Tesla's new PowerWall Battery from Elon Musk

Tesla  Powerwall Battery, 

see link

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/05/21/what-do-you-really-get-for-7000-tesla-powerwall-home-battery/

In a conversation with a city councilor who is all for the community solar project said  “how about Tesla’s new battery” as if this was the solar answer.

Let me say these do have applications, but not here in Nelson these batteries fall under the category of  “toys for rich boys”

Here is an excerpt from an article

That's some pricey power, given how infrequently the lights go out. The average US home loses power for just under 2 hours a year. Over the course of a nine-year lease that average homeowner would pay $277 for each hour the battery is running.

To some, that peace of mind may be worth it, though many who wanted that peace of mind bought a home backup generator long ago.

The price to go completely off the grid is even higher because that would require a rooftop solar system bigger than what is now usually installed, and at least two Powerwall batteries. That kind of system would cost $96,000 without subsidies, about 74 years of electric bills for an average US home.

Batteries are toxic require a lot of non renewable energy and are inefficient.  They also only last for a certain number of cycles.  Will Nelson use solar to charge batteries?   I won't bother trying to help anyone understand this, either you know this is nuts or you believe.

Need I say more?   This comment came from the same councilor that told me the solar garden is free its paid for by Nelson hydro!

Tesla will likely sell millions, rich boys toys.

The BEST NEWS YET

This quote from councillor Anna Purcell in the Star from the councils latest visit to Nakusp.

One of my favourite sessions was the tour of Nakusp’s new micro-hydro facility. At $150,000 for installation and generating more than $100 of power a day, it was a good investment for the village, and a smart use of water already running downhill. Slocan is slated to begin their own micro-hydro project, and Rossland has been paying close attention to

the in-pipe hydro system Portland is installing in its water pipes.

During the election I said that I need to come from a city that takes sustainability seriously. I find the idea of producing electricity from the water that runs beneath our streets compelling.

I can only hope the council will now discover the business case for the Nelson community solar garden is a fantasy of waste.    $400,000 for  possibly power for 3 average homes for 20 years.

Nakusp microhydro $150,000 for 30-40 homes for a century.

If I was Alex Love manager of Nelson hydro, I would be embarassed to bring forward his solar garden project to the city council now.

Solar Panels increase GHG emissions

  Nelson community solar garden GHG emissions and the life                                cycle of a Solar Panel.

http://notrickszone.com/2014/03/25/analysis-shows-solar-modules-cause-more-greenhouse-gas-emissions-than-modern-coal-power-plants/#sthash.fbCnnkGx.nBypcfNo.dpbs

Mr. Love manager of  Nelson hydro states the solar garden will decrease Green House Gas.
In our northern latitudes where solar works 10% of the time, all the non renewables required to make and transport these panels exceeds what they return in their life time.   Google engineers gave up.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/22/shocker-top-google-engineers-say-renewable-energy-simply-wont-work/

Solar panels last for maybe 25 years, and as they age they make less and less power. Then they become toxic waste, they are made with NF3  and SF6  dangerous heat trapping gases,  Nitrogen trifluoride 16,100 x more potent than CO2 and sulfur hexafluoride  23,900 x more potent as well as heavy metals and other toxic items that go to our  landfill in 20 years.

All solar panels are now made in China, Germany’s huge failure
  https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=german%20solar%20failure has bankrupted all manufacturers worldwide, China is now making solar panels that are experiencing early failures in huge quantities, 34% in a recent major California installation,  the Sarnia Sun Mine the largest canadian solar installation replaced 30% recently, who paid, they called it "utility costs"?
 Ontario pays huge feed in tariffs to attract individuals to install solar, something like 8 times more than power is worth and everyone else pays for this boondoggle.   

To mine solar cell quality selenium for solar cells requires diesel mining equipments,  heating raw materials to over 3000 degrees to make solar cells and metal frames with coal that was probably shipped from Fernie, mined with diesel equipment, sent by diesel powered trains to Roberts Bank, shipped in diesel powered ships to China where Fernie coal heated all the raw materials to make solar panels, whew!.

Then shipped on diesel spewing transports, to another ship using diesel, to reach North American shores and be shipped again by diesel trucks, to Nelson where the real sunhours for solar is little better than 10% annually, and virtually none of this power is earned in winter when we need it most, results in a negative contribution to global warming. Studies show solar panels can increase GHG emissions instead of reducing them as everyone expects.

Studies also show solar panels even where the sun does shine take years to return the energy required to make and transport etc, as above!  

Pretty slick solar industry propaganda, political correctness and greenwashing at its best, but the truth is beginning to come out. 

The entire premise of solar power is to reduce global warming by reducing GHG emissions, its not working but the propaganda persists.

Good News and BAD NEWS

Good News and Bad News  

The GOOD NEWS comes from  Nakusp with a 50kw microhydro plant on the city water  intake system.  See that article here

http://www.nakusp.com/files/%7B72967C9C-1D50-435B-BB73-C88337E4CA65%7Dmedia%20release%20microhydro%20plant.pdf

This will power over 30 or more average homes for a century or possibly two.

From the Nakusp Operations Manager: “The plant is rated at 50 kw but can exceed that slightly. The plant is basically maintenance free.” 

Slocan City is now pursuing a microhydro power plant to replace their lost tax base from the sawmill shutdown, they certainly can't afford solar power now.  
see the article here:
http://www.nelsonstar.com/news/299247071.html

The BAD NEWS comes from Nelson, our Hydro Manager wants to put in a 50kw solar garden.  This has a life expectancy of 20-25 years and might power 3  or 4 homes.  Works little better than 10% of the time and very little power in the weak winter sun when we consume the most power and buy the most from Fortis.

The project will be $400,000 or $25,000/yr for 20 years and we can buy the power it makes from Fortis for $1400/yr. our own dam makes power for 2c/kWh that would only cost about $700 a year.

Preliminary info suggests one can opt in for 1 kw of solar panels for $4000, this will only raise $192,000.   The mayor tells me those who opt in will pay for this, I want to ensure that is true for the entire life of this boondoggle.

Will you opt in?  It will require at least $6000 not $4000 to ensure those who opt in pay, borrowed that is $400/yr for 20 years,  they will see a return of $60/yr and less and less as solar panels age until they end up in the landfill as toxic waste in 20-25 years.

Since Mr. Love came to Nelson he has almost doubled our power bills since 2010.

In 2010 I paid $10 basic and 6c/kwh, he now has it approaching $15 basic and closing in on 10c/kwh.  It took decades before to go up that much.

I await the business case from Mr. Love.  He stated they have identified 5 potential microhydro sites for Nelson at the budget meeting, why is he wasting a nickel on solar?!

Nakusp installed microhydro on their city water intake for $150,000 it will power 30 to 40  homes night and day for a century, on cold long dark winter nights when its needed the most, and last forever almost.

  Nelson's solar garden will when new power the equivalent of  maybe 4 homes, only makes power when the sun shines and most of it in summer, weak winter sun has no power and very little daylight hours anyway.

Add up all the dribs and drabs of solar power because it doesn't work unless the sun is out the $400,000 solar garden will only power 3-4 average homes for a year and only last  20-25 years for $100,000 per home, just to feel "green".   These types of decisions will double my power again very soon.
Thank you Mr. Love of Nelson hydro, our highest paid person in the city.

Google “german solar failure”  or “Ontario solar failure” please get informed.

The reasons why solar power doesn't work in BC in winter when we need it most.

Solar panels lose power every year as they age, they don't last forever, so all that solar propaganda that they will make power forever.....complete BS!

A few points

1. When you purchase a solar panel it may say it’s a 250w panel it will never make that power.       Typically a 250 watt solar panel might make 200w.  A 20% loss right off the bat.

2. Solar panels age and make less power every year, after 20 years consider it a bonus if you are still making power, manufacturers claim losses are from .5% to maybe 1%/ year, see fig. below.

                                                                                Figure 1

Fig 1 shows an ongoing Japanese study, notice in 5 years some panels have lost 50%, pretty risky, could you have panels that will do this?     There was a recent major installation in Los Angeles, 34% of the solar panels were defective.

The largest solar plant at the time in Sarnia Ontario suffered major solar panel failures,  they put down the cost to "utility dollars",   will we be seeing that here in Nelson?  

Below is an actual Nelson solar site  showing daily solar power, the darker the block the less power is made.

Extrapolating this smaller system to the proposed 50 kW Nelson Solar garden, the solar garden power for January would be virtually Zero, the panels are in the snow.

Notice the dark squares, they are when no solar power is made,  the one highlighted shows .12kWh for the day,  to power a 100 watt light bulb for one hour  would require 833 days like that.                                              

         

This is a picture of the solar system providing the data shown.  Even though the solar panels are only covered near the bottom, they make virtually no power.

You have to understand that solar panels only make the power that the worst solarcell in the string can make, if the bottom cells are snow covered the panel is next to useless.   This picture is from November.  These were still covered as of the last day in January shown in the data .  

Would Nelson send out the electric crew to clear their solar garden for maybe $10 worth of power for the month?

The Reality of Grid Tie PV solar power in BC

Understanding this concept will eliminate a lot of the myths around solar.  Solar power  does nothing to avoid the need for conventional power in BC that is clean green water power. Solar only avoids the fuel that might otherwise be spent.  In BC that is water, we have to build Site C if we are to meet future projections, why spend any money on solar power?  Solar works on hot summer days, what do we do in winter and all night? We use power from conventional sources of course.


Think about it.   Solar cannot be stored, is intermittent and unreliable.  Only works in the hot midday sunlight when the angle of sunrays is most perpendicular to the panel.

Imagine a powerplant running your home that only gave power in the midday sun.   When do you need power?   I think it was first created for lights in the dark as I remember?   Solar power calculations use a sunhour(this is not a sunlight hour)  a sunhour is noon maximum sun.  It can take several morning or evening hours or depending on clouds etc.,  In Nelson we get about 1000 annual sunhours for solar purposes.

What do we do the other 8000 hours,  we use power from conventional sources.  So anyone who thinks solar can avoid building Site C dam doesn't under stand solar basics, but you hear this all the time.  I think we all know how our modern western lifestyle comes to a complete halt when the power goes off.

I am not anti renewable,  I just happen to know solar is very expensive and won't solve future energy problems, I don't know what will but continuous bleeding of billions in public dollars, because all solar is government subsidized, will not help us.   The Nelson community solar garden is a complete waste of money because we don't need the power, we sell the cleanest and greenest power for a profit that runs the city.

Nelson is unaffordable enough without sticking us with this feel good very expensive useless project for some misguided and misinformed agenda.   You would think our highest paid man in the city would say Nelson isn't going to do anything with solar.  We are the last place that should consider this, when solar becomes viable we will all know it, we don't need another half a million for another solar experiment here.

At the Nelson hydro budget meeting in January Mr Alex Love manager of Nelson hydro stated they have identified 5 potential microhydro locations.   I personally know they have one completed study on the 5 mile water intake showing it would not only pay for the infrastructure upgrades required, but make power and payback,  our Nelson dam has been making power and has an original generator from 100 years ago still capable of making power.   Why would we waste money on solar panels that work only on hot summer days in sunlight when we don't need the power?   We need power on long dark cold winter nights, microhydro does this all year round at night when solar doesn't work, why solar here?



google "german solar failure"  "Ontario solar failure"

Nelson mountain location for the Community Solar Garden

 I met with Mr. Alex Love, manager/engineer of Nelson Hydro.  Gave him years of solar data for Nelson, he told me he was an engineer, and all the data I had was irrelevant.


I sent all this information to city council and Mr. Love, yet in October he sent his men up  to install his sunlight data collection equipment in view of the future community solar garden being installed up on Nelson mountain.  Mr. Love came to us from Yukon Power where he was Director of Technical Services, they have two multi million dollar wind turbines on their hill outside town that never will turn again, rime icing and expense of travel for maintenance they shut them down.  Rime icing in the Yukon, who wuda thunk it?  But they tried heat tapes, likely took more power than the power the wind turbines made?
                                                                                                                                                                         Just where is this solar garden going?

                              Nelson Mountain showing 80 ft tower and 131 ft tower and guy wires 

I first went onto Nelson mtn 40 years ago to maintain equipment, the 80 ft. tower in the foreground collapsed a few years ago due to extreme ice loading.  The city electrical crew were involved in the repair, did Mr. Love ask his crew about winter conditions on Nelson mtn?

There are several users,  CBC, City police and hydro, Min. of Trans., Forest Svc., Rogers Cellphone, no one has a solar panel near those towers, they won't survive.

                                                                     Remember the Port Mann bridge
ice bombs, well your solar panels could look like this if you put them on Nelson mountain anywhere near these towers and guy wires.










One more view of the two towers
 on Nelson mtn.  You can see what
look like platforms, these are ice fall
 protection steel grids to protect
antennas beneath from falling ice.


When the guy wires load up with
ice they also shed ice bombs.
  I have had to climb that tower
using an axe to chop ice for steps
 to repair antennae.

This mountain is no place for
 a community solar garden.


So when a city councilor says to me we have qualified people, I leave that up to you to decide.  All I can do is try to help.  I gave them all this information.

So if you feel this is wasting your money let city council know and pass it forward to all Nelson hydro customers who are paying.

                                Nelson mountain towers

    

                                    

         

Here is what happens in severe winters, this is one of my solar sites, the foreground frame held four solar panels in the fall, and there are no guy wires or towers here, this damage was caused by high winds blowing ice chunks onto the panels that are nowhere to be seen.

google "german solar failure"  "Ontario solar failure"


If you think Nelson hydro should act like a business, instead of spending our money on a feel good philosophical but misguided project  contact city council at link below.

http://www.nelson.ca/contact-staff/emailContact.aspx?id=42515