Random Renewables Thread

True, there's only a few places that are suitable and it isn't like you sign the dotted line and get your money straight away

Still, it's easy to see the selling point

This is kind of what I suspected. I'm guessing grazing makes more money but is still competitive (insights from the idiot jackeen 😂)

I think this is kind of a byproduct of the world we live in. We're a high tech economy where agriculture is one of the biggest employers

Food is also comparatively cheap and the powers that be want to keep it that way. Understandable since if you ever want to create civil unrest really quickly just make food expensive and scarce

So in that environment, farming becomes a high labour/high cost/low margin industry largely kept going by subsidies

I'm very happy with the idea of subsidies since I think domestic food production is very important, but it'll still be a low margin business

If that's the case, then it's very easy to see farmers jumping on some passive income while also reducing their workload and costs

On a slightly similar theme, Octopus are building sheds for farmers and Octopus then 'own, the energy created. Farmer has space and a need for storage. OK, it's not large scale solar but interesting idea.

https://theprogressplaybook.com/2024/08/13/win-win-octopus-energy-will-give-free-solar-covered-storage-sheds-to-french-farmers/

Next thread will be @graememk installing 200kWp of ground mounted solar and going for an NC8 connection, then living a life of luxury off the proceeds 😁

I'm getting the sense that you've thought about this before 😉

It's max 200kVA of inverter capacity, so you can always oversize the arrays to maximise your generation in winter

At that scale you're probably looking at seperate charge controllers to inverters anyway. I know that Victron inverters can be paralleled up to 180kVA on 3 phase with seperate charge controllers

The 4000A busbar on the DC side would be something to behold 😂🫣

EDIT: there's also DEYE inverters up to 130kVA with 8 charge controllers, dunno if they can run in parallel

So any idea how that works in terms of getting paid? Do you get market rates or a fixed rate?

You'd probably bankrupt Pinergy if you got 27c/kWh for that system

For anyone looking for cheaper shelly devices like energy monitors, now is the time to get some with the discounts:

https://www.shelly.com/collections/all-products

Found this cool little addon https://www.shelly.com/products/shelly-plus-addon-3x-sensor-ds which I plan on using in the CU to get live readings of temps inside and if things get toasty then throttle back the battery/EV charging

While it's obviously not " nothing" , is district heating powered by waste heat from data centers -or any waste heat , really worth it ?

Waste heat is more of an issue in summer - our heating season is 6 or 7 months in winter , so the producer of the waste heat still needs a second system to get rid of heat in summer ,

Plus the heat coming from data centers or offices is probably 25 ISH degrees so very low grade , would a huge heat pump be needed to boost the temperature to make it more worthwhile, so electricity costs of 4units of heat to one unit electricity , ? And then the general pumping and controls all use electricity ,

Before you get to the capital costs of running substantial insulated pipes all over the place , ( I assume they'd be underground ? )

Anyway , is it worth it ? 😁

I get you , but it's very low grade heat , the lower the heat temp ,either the more you need to spend concentrating the heat, or the bigger the pipes need to be to distribute the heat , and it's not like we'd be piping tepid water to 100s of apartment buildings it'd need to go to 10s of thousands of houses , flow and return pipes going up and down estate roads and streets

Some cities pump steam, nevermind 90 degree water.

You'd still need a fair heat pump to upgrade the water heat to 35 degrees ,and you'd need to pipe and pump a fairly massive volume of 35 degrees water around a neighbourhood , as well as pretty significant engineering to divert warm water/refrigerant / heat transfer medium into residential heat exchangers all along the way and then send it back via the return pipe ,

It's a lot of pipe - trenches , engineering , pumping and electrical services , and ultimately money , to take advantage of free or cheap low grade heat ,

In a way if it was being dumped into huge greenhouses and veg growing areas in north Dublin , or I dunno , massive outdoor swimming pools near the heat source it'd be a easier task ,

Yeah it's definitely a big undertaking, and won't happen unless it's forced through by the powers that be

I'm going to take the controversial viewpoint that the heat shouldn't be free for homeowners, they should still need to pay for it

It should be cheaper than gas, since you're literally paying for someone else's waste product. But it probably needs to cost something so the system at least pays for its running costs and it stops people abusing it

I guess at the end of the day, the heat is being generated anyway and dumped into the atmosphere. We really should be able to do something with it before it just gets wasted

Oh god , it'd be a very expensive system to set up , and a fair cost to run and maintain, even if the heat itself is free , upgrading the heat, pumping the heating medium ( water ? ) , and what ever system goes to individual houses , all cost to run ,

So yeah - free it ain't .

ahh there's a grand stretch in the evenings again - LOL !

Sunrise and sunset times in Dublin

Very interesting and some decent data to back it up.

Is it safe to assume the same would happen here? They don't say where the house is located in the UK i.e. north or south