Estevan considered for solar power

[burnt]

oneooff - take a look here for what I find to be the most current rates offered for PV electricity:

[URL="http://microfit.powerauthority.on.ca/sites/default/files/page/FIT%20Price%20Schedule%202014-09-30.pdf"]http://microfit.powerauthority.on.ca/sites/default/files/page/FIT%20Price%20Schedule%202014-09-30.pdf[/URL]

I couldn't get into the real-time production pages either - did you blow it up? LOL!

[blackpowder]

I don't see non-renewables running out quickly. But eventually.
I do see peak demand shortages when you can't bring it in from hydro fast enough, once you shut off coal. Stop and think whose hydro?????
N.A. will burn thru our NatGas like a ****d ape for electricity while no new technology will be developed for coal.
I simply feel we are fanatically slaughtering the old bull before the herd is big enough.
A lot of this reading makes my head hurt. Most of chucks posts are just the same song sheet. His value as a politician or lobbyist is being squandered as a primary producer. He is truly a talented writer.
I commend oneoff for his many efforts.
My common sense alarm has been ringing like hell for a long time. Now I'm both fatalistic and pissed
I am not a Luddite. I am not ignorant or stupid. I do not wantonly waste. My knuckles do not drag the ground. (although they are getting arthritic from producing new dollars in our climate for years) I am now simply the paying, mute, minority.
Meanwhile, a good share of the middle class disappears. When those paying for everything overwhelmed by those producing nothing. I know I'm tired of being punished and I'm not talking income tax!!
Privileged elite, of course while telling us how sinful we are, seem to all live on a warm coastline. Helo-ing in to comfort the parasites while vilifying the mule. Neither Jane Fonda nor Suzuki bagged their own shit this morning. This country is so gawdamn small we could all starve and no world stats would change. We could have it made. But no, our new all inclusiveness and desire to lead the lemmings is pissing it all away.
Now, the learned on here can tear this apart any way they want. I give a fk.

[oneoff]

SEE very last post (AND I MEAN THE LAST POST ON PAGE 7 or so). The final response is WELL WORTH REMEMBERING


I posed the following questions to Sask Power before 3:00 pm this afternoon; first by telephone and then was told it was best to inquire through email and that they usually responded quite quickly. So far no response customer_products@saskpower.com



QUOTE
Please provide answers to the following questions about the proposed Sask Power initial "demonstration" solar 10Mw PV projects soon to be constructed.

Will the panels be simply tilted or is there an additional tracking system to give increased efficiency by improving positioning throughout the day and through out the year.

How many acres of actual panels will be erected for a the site with 10 Mw capacity?


Is the nameplate rating of panel output 10 Mw and thus ; expected to produce approximately 240 Mwh of electricity in a day
or will it produce about 10 Mw during the period of any day during full sunlight with no clouds; panels clear of frost etc. In short how many Mwh are expected to be produced on a good clear average day

I guess another way of saying that is how many Mwh of electricity will be expected to be produced in one year or 8760 hours of operation at say Estevan Sk from a 10 Mw solar panel array.

Thank you There is a lot of misinformation circulating and facts are always good to have in hand. I hope you can give me some answers this afternoon

UnQuote

So far no reply received.

The other matter is Ontario's up to 10 KW residential and farm generation program capped at a 10 Kw name plate rated unit.
Powerhousesolar appears to be in charge of the Ontario solar industry for small independent producers. You get accepted into the program and they charge 100,000 or 107,150 or so and you have up to 10 Kw nameplate rated system.

Burnt has provide a link to the current tariff schedule and it isn't nearly as lucrative as the 80 cents paid for up to 20 years that was previously available. Loopholes and all way up to fraud transgressions have been identified in last while and procedures and checks have been tightened up.

The Live Tracker data access apparently hasn't worked since about 2:48 this afternoon. I just inquired as to what might be wrong; and could relay any reply received.

In meantime I do have the data for 8 full days of electrical solar generation from Jan 1/2017 to Jan 8/2017. Thats a 192 hour continuous time span. The 10.08 KW (DC) rated panels generated a total of
61.9+59.1+3.0+7.6+10.3+42.6+47.4+65.2=297.1 Kwh of electricity at the "PowerhouseOne" site and will be paid 80 cents a Kwh because the contract was taken out sometime prior to the New year.

Now thats data that can't be argued with me; thats what was publically posted on the Powerhouse site and 297.1 divided by 192 hours is 1.55 Kwh produced on average every hour for the last 8 days.


This from 10.08 Kw rated array. Meaning in no uncertain terms that 8 days experience in the first week of Jan/2017 (in Ontario I am assuming because it did come from a Canadian Powerhouse web site) that there was 15.35% of rated capacity performance.

Now 6 pages of rebuttal can follow; but the fact still stands that to replace a Kw of functioning nuclear; or coal or any other generation that runs more or less on a continual basis for months at a time would take about 6 times as much nameplated rated solar panels to generate the same power as those other more dependable continuously running machines.

I have suspected that from the beginning, Sask Power has said 15%; actual projects says 4 1/2 to 6 hours out of 24 hours and common sense says similar results are in the ballpark. This Ontario Hydro analysis gives exactly the same conclusion. It wasn't cherry picked, the data wasn't manipulated; it was the first site that came up as the default on powerhousesolar.ca .

But yet this analysis will be followed by denials. Those denials are easily accepted by naive souls; who only accept convoluted contradictory misinformation, finger pointing; fear mongering; grand children being sentenced with our earth destroying behavior accusations...... continued to be made into made into the targets that deflect from fact that the solar replacement is only going to produce produce 1.5 Kw when it is branded as 10 Kw

And time will show that similar results will occur from the Sask Power project output from more than 30 million of investment will be closer to 1.5 Mw instead of 10Mw that Sask people might expect they can depend on.

A factor of 6 or more doesn't require statistical analysis to prove that it is significantly different. But if there is a demand to prove that I could accommodate any idiot who wants to waste other people's time.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Definitely my concern is running out. Not for us. But for the future. While we have all this stored energy lets do what we can to create some ways of making power from the sun, wind, biologic photo cells, fusion....

Because how do you start creating some of this stuff in the future as it gets more scarce if there is barely enough energy to grow food. If its not at our societal responsibility to at least do something, to try, well then i have no argument at all. I just personally feel that we have done plenty of damage already to future generations, its time to pay it forward.

I mean if you have grandkids like i do, and when i think about their kids in the future, will all the problems be magically solved because they have run out of stored energy? Unfortunately the only argument against that is screw em, they're on their own, i did my part by burning buck a liter gas in my Escalade. I paid my debt.

Global warming when outside its minus 25, i say bring it on!

I'm with you there. IF we wait until we really are running out of the non renewable energy sources, it will be too late to develop the alternatives, whatever they may be, simply because it will require so much energy to build the infrastructure and make the changes. I am all for researching and developing alternatives. I'm not for taxing carbon due to supposed AGW, but all for establishing what alternatives might be viable, we will need them some day.

[tweety]

I get it oneoff, draining a battery is cheaper than charging one. So lets just keep finding more batteries. Problem solved.

[burnt]

Seems to be a lot of coal around, like 250 year's worth (similar to NG) at current consumption rates:

[URL="http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_reserves"]http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_reserves[/URL]

And that is before we even start to explore the energy potential from kerogen.

Seems to me that there is a lot of needless panic around the issue of fossil fuels supply. We grossly underestimate the power of human ingenuity, likely losing sight of it due to selfish, short-term thinking borne from nihilistic thinking such as that demonstrated by negativists like "Dr." Suzuki and the Goracle.

In other words, we are witnessing and experiencing the unhappy and injurious spectacle of politics leading "science".

[oneoff]

Getting distracted with battery arguments

[oneoff]

Cm'on tweety help us get that Powerhouse.ca Live Tracking up and running again. There really is all the information there to prove beyond a doubt that your ideas only work economically with 80 cent (or so) prices per Kwh for the package. On other fronts they make little sense at all. Somebody also has to pay for that 80 cent (plus markups, distribution losses etc)

And just how many regular homeowners were able to even finance 100.000 dollars set ups a fraction of nameplate output. You types will only catch on when you prove it to yourself

Are you people up to it...and if not what are your limitations or hangups preventing common sense prevailing. Maybe there is help needed from someone else

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Seems to be a lot of coal around, like 250 year's worth (similar to NG) at current consumption rates:

[URL="http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_reserves"]http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_reserves[/URL]

And that is before we even start to explore the energy potential from kerogen.

Seems to me that there is a lot of needless panic around the issue of fossil fuels supply. We grossly underestimate the power of human ingenuity, likely losing sight of it due to selfish, short-term thinking borne from nihilistic thinking such as that demonstrated by negativists like "Dr." Suzuki and the Goracle.

In other words, we are witnessing and experiencing the unhappy and injurious spectacle of politics leading "science".

And most of us underestimate the power of exponential growth.

[Hamloc]

Tweety, if you listen to the messaging of the left they simply want natural resources left in the ground. They are not worried about saving them for future generations.
Chuck2, if a grid tied solar system takes 25 years to payback at 10 cents a kwh what profit is there for a power company to build a solar farm and get payed 10 cents a kwh? My guess is they will want much more than 10 cents.
General question, in our climate do you have to plow snow in between the rows of solar panels to facilitate cleaning?

[tweety]

My experience with batteries is that good ones are really handy for cordless impact drivers and any remote use 6 feet or more from a utility electrical outlet. The last free ones were doled out by Radio Shack a free decades ago

Draining a battery isn't free. You do that for a thousand times or less and your're set up for replacing it.

Sigh, the battery is non renwable energy. Charging the battery is renewable energy. Zoomed right over the head lol.

[oneoff]

More batteries....my bad

[chuckChuck]

Hamloc, here is the answer below to your question about costs of various types of utility scale electricity in the USA. Estevan will have their own numbers. Look at how cheap wind is. Solar PV is not far behind.

Residential or farm scale costs for solar pv according to Boyd Solar are around 10 cents per kwh now. And will likely fall as efficiency increases. Exchange rates matter on some things but panels are manufactured in Canada.

I talked with a solar supplier yesterday. The ground mount panels are at 70 degrees in the winter and 20 degrees in the summer to maximize capacity . 90 degrees is vertical 0 degrees is horizontal.

Snow will not sit on a 70 degree panel unless it is wet. I expect 95% of the time there will be no snow issues as the panels also warm up and melt off as they are a dark surface with glass just a few centimeters between the glass and silicon.

Snow will be more of an issue on roof top panels. They will likely need to be cleaned some through out the winter. Adjustable ground mount solves this problem.

As with any system there will be maintenance required and systems will have to be designed to deal with it. I am sure Sask power knows this. Coal stations only run on average 85% of the time and require a lot of maintenance and upgrading.

Compare coal with CCS and the cost of wind or solar below. Which do you think is a better investment? Wind! Sask power is planning on 1600 mw of wind by 2030. Solar will play a smaller role.

http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
USA Average Levilized cots of energy (LCOE) for plants coming on stream in 2022 in USA in 2015 $/Mwh. No subsidies included.

Coal with CCS - $139.5
Natural Gas Conventional Combined cycle - $58.1
Natural Gas Advanced Combined cycle -$57.2
Natural Gas CC with CCS -$84.8
Natural Gas Conventional Combustion Turbine - $110.8
Natural Gas Advanced Combustion Turbine - $94.7

Advanced Nuclear - $102.8
Geothermal -$45
Biomass -$96.1

Wind - $64.5
Wind Offshore - $158.1
Solar PV - $84.7
Solar Thermal -$235.9
Hydroelectric -$67.8
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[oneoff]

Just contacted powerhouse.ca and reported their website live tracker seemed to be down. They weren't aware of it; but did confirm that it didn't work for the technician. Very nice chat

I was assured they'd check it out; so expect it will be back fairly quickly

Sorry for breaking it; but they should beef it up for rougher handling. LOL

[chuckChuck]

Oneoff I used a simple solar electricity calculator from the NREL and punched in Estevan and a 10 mw system with 1 axis tilt set at 45 degrees year round.

It said output is 18,730,101 kwh per year. At 11 cents per kwh which is what we pay it produces $2,060,311 worth of power in a year.

That would be an estimate. 10 mw (10,000 watts) is the maximum capacity of the panels when they are new and are pointing directly at the sun.

This is a simple calculator and will be an estimate. But this estimate is based on the solar resource at estevan.