# 290MW of solar coming on line



## begreen (May 13, 2014)

The world's largest solar array for the moment is about to get grid tied.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...to-crank-out-290-megawatts-of-sunshine-power/

In other news, Germany is now averaging 27% renewable energy. 
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/13/3436923/germany-energy-records/


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## Ashful (May 13, 2014)

The "290" number caught my eye.  I design high power amplifiers.  The largest one in my catalog consumes 290 kW of primary power.  This array could power 1000 of those monsters!


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## begreen (May 13, 2014)

RF amps for broadcast?


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## Grisu (May 13, 2014)

Joful said:


> The "290" number caught my eye.  I design high power amplifiers.  The largest one in my catalog consumes 290 kW of primary power.  This array could power ten of those monsters!



Not 1000?


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## Ashful (May 13, 2014)

Grisu said:


> Not 1000?


Hah... fingers can't keep up with the brain, sometimes.  Was thinking 1000, typed "ten".  Fixed it.



begreen said:


> RF amps for broadcast?


Testing of missiles, airplanes, tanks.  Ensuring they don't go haywire when exposed to high intensity RF fields, such as EM pulse weaponry, jammers, nuclear blasts...

So, what is the ROI on that solar array?


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## Seasoned Oak (May 13, 2014)

I wonder, do these big arrays have any ground cooling effect sinc e the sun is no longer hitting the ground. I guess its still heating the air above it with heat coming off those dark panels.


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## velvetfoot (May 13, 2014)

"290MW of solar coming on line"
But not at night.


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## woodgeek (May 13, 2014)

Seasoned Oak said:


> I wonder, do these big arrays have any ground cooling effect sinc e the sun is no longer hitting the ground. I guess its still heating the air above it with heat coming off those dark panels.



I've often wondered the same....15% of power is getting sent elsewhere.....but dark color probably more than compensates.


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## Ashful (May 13, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> I've often wondered the same....15% of power is getting sent elsewhere.....but dark color probably more than compensates.


The energy is not being consumed by the panels, only transported.  It will be dissipated somewhere.  There may be local cooling, but not global.

If you're going to ask this question, though... consider the effect of a large densely populated city with a high percentage of ground-source heat pumps (geothermal systems).  I do wonder if we'll begin to see negative effects from changing local crust temperature in places near fault lines... say Los Angeles?


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## jebatty (May 14, 2014)

The advance of solar and wind will accelerate the technology for a smart grid and smart  devices using electricity, as well as devices that can efficiently store relatively small amounts of electricity, to shift the device use to consumption when peak power is available or when excess baseline power is available. 

My freezer doesn't need to run based solely on interior temperature or for periods long enough in one cycle to bring the temperature to the set point. There is plenty of time when It can be delayed or cycled as needed to maintain temperature.  It also could function like a mini-split to reduce power usage as needed just to maintain rather than cycle, or any combination of operating modes. Same thing with a refrigerator. 

With nearly all of our household lighting now LED, a small battery-type new generation storage system could shift power draw to storage when the grid needs more available power, and when excess is available could grid operate for lighting and charge the storage. Same thing for most other electronic devices. What about a cube liquid metal battery pack that would do the same for an entire house?

Electric backup heating available has ceramic heat storage. Right now the utility "charges" that at night when excess power is available and at a reduced rate. It just as easily could charge during the daytime, or anytime, when excess power is available - like during the daytime when excess solar may be available. 

So many possibilities exist, but many are blinded by the current outdated technology brought on by coal fired electric. The existing system was based on a straight line power supply. What would exist today if the first power was solar and not coal? We would have an infrastructure and devices that would operate in that scenario and not even be asking the questions we now ask as solar, wind and potentially other alternative energy sources continue into the mainstream.

The problem is not solar and wind, it is us who think inside a dark box or are vested in the dark box. I think it is time to move into the light.


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## Jags (May 14, 2014)

Jim, A breakthrough in battery tech is all that would be needed to turn the energy sector on its head.


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## Jags (May 14, 2014)

Joful said:


> Testing of missiles, airplanes, tanks. Ensuring they don't go haywire when exposed to high intensity RF fields, such as EM pulse weaponry, jammers, nuclear blasts...



I wanna play...


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## Ashful (May 14, 2014)

Jags said:


> I wanna play...


It's fun in that, "I wonder if anyone will be seriously injured when we turn this thing on," sort of way.  We've had more than one of these amplifiers grenade over the years, in one case throwing a 19" adjustable wrench thru a blast wall and lifted our second floor off the supporting walls.  Right now I'm designing open and short circuit testers, to be put on the output of an RF amplifier, which will handle 642 kilowatts of average power.  Not sure I want to be in the room when they're exercising those...

I do get to see some interesting stuff, like very large anechoic chambers:





Sort of the antithesis of saving energy, though.    Do we have a "Red Room" forum?


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## begreen (May 14, 2014)

Jags said:


> Jim, A breakthrough in battery tech is all that would be needed to turn the energy sector on its head.



I think the problem is much, much larger. We are going to need a total shift in policy and mindset both from govt. and the public. That is non-trivial when there is such a massive and well funded disinformation campaign afoot. We have the tech already to do some dramatic reductions of fossil fuel consumption by conservation. But it is not going to be easy when folks continue to heat second and third vacation residences, build obscenely large houses, insist on goods and consumables shipped from around the planet, etc.. Sooner or later the piper will need to be paid, but I think it will be too late to change this grand experiment we are embarking on this spaceship earth. Other nations are making good progress, but the largest consumer nation is not.


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## Jags (May 14, 2014)

You are thinking the much bigger picture than I (not surprising).  Mine was in reference to renewables and the need for a good storage option at the user level.  A good storage solution could virtually render the electric producers moot.


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## begreen (May 14, 2014)

Yes, been thinking a lot about the social implications of denial and deferral lately. I can see it affecting my son's hope for their future. But you are right, a large change in battery tech would be a good step forward.


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## Where2 (May 14, 2014)

Although there is some heating effect with the solar panels, I don't think their conversion efficiency is close to that of a plant (vegetation). It's interesting you don't seem to find a heating effect in a forest. Think of all the BTUs stored in a stand of trees.


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## Ashful (May 15, 2014)

Where2 said:


> Although there is some heating effect with the solar panels, I don't think their conversion efficiency is close to that of a plant (vegetation). It's interesting you don't seem to find a heating effect in a forest. Think of all the BTUs stored in a stand of trees.


You have that backwards, and yes, you do see a significant cooling effect in and near large forests.  On a micro level, I have about 7 acres of dense woods behind my house.  In the heat of summer, it is much cooler standing in or near those woods, than in my front lawn just a few hundred yards away.


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## begreen (May 15, 2014)

I noticed the cooling effect in Dallas when I was there. The temperature difference between the open city and the SMU campus area (with lots of old shade trees) is immediately apparent. The trees cool the air via transpiration. A large oak tree is can transpire 40,000 gallons of water into the atmosphere during one year


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## Doug MacIVER (Jun 27, 2014)

thought this the best place to put this up, it comes from a post by noted skeptic anthony watts. off the face of it storage would help everyone from producers to consumer.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/25/new-battery-technology-will-be-great-if-it-is-viable/


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## begreen (Jun 27, 2014)

I've read a couple papers on this technology. Sounds promising if it scales well and remains durable.


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## begreen (Jun 27, 2014)

New Mexico just brought 50 MW of solar online. 
http://www.rechargenews.com/solar/article1366599.ece


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## Laszlo (Jun 28, 2014)

Jags said:


> Jim, A breakthrough in battery tech is all that would be needed to turn the energy sector on its head.


According to Bill Gates' 2010 TEDtalk, all the world's battery capacity would only store 10 minutes' worth of global electric usage. Battery tech will have to be drastically cheaper and last through many more discharge cycles for it to effectively support the daily oscillations of the electric grid.


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## jebatty (Jun 28, 2014)

Battery tech will improve. I love my thermal battery, 1000 gallon water tank that stores two full days of heat in the coldest of winter after only a 4-6 hour "charge" from my gasifier, and at least 10 days of reduced heat to keep the shop at 40F+.


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## begreen (Jun 28, 2014)

Another article on the metal-free, flow battery tech that is developing for power storage. If it scales well it should help dramatically increase storage capacity. 
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/01/renewable-energy-breakthrough/


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## begreen (Jun 28, 2014)

On June 1, 2014, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) recorded a record midday hourly peak of *4,767 megawatts* of alternating current (MWAC) of utility-generated solar electricity delivered into the California grid. With rapidly growing utility-scale solar capacity, CAISO has regularly recorded new hourly output records going back to 2010 when it first began publishing the daily data. When the hourly data are averaged over the course of a month to control for weather variation, the average peak hourly generation in May 2014 of 4,086 MWAC was 150% greater than the level in May 2013.

In 2013, 2,145 MW of utility-scale solar capacity entered service in California, of which more than 500 MW came from large-scale solar thermal plants. California accounted for more than 75% of U.S. utility-scale solar capacity installed in 2013.

Total solar electricity output in May 2014 constituted 6% of the total CAISO electricity load that month, compared with 2% in May 2013. However, during the average peak solar output hour, between 11:00 a.m. and noon for May 2014, solar supplied 14% of total power, compared with 6% in May 2013.

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16851


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## woodgeek (Jun 28, 2014)

Nice stats.  

So Germany is at 36 GW power capacity, about 8X higher than CA, and has an economy 50% larger than California's.  In terms of energy with CA having >2X the hours of sunshine, it need only increase the installed capacity less than 2X to match (current) German levels of energy penetration (about 5%).

Since CA PV increased 2.5X (150% increase) last year it could surpass Germany in PV penetration in  *<1 year* at current growth rates, while still having a small fraction of the installed cells.


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## Laszlo (Jun 29, 2014)

I don't doubt we'll develop new, affordable energy storage solutions. It's just that renewables are reaching grid-parity now, with projected prices plummeting even further over the next few years. But with where batteries and energy storage stand now, they'll have _a lot_ of catching up to do (along with modernizing the electric grid). Neither will reverse the economic advantages of using wind or solar, but I'm afraid these two complementary factors will lag compared to new electric generation.


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## begreen (Jun 29, 2014)

There is another issue that Germany ran into that is now being addressed in Europe, but just beginning to be hammered out here. Inverters need to be smart grid aware so that when a large cloud formation covers a significant number of panel arrays they can adjust to help even out the stop/start/on/off nature of solar power. Main grids want continuous power. Smart inverters allow plant level control of output instead of simple local control that is currently used here. (Inverter shuts down when grid frequency is out of spec to protect linesmen from backfeed.) Europe now has a standard for this inverter design but America is lagging. It needs to get a standard in place soon. The sooner the better, otherwise there is going to be a lot of retrofitting as complete communities get solarized.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/california-closes-in-on-smart-solar-inverter-rules
http://www.greentechmedia.com/artic...-of-the-future-starts-with-the-smart-inverter
http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2014/01/smart-solar-inverter/


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## DBoon (Jul 4, 2014)

I think the cost of battery storage is really missing the point about where the best leverage is for increasing solar and other renewables generation on the grid. 

Consider the archaic nature of electricity billing.  At the end of the month, I get a bill telling me how much I used and how much it cost for that month - too late to do anything about it to reduce demand, if the price was too high for my liking.  This is how most utilities bill for power, and it is based on a utility interest in selling lots of power. 

But what if you had an electric meter that showed in real-time what your electricity was costing you, and it was located in a central place in your house.  Do you think people would use less when it cost more, say 10x more?  Absolutely.  If there were real-time price signals, demand could be increased (to use up excess renewable generation) or reduced (at nighttimes, cloudy days, etc.).  

Doing something simple like that would be far, far cheaper than trying to have lots of battery storage.


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## BrotherBart (Jul 4, 2014)

DBoon said:


> But what if you had an electric meter that showed in real-time what your electricity was costing you, and it was located in a central place in your house. Do you think people would use less when it cost more, say 10x more? Absolutely. If there were real-time price signals, demand could be increased (to use up excess renewable generation) or reduced (at nighttimes, cloudy days, etc.).



My Blueline Innovations power monitor does exactly that. For around $90 five years ago.


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## DBoon (Jul 5, 2014)

BrotherBart said:


> My Blueline Innovations power monitor does exactly that. For around $90 five years ago.


Hi Brother Bart, so I'm guessing your utility billing is based on a hourly rate?  NYSEG doesn't do that, as far as I know.


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## BrotherBart (Jul 5, 2014)

Nope. By the killowatt hour. 1,000 watts used in one hour. There is no other way for electric utilities to bill. In New York your state average per KWH is $0.181. Here it is $0.126.


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## DBoon (Jul 5, 2014)

BrotherBart said:


> Nope. By the killowatt hour.


What I meant was, the independent system operator (ISO) for your region/state likely creates the market for electricity pricing, and there is an hourly rate established for wholesale and retail electricity, per kWh.  Does your utility bill you at this hourly rate, or do they just bill at some pre-determined rate that is (mostly) disconnected from this instantaneous hourly rate?


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## BrotherBart (Jul 5, 2014)

Flat rate with a power cost adjustment monthly. Based on their cost of power. They get a state approved KWH rate and then apply the cost adjustment over or under based on the cost of power for the month.

They screw around with it and that is why I am on a first name basis with the CEO of the utility. His secretary has to be saying "It's that time of year. He is on line two."


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## DBoon (Jul 11, 2014)

Right, same for me.  But when supplies are tight for natural gas, as they were in the Northeast and NY last winter, then the rate can be very different from the flat rate, and you don't know this until you've used a month of electricity - not a really good way to signal a need for demand reduction from the users, but then nobody ever really accused the utilities if genuinely wanted to reduce demand anyways.


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## maple1 (Jul 12, 2014)

Laszlo said:


> I don't doubt we'll develop new, affordable energy storage solutions. It's just that renewables are reaching grid-parity now, with projected prices plummeting even further over the next few years. But with where batteries and energy storage stand now, they'll have _a lot_ of catching up to do (along with modernizing the electric grid). Neither will reverse the economic advantages of using wind or solar, but I'm afraid these two complementary factors will lag compared to new electric generation.


 
Agree completely. The problem with solar is, of course, that it doesn't generate at night. I would think that would pose problems to existing power generation as well - assuming solar really ramps up, conventional would need to ramp down in the daytime when solar is at its peak. Which I would think would in turn introduce inefficiencies in the conventional operations. New storage tech to store the solar, or powerpeaks, would seem to be fundamental to increased solar production. And also to increased wind production - it can blow all night, but can also stop blowing for a while.


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## Where2 (Jul 12, 2014)

begreen said:


> There is another issue that Germany ran into that is now being addressed in Europe, but just beginning to be hammered out here. Inverters need to be smart grid aware so that when a large cloud formation covers a significant number of panel arrays they can adjust to help even out the stop/start/on/off nature of solar power. Main grids want continuous power.



In that case, what the utility should really want is an automated start/stop switch on my 5kW electric dryer like they already have on my air conditioner compressor unit? Between my A/C compressor unit and my electric panel is a little wall widget box that the electric utility installed and provides a ~$5 credit for every month (for 6 months out of the year). With a signal from their central command, the utility can shut off the 3kW load of my A/C compressor unit in "times of need" to shed grid load. The irony is that the A/C compressor current draw is slightly less than the maximum output I have seen from my 4.4kW PV array. The maximum output from my 4.4kW PV array is considerably less than the 5kW load I can create by hitting the start button on my electric dryer.


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