Chile Forum

Fellow. You are assuming Chile can't change.
If you knew the Chile of Father Hurtado, or even the Chile in Frei senior years, you wouldn't believe how we reach our current status.
Chile is changing and improving continuosly, and things will get better with time.
But Chile has changed thanks to our visionaries that has impossed against all the skeptics. That's what we need, rather than just rating Chile as a lost case. It isn't.

pinguin wrote:Fellow. You are assuming Chile can't change.

There are parts, and only parts, of Chile that appear to be modern. For those who live away from the glitter of Stgo, the underdeveloped nature of Chile is painfully obvious. The electrical grid and national energy policy are good examples.

The village where I live is just 5 km from the capital of the region. Yet we have no potable water. We do not have sewage treatment. Electrical service is unreliable. Cell phone and landline telephone service are poor. Internet is only available if you pay for a very expensive antenna-based system. The roads are mud and stones and calamina. This village was once the most advanced in the region. Like much of Chile, it has been allowed to decay and fall into the dustbin of history.

Where do you live?
That situation is not very common in the central region, and I am not talking only about Santiago.
Yes, in rural areas you shouldn't expect running water to reach every single farm in large area, but you should expect to have electricity.

Intertie will happen sometime in the next few years in Chile, the details are being worked out now by a group from PUC headed by a Prof from UCLA who helped setup the standard in California. I have a 3 kWh solar system in BC that feeds into BC Hydro, the utilities in North America see this as a minor but important source of electricity. I receive $0.08 kWh which is $0.025 above what I pay at the lowest level we have a 2 tier system based on use. BC is not the place for solar power it’s more of a wind power place but there are restrictions on wind turbines in urban areas. The system has to be setup to a strict code and the tie in is done by a BC Hydro crew for a couple of grand. Application to implementation take 1-2 months. As I’m away in winter I pay next to nothing for hydro on a yearly basis.

nwdiver wrote:Intertie will happen sometime in the next few years in Chile, the details are being worked out now by a group from PUC headed by a Prof from UCLA who helped setup the standard in California. I have a 3 kWh solar system in BC that feeds into BC Hydro, the utilities in North America see this as a minor but important source of electricity. I receive $0.08 kWh which is $0.025 above what I pay at the lowest level we have a 2 tier system based on use. BC is not the place for solar power it’s more of a wind power place but there are restrictions on wind turbines in urban areas. The system has to be setup to a strict code and the tie in is done by a BC Hydro crew for a couple of grand. Application to implementation take 1-2 months. As I’m away in winter I pay next to nothing for hydro on a yearly basis.

That's good news, there's no information available at CNE or anywhere else I've looked over the past while.

The systems for home installation I've seen are basically off-the shelf, a typical inverter costs between EUR1500-2500 depending on wattage, and issues like switching the inverter off if the grid goes down are taken care of by proper certification (counter-intuitive, even though you have solar power, you lose it in a power cut... the aim is to reduce your electricity bill, not be independent of the grid). I'd be interested in something like this, but I obviously want no stinking batteries in the backyard for the cats to pee on

The points raised by Fraggle are certainly valid, but is the SIC really that rickety? This isn't really rocket science any more. It's realistic to imagine that the initial market for these systems would be the condominiums and apartment blocks in the east of Santiago, where issues like metering and installation can be taken care of more easily. Even this is a sizeable market, and once the distribution channels are established, installers trained, and prices drop to something middle class home-owners can afford, it becomes more widely available. Particularly if it's subsidised by the government, and I understand a program is already in place for solar panels for new homes. Anyway, good to know it's coming...

I am putting in a diesel backup generator should the grid go down during a calm night, but if it goes down during a sunny day or a windy night the system will take care of the house based on a set of priorities communications then refrigerator and light then other stuff. I have used off grid systems and batteries are the weakness. My boat has solar and wind and a big 110 amp alternator on the engine and battery maintenance is a pain. My favourite of grid systems by far are hydro there are several that are running fine after 25 years in both Canada and Chile that I had installed in remote locations. Frank that sounds very expensive for an inverter.

nwdiver wrote:Intertie will happen sometime in the next few years in Chile, the details are being worked out now by a group from PUC headed by a Prof from UCLA who helped setup the standard in California. I have a 3 kWh solar system in BC that feeds into BC Hydro, the utilities in North America see this as a minor but important source of electricity. I receive $0.08 kWh which is $0.025 above what I pay at the lowest level we have a 2 tier system based on use. BC is not the place for solar power it’s more of a wind power place but there are restrictions on wind turbines in urban areas. The system has to be setup to a strict code and the tie in is done by a BC Hydro crew for a couple of grand. Application to implementation take 1-2 months. As I’m away in winter I pay next to nothing for hydro on a yearly basis.

Everyone agrees that in theory some degree of smaller distributed solar power generation for Chile is a splendid idea. The devil is in the details, and who has the greater political influence. Obviously, Canada and Germany are fairly progressive in this respect, and both nations are professional in how they do their wiring. The US attempted back in the 1980s to force utilities to buy (or "credit") consumers who provided power from alternative energy via "small distributed generation sources" through the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act and avalanches of other legislation. The Federal government left implementation up to the states. Political pressure on the California utilities forced them to adopt some degree of paid-credited intertie and the California Energy Commission was forced to provide subsidies for the private roof-top installations that could feed the grid, but the investment to get an acceptable system designed, permitted, built, and inspected typically ended up costing over USD20,000. Many people didn't understand that you don't just plunk down several square metres of collectors on a roof and chao.

But in general, the political power of the utilities affected how the various other states allowed or severely restricted the possibility of grid tie-in. Utilities in some states make grid tie-in technically and economically impractical or essentially impossible. Since the political power of the utilities in Chile is perhaps comparable to the observed experience and situation in the US, we should (playing the futurist again) probably expect seeing many years of barriers, esp cost+complexity barriers supported by the Chilean utilities, along with "showcase" projects to show how green they are.... for public relations purposes. All the while keeping the average Fulano from tying in his rooftop collectors. Residential rooftop tie-ins to the grid are evidently prohibited in Chile now and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Some form of solar power has utility as well as tremendous emotional appeal for many Chileans who are unaware that their existing roofs could not support a solar-collector farm. But I think the economies of scale and elimination of hardware redundancies (such as every house having an inverter and switching mechanisms, and considering the efficiency losses of this approach) would tip the smarter solar choice for Chile toward eventual larger (non-rooftop) solar farms. Eventually. So if I were to play that speculative futurist thing, I would put more money on utilities receiving massive subsidies for doing large fotovoltaic solar farms than the crowning of every flimsy roof with collectors. Let's get together in five years and see how this has developed.

Let's get together in five years and see how this has developed.

Good idea, time as they say, will tell.