Solar Energy Farms

[RSgerry]

I also work for an electricity distributor. The beauty of traditional power generation is that generators can be switched on and off remotely to cope with demand and only take about 5 minutes to get up to capacity. You cant turn on a wind powered generator if there is no wind...the same would apply to solar.

Another issue with wind is that the turbines have a maximum speed at which they can spin, after that, they shut down. Otherwise, they will munch their internals. When you have a wind powered generator feeding the network and it shuts off suddenly, you need to suddenly get an alternative to kick in immediately.

Having said that, investigation needs to be done wrt alternative sources as coal is just filthy. Unfortunately, the viable alternatives are some way off benig able to supply our needs.

[ABoringUsername]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ

Yes, they can munch with over wind...

[Wally]

Originally Posted by SM0KED

A friend of mine suggested something intriguing:

"Why play a carbon based energy game when you could fill the deserts with solar energy production plants and there would be enough green power not only to consume, but also to export in abundance. This country is OD'ing on solar rays and only a tiny fraction is harvested. That would be real green progress."

Or plant billions of trees for green carbon capture, cut them down, pulp them and bury the slurry deep in the ground (e.g old oil basins), where they will turn into coal and oil deposits a few million years down the track ......

[phillyc]

Originally Posted by JutroXR8

Yeah good points. Would love to reply and will try if i can get some time over the next week.

But, just keep in mind, that these projects usually end up costing more than just the initial build. Often many things are missed and overlooked, and not revealed until a trial is completed. For example, the governments initiative to install "energy efficient" lamps. Sure they save the customer money and power, but what is the real cost? No one realised that the distribution network is now getting more and more issues/complaints due to harmonic distortion. Which is now costing us big $$$ to fix.
Anyways mate, I gotta leave my rant there.

take care.

Dan

Yep, the harmonics in the system is getting ridiculous particularly as it can interfere with the Customer Load Control frequency. Not only that the actual 'non-useful' energy which soaks up valuable headroom in the system.

[phillyc]

Originally Posted by baboon

Nice! I'd like to learn how too.

Start small where one or two houses supply power for the whole street, in exchange for regular maintenance/mechanical/electrical/food/sexual help.

Multiply this with all the streets in the suburb, then multiply by all suburbs in the city.

Get everyone off the grid and working together as a community again! Less time on forums and foxtel, more time walking, helping and giving!

How bout that?

regular maintenance=sexual help?!

[phillyc]

Originally Posted by Gaz

Don't need to get rid of it all, keep it there to some extent and fill in the demand areas with renewables.

Base load is also really something created, our base load level is simply because we have lots of coal power stations that can't be turned down, they are either on or off, as such the electricity is generated no matter what and needs to be consumed.

I've heard from network engineers that's why they don't like the idea of switching street lights off or changing to LED street lights, cause they need them on to consume the base load over night.

Base load is also the exact reason we have Off Peak Tariffs. Remember the 'Big Blue' twin element off peak HWS?

That whole off peak thing came about in NSW when Neville Wran thought that the state economy would grow at a faster rate than it did and built the newer power stations like Liddell, Bayswater, Eraring & Wallerawang.

The economy didn't and they were left with excess baseload power.

So, Off Peak was really encouraged. Despite OP hot water being the LEAST efficient of all means. Anything up to 5kWh per day is lost just to heat loss.

[phillyc]

Originally Posted by Wally

Or plant billions of trees for green carbon capture, cut them down, pulp them and bury the slurry deep in the ground (e.g old oil basins), where they will turn into coal and oil deposits a few million years down the track ......

But how does that fit into the 4 year electoral cycle?

[phillyc]

Originally Posted by SB076

I also watched a documentary recently which was showing a Chinese Nuclear reactor that cannot "meltdown" and the was completely safe (so safe they were dicussing reactors so small they would fit in a house and you could have one next door and never even know its there)

I wonder if IRAN knows about this?!

[BPXR6T]

What ever happened to the generator they were trialing in bass straight that works off ocean currents? I also recall a wave powered generator. Solar and wind don't have to be the only options. Possibly we'll see a move to smaller localised energy solutions that are more applicable to a specific environment.

[mickyyyy]

guys the technology is already here to make solar farms work and be effective and we all pay enough tax for the government & to energy companies to make them. Why should i pay for the solar farm when they have been making money of us for so many yrs, its there investment into there business which we will al use.

To much crap hiding all this so they can just get money out of us so it wont cost them a cent to make them up.