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It's going to take the village to save our future;
- Thread starter nwdiver
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- Energy Environment Policy
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Windy(or sunny) weekends in Germany are increasingly turning wholesale energy prices negative. This weekend, prices were negative for nearly more than half the time.
Free Power in Germany as Winds Push Generation to Record: Chart
A stormy weekend led to free electricity in Germany as wind generation reached a record, forcing power producers to pay customers the most since Christmas 2012 to use electricity. Power prices turned negative as wind output reached 39,409 megawatts on Saturday, equivalent to the output of about 40 nuclear reactors. To keep the grid supply and demand in balance, negative prices encourage producers to either shut power stations or else pay consumers to take the extra electricity off the network.
A stormy weekend led to free electricity in Germany as wind generation reached a record, forcing power producers to pay customers the most since Christmas 2012 to use electricity. Power prices turned negative as wind output reached 39,409 megawatts on Saturday, equivalent to the output of about 40 nuclear reactors. To keep the grid supply and demand in balance, negative prices encourage producers to either shut power stations or else pay consumers to take the extra electricity off the network.
While that is good news, you need to use numbers in their context.
Weekend power draw is far less than work day. Night is less than day.
For 2016, German Energy Mix (AGEB):
40.1% coal
12.1% natural gas
7.9% biofuel
______________
60.1% CO2 emitter
13.1% Nuclear
12.3% Wind
5.9% Solar
3.3% Hydro
________________________
34.6% non-CO2 emitter
Other 5.2%
Last week Oct 27, 16:00, peak output was just over 78,700 megawatts, and high winds accounted for 28 MW during that spike. So a brief 39 MW event is great, but comes on an irregular basis, and often when it is not needed or predicted.
Weekend power draw is far less than work day. Night is less than day.
For 2016, German Energy Mix (AGEB):
40.1% coal
12.1% natural gas
7.9% biofuel
______________
60.1% CO2 emitter
13.1% Nuclear
12.3% Wind
5.9% Solar
3.3% Hydro
________________________
34.6% non-CO2 emitter
Other 5.2%
Last week Oct 27, 16:00, peak output was just over 78,700 megawatts, and high winds accounted for 28 MW during that spike. So a brief 39 MW event is great, but comes on an irregular basis, and often when it is not needed or predicted.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Hence batteries!
Reportedly wind/solar/hydro was 35% of the German mix in 1H17 up from 33% last year. They've put zero political effort into expanding solar over the last 3 or 4 years. Imagine what this mix would look like in 5 years if battery tech is allowed to do it's thing on the grid and in homes.
These weekends are for sure just a cute thing for now, but they could be a legit balancer moving forward. Imagine what the renewables overproduction will look like in 10 years if it's already at 85% on a sunny Saturday? You could store all your Monday and Tuesday juice on one good weekend day and slowly trickle from the areas of production to the areas of consumption.
^ I have no idea if this concept is legit and would love some thoughts. Does widespread interconnected residential and utility scale storage limit the need for these thousand mile high tension lines? I would think the ability to buffer a lot of supply on both ends would mathematically ease peak transmission loads. No?
Reportedly wind/solar/hydro was 35% of the German mix in 1H17 up from 33% last year. They've put zero political effort into expanding solar over the last 3 or 4 years. Imagine what this mix would look like in 5 years if battery tech is allowed to do it's thing on the grid and in homes.
These weekends are for sure just a cute thing for now, but they could be a legit balancer moving forward. Imagine what the renewables overproduction will look like in 10 years if it's already at 85% on a sunny Saturday? You could store all your Monday and Tuesday juice on one good weekend day and slowly trickle from the areas of production to the areas of consumption.
^ I have no idea if this concept is legit and would love some thoughts. Does widespread interconnected residential and utility scale storage limit the need for these thousand mile high tension lines? I would think the ability to buffer a lot of supply on both ends would mathematically ease peak transmission loads. No?
YAY! Meters for Christmas. 22.8kW system is ON-LINE 
Expecting ~140kWh/day.
Expecting ~140kWh/day. 
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
That is a lot of energy. Are those batteries ?YAY! Meters for Christmas. 22.8kW system is ON-LINE
140 kWh/day out of 22.8kW? That seems pretty optimistic, no? > 6 kWh/kW. I know CA is higher than CO where I'm at, but I'm at 3.9 kWh/kW. If you actually average 6+, that'd put you in the top 20 most-efficient US systems on PVOutput.org.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
How will that energy be used ?
I vaguely remember that selling to the utility in your idea is not attractive, and I"m having trouble imagining you consuming almost 10x the energy of my household.
It's a very large house. ~6k sq ft... There's a good chance that not all the energy will be used. The homeowner has taken a lot of steps to make the home very energy efficient. I'm looking forward to the results after the first year. The tech from Xcel that was installing the meters was actually surprised that Xcel had approved such a large system. Since the home was a new construction without any usage history the homeowner actually hired an engineer to do a load analysis to get the interconnect approved.
Month 1: 3617kWh
Not bad for Dec-Jan...
Clear skies forecasted for the rest of the month... probably be >5MWh by February. Hopefully we'll have the inverters connected to the inter webs to I can monitor production this week.
Not bad for Dec-Jan...
Clear skies forecasted for the rest of the month... probably be >5MWh by February. Hopefully we'll have the inverters connected to the inter webs to I can monitor production this week.
Skotty
2014 S P85 | 2023 F-150L
Month 1: 3617kWh
Not bad for Dec-Jan...
Clear skies forecasted for the rest of the month... probably be >5MWh by February. Hopefully we'll have the inverters connected to the inter webs to I can monitor production this week.
On the flip side, I finally was able to turn my system on with monitoring 4 days ago and not 1 single minute of sunny skies yet. Doh! Cumulative collection is about 10 kWh.
YellyYeti
Member
Where would someone with no local connections get the best deal, online or otherwise, for a system that they would install themselves? Very handy (owns a foundation pouring business) but no experience in solar. Ground mounted, probably 10 kW to start, ability to add more later. He's in east Tennessee.
Prices got a little screwy with the stupid tariff... the cheapest source of modules is still probably sun electronics.
For a ground mount I've only used Schletter so far. You can buy directly from them. Ground mounts run ~$1k per 12 panels.
For Inverters IMO the new SMA inverters are tough to beat. I still can't believe they're ~$1500 now. I paid $3k for a 8kW inverter 4 years ago. I strongly recommend oversizing your array ~20-30%. 10kW is perfect for a 7.7kW inverter. The best solution for future expansion would probably be adding a second inverter.
Here's a YouTube video of an install similar to what you're describing using the schletter ground mount. Just a little smaller. I don't understand why they installed 3 DC disconnects... at the array, on the exterior wall, and at the inverter... you just need the one.
Optimizers? We don't need no stink'n optimizers... 171kWh in one day in February from 26kW of solar
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