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Hi Steve & All, May 2, 2015
It has been possible, until recently, to search for and send a link for
a CH article to anyone. As in
http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1271754-nova-scotia-squanders-its-forest-resources
This just didn't work today because searches led to a jumble of remotely
related material even when I searched for the title. And from the e-paper
the link yielded a fragment of the article; upper left hand corner.
Perhaps they were having a bad day; perhaps I was or perhaps they don't
want non-subscribers to have access to articles. So far our printed copy has
not gone blank.
Back to batteries; I am not about to jump in for a pricy battery but
Southern California Edison (a utility serving 14 Million customers) is using
Tesla batteries to store energy. Some 10-20 years ago parts of California
were plagued with brown-outs so this may have been a way to cope with
marginal peak capacity but it could equally be for better efficiency; two
sides of the same coin.
I have seen in several sources, including posts from Steve Shaw, that
uneven demand for power, e.g. peaks at supper time, reduces efficiency of
generation and therefore increases cost because capacity must be great
enough to serve peaks and some capacity is consequently idle much of the
time. Much of the cost for generation demand smoothing would be in the
control system so it would make sense for the utility to smooth generation
demand at source; one control system with many batteries to serve 14 x 10^6
customers as opposed to 14 x 10^6 customer control systems to do the same
job.
NS Power might be persuaded to give NS customers a sweetheart deal along
the lines of the NFLD extension cord; NS customer buys the expensive battery
and control system to swap cheap charging during slack periods and drain the
battery during peak demand (high cost) periods and NSP lets customer use
cheap power for charging if it is not all used elsewhere, e.g. in North
Dakota.
Dave Webster, Kentville
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Shaw" <srshaw@Dal.Ca>
To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2015 2:09 PM
Subject: RE: [NatureNS] power storage -> currently cost effective?
> Hi Dave,
> I too read the Musk article on CH page B2. One guy mentioned in it had
> bought a battery at a heavily California-subsidized price of US$7,500
> (full price $18,300), one consideration, but the article doesn't disclose
> the number of years said battery can be used before it starts to fail like
> all known battery technologies eventually do (not hold its charge, so has
> to be replaced for $18,000), another main consideration. Some one said
> the Tesla car batteries are expected to have a mean lifetime of only 7
> years. The other consideration is how old you are, since the costs +
> solar are all up front: what might be a reasonable gamble at age 30 if you
> can find the money and plan to stay in the solar house, would make no
> sense at age 70 or even less.
> We subscribe to the paper version of the CH and also get the electronic
> version beamed in for no extra charge to one of our e-mail addresses,
> occasionally useful when heavy snow precludes paper delivery. You just
> open the e-mail and use the index to navigate. I didn't think you could
> log into it for free, as you seem to suggest by the comment about the
> missing URL. Is it possible to read CH articles for free?
> Steve
> ________________________________________
> From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca] on
> behalf of David & Alison Webster [dwebster@glinx.com]
> Sent: Saturday, May 2, 2015 10:13 AM
> To: NatureNS@chebucto.ns.ca
> Subject: [NatureNS] power storage
>
> Dear All,
> Lithium batteries programmed to charge when power demand is low and
> supply power when demand is high could help level peak load demands.
>
> Meanwhile the search function in Chron.Hrld. has been improved so much
> I
> can not find the article URL. Page B2 "Musk's latest idea hits home". He
> is
> currently taking a different tack (solar storage) but smoothing of demand
> peaks is a potential benefit.
> Probably not cost effective if your power usage is moderate.
>
> Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville
>
>
> -----
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 2015.0.5863 / Virus Database: 4339/9679 - Release Date: 05/02/15
>
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