South Australia sets stunning new record, solar meets 106 pct of demand

It would be possible with solar shingles. Snow does not stick to solar panels very well. If you have moss or algae issues, you should be having your roof and gutters cleaned annually even if you aren't doing it yourself.

 

You forgot the link

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/anie.201708664

Which is about a DIFFERENT battery - zinc -iron and is from 2017. This is a rapidly developing field

 

You forgot they are for stationary use and cost a lot of money.

 

My son put solar panels on his roof of his travel trailer and he has to climb up to clean them off. While snow may not stick well, snow is also what comes when the days are short. There are ways to clear a gutter without getting up on a ladder.

 

Oh, you said 'transmission.' My bad, I read transportation. lol...

I can't seem to find anything that specifies how much power is lost in transmission in S. Aus. But here in the US it ranges from 2% loss in Wyoming for 575Kppl with a pop density of 6 people per square mile to 13% loss in Idaho for 1.8Mppl and a population density of 20 people per square mile.

Comparing Wyoming to, say Delaware (since they have similar total populations and drastically different population densities), it appears the opposite of what you claim is true. Wyoming with 575K ppl has a pop dens of 6ppsm and a transmission loss of 2%, while Delaware has 990K ppl but a pop density of 460ppsm, has a transmission loss of 11%. Delaware's people live nearly 80 times closer together than Wyoming's, but lose 5 times more of their power to transmission loss.

Which I must admit is a bit surprising.

This comparison suggests that either transmitting power over larger distances actually makes it more efficient (which I know can't be the case), OR the quality of the power grid is by a wide margin the more limiting factor and transmission loss due to distance by comparison isn't a big deal.

I would be interested to know how much of its power South Australia loses in transmission, if you can find such data. I bet it isn't much...

 

I wish to offer you an additional rationale for the differences you're seeing. You seem to have forgotten that population "densities," are merely the total number of people, divided by the area. Then, add that to the idea that the amount of power loss, is going to be proportional to the AMOUNT OF POWER that is transmitted. For example, you can have 2 places with similar population densities, but which transmit, over long distance, far different amounts of energy. Consider, hypothetically, a place with a city that has a population of 500 k, and an additional 50 k, spread out over the rest of its territory. So, if you locate the main of your power generation near that one, densely-packed city, you will only have to send enough power, over long-distance wires, for 50 thousand people, no matter how spread out they are. Now, take that 500 k, and spread it out over numerous, separated cities, and their suburbs. If your generation is near the biggest city, of let's say 100 k residents, then you will need transmit enough power over longer-distance lines, for 400 thousand people. Hence, you will lose more energy, even over the same area as the first example (in which nearly all the people live very close together, and only a few residents are rurally scattered).

 

Yes, thats all potentially an explanation. If I were able to get a hold of the actual power loss for South Australia specifically, my original comparison would be unecessary. I was merely demonstrating that S. Aus is unlikely suffering a substantial amount of loss from transmission due to large population dispersal, as was suggested.

 

Good point. I would be interested in how high the voltages are on their lines. The higher the voltage the longer distance it can go without the current causing loss in resistance/heat. The problem is more of a safety issue and the cost of higher power lines and more substations.

Also the danger of running 230 or 400vac into your house! https://www.australianrectifiers.co...ltage-ratings-in-australia-have-been-lowered/

 

Storage is no small or cheap problem. even disregarding Tesla's LiIon station's astronomical cost per MWh during your blackout a few years back, the cost per MWh of stored electricity runs about 20 times the normal cost of current electricity and the battery farms are not nearly to the point of being able to supply electricity at night for very long at all. In addition to carrying their own costs, a renewable grid will also have to carry all the costs of that stand by capacity for whenever it is needed. There is nothing wrong with having alternatives and batteries, but realistically, 100% renewable across many whole developed countries isn't likely in our lifetimes unless we all start going to bed at sunset. The few that have achieved it didn't do it with solar and batteries, they do it because of hydroelectric, and in the case of Iceland, geothermal from its forever active volcanoes.

 

Beautiful! The picture in the article that you linked highlights that batteries for grid storage need not have the same specificity needed for heat, charging speed, air circulation, weight etc as those for cars.
My understanding is the batteries within the Tesla facilities use similar battery tech to the cars, which suggests that there is a lot of room for future diversification of 'energy storage'.

 

Look to Europe. A little bit Australia is about a decade or two behind Europe in terms of recycling (anything)

 

Robert, I've never needed to clean my panels and they work fine. Wind and rain plus the angle they are on takes care of it.

 

And there are ways to clean solar panels without getting up on a ladder as well.

The article suggests that a lot of the solar power is produced by rooftops within the actual home.

They are also anticipating that there will be days in the near future when South Australia will be powered by rooftop panels alone.

 

Of course it bloody is! I never claimed otherwise. The innovation is that these things even exist! Some are up to 53 meters long. Figure the saving in carbon emissions these represent

 

Huge and I am thinking on investing in it because this is the way the world is heading. I saw an article recently that suggested you could use second hand car batteries for storage of electricity since they would not need the same capacity. It sounds like a good market selling second hand car batteries from electric cars for home storage

 

No, batteries are at present, a stop gap until the gas powered power plants rev up. But that set up is making the battery in South Australia lots and lots of money. The exciting thing about flow batteries is that they promise longer storage and almost endless recycling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery

https://invinity.com/solutions/vanadium-flow-batteries/

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/05...-redox-flow-battery-takes-shape-in-australia/

 

Great idea!

 

More data

Disadvantages[edit]
The two main disadvantages are

• low energy density (you need large tanks of electrolyte to store useful amounts of energy)
• low charge and discharge rates (compared to other industrial electrode processes). This means that the electrodes and membrane separators need to be large, which increases costs.

Compared to non-reversible fuel cells or electrolyzers using similar electrolytic chemistries, flow batteries generally have somewhat lower efficiency.

Applications[edit]
Flow batteries are normally considered for relatively large (1 kWh – 10 MWh) stationary applications.[68] These are for:

• Load balancing – where the battery is attached to an electrical grid to store excess electrical power during off-peak hours and release electrical power during peak demand periods. The common problem limiting the use of most flow battery chemistries in this application is their low areal power (operating current density) which translates into a high cost of power.
• Storing energy from renewable sources such as wind or solar for discharge during periods of peak demand.[69]