Re solar panels and grid connections:

QUOTE: Authorities are moving to gain more control over rooftop solar panels amid a ballooning number of installations that are threatening to overload the grid at certain times.

. . .

The regulations follow the runaway demand for rooftop solar in WA, where more than a third of residential and business customers on the state's main grid have an installation.

If the Mains power is OFF, then the power generated by the Solar Cells cannot be fed back into the Grid ... power fed back into the Grid needs to be locked 'in-phase' with the Mains .... ???

The inverters have a function called anti-islanding which cuts the supply from the inverter to the street distributors in the event of a power outage. This is so linesmen do not get electrocuted when working on lines they believe are isolated.

Any power source must be in phase with any power source it connects to otherwise it will blow up on connection. Most equipment can sync itself to an existing frequency reference before connecting.

Regarding rooftop solar: it can cause big problems. The bottom line is that distribution networks (as opposed to the transmission networks) are not designed to transmit electricity. For a time, there was a ban in NSW on rooftop solar that was over a certain kW rating. I see some big systems being installed these days though so the limit may have been raised or even dispensed with after Ausgrid did their gold plating exercise some years ago.

I mentioned the Nuclear option on Kevin Rudds facebook group and oh the coniptions lol. Lots of angry faces lol.

BRAD.
in reference to rooftop solar. Yes I always understood why it goes off in a blackout but can we take the off the grid option now in city areas or is this still not a option. I had this discussion with my boss at work yesterday!

You can connect a battery to them, which will hold up your house during a grid outage. The anti-islanding will still kick in though, stopping you sharing your power with other houses during an outage.

Nuclear will never be an option here whilst the Greens are in the Parliament. I'd never object to it though the other issue is the cost. Whether we could build a nuclear power station cheaper than the poms is something that the experts would have to work out.

Hinkley Point Power Station in Somerset, England is under construction and should be completed soon. It is only about 20% more powerful than Eraring Power Station, near Newcastle, NSW but the end cost will be $37bn - in Australian dollars. A coal-fired station if the same size would cost us about $6 - 7bn so there is a big difference, despite the benefits of nuclear.

In reality, the electricity situation explains to me in the simplest possible language that Australia should stick to what it is good at - coal. It is cheap, we have a 4,000 year supply of it, it is easy to get at, the power stations are built on top of the deposits which makes transport of the coal efficient and we burn it in a far cleaner way today than we did 100 years ago when the skies over industrial areas were black with the smoke.

Yes Ian it is my understanding that the standard solar power installation has a safety feature to ensure that power does not get fed back to the grid if the local mains connection is lost. Otherwise it would not be possible to isolate an area if there is some problem or fault in the network. (Would Brad like to confirm?) Unless you have the additional battery storage then you are still without mains power even though your solar panels are still collecting/producing energy.

Adding to Ian's questions, some years ago possibly in the late '80s I read a paper/report prepared for Telecom/Telstra on the feasibility of using solar panels top power remote transmission installations. As I recall one key point made in the report was that panels would suffer a marked loss of efficiency after five to seven years so that an array of the required capacity when installed would not be able to produce the same amount of power over the nominal 25 life span. This meant that if 10Kw was needed to run a microwave repeater then by the ten year mark the equipment would not function as required. I have asked various solar power installation firms about the ability of their product to continue to provide the rated power over the life of the system but none were prepared give any guarantee; all just said that the panel would 'work' for 25 years. Has anybody else read the report or know of any reliable study on the long term efficiency of solar panels as used in Australia?

Would Brad like to confirm?

Paragraph 1, Sentence 2, Post 20.

Also, the reason why the inverter will also not power your own home is because they are usually not strong enough to handle the typical domestic load on their own and even when they are, once the sun starts to set, the full rating of the inverter scales back on a sliding scale until dusk, when there is 0% output.

Regarding solar panels, my understanding is that they work for around 20 years then start to die over the next five to ten years. They are like anything else - nothing lasts forever, including semiconductors. This would be an average. There would be panels that last 30 years and others only 10.

So much for these wind farms. The turbines and blades only last 20 years, and then they go - guess where - into landfill.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-21/wind-turbine-waste-landfill-recycling-costs/101168442

Yes folks, these green chappies have all the answers.

A power station lasts for 50 years and these days, one could pretty much recycle the whole damned thing. Steel, copper, concrete, the lot.

Most hydro power stations in Tasmania are over 60 years old, some approaching 100.
All still running. JJ

I never thought I would ever see the ALP ignore the wanker party (Greens) but it is happening in force. No need to fear the Greens destructive ambitions anymore, they are a spent force. Already they are falling apart, their recent sideshow antics highlights their desperation.

It's up to you now ALP. Build those new power stations, your unions will support you, as will your country.

And to the financers of the grand green energy schemes who thought to benefit from this mythical energy--- LOSERS!

And the grapes grow really well!

With the Greens in the Senate, there will never be any Commonwealth support for what works. The Commonwealth will not fund coal or nuclear - not that it is really the job of that level of government. Providing electricity has always been a state responsibility.

Necessity will always drive correct decisions and hunger will always dominate idealism.

The Germans have just declared the decision to early banning of internal combustion engines is wrong. They are now reviewing----.
The Dutch are now following the Germans and bringing coal powered generators back on line.

The international green movement is fast becoming transparent. Nations are waking up to the fact that they have been sucked in by a mob hell bent on destroying western civilisation.

Hopefully we too will see the wheels start falling of this destructive pestilence in the senate.

Bringbackthevalve its nice to see common sense making a appearance lol. Dont worry they will fight it though!
The combustion engine has a lot further to go in reality especially with hydrogen being developed. Yes I know they use it to charge fuel cells which is great but it can also run a combustion engine as well.
On another note I received a letter last week saying my electricity bill is going down lol by 1.25%. Oh the stress of it all lol.