Solar got so cheap so fast that it makes sense even to the greedy corporations. If you don't account for storage (which isn't necessary in all solar projects) its by far the cheapest, most...
Solar got so cheap so fast that it makes sense even to the greedy corporations. If you don't account for storage (which isn't necessary in all solar projects) its by far the cheapest, most flexible, and least environmentally damaging power source we have.
Solar makes more sense the more you think about it. Why wouldn't you take advantage of a limitless energy source that doesn't require anything to be trucked or piped and mitigates the risks of...
Solar makes more sense the more you think about it. Why wouldn't you take advantage of a limitless energy source that doesn't require anything to be trucked or piped and mitigates the risks of centralized sources, provided that doing so is reasonably affordable? The only reason not to is price.
I think the decentralization aspect probably terrifies power companies. If a city had 75% of its rooftops and parking lots contributing to the grid with a few neighborhood battery facilities scattered around to cover for night, how much demand would be left for a plant to supply?
Power companies can manage not having to grow supply, or even getting extra reserve capacity, without too much stress. What gets closer to "terrifying" them is the maintenance costs of the...
Power companies can manage not having to grow supply, or even getting extra reserve capacity, without too much stress. What gets closer to "terrifying" them is the maintenance costs of the transport system. Transformers blow and have to be replaced, trees grow in ways that are likely to take out power lines and have to be trimmed, storms and other disaster events require significant repairs, etc. Traditionally these costs were covered by skimming a bit from the per-watt delivery charges, but that breaks down if significant households have near net zero consumption. Then you start getting a need for connection fees, which are a big adjustment for people.
Decentralized solar is also less efficient. There are economies of scale in panel installation and maintenance that make a solar farm generated watt cost less than a residential rooftop generated watt. Certain houses make sense for rooftop solar, but it's also common for the math of a particular house to not make sense for solar.
They're called "delivery costs" on my bill, but the critical thing here is, they're charged per kilowatt-hour. If I get 90% of my electricity from solar panels on my roof, I'm only paying the...
They're called "delivery costs" on my bill, but the critical thing here is, they're charged per kilowatt-hour. If I get 90% of my electricity from solar panels on my roof, I'm only paying the electric company a tenth the delivery costs, but their cost to maintain that infrastructure is essentially fixed. Trees don't stop growing into power lines just because they're underutilized.
A connection fee is a flat fee per unit time. This brings the customer's cost structure in line with the utility's, which is generally desirable, but is a big change for electrical customers, and also appears to penalize light users of the utility's power. (Strictly speaking, those light users' infrastructure is subsidized by heavy users' delivery costs, and a connection fee eliminates that subsidy.)
Would this shift economics towards burying powerlines wherever feasible? Naively it seems like it might, since you want to try to reduce maintenance load as much as possible.
Would this shift economics towards burying powerlines wherever feasible? Naively it seems like it might, since you want to try to reduce maintenance load as much as possible.
I'm not incredibly knowledgeable in this field but I do have some friends who work as engineers for a power company. It's my understanding that buried lines end up costing a lot more in the long...
I'm not incredibly knowledgeable in this field but I do have some friends who work as engineers for a power company. It's my understanding that buried lines end up costing a lot more in the long run for a lot of reasons. The first one being obviously they're more expensive to install in the first place (like a LOT more expensive, like up to 10x per ft of line more expensive in some situations.)
They're also a lot more expensive to maintain and fix since if something happens to them, digging up lines is a LOT more difficult. On top of that, they're much more likely to be damaged by construction/people digging. 411 exists but underground lines still get cut every day, and an underground power line being cut could be deadly and more importantly (to the power company) costly to repair.
It's really difficult to see a world where buried lines make sense economically even when grid stability is heavily threatened by decentralized solar. It's a lot more likely that if a world with widespread decentralized solar ever did actually happen; the power grid itself would have to change its shape dramatically. Most likely decentralizing itself into small local grids that interconnect neighborhoods or small communities.
It's hard to see where the future of the grid is going. Battery technology is evolving rapidly and if we find a solution for very cheap and safe energy storage at the household level it's going to be very difficult to justify wide spread interconnected grids like we have today (for residential use), at least in areas that can take advantage of things like solar and wind.
They also don't work in many areas due to geology and climate. If you live in an area that experiences frost heaves in the winter, your roads get torn up basically every year, and anything under...
They also don't work in many areas due to geology and climate. If you live in an area that experiences frost heaves in the winter, your roads get torn up basically every year, and anything under the ground is also at risk. The only solution, if you really need them underground in an area, is to put them four feet under the surface.
It's cheaper and faster to restring some above for if wires when trees take them out in the winter than it is to dig up whole sections of land when they get destroyed by ice.
I just checked my last bill: I pay "Grundpreis" per day, and "Arbeitspreis" per kw/h. More than 50% of my bill is the first, so saving power is basically irrelevant for me.
I just checked my last bill: I pay "Grundpreis" per day, and "Arbeitspreis" per kw/h. More than 50% of my bill is the first, so saving power is basically irrelevant for me.
Interesting! Shows me for being Americentric, I suppose. =) Everywhere (all in the US) I've ever paid electricity, the delivery charges have been per kWh. There's definitely downsides to a...
Interesting! Shows me for being Americentric, I suppose. =) Everywhere (all in the US) I've ever paid electricity, the delivery charges have been per kWh.
There's definitely downsides to a per-unit-time connection fee, like, as you note, it reduces incentive to conserve energy. Regardless, if it already is established in some places, I imagine that makes it much more likely to spread, rather than needing to be established totally from scratch in a likely-hostile customer base.
(Also, a minor nit: the unit of energy in which electricity is typically denominated is the "kilowatt-hour", abbreviated "kWh". "kW/h"—that is, "kilowatts per hour"—has a physically meaningful interpretation, but isn't very applicable to everyday use, and in particular is not a unit of energy. I would prefer we used megajoules for this—1kWh = 3.6MJ—but alas, here we are.)
Solar got so cheap so fast that it makes sense even to the greedy corporations. If you don't account for storage (which isn't necessary in all solar projects) its by far the cheapest, most flexible, and least environmentally damaging power source we have.
I thought this was referencing how badly the current administration is shitting the bed regarding climate change.
I thought it was a fart joke
Wait til it passes gas.
I know the world is generally grim especially on the climate front, but “little” wins like this are very uplifting
Solar makes more sense the more you think about it. Why wouldn't you take advantage of a limitless energy source that doesn't require anything to be trucked or piped and mitigates the risks of centralized sources, provided that doing so is reasonably affordable? The only reason not to is price.
I think the decentralization aspect probably terrifies power companies. If a city had 75% of its rooftops and parking lots contributing to the grid with a few neighborhood battery facilities scattered around to cover for night, how much demand would be left for a plant to supply?
Power companies can manage not having to grow supply, or even getting extra reserve capacity, without too much stress. What gets closer to "terrifying" them is the maintenance costs of the transport system. Transformers blow and have to be replaced, trees grow in ways that are likely to take out power lines and have to be trimmed, storms and other disaster events require significant repairs, etc. Traditionally these costs were covered by skimming a bit from the per-watt delivery charges, but that breaks down if significant households have near net zero consumption. Then you start getting a need for connection fees, which are a big adjustment for people.
Decentralized solar is also less efficient. There are economies of scale in panel installation and maintenance that make a solar farm generated watt cost less than a residential rooftop generated watt. Certain houses make sense for rooftop solar, but it's also common for the math of a particular house to not make sense for solar.
Half my electricity bill is already "network costs".
They're called "delivery costs" on my bill, but the critical thing here is, they're charged per kilowatt-hour. If I get 90% of my electricity from solar panels on my roof, I'm only paying the electric company a tenth the delivery costs, but their cost to maintain that infrastructure is essentially fixed. Trees don't stop growing into power lines just because they're underutilized.
A connection fee is a flat fee per unit time. This brings the customer's cost structure in line with the utility's, which is generally desirable, but is a big change for electrical customers, and also appears to penalize light users of the utility's power. (Strictly speaking, those light users' infrastructure is subsidized by heavy users' delivery costs, and a connection fee eliminates that subsidy.)
Would this shift economics towards burying powerlines wherever feasible? Naively it seems like it might, since you want to try to reduce maintenance load as much as possible.
I'm not incredibly knowledgeable in this field but I do have some friends who work as engineers for a power company. It's my understanding that buried lines end up costing a lot more in the long run for a lot of reasons. The first one being obviously they're more expensive to install in the first place (like a LOT more expensive, like up to 10x per ft of line more expensive in some situations.)
They're also a lot more expensive to maintain and fix since if something happens to them, digging up lines is a LOT more difficult. On top of that, they're much more likely to be damaged by construction/people digging. 411 exists but underground lines still get cut every day, and an underground power line being cut could be deadly and more importantly (to the power company) costly to repair.
It's really difficult to see a world where buried lines make sense economically even when grid stability is heavily threatened by decentralized solar. It's a lot more likely that if a world with widespread decentralized solar ever did actually happen; the power grid itself would have to change its shape dramatically. Most likely decentralizing itself into small local grids that interconnect neighborhoods or small communities.
It's hard to see where the future of the grid is going. Battery technology is evolving rapidly and if we find a solution for very cheap and safe energy storage at the household level it's going to be very difficult to justify wide spread interconnected grids like we have today (for residential use), at least in areas that can take advantage of things like solar and wind.
They also don't work in many areas due to geology and climate. If you live in an area that experiences frost heaves in the winter, your roads get torn up basically every year, and anything under the ground is also at risk. The only solution, if you really need them underground in an area, is to put them four feet under the surface.
It's cheaper and faster to restring some above for if wires when trees take them out in the winter than it is to dig up whole sections of land when they get destroyed by ice.
I just checked my last bill: I pay "Grundpreis" per day, and "Arbeitspreis" per kw/h. More than 50% of my bill is the first, so saving power is basically irrelevant for me.
Interesting! Shows me for being Americentric, I suppose. =) Everywhere (all in the US) I've ever paid electricity, the delivery charges have been per kWh.
There's definitely downsides to a per-unit-time connection fee, like, as you note, it reduces incentive to conserve energy. Regardless, if it already is established in some places, I imagine that makes it much more likely to spread, rather than needing to be established totally from scratch in a likely-hostile customer base.
(Also, a minor nit: the unit of energy in which electricity is typically denominated is the "kilowatt-hour", abbreviated "kWh". "kW/h"—that is, "kilowatts per hour"—has a physically meaningful interpretation, but isn't very applicable to everyday use, and in particular is not a unit of energy. I would prefer we used megajoules for this—1kWh = 3.6MJ—but alas, here we are.)