Smoke Sends US Northeast Solar Power Plunging By 50% As Wildfires Rage In Canada
source link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/06/09/2255243/smoke-sends-us-northeast-solar-power-plunging-by-50-as-wildfires-rage-in-canada
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Not mentioned in the article is that the wind generator output has also dropped. ["Wind power also dropped to 5% of total generation so far this week versus a recent high of 12% during the windy week ended May 12," reports Reuters. "That forced power generators to boost the amount of electricity generated by gas to 45% this week, up from around 40% in recent weeks."]
If forest fires can cut PV output by 50%, what would happen in real disasters when a nation most needs their electricity -- especially as we convert from fossil fuels (stored energy) to electricity? This will hopefully have politicians thinking in terms of national security, as well as anthropogenic global warming, when it comes to western grids.
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If forest fires can cut PV output by 50%, what would happen in real disasters when a nation most needs their electricity
Then we turn up the nukes!
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Less poutine means less obesity means less energy needed to get people around
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It won't, but that's no reason not to do it!
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The world stage would not be encumbered with the presence of Justine Trouseau and his merry band of raging Socialists
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Look I know it sucks when an other country upsets your energy balance but nuking Canada seems a bit excessive no?
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Excessive? It's the American way.
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Maybe we should use nukes to put out the fire? Somewhat like blowing out a candle. We can move the Canadians to Wyoming.
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Technically coal plants wouldn't have this problem.
And technically right is the best kind of right.-
Technically generating power by coal et al is what contributes to this happening in the first place. Ooooh I love this stuff, it's a real Rorschach test!
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Technically coal plants wouldn't have this problem.
Yes, they have the exact same sort of problem with natural and man-made disasters. Coal plants have to be located near rivers for cooling water and the same increase in cloud cover due to global warming that reduces solar plant output also brings lots of rain that causes flooding that can take out your coal plant.
If you also consider terrorism then a coal-fired power station is located on one site that could be severely damaged with a single explosive device knocking out the entire station and requiring significant repairs to fix. Compare that to a solar or wind farm where the generators are spread over a wide area. The best you could hope for there with a single device would be reducing the capacity a bit by knocking out some panels or a wind turbine.
So by all means consider national security when pushing for power generation since I think the conclusion will be to support more renewables with the exception of hydro.-
So far the terrorism thing seems to be limited to a few gormless white supremacists shooting at substations. Cyber-attacks seems to be more of an issue. Maybe they can get the power stations to upgrade from Windows XP?
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Except we need CLEAN energy now. And that is what is TECHNICALLY right.
We have to quit burning hydrocarbons. The problem is that we are going at it all wrong because of extremists in our 2 major parties.
What is funny is that I have written on here multiple times over the last 5-10 years about this issue and only now, are people paying attention.
HOPEFULLY, CONgress critters are paying attention. -
Cutting down all the trees and burning them for energy would solve this problem too, no wildfires on empty barren land.
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This is just another anti-solar FUD story.
Yes, it's an issue, but it's no different from a big weather pattern that reduces solar due to clouds over a large area. The solutions are the same as always: Expand the grid to be able to pull in power from a larger area, maintain a mix of renewable sources, and include storage in to cover shortfalls.
We have the data for wind and solar production effectiveness throughout the country going back many years. And we can fairly accurately determine what it would have been going back a century based on weather records. So it's just a matter of running the data to see what we would need to have to ensure sufficient power supplies with different source mixes, storage options, and grid upgrades. Toss in cost estimates for all the options, and optimize it to get a plan.
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Not only that but the impact is highest at peak output. Your peak output might drop by half , but energy for the day drops by ~20%. Everybody knows you have to over-provision with solar or wind, but it is not a huge impact to payback.
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Peak demand is late afternoon, when solar power is diminishing as the sun goes down. More air for the sunlight to go through, so more scattering when the air is smokey. The solution is what it always has been - store the excess midday energy for the afternoon and evening.
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Peak demand is late afternoon, when solar power is diminishing as the sun goes down.
Perhaps at your place.For every other place: it is a completely different story when peak demand is.
So: perhaps you want to look up when peak demand is at the place in question, and then tell us if you were right or wrong.
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Yes it is but it is a really stupid one because the solution to this problem is more solar and renewables, not less. If we can reduce and eventually eliminate our impact on global warming it will reduce temperatures resulting in less cloud cover and fewer forest fires.
As far as war and disasters go solar and wind are far more robust than just about anything else because they are distributed. To take out a solar or wind farm you need devastation over a wide area. To take out a fossil fuel power station y-
Agreed. The other factor here is energy storage. That's the current Achilles Heel of renewables. It's coming, but we're still a decade or two away from grid scale storage that can sustain multi-day reductions like a week of 50% reduction.
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Wrong.
Nothing stupid about it. It is important to see the issues with those that continue to push Wind/PV as the only answers.
National security dictates that we have an energy matrix, not depend on just 1 type of energy (and wind/PV are BOTH dependent on the sun, which is easy enough to block).
As to distributed wind/PV, that is NOT the case. The far left continues to push for utility level PV, which Ukraine, Texas and California has shown nicely that it is a fool's errand to do so. Instead, it IS good
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And there it is. The extremists that do not look at facts and continues to push total BS.
Here is a thought for you: what happens when it is one of the super volcanoes? Keep in mind that the idea of NATIONAL SECURITY is to think ahead and avoid issues.
Choosing to bury your head in the sand and disregard facts is just as foolish as those that say that AGW is a non-issue.
IOW, you are as bad, if not worse, then the far right .-
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You realize the thing you're mocking as hysterical is called "reliability analysis" right? It is done routinely, typically mandated by law as a part of the regulatory regime a utility or RTO lives under. And it's incredibly important, arguably being the main driver in generation and transmission planning in the modern age.
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Here in Washington state, during parts of many recent summers we've had to deal with significant California and Canadian wildfire smoke - to the degree that sometimes it would look like a cloudy day (if the smoke stayed high), or like a hazy fog that smelled like a campfire (when it mixed down to ground level). But seeing those pictures from New York... that just looks brutal. I don't think we've ever experienced quite that amount of smoke.
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I moved to Mukilteo, Wash State last July from Colorado. If you are referring to last years fires, that was positively nothing.
If you really want to see this, skip looking at NJ/NYC. They really are not getting it that bad. California and Colorado fires have produced worse conditions in Colorado front range than what you are seeing in NYC.
BTW, the volcanoes here are far more 'interesting' in terms of block wind/PV output. When St. Helens went in the 80s, I lived 1K miles downwind from it. For multiple-
Last year really was nothing. The two previous years were significant, though.
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I've taken photos in Seattle that closely resemble ones from NYC this week. E.g. on 9/11/2020 the Seattle skyline wasn't visible across Elliott Bay, and the Sun resembled a pale red-purple balloon floating in the haze. If I remember right the AQI hit upper 300s that day. I was wearing a respirator while I took the pictures... Last year's smoke season wasn't quite as bad but I still got some rather apocalyptic looking shots. The worst I've seen was in Oregon in September 2017. It was literally snowing big f
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If forest fires can cut PV output by 50%, what would happen in real disasters when a nation most needs their electricity
If only we could somehow dim the sun in order to reduce electrical demand for air conditioning while the wildfires are raging. That would really be something, wouldn't it?
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I don't know about you but my AC doesn't use anywhere near 50% of my daily power use. If you have an EV the use for charging that won't drop even one percentage point. This is the Northeast US where temps are moderate not California where AC is a fact of life.
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I have a small experimental 180 watt solar setup here at out apartment on the South coast in England. For the first few weeks after installation, I kept a spreadsheet log of the power output throughout the day (morning, noon, afternoon etc). The results were interesting! Other than the time of day (and therefore angle the light hit the panels), it wasn't how sunny it was that affected the power output, it was the air quality. If we had a heavy rain storm, leaving the air fresh and clear, then even on an ove
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Both wind and solar are driven by weather. There was a reason why our ancestors abandoned such power sources when steam came along. In a time of climate change, when old weather patterns are changing and new problems arising, the reasons, as highlighted in the article, should seem all too obvious.
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That solar panel output drops to zero for hours on end each day of the year.
Perhaps we can light candles and hild them next to the panels in future emergencies.
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