is the free ride over for grid tied solar?

[Hamloc]

Insulated Thermal tube waterers need no, or very little power to keep frost free.

Get a battery. Store cheap power use it when it's expensive. Smart fridges and freezers can run compressors when power is cheap, etc etc.

Zephyr I appreciate your positive outlook but I already looked at what storage would cost if I went off grid, it was $120000, closer to $150000 if I used interconnected Tesla power walls. Now I realize your suggesting storage to be cycled on a daily basis, when I calculated out for off grid it was recommended to have 3 to 4 days storage. But what your recommending is that consumers install storage capacity so that we are not penalized by needing to use power at night when it is more expensive. Do you really think that makes sense(cents)?

[Old Cowzilla]

I like the battery system we have in Manitoba now, there called Lakes. And the best part is we can fish and swim in them when they are being used. I have seen 50-60 days and nights in a row of -25-30 weather with a little brrreeze to keep you from sweating while outside feeding cows. That takes one hellava battery!

[chuckChuck]

A5 must be getting bored again bringing up his favorite doom and gloom story again just to see if I am still out there! So much for wanting me blocked! Is it time for another chicken photo from Blaithin? LOL

Intermittent Solar, wind and other renewables are part of the plan to reduce carbon emmisions and they are not going to replace all other forms of generation.

A5 did you forget about the story about Toyota developing a game changing solid state battery for its cars to be released in 2021? Do you think if they can power a small car for 500 km on a 10 minute charge time there might be an application as backup for other applications?

A5 you must live in a pretty negative stagnant bubble where technology stays the same for decades and the only solution to reducing carbon emissions is to keep burning fossil fuels and release more carbon?

You even tried to tell us a fictional story about how the world will be short of CO2 if we don't keep burning fossil fuels. We are still waiting for some science to back up that little tale.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Insulated Thermal tube waterers need no, or very little power to keep frost free.

Get a battery. Store cheap power use it when it's expensive. Smart fridges and freezers can run compressors when power is cheap, etc etc.

Since the supposed purpose of this excersice is to reduce CO2 emissions, have you worked out the net CO2 emissions of replacing a fleet of perfectly functioning but dumb appliances in the middle of their expected lifespans with all new smart appliances? Will the smart appliance running on mostly solar energy ( backed up by spinning fossil fuel reserves , resulting in almost no CO2 savings so far anywhere it has been attempted) ever recapture the CO2 released in the manufacture of those appliances, considering that we will have then built 2 entire fleets of appliances, and thrown one away long before its time, along with the CO2 already released in building them?

Same for the equipment used to install thermal tube waterers, and the materials themselves? I have installed one of these systems, it takes a lot of diesel fuel.

Hamloc posted the cost of a battery back up system for his farm, good for a few days, I posted a year ago that when industry installs battery backup for pure solar systems that cannot have down time, they install 3 MONTHS of battery storage. So multiply Hamlocs # by 30 to get a good estimation of the scale of this project. Hopefully some day battery tech advances to the point where this is viable, but we have a long ways to go.

Same question also applies, regarding the CO2 inherent in the battery system, duplicating the CO2 already inherent in the existing system. Does it ever recover more than it has already released?

[tweety]

I am still a little perplexed tweety, in December and January on the sunniest winter day there is what 6 hours of sunlight to produce solar power yet my furnace and my waterers require power 24 hrs. a day. So I get lower priced power during the day but I am penalized for not wanting to freeze to death and keep my waterers thawed out?! How do people that work 9-5 take advantage of this? Your belief that this is sound public policy truly baffles me!

That is why they are doing this in Australia.

You are making this more complicated then indicated. When power that is cheap to produce is available, ie solar, encourage people to use it and charge much less for it to absorb the production. When you need to heat your waterer with gas or coal powered polluting generation - yes you will pay for it. There is a huge difference between public policy that allows you to make everyone else pay for your expensive power needs when the renewable peak is not available vs policy that benefits the whole.

What it does encourage you to do is get off your butt, store the energy when it is cheap to power your device when it is not. That is forward thinking and policy that inspires innovation. I know, the stuff people here really hate. This is exactly what the policy in Aus is attempting.

For this discussion to be of any use, you should be discussing ways to get around the energy use. Perhaps as simple as a geothermal installation and a tiny pump. The earth has stored trillions of BTU from the summer. Use them.

[RD414]

I encourage anyone thinking of putting in geothermal to really check this out. I have it and my electricity cost for it is triple what natural gas is. It might work where electrical costs are still reasonable but using it here in Saskatchewan which has the highest cost of all the provinces sucks.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I encourage anyone thinking of putting in geothermal to really check this out. I have it and my electricity cost for it is triple what natural gas is. It might work where electrical costs are still reasonable but using it here in Saskatchewan which has the highest cost of all the provinces sucks.

A funny thing happened on the way to ground source geothermal being viable. Natural gas prices fell to a fraction of where they were thanks to the free market being allowed to function. And electricity prices keep going up thanks to Chuck and solar and wind being installed, completely usurping the free market mechanisms which should have drove it down right along with nat gas. It looked really promising before that.

The newer utility scale geothermal using the same tech as the frac'ing industry is a different story.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Chuck, thanks for chiming in, glad to know that all is well with you, was getting worried in your absence.
For the record, and you can verify, I've never wanted you to be blocked. I fully support your right to make an ass of yourself in public if you so desire.
I have however respectfully suggested that you tone down the rhetoric, the name calling and insults, then join the actual conversation as an equal, instead of preaching to us unwashed peasants from your position of absolute moral authority. You might be surprised at the results if posters actually respected you, and therefore your point of view.

But carry on as is if it causes ou some sort of perverse satisfaction to be wrong, ridiculed, and ostrasized every post.

[LEP]

I encourage anyone thinking of putting in geothermal to really check this out. I have it and my electricity cost for it is triple what natural gas is. It might work where electrical costs are still reasonable but using it here in Saskatchewan which has the highest cost of all the provinces sucks.

I had a neighbour put in geothermal in a new house about 7 or 8 years ago. I believe it has been removed now as it was going to break him. Maybe it is different for a large scale setup, but it is not a panacea for individuals.

[Hamloc]

That is why they are doing this in Australia.

You are making this more complicated then indicated. When power that is cheap to produce is available, ie solar, encourage people to use it and charge much less for it to absorb the production. When you need to heat your waterer with gas or coal powered polluting generation - yes you will pay for it. There is a huge difference between public policy that allows you to make everyone else pay for your expensive power needs when the renewable peak is not available vs policy that benefits the whole.

What it does encourage you to do is get off your butt, store the energy when it is cheap to power your device when it is not. That is forward thinking and policy that inspires innovation. I know, the stuff people here really hate. This is exactly what the policy in Aus is attempting.

For this discussion to be of any use, you should be discussing ways to get around the energy use. Perhaps as simple as a geothermal installation and a tiny pump. The earth has stored trillions of BTU from the summer. Use them.

Here is a couple thoughts Tweety, my average cost of electricity over the year works out to just over 19 cents a kwh. Of that 19 cents 6.8 cents a kwh is generation, the rest is transmission, distribution and administration, so even if the electrical generation is free my cost is 12.2 cents a kwh. A gigajoule of natural gas is the equivalent energy of 277 kwh of electricity which if it was generated for free would still cost me $33.79. A gigajoule of natural gas delivered to my house today all in is $8.55, which is still B.S. because the actual cost of the natural gas is $2.40. I am still getting bent over on natural gas but not as bad as if I had to rely only on electricity. So tweety “get off your butt” and explain how I am wrong!