Solar at my workplace

[Mart]

Seems reasonable for a DNO to ensure that new homes connected to their area have a small starter battery that the owner can add to if they wish and for business parks and industry the DNO can request some buffer storage to go with any solar installation - that way we, as a country, organically grow the new dispersed resilience Grid that the national grid are indicating they need.

I was involved with a small 45MVA arc furnace a few years back and we installed a static VAR compensation unit to smooth out harmonics and reduce the draw on the local area network when the furnace was starting up and undergoing tap changes so its not really a new concept to the DNO's

Moxi

On that note, and AE-NMidlands comment about the lack of foresight by this Gov, and also thoughts I've posted before (but might not have been on this forum) about the benfits of distribution level storage, especially if at local sub-station levels. This would allow for better management of load timing, for transmission grid peaks, and possibly allow for more PV export, and spread cost benefits across many parties ....... phew, that was a long introduction .... here's a very recent news article about storage for Australia, but targeted at the distribution level:

ARENA Announces $120 Million To Roll Out Community Batteries Across Australia

“Not everyone is able to install rooftop solar, but by storing electricity close to the point of consumer demand, we can reduce network costs and alleviate constraints in areas with high solar penetration. This will ultimately reduce electricity costs for all consumers.”

To get things going, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), on behalf of the Australian Government, has announced $120 million in funding that will be made available for Round 1 of the Community Batteries Funding Program. The program aims to support the deployment of community batteries across Australia to lower energy bills, cut emissions and reduce pressure on the electricity grid. ARENA is now seeking applications for up to $20 million funding to deploy a minimum of five community batteries.

To be eligible for ARENA funding, each community battery must be between 50 kW and 5 MW in size and connected to the distribution network.

[dan_b]

I may have recently filmed and edited a video for one of the DNOs of an installation of quite a large battery at a local sub-station as part of an Innovation project to enable more renewables on the local network without having to increase the size of the local transformers ......

[Mart]

I may have recently filmed and edited a video for one of the DNOs of an installation of quite a large battery at a local sub-station as part of an Innovation project to enable more renewables on the local network without having to increase the size of the local transformers ......

Hypothetically, had you filmed such a thing, then it would make my day, excellent news.

[Mr Gus]

If not able to publish anything, where in the press is this innovation discussed already?

[dan_b]

Ok so here's the generation/consumption/export curve for (bank holiday) Friday when the place was basically empty.

If the building consumes 50kWh/day doing not very much - does that mean we need a 50kWh battery, or actually given that solar covers at least half of that generation, then a 25kWh battery would be more sensible? Either way I'm thinking the costs of such a large battery array are going to be pretty damned huge. And given we're on the Octopus Panel Power export tariff, it's at least giving us something back?

[Krill]

Import is 74p and export is how much again? 24p? 15p? And normal usage is around 3kWh without the studio and up to 12kWh with the studio? Any ToU tariffs in place or available?

So the question isn't just battery storage but also discharge rate, which is related to the amount of storage.

There are probably two scenarios I would consider: smallish battery amount and inverter able to cover the general use (so generic inverter plus ~15-20kWh) and then the mega-battery ie 16 US5000 Pylontechs giving ~72kWh with multiple parallel inverters (which is what, in the region of £24k just for the batteries).

I suspect that the batteries aren't worth it because if the office is only used 5 days a week you only get 52, possible fewer storage periods per year, and even then it only really works half the year...unless ToU is available.

[dan_b]

Import has actually just come down a bit to 60p, and export is 15p/kWh.
I think you're right - the size of system we'd need to properly fully timeshift spare weekend generation over into the week (for when it's not very sunny) will be very large, and therefore expensive. Difficult to justify when there are always other things to invest our money in.
All good fun though!

[Mr Gus]

Might have asked this question before (apologies if so dan) ..in the news the likes of Aardman were made to look as if they were on the way out of their uk base for elsewhere, what's the real news there within the animation industry?

Back to topic..
Anything to stop a build your own battery in which case costings are going to be way under even if you paid someone to do it on an ad-hoc basis till the units, a hobbyist electronics club or something as a paid for project build with monies towards their coffers? / college stem club, etc.

[Krill]

I like these sorts of problems because there are multiple points of view not just the obvious financial payback of the system but other competing options as you said.

Given that export is a quarter of import rates and you have a straight 2kW use at all times of the day and night (but does this include weekend use, ie were staff working on Good Friday? Was stuff working over night that would affect load?) it seems obvious to state the following: a single inverter can cover that but for just a single night thats what, 24kWh for 12 hours? It varies but one AC inverter and 6 Pylontechs is going to be around £10k not counting installation but would save you, best case, 24*(.60-.15)=£10.80/day*365=£3942/year. Installation should be straightforward at least.

I dunno, that requires you generate the energy in the first instance, so how does the system work in bad weather and in winter? But if the inverter is one that can be paralleled and batteries are modular it does increase options in the future. And I don't understand the tax implications but you could consider the business continuity plans as well if there are rolling black outs during winter.

I think I'd get the quote for the basic system but then I am risk averse and I'd consider the cost of a lost work session as possibly horrific.

[Krill]

That was with a combination of the green screen studio in use for a couple of hours, and charging up 1x EV - I'd limited the charging power to 4kW on the car so that it didn't go too far into importing - seemed to work well.

It's the weekends when we're not really doing anything here when we're going to see a lot of export I guess - but with the Panel Power export tariff I think that might still be ok vs. the capital cost of buying a pretty large battery. We'll see! Fun to keep an eye on.

Question: what processes do you use that draws extra power, like the green screen studio, and how often are they in use? Because if the studio is used 4 days a week then beyond the "Business continuity" argument there is no way the PV system you have generates enough to store, right? You'd get enough power at most three days per week in that scenario amd payback time would be over 5 years...