A Win for the Renewables?

[Joe Blake]

In the last year or so, with the increasing spread of domestic renewable energy (mainly solar) around the country, but specifically Western Australia, there have been murmurings that those darned "renewable people" aren't paying their full costs. This apparently stems from decisions by the utilities to increase spending on "poles and wires", even though there was no indication that consumption of grid-power would be increasing in the short term.

Through some devious twist of logic this was used as an argument that solar generators should pay an increase in the "service charge" which everybody connected to the grid pays (about 40 cents per day or thereabouts.)

But today it seems that, following a fairly torrid protest from the renewable energy people (ie householders and solar industry) this has been rejected by the State Premier, Colin Barnett.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/wa-premier-rules-out-solar-tax-as-fantasy-16357

In reading the article, I note that the same message was delivered to some other state governments, with the same result it seems.

I have been trying to get an idea whether I should move off grid in order to (inter alia) not be lumbered with an unfair charge based purely on my use of solar power.

Perth suffered a 5 day heat wave earlier this month - 5 days straight with temperatures of 40 degrees C or more. My present wheel-around refrigerated air cooler was under such strain I bought a new one, and to try it out, I ran it for 24 hours straight, importing 25 kWh of power, but starting the day with my solar batteries state of charge at 98%. Other than that, I've not imported any power from the grid since 5 October 2015, when I imported a single unit. (The 25 kWh was over 2 days due to the nature of the experiment, which involved moving the old cooler into a much smaller room, so just the room would be cooled and not the entire house. An outstanding success.)

Just waiting now to see how I fare this coming winter, when the problem will not be excessive consumption, but reduced production. (Last year I switched from an electric booster to my solar hot water system to gas. And most of the power I imported last winter was to boost my solar hot water.)

So, based on performance so far, and this latest news, perhaps I won't have to consider moving off-grid after all. :bigsmile:

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Joe! Good to see you around!
I've often wondered what will happen when people do start to largely generate their own energy in significant numbers. There is a point, that without batteries the micro-generators piggy-back on expensive infrastructure. I suppose we will have to evolve to a cost and revenue model where all users of that infrastructure share cost in an equitable manner (though of course each group will their own idea of what's equitable). The lament of the utilities is not very sincere though; in most countries infrastructure wasn't paid for by the utilities, but from either public or rate-payer money.

So what's a "wheel-around air cooler"? Something like a swamp cooler with evaporating water?

Meanwhile, in my own neck of the woods, my dream of putting a 100kW of PV on the roof of the new business building is going up in smoke: Our utility claims there is "no capacity" to feed back from my location. They have this utterly artificial 7% limit on renewables feeding back the grid, and that's been reached for the distribution station I'm connected to. So here we have someone who actually wants to do the right thing and produce green power (something Canada is talking about a great deal these days), and it's basically made impossible.

-RoB-

[Ralph Day]

Sorry to hear your FIT plans have been torpedoed Rob. How much of the total electrical load of the business could you run off grid? Anychance that net metering would be allowed?

Ralph

[Joe Blake]

Rob, also sorry to hear your green generation being scuppered. I'm hoping that we've climbed the last hill, but the fossil fuel lobby has still got a few more shots in its locker I reckon.

The "wheel around" air-con is a refrigerated air cooler which has an "elephant trunk" exhaust hose

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j245/saxeharp/house/aircon_zpsbsbor8cg.jpg

although instead of going through the window, when I had the back door(s) of the house double glazed, I asked to have suitably sized holes cut, so I can dump the heat directly onto the patio.

They have wheels, so although they are not designed to cool a whole house (as small as mine is) the unit can be wheeled around to different places to cool different rooms. On occasion I've moved it so that it cools me while I'm watching TV and it dumps the heat into the shower recess right near my lounge chair, and I use the ceiling fan to extract the heat from the shower - it gets to over 50 degrees in there, but the extractor fan works pretty well, as long as the room is sealed.

The latest cooler draws 1.2 kW from the batteries, while still keeping a large area of the house at about 26 degrees C, while it's 45 degrees out doors. But once I turn the unit off, the heat comes through pretty thoroughly.

As an aside, on a "good" (ie stinking hot) day it can produce over 10 litres of water which I can put through my filter system and drink it. (It has a reverse osmosis set up along with charcoal and an ultraviolet steriliser). Delicious.

Some models are split system, and can work in reverse, heating the room in winter.

[Brian McGowan]

Rob,
You should consider doing what I am doing here at my house on a larger scale. I have some batteries and a good inverter. I use that power any way I can to avoid using grid power. Anything that would run off a walwart runs off the batteries 24/7. I run the clothes washer and the dishwasher on the inverter when I run them. As I get more power in the summer I also run the fridge for hours a day on it. I ran a line through the house in the basement that goes to a pair of quad outlet boxes at either end of the house. From here I run extension cords to places around the house. Attached to them I have outlet boxes I made with two power cords coming out of them. One cord plugs into the grid outlet and the other plugs into the extension cord from the inverter. There is a relay in the box that switches from the grid cord the inverter cord any time the inverter is turned on so that the load is now running on the inverter whenever I turn that on. I have even run an airconditioner in my living room off this arrangement.
The short of it is, I don't feed power to the grid. I just disconnect things from the grid and run them off my inverter to reduce the grid power I use.
Your business is probably most active while panels would be generating power. I can't imagine you would not benefit from an arrangement similar to this.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Brian

[Rob Beckers]

Brian, I have been considering doing something similar. This is not a house though; the loads are much higher, and even a marginal buffer in batteries would be very substantial in battery size and cost. Despite my love for renewables this is a business, and there are limits to what I can afford without going under.

Alternative options are very much on my mind though.

-RoB-