Reading about the canary cackle over in that Hawaiian island about his "frequency" problems with such big solar farms made me realize the grid marketplace is very behind in understanding the relationship between generators and users.
The generators set the frequencies, waveforms, etc. (Failure to do so: the band aid that the generators are using other generators to piggyback this setting is ridiculous and temporary. Cryptographically authenticated synchronous secure communication of this needs to be distributed to all the generators, and that means grandma with her roof, and that bozo down the street with a zillion whatevers who calls himself a utility because of historical civil placement.)
The users use said stuff.
The generators make offers on the market for their goods.
The users buy said goods.
The roadways to and from market is the grid.
In the case of alternating current (AC), apparently there's a bunch of users that don't use the AC waveform energy identical to how it's initially offered in a perfect sinusoidal form. I knew about this for ages, but recently (a few days ago) read about it as a discussion of Power Factor, kvar, a 90 degree out of phase load, capacitance, inductance, etc.. Whatever it's called, the key to me is that the solution was still as simple as it ever was: get the inverter to invert the proper waveform.
In this environment, what that means is that every waveform, wavelet, wave piece, equation of wave, etc., is a product to be sold at market, offered for sale, negotiated, and sold, of course in continual periodic equational format, responsive to the actual instant demand. Grandma's solar panels (and by extension all utility generation) will offer its own waveform response characteristics (with amps, volts, etc., all in tow), as an item to be sold, at the point of sale (grandma's grid connection point, in her case). The considered purchaser (usually the grid operator as an arbitrage broker assimilating instant waveforms across a geographical area closest to their needs, but could really be anyone) then decides if they want to buy at that pricepoint (as a component of their overall use, of course), and then makes the decision. Grandma either places on the grid this energy or doesn't. If ordered, grandma offers the energy in the specified contract waveform. The contract may last for less than a single cycle of AC, or for a good deal of time "until cancelled", or a renewed time limited thing. That's esoteric and the marketplace can do whatever it wants. But every user would need to specify this in order to turn on their electricity, or else, they won't have any electricity to turn on.
Said user could simply buy a box that has all of this programmed into it, or get it from a company that has said box in their possession (such as a big old utility). Or every motor, compressor, light bulb, etc., can be its own negotiator. That's esoteric, unimportant, irrelevant and doesn't matter EXCEPT THAT ALL OF IT SHOULD BE ALLOWED NO MATTER WHAT because the system will fall apart with artificial limitations. Each one just as much as it is behind a breaker is also behind another market participant in the grid chain, so it can't go wild as such.
Some inverters only need software upgrade to do all that is necessary for this. Others would only be able to sell a lower quality (more sinusoidal, less "power-factored") waveform. The one change in all of this is that secure synchronous communications would need to be implemented systemwide across the grid. I'd say best is a fiber to every node, but for now, various stop-gap bandaid measures as radio through grid and piggybacking over communication company lines will work fine while the half-century buildout of fiber takes place (it can just be fiber on every wire until it reaches critical mass to connect a few last holdouts and that's done, and meanwhile being able to contract from other communication-only facilities will be easier and easier as this is more facilitated). It's not a lot of information: a bit of synchronous waveform timekeeping and marketplace negotiation with security. Sure, it's more than a 300bps modem, but really, it can be very lightweight.
For experiments, such as in Hawaiian islands, it's OK to use radio transmissions to try this stuff out because after a programming experimentation and debugging period they can hardwire the communications. Long term, radio comm is bad since it is sabotage prone.
Little grannie with her little solar panel collection and "that box in the garage" won't need to know these details, but could learn as much as she wanted about them. What matters is that she would be a master of frequency and kvar, of power factor and marketplace needs for various load waveforms. Regardless of her solar, wind, battery, hydro, etc., profile.
And if by chance grannie gets weird and (a) doesn't maintain some faulty equipment or (b) gets downright saboteur, the grid operators can come disconnect grannie from the grid. All is well. (As if it isn't obvious by now, "grannie" can be anybody, your grannie, my grannie, you, me, a man, a woman, a small business with roof space, the little microdam microhydro facility in the back woods at the stream, the big ass wind farm up on the hill, the $2G 2GW modern gas generator plant, etc.)
The marketplace really can solve a lot of ills, and this is one of them.
Also, companies with equipment like capacitors connected in the correct places in the grid can offer these elements for a price, too. There's capital and maintenance to install such elements, and they have efficiency levels when connected. That's the utility. If they offer this method to clean up the waveform, then it might be bought in lieu of inverters inverting the wanted waveforms.
The element of enforcement, of marketplace fairness, would be set by the grid operator: "thou shalt not use power in one power load factor way that is incongruent with how you purchase it". After that, purchase and sales would be set upon the deliverance of the power factor they actually use. This would all be entwined of course in the cost of electricity, etc.
Most of this stuff has been intuitively obvious to me for many decades, and I assumed that we would be seeing dynamic experiments at universities showing how to program this stuff efficiently. But seeing the weird ass "my frequency my frequency" gollum-like chanting from that Hawaiian island utility man using a large amount of Solar City panels makes me realize this obvious solution hasn't been turned on. It's time to develop and install it, now. Do it! I'm speaking directly to you, Elon Musk, et al.
I'm looking for references. I watched a video about it on those islands. I believe it might be Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC). But maybe the vid was scrubbed because of the opportunity to fix a simple thing became SO OBVIOUS and Big Oil doesn't want that? I'll search further.
Anyway, this is the little fly in the ointment that I thought would already be solved by now, but obviously hasn't.
To the layperson: the message is simply this: if big utilities are using excuses to say distributed solar panels aren't ready for the grid, then they are LYING: of course they aren't ready, because big utilities have been BLOCKING them from BECOMING READY, and even worse, the types of people who are inventive enough to fix this have been diverted from their paths, some intentionally by big oil, others by WHO KNOWS WHAT, maybe stupidity. But it will be done. The question is when, not if. Let's all be encouraging it to be done now, and to be done in a marketplace that isn't highly artificially constrained. This needs engineers, not policies or paperwork. Distributed generation is the new norm coming, so our fantastic grid providers need to get used to that fact and help us help them do it right.
The generators set the frequencies, waveforms, etc. (Failure to do so: the band aid that the generators are using other generators to piggyback this setting is ridiculous and temporary. Cryptographically authenticated synchronous secure communication of this needs to be distributed to all the generators, and that means grandma with her roof, and that bozo down the street with a zillion whatevers who calls himself a utility because of historical civil placement.)
The users use said stuff.
The generators make offers on the market for their goods.
The users buy said goods.
The roadways to and from market is the grid.
In the case of alternating current (AC), apparently there's a bunch of users that don't use the AC waveform energy identical to how it's initially offered in a perfect sinusoidal form. I knew about this for ages, but recently (a few days ago) read about it as a discussion of Power Factor, kvar, a 90 degree out of phase load, capacitance, inductance, etc.. Whatever it's called, the key to me is that the solution was still as simple as it ever was: get the inverter to invert the proper waveform.
In this environment, what that means is that every waveform, wavelet, wave piece, equation of wave, etc., is a product to be sold at market, offered for sale, negotiated, and sold, of course in continual periodic equational format, responsive to the actual instant demand. Grandma's solar panels (and by extension all utility generation) will offer its own waveform response characteristics (with amps, volts, etc., all in tow), as an item to be sold, at the point of sale (grandma's grid connection point, in her case). The considered purchaser (usually the grid operator as an arbitrage broker assimilating instant waveforms across a geographical area closest to their needs, but could really be anyone) then decides if they want to buy at that pricepoint (as a component of their overall use, of course), and then makes the decision. Grandma either places on the grid this energy or doesn't. If ordered, grandma offers the energy in the specified contract waveform. The contract may last for less than a single cycle of AC, or for a good deal of time "until cancelled", or a renewed time limited thing. That's esoteric and the marketplace can do whatever it wants. But every user would need to specify this in order to turn on their electricity, or else, they won't have any electricity to turn on.
Said user could simply buy a box that has all of this programmed into it, or get it from a company that has said box in their possession (such as a big old utility). Or every motor, compressor, light bulb, etc., can be its own negotiator. That's esoteric, unimportant, irrelevant and doesn't matter EXCEPT THAT ALL OF IT SHOULD BE ALLOWED NO MATTER WHAT because the system will fall apart with artificial limitations. Each one just as much as it is behind a breaker is also behind another market participant in the grid chain, so it can't go wild as such.
Some inverters only need software upgrade to do all that is necessary for this. Others would only be able to sell a lower quality (more sinusoidal, less "power-factored") waveform. The one change in all of this is that secure synchronous communications would need to be implemented systemwide across the grid. I'd say best is a fiber to every node, but for now, various stop-gap bandaid measures as radio through grid and piggybacking over communication company lines will work fine while the half-century buildout of fiber takes place (it can just be fiber on every wire until it reaches critical mass to connect a few last holdouts and that's done, and meanwhile being able to contract from other communication-only facilities will be easier and easier as this is more facilitated). It's not a lot of information: a bit of synchronous waveform timekeeping and marketplace negotiation with security. Sure, it's more than a 300bps modem, but really, it can be very lightweight.
For experiments, such as in Hawaiian islands, it's OK to use radio transmissions to try this stuff out because after a programming experimentation and debugging period they can hardwire the communications. Long term, radio comm is bad since it is sabotage prone.
Little grannie with her little solar panel collection and "that box in the garage" won't need to know these details, but could learn as much as she wanted about them. What matters is that she would be a master of frequency and kvar, of power factor and marketplace needs for various load waveforms. Regardless of her solar, wind, battery, hydro, etc., profile.
And if by chance grannie gets weird and (a) doesn't maintain some faulty equipment or (b) gets downright saboteur, the grid operators can come disconnect grannie from the grid. All is well. (As if it isn't obvious by now, "grannie" can be anybody, your grannie, my grannie, you, me, a man, a woman, a small business with roof space, the little microdam microhydro facility in the back woods at the stream, the big ass wind farm up on the hill, the $2G 2GW modern gas generator plant, etc.)
The marketplace really can solve a lot of ills, and this is one of them.
Also, companies with equipment like capacitors connected in the correct places in the grid can offer these elements for a price, too. There's capital and maintenance to install such elements, and they have efficiency levels when connected. That's the utility. If they offer this method to clean up the waveform, then it might be bought in lieu of inverters inverting the wanted waveforms.
The element of enforcement, of marketplace fairness, would be set by the grid operator: "thou shalt not use power in one power load factor way that is incongruent with how you purchase it". After that, purchase and sales would be set upon the deliverance of the power factor they actually use. This would all be entwined of course in the cost of electricity, etc.
Most of this stuff has been intuitively obvious to me for many decades, and I assumed that we would be seeing dynamic experiments at universities showing how to program this stuff efficiently. But seeing the weird ass "my frequency my frequency" gollum-like chanting from that Hawaiian island utility man using a large amount of Solar City panels makes me realize this obvious solution hasn't been turned on. It's time to develop and install it, now. Do it! I'm speaking directly to you, Elon Musk, et al.
I'm looking for references. I watched a video about it on those islands. I believe it might be Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC). But maybe the vid was scrubbed because of the opportunity to fix a simple thing became SO OBVIOUS and Big Oil doesn't want that? I'll search further.
Anyway, this is the little fly in the ointment that I thought would already be solved by now, but obviously hasn't.
To the layperson: the message is simply this: if big utilities are using excuses to say distributed solar panels aren't ready for the grid, then they are LYING: of course they aren't ready, because big utilities have been BLOCKING them from BECOMING READY, and even worse, the types of people who are inventive enough to fix this have been diverted from their paths, some intentionally by big oil, others by WHO KNOWS WHAT, maybe stupidity. But it will be done. The question is when, not if. Let's all be encouraging it to be done now, and to be done in a marketplace that isn't highly artificially constrained. This needs engineers, not policies or paperwork. Distributed generation is the new norm coming, so our fantastic grid providers need to get used to that fact and help us help them do it right.
