Florida's Distributed Energy Industry Shut-Out as Utilities Plan Huge Windfall

[ChriswUfGator]

The solution would have to be an IP or telelphone line connected control box that the utility could control, or would at least give them some warning. But then you're in a catch-22 since they have a dedicated incentive to take as little power from the solar panels as possible since they bill at a higher rate than they pay. So maybe not a solution after all.

[JHAT76]

Actually it can and often does cost more at 5 PM.  Take a day when you wake up to 65 degrees.  A/C's aren't cranking yet, and JEA may be using primarily coal to produce the power it needs.  Now that same day a place like Jacksonville can see temps go to a high of 90 degrees.  As you roll near 5 PM demand is approaching peak.  As the needs go up JEA has to tap into more generating sources which can be outside purchases (likely priced higher than their coal, their own in house natural gas turbines (definitely priced higher than coal), or both.  So every incremental kw now costs more at 5 PM rather than 11 AM.  Now if DogWalker can supply power during these peak times then he should get paid more for offsetting the higher priced generation JEA would have to run or buy.

I understand that.

And if JEA has to purchase power from outside their network during peak times, they should surcharge DogWalker for his peak usage like everyone else. But if JEA is normally able to meet all demand in-grid, then whatever dogwalker produces is power they don't have to produce at their plants. It doesn't cost JEA any more to produce a Kw/h at 5pm than it does at 11am, unless they have to buy from another provider. They just produce more of them, and also sell more of them. So if JEA is regularly supplied all in house, which I understand to be the case, then the time issue is completely moot. So IMHO, this setup is unfair and they should treat these solar installations as net in / net out during a billing period, with a surcharge for any peak times during which they had to buy from another provider.

[ChriswUfGator]

Actually it can and often does cost more at 5 PM.  Take a day when you wake up to 65 degrees.  A/C's aren't cranking yet, and JEA may be using primarily coal to produce the power it needs.  Now that same day a place like Jacksonville can see temps go to a high of 90 degrees.  As you roll near 5 PM demand is approaching peak.  As the needs go up JEA has to tap into more generating sources which can be outside purchases (likely priced higher than their coal, their own in house natural gas turbines (definitely priced higher than coal), or both.  So every incremental kw now costs more at 5 PM rather than 11 AM.  Now if DogWalker can supply power during these peak times then he should get paid more for offsetting the higher priced generation JEA would have to run or buy.

I understand that.

And if JEA has to purchase power from outside their network during peak times, they should surcharge DogWalker for his peak usage like everyone else. But if JEA is normally able to meet all demand in-grid, then whatever dogwalker produces is power they don't have to produce at their plants. It doesn't cost JEA any more to produce a Kw/h at 5pm than it does at 11am, unless they have to buy from another provider. They just produce more of them, and also sell more of them. So if JEA is regularly supplied all in house, which I understand to be the case, then the time issue is completely moot. So IMHO, this setup is unfair and they should treat these solar installations as net in / net out during a billing period, with a surcharge for any peak times during which they had to buy from another provider.

I'm starting to think you don't actually read my posts.

I already stated all of that, you're just repeating what I've already addressed. I already said that JEA should continue to surcharge any usage during times when they are forced to buy capacity from outside their network. However, my understanding is that JEA has enough generating capacity that they are almost always a net seller not a purchaser, unless a plant is offline for maintenance. Accordingly, when they are not purchasing outside their own grid, the billing for solar should be net in / net out during a billing period, in order to be fair. Also, your explanation fails to take into account the surge in billing that accompanies a surge in demand, your explanation seems to imply high demand costs them more, in reality it also represents more Kw/h's delivered and thus additional profits.

[spuwho]

Solar with current technologies is very inefficient compared to a nuclear or coal based generation. The real cost per kWh for solar is anywhere from 10-15 times more costly to produce.

Sorry, over the lifetime of a nuclear power plant, solar is less costly.  It is still more costly on a $$ basis than coal as long as there is no penalty for releasing mercury and CO2 into the atmosphere.

Nuclear is the most costly of all methods of producing power with current technologies when you add in the capital costs.

Inefficiency = Energy of specific sunlight translated into usable BTU's by the panels. Today they are less efficient than any current steam based generation. With solar, I mean photovoltaic.

The capital cost to produce the same amount of megawatts over a 30 year lifespan of nuclear will be cheaper than solar until there are some technical breakthroughs. Also the ability of solar to produce adequate BTU's per acre is terrible. It would take a serious amount of real estate to get enough panels to produce the megawatts needed to keep up with nuclear. In short, nuclear has scale, solar does not.

While most people tend to ignore it, there is a CO2 and heavy metals pollution impact with solar panels. If the whole world decided to drop coal for solar, we would simply be replacing one pollution for another. It's the same argument made about electric and hybrid cars. The CO2 output of the battery factories overwhelms the insignificant savings they produce with cars. (but no one talks about that right now)

In college we researched the costs of placing a large solar power array in space in a stationary orbit and beaming the power down using microwaves. The panels were more efficient as the sunlight was direct and not diffused. There was a safety issue of the stationary microwave link as it would have to be declared a no fly zone (lest they be cooked). The cost (back then) of heavy lift to space was significant which made the proposition difficult and the per kWh cost was not workable in the then pricing market.

I am a proponent of solar as I think further research and increased demand has improved the technology tremendously over the last 10 years. But as a large scale coal or nuclear replacement, it's just not practical financially. As a supplement to the grid, absolutely!

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Based on Chris' argument, DW, is there a way for you to 'store' your energy during the day and basically come off the grid during the peak hours?

Your meter would be spinning during the day, but come 5pm, if you could start releasing the energy you collected during the day, the meter either stops or starts going the other way. 

Buy on the cheap and sell when demand is high, so to speak.

[Dog Walker]

If everyone had solar panels on their homes and businesses, I wonder if JEA would be able effectively manage the demand changes due to the decreased sunlight in an afternoon thunderstorm. I would think a storm could roll in faster than they could bring additional generators online. Then 30 minutes later the panel are back to full power.

This is really just a theoretical question since almost no one has solar panels at this point.

Somehow the power producers in China, Germany, Italy, Spain all manage it.

Based on Chris' argument, DW, is there a way for you to 'store' your energy during the day and basically come off the grid during the peak hours?

Your meter would be spinning during the day, but come 5pm, if you could start releasing the energy you collected during the day, the meter either stops or starts going the other way.  

Buy on the cheap and sell when demand is high, so to speak.

Off-grid systems use banks of batteries to store power.  There are lots of off-grid systems in deep rural areas, on islands in the Caribbean, etc.  The battery banks are expensive, short-lived (<10 years) and not strong enough to run things like A/C.  Lights, fans, TV, stereo, computers, but not heavy electric motors.

My system is grid-tied, i.e. feeds power to and takes power from JEA's liines deending on my home's power demands.  I am essentially using JEA as my "battery" bank and paying for the priviledge.   Per KWH it is still probably much cheaper than trying to put in a battery bank.

And I will not live here without A/C.

Solar Photovoltaic is getting both cheaper and more efficient.  On the horizon right now are fairly cheap, but inefficient solar roof shingles.  Imagine every new house and every re-roofed house in Florida with these shingles.  That's a lot of power!  Maybe JEA and FP&L could use this excess daylight power to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen.  At night recombine them in banks of fuel cells or turbines to return power to the grid.  This is a scalable solution too.  You don't have to cough up billions of dollars all at once to build some huge plant, just add the equipment in stages at existing plants as roofs are brought online.

Well, I can dream anyway.  There are still some technical barriers to overcome before it is practical, but we overcame technical barriers in ten years to reach the moon too.