[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How can I start a business to generate elect...
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Ask HN: How can I start a business to generate electricity?
I know that the capital costs for building a working power plant of
any kind are pretty high. However, I still want to learn and see
what is possible. 1. What is the thinnest vertical slice of end-
to-end power-generation functionality that an individual would be
able deploy and maintain on their own? 2. What are the names of
necessary things that I would need to learn and research? 3. What
parts are too easy to dismiss early on, but are likely to bite me
later on?
Author : tareqak
Score : 53 points
Date : 2022-08-27 20:38 UTC (2 hours ago)
| dzink wrote:
| Viable business plan: Buy an abandoned strip mall in the south.
| Cover it with solar panels. Use the energy to fill portable
| batteries. Provide a EV charging service or subscription on
| wheels for Tesla owners or other EVs who are struggling to find
| charging spots or superchargers nearby. Raleigh NC, Charleston
| SC, etc are possible test spots and anywhere else EV
| infrastructure is not going on full swing.
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| Serious question: Why do you want to start a business making
| electricity if you don't know anything about power generation?
| "Business" implies you want to make money, so what are you
| bringing to the table that would help you turn a profit? Capital?
| Land? Friends in high places? Why electricity and not something
| else?
| pedalpete wrote:
| I'm surprised to see this type of comment on HN. Many people
| have been successful because they aren't in the industry and
| "don't know anything". The OP is asking the question and
| learning, not jumping in and saying "I know how to do it better
| than anyone else", but because they don't have the ingrained
| "knowledge" of how things are done, they just may find a better
| way.
| rr808 wrote:
| Get involved in nuclear fusion.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32620868
| bombcar wrote:
| Buy one that's already generating. Utilities would love to
| offload power plants on you. For reasons. Which will probably
| bankrupt you.
| alfl wrote:
| A condo building I know of runs a bioreactor / waste water
| compost. They sell heat to a nearby hotel (ie, warm their water
| off-site) and fertilizer (IIRC). Not electricity, but heat and
| chemical energy.
| perlgeek wrote:
| > 3. What parts are too easy to dismiss early on, but are likely
| to bite me later on?
|
| Regulation. (Highly depends on where you live, though).
| woah wrote:
| Does it make sense to look at producing a power hungry product
| and selling it as a way to sidestep all the bureaucracy and
| monopolies in the public utility space?
|
| Or perhaps it would make more sense to colocate with someone
| already producing such a product and selling them electricity so
| that you don't actually have to deal with making the product
| yourself?
|
| I'm thinking aluminum, hydrogen, synthetic hydrocarbons, etc.
|
| I'm completely uninformed, correct me if this is a stupid idea.
| tomrod wrote:
| In regards to (2), names of necessary things on the ecosystem
|
| If you are an an electric deregulated market:
|
| - Utility commission (PUC, etc.). They will typically have a lot
| of sway in your day to day.
|
| - Retail Electric Providers: companies that operate as hedge
| funds and try to buy from you cheaply and sell to customers on a
| spread
|
| - Aggregators: aggregate customers that purchase energy as a bloc
|
| - Transmission & Distribution: the wires folks
|
| - Power market: your area will vary, but this is an open market
| where you can sell. Typically you'll sell forward or futures
| contracts of a sort. There is often a day-ahead market and a real
| time market as well to help plug any gaps. A power provider that
| can spin up quickly does well here. Someone with a bunch of
| airplane turbines can also help here when supply > demand if they
| wire their turbines up (turbine = generators, backwards). There
| is a lot of creative financial focus in this space since the
| returns are more apparent than in power generation
| timtzm wrote:
| Have a look at zolaelectric.com. They sell small modular solar pv
| + battery power units. These units are meant to be purchased by
| businesses (micro-generators) who then sell the power generated
| to their subscribers.
| fourjawchuck wrote:
| novantadue wrote:
| The Bitcoin miner space is a good place to look for articles;
| they are always looking for cheap/profitable electricity
| generation.
| chomp wrote:
| 1. Depends on where you live. In the Houston area, it's any power
| generation from 0 to 10MW for connecting to Centerpoint. You can
| generate (solar) from your home. As you approach larger numbers
| (like say 20 - 30 kilowatts) is going to require special design
| because you'll push the limits of a single meter. The cheapest
| and easiest way to get started is to just offset your home usage
| with solar.
|
| 2. There is a tariff for interconnection, and you need anti
| islanding. Inspections are backlogged by 6-12 months in the area.
| You'll need an electrician to draw up the plans for submission to
| Centerpoint.
|
| 3. Even though Texas's power market is famously "unregulated",
| it's still very regulated. I recommend starting here:
| https://www.ercot.com/services/training/courses/details?name...
|
| ERCOT has a wealth of information available so that you can get
| up to speed.
| [deleted]
| bloudermilk wrote:
| The last thing I want to do is discourage anyone from learning,
| but I'm afraid you're looking at this (fascinating) field the
| wrong way. To the extent that this is unlikely to be an
| interesting intellectual pursuit for you, as it's currently
| framed.
|
| If you really do want to operate a business generating
| electricity, start by learning how the power market operates in
| your area. Unless you live off-grid with a high degree of
| autonomy, you're likely to find that there are zero opportunities
| for an individual to enter this market on their own. Providing
| stable power to the grid requires unbelievable amounts of
| capital, planning, compliance, person-hours, and way too many
| other elements to list here.
|
| If what you're actually interested in is generating electricity
| for yourself or your community, the good news is this is much
| more approachable. Developing and operating small-scale off-grid
| renewable energy system for a small home is achievable with off-
| the-shelf components and a basic understanding of electronics.
| You'll still want an electrician to validate and perhaps perform
| some of the work, but it's all pretty basic.
|
| If what you're actually interested in is spearheading a renewable
| energy campaign for a large community currently dependent on
| other forms of power, take a look at community solar programs and
| energy cooperatives. Both are in practice all over the US.
| miki_tyler wrote:
| What about infrastructure around Virtual Plants, with either
| dedicated Software or Hardware?
| ggm wrote:
| Start by doing an electrical engineering degree, or commerce law,
| or take the trade route in to power engineering from the
| apprenticeship level up.
|
| Think about the supply chain. Is there a consumable which you
| could source and supply at better margin and lower cost? Is there
| a niche in replacement China insulation pots for the posts and
| wires? Can you make a better self tensioning high current wire
| connector?
|
| Think about software. Is there a gap on demand management, soft
| ware for power monitoring, weather prediction.
|
| Do you know enough about it, to take baby steps?
| WJW wrote:
| I don't want to be discouraging but if this is the level you are
| at right now, "deploy and maintain on your own" is very likely to
| get you electrocuted. Grid level electricity generation is not
| something to "move fast and break things" with.
|
| That said, get acquainted with:
|
| - How the electrical grid works. You will at the least want to
| have a working understanding on how generators synchronize to
| produce a coherent grid and how frequency regulation works. You
| should be able to at least immediately tell the difference
| between a MW and a MVAR, or to clearly explain the impact of
| power factor correction on transmission line capacity.
|
| - The various different primary energy sources (fossil fuels,
| nuclear, wind, solar) and how they differ.
|
| - Your local electricity grid regulator will have published rules
| for the local wholesale electricity market. Learn those and how
| to interact with them. You should probably be aware that for most
| markets the minimum bid size is in the order of megawatts, which
| is enough for about a thousand homes.
|
| - The economics of how power generation works. Power generation
| has massive economies of scale and single-person initiatives are
| unlikely to be able to compete.
|
| - Last but certainly not least, get yourself up to date with
| safety regulations. Grid level electricity will not only kill
| you, it will hurt the entire time too.
|
| If you want to "just" make enough electricity for yourself, get
| some solar panels on your roof. I'm sorry this post is probably
| not what you were hoping for but electricity is really really
| dangerous and not something you should be going into if you don't
| have a firm grasp of what you are doing.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > Your local electricity grid regulator will have published
| rules for the local wholesale electricity market. Learn those
| and how to interact with them. You should probably be aware
| that for most markets the minimum bid size is in the order of
| megawatts, which is enough for about a thousand homes.
|
| And for reference, a MW of Solar panels costs close to $1M - so
| this is not really a feasible industry for the average Joe to
| enter.
| salty_biscuits wrote:
| > The economics of how power generation works. Power generation
| has massive economies of scale and single-person initiatives
| are unlikely to be able to compete.
|
| The only "in" for a small player is remote/rural where the cost
| of distribution infrastructure dominates. Also dispatchable
| service to provide frequency stability seems to be a niche.
| gridspy wrote:
| > Last but certainly not least, get yourself up to date with
| safety regulations. Grid level electricity will not only kill
| you, it will hurt the entire time too.
|
| Building-level electricity is the type where a dropped spanner
| instantly becomes a faceful of gaseous metal. If you think you
| have time to feel the pain, you don't understand grid level
| energy yet.
| huijzer wrote:
| > I'm sorry this post is probably not what you were hoping for
| but electricity is really really dangerous [...].
|
| People probably discouraged the Wright Brothers, Amelia
| Earhart, and Thomas Edison too for safety reasons.
|
| Don't be discouraged OP. If you want to do it, go for it.
| JshWright wrote:
| Those folks knew they were pushing the envelope and were
| aware of the risks involved. OP is looking to enter a well
| understood space that already exists. Getting themselves
| killed in the process wouldn't be in the noble pursuit of
| bettering humanity or anything like that... It would just be
| ignorance of well known/understood risks.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| Well, nobody had ever flown a plane before the Wright
| brothers.
|
| Civilization has had grid scale electrical power for over a
| hundred years. It's sheer hubris to ignore the fact that this
| is a mature industry with experts that have studied the
| problem for decades.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Why do we need H.264? I can just stitch together JPEGs!
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yes, don't be discouraged. But don't be clueless. It is
| possible to do it safely, of course
| PeterisP wrote:
| This is a regulated industry where as soon as you touch high-
| power generation, generally both the plans and the actual
| installation need to be done and/or reviewed by certified
| personnel or everything they build will be prohibited to
| connect to the network and thus simply worthless. This is not
| a domain where random experimentation is permitted. Their
| first step should be hiring someone who knows the relevant
| local regulations and can advise them on what is and isn't an
| acceptable way to proceed in their specific regulatory
| environment, because currently not only they don't know how
| to do it, they don't even know which things they are
| absolutely required to know.
|
| Yes, there are specific parallels to the Wright brothers - if
| you want to make and fly a plane exactly like the Wright
| brothers did, well, you can't simply do that anymore, you
| need to follow FAA regulations and safety standards which
| didn't exist back then; and recommending that someone "just
| do it" would be irresponsible.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I wonder if there is an opportunity to deregulate whatever
| that makes sense and isn't related to safety. I don't know
| anything about Energy industry but like any industry, I'm
| positive that there is a lot of crud and inefficiencies
| built up over time.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| The Wright Brothers owned a mechanical shops for a decade
| specialising in printing press and bicycles before building
| gliders and prototype for years. They had a lot of experience
| in manufacturing.
|
| Earhart had been a pilot for eight years before attempting to
| cross the Atlantic.
|
| The only exemple of someone entering a highly regulated
| industry without being an insider I can think of is Musk and
| SpaceX and even then he was previously rich, started by
| building the connection which would allow him to get public
| fund through the Mars Society and his first move was hiring
| Tom Mueller, an industry insider.
|
| In my experience, people was a software background who don't
| have an industrial background heavily underestimate the
| complexity involved.
| willnonya wrote:
| Are you just trolling OP or do really think the advice about
| learning how this works before you bankrupt or electrocute
| yourself is somehow flawed?
|
| Not to me tonight your examples are a bit off. This is
| nowhere like the first powered flight. Earhart when missing
| swing her risky thing and was never seen again. Edison
| intentionally extracted large animals to drive artificial
| fear over the safety of AC, not to mention many of his most
| famous inventions are considered to be the fruit of his
| employees rather than his own intellect.
| rurp wrote:
| People have also discouraged thousands of non-famous people
| who got in over their head in a dangerous domain and killed
| themselves.
|
| Also, the people you cite had expert level knowledge in their
| field when they built novel projects; they weren't asking
| beginner questions on HN.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| An MVP would be a Honda diesel generator which powers your home
| when the wind farms stop working.
| noipv4 wrote:
| Buy a lot of solar panel. Buy some Tesla powerwalls.
|
| Get enough amps from / to the grid.
|
| (check out electricity infra. posts made by crypto miners)
|
| https://insideevs.com/news/606725/tesla-powerwall-owners-sel...
|
| Be your own tiny power company.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| What does "end to end" mean?
| tareqak wrote:
| From actual generation all the way to someone consuming the
| electricity. That's what I thought in my head, but it looks
| like that it is not tractable unless it is possible to directly
| connect to the customer.
| alfl wrote:
| I tried this. As other commenters have pointed out the big
| challenge is regulatory.
|
| That said, my approach was to find businesses or individuals as
| near as possible to a given piece of land (a lot I own) and see
| if they would buy power directly from me. I also contacted the
| local utility provider (as other commenters suggest) to see if I
| could sell them power or lease them equipment or land.
|
| The idea was something like: find a large power consumer nearby -
| someone heating a hot tub, running a woodworking shop, data
| centre, whatever; undercut the local utility, see what the
| payback period would be on the capital equipment, then get a
| legal consult on how to paper it, then hire electricians to hook
| it all up.
|
| tldr I suggest validating the market first.
| benevol wrote:
| You'll want to do a search for the "kryon engine".
| nwiswell wrote:
| And you would benefit from a search for "first law of
| thermodynamics"
| benevol wrote:
| This argument assumes not only that we know 100% of what we
| perceive to be our "reality", but also that everything we
| think we know about it is 100% correct. That is a really tiny
| box you choose to stay in.
| nwiswell wrote:
| Have you ever heard the expression "extraordinary claims
| require extraordinary evidence?"
|
| Don't show me a free energy device. That's skipping a whole
| bunch of steps. Start by showing me proof of even the
| tiniest violation of the First Law. That's a Nobel Prize on
| its own.
|
| The fact that this doofus has been working on this machine
| for as long as he has, without publishing a paper
| establishing a violation of the First Law, is enough to
| tell me that this machine plays by the same rules as the
| rest of the universe.
|
| Would be cool if the Second Law wasn't true either, though!
| The whole "heat death of the universe" thing bums me out.
| Syonyk wrote:
| First Law: You can't win.
|
| Second Law: You can't break even.
|
| Third Law: You can't opt out.
|
| So far, anyone who has claimed to break one of those laws
| is either missing some experimental error source, or is
| trying to sell something without the slightest bit of
| valid scientific proof as to their claims...
|
| If someone actually _had_ a working "free energy" device
| of some sort, I'd reasonably assume them to make Elon
| Musk and Bill Gates look like paupers, not be working in
| their garage making YouTube videos long on hype and short
| on details.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's been a large enough box to encompass the observable
| universe so far.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Anyone who builds a genuine free energy device that works
| is an instant billionaire. I don't buy the narrative that
| power companies would want to silence the technology -
| they'd rather use it for themselves and pay whatever it
| takes to get it (for a power company, paying the inventor
| even a billion is a small price to pay for infinite free
| energy, and a billion is big enough for anyone to set
| whatever morals they have aside and just take the deal).
|
| If "free energy" was a thing, power companies would already
| be using it.
| djbusby wrote:
| That really is entertaining.
|
| https://www.kryonengine.org/
|
| Edit: the FAQs address the first law issues - and I can't
| summarize here - I wish I was such a creative writer.
| remh wrote:
| Pretty sure this is a cult. If you google kryon engine, the
| main website would reference Kryon https://www.kryon.com/ as
| "Kryon supports Humanity in many precious ways - not only by
| dropping hints about upcoming revolutionary technologies based
| on magnetism".
|
| Please be serious.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Put solar panels on your roof and contact your energy company so
| they can be hooked up to provide power onto the grid and give you
| energy credits. Not every area allows this but from what I
| understand some folks make money in the summer and then that
| offsets the costs they spend pulling power from the grid in the
| winter.
|
| You really need to do a lot of research to figure out if it's
| feasible and if you have enough sunlight, area for panels, etc.
| to make it worthwhile. There's a lot of upfront costs too with
| the panels, meters, and extra protections necessary for when
| you're interfacing with sending power onto the grid--a lot of
| folks need to run their system for 5-10 years or more before it
| breaks even and starts making them money vs. all the initial
| costs.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| Be aware that the risk of fire increases with roof-mounted
| solar panels. Also be aware of effects on homeowners insurance
| policies.
| piotrkaminski wrote:
| Citation? It's not intuitive why that should happen --
| potential short-circuits?
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| From https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2021/11/16/a-guide-to-
| addressing...
|
| "More than 90% of inspected rooftops had significant safety
| and fire risks. Here's how to protect your solar asset."
|
| Lots of bad wiring. Get a 3rd party inspector.
| piotrkaminski wrote:
| Interesting and useful -- thanks. My understanding is
| that, at least for residential installations, the city
| sends an inspector to check things before you're allowed
| to turn the system on. This would appear to avoid the
| first-party inspector issues identified in the article,
| but are the city inspectors sufficiently "strict" or
| should I hire my own for peace of mind?
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| A certain amount of searching should be required before
| forcing homework onto others. You can literally google
| "risk of fire increases with roof-mounted solar panels" and
| you will see it from tons of sources including pv-magazine
| and others.
|
| "Citation?", "[Citation]", "Citation Needed" - these all
| bother me when the research is literally just
| copy/paste/search.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Arguments presented without evidence can be dismissed
| without evidence. The person making a claim is the one
| required to back up their argument - not forcing homework
| on everyone who reads their unbaked argument to find
| evidence for your claims.
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Interesting point, but I'm going to need a citation for
| that.
| djbusby wrote:
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| If you are going to make a claim, you should back it up
| with citations. [1]
|
| [1]
| https://guides.lib.uw.edu/research/citations/citationwhat
| nkrisc wrote:
| You're putting an electrical system where there wasn't
| one before. It'd be surprising if there _wasn't_ an
| increased risk.
|
| More electrical systems in your house means more risk of
| fire.
| davidbanham wrote:
| In Australia we have a large amount of rooftop solar. We
| used to fit isolation switches near the panels on the roofs
| so that we could de-energise as much wiring as possible in
| the case of a fire.
|
| The stats showed that the rooftop isolation switches
| shorting out was the leading cause of fires. We no longer
| fit them.
| tpmx wrote:
| There's a solar power boom going on right now. That kind of
| thing tends to attract bad actors, so you get sub-par
| installations performed by poorly trained people. That's the
| cause of most of the fire risk.
| gerdesj wrote:
| How?
|
| You put some modern panels on your roof that absorb power
| from the sun that now no longer gets absorbed by your roof -
| so your roof is now a little cooler. A wooden roof is now
| actually less of a fire risk and a tiled roof will now absorb
| and radiate less heat - bonus!
|
| I live in the UK. We build from sticks n bricks. We've had a
| bit of a heat wave recently that concentrates the mind
| somewhat. My office (I'm the MD) has a vast expanse of red
| brick double skinned which is south facing. My desk
| environment is around 10C warmer than the external
| temperature (I have a lot of sensors deployed). I have now
| decreed that when my desk temp is 30C then we abandon ship
| and work from home.
|
| I'm going to investigate skimming the red brickwork with a
| white render. My parent's house is a modern build and that
| seems to help.
|
| Oh, fire risk? What on earth are you on about? Insurance
| risk? What are you on about?
| patmcc wrote:
| >>>Oh, fire risk? What on earth are you on about? Insurance
| risk? What are you on about?
|
| Adding a whole bunch of electrical equipment (that's
| exposed to the elements, wildlife, etc.) absolutely
| increases the risk of fire. Panels are heavy as well, so
| you're increasing the load on the roof, could increase risk
| of collapse (especially in areas that get lots of snow).
| Plus, if you don't notify your insurance company, it's _at
| best_ not going to cover replacement cost of panels if
| something goes wrong and _at worst_ invalidate your whole
| policy.
| gerdesj wrote:
| In a house with ring mains already. We also have a fair
| few ideas about the elements.
|
| I trained as a Civ Eng in Plymouth (the British one). I
| now own an IT company. I have a fair idea about fire risk
| (I'm our fire officer too) and how some materials behave
| in general and under loads and incident (eg fire).
|
| In my opinion, roof mounted solar panels have very few
| risks in the UK. The likeliest risk is wind related. We
| are seeing increasingly strong gusts - virtually nothing
| compared to tornados but this is a land that does not
| have tornadoes (yet).
|
| We need to consider surviving Beaufort force 12 as a
| minimum standard.
| tpmx wrote:
| The usual way electrical fires happen: Work done by
| incompetent people. So much bad wiring.
| gerdesj wrote:
| So ... don't.
|
| Easily said but ... don't
| tpmx wrote:
| Yes, easily said. There is a solar power installation
| boom going on.
| swarnie wrote:
| For reference in the UK this is around 7.5p per KWH put in to
| the grid.
| martinald wrote:
| Unless you use octopus agile outgoing, which is depending on
| the time of day anything between 30-80p+/kWh:
| https://www.energy-stats.uk/octopus-agile-outgoing-export-
| lo...
| gerdesj wrote:
| You are better off having a bloody big battery and charging
| that and using it yourself.
|
| Pre the latest increase today 'leccy costed around 30p per
| KWH - after today it will be at least 45p. 7.5p for self
| generated is nice but I suggest you use your own generated
| power.
| don-code wrote:
| "Make money" in many energy markets is a misnomer, because not
| all markets pay out. For instance, I have home solar in
| Massachusetts, where I get a billing credit at the end of the
| month for excess generation. I can't cash that in (so I'll
| never be paid), but it does give me a "free" way to use
| electricity in the future. (Yes, I know it's not really free,
| because there's no return - I effectively lose money to
| inflation.)
|
| I could do something economically productive with the billing
| credit, like charge EVs or mine crypto, but I consider that
| more a knock-on effect than a moneymaker.
| willnonya wrote:
| It also ignores the upfront cost and roi. In many areas it
| takes almost the useful life of the panel to break even.
| DIARRHEA_xd wrote:
| You speak like a code monkey, so your best bet is not building
| your own generation facility, but managing others'. Renewable
| asset managers design algorithms that control the
| charge/discharge of storage connected to renewable generators in
| order to maximize profit.
| darksaints wrote:
| By yourself, with most common generation technologies, you don't
| have much of a chance. Current technologies are almost entirely a
| capital allocation problem, and small producers are not a
| reasonable solution.
|
| However, if you can conceivably generate emissions-free power
| _on-demand_ at a cost lower than what they 're paying now, you
| will likely have hundreds of companies knocking your door down
| trying to help fund your scale out.
| uberman wrote:
| The first thing you will need is a suitable tie in to the
| commercial grid. This large overhead powerlines.
|
| Without it that access, you are likely going nowhere even with a
| small commercial solar farm.
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(page generated 2022-08-27 23:01 UTC)