Could you adapt your lifestyle for Solar Power Plants?

I have an advantage, I think.
Part of my childhood (young teen years) was spent living "off the grid".
We had a propane refrigerator (I'm still a bit mystified at using fire to chill food, but please, no one explain it, okay? I do understand the mechanics, barely), and ran the generator rarely.
Laundry was done in a wringer washer, and hung on a clothesline.
Kerosene lamps lit the night, but they were rather smelly and labor-intensive (I was in charge of cleaning all the chimneys), so we used them as little as possible.
Daylight was spent as much out of doors as possible, doing "work" and play. Nighttime was for resting and sleeping.

With the advent of LED lights, storage batteries, etc., I can definitely see having "personal battery storage" for nighttime lighting. Most washers, dishwashers, and other large appliances can be set to run at certain times, presumably during the daylight when power is abundant.
Refrigerators pull the most power, I believe. Hmm... in a solar-powered future, smaller refrigerators, with built-in battery power sinks for nighttime, is possible.
Interesting topic

 

Is there any reason this solar power plant, couldn't also have wind turbines for generating power at night?

 

no electricity is needed most at night

how else are you going to see...or watch tv or cook dinner

this seems more then outrageous to me

 

i'm sure we can come up with alternative sources of energy at night... no power at night is a little impossible.

hospitals are open 24 hours, for example, and we need them to be.

we had a transformer blow down the block a few minutes after i got home from work a while ago... 6pm and we're pretty much in the dark... no making dinner, no lights, no reading, no writing, no radio... no evening.

 

The way these things are gonna go is CSP with NG "firming". CSP plants are basically just natural gas fired plants with the solar collection and heat exchange. Using molten salts to store the heat allows the plants to run for a couple to maybe 12 hours after the sun has gone down. This actually makes the plants cheaper (because you're utilizing the equipment more, driving down the time to recoup investment). Since they generally are rankine cycle NG plants you can easily hook up a NG source to provide the heat to make steam. This allows the plant to operate 24/7. The CSP aspect means that you can use WAY less NG most of the time, but the NG means that you've got a dependable power plant that you can count on regardless of the weather.

 

No evening? Nothing to do at all?...Why do you think there's a surge in births about nine months after major power outages?

 

um hello... ghost stories.

 

You mean you and DH can't think of *anything* to do in the dark?

I agree, you need electricity 24/7 but the demand isn't steady. Aside from the hospital and a few other consumers, how much electricity is used at 3 am as opposed to 3 pm? That's one of the problems with the current methods of generation. Whether it's needed or not, the supply continues. So the problem is balancing generation with useage. To produce enough to meet demand but not so much in excess that you need to dump it.

That's why I suggested wind generation for evening hours, perhaps supplemented by daytime storage.

The nice thing about natural gas is that I can cook and I have heat even if I have no power. My gas furnace uses a thermopile generator so does not need electricity to work. And I have a vintage gas stove. The pilot is on all of the time. So when I need to cook, I have fire. No electricity needed. The only downside to replacing the standard gas water heater with a tankless is that now I need electricity to light the pilot when I want hot water. There are tankless waterheaters out there that will light the pilot from the flow of water, but they were rated lower than the one I have. I figured....how often will I need a lot of hot water during a power outage? I'm not going to be taking showers or baths in the dark.

Now that I've given up my dial-up ISP through the phone modem I won't be able to go online during a blackout like I used to. The batteries in the laptop will last a bit so I can do a little work. Maybe even watch a DVD until the batteries go dead.

And there are candles for reading a book.

But mostly I get out my vintage travel alarm, wind it up and set it, then go to bed early. The dog doesn't mind at all.

 

Well, when it's nighttime in the northern hemisphere, it's daytime in the southern hemisphere. Why not build solar power plants somewhere in South America to even out the supply more around the clock?

 

Watching TV? My laptop has a tiny battery and will run for 4 hours on it so a TV with a screen 4 times the size should cope with a battery 4 to 8 times that size.

Freezer will stay frozen for 24 hours if not opened
Fridge can have cold sink to keep it cold, say ice in a chamber at the top of the fridge.

Heat sinks for heating, and cooling. Ice or near boiling water under the house or in the ceiling space. or heaters in concrete floors or gas heat. Battery powered ceiling fans.

Low energy lighting and a small battery pack to run it and the TV if it hasn't got a self contained power supply. My LED TV has a fluro light source, switch to LED light source in TV to reduce power consumption.

Wash clothes and dishes during daylight and air dry.

Street lighting would be interesting but plenty of parks are lit with solar lighting.

 

See the article I posted here about solar trees.

Requirements are lower at night but they're still substantial. Efficiency is the first step here.

 

??!!

 

I think you need to look up the difference between day and night, winter and summer.

 

Gaaa!!! DUH!! What was I thinking??

Well, when it's nighttime here, it's daytime somewhere else for sure, so maybe we could just make a worldwide network and harness as much of the sun's power as possible...

 

What about the people who don't have access to gas? My neighborhood is 100% electric for everything. Also plenty of people can't afford to replace appliances, install things like heat sinks or heaters in a concrete floor.

People in high-density housing would have to rely on the apartment building owners or condo associations to make necessary changes, the costs of which would be passed on via higher rents or condo fees. And air drying clothes is not an option when you have no access to a clothes line.

Running all these things on batteries means more dead batteries being dumped in landfills.

These ideas are nice in theory but the implementation is not simple.

 

It would be a lot easier after I retire.

As is, I leave for work when it's dark and I get home when it's....dark. So everything I do at home is at night when it's dark. I can't put everything off until the weekend when the sun is out.

I've already got PV on my roof. If necessary I can add wind generation for night. And then if really necessary could always convert what I have now to go off the grid. That's expensive so I wouldn't do it unless really forced to.