Shady Regime Mofo: You needz to buy our Freedom Gaz!

 Steely_D wrote:
That's him ratcheting up his war on Wind Power. I'm half expecting the Military to start taking them over around the country, you know National Security and all. He is all in with Big Oil, especially now that HE owns Venezuela's Oil Fields. They must be dropping quite a bit in the plate. 

 Steely_D wrote:

That would suggest he is LYING. Thank you for your attention.

Does our senile rapist felon need a fourth mental status check?

 islander wrote:

ha, awesome. 

Just got the end of year bill. 88 Pesos (just under $5) for October 20 - December 17.

 ColdMiser wrote:

Apparently there was also a lot of resistance to their introduction here (according to the German Wikipedia entry) with the guys pushing them winning prizes for civil courage! I think they are a great way of getting quick wins for low cost.
Some of my neighbours have installed large systems with batteries for costs north of 15k. Most of them use them to power their electric cars, which I don't have. I also didn't the spare cash for a large system so I'm really happy with what we've got.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
Currently those popular balcony style solar modules are ILLEGAL in the US, with the exception of Utah of all places. Listened to a pod on Volts a few weeks back ( www.volts.wtf ) that highlighted some regulatory work arounds being test driven in a few states. The thinking is that once they can get thru the hurdles in these states the panels will come to market and the expectation is they will take off like they have around the world. 

 islander wrote:

Yeah, these kits come with inbuilt safety devices by law to turn them off if disconnected or in the case of malfunction. Ours is a Hoymiles . Dead easy to install. True plug and play.
We currently pay 35 cents per kWh (USD before tax) or 41 cents after tax for grid power.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:

Do you have an anti-islanding device? - something to prevent feeding the grid if there is a grid disruption?  That's generally a safety requirement for linemen. 

And a 2 year ROI is pretty good. What are your electricity rates?

 islander wrote:

... and at the other end of the scale, I just did the annual meter readings.

In March we installed a balcony PV system consisting of just two solar modules (bifacial units each rated 400W but we never get more than 306W out of them each, i.e. 612W total) at a total cost of €400 (Modules 95€ each, plus brackets + microinverter). We didn't add a battery, the system is just plugged into our home network (see the link below).

As a result, we have reduced our annual power consumption by 20% (to 2422 kWh compared to just over 3000 kWh in the prior year). Hot water and heating comes from the district heating network and is not included here.

So I am pretty happy, considering the panels only really generate power from late March to early October. At this rate they'll have paid for themselves in 2 years.

Background: under German law you are entitled to install plug and play balcony PV systems for home use without even needing to register them with the authorities. Great system. In summer we make a point of only doing the laundry when the sun is shining and not running any high-consumption appliances simultaneously when possible.

Any solar power that we don't consume ourselves just gets fed into the grid for free (i.e. we don't get any compensation for it). 

 black321 wrote:

Agreed, federal code should be amended to require solar roofs and battery installation in new construction and renovation of older homes. Expensive at first, but volume will bring costs down.

 black321 wrote:

Australia is going in both directions. On a federal level we have rebates for battery systems, but in my state they are going all-in on large, remotely located solar farms and building a massive transmission line over prime farmland. Not that the line, per se messes up farmland, but it does mess up arial spraying and the service roads mess up drainage to the farm dams.

The fire thing is a real issue. Some of the worst fires here recently were started because high winds and transmission lines don't mix. 

I'm in favour of local production because of the line losses in transmission lines. Why waste that energy getting the electricity to where it will be used? Besides, a wide geographic distribution builds redundancy into the system. 

The one place I see a potential big advantage for large scale systems is placing panels over irrigation channels. This has been done successfully in India. You aren't removing any farm land from production and the access infrastructure is already in place. The panels shade the channel, significantly reducing evaporation, saving water.

 black321 wrote:

I think the future is in smaller 'micro-grids' that have several sources of input and the ability to cross tie and load shed. We routinely overproduce, even when running AC and the pool, we are typically full by 2:00. Cloudy days have an impact (why we have a lot of battery) - those are rare, but often coincide with storms. Even with lots of clouds we rarely go back to grid power.  

Codes in the US are still mostly problematic. The economics of power generation mean that utilities want guaranteed customers before they will build the infrastructure. Fire liability risk is a new variable. Looks like Boulder and several mountain counties were pre-emptively shut down this week for rick mitigation. More of that will get more people doing their own. Unfortunately most people will just by a generator (and hopefully a transfer switch) from Home Depot. The increased noise and pollution will make the neighborhoods worse off. A little planning and foresight would have clean/quiet neighborhoods that don't care if the grid drops. They also would pay less over time for power (big up front cost, but tiny power bills). 

We did have one renter this year who was relentless with the AirCon. 2 units on full bore 24/7, plus the pool, plus what appears to be every light in the house and whatever he could plug in. He had several grid failovers when he ran the batteries low. Over 2 months he burned close to 3000 KWhrs (average months when we are here are 400-500KWhrs). With the switchovers about half that came from the grid. Out total usage for the entire year including his two months is just over 7,000 KWhrs so far. So we won't hit our 99% target, but it's because of one guy going nuts. We'll still be well over 90% of our power self generated. We only had one complete power outage, when he ran the batteries completely out and the town's power was out due to a hurricane.

 haresfur wrote:

Interesting. One of the advantages of induction is actually less energy used. I have a big 5 burner unit that will run full tilt on a 20A / 240V circuit (5KW). But I also have a portable single burner in the van. That one runs on 120V, pulls 10A on boost (1.2KW), and will boil a pot of water in about a minute. I run the van unit on a 2KVA inverter, it barely makes a dent in the batteries. There is on 200W solar panel that will easily replenish breakfast cooking in a couple hours with other loads running (mostly fans). 

and then this:

(funny reading the comments sections by many claiming wind has a bigger carbon footprint than oil/gas...I saw that episode of Landman too, ha).

Trump admin pausing all off shore wind project construction due to national security concerns

The move was made after classified reports concluded potential national security risks

https://www.foxnews.com/politi...

 islander wrote:

I often wonder why new homes dont have built in alternative energy generation.
There are some disadvantages to local vs centralized energy production, notably less efficient and stable. 
But then after having no power for three days last week due to wind storms due to risk of wildfires...which is likely to be a more common trend going forward...combined with the growth and lower cost of batteries, I wonder if the stability issue is becoming less of an issue. 

 islander wrote:
Apparently a couple of companies are selling benchtop induction burners with a built-in battery system. Apparently, the things crank a shit-ton of energy which is especially good for N Americans who can't install a 240V system for one reason or another. As a bonus, they can cook through power outages. Obs, you have all that covered, but it seemed pretty creative.

Science

 kcar wrote:

7.5 KVA array, 30KW of battery. The inverters are a pair of 5KVA units providing 240V. The place is pretty small, there are two air conditioners, but both are inverter minisplits. Cooking can be a big load, but it's pretty short. The pool pump is 1.5 KW, but it runs most of the day (totally covered by the solar). The system is all Victron (We are a dealer/installer) and it's got some cool bells/whistles on it. 

Edit/Add:  I just pulled the year to date numbers. Total consumption is 1970KWhrs, power from the grid is 18.6KWhrs. So 0.9% of the power consumed has not been from the sun. This number should continue to trend down, but may get a few bumps depending on renters and what happens during storm season. But I'm looking forward to a year end with 99% of the power being solar.  

Also noting that there are few concessions made other than a small footprint. The house is very comfortable/livable. We cook a lot. We run the AC when needed (sometimes we run it when not needed). I have some advantages in sourcing and my own labor was pretty affordable, but even at retail, this is a 20 year system with a 8-10 year ROI (maybe less depending on price escalations). This is all doable for a good portion of the world, we should be doing a lot more of it.  Most of the power in the region is provided by fossil fuel generation, every KW that is not provided by the grid is a bit of dirty carbon fuel not burned up.