PV potential by US state

[mooncliff]

Another piece of the energy resource puzzle.

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/20...on/#bozoanchor

If we fix the antiquated US energy grid, having distributed generation should make the overall electricity supply more robust?

[c1ue]

Re: PV potential by US state

I've noted before: PV is nice, but real world experience in Germany and Spain have shown that PV and other alternative energy programs like wind require an equal amount of fossil fuel or nuclear backup.

The US already has 3 regional grids which don't interface well - but the real problem is that transmission of electricity doesn't work well over long distances.

Fixing that problem is a technology heavy one: superconductors are required.

Either that or some way of storing electricity is necessary either at a local power company or individual level - again major investment and research necessary.

Out of curiosity: what happens when there is a storm in Hawaii? How well does your solar water heater work?

[mooncliff]

Re: PV potential by US state

If it rains for a couple of days straight, the water will become lukewarm, so you flip a lightswitch and a heating element inside turns on. Half an hour or so of turning on the heater is enough for two people to shower, and then you just flip the switch off. We turn it on rarely because where we live has such strong insolation even in the winter that an hour of sun is enough to make the water in the entire tank hot. It is a thermosiphon solar heater, so water circulates simply by the water heating up; there is no pump, so except when we turn the internal heater on, it does not use any power at all. I would say about 11 months out of the year, you can use unlimited hot water for washing clothes and doing the dishes, and a family of four can take showers with no problem. If you will regularly need more hot water, you can add another panel. However, almost always, the problem is the water is too hot, and we have to cover one of the panels.

One small benefit is that since the system does not usually use any power, even when we have had blackouts, the water is hot as usual, so even neighbors can come over to take a hot shower.

The solar water heater is of a design that is 40 years old. The corner of one panel has rusted off, but the system has worked fine for 30 years with just two service cleanings. Newer designs will probably be more efficient. My heater will not withstand freezing, and that is why the typical design now for places where the temperatures might fall that low is evacuated tube panels. Basically this design uses clear glass thermos bottles around pipes containing water or a carrier with antifreeze. I think the best models are rated to withstand minus 30 degrees F for several days before problems would occur. You could turn on a heater or drain the system to avoid water freezing in the pipes.

If you have a system with a pump, the pump would use 1/10th the power of actually heating the water using electricity, but you can have a tank of very large capacity and so can store a lot of hot water.

In northern areas, some people install the solar panels vertically on a south facing wall because the time they need the heat the most is the winter when the water temperature is at its lowest. Vertical installation means there is no snow accumulation to clear off.

[mooncliff]

Re: PV potential by US state

I've noted before: PV is nice, but real world experience in Germany and Spain have shown that PV and other alternative energy programs like wind require an equal amount of fossil fuel or nuclear backup.

Yes, it is too bad, especially for Germany (50 degrees N, cloudy), that the insolation is so low. Even Madrid is the same latitude as New York (40 degrees N). I think that if the insolations were higher, they would have had a better outcome sooner.

Where I live on Oahu (23 N), it is so sunny that the insolation is 5 to 7 kilowatts per square meter per day (the panels are tipped to the south) and the 4 square meter solar collector is capturing about 25 kilowatt-hours per day. This used to be a curse, but the elastomeric heat reflecting roof has made this a nonissue.

I plan to install bifacial photovoltaic panels (both sides glass), that give about 120% of the output of a one sided panel, vertically over a white roof. That means the insolation on the solar panels will be approximately 2 suns, that is, 10 to 14 kilowatts per square meter of photovoltaic collector per day (think solar panels in whiteout conditions). The manufacturer will have a new plant on line by April and says that prices should drop by about 25%, which means that a 200 watt panel output equivalent will drop to around $600. Companies are trying to get the cost of the inverters down and the cost of installation down by simplifying system design. This is why I think the system prices will drop by half or 3/4 in a few years. We have reached the obviously exponential part of the curve.

Genetic therapies were a disaster for 20 years, but finally the bugs were worked out, and they have started to fulfill their promise. Progress will now be very rapid.

Ray Kurzweil describes how technology goes through a period in which advance seems to be imperceptibly slow, and then goes through obvious exponential improvement. We see this pattern over and over again, and it seems to be very very robust.
While photovoltaics will probably not go through exponential improvement like computing, we don't need a 1,000-fold improvement in individual systems; we just need 4. We just need to get a 5 kilowatt, $30,000 system down to $7,000 or so.
Kurzweil thinks we can soon. See from times index 5:40
http://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurzwei...niversity.html

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/a...ml?printable=1

[mooncliff]

Re: PV potential by US state

The greatest tool for estimating future technology is understanding the exponential function.

Price performance approximately doubles every year.

If solar energy expand by approximately doubling each year, if 2010 is 1, we get 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1,024 times current power from solar by the year 2020.

Kurzweil discusses decentralized, secure energy supplies and photovoltaics.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurzwei...nsform_us.html

[lurker]

Re: PV potential by US state

Living in MA the problem I have with PV is that electricity usage accounts for less than 1/4 of our total energy bill since we use barely any AC (a window unit for a couple of weeks a year) and we have gas heating. Of course generating electric from PV and then using an electric heater makes absolutely no sense at all from an overall efficiency point of view : better to improve the passive solar gain of your house with a south facing skylight.

This makes the ROI for PV a bit of a loser. The low hanging fruit for reducing our electric bill / footprint was switching to CFLs and replacing the fridge (which we will only do when the current one dies). We also switched our electric provide to one whose primary source is wind energy.

If we lived in a warmer climate where AC was a larger proportion of our energy usage I think PV would make a lot of sense. If we moved to AZ I'd have a PV panel on the roof within the first 12 months.

I think solar hot water has more potential nationwide as it has a much higher efficiency, and hot water is something that we all use, probably in similar amounts (I'm not going to question the personal hygene of any regions of the US ;) )

I do like the idea of decentralized power generation, though.

[mooncliff]

Re: PV potential by US state

Living in MA the problem I have with PV is that electricity usage accounts for less than 1/4 of our total energy bill since we use barely any AC (a window unit for a couple of weeks a year) and we have gas heating. Of course generating electric from PV and then using an electric heater makes absolutely no sense at all from an overall efficiency point of view : better to improve the passive solar gain of your house with a south facing skylight.

Yes, I totally agree that it would be inefficient to use PV to run electric heaters if you have gas.

Perhaps if the heat pumps improve, electricity might work. Most people in Tokyo use heat pumps that are air conditioners/dehumidifiers/heaters. The problem is the only work well down to about freezing (because it takes less energy to move heat than to create it), so in very cold places they are not useful.

The fuel cells and microgenerators might get much better over the next decade, so you could use gas to generate electricity and then the waste heat could be used to heat water and for space heating. The problem is that they are way too expensive now. Perhaps in 10 years the prices will come down to the point where they are practical.

[we_are_toast]

Re: PV potential by US state

Massive hydrogen storage technology could be a big game changer here. As the wind and solar projects get larger and larger, an improvement in hydrogen storage and it's subsequent conversion to electricity via fuel cells or combustion, would make the economics of solar and wind even more attractive than what they already are.

[Starving Steve]

Re: PV potential by US state

This is how the pot-heads on Vancouver Island think: "If we had 'improvements' in hydrogen-fuel cells, our solar and wind and tidal power would work fine."

Sobering-up for a minute, hydrogen fuel cells cost about $30,000 per household, and then you add-in the costs of the windmill or solar panels and the other hidden costs, and you are talking about a fortune.

Oh yes, costs can come down in time, BUT RARELY EXPONENTIALLY. And just as likely as not, costs could go UP in time due to central bank purposefully created good old-fashioned inflation.

But I don't want to spoil the party.... So enjoy your next toke of whatever it is that you are smoking.

Drill-down 6,500 feet under your house, and you have endless geo-thermal power. Mine the depths of the world's oceans and you have almost limitless reserves of methyl-hydrate ice. A "smart electric-grid" would create energy from nothing, and we may all be driving plug-in type electric cars someday too. So everything may work-out fine, if we only have faith.... I do NOT.

I do NOT have faith in the future because of the costs of so-called eco-friendly alternative energy, not to mention the bogus science behind such vague terms as, "smart-grid technology". (Maybe "scatter-brained technology" would be the more precise term to use.)

The Sooke Basin has huge tidal power potential; no mind that our venture into tidal power in that Basin has been largely for not. We only need more tidal power plants.... Just keep building more and more and more of what doesn't work very well, and everything might turn-out fine in the end.... After all, money earns nothing in the bank now, so why not waste more taxpayer money on something that just might produce a watt or two of power?

Live in the dark, make pine-cone soup, and smell from taking one shower per month. Wash your clothes in your rain-pipe cistern using the new "improved" cold water detergent. The Hell's Angels or the Taliban might drop-in to pick-up your pot harvest too. There might even be a carbon-tax credit cheque waiting for you in your mail box too!.... Could life be any better?

Sad to say: this is precisely why the best days of British Columbia are now long past. A province blessed by abundant water for hydro-electric dams has chosen another course: salmon habitat preservation, "sustainable development", greenbelts, and restriction on "urban sprawl".

Manitoba has 5018 mega-watts now in developed hydro-electric power, and British Columbia has next-to-nothing. And even more promising, British Columbia has no atomic power, no coal power, no new gas power, no new power, period.... But not-to-worry: since 2001, British Columbia has imported power from Washington-state to be politically-correct and to keep its lights-on for the Olympics in 2010.

[mooncliff]

Re: PV potential by US state

Massive hydrogen storage technology could be a big game changer here. As the wind and solar projects get larger and larger, an improvement in hydrogen storage and it's subsequent conversion to electricity via fuel cells or combustion, would make the economics of solar and wind even more attractive than what they already are.

Actually, I don't think hydrogen as a gas is a very good storage medium because it leaks through even solid steel. The only way I can see around that is to have it stored in some kind of carrier material like carbon nanotubes or carbonized chicken feathers.
http://lib.stanford.edu/engineering-...store-hydrogen

I think the best thing for residential would be greatly improved battery technology. That way if there is a change over to smartmeters and electricity is sold at different rates depending on demand, you could even buy low and sell high. Perhaps car batteries could be reused.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalca...electric-cars/
Or perhaps something like this will work.
http://solar.calfinder.com/blog/prod...ution-by-2011/

Did you see the Kurzweil videos above? He is one of the greatest inventors of our age, and it is amazing how what he has said has come to pass more or less on schedule. I talked to a German photovoltaic engineer last year, and he said that system costs would drop by half to three-quarters in a 2 to 4 years due to huge economies of scale coming online and production processes that use much less of the expensive materials.

[mooncliff]

Re: PV potential by US state

Photovoltaic installation blog.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/bl...chi-2009-10-29

[Starving Steve]

Re: PV potential by US state

Actually, I don't think hydrogen as a gas is a very good storage medium because it leaks through even solid steel. The only way I can see around that is to have it stored in some kind of carrier material like carbon nanotubes or carbonized chicken feathers.
http://lib.stanford.edu/engineering-...store-hydrogen

I think the best thing for residential would be greatly improved battery technology. That way if there is a change over to smartmeters and electricity is sold at different rates depending on demand, you could even buy low and sell high. Perhaps car batteries could be reused.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalca...electric-cars/
Or perhaps something like this will work.
http://solar.calfinder.com/blog/prod...ution-by-2011/

Did you see the Kurzweil videos above? He is one of the greatest inventors of our age, and it is amazing how what he has said has come to pass more or less on schedule. I talked to a German photovoltaic engineer last year, and he said that system costs would drop by half to three-quarters in a 2 to 4 years due to huge economies of scale coming online and production processes that use much less of the expensive materials.

The German, French, and Spanish engineers are in love with solar power. The European Consortium wants to develop solar power in the Sahara Desert, no-mind to the transmission costs for electric power across the Mediterranian Sea back to Europe.

The Danish engineers love windmills, not to mention the Dutch, German, and French engineers, too.

All this plus, the Italian engineers still love the old Fiat. The eastern Europeans now remember the failure and poverty of communism nastaligically. And real estate along the shore of the Mediterranian Sea is valued in the millions-of-dollars.

Al Gore is more popular in Europe than America, not-to-mention that Al Gore was handed a Nobel Prize by the Norwegians --- the same bunch who gave Yasser Arafat a Nobel Peace Prize too.

Could this all be a sign that the Euro just might be a bit over-valued? :confused:

[MulaMan]

Re: PV potential by US state

Solar power is the future, the technology with keep improving, human beings have a long track record of that kind of thing...

on the other hand, some human beings have a retard gene, scared of any change even if it greatly improves thier own life.

[we_are_toast]

Re: PV potential by US state

Actually, I don't think hydrogen as a gas is a very good storage medium because it leaks through even solid steel. The only way I can see around that is to have it stored in some kind of carrier material like carbon nanotubes or carbonized chicken feathers.
http://lib.stanford.edu/engineering-...store-hydrogen

I think the best thing for residential would be greatly improved battery technology. That way if there is a change over to smartmeters and electricity is sold at different rates depending on demand, you could even buy low and sell high. Perhaps car batteries could be reused.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalca...electric-cars/
Or perhaps something like this will work.
http://solar.calfinder.com/blog/prod...ution-by-2011/

Did you see the Kurzweil videos above? He is one of the greatest inventors of our age, and it is amazing how what he has said has come to pass more or less on schedule. I talked to a German photovoltaic engineer last year, and he said that system costs would drop by half to three-quarters in a 2 to 4 years due to huge economies of scale coming online and production processes that use much less of the expensive materials.

Yes, I fully agree that current hydrogen storage technology is not adequate. I was not suggesting that hydrogen storage should be used by residences. I believe the future will have a far more distributed electrical generation approach compared to the massive centralized generation we currently have. The wind farms that are popping up would be more economically viable than they already are if they had a storage capacity for windless days.

I've posted here several times that a breakthrough in battery technology would be a huge game changer. The transitional path for transportation from hybrids->pluggable hybrids->full electric, would occur fairly rapidly with a small technology advance in batteries. It may even smooth out the Peak Cheap Oil GDP graph that iTulip anticipates in the future.

Since I live off the grid and 98% of my electrical usage is generated by photovoltaics and a small wind generator, and 75% of my space heating needs are generated from passive and active solar, I am very amused by Starving Steves (no offense Steve;)), lengthy rants against Solar and wind.

[Rajiv]

Re: PV potential by US state

Since I live off the grid and 98% of my electrical usage is generated by photovoltaics and a small wind generator, and 75% of my space heating needs are generated from passive and active solar, I am very amused by Starving Steves (no offense Steve;)), lengthy rants against Solar and wind.

You might be interested in this little snippet

Refrigerator Needs 100 Watt-Hours of Electricity a Day

Chest refrigerator. Photo © Tom Chalko.

If you've ever wondered how all the ice cream and french fries in supermarket freezers remain frozen even though the freezers don't have lids, well, it's because cold air is heavy and settles at the bottom.

Tom Chalko, an Australian scientist and inventor, used this property of air and some electronic apparatus to lower the energy usage of a chest freezer to just 100 watt-hours a day (pdf).

Which is the same amount of electricity a 100-watt bulb burns in an hour.

As if that weren't enough, he used the freezer as a fridge, setting it at between 4° and 7° C (39° and 45° F). Freezers typically run at 0° to -25° C (32° to -13° F).

Here's how Chalko did it.

He bought a 239-liter (8.4-cubic-foot) Vestfrost SE255 chest freezer and a battery-powered thermostat that had a digital temperature display and an internal latching relay. He took the thermostat apart and rigged it up so he could hang it on the wall and still have it cut power to the compressor when the appliance reached a certain temperature.

And then he sat back and watched his new chest refrigerator exceed his expectations. In the first 24 hours, the fridge used up 103 Wh. The compressor worked for only 90 seconds an hour.

100 Wh a day is 36.5 kWh per year. A fridge of similar size sold in the U.S.A. typically consumes about 317 kWh per year. Which makes Chalko's fridge about 9 times more efficient than an average appliance-store fridge.

Sure, it's a chest fridge, which is somewhat inconvenient, what with all the bending to retrieve food from lower shelves. There's a good reason why no manufacturer makes chest refrigerators.

But if you were set on saving energy with a chest fridge, you could put in movable shelves. Or not use the lower part of the fridge at all.