Anyone else have solar?

They started trenching the yard for the solar array today, and I wzpas just wondering if any of you kids have solar as well?

I build a solar collector for heat. It was a small-scale project to test the validity of what I wanted to do (heat my house during the winter days with solar energy). It turns out I was right, The sun simply doesn't shine in Michigan from November to April.

I lived for a month and a half in a solar powered house on an Island off Panama... neat stuff but with such a large group we had issues with power and ended up having to run the diesel generator to charge the battery bank if we had overly cloudy days for more then 2 days in a row... the owner would go room to room checking power usage if he noticed there was an amp or two over what "should" be pulled.

the house also ran on rain water reclamation system, again because of the size of the group and the size of the water resovoures if we went more then a few days without rain we ended up hikeing water from the river in buckets to flush the toilets (we always kept enough in reserve for drinking)

when I eventually buy a house I would love to set it up with a solar water heater system but I don't see me going beyond that for solar... at least on large scale, some form of solar heat might also be a possibility... but electric is just not worth it (yet) IMHO although I have much respect for those who are moving that way...

Everyone around here has solar water heaters. PV solar pays off nicely if you can afford the big initial investment. My boss has it on his house and cut his electric bill down to 1/10th of what it previously was, and he's not getting paid for putting energy back into the grid yet.

We have an off grid setup at our cabin. (4) big 100lb 6 volt batteries, a Morningstar controller, 5k/10k inverter, 200 watts or so of panels. Our usage is usually pretty low when were are at the cabin but the last couple of years, we haven't touched the generator unless we are using power tools. One thing that is nice is to have both 12vdc and 120 volt lighting. The inverter takes power to do the actually inverting process so if we need just a few lights we will have the 12vdc lights on or the old school Humphrey LP lights. We don't use the cabin a lot so we made the choice to have a larger storage capacity and go a little light* on the PVs, since it's usually got a work week to recharge before another weekend of fun.

*pun intended.

Our cabin is located in Northern Wisconsin.

donalson wrote: I lived for a month and a half in a solar powered house on an Island off Panama... neat stuff but with such a large group we had issues with power and ended up having to run the diesel generator to charge the battery bank if we had overly cloudy days for more then 2 days in a row... the owner would go room to room checking power usage if he noticed there was an amp or two over what "should" be pulled. the house also ran on rain water reclamation system, again because of the size of the group and the size of the water resovoures if we went more then a few days without rain we ended up hikeing water from the river in buckets to flush the toilets (we always kept enough in reserve for drinking) when I eventually buy a house I would love to set it up with a solar water heater system but I don't see me going beyond that for solar... at least on large scale, some form of solar heat might also be a possibility... but electric is just not worth it (yet) IMHO although I have much respect for those who are moving that way...

That sounds like an adventure. :)

We're going for the type still attached to the grid, so we won't have any storage capacity, but it should wipe out our electric bill completely.

Ross - That's a pretty cool idea for the cabin, I'll be that works nicely. Have you had any maintenance issues with the batteries? We're thinking of putting in a battery system later instead of a generator if we lose power, we can siphon off of the PVs, but we haven't put much thought into it yet.

GameboyRHM - Yeah, we're taking the brute force approach. I'm going to put in a heat-exchanger water heater after I get the solar rockin, so we'll have "free" hot water..

A buddy of mine has an array on his roof and the electric company is giving him a little cash for the extra power he supplies.

All we do for the batteries, is make sure that they have enough deionized water. Or is it distilled? I forget, it's my dad's little project. Other than that, no maintenance. I think they are Trojan batteries.

Batteries take deionized water.

WonkoTheSane wrote: They started trenching the yard for the solar array today, and I wzpas just wondering if any of you kids have solar as well?

Good luck with that, Solar doesn't work in a well. :rimshot:

After an exhaustive search of home in the area we can't find one we really like so we will probably be building. Solar and geothermal will be included in the original design. but that is the advantage in living in southern Louisiana.

I'm building a new barn with radiant in-floor heat in the tack room that I'll be hooking up to a couple solar hot water panels. Also throwing a couple hot water panels on the house.

We're planning on a small PV setup (we don't use much electricity), but hot water is the ticket for ROI.

Batteries take pure water. Distilled, deionized, freshly made from H2 and O2, whatever.

I've been thinking about these water panels they sell as "solar pool heaters." They are really pretty cheap, like <$200 last I looked, and that got you like 15 sq M of collector or something. At 100% efficiency, that would be 15KW. My idea is to pump that water through a storage system, like 10 plastic barrels insulated, and then pump from there to a baseboard radiator system in the house. Anyway, it's just a thought at this point. I still need to put up my 500W of solar panels and buy some batteries.

Flight Service wrote:

WonkoTheSane wrote: They started trenching the yard for the solar array today, and I wzpas just wondering if any of you kids have solar as well?

Good luck with that, Solar doesn't work in a well. :rimshot: After an exhaustive search of home in the area we can't find one we really like so we will probably be building. Solar and geothermal will be included in the original design. but that is the advantage in living in southern Louisiana.

Wait, it has to be above ground to work? :). The guy doing my install was saying that lots of people have foregone geothermal for heat pump systems. He mentioned they were a bit less efficient (3.2:1 vs. Geo's 4.1:1), but only 1/4 the cost (5k vs. a minimum of 20k), so that might be something to look into when the time comes..

I want solar. I know my dad looked at it for his house but the investment was like 35k and the payoff was nonexistant. I did read that houses with solar are on the market half as long as houses without though, so there is still some incentive IMO.

there are a lot of cruising sailboats with solar. The trick is 12v vs 120.

If I were going to run solar on a home.. everything I could convert to 12v I would.

Get the 40V panels instead of 12V if you want to go full solar.

I need to put together a solar back up for the pump on my well.

It's a bit of a scam in Southern Ontario. While the rebates are real and the numbers work if the sun shines, what is often forgoten in the sales pitch is the very long wait to connect to the grid.

Panel costs continue to come down fast. I see more and more articles declaring "grid parity" lately..

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/03/25/grid-parity-why-electric-utilities-should-struggle-to-sleep-at-night/

I was looking at a local company's website a couple weeks that does solar installations. I think I could get a hot water system that with tax rebates and whatnot may pay for itself in a handful of years. I was thinking along the lines of Dr. Hess and using some solar heated hot water to keep my unheated/uncooled sunroom warmer during the winter. Just would like to keep it above 40F out there so the plants stay happy.

Here is an article detailing the surprise greeting adopters of the solar energy sales pitch.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/cloudy-future-for-stranded-solar-projects-in-ontario/article6142354/

For two years, Ontario farmer Russell Elliott has been waiting to supply solar power to the province’s electricity grid.

He was one of thousands of Ontarians who took the government up on its green-energy incentives, withdrawing $91,000 from his savings to erect a small solar-power project at his farm west of London. It seemed like a wise investment, as safe as a GIC but with a much better, government-backed rate of return – 11 per cent or so.

However, in Ontario’s rush to develop renewable energy, a significant obstacle emerged for many small power producers, particularly in Southwestern Ontario: There wasn’t enough capacity on the aging grid to accommodate all of their built projects. With so many bank loans and retirement nest eggs on the line, the provincial government has pledged to help, but more than a year after that promise, Mr. Elliott and about 3,000 other applicants are still waiting for a resolution.

“It’s my money, my retirement money,” said an exasperated Mr. Elliott, 66, who has requested his solar project be moved and connected elsewhere but wonders whether he should instead opt for a refund. “They can’t be trusted,” he said of the government. “They don’t do what they say they’re going to do and if they do, it takes so long, you can’t remember what they said in the first place.”

Wow, I haven't had any problem like that, luckily!

They broke ground on Wednesday, at noon on Saturday, my array got flipped on and I can monitor how much I'm putting back on the grid. Technically it still needed inspection, but I was good to go over here in CT.

For cost, it was pricey! The total array cost ~45k, I got 11k back from the state immediately (34k now), and I'm getting ~12k from the feds, so I'll have to out-of-pocket ~22k. My breakeven point (assuming I just make the minimum payments on the loan) is <8 years, although I plan on having it paid off in 4 or less. Assuming a 3% increase in the cost of electricity, and a 4 year payoff, my Net 0 point is in the ~6 year range.

From the raw finances, it should save me ~3k/yr worth of electricity, which is projected to keep going up every year of course, so ideally, I'll be able to stay in this house for quite a while and really make a decent payback on it. Our kWh price went up ~40% this year, which is a bit extreme, but it's already slated to go up another 10-15% next year as well... Ouch.