Random Renewables Thread

unkel · 22-09-2022 8:45pm

The secondary school of my daughters is one of the biggest in the country and it has a humongous south facing roof with no shading. They could easily produce more electricity per year than they use. I guess the same is true for the majority of buildings in Ireland. Private houses, schools, office buildings, factories, warehouses, farm buildings, etc.

Not a particularly good plan if EVERY school will get solar PV though, some would be far less suitable than others. Hope they will do this sensibly and go for those easy targets first

DC999 · 22-09-2022 10:38pm

Wow. That's brill news. Important for kids to see renewables as 'part of the furniture' and just something they expect to see at school.

And for parents too. A few have asked us about how solar is going for us. Word of mouth and seeing it around will help people gain interest.

ELM327 · 23-09-2022 10:07am

A lot of disparaging comments about it in local newspapers.

It makes sense, instead of trying to cover usage like we do , they could go solely for a revenue stream by putting a load of panels in and getting paid for export

graememk · 23-09-2022 10:40am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654010#Comment_119654010

Makes sense, for the 2-3 best months of the year, nobodys there. Use the export to cover some of the winter costs.

Ubbquittious · 23-09-2022 10:43am

Maybe they can get rid of the ""voluntary"" contributions once they're installed and saving a load of money

graememk · 25-09-2022 11:06am

So its Energia's meter read day, I try to always put a reading in.

Was flicking back to previous bills, and pulled up the same period in 2020, (the sept bill). Our driving didnt change much over lockdown, although there was no long car trips. Just standard commuting.

In that period, we used 557 day, and 1224 night, and that bill came to 214 euro.

I plugged the details into the rates spreadsheet I have, (untouched since I last renewed in July), So rates are as if I renewed on the standard day night tariff then.

Equivalent bill is 445, If I was on the ev rate, it would be 363.

This periods use is 23 day, 743 night, estimated bill around 166.

Jonathan · 25-09-2022 12:22pm

Eirgrid predicting over 4,300 MW of wind generation tonight. Should see grid under 200gCO2eq/kWh for first time in a few months. Use it or lose it to curtailment! 🙂

the_amazing_raisin · 28-09-2022 9:09pm

Power cut today, no lights, heating, cooking, EV charging, and mobile phone reception was minimal

I suppose I'm lucky that the house was empty, so I didn't have to deal with it until later

Seriously though, I gotta get some backup power for the next time, it's pretty stressful when the house is reduced to literally just shelter and nothing more

On a side note, does anyone know what the story is with mobile phone towers during a power cut? I'm guessing they have backup power but it seemed that all the 4g reception dropped away and I was back to barely being able to manage a text message

DC999 · 28-09-2022 10:14pm

Just read that "California has excess electricity during late mornings and early afternoons, thanks mainly to its solar capacity.". So researchers suggest EVs should charge at that time instead. Which makes sense. Or grid will not have capacity in years to come.

Weirdly the cost to end users isn't lower at that time.

Differs from us as we don't have that level of blue sky weather of course or solar capacity.

Interesting read https://news.stanford.edu/2022/09/22/charging-cars-home-night-not-way-go/

unkel · 28-09-2022 11:10pm

We should all just have to pay the real ad hoc cost of electricity to the utility company (plus their markup), whenever time of day that is. Smarts in our homes should recognise the opportunity when it is really cheap and fully renewable and load up everything, hot water tanks, power walls, EVs, any other storage or battery. And then when the electricity is dirty, in high demand and expensive, we offer it for sale back to the utility company at their cost (minus a deduction). Should be easy enough for those people with one or more EVs and large storage to have a zero electricity bill for the year. Don't even need PV for that.

Now this is not for everyone, some people don't like the risk / uncertainty of a system like that or can't or won't make the investments to get their system in the above order. For those people there will likely always be fixed rate plans, but those rates will be high. Same as people now on prepay plans, people who fix their mortgages for 10 years, etc. You pay a premium for that.

the_amazing_raisin · 29-09-2022 12:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119678235#Comment_119678235

To a large extent the California grid is the product of an unregulated market. Any grid capacity issues are down to a long term lack of investment in infrastructure

I think a lot of folks with EVs and home charging will already be doing that through products like a Zappi

Public charging is a bit of another matter, but there's other ways to divert excess energy such as pumped hydro, and California already has tons of hydro capacity

Ubbquittious · 29-09-2022 1:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119677961#Comment_119677961

The larger ones would have battery backup and the ones up the mountain would usually have on site generators as well but there are plenty of smaller ones with no backup at all. In my experience when we've had long-ish powercuts the remaining base stations go into a fallback mode where they only support voice & SMS after less than a day.

the_amazing_raisin · 29-09-2022 3:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119680277#Comment_119680277

Yeah I kinda suspect that a bunch of towers around me don't have any backup power at all.

4G went pretty much immediately and I guess my phone was connecting to towers outside the power cut area and so only 2G was working at that longer range

Ubbquittious · 29-09-2022 3:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119678402#Comment_119678402

I doubt it will happen. A big chunk of the economy depends on people spending a certain % of their income on utility bills/petrol. The govt are doing a bit to help the consumer now so that chunk stays kind of the same size so it doesn't increase at the expense of other sectors but if people are able to "cheat" en masse and pay feck all to run their house and car the government will start plotting against us again. They'll allow the standing charges to be pushed up to 150+ a month and they'll bring in a law to prevent them from disconnecting from the grid. As long as the % of the population doing what you describe is less than about 10 we'll be OK but after that they start to wake up and hatch a new plan to confiscate the 2000e+ per year those people are saving

unkel · 29-09-2022 3:46pm

It will be a long time before 10% of the population will do above. Today it's not even technically possible. I'll jump on it myself when it is, but that's years away at least. And I'll likely be in the first 0.01% of people doing so.

slave1 · 29-09-2022 3:55pm

All governments operate on a spend budget basis, they take in X and spend Y. As we move from ICE and they lose the indirect taxes associated with fuel and maintenance costs so it will have to be replaced (or else they won't have money to spend), hence that old nugget of smart meter again because with that they can tell when an ev is being charged and the potential for a home EV charging tax exists.

There's loads of BS about regarding Ireland moving to Renewables but the reality is that if it happens the Gov will be screwed due to fall off in Indirect Taxes

Ubbquittious · 29-09-2022 4:07pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119681013#Comment_119681013

Their own spend on fuel allowance / diesel for trains, guards, army is probably miniscule compared to what they rake in from tax

SD_DRACULA · 29-09-2022 4:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119680896#Comment_119680896

It will be this.

One of my neighbors is from South Africa and he was saying many people are putting solar pv in there and able to go off-grid (lucky sods) and the government there is trying to tax the sun now - clowns

DC999 · 29-09-2022 4:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119681013#Comment_119681013

I disagree on possibility of gov needing to charge an 'EV charging' tax. There's tax (vat) on petrol. That tax is already on electricity, and they still get it as we need more to fuel EVs. Granted the cost of 'fuelling' an EV is lower due to the difference in price between fuels. But that's not a gapping hole. Sure, car tax will increase on EVs (as in not as low as is now) once higher % of them on the road. I'm fine with that. Paid that on my old ICE.

Same would happen if huge % of people used public transport. Petrol tax would be down.

slave1 · 29-09-2022 4:36pm

It's not the VAT, that is currently charged on electricity we can't avoid that, excise is 59c a litre of petrol, that will go to zero

unkel · 29-09-2022 4:55pm

And nobody can ever tax you on the electricity you make yourself 😁

In my case about 10MWh per year, more in future.

randombar · 29-09-2022 5:00pm

Anyone have any recommendations for a small hydro generator? I see plenty of them on youtube but has anyone used them practically?

slave1 · 29-09-2022 6:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119681133#Comment_119681133

And as you wander up and down Ireland and see old castles with windows blocked up it's because sunlight was literally taxed in olden days, via a window tax, I kid you not!!!

Ubbquittious · 29-09-2022 9:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119681266#Comment_119681266

The new brunswick ones look fairly good, though I havent seen that particular one in use.

silver_sky · 29-09-2022 10:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119681244#Comment_119681244

Watch them try! isn't this happening in the US?

unkel · 29-09-2022 10:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119682606#Comment_119682606

No way of knowing for certain. And if they think they are clever enough to tax based on algos that analyse consumption patterns (maybe in 5-10 years time), I'll take my grid tied system off grid. Totally my business then.

silver_sky · 29-09-2022 11:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119682701#Comment_119682701

Even without smart metering an on-grid system would have an NC6/7 submitted.

graememk · 29-09-2022 11:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119682751#Comment_119682751

And that only has the inverter size, not even any proof you actually have an inverter. Can always just inform them that you have taken out the solar.

bullit_dodger · 30-09-2022 11:50am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119681133#Comment_119681133

Lucky sods? Maybe not. Lucky I guess in so far that off grid is a viable option, but the South African grid is rubbish. RUBBISH! They have rolling brownouts every day for months and expect it for another two to three years. Years! No wonder your mate is reporting that a lot of people going off grid, as sure they might as well!

South Africa electricity crisis: No power for up to six hours - BBC News

Like you I'm good mates with a saffie and he was telling me that 25 years ago the S.A. grid was best in class. People used to come from other countries to South Africa for advice. Problem there is that the ANC (the major polictal party) is backed by the coal mine companies, so you can imagine that investment in renewables is virtually non-existent. To the point that large (private) installations over 100mw were made illegal by the government! If you had a factory and wanted to remove yourself from the grid (cause it's pants) you can't even do that.

As bad as we have it here.....we're got a somewhat decent grid. Makes me feel better :-)

bullit_dodger · 30-09-2022 1:52pm

Not strictly renewables, but it occurred to me that people should submit a meter reading today. This will stop companies from "estimating" your usage (at the higher tariffs which start tomorrow) as the new rates kick in oct 1st pretty much right across the board.

Random Renewables Thread

Comments