Solar power is working wonders for rural and urban Pakistan. In fact, we became the largest importer of solar panels.
KaiserPro 20 minutes ago [-]
So the bit thats not clear here is are they defining rules for what happens when there are interconnection failures?
or is it that to connect to the grid you need to have your own storage as well as PV? it sounded like they joined three "islands" together.
chilldsgn 5 hours ago [-]
I don't know much about electrical grids, but I'm wondering if something like this concept could help South Africa with its endlessly struggling electrical grid problems. My city constantly has power outages and the majority of people cannot afford installing solar into their homes.
chithanh 3 hours ago [-]
It is not necessary for the majority to install solar.
Pakistan had similar problems with rolling blackouts, and mass import of photovoltaic equipment and batteries from China has reduced the load on the grid so that outages no longer occur frequently. In fact the demand has shrunk so much that it jeopardizes financing of coal power companies.
Eskom is already trying to take people to court over "non-compliant" solar panel installations [1]. I wouldn't hold my breath. Like most things in ANC South Africa this is a political issue where Eskom wants to get their cut for providing a non-existent service - and then funnel that money back to their friends and family for their non-existent services.
From what I understand, South Africa's electrical problems have been long term political.
cinntaile 4 hours ago [-]
That's the case everywhere in the world, it's not a tech issue. The tech exists.
happymellon 3 hours ago [-]
Not always, sometimes its logistics, sometimes outside forces which create time pressures.
Not everything can be solved by money, sometimes its a mythical man month/9 women can't produce a baby in 1 month issue.
However in this scenario, its pure neglect which is causing power issues.
AdamN 8 minutes ago [-]
In this case though, high reliability electricity delivery is very doable. Many countries achieve 3 9s or higher. Sure there are the issues like the recent Spain/Portugal blackout but even that has some political roots.
nbadg 3 hours ago [-]
The technology certainly exists, though some of it is pretty new and not all of it is mature or commoditized (particularly in the context of high levels of penetration of variable renewables on the grid).
That being said, politics aren't the only reason why it might not be deployed. Capitalization issues, for one, are also common. Additionally, you have to make a judgement call about what you consider included in "politics" -- for example, does corruption count?
mc32 22 minutes ago [-]
It’s a corruption issue where certain people use it as a personal bank. Lots of deferred maintenance, no build out, but lots of greed -not just a little.
PicassoCTs 1 hours ago [-]
They tried that - especially companies like BMW - and they got no permits, because the state run power company wants money for providing nothing.
The problem is also that thieves steal the copper cables, even for micro-grids. You can not tech your way out of social/cultural problems.
Socialist cultural rot is real and the only way out is to eradicate cultures that encourage that mindset. All the ingredients are there- but the people are still set on telling themselves that robin hood story that destroys everything.
soco 29 minutes ago [-]
Could you please explain the "socialist cultural rot" and the "eradicate cultures"? You might mean something totally sensible but this wording is quite triggering to me.
PicassoCTs 13 minutes ago [-]
Everywhere socialist movements like the ANC take hold- there sets in a "im going to extract as much as i can from the state as he extracts from me - while giving him nothing" mindset. Its prevalent in the older generations in the eastern european block countries, china - its almost universal where the socialist experiment was run. The idealized society does not mesh and work with human nature at all, in fact it brings out the worst.
The old people of china, still steal paper towels on public toilets, because "take it all, while its there, before its gone" is the mindset encouraged. They brought you the tourists-"buffet rush"-genre of videos on youtube.
A ugly side-effect that lingers for decades. Re-distribution and retribution, do not increase the size of the cake. Hard work rewarded does!
Simon_O_Rourke 5 hours ago [-]
Is this more of a battery cost issue - if you owned a battery that charged off the grid and discharged during blackout periods then that might just about cover you if you budget for the expected outage duration.... And assuming you can afford said battery in the first place.
pyrale 2 hours ago [-]
> if you owned a battery that charged off the grid and discharged during blackout periods
This wouldn't work. The reason isolated units can inject electricity back into the grid without issue is that they can observe frequency. If a blackout occurs, this information is gone. You need to perform a black start, which can't be done by isolated, uncoordinated equipments.
magicalhippo 2 hours ago [-]
Pretty sure GP was talking about a UPS, not feeding the grid.
1dom 2 hours ago [-]
I don't think that applies for microgrids, or at least, it's not really an issue in my case.
I know what you're talking about though: I think that more applies to generators that are operating with megawatts and take time for turbines to spin up and stuff. Microgrids are normally instantaneous battery buffered type things. They can instantly deliver power at the frequency range mandated for the national grid.
ema 3 hours ago [-]
Depends on the length of the blackouts, if it's more than a day then solar panels will allow you to lower the amount of batteries you get.
metalman 5 minutes ago [-]
technological advances for off/tied grid solar are now maturing into high quality solutions for all scenarios, costs are in free fall.
I was an ultra early adopter of solar pv in 1991 in Takilma, Oregon living in a school bus,and continue to live off grid in Nova Scotia.
As to Peurto Rico, my first question was answered by a quick look at a topograpgical map, and Peurto Rico looks a lot like Nova Scotia....lots and lots of hills and little valleys and rivers, which means that for them topography has a big part to play, also looking at pictures of the instalations there, basic roofing is clearly a price consideration before other things, so developing solar that assembles into a physical roofing product, that entirely replaces other roofing,
would be important for anyone who is carefullt crunching numbers on a new build in a choice location, add in charging for cars and scooters
which can double as extra house power when needed
and the inevitability of the comming switch becomes obvious.
m4r1k 2 hours ago [-]
Meanwhile, in third-world, overly bureaucratic Italy, one has to wait several months to get all the paperwork in order to take advantage of a solar installation. Self-deployed solutions are also limited to 800 watts, which is peanuts in today's world.
wuming2 11 minutes ago [-]
You have clearly never spent anything but holiday time in a underdeveloped county. If ever. You won’t draw similarities otherwise. Completely different standing points.
pkirk 1 hours ago [-]
That is the case only if you want to give your surplus back to the grid.
If you avoid that, you are only limited to a maximum power of 20kW of solar panels installed.
dotancohen 6 hours ago [-]
From what I understand, most homes that are connected to both solar and the grid require the grid to be active to produce solar. This is for two reasons. One, not to endanger lineman working on the grid. And two, the solar AC cycle must be synchronized with the grid AC cycle.
Are these homes not also connected to the grid? Or is there some technology that addresses these two issues that are in use in Puerto Rico?
paranoidrobot 5 hours ago [-]
I think you're looking for the term "islanding".
It's becoming more and more common for PV systems with a battery system to be able to work in an islanded mode, and more importantly - they're legal and code compliant to do so.
When the grid goes down/out of spec, they disconnect the home from the grid and continue to power locally.
Examples of this include Tesla and Sigenergy.
Some are able to do this in very short periods and able to operate effectively as a whole-house UPS. Some will have a flickr of the lights and maybe some sensitive devices will restart. Others will take some period of time to disconnect from the grid and run in islanded mode.
defrost 5 hours ago [-]
For general interest, Western Australia's State Power company has a variety of battery application cases that it assists with; home batteries, community batteries, fully stand alone, microgrids (with batteries).
West and South Australia are a fair way down the integrated renewables pathway with a high percentage of household rooftop solar, mixed rural PV farms, wind power, battery farms, etc.
slipheen 6 hours ago [-]
If you use a string inverter not a emphase style microinverter, most of them are capable of running without the grid- Particularly if you add any sort of battery system.
These use a form of transfer switch like you’d use when you connect a generator- they disconnect the upstream.
mcbishop 6 hours ago [-]
You can run sans grid with Enphase (with their "system controller").
zie 6 hours ago [-]
This is true, but if you add in local batteries attached to the solar, you can have a device that works in basically all situations. If disconnected from the grid, it can run off battery instead of just not working.
I haven't read the OP link yet, but my guess is they are doing something like this: Grid, Solar and batteries.
lukan 6 hours ago [-]
"Grid, Solar and batteries."
They are doing microgrids, that connect to each other.
pmontra 5 hours ago [-]
If your home is isolated from the grid you don't have to worry about syncing your 50/60 Hz. A UPS during a blackout is an example. I experienced it myself.
I have no idea about the hurdles of keeping in sync many batteries in many homes connected together. This is not even something I thought about before the news of the blackout in Spain months ago.
fencepost 5 hours ago [-]
Keeping in sync isn't as much of a problem as you might think, it simply requires that everything able to feed into the grid has to accept the grid as authoritative for syncing.
Relevant are some of Chris Boden's videos about bringing up a hydro power plant and his comment that you have to be in sync with the grid when you actually connect because the turbine WILL sync to the grid at connection and if it was incorrect before then there will be a lot of loud angry noises from the equipment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGQxSJmadm0
ethan_smith 6 hours ago [-]
Microgrids use specialized inverters with islanding capability and automatic transfer switches that disconnect from the main grid during outages, allowing them to operate independently while maintaining their own frequency regulation.
maxerickson 6 hours ago [-]
It's just a coordination problem.
You are also sort of conflating "loss of interconnect" with "outage'.
amoshebb 7 hours ago [-]
I love solar, but this "those who can afford microgrids can shield themselves from blackouts" paired with net metering where "the wealthy get paid a premium for excess generation and can buy expensive high-demand power back at a discount" probably aren't steps on the path to improved grid resiliency for any definition other than this weird "no island-wide outages" definition.
rstupek 7 hours ago [-]
The alternative way to look at it is that early adopters get the volume up such that the price comes down to where more people can afford it?
Dylan16807 6 hours ago [-]
Solar panels are already so cheap that household solar is mostly about the installation price.
And more people affording their own panels is still a lot more expensive than fixing the grid.
closewith 1 hours ago [-]
But batteries aren't, and batteries are both the key technology for load shifting and the biggest expense in modern installations.
numpad0 6 hours ago [-]
Solar output is also proportionate to area of sunlight projection. This means the theoretical capacity available to you is proportionate to real estate, area of planetary surface, under your ownership.
lukan 6 hours ago [-]
And the area you own is theoretical proportionate to your avaibale money.
So yes, rich people can obviously have more of it all, like with everything else that money can buy. But is this really a point worth going in deeper here?
I see the point as in "solar power plus battery is good", creates resillence, please more of it.
Unfair distribution of wealth is a different problem.
And here concreteley the article lacks for me details, what exactly the work on the grid means, if it is really about fossils vs solar, but microgrids that can connect to each other sounds like a pragmatic solution to me.
numpad0 55 minutes ago [-]
It's not just redistribution, land is an already heavily overcommitted resource on Earth. China, for example, holds basically same amount of land as US, for its 4x population, and they house the people in things like dozens per each clusters of 50-story condominiums.
In places like that - that but not necessarily specifically China or Asia, local proprietors would head to forested mountains unfit for residences, and actively desertify it to put on PVs to collect incentives, if incentivized. The cost is externalized and paid collectively in such forms as raised atmospheric CO2 levels and micro disasters like mountain landslides.
Resilient solar-battery off/micro-grid is great if you live "by yourself" in relative sense and doing so would allow removal of electrical transmission lines with own costs and externalities, but it's far from panacea, if not opposite - it's a specific and somewhat radical solution to specific problems.
Now, as to whether such dystopian Bladerunner cities on Earth that has to rely on fission/fusion should exist in real life, it's probably deeply wrong that they do. But we're not cutting down Earth's population by 90% to fix that, and wealth redistribution is a minor part of the reason it would be wrong.
lukan 27 minutes ago [-]
"local proprietors would head to forested mountains unfit for residences, and actively desertify it to put on PVs to collect incentives, if incentivized."
Can you give me one example, where PVs contributed to desertification?
Usually it is the contrary, in the shade of the PVs, more can grow than in direct burning sunlight.
And there are plenty of non forest land, or literal dessert land tp put PV there and if forest gets cut, than for other reasons than PV. And china is actually quite active in combating desertification with green belts and recently, PVs.
bluefirebrand 6 hours ago [-]
> Unfair distribution of wealth is a different problem
Unfortunately, all problems are eventually going to come down to this. Or many problems are, if not "all"
We can't fix a lot of the problems facing our society and our planet with "only wealthy can afford this" solutions
lukan 6 hours ago [-]
"We can't fix a lot of the problems facing our society and our planet with "only wealthy can afford this" solutions"
And I think, we can't fix a lot of technical problems if we make everything about money distribution.
Besides, solar plus battery became really cheap. And get cheaper every day.
And this work to connect such microgrids is potentially beneficial for poor areas all around the world.
But no, it doesn't solve the issue of extreme poverty, but why would it?
Dylan16807 3 hours ago [-]
Microgrids at that size are the most expensive way to get resilience. If they're pragmatic for many people then something has failed and we should work to fix it.
Bigger ones have a better tradeoffs, so I'm not so harsh on towns having their own grids. Still unsure whether it's a good use of funds.
ta988 7 hours ago [-]
This doesn't solve the issue of either storage or continous (and controllable) supply.
layoric 7 hours ago [-]
Agreed. From first hand experience, even for regulated electricity markets, games get played to maximize profit per power generated that are directly making stability worse. Fixing these loop holes is hard for the regulator since they are instructed to encourage both increased renewable penetration and stability, despite traders/operators/producers not acting in good faith and just gaming whatever they can.
colechristensen 4 hours ago [-]
A healthy regulated will encourage maximizing profit for power and bring in competition which drives the cost down until energy is a commodity and the cost of electricity is actually based on the price of production and a small profit based on the cost of capital. Any situations that cause price spikes result in investment to harvest the difference.
The fact that you can add to the grid by installing solar and battery and connect to the grid in a single afternoon makes it pretty easy these days to have an elastic market that grows until you hit the limit of decentralized production vs. existing transmission architecture... but with the right equipment you can have community sized islands that can be much more immune to instability.
toast0 5 hours ago [-]
It depends on the terms of the net metering.
If it's the ancient practice of crediting on a one for one basis, yeah that doesn't help. (A look around says that's probably where PR is now). If they credit power delivered to the grid based on conditions when it was delivered, then that might help. With appropriate controls, storage can increase grid stability. It would probably be more cost effective to do utility scale storage projects, but project management is difficult in PR; letting those with personal capital hook up solar+batteries and send some of that onto the grid when demand is high seems useful?
mcbishop 6 hours ago [-]
Net metering is gone in most of California (for new solar). I think it's going away in general. Distributed solar supports a more stable grid for everyone (per UL 1741-SB requirements).
amoshebb 5 hours ago [-]
the article is about Puerto Rico, not California, and specifically mentions net metering.
matthewdgreen 5 hours ago [-]
I think the poster’s point is that net metering is a tool to promote early adoption of solar, and (in at least one prominent example) when solar penetration becomes high enough for it to impact grid stability, larger grids have removed net metering. So to address GP poster’s point: net metering affecting grid stability in a substantial way is more a theoretical concern that’s already been addressed in one of the locations where it stopped being theoretical.
pyrale 1 hours ago [-]
This article looks like it completely embraces the pov of solar providers, and describes maintenance of the grid as serving the interests of the fossil electricity industry.
...And not far from the end:
> The next milestone, Massol-Deyá says, will be successfully connecting microgrids that are not in close geographic proximity.
Yeah... great journalism here IEEE.
elitegolfhub 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
danans 4 hours ago [-]
Based on what I see in the photo in the article, PV array codes in Puerto Rico must be quite different from those in California, because the arrays seem to cover almost the entirety of the roofs. In California fire access codes [1] prevent the entire roof from being covered like in PV that.
or is it that to connect to the grid you need to have your own storage as well as PV? it sounded like they joined three "islands" together.
Pakistan had similar problems with rolling blackouts, and mass import of photovoltaic equipment and batteries from China has reduced the load on the grid so that outages no longer occur frequently. In fact the demand has shrunk so much that it jeopardizes financing of coal power companies.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43620309
[1] https://www.ecr.co.za/shows/stacey-jsbu/eskom-cracks-down-no...
Not everything can be solved by money, sometimes its a mythical man month/9 women can't produce a baby in 1 month issue.
However in this scenario, its pure neglect which is causing power issues.
That being said, politics aren't the only reason why it might not be deployed. Capitalization issues, for one, are also common. Additionally, you have to make a judgement call about what you consider included in "politics" -- for example, does corruption count?
The problem is also that thieves steal the copper cables, even for micro-grids. You can not tech your way out of social/cultural problems.
Socialist cultural rot is real and the only way out is to eradicate cultures that encourage that mindset. All the ingredients are there- but the people are still set on telling themselves that robin hood story that destroys everything.
The old people of china, still steal paper towels on public toilets, because "take it all, while its there, before its gone" is the mindset encouraged. They brought you the tourists-"buffet rush"-genre of videos on youtube.
Of course this leads to dysfunction and misery- which then leads to conspiracy - of "they took it". Its ultimately another version of low-thrust society unable to function. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-trust_and_low-trust_socie...
A ugly side-effect that lingers for decades. Re-distribution and retribution, do not increase the size of the cake. Hard work rewarded does!
This wouldn't work. The reason isolated units can inject electricity back into the grid without issue is that they can observe frequency. If a blackout occurs, this information is gone. You need to perform a black start, which can't be done by isolated, uncoordinated equipments.
I know what you're talking about though: I think that more applies to generators that are operating with megawatts and take time for turbines to spin up and stuff. Microgrids are normally instantaneous battery buffered type things. They can instantly deliver power at the frequency range mandated for the national grid.
Are these homes not also connected to the grid? Or is there some technology that addresses these two issues that are in use in Puerto Rico?
It's becoming more and more common for PV systems with a battery system to be able to work in an islanded mode, and more importantly - they're legal and code compliant to do so.
When the grid goes down/out of spec, they disconnect the home from the grid and continue to power locally.
Examples of this include Tesla and Sigenergy.
Some are able to do this in very short periods and able to operate effectively as a whole-house UPS. Some will have a flickr of the lights and maybe some sensitive devices will restart. Others will take some period of time to disconnect from the grid and run in islanded mode.
https://www.westernpower.com.au/resources-education/consumer...
https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/energy-policy-wa/wa-resid...
West and South Australia are a fair way down the integrated renewables pathway with a high percentage of household rooftop solar, mixed rural PV farms, wind power, battery farms, etc.
These use a form of transfer switch like you’d use when you connect a generator- they disconnect the upstream.
I haven't read the OP link yet, but my guess is they are doing something like this: Grid, Solar and batteries.
They are doing microgrids, that connect to each other.
I have no idea about the hurdles of keeping in sync many batteries in many homes connected together. This is not even something I thought about before the news of the blackout in Spain months ago.
Relevant are some of Chris Boden's videos about bringing up a hydro power plant and his comment that you have to be in sync with the grid when you actually connect because the turbine WILL sync to the grid at connection and if it was incorrect before then there will be a lot of loud angry noises from the equipment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGQxSJmadm0
You are also sort of conflating "loss of interconnect" with "outage'.
And more people affording their own panels is still a lot more expensive than fixing the grid.
So yes, rich people can obviously have more of it all, like with everything else that money can buy. But is this really a point worth going in deeper here?
I see the point as in "solar power plus battery is good", creates resillence, please more of it.
Unfair distribution of wealth is a different problem.
And here concreteley the article lacks for me details, what exactly the work on the grid means, if it is really about fossils vs solar, but microgrids that can connect to each other sounds like a pragmatic solution to me.
In places like that - that but not necessarily specifically China or Asia, local proprietors would head to forested mountains unfit for residences, and actively desertify it to put on PVs to collect incentives, if incentivized. The cost is externalized and paid collectively in such forms as raised atmospheric CO2 levels and micro disasters like mountain landslides.
Resilient solar-battery off/micro-grid is great if you live "by yourself" in relative sense and doing so would allow removal of electrical transmission lines with own costs and externalities, but it's far from panacea, if not opposite - it's a specific and somewhat radical solution to specific problems.
Now, as to whether such dystopian Bladerunner cities on Earth that has to rely on fission/fusion should exist in real life, it's probably deeply wrong that they do. But we're not cutting down Earth's population by 90% to fix that, and wealth redistribution is a minor part of the reason it would be wrong.
Can you give me one example, where PVs contributed to desertification?
Usually it is the contrary, in the shade of the PVs, more can grow than in direct burning sunlight.
And there are plenty of non forest land, or literal dessert land tp put PV there and if forest gets cut, than for other reasons than PV. And china is actually quite active in combating desertification with green belts and recently, PVs.
Unfortunately, all problems are eventually going to come down to this. Or many problems are, if not "all"
We can't fix a lot of the problems facing our society and our planet with "only wealthy can afford this" solutions
And I think, we can't fix a lot of technical problems if we make everything about money distribution.
Besides, solar plus battery became really cheap. And get cheaper every day.
And this work to connect such microgrids is potentially beneficial for poor areas all around the world.
But no, it doesn't solve the issue of extreme poverty, but why would it?
Bigger ones have a better tradeoffs, so I'm not so harsh on towns having their own grids. Still unsure whether it's a good use of funds.
The fact that you can add to the grid by installing solar and battery and connect to the grid in a single afternoon makes it pretty easy these days to have an elastic market that grows until you hit the limit of decentralized production vs. existing transmission architecture... but with the right equipment you can have community sized islands that can be much more immune to instability.
If it's the ancient practice of crediting on a one for one basis, yeah that doesn't help. (A look around says that's probably where PR is now). If they credit power delivered to the grid based on conditions when it was delivered, then that might help. With appropriate controls, storage can increase grid stability. It would probably be more cost effective to do utility scale storage projects, but project management is difficult in PR; letting those with personal capital hook up solar+batteries and send some of that onto the grid when demand is high seems useful?
...And not far from the end:
> The next milestone, Massol-Deyá says, will be successfully connecting microgrids that are not in close geographic proximity.
Yeah... great journalism here IEEE.
1. https://energycodeace.com/site/custom/public/reference-ace-2...
I'm not an expert, but I've not seen in the UK (well apart from thatched roofs) firefighters opening the roof to get access.