Rolling Blackouts Across Tennessee and Alabama

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A heat pump is pretty efficient at heating in mild weather but useless in the current temperatures so I'd guess that even those with heat pumps have fallen back to their resistive heating backups.
It would depend on the type of heat pump.
The most common type (here in New Zealand) using outside air as your heat source you’d be correct. An uncommon type in New Zealand, but used in some commercial buildings of using city water pipes as your heat source (most well known building in New Zealand using this is the Christchurch Town Hall) would be fine.
Very uncommon in New Zealand, but I have seen more often used in the UK of ground sourced Heat Pumps wouldn’t have a problem at all as long as the pump element is still working
 
Most heat pumps usually have a low ambient temperature cut off point of about 35 degrees as they work pretty good above that temperature and are almost completely worthless below that temperature. So the efficiency drops like the backside of Mount Everest to protect the compressor from liquid slug back, then they just shut the compressor off at about 35 and let that electric meter spin around on resistive Heat
 
I do not mean to be mean... but people are ALWAYS ragging on California. Yeah... have a nut. You reap what you sow.

Yet I do care about YOU even if you despise us. I wish all well, and warm, and safe.
 
I'm sure everyone has heard of the hamster dance. Where you go dound and round in circles trying to get to the optimal solution. There's no easy solution to this issue. If there was, someone would point out the blooming obvious..... Even the electricity suppliers would have a problem coming up with 1 solution.
I've run the numbers for solar and economically it doesn't make sense to install it in the US. 13-16K US$install costs. That's nuts. Something wrong there with prices... I can get the same system installed here for 4k AU$ ish. No wonder you guys are saying the numbers dont stack up. They don't....
 
Paywall.
We have several wind and solar farms connected to the grid.
More added every year.
Looks like a paywall, but just a big window you can close if you find the top right "X".

Article says, notably:
"At the end of 2021, there were 8,100 projects sitting in line, waiting for permission to get connected. Together, they represent more than the combined power capacity of all U.S. electricity plants."

The reason is that:
"The system just wasn’t built to handle this kind of volume,” Gahl said."

So you're gonna have some people saying it's because of the booming renewable projects, and others saying it's because people on the old projects don't want to move out or transition. One solution is to increase grid line capacity to accomodate everyone. Another is to give priority to projects that meet certain criteria.

As for heat pumps, here's an interesting project, but I don't want to hijjack this thread so I'll also post it where it won't hijack anything.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/residential-cold-climate-heat-pump-challenge
 
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Paywall.
We have several wind and solar farms connected to the grid.
More added every year.
This little-known bottleneck is blocking clean energy for millions
Energy developers want to build a ton of wind and solar — they just can’t get it connected to the grid
By Shannon Osaka December 20, 2022 at 6:30 a.m. EST

To achieve America’s goal of shifting 80 percent of the country’s electricity away from fossil fuels by the end of the decade, there will have to be a massive transformation. That means solar farms peppering the landscape from California to New York; offshore wind turbines standing high above the waves off the coast of New Jersey; nuclear power plants emitting steam in rural areas. Together, these projects would have to add around 950 gigawatts of new clean energy and 225 gigawatts of energy storage to the grid.

And right now, projects accounting for at least 930 gigawatts of clean energy capacity and 420 gigawatts of storage are waiting to be built across the country.

They just can’t get connected to the grid.

These roadblocks — known as “interconnection queues” — are slowing America’s energy transition and the country’s ability to respond to climate change.

“It’s a huge problem,” said David Gahl, executive director of the Solar and Storage Industries Institute, a research group affiliated with the solar industry. “If we don’t make changes, we’re not going to meet state and federal targets for climate change.”

To understand the lines blocking the U.S.’s progress on climate change, you first have to understand a bit about how the electricity grid works. It’s easiest to think about the grid — which carries electrons — like the country’s roads carrying cars.

Electrons are produced by a power plant, sent to a substation (those big systems of crisscrossing wires and transformers often near a big city center), and then connected to huge, high-voltage transmission lines that carry power across the country. Transmission lines carry electrons long distances across the country, much like interstate highways. Those electrons then pass into the “distribution” system, which is much like the smaller side streets, expressways, and roads that lead to individual homes and businesses.

When an energy developer wants to build a new power plant, they have to submit an application to see how adding that facility will affect the grid — sort of like trying to build an on-ramp onto a big interstate highway, according to Joe Rand, a senior engineering associate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Regional authorities have to check to make sure that the highway can accommodate a new on-ramp without causing traffic pileups. In the same way that an authority might ask the road-builder to pay for the construction of the onramp — or, if the highway is really congested already, to pay to add an extra lane — regional authorities ask energy developers to pay to connect their solar or wind farms to the grid.

Getting the okay to connect has gotten harder and harder. According to Rand’s research, between 2000 and 2010 it took around two years for a project to make it through the queue. Now, it’s taking almost twice as long. At the end of 2021, there were 8,100 projects sitting in line, waiting for permission to get connected. Together, they represent more than the combined power capacity of all U.S. electricity plants.

And 93 percent of those projects are solar, wind, or battery storage. One transmission authority, PJM — which covers Pennsylvania, West Virginia, D.C., and other areas on the Eastern Seaboard — accounts for nearly a third of the delays.

Asked about the matter, PJM spokeswoman Susan Buehler said the authority has recently improved its process, and that the changes will reduce the backlog.

Part of the reason for the backlog is that clean energy is booming. In the past, most of the power plants connected to the grid were coal or natural gas — big, fairly centralized power plants that had a set way of connecting to the larger grid. But now, with the rapid increase in wind and solar, there are different kinds of projects trying to connect to it, and they are much more widely scattered across the landscape.

“The system just wasn’t built to handle this kind of volume,” Gahl said.

At the same time, the country’s high-voltage transmission lines — again, a bit like a bunch of interstate highways — are almost at full capacity, jammed with tons of electron traffic. “Limited transmission capacity is really the root cause,” said Rob Gramlich, president and founder of the consulting group Grid Strategies. When transmission is jammed up, developers may have to pay more money to get their connection to the grid. That may cause a developer to rethink their plan, or potentially cancel their wind, solar, or geothermal plant entirely.

Rand, the researcher at Berkeley Laboratory, says that not all projects that enter the queue ultimately get built. Developers may decide to focus on other projects or try to get permits later on. But, he added, the projects that withdraw from the queue “have drastically higher interconnection costs” — indicating that some wind and solar farms may not be getting built because it costs so much to connect to the grid. In one study, Rand and a team of researchers from Berkeley Lab found that connecting a wind farm to the grid between 2019 and 2021 in areas of the Midwest and Canada cost about double what it did from 2000 to 2018.

Some experts and developers have offered solutions. Gahl says that some of the problem can be solved simply by making more data available to developers about the costs of connecting to the grid at different locations. Right now many companies throw a lot of applications in, hoping one will stick.

“When a developer goes into the process, they go into it kind of with a blindfold on,” he added.

Changing the order that transmission authorities receive and manage applications could also speed up approvals. Most of the time, the queues operate as “first-come, first-served” — meaning that they assess the projects in the order they were received. But some regional authorities already plan to shift to a “first-ready, first-served” model, where wind, solar, and other power plant proposals are clustered into groups and then approved in batches.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — the agency that regulates transmission across the United States — also plans to create a new rule that it says will help streamline the process.

But experts say the United States needs to radically expand transmission lines — now spanning 700,000 miles across the country — to accelerate the energy transition. Scientists estimate that transmission will have to increase 25 percent over the course of the decade to meet U.S. climate goals.

That will make it easier and cheaper for new projects to connect to the grid, and for all the country’s electricity to get to where it needs to go.

Even as money flows into the development of renewable energy, those transmission lines have lagged behind. “If you look over the past decade, you’re actually seeing fewer miles of high-voltage transmission builds per year than we used to in the past,” Rand said. “That trend line is going in the wrong direction.”
 
I'm sure everyone has heard of the hamster dance. Where you go dound and round in circles trying to get to the optimal solution. There's no easy solution to this issue. If there was, someone would point out the blooming obvious..... Even the electricity suppliers would have a problem coming up with 1 solution.
I've run the numbers for solar and economically it doesn't make sense to install it in the US. 13-16K US$install costs. That's nuts. Something wrong there with prices... I can get the same system installed here for 4k AU$ ish. No wonder you guys are saying the numbers dont stack up. They don't....

What size system are you talking about?

My system is a 4kW system. It cost about $13,000, and with a 30% federal tax credit, it cost us about $9,000. The system replaces about $1,500 per year in electricity bills from the utility, so it will pay off in about 6 years total, which is a bit longer than it typically takes for various reasons unique to my situation. To me, the investment was a no-brainer and made great financial sense.

Is $4k AUS the price for a 4kW system? Because that is significantly cheaper than I have ever heard of. At that price, I would think everyone would have it.
 
What size system are you talking about?

My system is a 4kW system. It cost about $13,000, and with a 30% federal tax credit, it cost us about $9,000. The system replaces about $1,500 per year in electricity bills from the utility, so it will pay off in about 6 years total, which is a bit longer than it typically takes for various reasons unique to my situation. To me, the investment was a no-brainer and made great financial sense.

Is $4k AUS the price for a 4kW system? Because that is significantly cheaper than I have ever heard of. At that price, I would think everyone would have it.
6kW panels. 5kW inverter grid-tied. Grid-tied inverter died after 8 years which was my fault due to the incorrect shutdown procedure. That's when I changed to an off grid system with battery backup. And I have no-idea why everyone hasn't done it here in Oz. But it's not like we get our panels or our inverters any cheaper, and batteries are cheaper in the US. So what's going on with your install prices?
 
6kW panels. 5kW inverter grid-tied. Grid-tied inverter died after 8 years which was my fault due to the incorrect shutdown procedure. That's when I changed to an off grid system with battery backup. And I have no-idea why everyone hasn't done it here in Oz. But it's not like we get our panels or our inverters any cheaper, and batteries are cheaper in the US. So what's going on with your install prices?

I have not looked into it, but I don’t think you can buy 6kW panels and 5kW inverter for $2,700 US (4,000 AUS) for just the parts alone. There’s no way it’s that cheap for that equipment. Installation does cost money, but it’s not like it costs 4x the parts.
 
I have not looked into it, but I don’t think you can buy 6kW panels and 5kW inverter for $2,700 US (4,000 AUS) for just the parts alone. There’s no way it’s that cheap for that equipment. Installation does cost money, but it’s not like it costs 4x the parts.
1672169792752.png
And I just bought a Swiss made 5Kw grid tie inverter for Au$550.
Your parts total for 6kW=142.49 x20 +550=Au$ 3399.8 = US$2348 for parts. You've still got to buy mounting brackets, cable etc. And those panels are about the right size for the output. I could look for better quality, but this is just an exercise in numbers. I could buy used 300W panels for Au$70 a pop.
 
View attachment 553328
And I just bought a Swiss made 5Kw grid tie inverter for Au$550.
Your parts total for 6kW=142.49 x20 +550=Au$ 3399.8 = US$2348 for parts. You've still got to buy mounting brackets, cable etc. And those panels are about the right size for the output. I could look for better quality, but this is just an exercise in numbers. I could buy used 300W panels for Au$70 a pop.

That’s much lower than I expected.
 
That’s much lower than I expected.
That's ebay prices. If I were importing direct, as I would be if I were a commercial installer, those prices would be at least 25% less....... So not sure why you pay so much for 2 days of installation?????
here's what I've got for the off grid side.
1672172131237.png
This thing just rocks......Does what it says on the packet. Minimum cost. Could have bought more bells and whistles, but don't need them. Not cost effective, no net benefit to pay for them. EDIT:- should point out this one is NOT suitable for US legally, because the earth to phase is more than 120v AC.
Plus 2 of these....ish mine were a slightly higher capacity.
And with the existing 6kW of panels I'm off grid in the city. Total cost for off grid with 33kWh of storage 6+6+2.2+4=Au$18.2k=US$12.6k.
Now my electricity prices are higher Au$0.40/kWh. Yours are US$0.117=Au$0.17 so my cost-benefit economics are different. But I hope this has given you an insight into what can be done on a budget. Your mix of options. wind, solar, ground heat, sand batteries, lithium, Ambri, will depend on what works for your situation. There's no single easy answer. And waiting for the government to fix it........too many self-interested lobbyists with agendas. Fix it yourself. It's easy.......ish.
My payback was 8 years. That's changed to 6 years with the 30%price increase next year and more expected. Plus the security of no electricity bills in retirement...

1672172342701.png
 
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every day, all across the world, more commercial buildings are put up, more residential houses are put up, endlessly adding to the strain on our grid system, and we act as though there's never going to be a problem.
 
every day, all across the world, more commercial buildings are put up, more residential houses are put up, endlessly adding to the strain on our grid system, and we act as though there's never going to be a problem.

I don’t think I agree “we” act as if there’s never going to be a problem. “We” passed a lot of funding for grid upgrades is the past couple of years. The projects take awhile to get started.
 
every day, all across the world, more commercial buildings are put up, more residential houses are put up, endlessly adding to the strain on our grid system, and we act as though there's never going to be a problem.
Our planners are barely planning for their next coffee, let alone the future. And certainly not for my next coffee. Where's my sugar??????
When the Sydney Harbour Bridge was built it had 9 lanes for traffic and a train line across it. 19 March 1932...... and no real traffic. But they knew it was coming.
 
every day, all across the world, more commercial buildings are put up, more residential houses are put up, endlessly adding to the strain on our grid system, and we act as though there's never going to be a problem.
Um ... and people have been upgrading the grid accordingly over the years. It didn't appear overnight with some random size. A grid grows along with civilization and human pop., just like roads, sewer systems, comm systems, food production, etc. etc.

Those who "worry about the grid" are saying: "I'm gonna keep burning gas and coal so if you want to add solar, build your own grid."
 
All this makes me wish I could install solar on the south-facing part of my roof. HOA doesn't allow it here (yet--some recent laws opened the door). Indiana isn't terribly friendly to solar but isn't the worst place either.
 
That's ebay prices. If I were importing direct, as I would be if I were a commercial installer, those prices would be at least 25% less....... So not sure why you pay so much for 2 days of installation?????
here's what I've got for the off grid side.
View attachment 553334
This thing just rocks......Does what it says on the packet. Minimum cost. Could have bought more bells and whistles, but don't need them. Not cost effective, no net benefit to pay for them. EDIT:- should point out this one is NOT suitable for US legally, because the earth to phase is more than 120v AC.
Plus 2 of these....ish mine were a slightly higher capacity.
And with the existing 6kW of panels I'm off grid in the city. Total cost for off grid with 33kWh of storage 6+6+2.2+4=Au$18.2k=US$12.6k.
Now my electricity prices are higher Au$0.40/kWh. Yours are US$0.117=Au$0.17 so my cost-benefit economics are different. But I hope this has given you an insight into what can be done on a budget. Your mix of options. wind, solar, ground heat, sand batteries, lithium, Ambri, will depend on what works for your situation. There's no single easy answer. And waiting for the government to fix it........too many self-interested lobbyists with agendas. Fix it yourself. It's easy.......ish.
My payback was 8 years. That's changed to 6 years with the 30%price increase next year and more expected. Plus the security of no electricity bills in retirement...

View attachment 553335

It’s like a lot of things where if you have the time, the tools and the expertise, you can save money by doing it yourself. I don’t have those things for a solar power installation, so I was always going to have it installed.

I got most of my quotes through a local program that screens the companies for their competitive pricing, reliability, warranties, and aspects of their business track record. The referral program brings in customers, so the companies provide a discount on the quotes.

I asked for 3 quotes through that program and got a 4th through a company that partners with Costco. One of the companies did not provide a quote because they were too busy and wouldn’t get to it for a couple of months. The Costco partner was the most expensive and most inflexible, with kind of a one-size-fits-all approach. Of the remaining two, one was a bit cheaper, but we went with the other because we liked the equipment better, and they also worked with a roofing company so we could get all the roof penetrations done in the middle of the roofing job, and the roof warrantee would be honored no matter what.

There was some variation in the quotes, but most of them were pretty close together. So I think that’s just what it costs here. California is probably a bit more expensive than some states.

Anyway, I’m happy with how things turned out. The cost seemed reasonable to me.
 
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