PG&E will shut off power for nearly 800,000 customers starting Wednesday

[robkelk]

Point of order.

As I read it, Rob wanted to know why power wasn't all being generated locally without the need for the utility to shuffle the electrons around long distances. Which is what my answer was based on.

Windfarms, solar power arrays roofing over everything shaped by human hands, and other such utility scaled renewable shenanigans are an entirely different kind of electrical generation as the source and the user are not on top of each other, and so keep many of the grid related potential problems from the top of the thread despite being better for air quality and climactic issues.

True, that was my original question. But that isn't a reason not to examine other alternatives.

And "local" doesn't necessarily mean "generated at point of use", any more than "eat local" excludes the 100-mile diet.

because it is arguably more efficient to power large expanses with fewer plants than to have multiple plants overlapping coverage areas. Also, if you lose power from one direction due to a downed line, only one side of it is going to be hot, (ie charged) with multiple plants you have a higher likelyhood of both sides being hot.

On the flip side, a single issue in a large power grid can take out power to millions of people. (55 million people in 8 states and southern Ontario were affected by a software glitch in Ohio in 2003, for example.)

There has to be a happy medium somewhere between the two extremes.

Something that might help with apartment and city micro-grid solar is panels that are transparent in visible light while converting the energy of UV and infrared - they're still under 10% efficient in the best case I could find quickly vs. about 15% for conventional photovoltaics, but your typical high rise has a lot of glass frontage, even if other buildings may cause significant shadows in crowded city centres so not every installation would see optimum results.

http://energy.mit.edu/news/transparent-solar-cells/
https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/20...ufacturer/

Interesting... Are they cost-effective to deploy at that efficiency, though? (My knowledge is skewed - we have access to inexpensive hydroelectric power where I live.)