Some truth to people who think we can be 100% renewable

[Lakewood90712]

This appears to be the right answer:

https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/08/texplainer-why-does-texas-have-its-own-power-grid/

Article has a nice map showing the grid.

Could this be why T. Boone Pickins grand plan to harvest and export wind generated power from Texas got the kibosh ?

 

[Alan]

I guess I don't quite see the economics of this battery. I assume it is to time-shift your usage, and store during low rate hours, and use during high rate hours; or to store and use solar energy rather than sell it back to the utility (assuming they pay you less for it than what they charge, or you over-produce and they are net-zero)?

According to my first round of calcs, you need about a $0.10~$0.12/kWh delta in those prices to break even. That assumes the 80% DOD, done 365 days per year, for 16.44 years (6000 cycles). I ignored round-trip storage losses, so a bit higher delta needed.

I'm assuming the battery is worth nothing after 6,000 cycles/16.44 years, and a 2%-4% opportunity cost on your investment for that $0.10~$0.12 range. Is a higher kWh delta feasible? And/or my calcs are too far off?

-ERD50

We only receive 5p/kWh when feeding into the grid so when the excess PV power charges the battery which then discharges during periods of high usage such as boiling kettles, cooking etc then that is saving for us 10p/kWh as we currently pay 15p/kWh for power drawn from the grid, and the price increases every year it seems. Overnight the power drain for us is around 250 w/h (2 freezers and a fridge) so 2.5kWh every 10 hours of darkness.

Even if the battery only provides the overnight needs that is 25p/day or £91/year savings, but I don’t have enough data yet on our actual usage.

With a battery costing £800 and that money coming from a savings account earning very little then it is a price we are prepared to pay to reduce our electricity use.

 

[NW-Bound]

Could this be why T. Boone Pickins grand plan to harvest and export wind generated power from Texas got the kibosh ?

T Boone Pickens did talk about building his own transmission lines, as well as lobbying Congress to fund new ones. I think the Great Recession hit his own pocket book pretty hard, and that resulted in him abandoning the plan in 2009-2010.

 

[NW-Bound]

We only receive 5p/kWh when feeding into the grid so when the excess PV power charges the battery which then discharges during periods of high usage such as boiling kettles, cooking etc then that is saving for us 10p/kWh as we currently pay 15p/kWh for power drawn from the grid, and the price increases every year it seems. Overnight the power drain for us is around 250 w/h (2 freezers and a fridge) so 2.5kWh every 10 hours of darkness.

Even if the battery only provides the overnight needs that is 25p/day or £91/year savings, but I don’t have enough data yet on our actual usage.

With a battery costing £800 and that money coming from a savings account earning very little then it is a price we are prepared to pay to reduce our electricity use.

I guess you probably use nat gas for winter heating and for the water heater. It is probably cheaper than the 5p that you get from selling that excess solar power, compared to using it to run an electric water heater.

 

[Texas Proud]

Windmills would be scrapped for metal, not too differently than we do with cars.

Solar panels are mostly aluminum for frame, and a piece of glass. The thin solar cells themselves are mostly pure silicon. There's a sheet of plastic backing, which is minuscule compared to the plastic we throw away in milk jugs.

Just curious.... why would you need to scrap the windmill? There are some over in Holland that are centuries old...



Now, the generating part might need to be replaced and bearings etc., but the blades and tower should last a long time with minimal maintenance...

 

[explanade]

T Boone Pickens did talk about building his own transmission lines, as well as lobbying Congress to fund new ones. I think the Great Recession hit his own pocket book pretty hard, and that resulted in him abandoning the plan in 2009-2010.

WAsn't it seen as a way to ultimately boost natural gas, which he had a lot of interest in?

I think he sold it as wind and natural gas power.

 

[NW-Bound]

Just curious.... why would you need to scrap the windmill? There are some over in Holland that are centuries old...

Now, the generating part might need to be replaced and bearings etc., but the blades and tower should last a long time with minimal maintenance...

Funny I was just thinking about this. Yes, windmills can be rebuilt, although the early windmills that were installed near Palm Springs, CA were derelicts that were beyond hope.

Even as early as 1975, driving from Phoenix to LA on I-10, I already saw a lot of them. And most were already non-functional! These early windmills were smaller, some not much bigger than farm windmills that are still being used for water pumping.

Then, the trend is to build them larger and larger, to the behemoths in use now. I guess it is more economical to build and maintain a huge one than hundreds of little ones.

 

[NW-Bound]

WAsn't it seen as a way to ultimately boost natural gas, which he had a lot of interest in?

I think he sold it as wind and natural gas power.

His plan was to use nat gas to operate vehicles, and also to run power plants that back up the wind generators during calm days.

Remember that a couple of years prior to the Great Recession, we had a crude shortage, and oil hit $110/barrel.

 

[Alan]

I guess you probably use nat gas for winter heating and for the water heater. It is probably cheaper than the 5p that you get from selling that excess solar power, compared to using it to run an electric water heater.

We have what is known as a combination boiler, popular over here since the late 80’s/early 90’s. It is a natural gas boiler that supplies the hot water for radiators in the winter for heating the house, and also regular hot water but has no storage tank, it is hot water on demand. My wife’s sister still doesn’t get it even though her father was the first person I know to get one. The last couple of times she has visited she has asked us if there is enough hot water to take a shower during the day. She is just so used to having the hot water heated for a couple of hours first thing in a morning and then again early evening.

 

[NW-Bound]

Quite a few of the Airbnbs I stayed in Europe had this "on-demand" gas heater. By design, it had to have a huge thermal output, so the flame made a roaring noise when someone took a shower.

I found that the water flow had to be just right, else the water did not come out with the right temperature. The heater did appear to try to regulate the gas flame to match the water flow, but it is not perfect, nor instantly responsive.

I'd rather have a conventional heater with a tank, even a small one.

 

[NW-Bound]

Then, another use for Alan's surplus solar power is to charge an EV. If he does not have an EV, then sell the power to a neighbor who has one.

 

[Popeye]

Just curious.... why would you need to scrap the windmill? There are some over in Holland that are centuries old...



Now, the generating part might need to be replaced and bearings etc., but the blades and tower should last a long time with minimal maintenance...

They have been seeing issues with blade erosion. You never really know what you’ll see until you put things in the field.

https://energy.sandia.gov/energy/renewable-energy/wind-power/blade-reliability/leading-edge-erosion/

Leading edge erosion is an emerging issue in wind turbine blade reliability, causing performance decreases and additional maintenance costs. Accounting for performance losses due to common blade surface roughness, such as dirt and insects, does not account for the increased performance loss due to the more severe surface roughness caused by the erosion of leading edge blade material. Results of an in-depth study indicated that a heavily eroded wind turbine blade can reduce annual energy production by up to 5% for a utility scale wind turbine.

 

[explanade]

So they have to wipe off the bird guts from the blades?




NW, that sounds like the tankless water heaters that some companies were pushing over here in CA.

I considered it because my upstairs shower takes awhile to get heated water but was told they wouldn't necessarily get me hot water faster.

It wasn't cheap either but then again, water heaters aren't cheap as they used to be either.


In European cities, they don't have room for big water heaters. Often they have these little tanks in the bathroom.

That's still not as bad as some Asian bathrooms you see on HH International, where they're running these electric heaters in the shower stall with wires running from there to an outlet.



I imagine it could also be a problem in those old buildings in cities like NY where the rooms were converted to individual condos. Again, no place to put water heaters into each unit so what do they do, run an old style boiler in the basement or the roof and pump the water throughout the building?

 

[ncbill]

In European cities, they don't have room for big water heaters. Often they have these little tanks in the bathroom.

That's still not as bad as some Asian bathrooms you see on HH International, where they're running these electric heaters in the shower stall with wires running from there to an outlet.

Same setup when we lived a few months south of the border...the in-showerhead electric heater would burn out unless water was already flowing over it...so you stood, naked, next to the water falling from the showerhead and then reached up and threw a knife switch (240VAC...120VAC each side) to turn it on.

 

[NW-Bound]

I looked up PylonTech. It is a Chinese company that makes its own LFP (lithium ferrophosphate) as well as attached electronics. I did not hear about this company, but saw that they are partnered with Victron Energy who is a premier Dutch maker of inverters for the RV and marine segments.

The price of £700 for a 2.4 kWh battery is US$353/kWh. That's the best price I have seen for a packaged battery with an integrated BMS (battery management system).

Here in the US, several companies still sell LFP batteries that look like ordinary car lead-acid batteries at $700-900 for 1.2kWh. They are all assembled using cells made by the Chinese.

I guess I don't quite see the economics of this battery. I assume it is to time-shift your usage, and store during low rate hours, and use during high rate hours; or to store and use solar energy rather than sell it back to the utility (assuming they pay you less for it than what they charge, or you over-produce and they are net-zero)?

According to my first round of calcs, you need about a $0.10~$0.12/kWh delta in those prices to break even. That assumes the 80% DOD, done 365 days per year, for 16.44 years (6000 cycles). I ignored round-trip storage losses, so a bit higher delta needed.

I'm assuming the battery is worth nothing after 6,000 cycles/16.44 years, and a 2%-4% opportunity cost on your investment for that $0.10~$0.12 range. Is a higher kWh delta feasible? And/or my calcs are too far off?

-ERD50

At 6000 cycles of 80% DOD, that's 4800 kWh of throughput for every kWh of storage. At US$353/kWh of storage, that's 7.4c/kWh of usage.

And then, the battery still has a lot of remaining life at a reduced capacity.

The above number is quite high compared to what I have seen with other makers. Typically, a LFP maker promises that the battery still has 80% capacity after 2000 cycles of 80% DOD.

PS. A battery life is also shortened if it is charged and discharged at high currents. Some tests are run with a current as high as 1C. That means draining a fully charged battery in 1 hour. I have seen some charts showing that the battery life is doubled if drained at a quarter of the above rate (meaning discharging it in 4 hours).

 

[Texas Proud]

So they have to wipe off the bird guts from the blades?




NW, that sounds like the tankless water heaters that some companies were pushing over here in CA.

I considered it because my upstairs shower takes awhile to get heated water but was told they wouldn't necessarily get me hot water faster.

It wasn't cheap either but then again, water heaters aren't cheap as they used to be either.


In European cities, they don't have room for big water heaters. Often they have these little tanks in the bathroom.

That's still not as bad as some Asian bathrooms you see on HH International, where they're running these electric heaters in the shower stall with wires running from there to an outlet.



I imagine it could also be a problem in those old buildings in cities like NY where the rooms were converted to individual condos. Again, no place to put water heaters into each unit so what do they do, run an old style boiler in the basement or the roof and pump the water throughout the building?

Just an FYI, you can get a small heater at the shower... once when I was in Europe the heater was in the shower... talk about not waiting for the hot water... it was really small and I was surprised it was in the shower as it was electric...

 

[Alan]

Just an FYI, you can get a small heater at the shower... once when I was in Europe the heater was in the shower... talk about not waiting for the hot water... it was really small and I was surprised it was in the shower as it was electric...

The rental house we were in for 8 months when we returned in 2016 had this arrangement in the shower.

Quite a few of the Airbnbs I stayed in Europe had this "on-demand" gas heater. By design, it had to have a huge thermal output, so the flame made a roaring noise when someone took a shower.

I found that the water flow had to be just right, else the water did not come out with the right temperature. The heater did appear to try to regulate the gas flame to match the water flow, but it is not perfect, nor instantly responsive.

I'd rather have a conventional heater with a tank, even a small one.

Certainly don't have either of these issues with our boiler which sits upstairs next to the upstairs bathroom. Both our showers have thermostats so never need to mess with the flows as it adjusts the mix depending on how much flow you want for the temperature you have selected.

Our boiler also has a small buffer tank that is kept hot so one can have "instant" hot water just like having a large water tank. However we chose to run on the "echo" setting as we don't mind waiting 30 seconds for the hot water to come through.

 

[NW-Bound]

... Our boiler also has a small buffer tank that is kept hot so one can have "instant" hot water just like having a large water tank. However we chose to run on the "echo" setting as we don't mind waiting 30 seconds for the hot water to come through.

I am sure there are models and makes of varying quality and feature. And perhaps the ones in my Airbnbs were not tuned correctly.

And "on demand" water heaters would better be gas in order to have enough capacity. I look up the Web to see one rated at 180,000 BTU/hr. That's 3x the heat capacity of a large BBQ.

The above BTU/hr is equivalent to 55 kW of electric heating. Most American homes have 200A at 230V brought to the electrical box for the entire home, and that's only 46 kW. There's no way an "on demand" electric water heater can match the capacity of a gas heater.

 

[NW-Bound]

And speaking of heating requirements brings us back to the point I made earlier.

That is the world is still struggling to have more RE to replace electricity generation by fossil fuel. And we already have problems with variability of wind and solar generation.

On top of that, there's nothing anyone can propose to replace the natural gas being burned for heating in colder climates.

 

[Lakewood90712]

And speaking of heating requirements brings us back to the point I made earlier.

That is the world is still struggling to have more RE to replace electricity generation by fossil fuel. And we already have problems with variability of wind and solar generation.

On top of that, there's nothing anyone can propose to replace the natural gas being burned for heating in colder climates.

The population of the developed world could live quite well on a fraction of the energy being used today. Look back a century. 1st world lower middle class lives with things only the 1% could have back then. A big part is cheap energy. We will continue to use it up until only the 1 % will have access to it. Things like the deepwater horizon are messages from nature of how stupid humans are squandering irreplaceable resources.

 

[NW-Bound]

While it is very true that all of us can still live well while using less energy than we do now, it is very hard to cut back and not keep up with the Jones. Driving a small economical car with 3 cylinders, and living in a 1,000 sq.ft. home? Staying home to watch travel videos instead of flying business class to Europe? What schmuck does that?

And then, if there's no extravagant consumption, no McMansions, no fancy fast cars, companies will not grow and their share prices will not appreciate, and we cannot ER.

It may be truly a race to extinction, but what can a guy do? Other than building a little solar+storage system in his back yard and spending time tweaking it, like I am doing?

 

[Alan]

I am sure there are models and makes of varying quality and feature. And perhaps the ones in my Airbnbs were not tuned correctly.

And "on demand" water heaters would better be gas in order to have enough capacity. I look up the Web to see one rated at 180,000 BTU/hr. That's 3x the heat capacity of a large BBQ.

The above BTU/hr is equivalent to 55 kW of electric heating. Most American homes have 200A at 230V brought to the electrical box for the entire home, and that's only 46 kW. There's no way an "on demand" electric water heater can match the capacity of a gas heater.

If you are interested, this is our boiler, the Greenstar 30i. (30kw, Wall mounted, 16" wide, 28" long and 12" deep.)

https://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/products/boilers/directory/greenstar-i-system-27kw-and-30kw

 

[NW-Bound]

Yours is electric? If so, the temperature control of the electrical heater would be a lot faster and more responsive than throttling the burner flame of a gas heater. When I took a shower at the Airbnb, if the water flow was too low, the heater would cycle the flame on/off when it appeared not being able to find an equilibrium point.

And 30 kW of electrical power is impressive. The standard wiring in American homes is usually 30A at 230V, for 6 kW maximum. And the standard electric heater is 5.5 kW.

 

[NW-Bound]

I have always wondered how well an "on demand" water heater would work with a 6 kW circuit. So, let's do a simple calculation.

6 kW = 20,882 BTU/hr = 348 BTU/min.

A federally mandated shower head has a maximum flow rate of 2.5 gal/min, and a gallon of water weighs 8.34 lbs.

Therefore that 6kW can raise the above water flow rate a temperature of 348/2.5/8.34 = 16.7F.

That's a cold shower, if the incoming water is 60F.

For 30 kW of power, the water will be heated by 5x more or 83.4F. Now, that is scalding hot if the incoming water is 60F.

 

[JoeWras]

Old windmills never die. They just become works of art.