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Number crunching

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by Leadfoot J. McCoalroller, Apr 22, 2022.

  1. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    Well, we made $0.57 worth of electricity today. Not bad given that the authorization to operate the plant came in at 3pm. I'll have to see how it does tomorrow.
     
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  2. Louis19

    Louis19 Active Member

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    Interresting:) , keep us informed , BTW $0.57 worth of electricity boils down to how many kw/h at the rate you pay your electricity
     
  3. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    3.2kw/h produced between switch-on and sun-down yesterday, local rate is about $0.18.

    The reporter app tells me we've already produced another 3kw/h this morning and there's barely any direct light on it yet.

    The house meter started showing the <--- export pattern around 9AM.

    Sunrise hasn't been this exciting in a while. My coffee tastes a little better right now.
     
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  4. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    Better than I did.
    If yesterday was 'first week of May average' I used about a two bucks worth of energy.
    Probably less because I FINALLY divested myself of the horribly miss-installed heat pump that my luxurious city dwelling came with, and I spent the hot part of the day doing gutter maintenance, while my CFO was shopping and thus we kept the HVAC set on >74.

    I would have DIY'd the 3 splits instead of the new ($11k) HVAC, but that appropriation was voted down by the same congressional committee that shot down my half-hearted satellite communications request..... :(

    Coffee brewed by 'Free' electricity tastes better for the same reason that NOTHING runs better than a paid for car. :)
     
  5. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    The 5.2kW system has been producing >30kWh on clear days for me.

    Going to start looking into battery power supplies if the bi-directional meter doesn't go in soon.
     
  6. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    Another white truck with a yellow blinky light and parking cones today.

    This one was the metering department. They reprogrammed my meter so now it has two accumulators, one for them and one for us.

    From the stats, we produced about 42kw/h today. We have been credited with exporting about 9kw/h. The rest we either used or gave away.

    Screenshot 2024-05-07 at 5.18.40 PM.png
     
    #326 Leadfoot J. McCoalroller, May 7, 2024
    Last edited: May 7, 2024
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  7. Louis19

    Louis19 Active Member

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    This subject is new to me , I find it intriguing
    In a nutshell what is your system, and how does it work
    Regards
     
  8. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    In a nutshell, I have a legal agreement with my local power utility that enables me to sell them electricity whenever I am making more than I am using.

    We installed a big solar panel in the yard. It's hooked up to the house. When the panel makes more power than the house needs, the excess gets exported to the grid and is consumed by my neighbors.

    My electric meter now counts power I buy from the grid (import) as well as power we sell to the grid (export) and the two totals are canceled against each other to determine my bill (or payment) as the case may be each month.

    If we did it right, our exports will equal our imports for net zero energy cost.
     
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  9. Louis19

    Louis19 Active Member

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    Thanks for your answer ,
    So if I understand correctly , your system automatically manages if you import or export electricity to the grid. Is this happening in real time.
    Does it mean that your system , when exporting , is delevering energy at the proper voltage and the proper frequency and the proper phase to the grid . If so this is a very sophisticated system. Does the system store energy or is it always live and reacts to your power demands at a given instant.
     
  10. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    Yes, in real time. We aren't doing anything special for that; this is a natural property of electricity in a contiguous circuit- it will flow from where it is to where it is needed. The import/export balance and degree changes all the time with normal household activity + sunlight availability.

    That's exactly what it is doing. All that sophistication has been boiled down to a couple of chips controlling the inverters. The future is now. Part of the legal agreement I signed is that my power has to be good enough for their standards, coming from approved inverters only.

    No storage; completely grid interactive. Any power I produce in excess of what I'm consuming goes out on the wire to my neighbors houses, and ultimately reduces the amount of fuel used at the local gas turbine plant.
     
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  11. Louis19

    Louis19 Active Member

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  12. rjparker

    rjparker Tu Humilde Sirviente

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    Grid tied inverters have been common in residential solar for many decades. The improvements are in reduced size and cost, not their ability to synchronize with the grid and provide clean sine wave power to the grid.

    The more advanced residential grid tied systems can also charge batteries, like the Tesla Power Wall and allow for standalone operation of locally generated power at night or when the grid fails. Those systems are pricey, particularly the batteries needed to fully run a house for many hours or days.

    Perhaps the most intriguing step up is the ability of a utility to tap into locally stored energy and perhaps even ev cars with their huge batteries. For example, the Texas grid is at risk today and tomorrow in early May because many utility power generators are down. Fifteen years from now there may be enough grid tied local storage to supplement the grid while paying their owners for the privilege.
     
  13. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    I understand that one area of competitive improvement is in time-to-sync. Older inverters would have to listen to the incoming power for a long time before they were really certain they had the phase correct. Newer ones seem to be faster about getting on the line.
     
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  14. Louis19

    Louis19 Active Member

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    Yes indeed , this is the way to the future.
     
  15. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    Tied to the grid with no battery is the new thing for me.

    We've had solar panels on the family vacation cottage for almost 40 years now, but that is strictly off grid. The panels charge batteries and we keep the resulting power for ourselves.

    A necessity there; there is no grid at that location.

    Now I'm learning how to do solar in a much more social fashion.
     
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  16. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    When the utility technician set up my meter for bi-directional accounting, they reset the accumulators to zero.

    So now I can almost call it like a ball game.

    Right now, the Photons are leading the Gasflames* 59 to 13.


    *it should be noted that my imported electricity is known as "RFC East" which is about 50% natural gas fired turbine, 36% nuclear, 9% coal and 5% everything else.
     
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  17. Salamander_King

    Salamander_King Senior Member

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    Congrats! 42kW/h day is fantastic. I have not read the tread backward to check, I am sure you spelled this out somewhere, but what is your system size? I recently had two different, vendors give me a quote for a ~13kW system. I need at least a 10kW system to achieve a net zero. But it is likely that I need a bigger ~13kW system if I want to install a heat pump system. The price has not come down much in the last ~10 years in our area, in fact, it has increased 30-40% more than what I was quoted the first time about 10 years ago for the same size project. But the technology has advanced and efficiency is getting better, I believe.

    I think I am ready to finally pull the trigger this year. The longer I wait, the longer I have to keep paying exorbitant rates to the utility. At least, with solar, there is no rate hike. We are projecting a ~30% rate hike this year again.
     
  18. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    We generated 53.5 kw/h today.

    Thing is, it should have been 71.3.

    5 of my inverters (25% of installed capacity) did not wake up and generate.

    I'm waiting for my electrician to troubleshoot.
     
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  19. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    cavil: no /

    A kilowatt is already a thousand joules of energy per second.

    53.5 kWh would be 192.6 megajoules of energy. (nice!)

    53.5 kW/h would be 14.86 joules per square second, whatever that is.
     
  20. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    Thanks, never thought about it.

    Funny: the / key is broken on my keyboard. I actually had to go out of my way to make that mistake.