$14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide

[SeanB]

Biggest issue with heat pumps is that high water temperature most people want. Pretty much every one I see is set by default to 70C hot water, and at those temperatures your compressor is working incredibly hard to compress the gas, plus also the valves inside are experiencing very high pressure cycles and temperatures, so the refrigerant slowly undergoes thermal decomposition, along with the POE oil inside the unit. The degraded refrigerant and oil is corrosive, and this then destroys the tubing and windings inside the compressor, and the condenser inside the hot water tank. the boards failing is often due to the compressor getting shorted windings, and this then results in high phase currents, not enough to trip the overload protection, but enough to heat up the compressor even more till it breaks down enough to burn out the power semiconductors, or the vibration cracks solder joints and they arc, burning the board.

House AC the aim is to have a cold evaporator, much easier, and even as a heat pump the aim is to have the condenser only a little above 40C peak, and thus the refrigerant does not get degraded so easily.

Having hot water is a lot easier with solar than heat pump, and if you already have excess power from solar panels the resistive heater is a lot easier and reliable, or install solar preheat to the tank to get free warm water input, provided you either have no freezing temperatures, or use a secondary loop system with a heat exchanger.

[NiHaoMike]

I'm not interested in tiddly wink fan blowing on a bucket of Ice/ Candle heater imagination solutions here. I have a large house I want to cool and hot weather up to 47oC a few weeks back. 

Redefine the goal. It's quite wasteful to cool a whole house when the actual objective is to keep the people cool. (Are you the kind who turns on every light in the house just because you're working in one room?) That's where the directed cooling controller comes into play - detect where the people are in the room using modern technology like infrared sensors and computer vision, then use servos to direct the airflow towards them.

How and where would that be set up to cure high line voltage with a GTI and what is a transformer that can handle 5KW going to cost me?
My voltage monitoring Relay cost $30 and works brilliantly.  I can't see myself getting a Tranny that can handle 5kw for that sort of money nor any other components to do the job as effectively.

Much cheaper than you think for an autotransformer. For example, if you need to buck the voltage by 20V, you only need a 420VA transformer. The transformer would be connected so that the primary is across the mains as usual but the secondary is connected in series between the input and output to drop the voltage.
http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/pwrfaq.htm#ipsulv

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I think IR sensors don't work well when the ambient temp is equal or very close to the human body temp.

[NiHaoMike]

I think IR sensors don't work well when the ambient temp is equal or very close to the human body temp.

Active IR works just fine and is way cheaper than passive IR arrays as a bonus.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I think IR sensors don't work well when the ambient temp is equal or very close to the human body temp.

Active IR works just fine and is way cheaper than passive IR arrays as a bonus.

Why? How does active IR work?

[Marco]

Biggest issue with heat pumps is that high water temperature most people want. Pretty much every one I see is set by default to 70C hot water

For old homes here there is no real alternative, our central heating systems are designed for high water temperature. For a new house you could have the main heat pump heat to low water temperature for floor heating, then add a tiny more robust one for the boiler.

[NiHaoMike]

Why? How does active IR work?

Take a look at the Kinect for an example, although a somewhat simpler version would probably be more than good enough.

For old homes here there is no real alternative, our central heating systems are designed for high water temperature. For a new house you could have the main heat pump heat to low water temperature for floor heating, then add a tiny more robust one for the boiler.

What's the heating fuel? If it's gas or oil, it would make more sense to run a generator, use or export the electricity, and also make use of the heat coming off the engine.

If it's a solid fuel like wood, it's trickier but a steam engine could be used to run a generator. (Not sure on overall efficiency, however. Might be too low to be worthwhile.)

If it's electric, whether resistance or heat pump, the only reason to use a boiler for space heating in the first place would be for thermal storage.

[Marco]

Almost every house here is heated with gas and high temperature radiators.

There's no point to cogeneration inside the home if you have mains, better to just convert it all to heat and burn less gas. Turbine power plants will generate far more electricity with the saved gas than some overly complex dinky toy generator.

Boilers are for tap water and showers.

[IanMacdonald]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but Lord Deben wants to ban gas heating in new houses.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/gas-hob-boiler-banned-climate-change-global-warming-houses-flats-a8789951.html

Thing is, Lord Deben has his fingers firmly embedded in the renewables pie, and stands to profit from this. I just don't understand how this is allowed to go on. Normally, MPs and peers are not allowed to have conflicting business interests.

The consequence would likely be a switch to wood or coal instead of costly and unreliable wind electricity. Which would increase, not decrease, CO2 emissions.  Probably he doesn't care about that though, the real objective being to push wind turbine sales.

[bd139]

We're going to have to burn the chavs the way we're going. They're renewable.

Edit: More seriously, you're right. More coal shoveled into Teslas and cookers then.

As for MPs and peers having conflicting business interests, it's a bit diffcult not to when business leadership and politicians are factory pressed in the same public schools. Everyone knows or is fucking someone with the same business interests to keep the lizard blood pure.

[NiHaoMike]

The consequence would likely be a switch to wood or coal instead of costly and unreliable wind electricity. Which would increase, not decrease, CO2 emissions.

Wood, if constantly replanted as would be needed for a sustainable supply, is carbon neutral. But burning it is far from emissions free in other respects.

There's no point to cogeneration inside the home if you have mains, better to just convert it all to heat and burn less gas. Turbine power plants will generate far more electricity with the saved gas than some overly complex dinky toy generator.

A common piston engine easily gets 30% efficiency or better. The remaining 70% becomes heat, of which it would be reasonable to recover 90% of that using a heat exchanger, same as just burning the gas and capturing the heat using a heat exchanger. If you want, you can then use a fraction of the generated electricity to run a heat pump that extracts the remaining 7% of the heat from the exhaust gas, getting a higher efficiency than a regular boiler can get. (Ultimate limit most likely due to having to keep the exhaust gas a few degrees above freezing so the condensate doesn't freeze.)

Centralized combined cycle CHP would win efficiency wise, but that only works in fairly populated areas to keep plumbing thermal losses reasonable.

[Marco]

Thing is, Lord Deben has his fingers firmly embedded in the renewables pie, and stands to profit from this.

I don't see how, increased electricity use doesn't drive renewable use ... especially not in winter. For new houses an energy efficiency mandate actually makes some sense, the extra costs are relatively minor.

A common piston engine easily gets 30% efficiency or better. The remaining 70% becomes heat, of which it would be reasonable to recover 90% of that using a heat exchanger, same as just burning the gas and capturing the heat using a heat exchanger. If you want, you can then use a fraction of the generated electricity to run a heat pump that extracts the remaining 7% of the heat from the exhaust gas, getting a higher efficiency than a regular boiler can get. (Ultimate limit most likely due to having to keep the exhaust gas a few degrees above freezing so the condensate doesn't freeze.).

Or you can just run a heatpump off mains and avoid a whole lot of complexity. Or you can use 30% less gas by not doing generation at all and avoid a whole lot of complexity. It makes no f'ing sense at all to do cogeneration in your own home if you're connected to the mains.

[george80]

Redefine the goal. It's quite wasteful to cool a whole house when the actual objective is to keep the people cool.

Yeah, heard this before and don't agree.
I don't want to be in one room and walk to another and freeze or melt my round ones off. when we are all home and in different areas, the whole house pretty much does need to be heated or cooled.

The idea of AC that activated when you are in that room might be OK if you live in a matchbox but I don't and don't want to. Didn't work my arse off to have what I do and make all the sacrifices over the years to live uncomfortably as I once did. The areas in my home are large and the AC is going to take a good 10 Min to have any effect on a hot or cold day.

(Are you the kind who turns on every light in the house just because you're working in one room?)

 While my attitude may not fit the green agenda, there are few people I have come across that actually do more to fit the green, sustainable mindset than I do. I Couldn't give a rats about the PC green washed religion, I do it to save money and because I like to be as independent as possible. 

I have all LED lighting in my home I changed over when we got here from the all incandescent. I figured out I can light the entire joint up like daylight now for WELL under 150w. Every light in the house, the front yard landscape lighting and the back yard ( runway) floodlights as my wife calls them. When the lights are 4-6W instead of 50-150, the watts go a long way. Even if I did have every light on all the time, my smallest solar array would make that power back up in under 1 hour and provide well over a weeks worth of 24/7 lighting in a day. It's one of 4 arrays.

My 20+Kw solar setups make more power than I can use 9 months of the year and this year I'll fix that 3 month winter deficit. I have all this solar and generator power so I can heat and cool my whole house and have every other power sucking amenity I wish with very low grid consumption.  According to my power bill, I am still at about half the power consumption an average SINGLE person home uses which gives us a real world efficiency of 6x the average.
How does your power consumption rate?

Those that want to play the green guilt game with me will get their noses rubbed in it every single time.

That's where the directed cooling controller comes into play - detect where the people are in the room using modern technology like infrared sensors and computer vision, then use servos to direct the airflow towards them.

In MY real world scenario, I believe this would be a detriment.
I'm working in my office.  AC detects I'm here and all the cooling is fed here.  I walk to the bathroom and it tracks me and sends the air there. I'm there for a minute or 30  and then come out and go to the kitchen to make a Cuppa and something to eat. Ac is directed there. Being this would be a new system , it's no doubt going to be inverter so sensing the room I'm in is 35oC, the thing goes full tilt into cooling that room down. In the mean time I'm in there sweating like a pig and uncomfortable.

As it gets to a decent temp, I'm done and walk back to the office which has been warming up because no one is in it so again the thing winds up pouring all the cold it can in there to get the temp back to the set level whatever that may be. Repeat cycle 5-10 times a day.
Of course if I go out the house to do something it shuts down ( I  take it) and place warms up again.

The Wife and Daughter come home, fill most of the remaining rooms of the place and now because the solar on the roof is producing 3 Kw instead of  20 it was earlier in the day, the thing is again flat out only now pulling from the grid in peak times.
 Don't give a rats about that either but it is against the green correct agenda they preach and I don't see it gets me any benefit.

MY way of doing it is to have the whole house cooled from about mid day when it tends to get over 30 inside off my solar which would other wise go to waste. I can run the AC flat out and STILL backfeed so why not. I disagree with your position of only people being needed to be cooled or heated.  it's easy to drop the temp of the air but then the objects in a home  just act like big thermal mass radiators and I have spent a lot of time learning about thermal mass.  Unless the furniture, walls  and everything in the home is also cooled, it's just going to keep radiating heat when the air is cooler and heat it up.
Basic law of thermodynamics, heat always seeks cold.

By never allowing the interiour of the house to get hot, the AC is just maintain temp, not trying to bring a hot house down to where it should be.
Just like an aeroplane, more economical to Cruise and maintain speed in the high thin air than it is to push through the thick air lower down.

For example, if you need to buck the voltage by 20V, you only need a 420VA transformer. The transformer would be connected so that the primary is across the mains as usual but the secondary is connected in series between the input and output to drop the voltage.
http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/pwrfaq.htm#ipsulv

I'm not sure I fully understand how that works and I am even more unsure it would work with a GTI but I shall study the concept and that link page more thoroughly. It may not be something I want to do in this application but there looks to be much useful information there that may be applicable to my many other projects and hair brained ideas.
Thank you for what looks like a very interesting and useful link which I have bookmarked. 

[NiHaoMike]

My 20+Kw solar setups make more power than I can use 9 months of the year and this year I'll fix that 3 month winter deficit. I have all this solar and generator power so I can heat and cool my whole house and have every other power sucking amenity I wish with very low grid consumption.  According to my power bill, I am still at about half the power consumption an average SINGLE person home uses which gives us a real world efficiency of 6x the average.

Brute force upsizing the solar array works, just expensive compared to adding some smarts to lower the energy use in the first place.

In MY real world scenario, I believe this would be a detriment.
I'm working in my office.  AC detects I'm here and all the cooling is fed here.  I walk to the bathroom and it tracks me and sends the air there. I'm there for a minute or 30  and then come out and go to the kitchen to make a Cuppa and something to eat. Ac is directed there. Being this would be a new system , it's no doubt going to be inverter so sensing the room I'm in is 35oC, the thing goes full tilt into cooling that room down. In the mean time I'm in there sweating like a pig and uncomfortable.

As it gets to a decent temp, I'm done and walk back to the office which has been warming up because no one is in it so again the thing winds up pouring all the cold it can in there to get the temp back to the set level whatever that may be. Repeat cycle 5-10 times a day.
Of course if I go out the house to do something it shuts down ( I  take it) and place warms up again.

The Wife and Daughter come home, fill most of the remaining rooms of the place and now because the solar on the roof is producing 3 Kw instead of  20 it was earlier in the day, the thing is again flat out only now pulling from the grid in peak times.
 Don't give a rats about that either but it is against the green correct agenda they preach and I don't see it gets me any benefit.

It would definitely take storage to make directed cooling work with solar - exactly what thermal storage is good for. Using the house itself as thermal storage does work to some extent, but quite leaky and low thermal density compared to an actual thermal storage tank.

It also appears that there's a misunderstanding of how directed cooling actually works. It's easiest to understand if you compare it to automotive HVAC rather than traditional building HVAC. (Most people don't start the car HVAC minutes in advance, even though that's actually possible on many EVs.) The point is that the people would not feel hot even though the space is, because the HVAC unit is blowing cold air at them. And since manually moving the vents would be inconvenient, the solution is to use computer vision to make the vents move automatically.

[george80]

Brute force upsizing the solar array works, just expensive compared to adding some smarts to lower the energy use in the first place.

I have done what I can to lower consumption where practical, effective and, economical.
All my solar is used components I have bought from people mainly whom have upgraded to larger systems. I have about $2000 in it all which paid itself back in 3 Billing quarters based on what we would have paid otherwise.

For -me- Generation is far cheaper than saving through more insulation, Double glazing or any of the often refereed to solution's which I have heard many reports from people now saying they did it and it was not nearly as effective as made out.  Given people's propensity to over hype any sort of do good parroted mantra these days, I have ZERO difficulty in believing that and my own observations also raised questions.

In the last feew weeks I have spent $400 on a 4Kw set of panels and inverter, $200 on 2 Diesel engines and a 2.5KW generator head and am trying to organise another 10 Kw 3 phase head which will cost me $200 plus I'll probably give the guy that is going to pull it apart and replace the bearing with quality units, true up the slip rings and put quality brushes in the thing another $200 for his trouble.
I'll Couple this to an engine I bought last year, $200 again ( which was a great bargain) and A friend gave me a 12 Kw 3 Phase induction motor I can hook up to backfeed the mains if the solar runs short over winter to anothe engine I bought some time ago which also cost me next to nothing.

Given the expence of running a place like this and the sorts of power bills common around here, I'll have still spent far less than 1 years power bills.
I enjoy this as a hobby and am actually glad I now have a place where I can put my years of Playing around with all this to use.

If is far more enjoyable and cheaper for me to make power than save it and the bonus is that a few might appreciate, I can have less stress and a better relationship with my teenage daughter when I don't care when she leaves on and don't have to nag her over it ( which is pretty useless anyway) because I don't give a damn how much power we use!  Whatever we use, I am set up to make more.



[/quote]It would definitely take storage to make directed cooling work with solar - exactly what thermal storage is good for. Using the house itself as thermal storage does work to some extent, but quite leaky and low thermal density compared to an actual thermal storage tank.[/quote]

Cooling is not my biggest concern. I can run my Big ducted AC off the solar and still feed back. I would like to be able to get some cold storage  to appease my sense of DIY and efficiency but the bottom line is the sun shines bright in summer and I make so much power already I have been running the solar at under half it's full potential for about 4 months now.  I reckon I'll be able to do this till about easter as the temps will be much milder and I haven't touched the ac in over a week anyhow.  After that I'll be licking in everything including the new array and probably giving the Generator a run  every few days or so.

I am in the process of converting a 100 Kw spa heater which I want to use for heating the house this winter.  This will be oil fired and greatly reduce if not eliminate our need for heating with the AC which is all we have.  I tried just heating my office with a fan heater last winter but I think it was less efficient that running the AC with it's greater efficiency and warming more of the house.

I agree with what you say about storage and am looking to incorporate that as well.  I am trying to purchase a large used water heater as a tank and run the water from the spa heater into that then to the house. The idea being at night or moreso in the morning, I'll have 25KW worth of stored heat before I even fire the heater. I have also the last week been thinking that I might be able to get away with something smaller if I want to and am going to try using a gas water heater modified with an oil burner. I'm thinking If I can get a constant 10Kw out of that, it should be enough.

My wife also wants a Spa outside and while I'm not that keen on that idea, It would give me a 5000L thermal heat storage tank as well.
With that much water I could easily store 100Kwh of heat with only a 40oC temp difference.
I don't know how insulated spa's are and what the heat loss would be or how much opportunity exists to improve the insulation.

[TerraHertz]

A few relevant recent articles

http://joannenova.com.au/2019/03/the-cost-of-one-days-electricity-on-the-australian-grid-is-three-times-or-50-times-more-than-it-was-in-2012/
The cost of one days electricity on the Australian grid is three times (or 50 times) more than it was in 2012

20190309
https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/03/07/greenpeace-founder-global-warming-hoax-pushed-corrupt-scientists-hooked-government-grants/
Greenpeace Founder: Global Warming is a Hoax Pushed by Corrupt Scientists ‘Hooked on Government Grants’

20190305
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/

20190310
https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/31677-trump-climate-panel-could-expose-huge-fraud-hence-the-hysteria?vsmaid=3717&vcid=1734
Trump Climate Panel Could Expose Huge Fraud, Hence the Hysteria

[coppice]

A few relevant recent articles

20190305
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/

That's strange. I wonder what the original information from NOAA says?

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750

Ah, something completely different.

[TerraHertz]

A few relevant recent articles

20190305
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/

That's strange. I wonder what the original information from NOAA says?

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750

Ah, something completely different.

What? Please explain what difference you are claiming exists.
In light of the pic below, the same chart copied from the two different sites. Bottom one is your NOAA link.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

A hockey stick without a blade, scores ZERO goals. Better start fudging, er “smoothing” the data.

 

[coppice]

A few relevant recent articles

20190305
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/

That's strange. I wonder what the original information from NOAA says?

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750

Ah, something completely different.

What? Please explain what difference you are claiming exists.
In light of the pic below, the same chart copied from the two different sites. Bottom one is your NOAA link.

The difference is that the main text in your link refers to a linear rise in sea levels, and the graphic image is scaled so the text in the graphic is not easy to read. The original graph at NOAA has large clear text, and the text says the graph is not a graph of sea rise. Its a graph of the local relative sea rise compared to the average level of all the oceans. So the graph actually says nothing at all about the shape of the curve of ocean levels.

It is quite common for people being deceptive to carefully scale an original graph like this, to the edge of readability of the text, and then add a misleading narrative that is easy to read.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

The original graph at NOAA has large clear text, and the text says the graph is not a graph of sea rise. Its a graph of the local relative sea rise compared to the average level of all the oceans. So the graph actually says nothing at all about the shape of the curve of ocean levels.

I don't see why not:

"The plotted values are relative to the most recent Mean Sea Level datum established by CO-OPS."
"In general, a datum is a base elevation used as a reference from which to reckon heights or depths."
"MSL Mean Sea Level: The arithmetic mean of hourly heights observed over the National Tidal Datum Epoch. Shorter series are specified in the name; e.g. monthly mean sea level and yearly mean sea level."
"An epoch is a 19-year tidal cycle used to calculate datums. The present National Tidal Datum Epoch (NTDE) is 1983 through 2001"
(https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/datum_options.html)

Relative to something, that something is the reference, and they've chosen MSL between 1983..2001.

It is quite common for people being deceptive to carefully scale an original graph like this, to the edge of readability of the text, and then add a misleading narrative that is easy to read.

Yes, look in the mirror.

[apis]

If someone is more interested in facts about sea level rise than conspiracy theories this is what the fifth IPCC report actually says about it:
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf

This article provides a good summary for those who don't want to read the whole thing:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/sea-level-in-the-5th-ipcc-report/

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

If someone is more interested in facts about sea level rise than conspiracy theories this is what the fifth IPCC report actually says about it:

Don't you understand the difference between facts and predictions and projections?

The projections for the future are much higher and more credible than those in the 4th report but possibly still a bit conservative, as we will discuss in more detail below. For high emissions IPCC now predicts a global rise by 52-98 cm by the year 2100, which would threaten the survival of coastal cities and entire island nations. But even with aggressive emissions reductions, a rise by 28-61 cm is predicted. Even under this highly optimistic scenario we might see over half a meter of sea-level rise, with serious impacts on many coastal areas, including coastal erosion and a greatly increased risk of flooding

[coppice]

The original graph at NOAA has large clear text, and the text says the graph is not a graph of sea rise. Its a graph of the local relative sea rise compared to the average level of all the oceans. So the graph actually says nothing at all about the shape of the curve of ocean levels.

I don't see why not:

"The plotted values are relative to the most recent Mean Sea Level datum established by CO-OPS."
"In general, a datum is a base elevation used as a reference from which to reckon heights or depths."
"MSL Mean Sea Level: The arithmetic mean of hourly heights observed over the National Tidal Datum Epoch. Shorter series are specified in the name; e.g. monthly mean sea level and yearly mean sea level."
"An epoch is a 19-year tidal cycle used to calculate datums. The present National Tidal Datum Epoch (NTDE) is 1983 through 2001"
(https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/datum_options.html)

Relative to something, that something is the reference, and they've chosen MSL between 1983..2001.

How does that add up to saying something about how the ocean level has varied over the period the graph covers?

[apis]

If someone is more interested in facts about sea level rise than conspiracy theories this is what the fifth IPCC report actually says about it:

Don't you understand the difference between facts and predictions and projections?

The predictions are based on facts. The text discuss both historical evidence as well as predictions for the future.