Looks like I have lived long enough for my all-electric house-

[rhbike]

Coincidentally while I was reading this thread, our area lost power. Judging by the sirens shortly after the power went out, I am presuming a car wreck, so likely going to be out a few hours. We were without power for a few hours less than a month ago when a neighborhood transformer blew. Living in the South/East, it's not uncommon for us to lose power for days (and on occasion, even a week or more) at a time due to hurricane/tropical storms or winter ice storms. Ice storms were an equal threat when I resided in the North/East too. We increasingly hear of rotating power outages during extreme hot & cold spells as electricity demands exceed capacity. We have natural gas to tap into with highly efficient dual heat source HVAC systems, and a whole house generator to automatically step in during outages, so we are well covered. Power outages are a real enough threat in these parts that I would estimate 30% of homes in our area have whole house natural gas or propane generators and another 50% portable gas generators to at least keep the fridge and cell phone chargers running, and in rural areas, the well pumps running. The generators have been procured due to the frequency and duration of untimely power losses. I would suspect as we add more electric car charging to a grid that at times is already overtaxed, we're going to only have more power issues. My point is that electricity has a long way to go before it is 100% reliable when needed most. I'm unaware of a natural gas outage anywhere I've lived in my 60 years of life.

We do our part to minimize energy consumption by using the most efficient of appliances and HVAC gear, but it's going to be a while before I'd be willing to give up on gas as a second energy source.

 

[dennisdarrow]

OKC far ahead of all of this

Golly, this "ALL ELECTRIC" movement is nothing new. Daddy worked for OG&E, Oklahoma Gas and Electric for most of his working life. In the late 50's I was in the 5th grade and i remember taking a box of key chains to give out to my classmates. The keychains were given out as a promotional gift to new home owners in "ALL ELECTIRC HOMES" that OG&E was promoting for several home builders in Northwest OKC. It was the latest THING to sell more electricity for the company i guess.....

Anyway, this stuff goes back a long way. Grandpa, in the dustbowl era, rigged out a tractor generator to the windmill that was still putting out power to the barn and chicken house when i was a kid in the 50's......What i worry about is here on my 30 acres of oak and hickory trees that die off from time to time. I put this waste to good use for firewood to heat the house. We have 2 heat pumps, here in our "ALL ELECTRIC" home that i built in 88. The stove gives enough heat where we often have to open the windows on the coldest days or it will run us outside. I wonder when the local County Commissioners are gonna come out of their old fashioned horse sense ways and ban burning of wood and charcoal???....Actually, have never thought of myself as some kind of HERO for just using what God gives me to use.......
"

 

[88bmwjeff]

I wonder when the local County Commissioners are gonna come out of their old fashioned horse sense ways and ban burning of wood and charcoal???."

In the San Francisco Bay Area, we have "Spare the Air" Days when you are not allowed to have wood burning fires and are heavily discouraged from driving, lighting charcoal, etc. It's basically made my fireplace a useless ornament of my living room.

 

[kbasa]

We've gotta get past the notion that electricity has to be generated in a centralized plant and distributed. For just about anyone with a roof on their home, you can run your house off panels and have enough to store to run your place when it's dark out, including charging your car.

Once you break that mental model and realize that generation at your house is possible for the price of a decent used Corolla, the possibilities expand and grid capacity becomes far less of a concern. I live in California and new homes are required to be wired for solar panels. I live on a street with about a dozen homes built in the late 50s. Currently, 7 have panels on the roof, 5 have battery storage and of those 5, 4 are charging at least one EV and in 2 houses, 2 EVs.

Here, where distances are long between generation and use, we've had significant fires because of old infrastructure. Santa Rosa lost 5000 homes when a line collapsed on a high voltage transmission line, started a fire and high winds blew the embers 20 miles downstream. 5000 homes burned to the ground. The next year, we lost the entire town of Paradise, CA for the exact same reason.

I'm a big proponent of home generation and energy independence. We're getting ready to move to our retirement spot and a full PV array, EV charger and storage are on the menu because there's no way I'm going to continue to pay PG&E when I can make it on the roof.

Anticipating the northern tier claiming that it's not possible, I'll relate that a friend in northern NH ran his house for 5 years on the panels on his room, including storage systems (Tesla Powerwall) and charging his Chevy Bolt.

The EV future is coming and home generation is going to be the norm in another 10 or 15 years, IMHO.

 

[Omega Man]

We got to get past that everyone thinks a Tesla Power Wall is inexpensive and those in the northern and northeast parts of the country have enough sun to make a go of it.

Tesla Power Wall- https://www.thisoldhouse.com/solar-alternative-energy/reviews/tesla-powerwall-cost

OM

 

[88bmwjeff]

I think we'll all be using more electricity and less natural gas, etc. Solar panels can be a good option, but you need to have your roof facing south and/or west. West is a little less ideal, but still works. Also, you need to make sure that the roof has unobstructed sunlight, which may not always be in your control.

IMO, the large out of control fires that resulted in huge losses were caused by PG&E's lack equipment maintenance coupled with a drought, but that's a discussion for a different thread. I don't want to pay PG&E either, but I have no choice at the moment.

 

[Omega Man]

I doubt that all this solar stuff will reduce the amount of transmission lines as the power still needs distribution.
CA and the desert SW is what seems to be a perfect spot for this experiment with the sun and all. I would like to see people so excited about real gains with solar that the rest of the people/country were not subsidizing this, and just paying out of pocket. Most that I ask about their electric vehicles or solar installations first mention the tax break and subsidies.
Most of the panels I see are black in color which probably means a couple of days for a foot of snow to melt off and charging to come back up to full potential. I don’t know if that “melted” water ends up with a frozen buildup at the base of roof mounted panels.
I still think the way to go in a four seasons climate location is a ground mount system.
OM

 

[lee]

Most of the panels I see are black in color which probably means a couple of days for a foot of snow to melt off and charging to come back up to full potential.
OM

There's a few houses in town now with panels on the roof. I noticed after a 5 inch snow it took 2 or 3 sunny days before the snow melted off the panels.
Most of the lots in town are too small to have the panels on the ground where you can easily clean the panels.
It's not unusual in the winter to go a week without seeing the sun.

 

[Omega Man]

There's a few houses in town now with panels on the roof. I noticed after a 5 inch snow it took 2 or 3 sunny days before the snow melted off the panels.
Most of the lots in town are too small to have the panels on the ground where you can easily clean the panels.
It's not unusual in the winter to go a week without seeing the sun.

As I figured Lee. I try to point out the realities of “concepts” without exaggeration or being or sounding strident.

With real information, those who are interested can make realistic decisions that help accomplish their goals.

I recently went through this with a guy that wanted to install a small windmill for his camp in upstate NY. This was supposed to charge the batteries used for this off grid location. I told him it would provide a charge rate but never enough to really make a difference. I suggested skipping it and opt for a really good charger and charge the batteries when the generator was run.
Unfortunately, hope and reality seldom cross paths. Part of hope is diminished when shopping for parts for such an installation at HF.
Much of what I run into falls into this quote-

“No one wants advice -- only corroboration." -John Steinbeck

OM

 

[pglaves]

There simply is no single answer and our energy needs will be very diverse. Just a few examples. Where we live here in south Brewster County Texas there are more homes on solar power than are on the grid. And the rural electric cooperative is itself installing several ground based solar "farms". In the area around Taos, New Mexico the power company there allows members to invest in solar panels located in their large solar farms instead of roof or yard mounted units. Whatever percentage of the total panels a homeowner owns provides credit for that same percentage of the power generated. They also allow net metering for privately mounted installations so if a solar setup provides more power to the grid than the property uses the property owner gets a check instead of a bill. With this setup no batteries are needed.

In places where snow might be an issue for roof mounted units and small lots pose limits then the use of ground mounted units which can be cleaned, but in an array with credits as in the Taos area would work. Gloomy coastal areas could use wave generated power or offshore wind turbines. Here in Texas, and in Kansas wind power is a big deal.

In the long run we will have more nuclear plants. They will probably be on a much smaller scale than Three Mile Island - more on the scale of the reactors in nuclear submarines.

The biggest breakthrough on the horizon will be in battery technology and that R&D is well underway, whether you like or dislike Elon Musk or China or both.

The other gains will come from more efficient utilization of the power which is produced. The mini-split that heats and cools my bedroom takes less than a third as much energy as the wall mounted A/C unit did. The same is true of many other electrical appliances.

And of course, provided folks paid the price, technologies can reduce smokestack emissions from fossil fuel power plants too.

Anybody who says that any single thing won't be sufficient is generally correct, but that sentiment is meaningless because in the real world it will be a dozen, or maybe dozens of things that combined can do what needs to be done.

 

[The_Veg]

Well-said Dave and Paul.

And that's the beauty of electricity: there are multiple ways to make it.

 

[ramble]

Riding recently I saw a rooftop array that the birds loved. They roosted above and decorated them to the point of obscurity.

 

[pglaves]

Riding recently I saw a rooftop array that the birds loved. They roosted above and decorated them to the point of obscurity.

That is what a product called Roost No More was made for. It gave birds a dose of hot feet. We used it on roofs in downtowns back in the late '70s. I am sure there are the same or equivalent products today.

See: https://www.amazon.com/Bird-X-Bird-...&keywords=roost+no+more&qid=1684118711&sr=8-7

 

[kbasa]

I doubt that all this solar stuff will reduce the amount of transmission lines as the power still needs distribution.
CA and the desert SW is what seems to be a perfect spot for this experiment with the sun and all. I would like to see people so excited about real gains with solar that the rest of the people/country were not subsidizing this, and just paying out of pocket. Most that I ask about their electric vehicles or solar installations first mention the tax break and subsidies.
Most of the panels I see are black in color which probably means a couple of days for a foot of snow to melt off and charging to come back up to full potential. I don’t know if that “melted” water ends up with a frozen buildup at the base of roof mounted panels.
I still think the way to go in a four seasons climate location is a ground mount system.
OM

Norway is way ahead of us and all the things folks point to as obstacles to EV conversion have not panned out: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/08/...SDlxG3e2_WAqxOaME-daWId5Yy8CQA&smid=url-share

It's a gifted link, so everyone should be able to read it.

Does Norway have more or less sunlight than the US? Based on the experiences of friends in New England who've made their own power, I think you may be overstating the obstacles to applying it.

 

[kbasa]

Well-said Dave and Paul.

And that's the beauty of electricity: there are multiple ways to make it.

That's the thing. It reminds me of when PCs showed up and nobody could imagine that you could have compute power available without a giant climate controlled room, a huge device and a whole squad of people to attend to its needs. The model just broke everyone's head. Like electrical generation, it used a hub and spoke system.

I feel like we're the same way with electricity. When I talk with my dad, he simply can't grok that you can make your own juice for a couple decades for the price of decent new car.

We'll get there.

 

[milo]

Does generating your own electricity then having to have batteries for back up even make economical sense, vs buying off the grid, at this point?

 

[pglaves]

Does generating your own electricity then having to have batteries for back up even make economical sense, vs buying off the grid, at this point?

My many off-grid neighbors make fun of us that are on the grid.

 

[henzilla]

When Austin had its first GE Gas Turbine package unit installed, the old gas fired boiler operators were not impressed with capabilities and fast online ability. I went on a tour as it was going through testing and feeling the rumble of the unit coming up to speed was pretty cool. The rumbling coming from operations personnel from the behemoth plants were louder
The days of waiting on the old school steam units to come up to speed gone for peak load management. The oldest units on the river downtown demolished and site been returned to neighborhood as parkland and the constant rumble in that area gone. We ride along the hike and bike trail and enjoy the new peace.
I drove back into ATX passing the new huge Tesla plant Saturday and saw that the out of way turbines back then is right next door to ElonWorld.
There is/was a hydrogen generator unit set up at a public housing and EMS HQ about same time and wonder how that trial worked as I retired a few years later.
Many ways to generate, it’s the transmission and distribution systems that needs a lot of work. The costs of burying 138-345 KV lines per mile is staggering. Sounds easy in theory, in practice many hurdles with costs topping others. Kudos to beach cities in CA as they are burying miles of old overhead distribution infrastructure and notice more each trip.

Long way to go for fuel cells and local generation, but attainable.

 

[kbasa]

Does generating your own electricity then having to have batteries for back up even make economical sense, vs buying off the grid, at this point?

Life of the battery storage vs. lifespan is the useful metric here. As we add bidirectional charging to cars, you could fill it up all night and use it as a battery backup for a while. Kia/Hyundai and Ford are all in on Bidirectional charging. A Powerwall is between $10 and $15K and has an expected lifespan of about 20 years. Do you spend more or less than that for 20 years of electricity?

And note that that's before incentives courtesy of the IRA. As we retire, one of our biggest costs is gas and electricity, so that's why we're going full solar with storage. After incentives, I'll have a generation system with storage (likely two Powerwalls) for the price of a new Corolla. And for the entire rest of my life, I won't pay utilities. When we add an EV, we won't be buying gas except for our Fun Vehicles.

Why wouldn't you basically buy now and have a fixed cost for your utilities for the rest of your life? My dad's 92, down in S. Texas and in his situation, there's no way he's going to recoup his costs. But for most of the rest of us?

Why wouldn't you?

 

[kbasa]

When Austin had its first GE Gas Turbine package unit installed, the old gas fired boiler operators were not impressed with capabilities and fast online ability. I went on a tour as it was going through testing and feeling the rumble of the unit coming up to speed was pretty cool. The rumbling coming from operations personnel from the behemoth plants were louder
The days of waiting on the old school steam units to come up to speed gone for peak load management. The oldest units on the river downtown demolished and site been returned to neighborhood as parkland and the constant rumble in that area gone. We ride along the hike and bike trail and enjoy the new peace.
I drove back into ATX passing the new huge Tesla plant Saturday and saw that the out of way turbines back then is right next door to ElonWorld.
There is/was a hydrogen generator unit set up at a public housing and EMS HQ about same time and wonder how that trial worked as I retired a few years later.
Many ways to generate, it’s the transmission and distribution systems that needs a lot of work. The costs of burying 138-345 KV lines per mile is staggering. Sounds easy in theory, in practice many hurdles with costs topping others. Kudos to beach cities in CA as they are burying miles of old overhead distribution infrastructure and notice more each trip.

Long way to go for fuel cells and local generation, but attainable.

Here in Marin County, they've been actively moving power lines underground and clearing woods for fire control. I live off of Lucas Valley Road and PG&E just put about a half mile of lines underground, cleared the old growth of a very narrow area, as well. A couple years ago, they were inspecting more remote power lines via helicopter and had an entire corporation yard set up. They had new poles, a bunch of trucks and were basically replacing a whole ton of old and flimsy phone poles.

That said, last winter, we had an enormous rain and windstorm and one of the poles right around the corner from me basically broke in two with a transformer shooting crazy sparks as the top of the pole fell off. Around here, woodpeckers like to live in them and fill them with acorns for the winter. I think the one they took out had crossed the minimum wood:acorn ratio or something.