Re: Renewables in power cuts

In message <pan.2005.10.03.05.48.28.408584@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Andy Baxter <news4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
John Beardmore said: 

P.S. it occurred to me that a good setup for several houses near to each
other would be to have a couple of large windmills with a battery bank,
and a local main for the houses which ran off the batteries, then feed
power into or out of the grid from the battery bank. That way you could
set it up to feed power back into the grid during peak hours when
electricity is more expensive, which would be doing the grid a favour and
also let you earn more from the power you were generating. How feasible
this is I don't know though.


It's perfectly feasible, but buying batteries just for this purpose
would probably not be economical, and probably do no environmental
favours either.


I was thinking the benefit would be that the wind energy would be more
fully used, so in theory you'd need less turbines to satisfy a given
annual demand.


But why not just push/pull with the grid ?  Why can't that use the
energy fully ?

Why can't the grid be a vehicle to move power from where the sun is
shining and the wind is blowing to where it isn't ?


Because sun at least, and wind to a degree, is a regional phenomenon, so
you'd need lots of very high power lines to move energy round the globe to
that degree.

Well, seems to me that when the wind gusts on our corner of the building, it may not be gusting 150 yards away. But who cares ? We have an interconnect to France already ? But is this the point ? No !

For the foreseeable future, micro generation will mostly make any give leaf in the distribution grid look like a slightly smaller load. It won't be about selling your power remotely, except in the most algebraic and administrative of senses.


Also is it a good thing to have australian nighttime energy
use running off european wind turbines?? (From a point of view of regional
self sufficiency / general sanity - maybe we'd get to a point where this


Doubt it, but Aus no doubt has its own wind, tides and other resources.


The point being that daytime and nighttime loads are different, so it
makes sense to have a buffer somewhere in the system.


Yes, if the system runs entirely from renewables.


Otherwise the
remaining coal fired capacity ends up being the buffer by running at
reduced loads when the wind is blowing.


Or nuclear or biomass or whatever...


Or else more plants like dinorwic
in wales, which isn't a bad thing,


Indeed.


but it might make more sense to design
each micro-generator with a micro-buffer built in.

I really doubt it unless you have a better idea than lead acid cells, but with the 'market share' renewable have now, this requirement isn't even on the horizon yet !


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore
.

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