California Has Too Much Green Energy

[3FEL9]

California Has Too Much Green Energy

California has frozen development on any more renewable energy sources as it wrestles with what to do with all the extra electricity it’s currently producing, Quartz reported.

Solar energy production has risen from less than one percent of California’s energy mix in 2010 to around 10 percent in 2017. On certain days when conditions are favorable, solar has supplied as much as half the energy used by Californians, according to Quartz.

California invested heavily in solar power. Now there's so much that other states are sometimes paid to take it

On 14 days during March, Arizona utilities got a gift from California: free solar power.

Well, actually better than free. California produced so much solar power on those days that it paid Arizona to take excess electricity its residents weren’t using to avoid overloading its own power lines.

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/

 

[3FEL9]

Just one thing... If theres too little consumer load available in the state grid, the solar systems will naturally produce less power output..
I dunno why they have to force other states to take it.. As an engineer I say this is very strange behaviour.

Unless they designed their solar systems for constant 100 % power delivery, and anything less will cause them to malfunction or explode in flames.

 

[nivek]

Just one thing... If theres too little consumer load available in the state grid, the solar systems will naturally produce less power output..
I dunno why they have to force other states to take it.. As an engineer I say this is very strange behaviour.

Unless they designed their solar systems for constant 100 % power delivery, and anything less will cause them to malfunction or explode in flames.

This is strange behaviour, also as an engineer and one who has solar power this makes no sense...My solar power system feeds power to my building behind my house and I do not use a lot of power every day but my solar is a closed system, it does not feed power to anything else...There are no adverse effects or overloads because I make more power than I use currently...

 

[3FEL9]

This is strange behaviour, also as an engineer and one who has solar power this makes no sense...My solar power system feeds power to my building behind my house and I do not use a lot of power every day but my solar is a closed system, it does not feed power to anything else...There are no adverse effects or overloads because I make more power than I use currently...

Thats awesome.. Are you charging a battery bank and running a 120V inverter to feed some of your household circuits ? Not soo many kWh produced during the winter eh ?

 

[nivek]

Thats awesome.. Are you charging a battery bank and running a 120V inverter to feed some of your household circuits ? Not soo many kWh produced during the winter eh ?

Yes, currently a 120 volt system DC to AC via inverter with a 6 battery bank connected in parallel to boost amperage, it's not connected to my house yet...I'm working on a second system so I can run single phase 220 volts pulling one leg from each independent system...I engineered and build my own solar panels from raw materials, started this project in 2009...

No I dont get a lot of power in the winter months during cloudy weeks but I'm thinking of adding a wind generator into the system to fill that void...

 

[3FEL9]

started this project in 2009

Oh I see. Thats very ingenious. Now the prices have fallen so much on readymade panels.. People in Europe starting to put them
on their roofs like never before.. Even if it makes little economic sense in the short run, as the payback times are atleast 15+ yrs for typical small systems. But its interesting as most here are grid-tied and offloading the big national grid, ( some lol )

But for off-grid systems like in cabins or remote houses in the country side, thats were they belong..best for now I say.

Btw, I fried my laptop in 2016 from a 50 W panel.. It was poor DC-DC design on my part..

 

[nivek]

Now the prices have fallen so much on readymade panels..

Yeah prices have fallen somewhat here, I can still make them a little cheaper buying the individual cells and other raw materials not counting my labour into making them...I just don't have the time I used to so this second phase of the project is slow going, I haven't worked on it since summer last year lol...

 

[CasualBystander]

This is strange behaviour, also as an engineer and one who has solar power this makes no sense...My solar power system feeds power to my building behind my house and I do not use a lot of power every day but my solar is a closed system, it does not feed power to anything else...There are no adverse effects or overloads because I make more power than I use currently...

Solar produces a voltage. There is some internal resistance. A well designed inverter should draw from the solar array at the maximum power point.

A solar panel with no draw defaults to the open circuit voltage.

Many inverters don't produce good (sinusoidal) waveforms. The high frequency content should be filtered out.

 

[3FEL9]

Solar produces a voltage. There is some internal resistance. A well designed inverter should draw from the solar array at the maximum power point.

A solar panel with no draw defaults to the open circuit voltage.

Many inverters don't produce good (sinusoidal) waveforms. The high frequency content should be filtered out.

Good quality inverters are expensive, and contribute a significant cost when installing a permanent PV system for use at residential homes. Only pure sine wave and preferably 3-phase ones should be used..

Modified sine wave types could power your coffeemaker, some lights or perhaps some simple powertools.. But not sensitive equipment..

 

[nivek]

Good quality inverters are expensive, and contribute a significant cost when installing a permanent PV system for use at residential homes. Only pure sine wave and preferably 3-phase ones should be used..

Modified sine wave types could power your coffeemaker, some lights or perhaps some simple powertools.. But not sensitive equipment..

Not everything is 3 phase here in the US, we use 120 volt and 1 phase 240 volt equipment too...

 

[3FEL9]

Not everything is 3 phase here in the US, we use 120 volt and 1 phase 240 volt equipment too...

L1,L2,L3,N,PE What we use around here.
If 400 V is needed we use 2 of the phases for the single load.

All three phases for a kitchen stove or powerful washers,dryers..

 

[nivek]

L1,L2,L3,N,PE What we use around here.
If 400 V is needed we use 2 of the phases for the single load.

All three phases for a kitchen stove or powerful washers,dryers..

Typically we use 120volt, 1 phase 240 volt, 3 phase 240 volt and 3 phase 480 volt...

Single phase 240 volt for a kitchen stove and dryer, washers are 120 volt...

An air compressor can be 120 volt, 1 phase 240 volt or 3 phase 240 volt or 480 volt dependent upon size...

 

[CasualBystander]

Not everything is 3 phase here in the US, we use 120 volt and 1 phase 240 volt equipment too...

There is 208 V one and two phase as well.

If you need more than 120V you should go to 240 2-phase since it is 120V to ground and isn't much more dangerous than 120V.

 

[3FEL9]

you should go to 240 2-phase

Wonder if you could run imported european appliances on that.. Minding the 10 Hz overdrive..

 

[CasualBystander]

Wonder if you could run imported european appliances on that.. Minding the 10 Hz overdrive..

You could probably use single phase 240 on a European appliance. But with 2-phase you risk having a hot chassis.

 

[3FEL9]

Hot chassis ? Do you have a ham license ? ,,, @CasualBystander

Nah,, thats what the yellow/green PE wire is for.. unless the whole thing is double isolated..

 

[CasualBystander]

Hot chassis ? Do you have a ham license ? ,,, @CasualBystander

Nah,, thats what the yellow/green PE wire is for.. unless the whole thing is double isolated..

The phrase is double insulated.

Yeah, there is a green wire.
It all depends on how the appliance treats the neutral, because the neutral is hot.

There are two prong appliances in the US because the neutral is assumed to be grounded in the house wiring (which it is).

 

[3FEL9]

The phrase is double insulated.

Yeah, there is a green wire.
It all depends on how the appliance treats the neutral, because the neutral is hot.

There are two prong appliances in the US because the neutral is assumed to be grounded in the house wiring (which it is).

Insulated right ,, but isolated still sounds much better in swedish,,

Not sure what you mean, that the neutral becomes hot.. If your earth connection breaks in your utility/meter box, yeah

Are your earthed 1 phase 120V outlets like this one

It says that the left slot is neutral and the right one is hot..

Ours are like these. You can fit the plug either way.. So hm...