This is idiotic. The fact is your electricity transmission system operator has to pay a lot of money to keep the grid stable at 50 or 60Hz or your electronics would fry. With wind and especially with solar power, the variable output is always pushing the frequency one way or the other, and that creates a great need for costly balancing services. Negative pricing is an example of such a balancing service. Sounds good, but for how long do you think your electricity company can keep on paying you to consume power?
People also don’t realize that too much power is just as bad as too little, worse in fact. There’s always useful power sinks: pumped hydro, batteries, thermal storage, but these are not infinite.
Stupid question but can we not like, make toggleable solar panels? Like if I Just pull the plug extracting power from a solar panel does it explode or break or something?
Yeah. My understanding is that most large solar complexes don’t have this capability, at least not in any efficient automatic way, but most home solar systems do.
I have no idea what i am talking about…
But what would happen if you pulled a black tarp over the panel? Could even be automatic like the blends on a building. And even partial.
My understanding is that most large solar arrays don’t have this capability in any sort of automatic way, and at these levels of power it’s a bit more complicated than “just unplug it”.
You’re answering the wrong questions. I don’t think people are assuming that it’s simple to manage the power grid (if so, they shouldn’t be…) but rather why are we locked into a system that lets business profit motive be responsible for the continued existence of the ecosystem.
This whole thread has way too many people who see the price as some kind of made up number that dictates how people behave, rather than recognizing that the price is a signal about the availability of useful real-world resources.
Even if the prices were strictly mandated by a centrally planned tariff that kept the same price throughout the day, every day, we’d still have the engineering challenge of how to match the energy fed into the grid versus taken out of the grid.
The prices are just a reflection of that technical issue, so solving it still needs to be done.
To start the frequency of the electricity isn’t the issue. Second all modern electronics use switching power supplies which don’t care about frequency. That’s two incorrect things just in the second sentence that they literally said was fact.
I’m pretty sure that “your electronics” in this context is most likely referring to the grid operator’s electronics, not individual personal devices. In that case, frequency is extremely important- if you like grid stability and dislike blackouts, that is. 😅
That’s a ridiculous way to define “your electronics”. The original commenter was trying to fear monger with incorrect information, and you are jumping to protect them. I didn’t realise the grid owners had astroturfers in the fediverse.
This is idiotic. The fact is your electricity transmission system operator has to pay a lot of money to keep the grid stable at 50 or 60Hz or your electronics would fry. With wind and especially with solar power, the variable output is always pushing the frequency one way or the other, and that creates a great need for costly balancing services. Negative pricing is an example of such a balancing service. Sounds good, but for how long do you think your electricity company can keep on paying you to consume power?
People also don’t realize that too much power is just as bad as too little, worse in fact. There’s always useful power sinks: pumped hydro, batteries, thermal storage, but these are not infinite.
Stupid question but can we not like, make toggleable solar panels? Like if I Just pull the plug extracting power from a solar panel does it explode or break or something?
Not really. You can discharge into the ground, but for large installations even the ground has a limited (local) capacity.
Edit: explain yourselves, downvoting cowards
Could they not just break the circuit for the panel, and stop it feeding back into the mains?
Yeah. My understanding is that most large solar complexes don’t have this capability, at least not in any efficient automatic way, but most home solar systems do.
I have no idea what i am talking about… But what would happen if you pulled a black tarp over the panel? Could even be automatic like the blends on a building. And even partial.
That’s extremely expensive and not really scaleable.
My understanding is that most large solar arrays don’t have this capability in any sort of automatic way, and at these levels of power it’s a bit more complicated than “just unplug it”.
This seems like a massive oversight on behalf of the park designers.
One of many issues caused by the assumption that solar would only ever be a minor part of the grid.
OK, so new instalation have a breaker switch.
Absolutely not. Please don’t make things up.
You’re answering the wrong questions. I don’t think people are assuming that it’s simple to manage the power grid (if so, they shouldn’t be…) but rather why are we locked into a system that lets business profit motive be responsible for the continued existence of the ecosystem.
This whole thread has way too many people who see the price as some kind of made up number that dictates how people behave, rather than recognizing that the price is a signal about the availability of useful real-world resources.
Even if the prices were strictly mandated by a centrally planned tariff that kept the same price throughout the day, every day, we’d still have the engineering challenge of how to match the energy fed into the grid versus taken out of the grid.
The prices are just a reflection of that technical issue, so solving it still needs to be done.
Amazing! Every word of what you just said is wrong.
You’ll need to be more specific.
To start the frequency of the electricity isn’t the issue. Second all modern electronics use switching power supplies which don’t care about frequency. That’s two incorrect things just in the second sentence that they literally said was fact.
I’m pretty sure that “your electronics” in this context is most likely referring to the grid operator’s electronics, not individual personal devices. In that case, frequency is extremely important- if you like grid stability and dislike blackouts, that is. 😅
That’s a ridiculous way to define “your electronics”. The original commenter was trying to fear monger with incorrect information, and you are jumping to protect them. I didn’t realise the grid owners had astroturfers in the fediverse.
…are you okay? You seem primed and ready to correct and attack people. Chill out, man.
I’m primed to correct FUD. If that means I’m not OK so be it. Love the textbook ad hominem by the way. That’s a classic that never goes out of style.
Christ, go back to Reddit.