More people need to put in place embedded and micro power generation

Insight Article in the Cape Times today: "More people need to put in place embedded and micro power generation".

Dear all

Many people have been asking me "what happens if there is a blackout" and I've been replying to you and also saying, please wait a week, as I've written to the Cape Times and if they publish I'll send out the email and if they haven't published within 2 weeks, then i'll also send out the email.

I pray that you enjoy reading this email and that it allays your fears of a complete breakdown "blackout" of the South African national grid. As more and more people take responsibility for all or part of their electricity and water needs, so the risk of a complete meltdown gets less and less. At the same time as this, as Eskom does more and more of the Planned Maintenance it MUST do on its power stations and the national grid, the less chance there is of catastrophe.

Best regards, and thank you for all your support. There is no way I could continue with this endeavour without the support and encouragement I receive from you all.

David

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Dear Editor

More and more people, including MP's interviewed after President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address, are asking about the chance of a nationwide electricity blackout. Such a blackout would be a catastrophe because of no water pumped, no fuel, no transport, fridges and freezers stopping to work, and after a few hours or perhaps two days, riots and civil war as people look for water and food.

The national electricity grid is about R100 billion behind on maintenance, so that means that the chance of sections of the grid going down are relatively big, as compared with there being no grid maintenance backlog.

The chance of all the power stations going down at the same time gets bigger and bigger as Eskom does less and less maintenance.

But recently, it has realised that it has to initiate load shedding so that it can do maintenance work.

I just pray that it is taking down enough of the power stations for long enough to do the required maintenance. I'd rather have four hours of load shedding a day and no chance of a blackout than 2.5 hours of load shedding a day and the chance of dying in two days time.

But there is a silver lining to the crisis.

People are installing generators, whether they are petrol, diesel, gas or renewable energy. As people and companies become self-reliant, the grid becomes more stable and the chance of a mass blackout gets less. As this is happening, more people are installing pool covers and water tanks, which also protect the need for water.

Meanwhile, Eskom has finally come to the party and asked businesses with private generators to register themselves on an Eskom database. It pays for these businesses to be part of its system, and sometimes asks these businesses to turn their generators on to prevent load shedding. In this case, Eskom pays for all or part of the cost of running the generators. But Eskom still don't want these businesses to reverse-feed the grid, so an opportunity is still being missed.

Resilience is built into the system. If only the government (ANC and DA) would allow reverse-feed, homeowners and shopping centres and other people installing generators (of any kind) could provide excess electricity into the grid, stabilising it even more.

Eskom has said for decades that embedded generators destabilise the grid, but this is plainly untrue. Turkey has confirmed the country's wind turbines have stabilised the grid. The US is installing more embedded generators, because this provides resilience and stabilises the grid and, therefore, the economy.

So the more people, businesses, shopping centres, industry and mines take responsibility for micro and embedded generation, the better for all South Africans poor and rich.

And if Eskom puts up electricity by 24% in July, private homeowners who install battery based systems might actually be able to save money on their electricity needs.

And, of-course, these homeowners aren't effected by load-shedding, except perhaps for cooking and heating elements, but even those might be economically powered come July.

From a City of Cape Town point of view, imagine if the DA had followed through and allowed Feed In Tariffs in 2009 and Net Metering in 2011. Cape Town would not be affected by load shedding, we would have the head offices of businesses based in Johannesburg moving to Cape Town, and the Western Cape would be booming, sustainably.

Yours faithfully,

David Lipschitz

Portfolio Head of Energy on the Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance Exco.

Battery related questions in a backup system which can be used during Load Shedding in South Africa

Here is an answer I just posted on Facebook: "Have I been given the wrong info? I hear that the battery replacement cycle is rather short and therefore costly."

Hi Pat.

If you buy the 100 or 105AH "Solar Storage" batteries that look like car batteries, but which are called "Solar Storage", they will last about 2 years and then even though they say that are "sealed" I had 8 of these batteries and managed to refill them after two years to that they lasted 4 years. But their performance wasn't great.

18 months ago I upgraded to "Deep Cycle" batteries, 260 AH 12 Volt SonX batteries. The 4 SonX cost about R20,000 instead of the first set which cost about R12,000. But they are firstly 520 AH at 24 Volts instead of 420 AH at 24 Volts and secondly their performance is excellent. They last a lot longer than the original batteries.

And then the specification says they should last 7 years, but I'm hoping they will last longer than this, but even 7 years will be excellent. Note that in a battery system design, one should design the system to not use more than 30% of the battery capacity on a regular (daily) basis and only use 50% on a very irregular basis. This way the batteries are looked after and will last the specified time.

Having said all this, the inverters should last 12 years and the most of the photovoltaic (PV) panels are guaranteed for 30 years, with the PV panels performance deteriorating to 90% of their rated capacity after 12 years and to 80% of their rated capacity after 30 years.

So relative to inverters and PV panels, batteries don't last as long and therefore need to be replaced more often and therefore are relatively more expensive. But the benefits they give you far exceed their costs, in my opinion.

One should also note that if you have a "battery system", you need more components than on a "grid tie system" without batteries and therefore a system with a battery costs more than just adding the additional battery bank. And there is more maintenance on a battery system although the systems can be programmed to look after themselves and send warning system messages or emails or sms's if there is a problem.

Set 1: Price R12,500: Lasted 2 years. The second 2 years battery performance was really poor. Equals R6,250 per annum.

Set 2: R20,000: Should last 7 years: R2857 per annum.

These calculations exclude interest and the Cost of Capital, but I think the point is made.