Socially negative impacts of solar

[Nobodybusiness]

Over the next 30 years (maybe less). Everyone will leave the grid behind. The last customers left will have to bear the cost of keeping it going.
Don't be in that group.

Just my opinion. Everyone should come to their own conclusions.

I agree.

I believe more and more you will have neighborhood generation or perhaps a municipal generation but not much bigger.


It would not be that hard to set aside enough land to do this either.
5 acres of panels could produce enough for quite a few houses.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Engineers like me say, "But for the same dollars you could have done 3x as much for the environment."

The National Grid was a good idea until they decided it was about how much money they could wring out of the citizens rather than providing a service and lifting up the country for better.

 

[Hedges]

Bottom line if one has good sun and pays 2.25 to 2.75/watt for grid tied, the solar buy will be a home run as to cost vs energy produced, while producing for your neighbor, so that the grid does not have to.

No longer, unless you use it when you make it or install an "explody" battery to store power until you need it, assuming your house hasn't burned down by then.

In California, as of April 15th 2023, new adopters get less credit than power costs them to produce.

I believe more and more you will have neighborhood generation or perhaps a municipal generation but not much bigger.

It would not be that hard to set aside enough land to do this either.
5 acres of panels could produce enough for quite a few houses.

Difficulty is winter consumption, unless you have wind and hydro.
Storage of PV surplus as H2 or some hydrocarbons is a possibility.

The National Grid was a good idea until they decided it was about how much money they could wring out of the citizens rather than providing a service and lifting up the country for better.

It may have worked well as regulated monopoly until California decided to go the way of AT&T breakup so other companies could make money off it. And claimed it would reduce power cost.

 

[Skypower]

Can anyone name a program (tax) that was sold as to help the equity of the people that didn’t end up lining the pockets of a political friend?

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Difficulty is winter consumption, unless you have wind and hydro.
Storage of PV surplus as H2 or some hydrocarbons is a possibility.

Without a doubt it will have to be addressed.

I’m sure we can come up with solutions based upon our unique area resources.

The harder the POCOs push the more people will bail.

The harder you squeeze the more slips through your fingers.

 

[Skypower]

I agree.

I believe more and more you will have neighborhood generation or perhaps a municipal generation but not much bigger.


It would not be that hard to set aside enough land to do this either.
5 acres of panels could produce enough for quite a few houses.

You need to factor in the payoffs to the environmentalists that would have a problem with covering big patches of land with panels.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

You need to factor in the payoffs to the environmentalists that would have a problem with covering big patches of land with panels.

This is private land. If they have that much power then we have a problem.

 

[Skypower]

This is private land. If they have that much power then we have a problem.

Depending on the “Karen” factor in your area.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Depending on the “Karen” factor in your area.

Always a problem no matter what.

I’m not sure how to incorporate power production POD legally but they have deed restrictions all the time about what you can do and can’t.

If you don’t agree to them then you can’t buy the property.

I think that’s probably the way it will have to be done.

If its deed recorded the Karen can whine all she wants.

 

[timselectric]

Around here there's a charge for water runoff into the storm drain system. It's added to the sewer bill.
I'm not on the sewer system. So I didn't have that charge for many years.
Now it's been added to the water bill, for people that have a septic system.
I wonder what they will do, when I dig the well. lol

 

[Crowz]

I keep seeing "rich get richer" solar wise but it actually will level out. The ones that can afford to buy solar will eventually need to "refresh" their panels and those used panels can be used by people that normally couldn't afford panels so I think this one may be a trickle down effect that will level out eventually. Those old panels have to go somewhere.

The part that is causing regulations power/solar wise are the people wanting to sell their power back. I don't do that and don't want to do that so I just get stuck with the mess from the ones wanting to sell back.

 

[Ampster]

The last customers left will have to bear the cost of keeping it going.
Don't be in that group.

That is known as the utility death spiral. In California there is a proposal for a large fixed charge which may forestall that happening in California.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Around here there's a charge for water runoff into the storm drain system. It's added to the sewer bill.
I'm not on the sewer system. So I didn't have that charge for many years.
Now it's been added to the water bill, for people that have a septic system.
I wonder what they will do, when I dig the well. lol

They have been doing that here for years.

Storm water charge.

I know in Mecklenburg county when they ran water down a street they made all the home owners attach to it whether they had Well or septic.

 

[Ampster]

I believe more and more you will have neighborhood generation or perhaps a municipal generation but not much bigger.

In California with deregulation in 2000 the Investor Owned Utilities were forced to sell off their generation assets. All they own is the distribution and transmission assets. Also Community Choice Aggregation has taken some of the generation revenue from the IOUs so with CCAs we already have regional entities providing power. Some of that power is purchased in the marketplace and some is procured from local solar farms.

 

[venquessa]

5 acres of panels could produce enough for quite a few houses.

FL I assume is Florida.

You try finding 5 acres of land per 5 houses in the UK. We get about 10x7 meters or just less than a hectre for our houses. We have a different issue. Having screwed farmers over a few too many times, a lot of them have started converting the fields to solar farms. They are seeing a rapid reduction in land classed as "actively growing food". This is an issue as a country needs to be able to feed itself through times of trouble and I see a lot of that on the horizons.

We pay a fortune on all energy/fuels. Virtually no source of energy is tax free. Fuel oils, gas, petrol, all fossil fuels are taxed. Renewables are heavily taxed, but not by the governments, but by the companies installng it and the investment banks funding it and stacking energy futures against it for the new owner.

Why should solar be different?

In the UK, you can, still make your own bio-diesel, but that is in the queue for being brought under unlawful distillation stuff. In the UK, you are forbidden to distill alcohol for human consumption. Cold or hot. Not without an expensive license.

Energy is societies freedom. Energy goes hand in hand with good education, good food, good quality of life, long life. Countries who use the most have the most prosperity.

Energy is empowering.

So it must be regulated and taxed the death!

 

[Leeds]

In the UK, you are forbidden to distill alcohol for human consumption. Cold or hot. Not without an expensive license

Wow, I always heard it called the "nanny state" but I thought that was because they banned guns and then knives.

Here in the US of A we can distill all the liquor we want. We just have to drink it ourselves or give it away free to our friends. It's the possible tax-avoidance that drives the regulations. On what basis does the nanny state say people can't heat and cool alcohol at all?

 

[venquessa]

You are extremely unlikely to get done for it, but if you buy a still kit or a "prohibition kit" off Amazon they say it's for distilling ethanol for bio-diesel... cough cough.

However... shadey types do indeed distill and sell liquor. In Ireland we call it potsheen. Brewed out of potatoes (of course), absolutely deadly and I always wondered if the name came from "pot sheen" in that it's powerful enough to strip paint and give the pots a sheen.

It's basically irish moonshine.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

FL I assume is Florida.

You try finding 5 acres of land per 5 houses in the UK. We get about 10x7 meters or just less than a hectre for our houses.

We pay a fortune on all energy/fuels. Virtually no source of energy is tax free. Fuel oils, gas, petrol, all fossil fuels are taxed. Renewables are heavily taxed, but not by the governments, but by the companies installng it and the investment banks funding it and stacking energy futures against it for the new owner.

Why should solar be different?

In the UK, you can, still make your own bio-diesel, but that is in the queue for being brought under unlawful distillation stuff. In the UK, you are forbidden to distill alcohol for human consumption. Cold or hot. Not without an expensive license.

Energy is societies freedom. Energy goes hand in hand with good education, good food, good quality of life, long life. Countries who use the most have the most prosperity.

Energy is empowering.

So it must be regulated and taxed the death!

Not in Florida And I was just speaking to Americans. I guess I will have to preface that from now on.

I don’t live in the UK and wouldn’t propose or tell them how they should do things in their country.

It’s also not an acre per house.

My array is 40 panels 19.2 KW and is 70’x 15’
Or 1/43rd of an acre. That’s 480w panels.

So at that calculation you could get 215 houses per 5 acres.
If you used commercial panels then would get even more power per acre.

Your situation is different with different laws.
Going to be up to you to find a solution.

 

[venquessa]

In other related news, specific to the UK.

EVs and EV chargers are presenting a bit of an issue. As well as islanding off-grid installations.

All down to how our funky "Earth" wiring it "provided" by the utility. While some older underground cables had lead outer layers in contact with the Earth for the full length of the cable and thus providing 2 conductors, one "phase" one "Neutral and Earth". Newer underground cable is plastic wrapped and has two physical conductors, one phase, one neutral+earth.

Inside of the houses, that one "PNE - Protective neutral and earth" is split into 2 conductors providing a local fault current path.

Critically this PNE also gets bonded to everything metallic in the vicinity, including water mains, seweres, gas mains, drains etc.

It's entirely artificial however and if a break happens in that PNE cable anywhere between the property and the transformer where it is actually earthed, all 3 conductors become live at some fraction of the grid mains voltage at the transformed. Including the protective earth.

This has much more significant impact for EVs however. They are sitting on rubber wheels and a user touching the metal frame while standing on the ground can become a route for the grid 240V to return to earth via them.

Before the safety folks got started into it, people were just installing earth rods with chargers. However said safety folks have pointed out, that in the event the grid nuetral is disconnected ALL earth bonded pipes and underground furniture becomes live at 240V and anywhere within 2-3meters could still have greater than 70VAC and be termed "lethal". So the Earth rod buried beside the gas pipe aint going to help.

To meet the new safety regulations, properties are converting to TT entirely, which is requiring not just an earth rod, but an entire earth grid be laid under the dry way.

I expect kick back if it hasn't already happened, but as far as I understand it, right now most home EV chargers are either incorrectly installed, barely safe or completely cowboy'd in.

 

[Ampster]

This has much more significant impact for EVs however. They are sitting on rubber wheels and a user touching the metal frame while standing on the ground can become a route for the grid 240V to return to earth via them.

In the USA most EVSEs have Ground Fault Circuit Interruption built in to them. The EVSE is essentially a relay and it does not close and send power to the vehicle until the safety checks are complete. Also on most EVs the AC side of the charger is isolated from the vehicle chassis. Therefore there is little risk in that situation of a user being shocked. Sounds like this may be unique to the UK. Doesn't most of Europe use three phase?