Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

Originally Posted by scarry

Small solar panel,12V car battery,12V globes in the lights in the house.

if i was building a house i would do this.
too much $ to retrofit.

Originally Posted by Tombie

Will be interesting to see how they go with that.
Our site would drain the current Tesla battery in 15 minutes.

And there’s plenty others like that too. Love to see the Aluminium Smelter at Portland run off batteries - it can pull 100’s of mega watts on its own.

I was talking about how they will balance suburban solar generation by storing the excess generated locally during the day in local storage and then drawing it down as required at night. Instead of power being transmitted over long distances with large losses, it will increasingly be generated, stored and used locally.
Industry will have different arrangements to housing. Many industries are already signing deals with renewable generators to offset their electricity costs with renewable power, which can be located anywhere that is connected to the grid.
Qld has just announced a plan to upgrade three regional connection corridors so most of the state will be connected. Building solar and wind farms in regional areas is already generating a lot of new jobs and the trend will only increase.

One thing you can do to an existing house which makes a significant difference to power bills is to upgrade house lights to LEDs, which use so much less power. Often the LED bulbs just fit into existing sockets. In other cases whole new light fittings are needed. LED bulbs also last much longer. It's a very simple and worthwhile upgrade.

Originally Posted by Eevo

if i was building a house i would do this.
too much $ to retrofit.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

I was talking about how they will balance suburban solar generation by storing the excess generated locally during the day in local storage and then drawing it down as required at night. Instead of power being transmitted over long distances with large losses, it will increasingly be generated, stored and used locally.

The problem is still storage. Batteries are expensive with a short life and a significant environmental impact (both manufacture and re-manufacture). Once someone figures out how to store electrons cost effectively we are off and running. Bets on what comes first, effective storage or fusion?

In the mean time, we keep throwing money at “renewables” and de-stabilising power grids because there lie the subsidies. If the money being wasted on current technologies (wind and solar) was instead used for research into effective storage we might be further down the road. Much better to have huge empty tanks for electrons and wonder how to fill them up, than massive generation that is not dispatchable or reliable and wonder what to use to store the peaks and have to fire up traditional generation for the troughs.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

One thing you can do to an existing house which makes a significant difference to power bills is to upgrade house lights to LEDs, which use so much less power. Often the LED bulbs just fit into existing sockets. In other cases whole new light fittings are needed. LED bulbs also last much longer. It's a very simple and worthwhile upgrade.

already done that. by far the biggest component of my power bill is heating.

Originally Posted by BradC

The problem is still storage. Batteries are expensive with a short life and a significant environmental impact (both manufacture and re-manufacture). Once someone figures out how to store electrons cost effectively we are off and running. Bets on what comes first, effective storage or fusion?

In the mean time, we keep throwing money at “renewables” and de-stabilising power grids because there lie the subsidies. If the money being wasted on current technologies (wind and solar) was instead used for research into effective storage we might be further down the road. Much better to have huge empty tanks for electrons and wonder how to fill them up, than massive generation that is not dispatchable or reliable and wonder what to use to store the peaks and have to fire up traditional generation for the troughs.

If Tesla is correct, we are about 3 years away from a major advance in battery technology and costings. Only time will tell.
Mean while, anyone who owns a caravan with solar and batteries knows how this works in practice.

Originally Posted by Homestar

And there’s plenty others like that too. Love to see the Aluminium Smelter at Portland run off batteries - it can pull 100’s of mega watts on its own.

Must be good value........... everyone in Vic who gets a power bill has been chipping in for quite a while.

I have no opinion either way. Don't know enough about the background.

DL