."
"Putting energy in a battery throws away 30% to 40% right off the top in charge and discharge inefficiencies as shown above. If you have access to the grid, it makes no economical sense to give that up! Energy storage in the grid is 100% efficient and virtually unlimited whereas storing energy in batteries is limited and not only throws away 30% of your energy, but also:"
Source: http://www.aprs.org/off-grid-maybe.html
Doesn't matter. As long as monopolistic energy companies spend their time legislating new fees to prevent the average person from being able to afford rooftop solar panels and wind turbines under the banner of "not choosing winners" ...a net-zero utility bill simply isn't possible in today's (political) climate - not in the US.
This isn't likely to change, either. So, that leaves one option: Every man for himself. A house, and maybe even an entire neighborhood could be built around the idea of having some ability to cut utility costs by utilizing smart appliances, solar power, and electric cars with big honking batteries. But if you generate more power than you need, you better store it - where I live, you'll get an extra fee every month for generating your own power AND the power company only takes your excess in exchange for WHOLESALE rates.
Net-zero would be my only incentive, and it's looking less likely without being investigated by the IAEA
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
This seems to be an article more about condemning Tesla's batteries that about energy. In fact the word "watt" appears nowhere. Before you can have a discussion about energy you need to be armed with some facts about actual energy needs and potentials. This is just more anti-Tesla propaganda.
Why not use the grid as a reservoir..like a battery or capacitor?
When your local production exceeds your demand..push the rest into the reservoir
When you have a deficit..draw from it
Many people who advocate being off the grid are extreme isolationists..who value isolation over practicality
Sometimes, being a bit dependent, and interconnected, is good
Some utilities have also experimented with using home water heaters as an economical substitute for batteries
Many large buildings used to make ice overnight when the electricity rates are low (in some parts) and melt the ice to cool the building during day time reducing the load on the air conditioner. Such techniques would be effective if the electricity rates vary. Like the old long distance plans, having a peak and off-peak pricing alone would encourage the consumers to schedule their washing machines and dishwashers during the off-peak hours.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I have a 10 KW, grid tied battery backed up system in an all electric house. Everything except my deep well pump, washer/dryer, hot water, range and geothermal compressor are connected on the critical loads panel. Generally over the last 5 years or so, the system produces more power than used with the rest going to charging the batteries and powering the grid. However, there has only been a few times over the last several years that system has produced more than consumed from the grid. I estimate that I would need 30-50 kw to power everything. However, the geothermal compressor draws perhaps 5 kw for 4-5 minutes at a time and cycles several times an hour. Since the geothermal system works mostly at night or if we went off grid, the storage capacity of the battery backup would have to be increased substantially from the 16 KWH that we have now since the compressor would deplete the batteries in a few hours. None the less our electric bill is down at least 80% from pre-PV days.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Dr. Strangelove
Think about it: Half of India does not know when their next meal is going to be. Which means the other half has food security. Still they live in a hand to mouth existence. Half the rest are better off than hand to mouth. Half of the better than hand-to-mouth have decent disposable income. This 1/8 of the population of India is 125 million strong, as big an economy as Japan and bigger than many European countries. Living in a sea of dirt cheap labor, none of the labor saving devices would sell there. But anything not doable by throwing more people in, electric power or cell phone etc will have big markets there. Add Africa and South America, you can bet they will leap frog over the developed countries in off grid power, like India did with cell phones a decade ago.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The point of wanting to go off the power grid is not to solve climate change. The point is to have a workable alternative should the power grid go off you.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I have been living off the grid since 1997 with a solar powered system. The power is converted to AC with an 8000 watt inverter for my home and excess power is stored in a lead acid battery bank. My system wasn't purchased as complete but was built up for an approximate 5 year period until I could be completely self sufficient. I do have to use a gasoline generator to charge the battery bank when the sun doesn't shine for a few days. Other alternatives need to be developed to supplement solar for that very reason. The problem with the grid tie system is the power companies will never allow you to earn any income from your sale of the electrical product. They derate the price so that you will never get a payment from them. You could get an almost zero bill but it will never come out with you making anything. I never connected to the grid so I wouldn't become lazy and not complete my system. I know of the utility company's plan from others who have a grid tie system or have called them to ask of their approach to solar power returns. The greatest expense is the batteries. I am now going on my third set of expensive deep cycle batteries to keep my stuff going. A better battery would be so great. The Edison or Ni Fe battery sounds like the ideal approach to getting a reliable type that requires little maintenance. I haven't researched the Tesla battery yet but I am glad someone is at least doing something instead of just complaining. I am getting older now and the lead acid batteries are too heavy to just lug around for the changes after a few years of use. I value my independence and hear from my neighbors how they lost power during a storm when they needed it the most. I know this isn't the way for everyone but for those who are willing to try to breakaway from the socialist system of being hooked up for life this is the only way to go for now.
With a sufficiently frugal existence, it's rather easy to "live off the grid." Humans did so for millions of years before there was a grid; it's simply inconvenient to do so today.
California ratepayers have lost billions of dollars to our friendly utilities. You may recall Enron, who devastated the entire state by manipulating utility prices. Now we have the power plant at San Onofre shutting down because the utilities and the government overseers were incompetent. Because the California Public Utility Commission exists to assure Wall Street profits, and not ratepayer protection, we have a few billion more in costs that ratepayers are expected to pay (shareholders are still raking in big dividends/profits).
So do you think it is a good idea to continue dependence upon the energy monopoly? How did you feel about the Microsoft monopoly? Is it good to have profit seeking telephone and cable and oil and water monopolies? When was this ever a good idea for ordinary consumers?
...omphaloskepsis often...
Storing excess solar in one's car battery sounds like a plan. The leaf has a 24KW capacity with a 170km range. For a modest 2 person household that uses less than 10KW a day and typically drives a max of 60km in a single day in the suburbs, it makes sense.
If the economics match up, of course and I'm sure they won't at least until the price of solar panels and electric cars falls drastically with economies-of-scale and/or subsidies. $AU40K for a hatchback (on Nissan's website) sounds excessive; these things aren't mass-sold in my country.
I've been fortunate enough to live entirely (100%) off-grid for several years now. When I went to build my house we quickly determined that it wasn't worth it to have power brought back to the house site (I'm 5 miles up in the mountains) and after looking at wind for a bit I went with a solar setup. It's been an interesting experience, and reading the article I can't really say I agree with the author on most points.
I have a 36 panel system that theoretically can create ~40kwh/day on the average day. I have 20 batteries (used to be 24) to cover overnight and overcast/bad weather storage.
First off there's no question that I don't have anywhere near enough batteries. My solar guy used a variety of online calculators to figure out the size and needed and both underestimated my requirements and overestimated the amount of daily discharge the system could handle. As a result we bought a vastly undersized battery system (~1350AH when it was new, more like 750AH now) that we ended up discharging around 75% nearly every night. This is turn is a deadly drain on your batteries and drew down my system sharply to its current capabilities. My own back-of-the-envelope calculations show that I need a system more like 3000AH in capacity to properly power the whole house for a couple of days (if needed). My propane backup generator gets run far more than it ought right now.
Leaving that annoyance to one side though, being off-grid and responsible for my own power (and water; I have an excellent well) is nothing short of awesome! It's my power! I can do what I want, run what I want, and the only thing I have to worry about is what my supply is (when it's at night).
Mind you I've done all kinds of things to be more efficient of course. I am in an ongoing process of replacing all of my CFLs and the handful of incandescents still around with LEDs as I find LEDs that are both price-rational and workable for the task. I just replaced 42 halogen track lights with some excellent LEDs I tracked down from a company named Torchstar and that made a huge difference--I basically hadn't used those tracks at all since we built the house since they were so energy expensive. The house itself is an ICF (Insulated Concrete Form) house and very efficient (13" thick walls), with the entire house heated with radiant heat as opposed to a more typical forced air system. Over the years I've learned to take advantage of a strong sunlight day and run dishwashers and the clothes when the sun is out.
My biggest intermediate goal is to replace the battery stack with something more appropriate. There are several high-amp setups out there that I should be able to make work and I hope to do so next spring (I'm going to be driven to this anyway by the slow death of my current stack). Longer term I'd like to add even more panels until I'm up to 54, not so much for added storage (there's only so much you can put in the batteries and I should have that covered) but to increase the surface area of collection during a cloudy day (the panels will make power even in overcast, so more in that case is better). I think my inverters (two of them, 4000W each) are sized appropriately, though I'll have to add another charge controller when the new panels go in. I just built a new shed to house all of the batteries (it's also ICF) and will be rigging it with a solar heating system this summer; this will keep the batteries warm and toasty during the harsh winters. Even longer term (years), I want to enclose the upstairs deck with a greenhouse, which would help make me more self-sufficient food wise.
I wouldn't change it for the world, honestly....being utterly independent is just a different but good feeling.
If anybody has questions, just ask!
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
The core of the issue has nothing to do with going off-grid and everything to do with matching production from renewal sources to the actual load on the grid. Without that we get into the situation that Germany finds itself in, which is two fold: (1) That electricity prices fall to zero during the day due to all the solar, and as subsidies go away the owners can't make money from providing power to the grid. And (2) The base load differential between day and night is so great that the traditional generation (i.e. coal) cannot run continuously at critical mass and so becomes extremely inefficient and uneconomical. So coal power generation companies in Germany are also going bankrupt.
Ultimately consumers with PV systems will be forced to pay spot rates and feel the pain. This is already beginning to happen in many parts of the country... where day-time electricity rates are lower but the buy-back is also lower, and night-time rates are higher and have a higher buy-back.
The idea with using the electric car battery (or some other form of temporary storage) is to use it store energy when prices are cheap and inject it into the grid when prices are expensive. This also has the side effect of reducing the base load differential between day and night, so other generation sources such as nuclear and coal can operate efficiently (and thus profitably) to make up the difference.
There is nothing nefarious going on. Really, going entirely off-grid is not something anyone should be trying to do unless they actually live somewhere with a flaky grid (or no grid). And the reality is that electricity prices are going to fluctuate even more between day and night, or rainy vs not, or windy vs not, as more renewable energy sources are brought online.
-Matt
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. Mahatma Gandhi How true those words ring with the prepper puns, we see the journalist poking at the day trader and others even as we see the utilities fighting/lobbying the political establishment in order to lay out roadblocks to those who wish to be self sustainable. I guess the 'kooks' and visionaries like Musk will just have plod along through the muck stirred up by the powers that be and work even harder at reaching the goal of creating a better world for everyone, a world where the playing field hopefully is evened out and cards not stacked in in anybodies favour. So to all you 'kooks' and visionaries out there keep up the good work they are running scared and that is why you are facing ridicule and animosity. Kudos to you all!
MS, ALS, Aphasia ? http://globability.org - Me http://einarpetersen.com