Solar plus propane can work. Solar alone is tough. And if you need AC it’s really tough.
Those batteries are expensive and will need replacing every 8-12 years.
No they won’t need to be replaced that often.
Next generation batteries coming out will be lithium iron phosphate (chinese patent strangle ends in like a month). These will last a looooong time.
There a natural gas generators that could supplement solar too. They can run a whole home. They can automatically turn-on when needed.
Well, again, that’s the Forest Service. I know a fellow who owns a company called “Little Stinker Septic.” When I mentioned our lack of rainfall this winter he sheepishly replied “well I’d hate to see more fires but…during last years Backbone Fire I made $70,000 off the Forest Service for supplying them with porta potties for 12 days.”
This is the financial crisis all over again. The government completely failed to do it’s job, so the answer will be more government.
I used to work at PG&E (left in January). the issue is that govt’ can’t hire, is backlogged and then delays on any oversight of PG&E, which delays thing further.
IMO, and what i am betting my career on, is that the current utility business model is going to collaps on itself and that the new paradigm in about 10 years is that all the utility will do is maintain wires and poles and charge “toll” for electrons.
So who will produce the power?
It seems the part where PG&E maintains the wires and poles is the problematic part.
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TSLA. Don’t believe? Ask any TSLA investors.
solar storage EV microgrids. i am working on MULTIPLE in CA right now. the demand out of control at least in CA in my day to day. and I am exhausted trying to keep up.
also lots of green hydrogen for storage/power. the electrolyzer cost curve will come down. all of the projects want hydrogen.
La Honda, the town I left, is working on a micro grid. It is expensive and the only reason they are doing it is that grid power has become too unreliable.
Maybe not your area of expertise but why is solar thermal not more popular?
All we tend tend to hear about is solar panels (at least to me).
you know, I don’t know what the issue with solar thermal is. Maybe the cost is too high compared to PV solar?
@acre MGs are expensive. Costs will come down, but there is enough money it makes sense. I am doing it mostly for people who want to electrify their fleets but don’t want to wait between 2-10 years for PG&E to guarantee capacity. They need to know that they will have X capacity available in what year. also the trend is grid connected MG, which really isn’t a MG as per the definition, but the idea is you generate all/most of your power onsite and are grid connected in case you need more. So they will pay standby and other costs, but the trend right now is to generate close to, if not all 100% on site.
First I heard about solar thermal was probably 25 years ago. Made perfect sense; the molten salt acts as a heat reservoir so it doesn’t matter if there’s no sun for a few days. I too wonder why it was never developed further. Panels may have gotten dirt cheap but batteries, though much cheaper than they used to be, are still an expensive storage solution. Environmentally messy too if one does a soup to nuts analysis.
Oil drilling bad. Tearing up the earth for lithium good.
And there’s nothing “beautiful” about all that land taken out of the ecosystem. Or the mining to get all that material. Or the costs of recycling or disposal at the and to the panel’s lifetime.
What a disaster.
The ultimate WTF are they thinking is:
- Ban new drilling in the US, since drilling and burning oil is bad for the environment.
- When oil prices increase, decide that importing from Venezuela and Iran is ok.
Do people think those 2 countries have better regulations on the wells? How do they think the oil will get from those countries to the US? Now banning new drilling in the US is going to result in more environmental harm and financially supporting suspect regimes.