It's not even true when it's windy and sunny. Repair costs for those fucking eyesore windmills is so high, that the liberal retards ignore it to try and make wind look cheaper. In real terms wind is by far the worst possible means of power generation, even if you choose to ignore the unreliability.
We'd be better off burning wood than using windmills.
From what I recall from reading about domestic installations, the issue is the inverter, to flip the DC voltage from the panels over to mains AC. Solar might be economical for a while, but once the inverter needs replacement you're basically look at most of the cost of the system all over again.
Windmills could at least potentially use an AC generator, but I presume there's other electronics in there, as otherwise you're looking at some weird mechanical system to force a windmill generator to run at 50Hz, matching phase to the grid. So again, expensive electronics boxes.
And that's before we get to the issue that windmills are basically impossible to recycle. Those massive aerofoil blades are tough, to the point that while it's theoretically possible to recycle them, hardly anybody bothers.
DC power cannot be transmitted over long distances. This is the original problem that caused AC to win out.
There are two forms of load, inductive and resistive, and two corresponding types of power, reactive and real. If we use a rowboat analogy, real power can be thought of as the oscillation of the oars back and forth, while reactive power becomes the force of the oar pushing the water. Of course, the oars only push the water in one direction, then they're lifted and repositioned to push again.
In DC power, real and reactive power are indistinguishable. Voltage and current push in one direction all the time. It's only AC power where the rowboat analogy comes into play. So, WHY DO WE USE AC?
Simply, current cannot be made to flow over vast distances. We learned early on that you cannot transmit DC power over much more than a few miles without starting to suffer unacceptable transmission losses (we're not talking a few percent here; trust me on this, there's no solving THIS problem without cheap hot superconductors).
Now, both AC and DC motors require a net current in one direction (inductive load, satisfied by reactive power). But current can't be sent very far. So the solution is capacitors. In areas too far from a spinning generator to receive reactive power from the generator, utility scale capacitors are used to create local reactive power loops, satisfying the inductive load.
Some rubes at this point suggest making all load resistive, by putting capacitors in all your appliances. This is not practical. The people who are opposed to it are the insurance companies and their associates like UL. Capacitors... explode. And big ones require a lot more care than the tiny ones that drive your computer fans.
It's not even true when it's windy and sunny. Repair costs for those fucking eyesore windmills is so high, that the liberal retards ignore it to try and make wind look cheaper. In real terms wind is by far the worst possible means of power generation, even if you choose to ignore the unreliability.
We'd be better off burning wood than using windmills.
From what I recall from reading about domestic installations, the issue is the inverter, to flip the DC voltage from the panels over to mains AC. Solar might be economical for a while, but once the inverter needs replacement you're basically look at most of the cost of the system all over again.
Windmills could at least potentially use an AC generator, but I presume there's other electronics in there, as otherwise you're looking at some weird mechanical system to force a windmill generator to run at 50Hz, matching phase to the grid. So again, expensive electronics boxes.
And that's before we get to the issue that windmills are basically impossible to recycle. Those massive aerofoil blades are tough, to the point that while it's theoretically possible to recycle them, hardly anybody bothers.
DC power cannot be transmitted over long distances. This is the original problem that caused AC to win out.
There are two forms of load, inductive and resistive, and two corresponding types of power, reactive and real. If we use a rowboat analogy, real power can be thought of as the oscillation of the oars back and forth, while reactive power becomes the force of the oar pushing the water. Of course, the oars only push the water in one direction, then they're lifted and repositioned to push again.
In DC power, real and reactive power are indistinguishable. Voltage and current push in one direction all the time. It's only AC power where the rowboat analogy comes into play. So, WHY DO WE USE AC?
Simply, current cannot be made to flow over vast distances. We learned early on that you cannot transmit DC power over much more than a few miles without starting to suffer unacceptable transmission losses (we're not talking a few percent here; trust me on this, there's no solving THIS problem without cheap hot superconductors).
Now, both AC and DC motors require a net current in one direction (inductive load, satisfied by reactive power). But current can't be sent very far. So the solution is capacitors. In areas too far from a spinning generator to receive reactive power from the generator, utility scale capacitors are used to create local reactive power loops, satisfying the inductive load.
Some rubes at this point suggest making all load resistive, by putting capacitors in all your appliances. This is not practical. The people who are opposed to it are the insurance companies and their associates like UL. Capacitors... explode. And big ones require a lot more care than the tiny ones that drive your computer fans.
You sure about that, bro?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
Admittedly, HVDC Transmission was not possible in the early 20th century when electrification was taking place. It is possible now.
HVDC Transmission is not at all suitable for suburb or street level power transmission.