Do we really need a grid? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 04:51:01 pm
content: When I was a kid, I knew an old guy who told me that at one time, every small entity had their own power plant. Towns and cities, farms and apartment buildings ran their own generating plants. Most of that ended when the power grid appeared, undercutting the costs of running your own generating plant in most cases.But did we expect that the grid would become a monopoly? Are the big power plants the only game in town? Not so much, I think anymore. Granted, it's still very expensive to set up your own power generation, and the grid is still cost-competitive, but for how much longer? Should the power companies be allowed to continue exploiting their monopolies?I think technology is making it easier and easier to manage electrical power, and perhaps a cooperative sharing grid is the way of the future, minus the monopolies.

author: Zucca
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 05:26:51 pm
content: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/will-ac-power-distribution-become-obsolete/Was the above not enough?

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 05:44:38 pm
content: Yes there are monopolies in the power generation industry. But here in the United States, there are government controls on rates and requirements on service. I suspect this is true in much of the world. It is also true that those government entities can be swayed/suborned by the power companies. But in democratic countries I believe it is far easier to change those controls with the ballot box than to compete economically with a monopoly. Depending on your local political system your mileage may vary.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 05:52:25 pm
content: Quote from: Connecteur on September 11, 2024, 04:51:01 pmIt wasn't a case of undercutting (although why would you not cheaper prices than the unreliable and expensive private generation companies of time?) Those wererealmonopolies, your mains feed didn't go anywhere else! It was about reliability, standardization and easy movement of energy from where it was most economical and practical to generate it to areas of higher demand. Local town scale generation at the time was a mess of different voltages, AC/DC, distribution means, metering, grounding. In short, a complete mess. Was that not enough reason to create a grid?QuoteOf course a national grid needs to have a central operator. How can power generation companies be "exploiting their monopolies" - there are several of them and they arepreventedfrom having monopolies and forced to compete by all being linked into that central grid.QuoteSo you still want a grid? Who's going to run and pay for it? Or do you want somebody to provide and maintain that massive infrastructure of distribution free for the sharing? If you do not want to pay for it then we can all go back to the good old days of struggling to match local generation capacity to local demand and single points of failure.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 06:37:39 pm
content: Nobody prevents you from generating your own power off-grid. Try it and see how much cheaper it ends up being in real world. Technology to do that (diesel generators, off-grid PV battery hybrid inverters, small wind turbines etc.) is readily available and mass-manufactured in China for pretty decent cost, and if you think that is a conspiracy too you are surely free to build your own from raw materials.

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 07:24:18 pm
content: Back when grid power became available, the power companies wouldn't service farms unless the farmers provided the lines themselves. They did so, forming REAs (Rural Electrification Associations). They ran cooperatively, and maintained the lines, negotiated the rates, and generally benefitted the members.But few REAs remain today. One by one they have been pushed out of existence by various factors that all boil down to making the members sell off their REAs. It's hard to discount the overbearing influence of the big power companies in making that happen.At any rate, my point is that cooperative organizations can work, but as long as big power companies own the grid, it will be very difficult for a cooperative grid to develop.

author: Andy Chee
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 07:57:58 pm
content: Quote from: Connecteur on September 11, 2024, 07:24:18 pmWhich country are you talking about?

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 08:07:01 pm
content: Such things may work on limited rural farming area, where the farmers own the land and are prepared to run and maintain their own power lines. Try scaling that to towns, let alone cities, and none of that holds true.You may as well change the thread title to 'Do we really need a grid in small rural agricultural communities?'

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 08:08:50 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on September 11, 2024, 06:37:39 pmMany countries ban, or severely restrict, people generating their own power. There has been a lot of relaxation of these rules to allow rooftop solar, but the restrictions haven't gone away.

author: Buriedcode
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 08:09:45 pm
content: Is it me or are there quite a lot of posts where the OP posts an opinion, people disagree, and they reply with just the same argument, so it becomes more of a soap box than a discussion/question?(I'm aware that I pretty much bring nothing to this thread).

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 08:15:12 pm
content: Dear OP, you are delusional and don't understand the full story. I have no idea what happens in the US but around the world people sell power back to the power companies. What you are demanding happens already but it needs a single grid operator to run it without chaos ensuing. In the UK the power grid is owned by one company but the generators are many companies.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 08:19:24 pm
content: He's in France, from memory.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 08:30:35 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on September 11, 2024, 08:19:24 pmwell then I don't know what the hell he is complaining about, we in the UK pay more for electricity than anyone and one of our major suppliers (not grid operator) is EDF, basically Frances national energy company, so if he lets me know his address I'll send him his portion of my bill!

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 09:03:09 pm
content: Nowadays, you can fairly expect to be trolled for any post. What I mean by "troll" is someone who only wants to provoke a fight of some kind. Somehow, they are able to slip by the moderators and ruin the discussion for all.

author: vk4ffab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 09:23:48 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on September 11, 2024, 06:37:39 pmWhile I am not off grid, I have not drawn power from the grid in over 6 months. Depending on geography this is easy to do and cheep enough with solar and batteries. I have neighbors who are 100% off grid, but that really requires a backup generator to charge batteries the couple times a year we do not have sun for a week. The biggest expense is not really the solar or the batteries, its making the house energy efficient. Additional insulation, painting the house a light colour to reflect heat, solar hot water or a heat pump, buying all new 5 star or better appliances etc etc. I spent 10 grand just making our house not leak so much heat in winter. We have a temp range here of -2 deg C in winter to 40+ deg C in summer. But now, we consume about 1/2 the power of the average Aussie home, generate excess power all year round and have no power bill and the electricity account always in credit. Even when you do not use power from the grid we have to pay the poles and wires fees each month and thats like $40. So off grid is doable but it depends on where you live. Oh and the solar and batteries paid for themselves in about 6 years.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 10:20:03 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on September 11, 2024, 08:08:50 pmSource, reference ? Grid connected generation: highly controlled. Islanded power, basic safety only.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 10:34:16 pm
content: One of the advantages of a centralized grid is economies of scale.Anything that runs local tends to be more synchronized. All the street lights turn on at the same time. Everyone gets home around the same time. The sun and wind empower generators at the same time.The reason we were able to utilizeanyPV/wind at all from a 'chaotic' producer that is also the end-consumer, is because our grid was able to sink a whole lot of extra energy production. We just turn down our centralized producers for the grid to remain in balance. However, nowadays we can have hourly tarrifs at which energy sale price becomes negative. It costs money to produce, we have an excess of energy being dumped in the grid by all PV installations. Sometimes even at fixed fee is added, because electricity companies are starting to see local producers more as a cost that they don't want to spread over all households (at least, that's what happening here in NL)This could create an incentive to arrange your own grid or rules. But honestly, is that possible without going back to those old days? Back then if you needed more power, you throw a few more coals on the fire to build steam pressure and generate more power. If we don't want to rely on this kind of power, then we can only do it via a few ways: install a ton of batteries, install a ton of overcapacity and still utilize curtailment, or a mix. And where do you install this equipment, who is going to pay, what if it fails? This is exactly why we all benefit from economies of scale, even though transport has a cost and an efficiency loss.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 10:45:32 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on September 11, 2024, 10:20:03 pmPlaces with a state monopoly on power generation, and many without, have mostly enforced strict control on who can generate, whether its for grid connection or not. In the UK we don't have many restrictions on generating grid independent power now, but in the 90s we had to get 2 kinds of approval to have our own diesel generating set as a UPS for some telecoms infrastructure. One was the safety approval for putting the generating set in an industrial estate building, covering things like fire extinguishing facilities, fuel storage management, and exhaust arrangements. The other was to be generating at all, even though it was only for backup purposes in emergencies, and not grid connected. I think there was a provision for things like running those little Honda generating sets for camp sites and using power tools in the middle of nowhere without approval. Anything bigger required approval, and without a good reason you wouldn't get that approval.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2024, 11:13:51 pm
content: Quotethose rules didn't just cover generators,they are pretty standard building controls for industrial premisesQuotespent a large part of the 90's playing with generators,often in the middle of fields ,and the only paper work we needed related to elf n stazi,no one asked or cared how much we were producing or what we were doing with it

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2024, 12:37:07 am
content: but the grid does let you sell and buy electricity to and from other areas.Would say steel production be economical without a power grid, where they can hog energy at night? It might end up ridiculous, i.e. you need a nuclear reactor.If you have all the interconnects to support buying and sharing power for peak demand, you might as well use them to share power too. It would not be economical to maintain long feeders for industry.Plus if you have high power available, I think eventually super-ceramics will require great amounts of power to be made.Energy surplus does mean that there is a desire to find a application. Say something like ceramic motor housings, or ceramic structural elements that are not cement.Also, maybe, one day, very advanced chemsitry large scale electroforming can use power to make stuff. instead of bending or die casting or forging, with alot of power you can grow metal structures. There must be an appeal, otherwise tesla would not have made that ridiculous die-casting press for their car bases

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2024, 12:42:01 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on September 11, 2024, 05:44:38 pmI thought monopoles don't exist....

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2024, 01:42:22 am
content: The grid is a handy thing if it extends across several times zones. Russia is spread across something like eleven time zones for example, so the peak periods would be staggered. No need for local generators sized for peak demand in the immediate location.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2024, 04:07:27 am
content: It's the whole centralized vs. decentralized conundrum. Each have their plusses and minuses.And while it's indeed become possible to generate one's own electricity for a not "absurd" investment, it's still expensive (to get anything remotely reliable and generating a decent amount of power), intermittent (as solar/wind are pretty much the only realistic options you have). With the grid, you can reliably power millions of homes each consistently getting up to several kW reliably, at any hour. It's (almost) impossible to get that same result with any kind of reasonable investment, even these days, with an independent system.As to being restricted, yes, in some countries there are restrictions of various kinds, but these days (due to the advent of renewable energy), it's usually possible without too many problems, at least if you're completely independent from the grid. If you're still connected to it, there are usually many rules and some restrictions.The only thing you may have to do is have your installation checked by a professional (if you did it yourself). And, of course, make sure your installation is not causing issues to your neighbors if you have any. May seem obvious, but if you suddenly install several windmills on your property, your neighbors may not like the view or the noise. Let alone if you install generators that burn stuff.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 12, 2024, 06:26:44 am
content: Quote from: Connecteur on September 11, 2024, 09:03:09 pmReally, can you report this person. Then we can deal with it.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 12, 2024, 08:11:54 am
content: Quote from: Connecteur on September 11, 2024, 09:03:09 pmNot just online, but in person too. A lot of people are assholes.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2024, 09:44:29 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 12, 2024, 04:07:27 amI have one anecdote on that here in Netherlands: during the electricity cost boom we saw 2 years ago, it was almost cheaper to run your own dinosaur burning generator than to get electricity from the wall. I had to renew my contract and I was almost considering it1 liter of E10 petrol was around 1.8 EUR back then. Converting 1 liter of petrol @ 20% efficiency would yield 1.8kWh. So that's 100ct/kWh.At its peak, I think our electricity tariffs shot up to 98ct/kWh (incl tax) for a new contracts. So if you lived close to a border with Germany/Belgium (which I do), it would probably be doable to get fuel at a much reduced rate (say 1.5 EUR/liter), preferably in a dozen jerrycans at a time, drive back home, and still be cheaper than whatever the grid had to offer you.1kWh market prices were never really 60ct/kWh+ consistently, but at the time a lot of people were on 1-3 year contracts at the lowest prices ever (10-12ct/kWh), so it had to be balanced out in order not to have electricity companies go bankrupt. In the end a few actually did.In 2023 our gov introduced a energy tariff limit, so people got subsidized down to 40ct/kWh cost for a certain amount of kWh/month. Annoyingly, even the people that could afford a heat pump and Tesla which were crying their "fuel cost" was on par with a petrol car all of a sudden. Oh, with such investments it sounds like you really couldn't afford anything else. /s

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2024, 11:49:50 pm
content: I am not sure why there is hatred for investments as objects, it has risk but so does trusting a organization. Funded organizations usually have better PR, but probability of return IMO is not assured. Even a big organization can collapse.

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2024, 09:17:50 am
content: I have known people who were living "off the grid". They have my respect and admiration. It takes a lot to set up your own windmill or solar farm or whatever and the battery bank for nights. And to maintain all that. Respect and admiration, but not envy!Could a city or area do it? Sure they could. But it would surely cost more than the commercial rates in most places so who would sign up for it. Oh, and you would likely need a second set of power poles for distribution. The commercial power companies own the one in your back yard. At the very least, you would need to pay them for it's use. Or they could just say, "Go take a hike!" And you would need to start from scratch, obtaining the rights to place your own poles. Yea, who is going to pay for all that? I sure don't want to.What about back-up for storms and other disasters. The grid is a great, nation wide back-up. A city would need to install extra capacity for back-up: not double, but some factor greater than one. By spreading the back-up all over the country there is a great economy of scale for the back-up capability. Ever been without power for a week or more? I have and it's not fun. Fortunately that is a rare event. But with more localized power, it would be far, far more frequent.It IS a matter of economics. The present power grid IS the most economic way of providing power, nationwide.Some places, cities, counties, etc. do have multiple power supply companies. They have either negotiated or had legislated things like pole usage. And also for emergency power, when needed. My daughter is in one such area, not so far from me. After a recent hurricane she was without power for over a week. I lost it for about three days. I have heard many complaints about the situation in her area.It's not as simple as you might think.

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2024, 09:25:23 am
content: Hans,You conveniently omit the not inconsiderable cost of buying, installing, and maintaining your own generator. I have one that is only rated for intermittent service and it cost as much as a car.Oh yea, the less expensive generators are only for occasional use. They will literally burn out if run 24/7/365.24. For a full time generator you can easily pay twice as much or MORE. By the time you finish paying for that, you will feel the fuel is FREE.

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2024, 09:36:37 am
content: If you think steel production is bad, check out aluminum.Quote from: coppercone2 on September 12, 2024, 12:37:07 am

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 13, 2024, 01:06:54 pm
content: We are already converging on the ideal solutions. There are different models that broadly fall into1) a local micro grid2) a local micro grid with the facility to grid tie to the main grid but also work separately3) a national grid that has fixed grid tied local supplies that cannot work alone4) a national grid with no local / distributed generationCurrently we are at 3) for sure with small wind and solar, we are also moving into 2) with the availability of batteries but it is not as flexible as people will want to seriously use. I have a socket on my inverter that will output islanded mains. But there is no switch over function, I would have to only load it with certain devices like the lighting circuit and maybe the fridge/freezer. To move to 1) would be silly. Balancing supply and demand is harder than people realize until they try. With a local system it will be impossible, the larger the grid you are on is the easier it is to balance. For starters just the averaging out of the different times that consumers make demands on the grid comes for free, but then when actual action needs taking there is more flexibility.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2024, 07:13:10 pm
content: Without a grid, California would be dark. We get a lot of power from Oregon and Arizona where both have excess generating capacity for their current needs. We have 'deregulated' electricity and created an Independent System Operator (a bureaucratic organization that buys and sells power to distribution companies like Pacific Gas And Electric and San Diego Gas And Electric). We do not generate anywhere near enough to meet our needs. If Arizona shuts down the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant, California will be in serious trouble.https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2018/04/12/palo-verde-nuclear-plant-could-close-if-renewable-energy-measure-passes-aps-says/491088002/The ISO takes all the capacity pressures off of the utility companies. They can only sell what the ISO allocates to them and there is very little control over this government agency.Texas doesn't connect to the nationwide grid and it likely caused some deaths a couple of years ago when their internal grid crashed during severe weather.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_InterconnectionCheck "Outages", "2021"

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2024, 07:23:23 pm
content: Caifornia may invent AI but it probably doesn't have enough power to benefit from it:https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/12/tech/ai-chatgpt-white-house-power-energy/index.htmlIt used to be crypto currency that was going to overwhelm the state, now it's AI.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2024, 08:07:04 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on September 13, 2024, 07:13:10 pmhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_StationQuote

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2024, 08:29:47 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on September 13, 2024, 07:13:10 pmShort discussion of the US grid organization:With the Mississippi River in the middle, there are three grids here: Eastern, Western, and Texas.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2024, 09:37:35 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on September 13, 2024, 07:23:23 pmWell, I asked:Quote

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 03:21:27 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 13, 2024, 09:37:35 pmClearly NVIDIA and others are building chips heavily oriented toward AI - at least for neural networks. The algorithms are highly optimized for parallel processing. I'm happy to see that NVIDIA has produced a Fortran compiler for their devices because Fortran is the only language that has parallel processing defined in the language itself.Policy interventions sounds like government involvement. That would be a huge mistake. Rampant innovation is the way to go. Settle the privacy issues in the courts.Logic switching in zero time requires infinite energy. Yet we all buy the fastest computers we can afford.Matrix multiplication of million by million matrices takes a fair bit of computing. It gets worse with many-layered networks. Hence the interest in Convolutional Neural Networks where the matrix gets smaller at each stage. Generational AI is a little beyond me at the moment. My interests lie in machine learning and machine control.

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 04:01:26 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on September 13, 2024, 07:13:10 pmAnd the downside to that is .....

author: Andy Chee
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 04:33:27 am
content: Quote from: EPAIII on September 14, 2024, 04:01:26 amThe loss of 14% of USA's GDP.

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 04:38:34 am
content: I live in Beaumont, Texas which is about 50 to 150 miles east of Houston, which is a BIG area and about 40 miles west of the Louisiana border. I went through that winter storm and saw the problems almost first hand. Since Beaumont is almost on the Louisiana border our power comes from Entergy which is based in Louisiana. We had very few outages and they were fixed fairly rapidly.Yes, much of the state is on it's own, separate grid and that is because some here thought they could have cheaper electric bills if there was a more competitive playing field. So in other areas people have their choice of power companies. But someone must maintain the generating and distribution systems, A.K.A. the grid. And perhaps because they were trying too hard to keep prices down, they weren't doing a very good job of it. Small, backup generators that were supposed to keep generating stations and other facilities running or provide the power needed to restart them if there was a general power failure, did not work or ran out of fuel. Nothing could restart until there was a thaw.Nothing is ever really disconnected from the grid; it is simply a matter of who generates what and who gets to use it and AT WHAT PRICE. There are connections to the out-of-state grid, we just do not normally use them. Due to the same storm, the generating companies out of the effected area, outside of Texas were operating at capacity supplying their year round customers so anything they supplied to the Texas grid was super expensive. I mean like ten times the normal cost. Some people who normally had monthly bills of a couple hundred dollars got hit with bills for several thousand dollars just for the duration of the storm. Can you say, "NOT HAPPY CAMPERS!"Money was spent for emergency, mobile generators. Everything was supposed to be fixed. We had another emergency a bit later and those very expensive, mobile generators were not used because they were for some other type of situation. They sat unused while Texans again had no power for days to a week or more. Can you say, "VERYUNHAPPY CAMPERS!"Somewhere in this time period, even though Beaumont did not really suffer much during these incidents, I decided to buy a whole house generator powered by natural gas. It has already kept my lights lit (and everything else in the house) for a three day outage for another hurricane. My daughter and her family, living north of Houston, were in a motel for over a week before her street finally got power restored. My Louisiana power company's area actually reached withing a block or two of her house (different city) and their customers had power restored very rapidly.I feel lucky I'm getting my power from a neighboring state. I guess my monthly bill is a bit more, but I am glad to pay it. And I haven't seen one for thousands a month.Be careful what you ask for,you might just get it.So, do we really need a power grid? Do you really think my answer is anything but a resoundingYES!Quote from: rstofer on September 13, 2024, 07:13:10 pm

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 06:20:57 am
content: It was a joke. A disguised pxxxxxxx statement.Actually, CA officials should take the power situation there a lot more seriously.And I personally have much to lose if CA has problems. But I highly doubt that the loss would be as high as 14% before someone wakes up. At least I sincerely hope so.Quote from: Andy Chee on September 14, 2024, 04:33:27 am

author: mendip_discovery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 08:02:34 am
content: The grid brings reliability, stability, standardised soltions etc.Local systems work but if you have a solar panel it works during daylight, wind power works for when you have wind. A generator is only any good if you keep topping it up with fuel. These all require maintenance which is ok if you have the time.Ita much like why many people go to the shops for food. You can grow vegetables, farm animals etc but it takes time and space.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 10:43:05 am
content: Quote from: mendip_discovery on September 14, 2024, 08:02:34 amOf course all of these, but somehow people forget to mention the most fundamental thing grids provide: that everybody do not need to produce for their worst-case own use all the time, but as one uses more and one uses less, it averages out when shared. (It is this averaging which also leads to all positives you mention.) Just like not everyone farms all of their own food, but someone farms corn, some other has cattle, and someone else is a blacksmith: fundamentally it's less work, and it also leads to better safety against issues like being bad weather for corn.Sharing as concept is basically which makes human life possible. It is possible to be a hermit hunter-gatherer, but that is alotof work. Sharing is way more efficient. And sharing energy is obvious. For example, wind or solar power works way better in grid because the Sun's shining somewhere and wind is blowing at somewhere else, but not at the same time everywhere.It is the healthy relationship between sharing and having some level self-sufficiency; being efficient but not taking it to ultimate extreme.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 12:39:42 pm
content: Quote from: EPAIII on September 14, 2024, 04:38:34 amWhat Texas really needs is a program where people can get paid to be the first in line to get disconnected during such events. It would be an incentive to invest in backup power and actually make use of it. I had a way to get backup power from my car, but that went unused since it was cheaper to charge batteries when the grid is up even though that would add to the problem. (Texas now has Ohmconnect, which, for the most part, works quite well to lower peak demand.)

author: johnk0gcj@gmail.com
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 12:54:42 pm
content: No problem, they can use diesel generators. Oh wait...

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 01:04:30 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on September 14, 2024, 12:39:42 pmHourly energy pricing, such as day-ahead pricing model on Nordpool energy market also seems to work very well. Energy producers and purchasers (companies who sell energy to individuals) have an auction every day where final price is settled based on normal free market mechanisms (supply vs. demand). This has worked here pretty well as weighed average price (annual cost of use) is approx. 6-9 cents/kWh here even during so-called (yellow media) "energy crisis", yet some particular hours are expensive enough to motivate people to adjust their consumption. It has also motivated for technical automation solutions.Production and consumption can be quite accurately predicted in advance so this works well, and it's nicer to know that it's agood ideato avoid consuming tomorrow between 19-20 and save 1EUR, than to get a message a few hours beforehand that cutting down is now mandatory. After all, you have the option to not do anything, and pay slightly bigger average annually. The actual annual difference is not that big but due to some hours being very expensive (like more than 1EUR/kWh) itfeelslike it's making a big impact, therefore people react and save energy.

author: vad
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 01:24:58 pm
content: No, of course not. We don’t need the electric grid. We don’t need other utilities either. We can dig our own artesian wells for water and build personal cesspools. Forget public transportation too. We should rely on private cars and bicycles. The farming industry? Useless. Everyone should grow their own food. The same goes for construction and textiles - we can all build our own houses and make our own clothes. Healthcare? Unnecessary. Let’s relearn how to heal with natural remedies and prayers. Oh, forget about the police and military. We’ll just protect ourselves with guns or sticks, depending on local regulations.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 03:05:10 pm
content: Quote from: Connecteur on September 11, 2024, 04:51:01 pmYou forgot to mention the country you're talking about. For example, we have separate business entities for transmission and generation by regulation. Besides that there are tons of regional or local distribution networks, some of which also generate power. And if I install a PV system I may feed the grid too. Also, we are part of the European synchronous super grid and are building new HVDC transmission lines across the country to handle future power demands including transit.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2024, 03:17:22 pm
content: And then comes the Cal ISO con job. There are 2 types of generators (companies), base load and peaking. Normally base load suppliers provide all the energy the state requires at a somewhat reasonable fair market price. The con: The suppliers take a base load plant off-line for "maintenance" and peaking providers crank up to provide for the shortfall. They charge whatever the market will pay and Cal ISO doesn't care how much that might be, they just want to keep the lights on. Whatever this new, and much higher, price might be, it applies to all generators for the entire day.It's amazing how much "maintenance" is required on hot days.Deregulation has been a nightmare for California. It doesn't help that we are closing down generators. I laughed when PG&E charged CA additional money to NOT close down Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant as previously ordered.https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2024/06/pge-quietly-seeks-118b-extend-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-through-2030