Chuck, true cost renewables

[AlbertaFarmer5]

The best use of solar power right now is to displace gasoline burned in a car.
Soon it will be used to displace gasoline/diesel burned in a pickup truck.
Later it will be used to displace diesel in a highway tractor.

Last I checked, truckers were concerned about weight, since every additional pound their truck weighs, is one less pound they can haul.

Li-ion batteries have an energy density of 0.3 MJ/kg. Diesel has 46MJ/kg. So to replace the 1000L (2000lbs) fuel tanks on your truck with the energy equivalent batteries would weigh in at 337,333 lbs. That doesn't leave a lot of room for freight, considering the max registered gross weight is only 63,500kg.

Efficiencies will improve that somewhat of course.

Edit, perhaps you are referring to powering them directly with solar panels, in which case, I will defer to Chuck to do the math on that, since he is the foremost expert on such matters.

[chuckChuck]

cc. is legit. So are his family solar panels. I think they used up his Jan-Feb power generation just turning on the fan to his 24% moisture wheat. lol

I say thank you to the oil industry for the three phase infrastructure of our area.

If you keep your eyes open before k-line strips the transformer for SP's use somewhere else, you can tell Sask Power that you will take over the oilfield meter at farm monthly rates for a bin yard, and save yourself tens of thousands to redevelop 30 minutes of salvage destruction.

Now that is a positive reason for saying oil is not all bad.

Thanks checking. It was only 15-16% wheat. But unsettled weather pushed me to do some at 18% too. Which is higher than I want, but waiting for it to dry in the field could be a long wait.

3 phase if definitely the way to go. Using abandoned oil field sites is a good idea. Roads and electricity already installed!

Sizing solar systems to cover the large loads of aeration fans that only run for a few weeks per year on most farms would not be a good investment at this point. But it looks like 25 kw will come close to covering my average annual usage of around 35000 kwh. A wet fall will drive the annual usage up alot.

[Tucker]

I currently have 18 hp of aeration fans running during a sunny day and still producing extra electricity.

There is an environmental impact to everything. Fossil fuels have a bigger impact. Especially coal.

I am glad that you are all concerned about the environment.

BULLSHIT!!!!

To give a simple answer to a complicated question, 1hp = ~745w. 8.5x745 = ~6.3kw. Depending on location etc, you'd need ~8kw pv array.

Panels put out ~150w/sq.meter. 8000/150 = 54 square meters. A common mount would be ~2m high, so ~27m long (roughly 7' by 100' array).

This is just to give you a sense of the order of magnitude solar array involved.

18Hp?? Still extra left over???? You have 700 sq ft x 18? 12 600 square feet of solar panels?? You should be able to see a solar array that size from space. **** you 'chuck. Or are you 'averaging' and using the rest of our paid for grid as your battery over a year? Which is it?

Edit: the 8.5 in the calculation is running one 1hp motor for only 8.5 hours a day. That's only when it's sunny. Good job grain doesn't need to be dried the other 15.5 hours a day. On this site we ****ing obey the laws of physics 'chuck.

[Guest]

Climate change earth muffins never do

[TSIPP]

I have a Nephew that sells solar panels in Regina, some green place. Anyway to pretty much cover my power bill I’d need a solar setup 12 feet by 70 feet, pretty much costs 60 grand but with all the grants it should come to roughly 35 grand. I use around 30 thousand watts a year.

I hope these numbers are close as it wasn’t an official quote, just a quick question over lunch.

[chuckChuck]

Tucker. i have about 25000 watts of panels which put out 23500 watts at peak on a sunny day. That is enough watts to cover over 30hp based on 745 watts per hp.

At 18 hp I only need 13410 watts. The panels output varies depending on the angle of the sun and time of day. I am guessing I am getting around 6 - 8 hours with enough output to more than cover the 13410 watts. I typically turn the fans on at 9am and off at 6pm if the grain is 15 -16% because there is not much point running fans on near dry grain when the relative humidity goes up. I don't turn off fans with grain above 17-18% unless it is raining.

I can easily tell when the panels are putting out more than I am using as I can see which way the 2 way meter is going. And I can read the output on the inverters.

If I have a chance, the next sunny day I will watch to see at what time of day I get enough production and when it starts to fall below total demand.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Tucker. i have about 25000 watts of panels which put out 23500 watts at peak on a sunny day. That is enough watts to cover over 30hp based on 745 watts per hp.

At 18 hp I only need 13410 watts. The panels output varies depending on the angle of the sun and time of day. I am guessing I am getting around 6 - 8 hours with enough output to more than cover the 13410 watts. I typically turn the fans on at 9am and off at 6pm if the grain is 15 -16% because there is not much point running fans on near dry grain when the relative humidity goes up.

https://www.country-guide.ca/crops/are-you-really-drying-grain-when-you-turn-on-aeration-fans/ https://www.country-guide.ca/crops/are-you-really-drying-grain-when-you-turn-on-aeration-fans/

https://www.producer.com/2012/11/study-shows-grain-dryer-fans-should-run-mainly-at-night%E2%80%A9/ https://www.producer.com/2012/11/study-shows-grain-dryer-fans-should-run-mainly-at-night%E2%80%A9/

Producers who lack sophisticated monitoring equipment should follow Palmer’s “yard light rule” — turn fans on at night and off during the day.

Good thing the rest of Sask Power's customers are so generously subsidising your use of the grid for storage...

[chuckChuck]

Fossil fuels also receive subsidies.

And farm customers in Saskatchewan receive lower rates than residential customers even though the cost of delivering electricity to a small number of widely spread farms is higher.

I added generating capacity at my own expense and Sask power gets the carbon credit.

So who is subsidizing who?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I'm not even referring to the massive taxpayer subsidies for renewables.

I'm referring to the fact that every single users power bills go up every time an unreliable source of generation is added to the grid. They are all paying for your lack of storage by huge infrastructure costs, and losses in efficiencies. By mandating that distribution companies must sell you power at peak hours at the same rate as you can randomly sell them power, regardless of grid demand, it is driving up the costs for everyone, except you.

[chuckChuck]

I'm not even referring to the massive taxpayer subsidies for renewables.

I'm referring to the fact that every single users power bills go up every time an unreliable source of generation is added to the grid. They are all paying for your lack of storage by huge infrastructure costs, and losses in efficiencies. By mandating that distribution companies must sell you power at peak hours at the same rate as you can randomly sell them power, regardless of grid demand, it is driving up the costs for everyone, except you.

I invested money in reducing carbon emissions and are subsidizing those who are not.

Sask power is planning on 50 % renewables by 2030 and I am helping them get there in a small way.

But you don’t believe there is a problem to begin with and are satisfied with subsidies to and external costs from the fossil fuel industry. So I don’t have to justify anything to you.