pnichols wrote:
snowcrustracer wrote:
I'm pretty sure the Power companies hate having to pay customers for excess solar. I know around where I live Eversource is fighting tooth and nail to change the laws so they will not have to.
One of the issues is that some of these systems have been causing is the voltage monitors that only allow power to go back onto the grid if it is 5 volts over the system voltage. So if you put a volt meter line to line at your meter you normally see 120/240 volts. Your solar converter would have to raise the voltage to 122/245 volts to push back into the grid. As more and more people get panels the voltages go higher and higher to push back onto the grid. So power companies are seeing unpredictable grid voltages in some neighborhoods causing the solar customers to loose $$$. It is not uncommon to see 250 volts line to neutral on some sunny days. The power companies complain it is causing damage to the grid...and costing to much to place voltage regulators in every neighborhood to control the higher voltages caused by the solar customers. This will be the justification these companies use to end the payback program.
My 2 cents.
Excellent information!
You made part of the points in my post above as they relate to problems on the horizon for rooftop solar merely backfeeding an existing wired grid.
IMHO, the ultimate end user approach is to continue using the wired grid where it already exists and makes sense to extend for new construction ... but eventually feed it completely from less expensive and far less, or zero, polluting renewabe energy sources.
This problem has popped up in various locations where local solar is feeding the grid. One approach still in development is micro grids, the equivalent of town or county grids. This obviously comes with its own challenges as well but it will be interesting to see how this affects the grip of larger corporation control of the grid. Eg, town and county owned utilities.
I think the other game changer for the home and private building based solar set ups is the advent of the TESLA solar wall and other products like it. Eg. Now the individual has viable and affordable storage for their solar arrays. No need to connect to the grid. This is expected to have very fast growth, to the point of straining battery building capacity for the electric car industry. They quite literally use the same cells that TESLA uses for ALL their battery packs. The gigs factory and Giga factory #2 (possibly in Germany or Norway) quite literally can't keep up with demand. TESLA forecasts production of 500,000 cars next year and every one is pretty much pre-sold. That is a lot of batteries and that's before any TESLA Walls are sold. I suspect they will be hiring :).
