How Home solar panels can help stabilize the grid, part 1 of 2?

Editor's Note: Scientific American George Musser will be on their experiences in the installation of solar panels in the solar home (formerly 60-second solar). Read his introduction here and see all the posts here.

Solar panels can do more than the power supply in the electrical grid. They could also help the grid to tackle a problem that many people are not aware of: the fact that electrical appliances not only consume energy but also temporarily store and drop it. The worst culprits are motors and transformers, whose internal magnetic fields represent a significant cache of energy, giving an electric inertia type that causes them synchronized with the grid of these devices.To describe the problem and possible solution, I've invited a blog part two guest Arnold McKinley Xslent energy technologies. here is the first part.

We all know solar energy restricts carbon emissions, decentralizes the electrical system and reduces the unit of the nation on foreign oil resources, but you know that solar can now help to stabilize the grid?The grid is very temperamental .requiere careful to maintain the frequency and voltage within very limited ranges to make sure that the engines do not burn, monitoring that rises not zap machines and so on. In the United States electricity quality we are granted, but our good fortune comes with an enormous infrastructure behind to make sure to keep it that way.

When you get destabilized the grid, the results can be unpleasant. Blackout on the West Coast in 1982 and 1996 six million people forced to eat by the light of the 1977 New York blackout velas.El infamous left deep scars in the city.U.S-Canadian 2003 blackout affected 60 million personas.En 2004 a U.S-Canadian tasks set in the comparison of these events and found that the main factor common to all is reactive power demand exceeds supply.

Few people have heard of "reactive power". Then, what is, that need you, why was not a problem as before and how could solar help prevent future blackouts?

Homeowners pay our bills public services based on "active power".Also known as "real" power, in part due to a technicality mathematical and in part because it carries energy that does the work of our homes lighting, compression of fluids in our air and water in our pools pumping conditioners kilowatt-hour.

But at the same time, together with the active power, reactive power flows.Performs an auxiliary service that ensures really light fluorescent lights, which actually work equipment, power supplies and compressor and pump really modern electronic gire.Wizardry from LCD TVs for electric cars, engines worsens the demand for reactive power in many transmission - lines so that the European Union and the Government of United States are beginning to force manufacturers to significantly reduce the reactive power of these devices draw.

Power factor provided that cause the voltage and current, ranging in a very constant 60 Hertz, for grid load out of synchronization streams.In the graphic to the left, the current lags of slightly tension.

Multiply the voltage and current together gives the poder.Es the sum of two components: active power, which has an average of a number positive and therefore represents energy delivered to the load, and reactive power, which averages to zero during a complete cycle and represents the energy that moves back and forth between the grid and the load.I.e., reactive energy flows in one direction towards the load, then tour around and flows in the other direction towards the generator, each repetition cycle.

The total power is measured in kilo-volt-amps (kVA), the active power in kilowatts (kW) and reactive power in kilo-volt-amps-reactive (kVAr) .the kW at kVA proportion is called power (pf) factor if pf is equal to 1, all kVA power is power active; if it is equal to 0, all kVA power is power home reactiva.Energía monitors such as TED 5000 display this amount.

Reactive power causes instability for two reasons:

Prevents the flow of useful traffic transmission lines in essence, fluctuating energy footprint could be used to power.Excessive reactive power transmission lines active can cause strong drops in voltage. If, for example, draw a certain number of active energy causes the voltage to drop from 118 Volts at 117 Volt, the same amount of reactive power drawing will that drop from 118 Volts at 108 voltios.Esto is, by definition, a brownout.

In the next article, I will explain how a new solar technology called microinverters, may help control reactive power grid and help stabilize our electric system.

Photos and diagrams courtesy of Arnold McKinley