Rooftop solar panels overloading electricity grid

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/carbon-plan/rooftop-solar-panels-overloading-electricity-grid/story-fn99tjf2-1226165360822

[saras]

1. Awesomely bad, scientifically incompetent article.

"Power distribution lines and home wiring were designed for electricity to flow from power stations to appliances, but households with solar panels do the reverse of this."

Cue: sports stadium of electrical engineers laughing until they puke all over their pocket protectors.

They must have used Monster Cable, or some other high-end audio wire that lets electrons flow better in one direction than the other. NO WONDER they can't afford to fix it.

[oldhippie]

3. So you don't understand ......

.... the part of the article that explains why this is a bad thing? They explained it in layman's language that I understood easily enough.

"Power distribution lines and home wiring were designed for electricity to flow from power stations to appliances, but households with solar panels do the reverse of this."

[Bob Wallace]

4. I read it...

As a case there has been so much solar installed in some neighborhoods that at peak solar hours more power is being generated than the neighbor would use at peak demand hours.

The input pipe was designed for X kWh and generation is happening at >X kWh. Pipe big enough for input, too small for all the output being generated.

Local/neighborhood storage is needed. If the new sodium-ion batteries work as the tested prototype ones did then it would probably make sense to set up local power 'warehouses' and store on the gen/use side of the distribution pipe rather than to string larger gauge wire.

[Bob Wallace]

2. Well Goooolllyyyy...

Now they're going to have to install some storage and move some of that so-very-clean electricity into dimmer hours and further offset fossil fuel use.

It's a tragedy, ain't it?