Solar PV News

[dgpcolorado]

Neither rural or co-op are any promise of being progressive. A co-op *might* be more inclined to be a fair representation of its membership but I'm not sure how well that holds true.

My experience with a rural co-op in Colorado named 'Empire' not too far from you was that they were Tri-state lackeys, a reflection of the majority views of their elected board of directors. In addition, they were poorly run and expensive. Monthly connection fee was ~ $35. Part (but by no means all, compared to other local co-ops) of the high fee was explained by being rural but their accounting always obscured admin costs by never providing a break-down. It did not surprise me that the locals viewed Empire as a favored place to work.

By contrast, my co-op is very solar friendly because we the members are. We elect the board members and my representative is a neighbor I voted for. Member participation and questions at the annual meeting are strongly encouraged. And so forth. Perhaps it depends on community involvement.

Our monthly service fee is currently $21 and going up gradually as the co-op tries to more fairly distribute the infrastructure maintenance costs that we all use, including net metering customers. Serving 13,000 meters over four counties, in some of the most rugged terrain in the lower 48, is more expensive than serving a big city, with a huge economy of scale. Our co-op is one of the ones that put pressure on Tri-state to increase renewables in their mix, and allow more local renewable generation, although I think the main pressure for the former is coming from the states.

 

[mspohr]

Watch: White Pine completes a floating solar project, one of the largest in the US

White Pine Renewables has completed a floating solar array in northern California that the company claims to be the largest in the United States. The 4.8 MW Healdsburg Floating Solar Project was installed on ponds at the City of Healdsburg’s wastewater treatment plant. It will deliver energy to the city under under a 25-year power purchase agreement. The project site and floating PV approach, a largely underutilized technology, were chosen to help reduce evaporation and algae growth at the ponds, benefitting nearby vineyards that use the water for irrigation.

 

[SageBrush]

Watch: White Pine completes a floating solar project, one of the largest in the US

The project site and floating PV approach, a largely underutilized technology, were chosen to help reduce evaporation and algae growth at the ponds

I was thinking along the same lines for pumped hydro

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I was thinking along the same lines for pumped hydro

It would depend on whether there's concern about affecting the ecosystem in the reservoir by adding shading.

A pumped hydro reservoir would be more likely to have an issue than a wastewater treatment plant.

 

[winfield100]

After Texas, Green New Deal Advocates Push Rooftop Solar. But Will Biden Fund It?

Some researchers have argued that investment in rooftop and community solar, alongside wind and solar farms, offers the most economic pathway to meeting clean energy goals. One recent study found that reducing fossil fuel emissions 95 percent by 2050 — which is basically Biden’s clean energy goal — would be much cheaper with a significant investment in rooftop or community solar. The report, which was funded by pro-solar advocacy groups, found that the development of 247 gigawatts worth of rooftop and local solar power could save energy users $473 billion over focusing on large-scale renewables.
In order to create savings on bills, however, households first need to overcome the cost of the panels and installation, an insurmountable barrier for many — especially renters. The East Bay project is getting around that problem through a unique policy in California that allows for the creation of community choice energy services, which are essentially small, community-controlled power suppliers

@mspohr
summer 2019 ERCOT also failed, so it was winter 10 yrs ago AND.....
(high prices are a feature, not a bug)
https://vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/RHODES_Big_Tent_Energy_20190911v2.pdf

 

[nwdiver]

Wasn't sure where this should go but I really liked JBs solar garden so I'm putting it here. Really great piece on JB Straubel.

 

[bkp_duke]

@mspohr
summer 2019 ERCOT also failed, so it was winter 10 yrs ago AND.....
(high prices are a feature, not a bug)
https://vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/RHODES_Big_Tent_Energy_20190911v2.pdf

So did California's grid, in 2020, 2019, 2018 . . .

My point is you are cherry-picking your data to try to make a political point, without clear objectivity.

The facts, yes FACTS, are that the NERC reports show that the ERCOT grid is historically as reliable as the other US grids in the past 10 years. And prices to it's customers are multiples lower (SDG&E just released "peak" rates here for summer . . . 60c/kwh).

 

[mspohr]

Much More Rooftop Solar From An Alternative To Monopoly Utility Models - CleanTechnica

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! Originally published on ILSR.org Since rooftop solar became possible, electric utilities have struggled to incorporate it into their outdated business model. In recent years, this lag in utility recognition...

cleantechnica.com

Since rooftop solar became possible, electric utilities have struggled to incorporate it into their outdated business model. In recent years, this lag in utility recognition has become increasingly problematic, risking the health, environmental, and financial impacts of over-investment in large fossil fuel power plants. In over 30 states, monopoly utilities submit plans for new power plants to public regulators without adequately considering how customers will serve themselves.

However, a new modeling approach from Vote Solar and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) might finally put distributed solar on the same footing in grid planning as the large power plants that utilities prefer. Our method, first filed in a resource plan in early 2021 for Minnesota-based Xcel Energy, showed that the utility could cost-effectively add nearly 2,000 megawatts more distributed solar than it plans to, saving customers billions of dollars. Expanded to other regions and utilities, these findings underline the importance of accurately assessing the potential of customer-sited solar in utility planning.

 

[Merrill]

The problem is why would utilities want to save their customers money.

 

[mspohr]

The problem is why would utilities want to save their customers money.

Yes, that is THE problem.

 

[bkp_duke]

The problem is why would utilities want to save their customers money.

Call me a pessimist, but why would customers keep rewarding companies that do this?

I moved from TX to CA in the last decade, and because the power rates were 4X higher with SDG&E than with my previous TX utility, I went ALL-IN on solar+battery. I'm fine to pay SDG&E the $10/mo that is needed to use their grid as a back-up power supply, but other than that we are 99%+ self-sufficient.

SDG&E can go pound sand. I suggest that others that have the means to do likewise, consider becoming completely self-sufficient.

 

[winfield100]

So did California's grid, in 2020, 2019, 2018 . . .

My point is you are cherry-picking your data to try to make a political point, without clear objectivity.

The facts, yes FACTS, are that the NERC reports show that the ERCOT grid is historically as reliable as the other US grids in the past 10 years. And prices to it's customers are multiples lower (SDG&E just released "peak" rates here for summer . . . 60c/kwh).

did California’s grid go to over $9,000 for customers, siphoning by “automatic walletectomies” over $16 Billion in a couple of days?
im sure different results can be justified in different ways, we just apparently have different POV which is reasonable
ERCOT operated as designed, extract as much money as possible as cheaply as possible on a minimum of equipment

 

[bkp_duke]

did California’s grid go to over $9,000 for customers, siphoning by “automatic walletectomies” over $16 Billion in a couple of days?
im sure different results can be justified in different ways, we just apparently have different POV which is reasonable
ERCOT operated as designed, extract as much money as possible as cheaply as possible on a minimum of equipment

Again, more cherry-picked data points. Those "infamous" $9,000 bills were deemed illegal by the TX governor as price gouging and won't be allowed to be collected by the utility (which is a VERY small company that was only reselling power on the open market).

Your naivete about how ERCOT was "designed" is amazing. If it were designed to "extract as much money as possible", then it should be completely done away with in favor of the California model. Sempra Energy, the parent company of SDG&E where I live, is one of THE MOST profitable power companies in the US per capita.

Do you actually do any fact-checking before you post these things, or just assume that everything you hear on MSM is actually true and not politically driven?

FACTS:

The top 25 utilities on this year's Fortune 500

Fortune Magazine announced its annual ranking of Fortune 500 companies.

www.utilitydive.com

You have to go pretty far down that list before you get to any that are actually in TX or provide power in TX.


EDIT - per the above, your GSE's (Government Sponsored Entities) are actually the most profitable, "extract as much money as cheaply as possible" of the bunch. Fantastic gameplan you have there.

 

[ohmman]

Do you actually do any fact-checking before you post these things, or just assume that everything you hear on MSM is actually true and not politically driven?

I have to say, the MSM was actually quite clear on how ERCOT worked, how it was founded, and why their liability shouldn't be in question here. At least, the sources I listened to. NPR did a very good piece on this, as did the NYT both in print and on their podcast "The Daily."

None of those sources seemed to have any "politically driven" motives - they were accurately reporting the difficult role ERCOT found themselves in.

 

[bkp_duke]

I have to say, the MSM was actually quite clear on how ERCOT worked, how it was founded, and why their liability shouldn't be in question here. At least, the sources I listened to. NPR did a very good piece on this, as did the NYT both in print and on their podcast "The Daily."

None of those sources seemed to have any "politically driven" motives - they were accurately reporting the difficult role ERCOT found themselves in.

I've been travelling for work, so didn't see that (in TX none-the-less).

The fact of the matter is that TX has not seen this level of SUSTAINED cold . . . . ever on record. Not going back 150+ years.

The grid in TX simply was not weatherized to work in a freeze this deep, that lasted this long. Will that change? Possibly.

Regardless, I'll still take the "free market" model of power delivery that customers in TX have, at prices a fraction of the cost of other grids in the US, over the "regionalized monopolies" we have in places like CA.

 

[h2ofun]

Call me a pessimist, but why would customers keep rewarding companies that do this?

I moved from TX to CA in the last decade, and because the power rates were 4X higher with SDG&E than with my previous TX utility, I went ALL-IN on solar+battery. I'm fine to pay SDG&E the $10/mo that is needed to use their grid as a back-up power supply, but other than that we are 99%+ self-sufficient.

SDG&E can go pound sand. I suggest that others that have the means to do likewise, consider becoming completely self-sufficient.

I am trying to do the same. I now have 5 PW's installed on a 15KW solar, which is not super efficient based on shading, etc. I am actually going to look at could I add more solar for the heck of it. My goal will be to try and get off grid if possible at times when I have high solar. Its the winter months with my heat pumps where I am exposed now. Still trying to work with Tesla to enable "legal" winter grid charging of batteries, rather than have to use a hack.

 

[winfield100]

I've been travelling for work, so didn't see that (in TX none-the-less).

The fact of the matter is that TX has not seen this level of SUSTAINED cold . . . . ever on record. Not going back 150+ years.

The grid in TX simply was not weatherized to work in a freeze this deep, that lasted this long. Will that change? Possibly.

Regardless, I'll still take the "free market" model of power delivery that customers in TX have, at prices a fraction of the cost of other grids in the US, over the "regionalized monopolies" we have in places like CA.

i seem to recall there was a cold snap about 10 years ago when ERCOT or somebody managing the electricity grid in “don’t mess with” Texas was told to weatherize the grid
then there was a hot spell in summer 2019 with exorbitant “spot” prices
again, ERCOT operated as designed “walletectomies” on the unwary and credulous
(not like hurricanes Rita and Harvey didn’t get their attention that climate was getting wonky)

You really cannot say ERCOT didn’t act as it was designed to
running on the bare minimum with hopes that nothing went sideways, maintenance “a lick and a promise” and what interconnections? (El Paso excluded a bit)
over 10 years to war game scenarios, “what if’s”
like I said, we have different POV.
ERCOT functioned as designed

 

[bkp_duke]

i seem to recall there was a cold snap about 10 years ago when ERCOT or somebody managing the electricity grid in “don’t mess with” Texas was told to weatherize the grid
then there was a hot spell in summer 2019 with exorbitant “spot” prices
again, ERCOT operated as designed “walletectomies” on the unwary and credulous
(not like hurricanes Rita and Harvey didn’t get their attention that climate was getting wonky)

You really cannot say ERCOT didn’t act as it was designed to
running on the bare minimum with hopes that nothing went sideways and interconnections (El Paso excluded a bit)

Source please. "I seem to recall" just doesn't cut it.

More false statements - "running on the bare minimum" is just a flat out lie.

According to the NERC, the TX power grid has the same level of reliability as the other major grids in the USA:

https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/PA/Performance%20Analysis%20DL/NERC_SOR_2020.pdf

Now, where are your facts?

 

[bkp_duke]

I am trying to do the same. I now have 5 PW's installed on a 15KW solar, which is not super efficient based on shading, etc. I am actually going to look at could I add more solar for the heck of it. My goal will be to try and get off grid if possible at times when I have high solar. Its the winter months with my heat pumps where I am exposed now. Still trying to work with Tesla to enable "legal" winter grid charging of batteries, rather than have to use a hack.

I feel you. There are those weeks in Jan when we hit the rainy season here that really push the ability to be self-reliant.

 

[h2ofun]

I feel you. There are those weeks in Jan when we hit the rainy season here that really push the ability to be self-reliant.

With my setup, it would be impossible. On raining days I produce like 5kwh for the day, but the mini splits can use 20 to 40 kwh per day. This winter in Calif has been amazing for sunny days, but this is NOT normal.