Solar/Wind energy for the future. Forget it

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rick
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Re: Solar/Wind energy for the future. Forget it

Post by rick » November 21, 2020, 1:29 pm

As to solar thermal power stations (i.e. using parabolic mirrors) the biggest is in Morocco, and most of the rest are in Spain. Australia only ever had the Port Augusta project, which was cancelled. Their may have been experimental projects, but no commercial ones.
Quite a few of these plants have been decommissioned, and a few converted to PV stations. I think the issues are that the technology is expensive, requires large land areas (small plants just cannot produce enough heat) and keeping the mirrors clean a large expense. PV is easy and low maintenance.

Cheaper, low maintenance technologies tend to be more successful. Wikipedia has a few pages on solar thermal power stations.



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tamada
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Re: Solar/Wind energy for the future. Forget it

Post by tamada » December 11, 2020, 8:22 am

While the world gets prematurely hand-clappy over zero carbon emissions, there's still some unanswered questions on if and when renewables can truly take the strain. The electric car seems to have been given a huge boost despite the travails of the pandemic and, when they're not self-immolating, Musk's recyclable rocket ships to Mars has the Millennials and Gen Z'ers all wet in the fork. Meanwhile, I haven't seen much of any news about electric aeroplanes. I've seen a solar one that carries two people and takes the same time to get around as a DC-3 did.

Here's something to ponder over your morning coffee, Chang or flaxseed smoothie. It's a bit long so make sure you have another whole grain croissant toasted and ready. What we need are those in government that are currently appear in the thrall of all things Green and appear blinkered to this (or more likely playing it for all that it's worth) to take note and make the concessions needed to allow oil and gas exploration to continue such they have adequate supply and there is some security. By all means make renewables your Plan A but don't forget that they already have a tried and tested Plan B.

https://www.rystadenergy.com/newsevents ... ccelerates

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Re: Solar/Wind energy for the future. Forget it

Post by fhorst » April 12, 2021, 5:57 pm

glalt wrote:
November 15, 2020, 9:37 am
Just a tip for those small home built solar systems. I had disappointing results when I first got into solar. Using the recommended amount of solar panels simply did not work for me. Batteries, even with deep cycle batteries, life is shortened from discharging them below 50 percent. On top of that I was amazed at the amount of dust that accumulated on the panels. Cloudy and rainy days had me going back on the grid to save the batteries. Getting on the roof and cleaning the panels was too dangerous for this old man. My first set of batteries were expensive AGM batteries. Those 4 batteries cost about 24,000 baht. I chose them because I kept them in the house. I did abuse them some and they lasted maybe 4 years. That was not a reasonable return on my investment. The next set was cheaper deep cycle flooded batteries that are kept outside. The problem still remained. I then went ahead and doubled up on the solar panels. Solar panels have a very long life. They now fully charge the batteries even on cloudy rainy days. A friend told me I was wasting electricity from having too many panels. That was true. So what? That extra energy is free anyways and the extra panels will outlive me. At first I was using the extra energy to feed the grid but the electric company put a stop to that. It is illegal. I can use the extra energy for the house but I don't bother because it is a pain to keep switching back and forth. If I were a techie could probably do that automatically but why bother. I am not interested in saving a little bit of money on my electric bill, I just want power 24/7. The electric grid here stinks.
My first experience with solar are similar!
Lead acid being desaster.
Really bad conversion rate for storing energy (+/- 85%) and you can use just about 40-50% of it when you want to have some decent cycle life.

I also doubled the solar, what gives enough energy during rain season.
Excess energy is partly used for crypto currency mining.

We moved to LiFePO4,
Fyi: 24v 260Ah BYD (electrical car grade) are now about 40.000 THB.
Compared to 2* 26.000 for deep cycle. ...
Not a bad price at all!!

I bought from China "EVE" cells.
Now +50 kWh on storage ([email protected], S16)
The BYD was not yet locally for sale..

It was a learning curve how to make a good LiFePO4 installation, but we got there.
If it can't be done, it never happened..

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Re: Solar/Wind energy for the future. Forget it

Post by glalt » September 1, 2021, 8:15 pm

I recently replaced both my bigger battery banks. I looked at the lithium batteries but didn't trust my MPPT charge controllers, so I bought sealed regular batteries, 700 AH for about 20,000 baht. I bought sealed batteries because I was tired of cleaning and replacing terminals, not to mention adding water. After a month they are working great, no corrosion or adding water. I discharge them overnight about 30 to 40 percent. Both sets are expected to last 1,600 cycles. The originals lasted about 8 years and these should last even longer.

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tamada
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Re: Solar/Wind energy for the future. Forget it

Post by tamada » October 5, 2021, 11:25 pm

Where do windmills go when they retire?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... -landfills
'Don't waste your words on people who deserve your silence'
~Reinhold Messner~

'You don't have to be afraid of everything you don't understand'
~Louise Perica~

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Re: Solar/Wind energy for the future. Forget it

Post by glalt » October 6, 2021, 8:55 am

An interesting article. My first question is why were those blades replaced? Were they replaced with more efficient blades? They surely didn't wear out. That said, man's ingenuity will find a productive use for them and those old blades will eagerly be snapped up by the recycling companies. Due to the length and lightweight, it would appear to be a useful building material. I can easily see houses being built out of windmill blades.

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