tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post8076455689382301479..comments2024-03-28T08:06:43.198-04:00Comments on The Silicon Graybeard: Conflicted on the Election SiGraybeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00280583031339062059noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post-3145792440001190662016-11-09T10:11:50.596-05:002016-11-09T10:11:50.596-05:00Re: generators and solar power. I have had a seri...Re: generators and solar power. I have had a series of motorhomes and now a small trailer (19.5'). I have had 2.3 kw generators, 900 watt generators and a assortment of small solar panels. Today I have a 180 watt panel with two deep cycle batteries. Although this does not translate 100% to the issues and demands of a home it is a excellent platform to assess the pros and cons. I could replicate this system (it was factory installed) if I did it myself for under $500 or so. It runs the minimal electric needed for the trailer (mostly the water pump, heater fan, lights and control systems) easily and allows me to use the radio and TV if I choose to. It will also allow me and my wife to use laptops and charge phones, cameras etc. A very minimal system that can do a lot but not anything 'big'. It's there everyday, day after day, no fuel requirement but I do need to get sun for part of the day. I am happy with it. It does not provide enough power for the refrigerator and I can live with that. For a mere couple thousand more I could power the fridge but why? We have discovered how to preserve food without the need of refrigeration. My trailer requires LP to heat it but some RV's do have small wood stoves and I heated my house 100% with a wood stove for years so that too is a non-issue. The big one for some people is air conditioning. I never use it, not in my car or my home. Don't get me wrong, I get it if you lived in Florida air conditioning is required but you can live without it and most certainly can in 80% of the U.S. <br /><br />The bottom line is with PV; go small, provide power for a few necessities and a few luxuries and keep it simple. Then it is reasonably cheap and doable. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post-74634799674600755022016-11-08T15:38:56.285-05:002016-11-08T15:38:56.285-05:00There's a whole lot to consider with solar, an...There's a whole lot to consider with solar, and it centers around the two-ended axle of cost and lifestyle. A friend who happens to be an archtect and designed his son's house included solar in the design (that house is about 40 miles west of you). This was a decade ago (2006), before panels started really dropping in price. Five grand later he has what he calls "the keep the beer cold during hurricanes" system - the panels, batteries and inverter run the fridge, a couple ceiling fans and a couple outlets in key rooms. That's it. I'm sure the batteries have been replaced at least once, probably twice since 2006. <br /><br />I've seen generators designed for longer term use - Mercedes makes a 1.5 liter (salt) water cooled diesel 3 cyl for larger boats, coupled to a 30KW alternator - and coupled to a very large diesel truck radiator it works well as a non-boat stationary genset. For the same money today about 15KW of solar & storage can be installed. Standby generators - which is probably what yours is - don't have enough cooling or engine oil capacity to run for too long between maintenance events. NG and LP, however, do run cleaner than gasoline or diesel. Most "home center" gennies call for oil changes every 25 hours; even my water-cooled Honda ES6500 with a large oil pan and spin-on oil filter (uses the same 358cc 2-cylinder engine they put in small 2-person cars in Japan - not quite as big as a Smart Car) specifies 50 hour oil changes. That's 2 days of constant use, 4 days of half-cycle; hurricane Charlie in 2004 knocked out our juice for 5 1/2 days. <br /><br />I'm still researching, but I have learned inverters are a system drag - running one sucks up some amount of watts - so it seems a well designed two-voltage system (12 DC and 115 AC) might be an advantage (some appliances - like SunDanzer stuff - are 12 volt because they're designed for purely off-grid applications) but Ohm's Law says low voltage means higher amps and requires large diameter copper, so the closer your 12V fridge and freezer are to the batteries the better. And, don't forget batteries outgas hydrogen and vapor sulfuric acid so they can't go in living space. <br /><br />Way back when there were medium size propane refrigerators for off grid home use (RVs and house trailers use small LP fridges); a few brands are still made and they're not cheap, but it's another option for off-grid or for reducing the electrical load on a solar system. I'd assume if LP fridges are made, so are NG, but I haven't researched them. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post-14888594735734525262016-11-08T13:53:10.643-05:002016-11-08T13:53:10.643-05:00Thanks for that. The peak of my reading about sol...Thanks for that. The peak of my reading about solar systems was probably 2010 or '11, before we got the generator, so I'm out of touch, but I still remember the saying "the cheapest kW is the one you don't use" and the emphasis on reducing power usage. Besides that, I just never considered spending thousands just to drive the meter backward. The backup system I was planning wasn't even envisioned as GT; just panels and batteries. <br /><br />Setting up a system just to drive meter backwards seems like a waste to me, but my emphasis is being able to live comfortably if the SHTF. The generator simply won't get me there. Those are designed to run for 7 days, then need to be shut down for an oil change and maintenance. Can you imagine doing that for a few years? Yeah. Ain't happening. If it really does all go Tango Uniform, a good solar power system can keep you going for the life of the batteries, maybe as much as 8 years. If I get the design of my system right and the S never hits the fan, then I never pay an electric bill again, and that's fine by me. <br />SiGraybeardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00280583031339062059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post-56580550968336678412016-11-08T13:35:53.472-05:002016-11-08T13:35:53.472-05:00I don't recall a technical reason that a grid ...<i>I don't recall a technical reason that a grid tied system can't have storage batteries. Why is that? </i><br /><br />My research says "capacity" and "lack of understanding." Most people want lower utility bills, and protection from future larger ones, so the concept of grid-tied sells because that's what GT does. <br /><br />There's no technical reason that a battery bank cannot be included in a GT system, except that to work as an independent system the batteries have to be fed first because it's the batteries that carry the load during "dark." That means the meter won't be spinning backward until the afternoon, and on cloudy days maybe not at all. Plus good deep cycle batteries are much spendy,and have only a 5-7 year life span. <br /><br />Plus, how that solar-generated power gets used comes into play; GT systems exist to drive the meter backward, "real" solar systems exist to meet power load demand. Big difference - it means storage (more is better, assuming one has the panel wattage to support it), controllers, inverters, and the Really Big One: lifestyle change caused by finite limits on available electrical power. (Example: despite "Energy Star" ratings, common appliances use MUCH more electricity than appliances designed for solar systems, not to mention the convenience factor. I've got a very efficient 25 cu ft Whirpool fridge that draws 112 watts in run mode (locked rotor current - the startup draw - is about 1K watts for 1-2 seconds; I used to know the daily wattage total, somewhere around 4 KW, IIRC), but an 8 cu ft 12 volt SunDanzer chest fridge draws 100 watts <i>per day</i> to run. but a chest style fridge is a PITA to use. <br /><br />Grid-tied sits there quietly, reversing the meter to save money, demanding no effort from the "owner." <br /><br />Don't know if you regularly hit joelsgulch.com, but he has <i>only</i> solar for electricity and frequently chronicles the living changes sun-limitied electricity drives. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post-52441221104811118012016-11-08T11:24:10.034-05:002016-11-08T11:24:10.034-05:00Especially a constitutional amendment.
Caveat: th...Especially a constitutional amendment.<br /><br />Caveat: there have been amendments and referendums written for the ballot so that the desired response is to get everyone to vote "NO". It's worth reading them or studying them. <br />SiGraybeardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00280583031339062059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post-47239368965308452172016-11-08T10:23:11.603-05:002016-11-08T10:23:11.603-05:00I have almost never seen a ballot question that sh...I have almost never seen a ballot question that should be answered with anything but a solid NO. <br /><br />Weredragon Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post-33678175810850722672016-11-08T09:05:11.156-05:002016-11-08T09:05:11.156-05:00Embarrassingly, no. It's one of those things ...Embarrassingly, no. It's one of those things I thought about doing "some day" but never got to. Some day probably ought to be soon. <br /><br />Back to the original point, again, nobody I read covered the topic of metering, or comparing amendment 1 to existing law. Well, one site said that the rights it claims to guarantee are already the current law. It just moves them from protected by statute to protected by the constitution. <br /><br />When I was considering solar systems, I'm pretty sure that the feature most places cited for a grid-tied system was to make income selling power back to the utilities. I don't recall a technical reason that a grid tied system can't have storage batteries. Why is that? <br /><br /> SiGraybeardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00280583031339062059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post-65476850320361178282016-11-08T07:19:01.180-05:002016-11-08T07:19:01.180-05:00Divemedic makes the key point: grid connected, whe...Divemedic makes the key point: grid connected, whether you need it or not. While it is possible to have a stand-alone solar system <i>and</i> be connected to "the grid," this leads to grid-tied solar systems which don't do what most people expect a solar system to do, namely, provide power when the grid is down. <br /><br />So, grid-tied gets installed - there are outfits that will provide the hardware and installation for nearly free to gain the subsidy benefits - and the homeowner gets reduced power bills, at least as long as the sun shines. Since grid-tied doesn't have storage capacity, between sunset and sunrise one writes checks to the utility. <br /><br />Solar, at least solar that really works, isn't cheap, which is why there's so little of it. <br /><br />Side note; RE: your NG generator - I assume you possess an propane conversion kit for it, do you not, and a spot in the yard picked out for the tank?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post-16054540929967165112016-11-08T05:23:28.878-05:002016-11-08T05:23:28.878-05:00What Amendment One will kill is "et metering&...What Amendment One will kill is "et metering" which is the law that requires the utility to buy the excess electricity from a solar user. The utility companies claim that solar users run their electric meter backwards during the day, and consequently many of them wind up with no electric bill at the end of the month. They claim that this is a subsidy, because the rest of us must subsidize those users, because it the cost of transformers and other distribution network costs have to be paid by the rest of us in the form of higher utility bills.<br /><br />The problem that I have with this theory is that this is a problem of the utilities' own making. In Florida, it is illegal to have an off the grid home. You MUST connect your home to the utility company, regardless of whether or not you need to.<br /><br />For that reason, I voted against it.Divemedichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14583007051962299381noreply@blogger.com