First, let me say I’m a fan of solar power when done correctly and without financial carrots hung out for electricity generation that entice abuse of the system. I put solar on my own home.
Bishop Hill points out that some solar power installations in Spain were producing power at night.
He writes of what was thought to be a joke:
…The prices paid for green energy were so high that it appeared to be profitable to generate that energy by shining conventionally fuelled arclights on the solar panels.
But finds truth to be stranger than fiction:
Although the exact details are slightly different there is now an intriguing report of the scam in practice. The text is based on a machine translation of the original German text:
After press reports, it was established during inspections that several solar power plants were generating current and feeding it into the net at night. To simulate a larger installation capacity, the operators connected diesel generators.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said one industry expert to the newspaper “El Mundo”, which brought the scandal to light. If solar systems apparently produce current in the dark, will be noticed sooner or later. However, if electricity generators were connected during daytime, the swindle would hardly be noticed.
As I said last time around, this is the insanity of greenery.
Here is the Google Translation of the article.
You too can generate energy with your solar system at night, all you need is an 850 million candlepower WWII era searchlight, now available for rent.
Hey, it’s not crazy. There are so many fees, taxes, add ons, etc to power bills here in California now it is actually cheaper to generate your own electricity running a diesel generator than it is to buy it from PG&E. Anyone have a used diesel-electric locomotive I can buy?
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Any diesel-electric locomotive old enough to be for sale would probably be using a generator and generating direct current, so figure the cost of converting DC to AC into your calculations. However, if that isn’t cost effective the diesel locomotive division of General Motors produces large skid-mounted systems which are ready to go, generate AC power and aren’t well-used hauling freight cars, which does put a lot of stress on the locomotive.
Is this the column you meant to run on April 1st?
Yeah, I know, it’ll be coming our way soon.
Production of electricity generation in the nigth (Spain)
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iCyUsWAeuro/S8Qd4g0b5mI/AAAAAAAABIU/Gjb44UuHtVw/s1600/solar+espana.jpg
Fantastic
Hook up a belt to a stationary bicycle and generator and put the pedal to the metal. I heard tell it makes some people a bit cranky.
Anthony,
Its actually a German article about a project in Spain.
“Vertigo, with solar power in Spain busted” (google translate of title)
Does not really matter, the point is exactly the same, lots of money floating around = lots of room for fraud, and no one is asking questions.
JT
My favorite appliances are solar powered flashlights. They work best when the sun is shining brightly.
For those people who don’t have the luxury of bright sunshine to illuminate their flashlight, they can purchase a mechanical flashlight which recharges by winding or shaking. Then they don’t have to wait for the sun to come out before they can have light.
stevengoddard (19:10:57)–
Instead of one of those solar devices, when I was a kid visiting family back in NJ, we would catch about a 100 fireflies and put them in a jar, then give it a shake. Worked pretty good. Let the flies loose in the morning.
How do they verify that the power is from the solar cells? why not just hook the diesel generator to the grid and CLAIM that it came from one’s solar array?
Diesel powered solar panels – what’s next; coal fired wind turbines?
I hope to be first to say something crazy…
Wind power when there is no wind…
Use nuclear to power fans to blow on windmills… With the tax rebate, you will make money… And no CO2.
What a crazy world we live in
My new home in FL has solar for the pool. Apparently, FL offers $4/watt for new photovoltaic installations, and 1 for 1 credit for backflowing your meter. Limit of $20k/residence. No wonder electricity prices will “necessarily skyrocket”.
Human ingenuity and entrepreneurship as applied to the global warming scare is limited only by human credulity.
In other words, there are bottomless profits to be had from this rubbish.
Green insanity.
I’ve so enjoyed a site where true Science debates freely but wondered, as I read the blogs, when we would get back to the ‘Point’.
Stewardship is the answer and the technology has been on the books for quite a while thanks to Science and DOE grants.
The issue isn’t re-tax and spend.
The issue, taxed since the late ’70s, is to implement the innovation we have already paid for.
Unless you have a very short attention span, why is solar considered? The issue is energy storage and grid efficiency.
Actually, this is brilliant.
But instead of just running a diesel generator, I could buy a $5.00 solar cell and use it to control the output of a diesel or coal-fired plant. That way nobody will suspect that my giant field of solar panels is completely fake, and I get to sell cheap coal-fired electricity to the network at heavily subsidized solar prices.
“Anyone have a used diesel-electric locomotive I can buy?”
Most oil & gas drilling rigs (onshore) are powered by diesel-electric motors – basically are train engines used to run the rig. Might be able to find an old one to power your house + all your neighbors – but they are expensive – I am guessing the payout on that investment would be longer than the payout on solar power .
I don’t doubt there is a scam going on with running generators, but some solar installations in Spain are Solar-Thermal. These could store some heat for cloudy/evening generation. This is quite useful. Here is an example:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/largest-solar-thermal-storage-plant-to-start-up
What a strange and incomprehensible world we live in today. Would someone please tell me why we are pursuing wind and solar again? Why such a literal quixotic venture? Are we hell bent on proving to our ancestors that we can be motivated by an idealism that overlooks practical considerations more than their best work of fiction? We can’t say we weren’t told. Sigh, on to Orwell.
The issue with solar — either On or Off without storage.
The loons are attempting to use wind to compress air in old mines to deliver peak load the next day. Solar is even worse when compared to the costs for construction – a huge waste of resources.
Storage is the issue and there are numerous solutions we have already paid for with grants that they fail to implement on our behalf.
Welcome to Government Science… the ultimate Global Disfunction. : (
You’re too late. PG&E bought them all up.
another hitch!
10 April: North County Times: ENERGY: Solar fire raises questions about panel safety
Building codes leave firefighters unable to fully kill power
A small house fire caused by a solar panel in San Diego last week exposed a potentially dangerous flaw in the building codes of many cities across California, which is pushing for tens of thousands of homeowners to install the generating systems on their rooftops.
Experts say that in most cities, installers are not required to place a switch on the roof to cut power from panels in an emergency —- leaving firefighters unable to put out certain fires and helpless to stop dangerous amounts of electricity from flowing along wires as long as the sun is shining..
Snyder, who has investigated electrical fires for 25 years, said he’s seen 50 solar-fed fires like this one, and on five occasions there was major damage….
In the meantime, Pavis said she isn’t sure if she wants to continue being a solar guinea pig.
“I had them cut all the wires to both of the panels right now until we find out what the heck is going on,” she said. She said it had been a stressful day. “It wasn’t fun.”
http://www.nctimes.com/business/article_8a32fb03-9e3f-58ca-b860-9c7fe1e28c7e.html
It will be this way for some time. Yes, the sun and wind are free. No, the application isn’t. We still can’t store AC power. One loses so much power in conversion from AC to DC and then back to AC that it isn’t even a viable alternative today. And that still doesn’t mention the ability to even store such power. It’s not like we’ve a giant battery that we can stick in the ground. No such mechanism exists!!! (As mentioned above, there are some compressed air places, but again, it isn’t viable.) Then, we have to think of redundancy. We can’t mandate the wind to blow nor the sun to shine, so we need a backup. One that is available 24/7. Further, it must have the ability to be powered up on demand. One can’t wait for the coals to warm. Nuclear is out of the question because the power output requires preset determinations before bringing online. So, the redundancy must be generated by the higher cost fuel, gas. Given that it is redundant in every way, in terms of transmission construction, and all the aforementioned, it’s probably more efficient to power the solar panels with diesel generated electricity. And just we I thought the world couldn’t get anymore dumber……..I am truly amazed.
lol, the beer is really getting to me tonight…….we I, should read……well, one or the other…..hahahaha
I have to admit, I’m a fan –as polls of Americans have consistently shown– of “all of the above” thinking re energy independence.
Government subsidy will *always* introduce some weirdness in the short term. Eh, okay, it happens. To me, it’s more important to monitor what happens in the longer term.
I’m a “lukewarmist”. Take that prediliction into account. I’m very much a fan of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good in shorter time-frames. This means, to me, that econmic weirdness can be tolerated in the short term, but you have to monitor it in the longer term and act accordingly if the situation doesn’t improve.
The Law of Unintended Consequences – this is something often discussed in economics. I’m not sure, now that I think about it, if this was ever really formalized but it’s at least a good rule of thumb. There is always someone crafty enough to exploit a loophole in the system – it’s economic efficiency in action… and as soon as someone plugs hole A someone else will find hole B. It’s a lot like spam when you think about it – when there’s a buck to be made, someone is going to go for it.
An easier way to do this is just to feed power from a regular grid connection back through the solar connection – instant “green energy”