Robert, This is not about Roy.
But here is the test.
If no subsidy were available would he or anyone else have installed solar panels?
The money to pay that subsidy came out of someone else’s pocket.
Maybe someday solar will make sense but not yet.
As for Roy…I know Michel…I am pulling your leg.
It was always meant to be a tad domestic, Michel.
ha ha ha ha.It was a laugh, but in a pleasant way. It will not happen again Michel. As expressed, I am sorry. I can be eccentric as hell at times. Sorry buddy.
As for solar.
I know and have read the short comings and advancements that could be up and running if not for a huge backlash from oil and gas lobbyists.
As for full scale hot wired to the grid solar panel system in every neighbourhood, maybe one day Michel, but that’s if we even get to see the day.
this test case in Ontario will leave a trail of facts and statistics in its wake and that’s a start.
That’s what this pilot project is about IMO.
Michel, I am so happy to see your conduct and condor at peace. Happy for you Michel.
No Robert,
The simple math clearly shows that solar is a piss poor way to produce electricity especially in norther climes with clouds.
Just like Ethanol in he US solar systems only exist because governments take money from someone and give it to someone else.
Paying 5 times the easily available normal cost to produce a kW is just dumb.
I have not looked at the numbers for years.
Lets equate LCD TV’s to this topic.
A product that was mass produced to fill the demand.
10 years ago LCD TV’s where out of the reach for many average citizens.
The size had not yet surpassed 30 inches and could be called affordable.
TV’s that were $3,000 are now $800.
Demand will start the drive to solar or what ever one wishes.
That is so sad!
Taxpayers in Ontario pays for Roy’s solar panels at the expense of hungry kids…
Be it mathematically inane at this space in time Michel is not thet point the government of Ontario is trying to convey.
First off I do not know the cost nor do you.
What ever the offset cost is, the benefits far exceed the reality of not having enough power at all times.
The use of auxiliary recourses, no matter what the cost far exceeds commercial industry shut downs and there loss in revenues.
What is the maximum payout pre house hold as compared to lost productivity?
Remember, like any investment scheme, the first ones on board make the most profit, correct?
Marcel, using old data?
What next smoke signals?
Nope. Not even close.
There were no subsidies to by LCD or LED TVs.
Those TV’s came down in price because of the free market and the economies of scale with Zero government subsidy.
There were Ethanol subsidies for decades in the US.
It was never a viable product that could compete as an energy source against oil.
But lefties are always trying to get their pet projects underway no matter how the math looks and are more than wiling to use your money out of your pocket to do it.
Relating government subsidies to investment falls flat on its face.
I already a posted an article explaining the true cost of solar generated electricity.
5 Times the cost compared to coal fired electrical generation.
I will not allow you to avoid that simple fact.
Now you are not being realistic.
On going energy audits by NACHI that are subsided and all the upgrades ,Widows ,Insulation ,Toilets and furnaces .
Why?
and
What are you talking about?
Did you read the article I posted?
I am against almost all government subsidies.
They distort the free market which is the most efficient means of delivering the best price and quality to the most people with out stealing from others.
[FONT=inherit]ENERGY NEWS](http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/)[/FONT]
· [FONT=inherit]17 COMMENTS](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523251/new-battery-material-could-help-wind-and-solar-power-go-big/#comments)[/FONT]
New Battery Material Could Help Wind and Solar Power Go Big
Low-cost materials could make storing hours of power from a wind farm economically feasible.
· By [FONT=inherit]Kevin Bullis](http://www.technologyreview.com/contributor/kevin-bullis/) on January 8, 2014[/FONT]
WHY IT MATTERS
The intermittency of renewable power limits its use.
Liquid energy: Novel energy storage materials flow from the white containers shown here into a fuel-cell like device in the foreground, where they generate electricity.
Utilities would love to be able to store the power that wind farms generate at night—when no one wants it—and use it when demand is high during the day. But conventional battery technology is so expensive that it only makes economic sense to store a few minutes of electricity, enough to smooth out a few fluctuations from gusts of wind.
Harvard University researchers say they’ve developed a new type of battery that could make it economical to store a couple of days of electricity from wind farms and other sources of power. The new battery, which is described in the journal [FONT=Helvetica]Nature](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7482/full/nature12909.html), is based on an organic molecule—called a quinone—that’s found in plants such as rhubarb and can be cheaply synthesized from crude oil. The molecules could reduce, by two-thirds, the cost of energy storage materials in a type of battery called a flow battery, which is particularly well suited to storing large amounts of energy.[/FONT]
If it solves the problem of the intermittency of power sources like wind and solar, the technology will make it possible to rely far more heavily on renewable energy. Such batteries could also reduce the number of power plants needed on the grid by allowing them to operate more efficiently, much the way a battery in a hybrid vehicle improves fuel economy.
In a flow battery, energy is stored in liquid form in large tanks. Such batteries have been around for decades, and are used in places like Japan to help manage the power grid, but they’re expensive—about $700 per kilowatt-hour of storage capacity, according to one estimate. To make storing hours of energy from wind farms economical, batteries need to cost just $100 per kilowatt-hour, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The energy storage materials account for only a fraction of a flow battery’s total cost. Vanadium, the material typically used now, costs about $80 per kilowatt-hour. But that’s high enough to make hitting the $100 target for the whole system impossible. [FONT=inherit]Michael Aziz](http://www.seas.harvard.edu/directory/aziz), a professor of materials and energy technologies at Harvard University who led the work, says the quinones will cut the energy storage material costs down to just $27 per kilowatt-hour. Together with other recent advances in bringing down the cost of the rest of the system, he says, this could put the DOE target in reach.[/FONT]
The Harvard work is the first time that researchers have demonstrated high-performance flow batteries that use organic molecules instead of the metal ions usually used. The quinones can be easily modified, which might make it possible to improve their performance and reduce costs more. “The options for metal ions were pretty well worked through,” Aziz says. “We’ve now introduced a vast new set of materials.”
After identifying quinones as potential energy storage molecules, the Harvard researchers used high-throughput screening techniques to sort through 10,000 variants, searching for ones that had all the right properties for a battery, such as the right voltage levels, the ability to withstand charging and discharging, and the ability to be dissolved in water so they could be stored in liquid tanks.
So far the researchers are using quinones only for the negative side of the battery. The positive side uses bromine, a corrosive and toxic material. The researchers are developing new versions of the quinones that could replace the bromine.
The Harvard researchers are working with the startup [FONT=inherit]Sustainable Innovations](http://www.sustainableinnov.com/)to develop a horse-trailer sized battery that can be used to store power from solar panels on commercial buildings.[/FONT]
The Harvard researchers still need to demonstrate that the new materials are durable enough to last the 10 to 20 years that electric utilities would like batteries to last, says Robert Savinell, a professor of engineering and chemical engineering at Case Western Reserve University. Savinell wasn’t involved with the Harvard work. He says initial durability results for the quinones are promising, and says the new materials “without a doubt” can be cheap enough for batteries that store days of electricity from wind farms. And he says the materials “can probably be commercialized in a relatively short time”—within a few years.
The researchers face competition from other startups developing cheaper flow batteries, such as EnerVault and Sun Catalytix (see “[FONT=inherit]Startup EnerVault Rethinks Flow Battery Chemistry”](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512736/startup-enervault-rethinks-flow-battery-chemistry/) and “Sun Catalytix Seeks Second Act with Flow Battery”). Sun Catalytix is developing inorganic molecules to improve performance and lower cost, although it isn’t saying much about them. EnerVault uses iron and chromium as storage materials and is developing ways to reduce the cost of the overall system.[/FONT]
I have been hearing the promises of more efficient batteries, better cost effective solar cells and systems for at least 2 decades.
Eventually it may actually happen and it will make sense for all of us to install solar systems.
I hope it happens but for now solar power advocates rely on government subsidies to make it look attractive.
Of course that money has to come from someone else and that makes it both a free market distortion and a missallocation of precious capital.
It would make far for sense to drop the subsidies and fund research but even that should not be necessary as the free market provides great incentives to those willing to take the risk.
Don’t matter here in Ga. its not worth the cost to have solar power since you have to buy the panels outright and have them installed… Ga. law doesn’t allow you to lease them.
Part of an insert from a article.
In Georgia, consumers can lease solar panels but many companies don’t offer it because it’s illegal for anyone but Georgia Power to trade in electric power.
Senate Bill 401 would have made it legal for solar companies to sell excess energy. The bill had bi-partisan support but Georgia Power opposed it and the bill was shelved for 2012.
“The reason they opposed it is they know there would be far more solar installed in Georgia. They are frightened of that,” Howard said.
This year State Senate Bill 401 was introduced. It would have allowed leasing companies to sell excess electricity back to Georgia Power and help make leasing a cheap option Georgia homeowners.
SB 401 had bi-partisan support, but it was opposed by Georgia Power and killed by Sen. Ross Tolleson, who said his committee needed more time to study a bill that could have a major impact on both Georgia Power and consumers.
“You don’t want to go two years from now and go, ‘Oops, we made a bad mistake,’” Tolleson said.
Tolleson said opening the solar market to competition would make electric bills jump 15 to 20 percent.
“To have another third party seller of electricity would work against the system we have and make everybody’s rates go up,” Tolleson said.
Another obstacle is HOA’s not allowing them since it isn’t in the bylaws, so people have sued over this and most won’t waste the time or money on something they aren’t really going to save money on
So if you were in charge …
China needs energy to grow.
What should they do?
I don’t like their dirty coal fired plants either but what is your solution?
Its a state controlled economy that does not take very good care of their environment.
But there sure is a lot of whining by westerners were we are pretty good at cleaning up our messes while China gets a pass.
We could have 100% pure emissions and it would change little as long as the biggest polluter in the world keeps it up.
Thanks for the pictures BOB .I read that California is suffering big time with the smog from China .
With time I hope we can get a better way to do things .
Ontario is encouraging small guys like me to add more units .
It is obvious working well for all.
http://microfit.powerauthority.on.ca/
Important information – please read
January 6, 2014: 2014 microFIT Procurement Target is 65.3 MW
The total microFIT Procurement Target available for 2014 will be 65.3 MW.
This incorporates the 2013 unused capacity of 15.3 MW, which is added to the 2014 procurement target of 50 MW. The OPA procured 14.7 MW of the 30-MW microFIT procurement target that was in place from August 28, 2013 to the end of 2013.
[FONT=Calibri]Ontario Newsroom
[FONT=Calibri]News Release [/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri]Ontario - First Place in North America to End Coal-Fired Power[/FONT]
[/FONT]
Stop buying all the china produced stuff and they will suddenly have much reduced emissions.
So in that sense its your fault.
951
By [FONT=inherit]John Upton](http://grist.org/author/john-upton/)[/FONT]
USDA
It’s not just milk, cereal, and soy that’s being produced on Midwestern farms. Increasingly,
farmers in the region are also harvesting their own solar power.
That’s according to a report in[FONT=inherit]Midwest Energy News:[/FONT]
Solar installations have been taking off in many areas of the Midwest, but perhaps nowhere more so than in farm country.
“It’s a huge buzz now throughout the agriculture industry,” said Todd Miller, sales director for CB Solar in Ankeny, Iowa.
The Midwest is a conservative place, and today’s conservatives tend to reject renewable energy.
So what is it about farms that has the region’s growers so eager to reap power from the sun?
For one, farms tend to use a lot of power, with monthlyelectric bills sometimes running into the thousands of dollars.
They need electricity to run fans, to heat and cool barns for dairy cows, to cool milk and produce, to dry grain and move it around.
Many farms also have barns with roofs that lend themselves to holding up solar panels.
And if there’s not a suitable roof, there’s usually plenty of space for a freestanding array.
In addition, farmers are accustomed to thinking long-term and investing in their business.
Many of them have maintained the farm in their family for generations, and expect it to continue as a family-owned enterprise
that will reap the benefits of investment in solar energy for decades to come.
And they tend to be an independent lot who like the prospect of producing their own power.
It might be time for Midwestern politicians to start listening to their farmers.
· In the Midwest, farmers leading the way on solar power, Midwest Energy News
John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology.
He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: [EMAIL=“johnupton@gmail.com”]johnupton@gmail.com.
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A friend of mine in the PV industry told me that the small and medium sized farms of the Northeast have taken to solar big time over the past 2 years.
He said VT was absolutely huge.
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·
Paolo Stefano Fratianni
•14 hours ago
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A very positive article about solar energy use in my region of the country.
I’m happy to see this trend and pray it exponential grows.
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Roy, very interesting post apart from the politically cras comments you’ve had to put up with. The upshot Roy is, and I know you installed a couple of years ago now, has the process (of installing solar panels) been of value for you? Has the installation affected the structure of the property materially? Did the promise of ROI pan out? This would be good to know.
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Any one need more info just ask all the best… Roy
I think there are pictures in this string if not I can send you some .
Added Info .
A huge advantage to the hydro supplier is these small micro units are in the area where more power is needed in the summer and they do not have to add larger cables to bring the extra power from 500 miles away win win for both of us.