Featured Tesla's Virtual Power Plant

Decentralizing our electrical grid would make a huge difference in efficiency. However the way we've constructed our economy centralization is a primary objective of profit-obsessed crazies who think they're in charge.

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean about decentralized. Large windfarms are often away from population centers. Nuclear because of its risks are away from population centers. Natural gas is most efficient in large ccgt power plants which are 500 MW or higher.

Separating the grid from the power generators definitely can allow better competition. solar can easily be decentralized but should be backed up by gas turbines or something else that can fill in weak spots. My local municipal utility is experimenting with subsidizing battery backed up solar in a neighborhood to see how it affects demand.

 

It's really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn't even watch the video. Power generation can happen on the rooftop of homes and stored in a powerwall in your home and in your electric car. Any power generated that you don't need goes to a giant battery in your neighborhood. These Tesla power pack facilities store as much electricity as a power plant. Already the deployment of power packs are shutting down power generation facilities.

As in the problem isn't the need to generate more electricity, the problem is storing the electricity that's being generated so it's not wasted during off peak times. This means that you the homeowner make money selling electricity, not a bunch of greedy power generation monopolies that destroy the planet by building more facilities that aren't necessary. If you watched the video you'd know that.

 

For those who want to understand the context of why an Australian is so excited about what's happening in California in this video:

"Tesla’s Big Battery at the Hornsdale Power Reserve fed 150MW into the South Australian grid at 2:25 pm on Tuesday, July 21. It set a world record for output from a lithium-ion battery. Besides power, the Hornsdale battery will also be delivering synthetic inertia and “grid-forming” capabilities to the local grid, according to Renew Economy. As such it would have the same responsibilities as gas and diesel generators in the local grid. More Tesla Powerpacks was added to the Hornsdale battery, expanding it by 50%. The expansion started in November 2019 and was completed this year. Its full power is now 150MW/194MWh from 100MW/129MWh. Last month, the Hornsdale Battery Reserve was granted an electricity generator license by the Essential Services Commission of South Australia right after its completion. The Hornsdale Power Reserve started final testing on the expanded battery in June. So Tesla’s Big Battery might not be running at its full capacity just yet. The Hornsdale battery has reduced costs to the main grid by AU$116 million." https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-powerpack-hornsdale-power-reserve

 

I do not need to watch the video. I actually got a quote to add a battery to my solar system. I understand that if I wanted to be free of the grid ;-( I would need to more than triple my solar panels or buy a battery that could shift spring solar into fall. Think about the real numbers. Economically this makes no sense.

Are you saying that some decentralized is good? Sure. That is what I am saying. But in texas wind is cheaper than solar for the economy. This is centralized. In the pacific northwest where you live centralized hydro is an important part of the grid.

Well only if your regulation allows. I get paid a flat rate for my electricity, but it is more valuable to my municipal utility that subsidized it if it offsets peak usage. Of peak wind provides a large proportion of electricity. Is it good to store it? With all the renewables in texas and california, utilities are underbuilding back up power. This is needed to transition. There are some really bad greedy utilities, but spending much more for solar and batteries is not really an answer.

 

That's not nearly enough energy to cover all our needs.

Since solar+wind added up to about 13% of nationwide electricity generation in 2021, yes it is.

 

Yes, but a great deal of the energy we generate with a centralized power grid is lost in the distribution of that energy. The power companies and the government have a hard time understanding all the benefits that are gained from optimizing a centralized system with decentralization. Not only is it the most efficient way to reduce demand, it's also the most efficient way to downsize the grid so it's handling less load more efficiently.

 

Probably not nearly as much as you think. Generally it is 5-7% IIRC. The big high power lines you see are on the order of 500K to 1M volts. Higher voltage means lower amps for the same amount of power. Line losses are proportional to amps.

Still it is generally a good idea for homes in sunny places to have rooftop solar. You don't even need a good south facing roof. I have west facing panels and I'm only losing 10-12% compared to a more optimum southern exposure -- which instead has shade trees that eliminates the need for A/C

Mike

 

False.

Overall, users consume 93% of the energy that's generated by large, centralized generators. I don't think most people would consider 93% efficiency to be poor given the multiple changes in voltage and the size of the interconnects.

I don't think they're the ones with a lack of understanding here.

That's wrong too. The most efficient way is energy efficiency, not distributed generation.

Maybe you don't realize this, but small, distributed generation has a total life cycle cost about three times higher than large, centralized generation.

Distributed generation has its place, and I both have some and work on it at work, but it's only a portion of the solution. A real solution requires a large, strong grid that enables broad geographic diversity through sharing of energy across regions.

 

Then you should not use it. But well designed, it would meet mine.

Bob Wilson

 

Really.

So, your solar covers your house, your heating, your cooling, your transportation, all the energy used by the stores you visit, the trucks that deliver to those stores, the industries that make the products you consume, all the energy used by the support services you employ such as hospitals, banks, police, and so forth?

Covering your own personal energy use is just the start. Many people forget there are commercial and industrial sectors. Residential is about 30% of the total.

 

Every journey starts with a single step. Do what you can.

Bob Wilson

 

I've taken a lot more than one.

I've spent my entire career doing wind energy research and most, if not all modern turbines use either a technique or data I either developed or helped to produce.

I've personally reduced my own energy usage by over 50%.

And I do have solar now that can cover all my personal energy use after the energy efficiency improvements, including heating, cooling and transportation. However, I'm not quite fully electrified yet so my hydrocarbon usage is only down a little over 93%. Working on it.

In my head, the wind energy contributions cover way more than my own commercial and industrial uses while the energy efficiency and solar cover my residential uses.

 

For $2.00 / kwh ?? Yea, I'd install battery backup. California Arizona New Mexico better darn well start doing something soon. If Lake Powell, Meed, Havasu get too much lower (& the end of the drought isn't seen on the far Horizon), the hydro generators on the dams won't be spinning up much juice - to either residential, business or commercial customers.
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I did not watch the video. But a few days ago I did read the proposal for NEM 3.0 that PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) pushed through the CPUC (California Public Utility Commission) to get a bigger piece of the profits from those who invest in home solar.

PG&E's proposal is made to do two things. One, is to offset the cost of battery storage to the consumer segment. Second is to rework the rates so that they sound more attractive while actually imposing more fixed charges that will be paid without regard for actual costs or energy bought or sold. Currently proposed is $8 per KW of solar generating capacity. They claim it's to offset the costs of distributing the power, but it's a fixed cost even if you never pass a single amp of electricity across it.

PG&E's objective includes rearranging costs so that an average household takes 7-10 years to pay back instead of the current 3-4 years.

The 2 dollars per kWh that PG&E is offering during this trial is not the amount that PG&E will pay under the new NEM scheme. Under the new scheme it wants to pay the same rate that they would pay for the lowest cost energy on the market. That's currently between 2 and 4 cents per kWh. On the other hand, when you draw from the grid they want to charge the highest rate that the tariff allows. Currently that's 56 cents a kWh. Personally I'd love to have a business where I pay you 2 cents for a product that you deliver and then charge the person who uses that energy at prevailing rates of 25 to 56 cents.

The idea of the battery storage is good, but it should be done by the utility, not the home owner. Most people don't understand depreciation, degradation, shelf life and the fixed number of cycles available with a lithium based battery.

 

Off-peak electricity is generally not being wasted, aside from some being sold at give-away prices for inefficient uses. But mostly, the generators are throttled back. They can't generate electricity that has nowhere to go, as that would cause generators to over-speed and voltages to climb out of spec, a huge mess for providers and customers alike.

Not that much is lost in distribution.

Total load won't be going down. With all the point-of-use fossil fuel loads that need to be shifted to electric, the total grid load will be rising considerably. Efficiency improvements in current electric use cannot realistically offset population growth and the new electric loads shifted from fossil energy, so new generation is definitely needed.

That price seems 'optimistic'.

Storage batteries could help smooth and reduce the diurnal river flow variations in my region, caused by the varying electric demands on our hydroelectric plants, which add to riverbank erosion and fish hardship. They might even help reduce energy-wasting spillage needed to maintain required minimum flows during overnight load lulls.

But batteries won't do squat to make up for the low water levels and possible deadpools at the dams you list.