Charging in future environment of excess solar power

That would be great if it takes lots of electricity. That is exactly what we want to store, huge amounts of energy. It would be horrible if the overall efficiency is low overall however. That is one of the details I was after. Another big issue may be flexibility. Can this storage/regeneration handle the variations of storing energy from changing solar and wind generators? (I was thinking that a lot of the problems of grid incorporation of solar and wind be fundamentally solved with a flexible and direct storage technology.) If done right, the water needed is a one time thing, not a continuous flow. And given how much energy results from combining H2 and O2, the amount of water has to be orders of magnitude less than what any type of power plant uses. It seems to me California could make great use of a solar power generation station with a major storage component allowing 24/7 operation and not needing any continuous water supply.

 

interesting - in our SoCal area, Edison is our utility. Our yearly true up wholesale payout is only 2.9¢/kwh. If during a short/cold rainy winter one MONTH billing cycle, we ran tons of Xmas lights, electric heaters etc, we could use lots of expensive Tier 4 electricity that costs us $400
- but if our high solar production summer months only get credited at tier 1 or 2 .... even though spring & summer surplus is lots more kWh's - the tier 3 & 4 usage can easily wipe out 100's of PV surplus kWh's. Found that out the hard way, back before the utility was forced to pay for surplus - & i though we'll just burn it all ourselves in one month. Oops.
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Water can also be used as pumped storage: in times of excess power you pump the water up some height and when you need power you let it flow down over generators. This very flexible and is in use throughout the world.

 

And totally unavailable on the scale needed. No question it works. No question it is used worldwide. But everywhere it can be done it has been done, thus leaving extremely few possibilities for expansion. For example, there is no option for doing that in all of Florida.

 

So if you burn through your net energy surplus in a given month, you'll be charged for any kWh you use beyond that surplus amount at in the highest tier you're in?

 

No no .... If you burn through all your surplus, then start burning utility power, you first get charged at tier 1 - the lowest rate (1st 600kWh's/mo) being about 12.5¢ per kWh. Tier 1 is tantamount to a large fridg, & an occasional 75watt light bulb. Then tier II (still pretty frugal) you pay at around 20¢/kWh - between 600kWh's & 850kWh's ... but above that, the utility starts to hammer you. 30¢/kWh Tier III, then wham ... Tier IV, where the the customer REALLY takes it in the shorts.

 

Ah, ok, that's not so bad.

 

Also, material sciences advance in bringing the cost and application n o super conducting cables to the masses.
This will be a big plus in solar transmission to the end user.

DBCassidy

 

This is a very complex engineering question. In california PGE land, you get credit for the excess power you produce and it is only balanced out once a year. So if you produce more in a given month you will get credit in the follow month up to the year limit. At the end of the year if you produce more than you used, you get paid a very small amount...hence, it is to your advantage to use all your power in the year..my end date is January so if i have a big net going into this time, I just heat my home with Electricity..

Charging during the day is generally not advisable since there is a 3 for 1 trade off if you do it at night..that is you pay roughly 1/3.

There is some issues associated with ramping plants to produce the power and having some running even though they are not producing power but that is better managed by Cal ISO than individual homeowners. They can sell that excess electricity on the open market, or just let it idle without producing electricity...

Generally my panels are producing the max excess power during the hottest times of the day when there is more than ample demand for the power.

 

That's true, IF you are on a TOU rate schedule. The utilities (especially SCE) have been doing more to make that rate schedule untenable to solar users, as peak rates go far into the evening past generation abilities to be net zero during those hours. They've gerrymandered "peak" to start at 2pm, rather than the previous 12 noon, and it extends to 8pm (rather than the previous 6pm).

I say "no thanks" to TOU tiered rates, at least as present rates are structured. It's a bad deal, unless you have near zero usage during late afternoon and almost half of each evening.

 

Well heck - back in the day, when the PUC 1st allowed TOU, iirc, peak rates only ran from 10am to 6pm. There may still be some that are grandfathered on that plan. Don't get me started ....
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