Yeah sure, Get Solar - Now No Capacity To Connect To The Power Grid

Oh this is good. Hey, lets all go solar... Sure, go spend 10's of thousands on solar panels... Oh by the way, we don't have the capacity to let you hook them to the grid. Sorry.

Dumb@sses! This entire administration is full of dumb@sses.


Thousands of Americans Try To Take Advantage of Biden's Solar Subsidies. They Can't Connect to a Power Grid.

Link

A Colorado homeowner named Stacie took out loans to install $30,000 worth of panels on her roof. Nearly six months later, however, those panels sat unused, generating no power.

The problem seemed to have a simple fix: Stacie's energy provider merely needed to hook the panels up to its power grid—but there's no room.

Increased demand driven by Biden's green subsidies, combined with inadequate power grid capacity, has left thousands of green energy projects like Stacie's without power, rendering them useless. "When you put out $30,000, you sign loans, and don't have a working product, it's frustrating," Stacie told a local reporter. "There is no communication."

Stacie's predicament reflects a significant snag in Biden's green energy revolution. While the hundreds of billions of dollars in green energy spending allocated through the Inflation Reduction Act led to a flood of new wind and solar projects, America's antiquated power grid is not ready to accommodate them. Nearly 1,300 gigawatts worth of green energy projects, for example, are waiting to be connected to power, according to a recent Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report. The country's entire electric grid has an installed power capacity of just 1,250 gigawatts.

They want to have it both ways..

I am ok with electric cars if they would support clean nuclear and coal
projects to power them..

If you want to waste your time making yourself feel better
thinking you are helping the enviro at all have at it..

They are going to make the poor who already pay 30% of their income
on energy to spend even more who they claim to be helping and saving??



Thanks OP S F

But I do not understand, isn't the reason to go solar, to get off the grid? my brother got solar, but still have to pay the city for electricity to stay connected.

Many homesteaders, uses batteries with the solar panels in order to no depend on the electrical grid, soo I find this interesting.

originally posted by: marg6043
But I do not understand, isn't the reason to go solar, to get off the grid? my brother got solar, but still have to pay the city for electricity to stay connected.

Many homesteaders, uses batteries with the solar panels in order to no depend on the electrical grid, soo I find this interesting.

One big scam marg I thought so too

but they have it rigged you can't even use the damn things
without the electric company.

a reply to: infolurker

split them, via transfer switches and disconnects. low voltage on on panels, battery banks, high voltage or long running appliances on the grid.
don't ever give the utilities anything, their not going to give the going rates they charge, so why give them any thing they can make more money off you selling you back what you gave them.

Hahaha, I’m no fan of the Biden admin either, but honestly this just sounds like a bunch of really stupid people paying for something before even checking if it would work.

You can buy a bandsaw for your house, but guess what? If you don’t have a 3phase outlet it’s about as useful as these peoples solar panels.

a reply to: Narvasis

You can buy a bandsaw for your house, but guess what? If you don’t have a 3phase outlet it’s about as useful as these peoples solar panels

they make 115 volt and 220 volt single phase band saws.

here is a whole page of them

Delta Saws

most all machines / equipment have a single phase version of them. the higher the HP the more it cost to run, and if your panel system is rated high enough it will run them. then you also have the option of a phase converters, digital or rotary.

I guess it just depends on where you live. Solar is pretty big in TX right now; with many providers offering to install solar at no cost to the homeowner; of course, they then sell the solar power produced back to the homeowner...but it's still cheaper than standard prices.

I'm going solar next spring because I'm sick of paying between $400-$600 a month for power; but im paying out of pocket for it; which will allow for maximum longterm savings. Due to city ordinance, I can not be disconnected from the grid, so the scenario in the OP isn't even possible. I plan on using both local and federal subsidies, because, why not. Anyhow, I'll take the savings generated by the subsidies to buy additional battery storage so that I never have to draw a single watt off the grid.

I don't know what's going on in Colorado, so I can't speak for that; bit this doesn't appear to be a widespread issue. The individual discussed in the OP article should have gotten, and still can, battery storage and then the issue would disappear. Eff the grid and their greed motivated owners.

a reply to: starfoxxx

Have you seen the new problem with the solar panels and cement wind mills? the solar panels are supposed to have a life span of 30 years of soo, but the landfills are being filled with solar panel trash after they are used 3 to 4 years and to recycle they is expensive, also the lands fills are being filled with the windmill blades of the cement trees and they are indestructible, also do not last the time that first was told about.

This the new plastic polluter, but the greenies will not tell you that.

a reply to: infolurker

😆🤣😆

Any normal sap would think somebody borrowing $30,000 for this would at least check things out wouldntchya 😁

And why didn't the Bank check ????😁

A Colorado homeowner named Stacie took out loans to install $30,000 worth of panels on her roof. Nearly six months later, however, those panels sat unused, generating no power.

The problem seemed to have a simple fix: Stacie's energy provider merely needed to hook the panels up to its power grid—but there's no room.

originally posted by: marg6043
But I do not understand, isn't the reason to go solar, to get off the grid? my brother got solar, but still have to pay the city for electricity to stay connected.

Many homesteaders, uses batteries with the solar panels in order to no depend on the electrical grid, soo I find this interesting.

As long as you don't accept a government grant or subsidy to purchase the solar setup you can do what you want, but with the caveat that certain municipalities require that you are connected to the power grid. Catch22 in some cases.

Ya, the point kind of went over your head. You can still order a 3phase without doing the research for it. Just like these people did with their homes. What is beyond me is how the solar companies installing the panels didn’t tell the people.

a reply to: BernnieJGato

Exactly! Or maybe the company installing the solar panels? It’s a joke, failures all around

a reply to: xuenchen

The biggest mistake is a grid tie system. If you're going to spend 30k on a system, 8,000 watts of solar, 4,280 amp hours of capacity would fit the bill nicely. Hell, throw in a turbine for good measure.

a reply to: infolurker

Only thought comes to mind regarding this administration their stupid policies and plans is...

a reply to: LizzidPepo

Exactly, my brother been in a urban area had no choice, he needed to be in the grid, pay the city his dues, then he needed to have work on the roof because of roof damage, "he lives in Puerto Rico", he had to pay the company that put the panels to remove them in order to get the roof work on, I mean if he did it himself he will be penalized.


This makes no sense, but if you live off the grid like owning land you can do anything you want in your land and stay out of the grid means no city water or electricity.

The “no capacity” argument is complete bull #. If they can supply 100-200 amps to a customer no reason they can’t take it back the other way!

But… the current grid wasn’t designed for this, both from load management and safety standpoints. Why a generator needs a transfer switch and can’t backfeed into the grid.

Had a few folks in this area invest in wind towers and panels, with the understanding they’d be able to see their meters run in reverse. Utility did the “We never said that” when it came time for the actual hookup.

The way I see it with the push to electric everything, people in urban areas will never be allowed to stay off the grid, all this electric push is for money making, not the other way around.

Solar panels are just pie in the sky. The only way you could work it is with a number of batteries. Buuuuttt, they will never ever get you off the grid. Yeah in the summer months you might not pull anything off the grid IF you live an electrical frugal life. So what happens in the winter when the snow covers your panels and you haven't got enough battery storage????

I was wondering how long it would take for this to happen.

The problem lies in the nature of electricity generation. We use AC power, meaning the actual voltage between "hot" and "neutral" varies continuously between about +180 volts, back to zero volts, on to about -180 volts, back to zero volts, and back to about +180 volts. There the cycle starts all over again, repeating 60 times a second (60 Hertz) following a nice, smooth sine wave. The result is approximately the same amount of power flow that one would get if 120 volts DC power were used.

Before anyone gets the bright idea of "Let's just switch to DC power," that's a pretty huge order. In the first place, AC is much, much, MUCH more efficient than AC power during long distance distribution. That efficiency comes from the fact that transformers, which are some of the most efficient devices known, can easily convert AC voltages so we can bring the voltage levels up and down easily. Transformers simply will not work on DC power. It's not possible. Electricity does not work that way. DC power can be voltage-converted, but this process uses some pretty fancy technology especially when dealing with very high voltages.

In the second place, electric motors are either AC or DC. One cannot (at least not that we know of) create a motor that will operate off of either AC or DC power. So if we were to switch over to DC power lines, all AC motors would have to be replaced or special circuitry to produce AC power from DC power would have to be installed. That special circuitry has a name: power inverters. If anyone has really researched power inverters, the ones that are capable of high-impedance loads (aka, can run large AC motors like are in many appliances) are quite expensive. They are called "true sine wave" inverters. They are also pretty inefficient.

What most "green" energy sources do, seeing as most "green" energy produces DC power, is use smaller inverters to convert the DC power to AC power. Typically, modified sine wave inverters are used. Remember that; it will be important later.

So the bottom line is we are stuck with AC power transmission, at least in the foreseeable future.

In order to tie a home power supply to the grid, one must install a "grid-tie" inverter. This special inverter senses the power on the grid and forces the inverter to apply the right voltage at the right time. If, for instance, the grid were at +180 volts while the inverter were trying to put out -180 volts, that would be a dead short between 360 volts! That's not a fire... that is an explosion. We have breakers and fuses throughout our entire grid and your entire home just to prevent that from happening.

But when any inverter puts power into the grid, it shifts the frequency by a tiny, tiny amount. It takes time for the grid-tie inverter to produce the power to match the grid, and during that time the grid has changed power levels a little. Now, for a single home inverter, this time isn't enough to worry about... a millisecond, perhaps a few microseconds. That doesn't make much difference when a 10kW system is supplying power to a 10MW system. But, when one gets too many of the smaller systems working at the same time, with each one adding a tiny bit of time-based distortion, many reading the house next door instead of the actual grid itself, and those time delays can add up to the point where the grid is not actually receiving power... it's just equalizing power. That's heat moving back and forth through the grid overheating it.

Add in modified sine wave, which is really just rapid sudden steps in voltage instead of a smooth sine wave like from the grid, and the distortion becomes massive. In short, one house producing power for the grid in a neighborhood is no problem... two or three probably not a big deal... but 100? 1000? Now you've got a problem. That could take the whole grid down. The system is simply not scalable.

Someone asked why not use a stand-alone system. That will work (except in California; they are illegal there last time I looked), but the sun does not shine at night. The wind does not blow 24/7. Commercial power producers have backups to any "green" production so they can still produce power even if the winds are calm and the sun isn't shining. No homeowner can afford such a set-up. So if one wants a 100% stand-alone system, one has two options: either install a few hundred thousand dollars worth of back-up power and connect to some sort of fossil fuel delivery system, or sit in the dark and cold when the weather isn't cooperating. With grid-tie, one can simply start pulling any energy deficiency in their home system from the power grid. Batteries are simply not an economical consideration... enough batteries to power a normal home for a single day and two nights (which can easily be needed should there be an extremely cloudy day with no wind) would likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars... just for the batteries! And that's using the latest and greatest technology, while discounting the fact that those batteries would need replacement every few years.

Can technology fix this? Sure! Give us 20 years or so and someone will probably work out how to synchronize all the small power stations. Now? Uhhh... these things take time.

This is what happens when people are appointed to positions of power based on political affiliation instead of ability. No one in the DoE likely saw this coming, but the power companies did... that's why they started refusing hookups. Power companies hire engineers instead of pundits because they don't want their equipment to malfunction over political ideology. Regulators hire pundits instead of engineers because they don't care about the equipment... they care about ideology.

As this trend continues, not only will a lot of people lose everything they have for taking out bad loans they can never repay because they listened to ideology instead of engineers, but the power grids will be pushed to their limits as power companies try to squeeze every last dollar out of their equipment; grid-tie personal production systems are an economic boon for the power company. One spike will eventually be all it takes and no more power for anyone. Physics does not care what color the supply is... electrons do not care what color the supply is.

I really feel sorry for the people in California... last I heard all California personal production was required by law to be grid-tied. The only solution should the grids go down over this is to have a non-grid-tied system ready to go. Should that happen, people will learn very quickly to appreciate what they lost.

TheRedneck