Alberta Solar

[Egon]

Hi Egon,

Not sure if your subsidies comment is referring to the Danish or the Alberta article, but in the case of the Alberta install you started the thread with, you can see my comments. They had 80% subsidies from the various government levels and agencies. 80%!!! Who can't "make it work" for 20% of the cost? And that 20% was likely fully borne by the people who bought the homes. But extrapolate that out. $5.525 million dollars in subsidies for 52 homes. Alberta averages over 30,000 new homes a year. If we made those subsidies the new norm and required a similar solar system tie for each home, that would cost the various government agencies about $3.2 billion dollars. Any thoughts on where we would come up with that money? I know Ontario and the Feds would say "just borrow it", but we know how well that works out.

Good afternoon Mr. Knight. The subsidies were for the Danish Island.

Drakes Landing most definetly was govt. funded but as an experimental Prodject. As such it has been a success as evidenced by the amount of outside energy required. I have no idea what the breakdown of costs would be or how the solar portion is broken out.

[video]http://www.dlsc.ca/about.htm[/video]


Each house sold for an average of $380,000.
Homeowners are receiving an average of $60 per month solar utility bill for heating.
$7 million for the initial start up of the Drake Landing Solar Community project.
If this project were repeated it would cost $4 million, as approximately $3 million was for one-time research and development.
Optimal community size would be 200-300 homes to realize the economies of scale. The number of systems would remain the same but the number of boreholes would just need to increase.[10]

 

[Egon]

The surplus is moved outside of the province and sold cheap, given away or the surrounding utilities are paid to take the green power that is not shut down. What is there that is not understood? 27 interconnections are not enough ?





27 interconnections with other utilities at 345,000, 230,000, 115,000
and 69,000 volts. This number includes nine interconnections with
New York, ten will Qu饕ec, four with Michigan, three with Manitoba
and one with Minnesota.

http://www.hydroone.com/ourcompany/mediacentre/documents/hydro_one_at_a_glance.pdf

http://www.hydroone.com/RegulatoryA...t A/Tab_6_Sched_1-Transmission_System_Map.pdf

So the power is being moved which is good. It would indicate that the greenie whabuscits do produce electrical power.

 

[buickanddeere]

So the power is being moved which is good. It would indicate that the greenie whabuscits do produce electrical power.

Problem is that solar on weekends and wind anytime off peak costs the rate payer billions in subsidies.

 

[Egon]

You mean there is a difference between week day solar and week end solar?

By billions what do you mean?

So why are contributions at on peak acceptable but not at off peak? Is on peak power delivery a little on the low side? Or is the system fluxuating from low to high with only meeting optimum on the change?

It has indications of an inflexible grid system.

 

[tcartwri]

Ontario gave over 30 Billion $$$ to the Wind Turbine companies as incentives.

You need a citation for this. It's bs.

 

[buickanddeere]

You mean there is a difference between week day solar and week end solar?

By billions what do you mean?

So why are contributions at on peak acceptable but not at off peak? Is on peak power delivery a little on the low side? Or is the system fluxuating from low to high with only meeting optimum on the change?

It has indications of an inflexible grid system.

Solar is only useful for mid day peaks. The mid day peak on weekends and any day during the spring and fall. Are much lower than summer or winter peaks. Adding subsidized extra generation when base load generation is already sufficient means we have to pay NY and Michigan to take the extra power.
What pray tell is the electrical grid is supposed to do?
In our case the grid carries electrical power.
Now what if five adjoining markets Quebec, NY, Michigan, Minnesota and Manitoba are also operating at low demand at the same time on mostly base load generation. They also have the same day and the same time zone or the adjacent time zone. Do you think they need or want the power ?
What do you propose? Send the extra power to China or Europe ?

 

[Egon]

You're saying the large generating stations have no flexibility? Wouldn't a segment of produced power that is easily regulated be desirable for the swings?

 

[truckdiagnostics]

You're saying the large generating stations have no flexibility? Wouldn't a segment of produced power that is easily regulated be desirable for the swings?

I do believe that is what he is saying! It is not like you can shut them off and turn them on when a cloud or the wind dies down! I could be wrong here. Yes, they have flexibility, to a point. They are being asked/made to make up for solar and wind, and forced to buy it when they don't want or need it. One the week end they don;t need or want the solar, there plant has to run at x, so since they are forced to buy the wind and solar they have to go somewhere with it.
Can wind and solar stand on there own without the grid? I am all for wind an solar when it stands on its own and when it connects to the grid it is not. And no matter how many post you open on the issue you can't get over the fact that solar and wind makes no sense with out the grid. You want wind, you want solar, figure out how to keep it off the grid with out effecting MY electrical bill and it does effect MY electric bill.

 

[buickanddeere]

You're saying the large generating stations have no flexibility? Wouldn't a segment of produced power that is easily regulated be desirable for the swings?

You did not know that ?

 

[Egon]

You did not know that ?

Yes I know that. Small power sources widely spread interconnected to the grid should work well for helping regulation.