Solar Power

[team dirt]

Lignite is actually not as good as many coals but the news here is that 36% was from wind and solar. In the UK, 29% was from wind and solar. As the technology improves, it will account for more. A 36% contribution is pretty significant in my view.

You have to be careful with those numbers. 36% is the gross contribution. At around 22-25% efficiency from wind and solar the true real world contribution is much less. They just take the average grid demand and take the total rated output from wind and solar and come up with the potential percentage. It looks good on paper and makes people feel good but in reality we now need more demand generators sitting idle waiting to take on the demand as needed. The existing coal plants idle back the boilers when the winds blowing and suns shining and if you know boilers that’s very inefficient. It’s the whole rob Peter to pay Paul scenario.

 

[jhurkot]

What exactly has improved quite a bit in the last 10 years with solar?

Panels haven’t become more efficient, you can’t transfer more amps through the same diameter cable, if you are using batteries for storage controllers can only charge them to full, batteries are still batteries.

And I wouldn’t say the price is way down. Chinese panels have reduced the cost a little but it’s not way down.

Cost per watt is way down.

 

[X-it]

Thank goodness we had a great leader christy Clark, listening to the real experts and went ahead with site C dam. To hell with the 10 wind farms we have going running on unicorn farts. In Alberta you guys had fairy tales in charge of your grid who went for the bird slicer route. Lets see how that works out for you.

 

[jhurkot]

Thank goodness we had a great leader christy Clark, listening to the real experts and went ahead with site C dam. To hell with the 10 wind farms we have going running on unicorn farts. In Alberta you guys had fairy tales in charge of your grid who went for the bird slicer route. Lets see how that works out for you.

Bird slicers ha ha. You realize cats kill hundreds of millions of birds annually while windmills are 20 to 40 thousand.

 

[Cdnfireman]

Look at California. They have wind farms old enough that they’re at the end of their life cycles. Nobody wants to pay to dismantle and recycle them, and they’re asking for government to pay the costs. So the wind farms are subsidized from the start and now they want subsidies to remove them. What a scam!

 

[Stg2Suby]

Great thread. I try to keep an open mind and was hoping solar/wind was contributing. But that Nelson project looks like it's never made more than 25% nameplate (15kW peak in August vs 60kW nameplate) and now that it's winter its essentially zero. In Alberta the Brooks Solar project is nameplated at 15MW and currently producing 0MW, they are online are they not? And Alberta wind generation is total 1445MW and currently contributing 61MW!

 

[X-it]

I am so happy to see actual numbers being posted at those plants ...usually that is not available so hidden agendas can prevail. Subsidies and kickbacks coming before common sense.

 

[Dawizman]

Any links for the Brooks plant? Haven't been able to track down output numbers. Curious to see the numbers over the course of a year.

 

[Stg2Suby]

This site is great, surprised its not locked down. Maybe one of the benefits of a deregulated market here in Alberta

http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/CSDReportServlet

 

[team dirt]

Great thread. I try to keep an open mind and was hoping solar/wind was contributing. But that Nelson project looks like it's never made more than 25% nameplate (15kW peak in August vs 60kW nameplate) and now that it's winter its essentially zero. In Alberta the Brooks Solar project is nameplated at 15MW and currently producing 0MW, they are online are they not? And Alberta wind generation is total 1445MW and currently contributing 61MW!

The sun is shining hard in Brooks right now but we just got about 10cm of snow so all the panels are covered. I watch the aeso website a lot and it’s very seldom brooks is over 7 or 8. A few times in July mid day I saw 13. I work at the Alta gas parkland and bantry generating stations and they literally make the same power with a footprint 1/16 the size and they can do it 24hrs a day.

 

[Stg2Suby]

So not surprisingly the wind & solar efforts may be more of a feel good story than a practical solution, for the near term the best we can do is replace coal with nat gas to reduce the CO2 output by whatever percent. I'm surprised the nuclear option isn't brought up more as a practical way forward.

 

[Dawizman]

This site is great, surprised its not locked down. Maybe one of the benefits of a deregulated market here in Alberta

http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/CSDReportServlet

Nice. Funny thing is that is, my company provides the network connection for the aeso systems at a bunch of those plants. I've never actually seen the data though.

 

[Stg2Suby]

Nice. Funny thing is that is, my company provides the network connection for the aeso systems at a bunch of those plants. I've never actually seen the data though.

Ha there you go! Now you've seen the fruit of your labours in action. Although if the comms crashes we now know who to blame LOL

 

[sledn]

This site is great, surprised its not locked down. Maybe one of the benefits of a deregulated market here in Alberta

http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/CSDReportServlet

BC seems to hide their report..couldn't find it. Very expensive labor to maintain solar and wind power - that reports don't count in their pricing. Soon as the subsidies end, no provider can operate anywhere world ((Enter.Carbon Tax)) . Not a chance in Canada -Solar or wind.

 

[team dirt]

From what I’ve been told about our wind from a vesta service tech is that the wind here sucks for power because it’s so gusty and not just a stable consistent wind. I guess the windmills can adjust the blades fast enough to speed up and slow down to maintain the 60hz. Not sure what happens then as I have zero experience in wind power.

 

[X-it]

This site is great, surprised its not locked down. Maybe one of the benefits of a deregulated market here in Alberta

http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/CSDReportServlet

Great site, Nice to see how much TNG from the wind mills. How the hell can they hide these figures from the public. Basically all the wind mills produce sweet f all, and the lose efficiency after 10 years they are down 16%. But I guess 16% of 0 is still nothing but a large tax payer bailout.

 

[Stg2Suby]

I was poking around the Ontario IESO website and they have daily pdf format reports on generation. Their wind generation was much better, typically 50% to 75% of the nameplate rated. So maybe there's something up with the Alberta wind reporting, or like team dirt said our wind just sucks. Its ridiculously low though, currently 43MW

 

[skegpro]

If solar power made economic sense it wouldn't be subsidized.

Private corporations would be beating down the doors to start privately funded solar farms.

But you don't see any of this.

 

[X-it]

Well glad to see Alberta has not been fudging the numbers.



http://www.windontario.ca/

 

[Stg2Suby]

Found a 12 hour wind energy forecast report from the AESO website