Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

SpaceNut · 2020-02-15 16:00:27

More kits of other sizes are here
https://www.gogreensolar.com/collection … panel-kits

https://www.freecleansolar.com/10kW-Sol … -s/153.htm

For the other post the cost of the istalled is high as the actual unit to place is about half of that figure.

SpaceNut · 2020-11-11 10:04:11

How is the experiment of power cost offset going. Not every location is ideal for its usage
Mother-earth-news-residential-solar-3-jpg.jpg?h=320&w=550&la=en&hash=51AB93E036C6076D90C6681E5A93E6DC341E9B43

Of course there is also the exposure levels

Which if you are in the lighter color means more panels are required to get to the much needed power levels that one might be using.

A couple of short articles on Going Off-Grid with Solar, Part 1: What Does it Mean and How Much Will it Cost? and Going Off-Grid with Solar, Part 2: Two Real-World Examples of Off-Grid Costs

kbd512 · 2020-11-11 10:35:07

SpaceNut,

Quick Update on Home Solar System:

Now that we've settled into our new house, we're getting a solar setup for 100% offset, along with a pair of Tesla PowerWall devices. They installed the grid-tie yesterday, they'll be along to install the PowerWalls by the end of this week or next, and then they'll install the solar panels after that.

SpaceNut · 2020-11-11 14:08:19

Wow that does sound fantastic in what you are making use of keep us posted on the level of success and performance levels

SpaceNut · 2020-12-22 21:08:48

I have been running numbers for my home usage of daily need of less than 30kwhr year round average with the winter months climbing toward 45kwhr and during the summer back down towards 15kwhr.

Under low end use thats at 625 whr and at average 1.25kwhr and at the max its 1.875kwhr. with any invertor needing to have that power level as a mid for its capability to run continuously. So a 3,000 watt will work but to have margin for surge we would want to be closer to 4,000 watts.

Battery pack voltage is the next issue for the inverter as the higher the amps are to create that power the larger the wire guage needs to be and its got to be short runs or you have power faulting as the load goes up. Also if battery voltage is say 12v the more batteries you will need to have to provide that power continuously from a solar array source due to the hours that it is charging them.

This is also why many are going with the net metering.

AC power is half the voltage times the current to find the currents which will be needed from the batteries to supply the inverter with no conversion loss as wattage in is close to the wattage out.

Of course using a continous flow water generator is what we would all want to keep the need for size mismatching.

This is where we get into the backup storage and other options for saving energy that we do not need....

kbd512 · 2020-12-29 14:40:08

SpaceNut,

Quick Update on Home Solar System:

After much delay, our home solar system is nearly complete. About half of the panels are on the roof, as of today. The PowerWalls are onsite and being installed as well. They're supposed to complete the job by the end of tomorrow.

SpaceNut · 2020-12-29 16:26:38

That sounds fantastic....

kbd512 · 2020-12-29 18:03:17

SpaceNut,

It's official. All 67 panels are installed, as well as the 2 Tesla PowerWalls. A couple of guys are coming back tomorrow to do some additional wiring or configuration work on the batteries, but all equipment is now in place. It should be approved / commissioned by the power company in another couple of weeks or so.

SpaceNut · 2020-12-29 20:04:44

Looking forward to learning more about your system as time provides.
https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/po … tem-design

https://southern-energy.com/guide-to-tesla-powerwall/

How many Powerwalls do I need?
We’re seriously not trying to dodge this question, but it really is different on a site-to-site basis and from a personal preference. 70% of our customers buy more than one Powerwall. For most systems, we install 2 or 3 powerwalls. The total number is a personal choice depending on how much power you want or need to store and what types of devices you hope to switch on during a grid outage.

https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/10/05/te … ge-prices/

https://dgit.com/tesla-powerwall-specs- … ery-51137/

Tesla Powerwall 2 price
This is the biggest issue facing Powerwall right now. One 14kWh battery, complete with an integrated inverter, costs $5,500. The associated hardware is $700 and the installation generally costs $800-$2,000, potentially bringing the total Tesla Powerwall price to over $8000.
A 3-bedroom house sucks up approximately 30kWh of power per day, so as things stand you’d need two of them at least to power a normal home and recharge at night.

SpaceNut · 2021-03-25 19:14:59

Found video of the wall being reconstructed

https://youtu.be/M1_qY5ta54g

kbd512 · 2021-03-26 18:54:23

SpaceNut,

We're still waiting on the power company to give their blessing on the system so we can connect it to the grid and start using it. There were some placards and stickers missing, so the installer came out a few days ago, to apply the missing warning labels. Hopefully we get it approved in the next few weeks here. The power company has been a bit busy after the winter storm. We're probably pretty low on their list of priorities right now.

SpaceNut · 2021-04-14 20:12:02

This is not the way to get people to buy into investing when you Tesla is hiking the prices on its solar roof tiles for existing customers by as much as 70%

ouch....

SpaceNut · 2021-07-11 06:29:03

repost details

SpaceNut wrote:

Right now the solar power complete kits of panels, batteries, inverters are running about a $1.50 a watt for these chinese system such as the 4KW 48V 20-Panel Off Grid Solar System with 195W Mono Solar Panel of would just barely power my home if its sunny every day as that is just 12 kw hrs of possible power from them. If we get every other day sunny then you need to double the system and if its only 1 in 3 days you need one more....
Of course this is an off grid system meaning no power company back up....plus it would cost more if you have this done for you rather than do it yourself as the kit above is for.
Also you need to jump through the state and town regulations for the install which can as well increase install as well as cause taxation for having them.

which has added to deregulation topic opening

SpaceNut · 2021-07-11 06:30:18

repost

kbd512 wrote:

SpaceNut,
I'm running solar right now and lots of it, with a pair of Tesla PowerWalls, yet the entire system (~$65K installed cost, IIRC) is insufficient to power a single AC unit in our home, for any period of time. If we had to do that, we'd need a lot more panels- more than would fit on our roof, despite the size of our house. It's a grid-tie system and the net effect, over the period of a year, is to basically cancel out our rather considerable electric power bill. We installed the system to make our power bill the same every single month, meaning $367/month, every month. The alternative was wild fluctuations between $200 to $1,500 per month. The interior space is about 6,500ft^2 (5,500ft^2 on the first two floors), it has 3 AC units (one for each floor), and a pool (the pumps love those electrons, and eat them like candy). Beyond that, what our home solar system does accomplish is to "chop the peak off the demand curve", so that the power company has a stable, meaning not wildly fluctuating throughout the day, amount of power that they need to supply to the grid.
If everybody could afford to do the same thing and it was practical for them to do it, then this would make supplying power to the grid an easier task. That said, I don't imagine that every person in America can afford a $65K+ grid-tie home solar system. I wouldn't demand public money from everyone at gunpoint, which is essentially what the "Green New Deal" simpletons want, to try and make every power generating solution a solar panel or wind turbine and every power storage solution a battery. It doesn't matter what they want if simple physics won't allow it to work. I didn't set the rules about how this universe works to shatter their "green dreams". It's always worked the way it's always worked, and I don't know of anyone who knows how to change that.
We don't need more intermittent power at a grid level. What we do need is stable CO2-minimized base load power that uses real hardware, not notional hardware that might be available 20 / 30 / 50 years into the future. For cities in America, that means a new generation of small modular nuclear reactors that use abundant and cheap Thorium fuel and a non-water-based thermal power transfer cycle. We can put them wherever they're least likely to be damaged by flooding or earthquakes. If that means they build one in my backyard, so be it. I understand how the technology works, how and why it fails, and I'm not afraid of it.
We can either accept that there's no such thing as affordable grid level storage of any description, so there's no such thing as a practical 100% wind and solar energy solution, or we can continue to deal in fantasies while accomplishing nothing worthwhile, as it relates to divesting ourselves from fossil fuels in a responsible and affordable way. We've experimented ourselves to death already. Power generation still beats power storage every day of the week. That was true 50 years ago, it's true now, and in all probability it'll still be true 50 years from now. If something radically changes 50 years from now, then we can stop using nuclear power. Until then, we should move forward with solutions that actually work, irrespective of the issues some people have with technological reality. We need a return to pragmatism. If we can't do that, then our problems will continue to get worse.

SpaceNut · 2021-07-11 06:31:16

Well I knew that power in Texas was expensive after the grid failure but thats even more than I have seen ever except for the all electrical home...

NewMarsMember · 2021-07-11 06:46:31

For kbd512 re Post #64 (repost) ....

For SpaceNut ... thanks for collecting these items for the topic!

I'm picking up on your hint about accepting a Thorium plant in your backyard.

I would like to start this with a question that might be for Calliban as well ...

Is it feasible for a home owner to have a thorium (or similar) reactor in a sub-sub-basement right now?

I know (from reports on the Internet in recent times) that work is progressing on multiple fronts to provide steady, reliable, low-risk, modest power output systems using fission. I'm not aware of any of the initiatives that have reached a stage where they could be deployed, but I get the impression teams around the world are working furiously to try to reach that objective.

Ok ... that was the opener ...

Now for the entree !!! if a manufacturer ** had ** such a system, and if it could be deployed as described (sub-sub-basement), would your political situation permit it?

I would be doubtful in any State but Texas .... (perhaps Alaska) ... but !!! you ** are ** in Texas.

What do you think?

Would you accept a system, and would your community go along with the idea?

It could become a model for self-generation at every home in the US.

For nervous nellies ... the systems are talking about are not suitable for weapons production.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-07-11 06:55:45

that was in kbd512's post but all of the reactors labeled small are in megawatt output size which is a neighborhood design..

With lots of granite and it mostly being the bedrock under our homes we have the out gassing of radon to contend with so a little more radioactivity would not be seen as a problem for a residential unit but as a neighborhood units that to much....

Void · 2021-07-18 21:21:30

Tesla, not just cars.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=te … &FORM=VIRE
I think this is really good.

I think the key here may be multi-functions.

Car Batteries are part of the structure of the car.

Solar Panels are the roof, that you need anyway, and if I understand it correctly,
they can also de-ice themselves.

Car collections are a storage grid??? At least that is what I think.

I also like this as in the event of some social disruptions, some people will have some electric power. This would make recovery much easier and probable.

Anyway they have me deeply interested to see what they eventually do.

Certainly a good system for some mid latitude locations such as parts or lots of
the USA.

I like it.

Done.

SpaceNut · 2021-12-03 18:21:10

kbd512 wrote:

SpaceNut,
I think I responded to the cost question in another thread dedicated to the topic, but I believe the cost was around $60,000 and the total loan amount over 25 years will come to about $100,000. The flat rate we now pay for electricity is $367/month. We had electricity bills ranging between $600 and $1,500 per month, so this was a marked improvement for us. Please bear in mind that we live in a 6,500ft^2 house with 3 AC units, 2 gas furnaces, 1 electric furnace, and a 30,000 gallon swimming pool that requires constant pumping power to remain algae-free.
Our range is also gas, our oven / washer / dryer are electric. Most of our electricity usage is related to AC and the pool. We use very little electricity and gas in the winter time, because we prefer colder temperatures indoors (65F is perfect), but the house must remain above freezing or the water pipes burst, which happened last year during the winter snow storm (outdoors above our patio area, thankfully, but it ran down through the wall and into our living room and master bedroom before I could shut off the water supply). It was so cold and dry that there was no mold / mildew, but it cost a bit to repair.
Both of our vehicles use gasoline, 1 is a 4,000 pound full size car (commuting), the other a 6,000 pound SUV (commuting and car camping at national parks). I drive considerably further to get to / from work than my wife, but I go into the office twice per week and she goes in 9 days per two work weeks. Every other Friday is a day off for her. An electric vehicle would be technically feasible, but not very practical, certainly not practical for going half way across the country, or even to Austin to visit my parents. I now drive 138 miles in a day during the two days I go into work, because our son uses our other car to go to nursing school and the hospital, which means I drive between Sugarland and The Woodlands. It's 16 miles to my wife's work, 16 miles back home to drop the kids off at school just down the block, 37 miles to my work, 53 miles to my wife's work to pick her up coming from Sugarland, then 16 miles back to home. A much more efficient and lighter gas powered car would be much better. Our son drives at least 50 miles per day during the days he has to go to class in person or to the hospital to work in the COVID ward. If I had an electric car, then those two days of driving would consume 80kWh to 100kWh to recharge the car. Electric might be more practical for our son, though.

SpaceNut · 2021-12-03 18:37:21

That is quite an improvement for the system you have installed which should if we get a real good stretch of sunlight unclouded to bring it down some more.

My winter bills were that high when we had a furnace and even a wood stove that had a blower in the cellar working but now that its broken and we have closed off the cellar cold its not taking as much to keep us above 50 even with the coldest of days so far.

I am still awaiting for some tires for the Prius and a headlight issue to get repaired but the vehicle is all mine as soon as I get the junk Subaru down to the shop.

Your travels to work for all of the vehicles is greater than mine which is 35 one way. ouch for your commute at least its not all week. so I expect that my new vehicle will help quite bit to lower the gas costs and should pay for its use by the savings in gas cost by the end of 2022.

I am going to look at the solar augmentations to see what its cost might be to enhance its performance for the main battery for the electric use. I already know that I want to provide a recharging system for the smaller starting battery since the doors can lock and you will not be able to get in if its dead as ts in the back corner of the cargo area closest to the hatch.

My son did get a job and started Monday this week at a local super Walmart's bakery doing something he likes to do...granted it is 34 hrs a week but that is considered full time.

tahanson43206 · 2021-12-03 20:02:51

For SpaceNut re #70 and the good news of landing a job at Walmart! Best wishes to your son for finding the company enjoyable to work for. The starting salaries are reported to be low, but there is said to be opportunity to advance if he aims in that direction! Bravo!

And thanks for updates on your vehicle challenges!

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-12-03 21:46:53

Just found news on my power company and its going up/// Eversource electricity customers who are almost certain to face a 25 percent price increase next month, according to a recent filing with state regulators.

“In January, your electric bill will be higher because of the increased demand for electricity and natural gas,” Eversource wrote, noting that natural gas is often used to generate electricity in the region’s power plants.
The average residential customer who uses 500 kilowatts of electricity a month “could see a 25 percent, or $30, increase to their total bill compared with December,” the e-mail said. According to Eversource, the average residential customer is now paying about $120 a month for electricity, and would climb to about $150 in January with the 25 percent increase.
The cost increases are expected to be slightly less for Eversource customers in Western Massachusetts — about 23 percent, or $27 a month, Eversource said.

So much for trying to drop my energy costs...

Town had 4 solar farms to be built one on its near dump parcel and some how they managed to kill all of them thou approved prior to trumps tarrifs and towns taxation interests

Hundreds of Solar Farms Built Atop Closed Landfills Are Turning Brownfields into Green Fields

Brownfields as land that can not be used for anything....

SpaceNut · 2021-12-05 20:27:24

The emergency backup idea is not new for using a vehicles battery system and many seem to have done just that.

Some thoughts for making use of the battery in the Prius or other hybrid with its battery voltage and rating being the only thing to consider.

Field Day Prius Power

When the main battery gets low the vehicle will start to recharge the battery keeping power going when its needed most. The option to make use of solar panels to charge are also possible.

Lots of information on how to do this on the page.

Which means if you have something else that can be used to recharge the batteries from the hybrids can be used as an alternative use for a vehicle that has been crashed but the battery is all good still.

tahanson43206 · 2021-12-05 20:30:34

For SpaceNut ....

Re your report on the power charges ... would the community change it's mind now that new charges are coming?

Would the original offer still be available? Sometimes when an investor is spurned he (or she) finds another customer and will never return.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-12-05 20:38:29

The service covers not only the distribution by the charge for its use of the wires. So while I could get power from another company the distribution can not change....that is deregulation for you....

https://www.enginer.us/
Solar Power Generator and Plug-In Add-On Kit

just happens to be the vehcile year I am getting
https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/v … ontext=etd
Vehicle to grid as a household emergency generator for 2007
Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

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#51 2020-02-15 16:00:27

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#52 2020-11-11 10:04:11

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#53 2020-11-11 10:35:07

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#54 2020-11-11 14:08:19

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#55 2020-12-22 21:08:48

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#56 2020-12-29 14:40:08

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#57 2020-12-29 16:26:38

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#58 2020-12-29 18:03:17

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#59 2020-12-29 20:04:44

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#60 2021-03-25 19:14:59

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#61 2021-03-26 18:54:23

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#62 2021-04-14 20:12:02

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#63 2021-07-11 06:29:03

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#64 2021-07-11 06:30:18

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#65 2021-07-11 06:31:16

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#66 2021-07-11 06:46:31

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#67 2021-07-11 06:55:45

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#68 2021-07-18 21:21:30

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#69 2021-12-03 18:21:10

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#70 2021-12-03 18:37:21

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#71 2021-12-03 20:02:51

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#72 2021-12-03 21:46:53

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#73 2021-12-05 20:27:24

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#74 2021-12-05 20:30:34

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

#75 2021-12-05 20:38:29

Re: Home Solar System to Achieve Energy Usage Offset

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