Ok...... I'll rephrase....
An HOA in San Diego where I own some property is considering a solar electric installation to handle common area electricity needs. The cost is $425K and the payback time is 9 years.
Yeah, 4 year ROI is probably overly optimistic. The numbers I crunched for my own 10-16 kw array I plan to install later this summer were showing a 4.5-5 year payback. But that is without hiring anything out. And using bargain basement panels. I agree that even at 9 years or 12 years payback period, it still is a great investment.
My feeling is that wind and solar work best as a point-of-use source of power, and not always best suited to be connected to the grid unless there is a wide enough span of the items that the peaks and valleys of power generation is mitigated.
Our current grid technology was set up from the onset to make use of a seemingly limitless ability to generate massive amounts of electricity and the twist of a knob. Whether it is coal, natural gas, propane, or nuclear, they all essentially do the same ancient thing: they boil water to make steam to spin a steam turbine.
So the speed/load necessary to spin said turbine(s) is easily adjusted by variation of the steam allowed to act on the mechanism. But the boiler is making steam...boiling water (and thus burning/exploiting its fuel) all the time. It is then necessary to have these type of stations on stand by to carry the load of the wind or solar power during these peaks and valleys.
Grid managers do not like wind and solar for this very reason. It is easy to regulate the voltage and phasing of a grid, even from many miles away, when you have a nice big power plant with a huge and constant and ready to go ability at your fingertips. But you cannot easily control the sunshine or especially the wind.
What we need is a better way to mix and match the energy production facilities of all types so that they can augment one another more seamlessly or we'll keep having a battle over this topic.
I always felt that air conditioning of a building, which is needed MOST during the day, and the demand is needed much more when the sun is shining the most, would make perfect sense for point-of-use solar arrays. But that seems to be something that is not really employed very much. Cost seems to be the most common reason.
Our shop owner built us a brand new building a couple years ago, and he decided to air condition it (thankfully), but did not bother to pursue both ground sourced heat pumps and solar augmentation due to cost. When I asked, he said it would take a decade to recoup the cost, and he could invest that same money in other things that would eclipse any cost savings anyway.
I do not necessarily agree with that decision, but it was not mine to make. The point is, though, so long as it is "cheap" to be dirty and inefficient, people are largely going to continue to do so.
Just to remind all how a utility views customers and I mention this earlier. The water utility asked (forced) us to conserve and use less water....we did, and now the utility is raising rates across the board since they didn't anticipate the large revenue drop from conservation by us customers.
A load will only draw what it needs, true . . . but a large generator with a relatively fixed input power (hydro, ng, steam, whatever) cannot react instantly to changes in load . . . load is down, power input is the same, gen overspeeds, and mayhem results (and large generators only work in relatively small ranges of thier capacity . . .). The utilities manage the grid partly by being able to predict load, and take generators on and off line accordingly. This makes it a lot harder . . . not impossible, but if the utility needs to do more work to make less, well, the result should be obvious . . .
That is awful. That would prompt me to get battery storage and say goodbye to the grid.
I have a 80kWh battery sitting in my driveway now that usually has ~30kWh of capacity available. With typical usage another 1GWh worth of 'storage' will ship next year. ~2GWh+ the year after that. Using EVs for load control is the fundamental solution.
Once that technology becomes mainstream, do you think all the taxes we currently pay on fuel will instead be applied to batteries?
Electricity is still ~70% cheaper per mile than diesel. Using an EV for load control would further reduce the cost of fuel. Even with a 'use tax' EVs will still be significantly cheaper...
What happens if its cloudy, no EV charging? Not really a solution IMO.
If it's cloudy then there isn't surplus generation to store... If charging is needed then we use fossil fuel generation to make up the difference just like we do now...
I've often thought that, since we're going to burn up all the fossil fuels anyway, it would actually be best to use them for electricity generation in stationary power plants.
Depends how you define "investment".
AGAIN there is the problem, you cannot just use the grid when you feel like it and not be upsetting the balance. Big power plants don't turn on and off at the flick of a switch. If everyone one day started using the grid and stopped the next day there would be a major problem regulating the power. I guess everyone could just get gas generators but that is about as inefficient as it gets.
At least in Charlotte, Duke Power's hydro stations are only used for peak demand. It can be hard for them to generate enough power in the middle of the summer when we've been in droughts because the lake levels are too low to get enough out of the hydro generators. It's a double whammy since the nuclear plants are also effected by low and warm lake waters. Harder to keep the reactors cool when your intake pipes are just below surface and pulling 80F water.
Damn, I just spilled coffee all over my keyboard....what was that again??
But the solution is so simple....you just don't get it
Bold portion is mine. I agree that most HOA reserve funds are not where they need to be and most HOA's run on as cheap as possible current budget. I have been an HOA board member and know most members only think of today and have a very optimistic view of down the road.