By Jo Nova
Let’s run an experiment on a whole nation that we can’t even do easily on a single home
Imaging scaling this up for a country?
The Daily Sceptic has the story of an Australian farmer in Victoria who has gone off-grid to try to be as self sufficient as he can, not out of ideology, but for pragmatic reasons. He has two 3 bedroom homes, with 30 solar panels and a 1kW wind turbine each. For storage they have about 30 German lead acid batteries which at current prices is about $15,000 of batteries each. But even so, each house still has bottled gas stoves, and a 6 kVA petrol generator. The generators are set to come on when the batteries get too low, which often happens in the evenings of autumn, winter and sometimes in spring. (He estimates about 60 – 100 hours each year). Even above all that equipment that needs gas, fuel and maintenance and cost about $160,000 in total to set up, they still have to grow, cut and collect, ouch, 100 kg of wood (220lbs) per week in winter for each house.
He warns that anyone who thinks the nation can run on wind and solar without fossil fuel or nuclear energy is “totally deluded”. And these are farmhouses on the coast in Victoria — so a milder climate — we’re not talking of snow.
The author was a part time specialist medical practitioner until the government tried to force him into a medical experiment (you know the one) that he didn’t want to take part in. Now he is an anonymous peasant farmer with chicken and sheep. So he’s a bright guy, who had a good income, and the kind of man that can rebuild a 70 year old diesel generator that weighs 1.4 tonnes. How exactly does this kind of system translate into a national energy for people living on high density blocks with no trees, a heat pump and a Tesla they need to plug in?
Living Off-Grid Has Shown Me That Modern Society Cannot Function on Renewable Energy
Extrapolating from our renewable energy experience, anyone who thinks that a modern society can function with a power grid that runs on just solar and wind power without fossil fuel or nuclear backup that’s able to immediately provide up to 100% of power needs on cloudy, still days and dark, windless nights, is totally deluded!
And getting grid-scale lithium ion battery storage to provide the sort of supply time that we have on our farm would cost trillions of dollars, deplete the planet’s non-renewable resources to the point of imminent exhaustion and then it would have to be done all over again in 10 years.
Nothing is truly set and forget:
After 20 years the first of our solar panels have started to fail and have been replaced. …
Renewable energy systems should more honestly be called replaceable energy systems. None of the components can be expected to work for more than 25 years and often a much shorter time than that.
Even with nearly 3 tons of lead acid batteries for two homes, they still really only have a one day supply:
In theory we have three to four days of zero input power supply if we were to flatten the batteries, but in practice we don’t let the batteries drop below 70% capacity in order to protect them and make them last as long as possible. So we are limited to about one day of stored capacity.
Both house systems are close to as optimised as we can get them and represent a total investment of around $160,000.
I’m assuming the $160,000 was for both houses together, I hope I’m not reading that wrongly. And of course, here in Australia, the solar panels were almost certainly subsidized, so the true cost is even more.
The Daily Sceptic has all the kVA details... thanks to the anonymous farmer for sharing his story.
h/t to Steve
Right now in Alberta:
Solar producing 396 out of 1373 installed capacity (29 %) It is the middle of the day here.
Wind producing 157 out of 3853 installed capacity (4 %)
We also have an hilarious 130 MW of storage capacity. It is currently producing nothing.
The current hourly pool price is 59.62 cents/kWh.
Before we installed all this “cheap” renewable generation, prices were consistently around 7 cents/kWh.
Anyone that tells you wind and solar will result in lower prices is lying.
Anyone that thinks we can run our society on renewable energy is an idiot.
890
“ Anyone that tells you wind and solar will result in lower prices is lying.
Anyone that thinks we can run our society on renewable energy is an idiot.”
It would appear that we have an ample supply of liars & idiots. Just wondering if they’ll 🔥 brightly enough to produce additional power when their policies come to fruition!
400
Calling creatures like blackout bowen idiots has currency but they are worse then that. Underpinning alarmism and it’s monster renewables is a hatred of Western Capitalism and even worse a hatred of humans, misanthropy:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-10-07/warming_to_misanthropy/39750
How else can you explain what is happening? I believe a certain number of different types of people support alarmism and renewables:
1 Grifters cashing in entirely from government subsidies since renewables cannot make a profit
2 Communists who use alarmism to weaken and undermine the West
3 Misanthropes who are true greenies who believe humans are a plague on the planet
4 Useful idiots, well meaning fools who value their sense of virtue more than the harm they are causing, eg Teals.
531
Two types Coh. The gullible and the cynical.
10
Every society, going back thousands of years, had its liars and idiots, acting like a dead weight on progress.
Today however, we elect those liars and idiots into government for some reason. And then do what they tell us to do.
We’re doomed!
110
In Australia we are constantly told that wind and solar is the cheapest and most reliable form of energy production.
The reality is, the more we get, the more expensive electricity becomes.
Australia has gone from some of the world’s cheapest electricity to some of the most expensive.
It is an obvious but constantly repeated lie.
If it were true, China would be building lots of wind and solar but instead are building two coal.power stations per week. The same people who advocate more wind and solar for Australia and blowing up Australian power stations, support China building coal power stations.
641
Our communistic government would be totally aware of what has happened overseas with renewables. Yet they still blunder on as if our mistakes will have a different outcome than everyone else’s mistakes. Now extremely hard to believe anything about them except they are part of the reset to impoverish our nation and people. Then follows another question; why the huge influx of migrants into Australia at a time of hardship and near recession? We already have an acute shortage of housing and with
big, medium and small building companies failing almost every week, that’s not going to help. I smell a big stinking rat in Canberra or wherever he is in the world on any given day.
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Dave, the (supposedly) alpha RAT is actually not the problem, he like all the other “comrades” are just the useful rat idiots.
Think about the recent referendum, 60.2% of the nation voted NO, however the ACT voted completely opposite, 61.3% (174,523) voted YES. The primary industry of the ACT is public service, these are the public servants that run our country, think of Sir Humphery from Yes Minister and multiply by 174,523!!
It’s the faceless ‘servants’ that run the show, Arts Graduates from our unbalanced left wing universities, without 2 cents of common sense to rub between them all and not one iota of understanding of engineering or science. Until something is done about the ‘servants’ nothing will change and the nation is doomed to follow the rest of the West over the edge of the net zero cliff while china & russia look on and laugh their coal powered heads off!!
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“The reality is, the more we get, the more expensive electricity becomes.”
That bears out the liars part of the statement.
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If it were true, China would be building lots of wind and solar but instead are building two coal.power stations per week.
Dave
Actually according to reports, China is doing BOTH.
The rationale apparently being, that lack of (inexpensive) electricity from any source would be detrimental to the overall economy. So the “plan” allows for the combination to provide more overall power output than either one individually.
I wonder if the potential cost of brown/black outs on the national grids is being considered as part of the planned “expansions”?
Would the grids be structured differently if the daily supply charges could only be collected on days where there were no power outages (perhaps exceeding 5 seconds?).
10
“We also have an hilarious 130 MW of storage capacity. It is currently producing nothing” … Ha ha ha … you have to put something in it first!
I know that you know that, but the clever (sarc) Elites and Mercenary Facilitators just have NO IDEA. Storage cannot PRODUCE ANYTHING, only release what was produced earlier ( in excess).
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here in Australia, our Climate Change and Energy Minister is interest-free, as in devoid of interest in reality!
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That goes well with free renewables.
60
Misfire , see green.
30
Diesel King Island 76% – https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
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How ironic.
The ex-medical practioner, now farmer, refused to participate in an insane medical experiment only to be forced into an insane “green” (sic) energy experiment and punished a second time.
At least the second experiment didn’t harm or kill him like the first one might have.
572
Of course, the rejoinder is that it’d work for the poor old Dr Farmer if he had more batteries and more solar panels, and more wind turbines.
And if he gathered up all the manure and green waste and made his own gas.
Wkere’s Leaf?
Where’s Peter?
They’re bound to have the answer.
Or would they only provide more hot air?
31
The truth will out! But not before the government has bankrupted and enslaved us! IF WE LET THEM!
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Bankrupting us is the point of this. In order for us to own nothing and be happy we have to first own nothing.
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In Australia, further evidence of the failure of “green” (sic) energy is King Island and Flinders Island in Bass Strait.
They are in the Roaring Forties and if unreliables could work anywhere, it would be there. But it doesn’t work and are both heavily reliant on diesel generators and there is no extension cord to the mainland.
Those islands should be a warning about unreliables insanity for all of Australia but are ignored (and/or not known about).
500
David, somewhat O/T but recently the local supermarkets (Adelaide Hills) have started selling package briquettes.
2 kg of hardwood ones for $5.95. Also a larger size of coal ones with RedHeads symbols and a claim they are for BBQs. (no price listed).
I wonder why the enthusiasm? It is very cold at night here (3-5℃) and Tuesday the maximum was 11℃ briefly. Could people be using their old fireplaces?
290
We’re in the foothills; Tuesday was cold, but Wednesday more so and yesterday was hardly summer-like. Thought we’d finished with the pot belly stove for this year, not the case.
10
We’ve had to learn new definitions, of ‘vaccine’, ‘compulsory’ and ‘woman’.
We may be required to adjust to a new understanding of ‘modern’.
‘Function’ is also a candidate for adjustment.
341
The 1984 book talks about newspeak. It’s been a while but I recall a conversation where one of the aims of newspeak was to make it impossible to have unapproved conversations and even unapproved thoughts.
So today we have the keepers of the dictionaries “updating” the definitions of the words you mention. Why? I can only surmise that it is to ensure the party propagandists are always right.
The word modern interests me. For years I thought it meant up to date with a trend to ongoing improvement. Only in my adult years did I realize it meant following the fashion of the day. The term modern depravity illustrates the idea of modernity quite well.
170
The Animal Farm Book has the population destroying itself to build a windmill that never works.
I have lived without grid power for thirty years. ( BTW. Thanks for those who kicked in with the subsidies that allowed me upgrade my system so I was no longer dependent on a gas fridge)
Off grid is expensive and subject to being chewed, requires routine maintenance, is a target for thieves and GOD. The anonymous farmer did not mention the fact the whole lot can go up in smoke with lightning or have the panels destroyed by hail.
Only the wealthiest Grandma with an electrician / diesel mechanic as a neighbour would be able to live independently off grid.
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The quote is:
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Orwell wrote it as a warning
The idiots use it as a manual
20
My Dad used to work for the electricity commission. He worked as an environmental technical officer and used to take me with him when he did studies and collected samples on the waterways of NSW (nice job if you can get it). I watched some of NSW big power stations being built. Then things seemed to go off the rails and the government made stupid decisions about the power grid. I could see that happening since I was young. Then the government just got nuttier and nuttier in their decision making regarding the power grid. I could see that the government was also lying. I could see for decades that the only long term consequence of their policies would be to damage the power grid, cause there to be a lack of reliable electricity which would destroy our current economy and society, and since power is the thing that has allowed there to be a population as big as it is, with the benefits we have had, basically these policies were just going to produce a lot of dead people. On top of that the politicians and media just lied about it all time, spouting inversions of the truth. I live out the middle of nowhere and farm. It snows here in winter. Proper heating is needed to have any sort of modern life here, and sometimes needed to stay alive. On my own I would have to spend a full day a week cutting wood and stacking it to keep an OK level of heating. That one day a week assumes petrol chain saws and an electric log splitter. I cant spend one day a week collecting fire wood, and also farm the farm to earn the money to stay here. If I had to go to totally renewable with timber and do all of it with an axe I could not any more as I am too old.
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Yet another individual stating the bleeding obvious..it simply cannot be done on a National scale. I have two friends who both had solar on the roof…both sets of crappy Chinese panels failed at the 6 year mark. All the failed panels went to the local Tip. Two more sets of crappy Chinse panels are now back up on both roofs. The Inverters at both locations have been replaced several times.
I can just imagine the failure rate of these large solar installations..but we will never be told.
To see Governments, that presumably have access to experts, systematically destroy our once reliable energy grid is simply bewildering. Both Liberal and Labor have followed this insanity…it goes back as far as Howards Government….blindly following the lunacy of climate change.
If we do not begin building at least three large coal or gas generators on the East Coast tomorrow, we are doomed to blackouts, rolling load shedding and huge energy cost.
360
Wel the Governments won’t build any large coal or gas generators so blackouts will happen. Renewables are thought wonderful, even magical.
The only way I see if if the public servants involved are told that any collapses will be the end of their employment. That might concentrate a few minds.
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“Well the Governments won’t build any large coal or gas generators, so blackouts will happen. ”
If you think, our govt wouldn’t just let that happen, just have a look at the current housing/rental crisis, not only do the govt seem unable to help, anything they do just makes it worse, and look at the size of the immigration numbers.
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Consider the social/health requirements for new housing compared with that of 30 (or 50) years ago. Add seriously increased suburban density (and lack of space for greenery or should I say fire hazards?)
It adds up to a cost increase for basic housing far in excess of general inflation. And in most (country?) areas it would not permitted to build multiple 100sqm cottages (on 40 hectare plus blocks) even if in compliance with sanitary (sewerage) codes.
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Depends if the anecdote can be extended to commercial installations or even to other consumers who make less short sighted choices. There are plenty of installations that run fairly trouble free.
00
In Vicdanistan the State Electricity Commission has just been restarted.
Strangely, the Premier’s announcement was only reported by Friends of the Earth and Renew Economy and I heard it on the radio.
Nothing like throwing, literally to the wind, more billions of dollars from Victoria’s bankrupt economy and badly suffering taxpayers.
180
Life on the Sunshine Coast has a lot to recommend it compared to life in suburban Melbourne. And as my brother used to say, moving from Victoria to Queensland simultaneously improves the average IQ of both states.
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I’m sure life there is just marvellous, but have you noticed how Qld’ers always have to tell us how great it all is up there? Why is that, some kind of insecurity?
02
Yep its the whole QLDer!!! identity thing. Half my family comes from around Maryborugh in QLD. Their selectivity about the joys of QLD is quite something.
00
A saying around our clan (with relatives in Victoria) is that
“You can tell a Victorian but you can’t tell them very much”
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You beat me to it again DM. I noticed it on X this morning. Premier Barbie ( Jacinta Allan ) doing a photo op with Mike Cannon-Brookes – reported by Heidi Murphy, journalist. Grand announcement of the SEC, Victoria’s renewable energy future. Usual crap with all the usual rent- seekers no doubt invited to the function. Someone else posted the photo of Lily d’Ambrosia ( Vic Energy Minister ) and Premier Barbie together with the caption ” these people are supervising Vic’s electrical grid- be very afraid”.
110
My mum and dad grew up without electricity in their homes. We tend to forget how new this access to reliable energy is, yet it’s already taken for granted. It seems we’re about to be reminded of how precious that supply is, and how thankful we should be to our forebears for the work, planning and investment of their treasure that built it. What ungrateful fools we are.
280
Absolutely, my mum and dad bought their first farm near Maryborough Vic in the early 1950’s. No mains power, just an old petrol ( Lister ?) generator. First thing in the morning dad said he would trudge down to the generator shed to fire it up. You couldn’t have it too close to the house because it was quite noisy. Then last thing at night, do the reverse trip to turn it off. They had kero fridges, hurricane lamps and bugger all else. When mains power came through in the mid 1950’s, it was heaven. 240 v electrical appliances also didn’t break down in the middle of heatwaves, unlike the old kero fridge.
160
The Kero fridge worked just fine. I used one for decades as a beer fridge-sold it in 2004 when moved from Sydney. One just had to be careful that everything did not freeze up. I bought it 2nd hand. I think it was a Silent Knight and I think it was made in 1948 or 1949. My memory indicates it started making ice within an hour and was quicker for cooling beer for a party than the modern electric fridge. It works with ammonia as a refrigerant. The ammonia dissolves in water to create a vacuum so the liquid ammonia can evaporate and expand cooling the internals.
40
Still have one in my shed. Works fine and once you figure out the “correct” flame setting it’ll chill beer and not freeze it.
00
This is a practical example of how renewables really operate. Chris Bowen is deluded because he does believe he can power Australia with a scaled up version of this farmer’s system. The greatest shame accrues to those engineers and advisors who support Bowen’s mad plan. Those people need to be named because not only are they responsible for crippling our economy and our grid but also bringing into disrepute those disciplines they represent. Can we trust any engineer or scientist that perpetuates the climate change fraud and the so called solutions that it spawned?
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You are of course correct about naming the offenders but bear in mind that every single one of them has done their best to ensure that they are unaccountable and unnameable. Committees decide everything and must follow guidelines designed to ensure particular outcomes.
121
Its way worse. The small system isn’t a great example of the complexity and cost distributed “renewables” impose on the grid.
10
I actually don’t believe that any of the so-called environment pollies are incompetent, deluded, stupid, ignorant or any of the other words of derision thrown at them (a lot by me I might add). I think they are doing their jobs very well – and that is, following orders. ToM
50
Sorry, Not the case The ALP follows the “Peter Principle” (look it up). In a hierarchy everyone one rises to their level of incompetence. Then they surround themselves with less competent people so the top one is not shown up as being the most incompetent.
21
Even if Australia got a rational government, there is no way out of this insanity because of the cost of paying out existing contracts and compensation to the subsidy harvesters. The cost of the exit would be huge.
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Sunk cost fallacy?? Good money after bad?? Insanity doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.
130
Agreed. So many government enterprises are set up with a poison pill for protection against discontinuing the lunacy.
120
Force Majeure, ?
40
Bit like buying Victorian 2022 election votes with a promise of holding the 2026 Commonwealth Games and then cancelling them in 2023
10
I hate to admit this, but I read a couple of books by Prof Michael Hudson – a sworn Trotskyist. Leaving aside his political views, Hudson hit the nail right on the head about how in the west, all utilities were at cost, due to being Natural Monopolies which our collective governments provided. But then, as Psuedonaja Textilis correctly agreed, it was privatized and guess what, the Rentiers added:’Profit.’ And yes it has been downhill ever since.
I am still shocked that I read those books, so does anyone know of a good shrink around Melbourne that I can visit for help.
73
Stay away from the mind benders. They cannot earn a living if you get better.
120
If you look at Victorias electricity prices, they barely changed after privatisation for many years, pretty much in line with inflation. That was until the great globull warming swindle of course…
110
Please keep posting this type of article. I like to show them to believers.
We recently had an excellent holiday on Great Barrier Island in NZ.(not the reef in Queensland. )
The Island is off grid. Solar power was enough to run a fridge and the lights but cooking and hot water was gas. Heating was a wood fire.
Anyone who thinks we can provide our energy needs with wind and solar is delusional.
240
The Canberra twits might be off in the wrong paddock but we must adapt to their temporary stupidities.
I’m tailoring different power sources to suit different demands:
Space heating – wood fired stove (I live in the bush).
Water, – collect rain in 2 tanks. Use off-peak to pump up to 3rd high tank so I have gravity pressure during power outages.
Hot water, – 1) solar thermal. 2) off-peak electricity.
Sewage, – Rotoloo composting dunny saves using ~900 litres of drinking quality water per week.
Grey water, – runs through a gravel and reed bed. Redistributed to keep the immediate house garden green as a fire-break.
Clothes washing, – off peak circuit.
Fridge and freezer, – solar PV islanded Microgrid. Small battery that can also be charged using off-peak in cloudy weather. The latest 24V DC fridges draw an average of 75W. Solar PV is good for these steady small loads.
Cooking- LPG and the wood stove.
Big tools and welders- standard mains power. Nothing beats an unlimited power source.
Emergency back-up, – Honda 3.5kW generator runs critical items such as refrigeration, phones, MODEM and LED light strings with the spare generation topping up the battery so the genny is never idling away wasting petrol.
Ultimately, mains power will cost 50¢/unit and I will expand my battery bank to go completely independent of the grid. Presently, it only cost $360/yr for grid access but the plan is for them to phase out off-peak and charge us all absurd prices for electricity. If they advertised it as a “Power and Control” measure we’d all jack up.
Nickle/Iron batteries cost ~ $700/kWhr and last around 30 years if maintained properly. This cost will diminish with time.
LiFePO4 batteries are $570/kWhr.
Sodium ion batteries are coming in and I’m playing with super capacitors as they mop up a full charge in a matter of minutes and can deliver transient spikes of power such as when a big fridge or washing machine starts up.
All this takes years to plan and execute and costs a lot more than mains power but the dopes in charge seem to want to cripple the grid and I want to keep living normally. No need to worry, – once the next real power station breaks down the hue and cry from the inner city voters will spur our dim-twits into action.
10
My calculations are that it would cost around $10 Trillion to have battery back up instead of fossil fuels for a total wind and solar system for current electricity demand before adding in demand to recharge EVs.
Therefore it just ain’t going to happen
130
AGAIN here are 2022 OWI Data’s Global PRIMARY ENERGY share by SOURCE.
Fossil Fuels 85.37% .
Traditional biomass 6.91 %.
Wind & Solar 2.13 %.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy-share-inc-biomass?time=latest
You can add up Nuclear, Hydro, other renewables etc at the link.
AGAIN, data analyst Willis Eschenbach double checked and came to the same conclusion as Our World in DATA.
Obviously W & S are tiny but very TOXIC disasters and are the source of our energy problems.
And W & S have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years at least and at an Aussie cost of up to 1.5 TRILLION $ by 2030 and 7 to 9 TRILLION $ by 2060. See “Net Zero Australia” I’ve linked to recently.
100
Here’s another part of the TOXIC W & S sick joke to consider.
Aussies emit about 1% of global co2 emissions and to reach global NUTTY ZERO we can just multiply say 1.3 TRILLION by 100 = 130 TRILLION $ by 2030 and 800 TRILLION $ by 2060.
I can just see the world’s countries lining up to bankrupt themselves AGAIN and AGAIN every 15 to 20 years and ZERO change to CLIMATE and TEMPERATURE as a bonus, SARC.
70
These renewable SCAMMERS know exactly what they’re doing.
They know that the solar panels, windmills and batteries need to be replaced about EVERY 15-20 years.
That’s why they’re called RENEWABLES and that is the entire point – RECURRING INCOME (with government assistance) is the best form of money making.
Prove my statement wrong. 🙂
Cheers,
190
That’s a big OUCH. Enough to flatten that / T H E Hydra ?
40
My panels are supposedly tier 1 and after 11 years the 5000watt system that was supposed to degrade by only a few % is now struggling to go over 3300watt in perfect conditions .
80
11+ year old panels are down 5-7% in rating compared with new panels on the same roof. So seriously were not worth the cost of replacing with new panels. Both inverters were replaced.
Though the old panels were “cleaned” when the new ones were added. A fair bit of dirt and lichen were removed
30
Solar ouputs:
https://solarcalculator.com.au/solar-panel-output/
Using deployable lightweight flexible panels and a simple solar tracker (like me) will of course maximise the output all year around.
Perfect for an acreage.
https://captaingreen.com.au/seasonal-solar-panel-performance/
Suboptimal planning and installations yield suboptimal results..
10
Not that I wish to prove you wrong but bear in mind that scamming is very much an opportunistic sort of enterprise and is extremely competitive. Snake oil salesmen never hang around any one town long enough to sell their product more than once. By the time the windmills, solar panels and batteries need replacement there will be a whole new breed of scammers on the scene.
And arbitrage is the best form of money making.
60
Forrest from what I’ve seen most of the early installing companies went belly up or closed and yes there were a lot of them lying about capacity factor etc .
30
I saw somewhere, that in the US, windfarm companies swap out their turbines at 10 yrs, as that is the life span for subsidies. The new ones pick up a new subsidy.
100
Who needs to be tied to a house when you have a Solar powered Car? and you want to be super-righteous .. see this month’s PV Mag https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/10/26/eu-solar-lobby-urges-ban-on-forced-labor-in-solar-products/
30
Good example on firsthand experience that shows that Ruinables are grossly overrated for modern society a fact that has been proven over and over for years now yet still ignored because they have a scam to pursue.
Can 20 Solar Panels on the roof run a full cycle of the dryer……
It is a useful niche power supplier for small things and for people who live off grid.
80
I’ve got a few more than 20 solar panels but they do indeed produce more than enough power for my house.
What I have learned is that inverters don’t like the start up power required by electric motors and pressure pumps. And being on tank water that is an issue every time somebody turns on a tap or visits the toilet. Instead the inverters use the grid to power short term heavy duty loads. So I’m pleased the grid is there to supply me with around $0.30 of heavy duty power per day.
My next learning point will be whether the pressure pumps trip the circuit breakers when the grid power goes out.
50
Why would your panels power a pump through grid connected inverter when the grid fails? Do you have a bank of storage batteries or will the inverter switch to provide power directly from what sun may be available at any point in time?
Add this to your list of high demand items. Most inverters will handle the short term load of an electric motor start, they do however hate toasters, microwaves,laser printers, irons, to name a few. The big failing I have had is with the actual battery terminals on the flooded lead acid batteries. These require constant maintenance to fight the ravages of arcing and corrosion. Could be worse, I thought I heard recently those with LG lithium batteries told to turn off their storage systems immediately.
41
There are many more mysteries in my system than I expected. I simply watch the monitoring software with interest in various situations. One reliably predictable pattern is that when a pressure pump runs there is a blip in use of grid power which lasts precisely the same period of time. The inverter seems to be using the grid to smooth the flow particularly when the battery is either charging or discharging.
Another is what happens when the battery is charging and a cloud passes over. Rather than immediately stopping charging the inverter will draw power from the grid for five or ten seconds as though it is smoothing the transition. And the reverse happens when full sunshine returns with the power going to the grid for five or ten seconds rather than immediately charging the battery.
My conclusion is that the current models of inverters are doing lots of stuff to smooth sudden changes in both weather and demand.
20
That is to protect the batteries and to reduce the chance of shutdowns.
10
Quite likely to extend the working life of the batteries too. I’m Machiavellian enough to hope that the manufacturer will still be around in ten years and that my battery will be replaced under warranty in 9.5 years.
00
Your solar panels won’t work when the grid goes out.
They won’t power your house at night time either.
60
they must know that surely, shirley
00
Not so Uber. The current generation of inverters does indeed continue to provide electricity from the panels when the grid goes out. And the batteries do power the house at night.
The solarquotes.com.au web site has useful information on these and other topics.
10
Some of the latest inverter/ charger units are built to recognise a “Grid down” event, isolate your house from the grid and then supply your house with power from your battery.
00
That is because motor loads (inductive loads) require 4 to 6 times their running power, to start up.
The physical inertia of an induction motor is very near to a dead short circuit at startup.
So, if the grid crashes, it takes 4 to 6 times the capacity of the grid to restart the grid. Unless it is sectioned off and restarted in portions that the available grid can restart. An entire black restart of the entire grid isn’t possible. Much less so with non-dispatchable, weather dependent, generation.
The Grid follows the load. Dispatchable Generation supplies the grid. Renewables follow the Dispatchables. Renewables are therefore 2 layers removed from reality and incapable of supplying or restarting a grid. Ideas to the contrary are ill informed and dangerous delusions.
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Indeed Lance. Nothing illustrates the concept of dispatchable power better than watching the output from solar panels ebb and flow based on the time of day and the weather. Want 5KW to run the AC and pool heater? The sun had better be shining, or you’d better have enough charge in the battery, or you’d better hope there’s no power outage on the grid.
Which is why I look forward with both anticipation and trepidation to my first grid outage. I made it quite clear to the salesman and installers that at my house no electricity means no water. That is the case for everyone not on town water which is most of the Sunshine Coast hinterland. I was promised that it would work. And they’d be awfully silly to promise but not be able to deliver.
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Solar is a bad choice for drying clothes. Go wind! A clothesline ..
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A friend in my shooting club has a similar setup, with similar results. He is in sunnier Central VIC away from the cloudier coastal strip. He is OK with it as he didnt want to go off grid, just (in his mind) reduce costs.
I dont think he has ever fully financially analysed what he has done , he just believes. Ok I guess if capital isnt an issue.
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Consider the roof top PV panels as inflation protection from grid supplied power. The expected ROI will depend on your expectations of the increases in the grid costs…. Pity about the limits on size for winter generation though.
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The only way wind and solar can happen is with a dramatically reduced standard of living, essentially to Third World standards or lower.
That is indeed the plan for non-Elites. The Left keep telling us in the West that our standard of living is “selfish and unsustainable”. What do you think that buzzword unsustainable really means in reality? They are telling us something!
Wind and solar could power households (of non-Elites) if they were restricted to one or two LED light globes for night time lighting, charging of a (monitored) cell phone and a small laptop to enable you to watch approved Leftist propaganda movies (e.g. Der Marsch zum Führer, Kubanskie kazaki or Wan shui qian shan) and Government propaganda, said device also to be in permanent listening and watching mode like the Telescreen in Nineteen Eighty Four.
You would eat a gruel of insects and grain, no cooking required. You would ride a non-electric bicycle or walk. You would live in a “15 Minute city” (medieval village of serfs) and need no other form of transport. You would freeze or boil and if you didn’t survive you’d be recycled as soylent green.
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Correct David and we’d soon see life expectancy drop to under 40 years and infant /child mortality would start to soar back to 1800 levels as well.
But I’m sure the lefty elites would be very happy and their yummy gruel and bugs would be served up on a regular basis for the horrible serfs etc.
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Bearing in mind of course that a large percentage of the world is yet to rise to the standard of what we regard as dystopia.
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While I worked in the utility area, I have found it extremely difficult to get info on how much the subsidy for solar panels actually is. Does anyone know? They wrap it in small system generation certificates and other crap. Making it as obscure as possible.
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From memory I received about $4500 from the Qld government earlier this year when I installed my 13.2 KW system. That showed up on my supplier’s invoice.
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Thanks. Appears to be about $125-150 per panel. roughly.
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It’s zero for the customer. It just gets added to the profit margin of the installer. I guess otherwise most of them couldn’t stay in business.
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Yep, and the installer knowing the customer can access the rebate, then puffs up the invoice price by about the same amount.
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YMMV but it showed up as “STC Point of Sale Discount” on both my quote and invoice.
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There are lessons to learn from mistakes but not so much from incompetence.
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The unreliables scam goes way beyond mere mistakes and incompetence but is based upon very big lies, fraud, deceipt, scamming by the Elite subsidy harvesters and an ideological commitment to destroy the West.
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I agree. The authors name might be referring to a snake but “Pseudo” translates to fake. So the whole story might be fake.
Also 20 year old solar panels suggests the system was cobbled together. Similar for lead/acid batteries. Lead/Acid batteries are far more expensive option than lithium for storing energy.
I can see the panels have not been tilted up around 60 degrees to maximise winter output along the Victorian coast. They are so flat that they would peak in December when demand is likely least. And why would you limit to 10kW of panels and pay an enormous amount of money for a clapped out diesel generator.
The whole article smacks of incompetence and is what you get from someone without an ounce of knowledge in the field.
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Rick,
I was wondering when someone would notice the author was “eastern brown snake ” . I agree with the point being made , but we must not let anyone commit deception as it is a tactic of the opposition. King Island is a far better example of renewable waste and its “optimised” .
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We only need to look at Flinders Island renewables, slap bang in the Roaring 40’s, right now hanging off 32% of diesel generation.
Classic fails everywhere you look.
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Those snapshots of Flinders Island don’t really say much. Did they ever say they were going to remove diesel?
Really nobody knows what success looks like for that project so its easy for them the say its brilliant and for critics to say its a failure.
Based on nothing but assumptions I’d guess their goal was to reduce/minimize diesel generation. If they did, how much they did, if it makes any economic sense I haven’t been able to find. What they have works in its own way. What the real costs and benefits are I don’t know.
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With diesel currently up over $2/litre, I expect it would be making a good return.
The project cost $13.4M. The saving is reported at 60% of fuel. The energy served was 6.7GW. So all diesel would be around 2Ml or AUD4M at current price. Saving is 60% or AUD2.4M. Project payback under present conditions 5.5 years.
I could not find any actual data on whether the 60% fuel saving is being achieved.
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The November 2017 King Island Case Study didn’t mention any plan to remove the diesel, just reduce its usage.
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The IEA reckons that RE grid upgrade costs include 80 M km of new transmission/distribution lines. And USD 600 Billion / yr “investment”. That’s 50 Million Miles of transmission line and distribution upgrades. Restringing existing lines is about AUD 2 Million/mile. New lines are some AUD 4 Million / mile. That’s between AUD 100 Trillion and 200 Trillion.
Just the eminent domain right of way confiscations, environmental impact reports, clearing, grading, construction, would over 100 years to do such a thing. This is NOT going to happen. It is an insane venture.
Paywalled:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-17/net-zero-success-hangs-on-rapid-power-grid-build-out-iea-says
Net Zero Success Hangs on Rapid Power Grid Build-Out, IEA Says
Spending on revamp, expansion must rise to $600 billion a year Eighty million kilometers of cable are needed by 2040: IEA
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That is why grid scale weather dependent generators are doomed to fail. Grid defection is already occurring. At this stage mostly partial defection by generating your own from rooftop solar.
Coober Pedy provides a good example of the economics of grid supplied WDG. EDL got the contract for the system and appear to be making a fortune from it. One of the conditions of the contract is that the council block the connection of rooftops to the grid. They want to charge 48c/kWh for power when other bidders have offered 23c/kWh. EDL may be realists but the locals are not happy and the vast majority have said they will abandon the grid and make their own power.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/fear-and-loathing-about-renewable-grid-in-coober-pedy-81316/
A diesel generator will produce around 3kWh per litre so, at $2/l, the fuel cost in power is now up around 70c/kWh. The 48c/kWh looks good against that but may still be an inflated price.
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Here Willis Eschenbach in July 2023 checks out the World’s really big co2 emitters and some other countries as well.
His world Human co2 emissions is the same as OWI Data and he adds a few more countries in the comments section.
But the World runs on FOSSIL FUELS and their NUTTY ZERO is just a stupid TOXIC SICK JOKE, whether we like it or not.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/07/fossil-and-non-fossil-fuels/
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Speaking of RE and Batteries, the true cost of fueling an EV is some AUD 6 / Liter. (USD 17.33/gallon )
short version: https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1717551134447976823
Full version: https://www.texaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023-10-TrueCostofEVs-BennettIsaac.pdf
Graphic: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F9X3dwpXkAAJpCp?format=jpg&name=small
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Here is a video from a Canadian farm on an island in Lake Ontario, formerly running on 50KW diesel upgraded to include Solar, battery, and modern inversion/charging/switching gear. No mention of costs. The diesel system is said to have been working for fifty years.
The Edison outfit from British Columbia is developing a hybrid semi tractor rig, and working on that takes up the first half of the video. Their other project featuring the island electrical generation upgrade, starts at around the four minute time tag.
Look up Edison Motors on YouTube or link at https://youtu.be/EQvTA4Cc3mo.
Even allowing for currency exchange, the title $160K figure seems a little high, but the point should be that neither of these examples provides ALL the energy needed on the farm, and they are both utterly dependent on “fossil” fuels for their primary needs.
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Slightly off subject but related! I’ve just read about a major EV auto being recalled (35,000 units that will be required to strip and repair the battery because they can’t handle the power surge required by purchasers of this breed of muscle car! Also, EVs become uninsurable except for those who can afford the car and insurance!
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Ottawa exempting home heating oil from carbon tax for 3 years, Trudeau says
They are going to love the cheap renewable electricity to power the heat pumps.
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Here’s Rud Istvan’s comment to Willis Eschenbach about his article on the REAL percentage of FOSSIL FUEL generation compared to other sources.
And Willis agrees. Also Rud Istvan has written articles at Dr Curry’s blog and worked in the past with Dr Richard Lindzen etc.
But his W & S requiring back up 75% of the time should be the CLINCHER for anyone who wants to understand GLOBAL ENERGY requirements. Here’s his comment.
“Rud Istvan”
July 7, 2023 10:22 am”
“Neither hydro nor geothermal are intermittent, and both provide grid inertia. Wind and solar are intermittent (requiring backup generation >75% of the time) and do not provide grid inertia. Grid Engineering case closed”.
“If you cannot get there from here, you won’t. Only the foolish would try”.
“And if India and China won’t play, even foolish trying doesn’t really matter.
“It is a good thing that observational ECS is about 1.7C, and in the only CMIP6 model without a tropical troposphere hot spot (matching observation, Russian INM CM5) the model ECS is 1.8C, quite close to observational EBM results. This simply means that foolishly trying and failing doesn’t matter except to the Western economies like Germany, Denmark, and UK it damages”.
“Willis Eschenbach”
Author
“Reply to
Rud Istvan”
“July 7, 2023 10:23 am
“What Rud said “…
w.
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A stable and functional grid can tolerate intermittent sources roughly at their average capacity factor.
For wind, 30%. Solar, 20%.
Otherwise, the grid becomes unstable. Thus, a stable grid cannot accept more than 20 to 30% intermittent generation.
Unless you want to live in 1850 lifestyle, there will always be 70% to 80% thermal generation. That means Coal, Gas, and Nuclear. There will NEVER be a solar/wind powered grid that sustains an industrial economy. Never. Ever.
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I had a friend who built a totally off grid home in California. Solar panels and gigantic 2 volt batteries surplussed from telephone substations. About 60 of them, at some 200 kg each. Flooded Lead acid cells. Huge batteries. Dozens of inverters, thousands of dollars in heavy copper wiring and specialty DC pumps, refrigerators, etc.
He returned from a holiday trip to find his house had burned to the ground after exploding.
Seems the H2 venting was improper and some spark in the battery room ignited it.
That was $USD 200,000 in 1992. He abandoned the project, entirely.
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They were indeed huge batteries. Not much good for aquariums as the glass containers were vertical. Total DC output was IIRC, 130 VDC. They would hold a repeater station up for some time.
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Notwithstanding this might be true the source is anonymous and the story is too good to be true so probably BS.
Most likely a false flag op but ya never know.
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Anonymous, Brian for a very good reason, heard of woke cancel culture? Imagine if BlackoutBowen is forced to prove that ruinables can run a small town and obviously fails miserably if this is picked up by the msm, the LNP should be all over it. The Woke will come for anyone and everyone that has a hand in destroying their utopian 1984 future.Its happening now.
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Not my point. AGW is BS but this story sounds like a trap. If it is real, it wouldn’t be anonymous.
We shouldn’t accept dubious stories just because they fit our narrative.
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You can talk about how ridiculous ruinables are until the cows come home, it won’t change a thing in Bowen’s ALP/GREENS/TEALS heads.They’ll keep on going until the point of no return, can’t build a coal-fired power station in a day. So Australian’s need a reality check to be convinced ruinables don’t work. Get ready for blackouts Australia, oh, and expensive energy, expensive everything, 17% Albo Keatingesqe intrest rates coming up….and voted for this madness, bwahaha, enjoy.
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Pseudonaja textilis is also the taxonomic name of the eastern brown snake.
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Did you already know that or did you just happen to google PSEUDONAJA TEXTILIS?
Quite a random piece of info to have already in your head, if you did. 😄
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A Sydney based builder explained to me several years ago that two clients who contracted him to covert older home units into townhouses wanted them to be off grid but connected for emergency purposes. The electrical contractor who has a solar supply and installation division quoted for the work and the cost was very expensive, not recommended by the electrical contractor, not cost effective and definitely not going to reduce the cost of electricity supply even longer term because of the replacement timing and cost factors.
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This paragraph indicates he has little understanding of battery systems and why lithium is so highly prized (apart from the fires it makes).
Lead acid batteries are rated at 0.1C. If you draw at more than 10 hour discharge rate, their power capacity drops dramatically. Household loads like water heating, older air conditions, electric heating and ovens have high demand. Also taking them below 70% capacity erodes their cycle life dramatically. So a lead acid battery is not a good choice. Lithium batteries are rated at 0.5C so a battery rated for 48 hours of the average load will not be losing capacity under the highest demand. Also lithium batteries do not lose much cycle life if designed for 48 hours at the average load. Most days they will cycle less than 20% but will not lose cycle life if regularly pulled down to 10% and only charged to 90%. So a working range of 80% compared with 30% for lead-acid for good cycle life.
He would have had a far lower cost system if he overbuilt more on the solar (my optimum capacity factor for solar is just 3..8%).
Trees remain the most efficient means of converting solar to usable energy for things like heating.
If he has 20 year old solar panels then this system was not engineered after Covid jabs. He would be better off seeking some intelligent advice if he really wants to operate off grid. There are people living very economically off grid in Australia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSVfpJDtmCM
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The installer of our system says 50% is ok for maintaining a long battery life. Another solar installer told us 40%-50% was ok for maintaining long life.
Batteries are 7 years old and still in good shape. But then they are almost always above 70% anyway so I can’t verify that a regular draw down to 50% is ok.
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To spend $15,000 on 30 lead batteries suggests he bought 30 x 200Ah deep cycle batteries @ $500. each ?
That would give him 75 kWh capacity (nameplate).
If he only uses 30% ( 25kWh) of that capacity,….thats a lot of unused capital investment.
No matter how much you reduce the loads, no Lead acid battery will last beyond 1500-2000 discharge cycles without serious capacity reduction, if not terminal failure.!
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What do you regard as a discharge cycle?
00
I’ve been collecting the data from my own 10KW solar system each day in terms of solar generation, grid usage and exported power and although I more than break even over an entire year, during winter I hit a deficit of 600KWh of electricity that would require 60 Tesla batteries to store at a cost of around $1M dollars and these would need replacing every 10 years. However, if I installed 3 Tesla batteries (15KW output/30KWh storage) and used a gas generator to cover the winter deficit period (to charge the batteries up as needed), it would cost about 10K for the generator and I would need 1000L of gas each year, meaning 3 x 210 KG cylinders (1200L) which would cost about 6K in total. The total infrastructure cost for the solar, batteries, inverters, gas generator and gas storage cylinders would be about $90K including installation and gas costs about $2 per litre, so it would cost $2000 a year for ongoing running costs, plus generator maintenance. To replace the batteries and inverters is ~60k every 15 years. If I only use the grid for my electricity it’s about $60K every 10 years right now, but that will probably double in the next 5 years, so the crazy off grid prices might end up being cheaper. However, this cost is beyond most people, so the reality will be that we live a miserable life of minimal energy usage, all in the name of a fraudulent and immoral ideology that seeks total power and control of our lives.
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Serge, ..
That 600kWh per year will cost about $250 currently. Thats $2,500 over 10 years.
Even allowing for power prices to double, $5,000 is much cheaper than any of your options.
But also buy a smaller generator ($5k ?) for blackout protection …if you fear that possibility
20
You are not looking at the optimum, minimum cost solution. Why stick with 10kW of solar panels.
Also I bet your existing panels are set to the existing slope of the roof or set to maximise summer output. You need to do the economics based on maximising winter collection because that will be the most demanding. And you should be aiming for a solar capacity factor around 9% but optimised for winter output.
Solar/battery system optimised for minimum cost will provide power around 50c/kWh. If you add in the ever increasing service charge to your existing electricity cost then you are probably paying close to this now.
Rooftop solar without battery only makes a return because it is leeching off the rest of the grid. The grid scale generators are forced to shut down for economic reasons during lunchtime but rooftop only shuts down if the voltage is too high, which is becoming more frequent.
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Why stick with 10kW of solar panels.
Because in WA it would be contrary to install more than 5kW (inverter capacity 6.3 kW panels) on a residential property under the current grid tariffs….
10
cross posted at Wind and Solar Power with Batteries Can’t Power Two Homes
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…and preppers worldwide say “WTF is this guy doing?” as do I…
Not the survival type obviously. He should go back to the city.
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Why John?
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Imagine doing that much firewood without fossil fuel?
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Looks like “Empress Anaesthesia” is buying –
We got a dodger in the mail (Qld) that seems to “promise” a rebate(?) of $550 on electricity.
I haven’t read the fine print as yet.
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Speaking of batteries, albeit mobile ones,
Ford Lost $62,016 For Every EV It Sold In 3Q
Robert Bryce Oct 27, 2023
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I will bite
The cost of $160K is over the top, I live totally off the grid (my choice and paid for out of my pocket) County living has its own challenges and you need to think about how you go about things to get the best result.
Tech has changed so much in the last 10 years it makes your head spin, my system cost $30K and I have all of the conveniences of a normal house.
Do I use fossil fuels? Yep
Do I use the natural resources on my property? Of course, I planned it that way! Nothing better than having my combined fire/stove going during winter to heat the place and cook at the same time.
Do I live the way I do to “save the environment” nup not at all I just love living in the country and planned for it looooong ago.
Am I a prepper? You could say that but at the end of the day just like anything if you don’t plan ahead you plan to fail.
Just throwing money at a problem will not make it go away, we are seeing that with the current energy madness. Shutting down our reliable base load power stations to “save the environment” is just complete stupidity and stating that wind and solar are cheaper than coal is just a blatant lie.
As we saw with the storms that went through Vic a few years ago it shows that people have no idea. Those thinking their “save the world from global warming” Solar panels & Tesla battery install would tide them over till the power came back on got a rude shock when it turns out that you need grid power to get the battery to start charging because your solar panels cant! Just more ill-informed “useful idiots” thinking they are saving the environment with their roof top solar and EV car.
10