Stories tagged with "Solar photovoltaic"

Scientific American's Path to Sustainability: Let's Think about the Details

Posted by Gail the Actuary on November 9, 2009 - 10:10am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: hydroelectric, scientific american, solar photovoltaic, solar power, sustainability, wind [list all tags]


Scientific American presents "A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030" in its November issue. In many ways, it sounds good. But let's think about the details: What would the end result look like? Would it really be sustainable? What would the costs really be? Is there any way we could afford to do what is proposed?

The authors of the article, Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi, propose substituting wind, water, and solar (WWS) energy for all other forms of energy by 2030, not for just the US, but for the world. The types of energy sources that would be eliminated include the following:

• Petroelum (including gasoline, diesel, propane, heating oil, etc.)
• Natural gas
• Coal
• Liquid biofuels, such as ethanol
• Wood and other biomass
• Nuclear

All that would remain would be wind, wave power, tidal energy, hydroelectric, geothermal, and solar. Because of the ambitious timeframe, the only techniques that can be used are ones that work at large scale today, or are very close to working.

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Will Residential Power Systems Disrupt the Grid?

Posted by Gail the Actuary on September 5, 2009 - 10:20am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: electricity, solar photovoltaic, wind generated electricity, wind turbines [list all tags]

This is a guest post by Steve Piper. Steve has a M. S. in Public Management and has been a consultant in the utilities business (primarily electricity) for the last 20 years.

A couple of months ago, posters on The Oil Drum raised the question of whether installing large amounts of grid-connected power at the residential level (solar panels, small wind turbines, and the like) would disrupt the grid.

There is a standard (IEEE 1547) covering safe interconnection of small power facilities to the grid. Comparing the amount of increase likely in solar panels and in residential wind turbines with the allowances for disruptions of various types in standard IEEE 1547, it appears that the adding these devices should not be unduly disruptive. The only exception might be in areas with unusually high grid penetrations of these auxiliary devices.

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