7 ms·
It's nice to have solar panels, I have them too and while they do generate even more electricity than I need, they do so in around 6 to 7 months peaking in July
by sdk77 2y ago
It's nice to have solar panels, I have them too and while they do generate even more electricity than I need, they do so in around 6 to 7 months peaking in July. So in winter, it's grid power and in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer, and knowing I could have enough for all of the winter if only there was some way to store it, all of the 1MWh..
- spacesanjeet 2y agoIsn't there a way to sell the unused solar power to the grid in summers and during winters the grid sends back the power needed to you at a discounted price?
- sdk77 2y agoWell, until '27, I'm allowed to use the grid as a free battery, basically, this is a kind of government subsidy. But that will end, and the contracts available will be fixed price with a feed in tariff or dynamic (realtime) market price, but then prices can and have been negative during peak solar hours. A battery can solve this only for a bit, and maybe with smart algorithms it can be trading on the electricity market full time, I'm not sure if that makes enough money for the grid power in winter.. it's nice to think about though.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ccozan 2y agoor you get a battery. Is just great. I have 3.5kw solar power witha 9kwh battery. Very very seldom it switches to power line. And this is in south Germany, maybe a bit sunnier than north but still - it rains a lot/cloudy, sun is sparse.
- skybrian 2y agoIt seems like that works for daily cycles, but isn't that very expensive storage for one cycle a year, which is what you need to save energy for winter?
- ben_w 2y agoDepends how close to the poles you are. A lot of the world can do this fine by sizing the PV for winter; too close to the poles and there's not going to work — you either need to diversify power generation by kind (wind, wave, hydro, geothermal all work too, but again geographically constrained) or by distance (the maths says we can build an adequate and literally global power grid for an affordable quantity of aluminium, shame about the politics).
- jjtheblunt 2y agoAny advice on battery brands and features you could share?
- ccozan 2y agoyes , check this guys https://www.anern.com/products/solar-battery/ https://www.anern.com/products/solar-battery/
- jjtheblunt 2y agoThanks
- bitmasher9 2y agoIf every household did this we would have massive problems. We would still need a base load amount in the winter, and in the summer there would be an over abundance. The price of electricity would swing between essentially free in the summer to higher than normal in the winter, because the cost of operating base grid power would be about same but they would need to cover all operating costs during the winter.
- fallingsquirrel 2y agoUtilities should charge a separate connection fee and per-kWh rate if that's what matches the economic reality of their business. I don't see the summer abundance as an issue. It means we get to shut off the fossil fuels 8 months out of the year. The remaining 4 months, everyone pays a little more per kWh, averaging out to the same cost over a full year. What's not to like?
- fragmede 2y agoThe economic viability of a fossil fuel plant that's only used 4 months out of the year. If the plant shuts down because it's no longer economically viable/doesn't cover operating costs, what happens next winter?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- forgetfreeman 2y agoOstensibly it gets replaced by a grid storage array and sufficient renewable inputs.
- dtech 2y agoThe electricity price in the winter will go up until either the plants are viable again or alternatives become viable.
- euroderf 2y ago> in the summer there would be an over abundance. This ain't gonna happen. Air conditioning will be saving lives.
- Gare 2y agoMaybe you could use the IJsselmeer as a pumped storage hydro ;)
- itishappy 2y ago> ... in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. You're allowed to just disconnect solar panels. It's free and does not damage them.
- sdk77 2y agoSure. Of course. Not being allowed to disconnect them would be ridiculous. But do you want to keep an eye on the market every day, and run to the breaker to turn on an off your inverter? No. So you need a solution for that. Then a battery is much more interesting.
- kleiba 2y agoThis seems like a problem that should be relatively easy to solve with technology.
- WJW 2y agoThis is in fact what my home installation already does.
- itishappy 2y agoCompletely agree. I mainly mention it to dispel any notions that solar panels can expose you to financial risk due to negative energy prices. This is trivial to address. Negative prices should only be a concern for plants that can not be quickly or easily shut down, like thermal plants (coal/gas/nuclear).
- Larrikin 2y agoCould you just use Home Assistant to do this?
- EasyMark 2y agoTrue hacker would use web scraping to get the rates and a bash script to turn the switch on and off based on rates
- titanomachy 2y ago> need to pay to feed back in the surplus Why not have the panels disconnect themselves in this case? Is this too small an expense to justify the cost of additional hardware to manage switching on and off?
- sdk77 2y agoIt all depends on the situation. Here in the Netherlands almost everybody has an PV installation with no way other than the breaker to turn it on and off. Some inverters do have an interface, and sometimes it's available. Even less people know anything about this at all, they just had panels installed. The technical solution is simple, bit implementing it will cost much more, I assume.
- quailfarmer 2y agoAll modern inverters have control interfaces that allow them to fold back their power output on command, this can be set up to track feed-in rates going negative.
- theturtle32 2y ago"pay to feed in the surplus"? In my U.S. context, this sounds surprising: are you saying that sometimes the energy utility CHARGES you money when you feed solar energy to the grid? That sounds... bizarre?
- dtech 2y agoWhen there is a lot of wind and sun simultaneously there is effectively too much electricity supply on the net, and day-ahead prices drop negative. This is partially fueled by flat subsidies per unit produced (has been fixed for a while for new installations), so producing when there's oversupply can still be profitable. Also most households have a flat energy rate and can amortize their energy usage over the year, so they will always keep their solar panels on even if the energy is less than worthless. US pricing works very differently, especially in Texas.
- pierot 2y agoYes, prices can go negative if you have a dynamic energy contract.
- Ekaros 2y agoPurchasers want to make margin on anything. So they charge this on the seller and then on buyer. Also with how markets work it is not like there isn't risks or need to at least some level forecast how much you will be buying and then selling. So their cut also covers this work. And finally electricity is a spot market. So there is agreed price for certain period and in some cases market can be distorted and that price can be negative. It could be idiotic subsidies or production that can't be ramped as effectively. Or someone does massive mistakes with their bids, think of trading bots going wrong.
- bdhdbebebeb 2y agoIf I were to deliver you 1000 gallons of milk that expires in 10 minutes*, would you pay me or want to charge me for that priviledge. Assume you have enough milk already. * (< 1 millisecond for electricity but hey for the milk analogy say 10 minutes).
- 2y ago
- defrost 2y ago> This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer, This is literally what local and state government is for; talk to others and get policy moving on excess energy being used to generate bulk stored energy at scale for winter months, be that gas, deep thermal storage, tradable goods to offset winter costs, etc.
- woleium 2y agoelectrolysis of water to hydrogen and oxygen seems sensible. could be done at home, but probably best at community scale
- euroderf 2y agoDoesn't anyone smelt their own bauxite anymore ? sigh
- defrost 2y agoAmmonia products are easier, particularly with excess peak energy. Yes, we still have six active bauxite mines providing feedstock for six alumina refineries ... they're optimal as pipelined processing and not great at switching on|off with energy surges.
- euroderf 2y agoI wonder if ammonia might be doable at residential/DIY scale. Then you have to (a) store it safely, and (b) have a way to use it - not many people have a personal marine application.
- defrost 2y agoMaybe .. but in an urban area with many houses, each with solar panels, it seems inefficient to have mini home chemical process factories, particularly with intermediate steps involving explosive gases. I'm in favour of home PV and community batteries | larger area "peak" use industries - it's a sensible long term use of cyclic energy production.
- Ella-e 2y agoWow,interesting. But， the idea of storing the surplus electricity, it does raise a question about the energy consumption of storage batteries. i has been researching European home energy management recently, especially with winter approaching. Just share information. enjoyelec HEMS (Home Energy Management System). Use AI optimize energy usage in households. With features like real-time monitoring and intelligent control, it aims to reduce energy waste and potentially lower costs. Maybe can get some money from grid to pay from winter electicity bills.