Well our power grid has needed upgrading for decades.....that's a given and it isn't caused by solar fields where ever I've seen it although it is a problem with wind generated power for sure. City hall in the small town in my community has been solar powered for over a decade without problems...we don't experience drop out in the power system unless there is wind damage. Occasionally and old transformer will blow out and they'll install a new one. The Whole Earth Festival has been completely Solar Powered several times without problems...3 days of massive equipment and lighting. Solar Johnny from the Sierras is one of the pioneers of that system. Resisting the change seems to me like sort of meaningless counter punching. People said the same thing about hybrid cars and the first thing most people say when I talk about my hybrid car is that the batteries are expensive and will die costing me some fortune....sorry, I know owners of original hybrids who've yet to have a battery problem and if they do....you upgrade it. My advice is don't be afraid of investing in solar technology unless you consume massive amounts of power for tools that require more power. If solar isn't working for you, you can choose to go another route with your energy needs but it's been valuable to my life in several circumstances in several different climates and circumstances. Comedian Ed Begley has gone completely solar for a long time in Los Angeles and you can read about his system on his website
If this concerns you, you can go off the grid. I am happy with my solar co-op investment. I know nothing of SoCal's laws or setup and they may not be working with their customers the way my power company works with me.
I just recently noticed that we are now being charged 50 bucks a month for being connected to the grid. I have also been told, it is necessary for the power company to do this to maintain their profitability as we consumers continually reduce the power we consume, with some even putting power back into the grid. So now we pay for the grid even if we use no power! Why the hell go Solar if you can not get rid of the grid? Example, I have a 24 inch planer, I sure as hell don't want to try and run that off a battery bank, nor do I want to fire up a diesel to gen that power when I want the planer to make chips. This whole thing seems like government fucking with us here, subsidizing solar and at the same time allowing the power company to change the way the charge me because we reduce power usage by using less power subsidized by tax credits, or because solar and wind generators are pumping back into the grid with tax credit subsidized equipment? Now we need a new grid because it is uncontrollable????
You can opt for biodiesel to run power tools if you have a diesel generator...the other option is just pay for electrical service..mine is way cheaper than my phone and internet bill even before I bought a panel with the co-op here. As someone mentioned..it's a value system choice as well. The power company in my community is not govt run
Yes it is. The rate changes are approved by State, as was the grid deliver charge. http://www.puc.state.or.us/Pages/Index.aspx
You're talking about a businesses relationship to the state...and I participate from my own free will...nobody makes me even use their service..and it's not big money compared to what I just paid a plumber to fix a broken pipe in my pumphouse...it's a choice..we're not victims in my view if we make the choice
Well the way I see it, you guys exercising your choice to use the solar equipment subsidized by tax credits are a big part of the reason why the grid deliver charge was approved by the State and implemented by the Power companies. The rest of us had no choice in accepting this new charge.
Sounds like you should take it up with your representatives then...but you do have a choice..you can produce independent power and finance your own grid...I prefer the co-op myself. I have no choice when my property tax goes up every year..but I realize it's inevitable and pay it. America is not the cheapest country to live in but I'm not leaving..I didn't buy a panel until long after the system was initiated so you're dead wrong about me causing this change in your life..fact is you couldn't buy into it until it was long approved and in motion. Don't blame me for your power bill
I don't. I do blame the government for screwing around with the system though. Think about it! People want to be paid for power they put back into the grid. That screws up the business model for the power companies. The only way most people can put power back into the grid is by using tax credit supported equipment. As a result, the government has to support a change in the rate and charge structure the power companies use, so that they can pay for the power they buy from the tax subsidized power sources but not really pay for it because of the new grid charge. So now, the regular people have their electric bill doubled paying the power company because some users put power back into the grid using tax subsidized equipment. I seriously doubt any representative, yours or mine has a clue as to what the hell happened. Just bumbling alone doing good works. Work where he/she has no fucking business screwing with it.
Riverman, I am a firm supporter and believer in solar energy. And I practice what I preach about it. However, there are problems with adding solar and wind energy to the grid, real problems. The grid system we have in the PNW was never designed to handle these new energy sources. Maybe the best way for me to explain it in a way that makes sense is to walk you through similar problems I have had with my off grid solar system, but on a much smaller scale. I purchased what would be considered a medium size system to live off of. My electrical needs were reduced due to using propane for cooking, heat, refrigeration and water heater. For about 8 or 9 years, my system worked fine. But, I was running the generator more than I liked, especially in the winter with short and cloudy days. When it was time to replace my battery bank, I decided to enlarge the system by adding more panels and more batteries. (It is important to keep the age of all the batteries the same. Adding new batteries to old batteries does not give the best performance.) The first thing I discovered was adding the new higher performance solar panels to my system was a waste of money. They would only produce at the same rate as my old panels, not the higher rate, a weakest link issue. I got lucky and found some of my old panels at a good price. I installed a new battery bank with about 50% more storage capacity, time to rock and roll. Hold on, not so fast. The controller was shutting down the system sometimes. Reason, my controller was not rated to handle the extra load and would shut off. I had to buy a much larger and more expensive controller to handle the increased load. With a lighter wallet, time to rock and roll. Hold on, not so fast. My output from the panels was no where near what they should have been. Something was still wrong. The problem was the voltage was dropping at a much higher rate than normal through my wiring. (The voltage drop is much greater in the DC part of the wiring system than the AC part.) Solution, open the wallet again and increase the size of the DC wiring system. After replacing the controller, and increasing the wiring size, I now have a system with more output and more storage capacity that works great. I seldom need to run the generator. But I had to rebuild my entire system to do it, (except the AC wiring). Therefore it is easy for me to see how the utilities such as Bonneville Power are having problems with adding wind and solar farms to their grid system. Maybe your utility is also experiencing problems, but has not gone public yet. Bonneville has not gone public with the info yet either. I just happened to be part of a conversation by accident. I was waay over my head and kept quit, but understood enough of it to realize there are problems, and the fix is going to be very expensive.
You obviously didn't watch the video. What I'm talking about has nothing to do with cars. It's a complete other product that attaches to your house. Watch the video. It's pretty ground breaking.
My solar system is 100% off grid. I do not sell power, I store the extra in batteries to use when the panels are producing less than I am using.
Really? Your oil company shill writes an answer on an answer site and we're supposed to take that as gospel?
You can't handle the truth? You'd think that an oil company engineer might know a bit about energy. Bernie's a liar because he's a socialist. I like how you think!
http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/01/technology/tesla-home-battery-price/ If you live in the South and already own solar panels, it could take you just under three years to make up the cost of the $3,000 Tesla Powerwall battery. (WITH SUBSIDIES ONLY, otherwise 24 years). But if you live in the Pacific Northwest and don't have solar panels, it could take you at least 16 years to make up the cost of buying Tesla's new home battery.
NY Times oil company shill says the same thing. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/b...rman-energy-push-runs-into-problems.html?_r=0
Just more fracking company shills... Sounds like it was written by one of their execs. "But the question of whether Germany can meet its 2050 goal has been hotly debated. And the issue has taken on added importance with the Russia-Ukraine crisis threatening Germany’s largest single source of natural gas." "But international energy experts, who recently completed a study of the German energy sector, say the country cannot meet its future needs solely through renewable sources. They say the plan must also include a climate-friendly — even if not renewable — option, like domestic natural gas." Yeah... Who are these unnamed experts? This Op Ed looks like a shill wrote it.
You notice, the fellow said the Power wall cost $3500 and the power was 10 to 90 kw. Well what the hell does that mean? I couldn't calculate cost from such a number. I can't even relate it to my power system I currently have installed. I have a couple ways to generate electricity, and storing it is the issue for me and that is all he was addressing. I have 1200 ampere/hrs of capacity. that is a known quantity. I don't know what 10 to 90kw of storage is. I suppose I will have to grant that the Tesla engineers are so smart they can blow me away, but this doesn't pass a reality check that their 3500 dollar battery pack hanging on the wall will store more power than my 800 pound battery bank that cost me exact half his price. I expect my battery bank to last seven years. I have no idea how long the Tesla device will last, perhaps I missed it. I do hope voters get more information than this fellow is handing out, I have no idea just how grand it is, nor anyway to gage how much the tax payers should invest in this technology. We can read about how it shakes out in the car in Consumer Report, but we are screwed if the climate change liberals point to this and declare it the future and cut the orders for the EPA to make it so.
I notice that anything that isn't green fantasy must be written by shills for big oil. http://www.spiegel.de/international...-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html Altmaier and others are on a mission to help people save money on their electricity bills, because they're about to receive some bad news. The government predicts that the renewable energy surcharge added to every consumer's electricity bill will increase from 5.3 cents today to between 6.2 and 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour -- a 20-percent price hike. German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe. But because the government is failing to get the costs of its new energypolicy under control, rising prices are already on the horizon. Electricity is becoming a luxury good in Germany, and one of the country's most important future-oriented projects is acutely at risk. ... Even well-informed citizens can no longer keep track of all the additional costs being imposed on them. According to government sources, the surcharge to finance the power grids will increase by 0.2 to 0.4 cents per kilowatt hour next year. On top of that, consumers pay a host of taxes, surcharges and fees that would make any consumer's head spin. Former Environment Minister Jürgen Tritten of the Green Party once claimed that switching Germany to renewable energy wasn't going to cost citizens more than one scoop of ice cream. Today his successor Altmaier admits consumers are paying enough to "eat everything on the ice cream menu." Paying Big for Nothing For society as a whole, the costs have reached levels comparable only to the euro-zone bailouts. This year, German consumers will be forced to pay €20 billion ($26 billion) for electricity from solar, wind and biogas plants -- electricity with a market price of just over €3 billion. Even the figure of €20 billion is disputable if you include all the unintended costs and collateral damage associated with the project. Solar panels and wind turbines at times generate huge amounts of electricity, and sometimes none at all. Depending on the weather and the time of day, the country can face absurd states of energy surplus or deficit. If there is too much power coming from the grid, wind turbines have to be shut down. Nevertheless, consumers are still paying for the "phantom electricity" the turbines are theoretically generating. Occasionally, Germany has to pay fees to dump already subsidized green energy, creating what experts refer to as "negative electricity prices." On the other hand, when the wind suddenly stops blowing, and in particular during the cold season, supply becomes scarce. That's when heavy oil and coal power plants have to be fired up to close the gap, which is why Germany's energy producers in 2012 actually released more climate-damaging carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than in 2011. ... In the current election campaign, the parties are blaming each other for the disaster. Meanwhile, the federal government would prefer to avoid discussing its energy policies entirely. "It exposes us to criticism," says a government spokesman. "There are undeniably major problems," admits a cabinet member. But this week, the issue is forcing its way onto the agenda. On Thursday, a government-sanctioned commission plans to submit a special report called "Competition in Times of the Energy Transition." The report is sharply critical, arguing that Germany's current system actually rewards the most inefficient plants, doesn't contribute to protecting the climate, jeopardizes the energy supply and puts the poor at a disadvantage.
