The problem is the “grand scale” they try to impose. Keeping it centralized and in the hands and control of the power companies. On a personal level wind and solar actually works great. But they do not want this personal independence from the government control and utility companies. It will never work the way they are handling it now...
Absolutely correct. I’ve lived completely off grid for four years now. Solar and batteries. I do use a generator on occasion for welding and such.
Exactly.
If the enviro-nuts were serious about "sustainable energy", their focus would not be on solar electricity, but on solar heating.
We have been heating our hot water for over 40 years with solar and are adding more now to heat the house, storing the heat in water and concrete.
I do have enough (NON GRID TIED) solar electric to run my ham radio gear, the boiler, refrigerator, freezer and one kitchen appliance such as microwave, Keurig, etc., at a time, plus lighting.
Sending power into the grid mostly at off peak times with home solar is insane.
On a personal level wind and solar actually works great. But they do not want this personal independence from the government control and utility companies. It will never work the way they are handling it now...
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I have two homes with solar power, whole house solar power, one in Kentucky and one in SW Florida. I do not have battery backup in Florida but I have substantial backup in Kentucky. I have learned a lot about solar from my experiences for the last 7 years with solar.
First, you never get as much power from your roof as you paid for, never. On perfect days, cool with lots of sun you might make more than you need. Perfect days in Kentucky are a minority of days. We get a lot of perfect days in Florida so my generator is my backup there, no battery, it just makes the most sense.
Second, if you want whole house solar, heating, air conditioning and hot water you need at least 3 times your normal usage on the roof and that will likely be not enough sometimes. On a hot day you can easily use twice as a cool day, perhaps more. Even then though you may need to simultaneously charge your battery. My battery charges at 200 amps. I have 16KW of inverter at 240V, the inverters will do much more short term so starting motors is not a problem. Generator people told me I should have more generator than 16 KW but only running 4 hours every other day I don’t see it. Going to all LED lighting makes a big difference. I have a large house. With only 10 100W light bulbs running for only 10 hours that’s 10KW, equivalent in LED’s may only be 500W, that’s 1/2 of 1KW. That’s huge. I have a gas boiler system to backup my heat pump and got a couple super high efficiency mini-splits. My usage is way down. So, even if I have to live on battery backup I will still have HVAC in a few rooms.
Third, battery backup is temporary. It is likely my solar cells will last longer than me however at a slightly reduced capacity, the batteries won’t. If you are really careful and never use your batteries they will perhaps live as long as you but if you use them daily especially past 80% charge you will be lucky to get a few years out of them. I’m on my second set. I’m out of town a lot so I didn’t take care of my flooded lead acid batteries. I now have maintenance free gel batteries that don’t care what I do as long as I charge them properly. Once the charger is set up there is nothing to do, it’s all automatic.
Fourth, battery chargers and inverters fail. I had five years of warranty on my equipment and have had to replace a couple boards. The first two were on warranty the last one was on me.
Fifth, you need to be technically savvy to have your own complete solar system. I used to live on a nuclear submarine, we had battery backup and a Diesel and needed both of them. I only have 12KW on the roof in Kentucky and only have 16KW of generator. Running my generator at 3-4 hours will usually give me 2 days of battery power, but that is depending on the weather. My battery will run my house for a couple weeks if I do not use HVAC but only a few days if I do.
Sixth, solar will pay for itself BUT it will take a long time. I’m at seven years and I’m almost even in Kentucky. Since I don’t have battery backup in Florida it is much cheaper to have the solar there, I only paid about $25k and had someone else install it. I do have a backup generator. Without backup batteries the inverter won’t work on grid loss. I will have to depend on my generator and I won’t be using that for HVAC, the fuel cost is exorbitant running 24 hours a day, so I will live with the heat and put gasoline in the generator twice a day until the power comes back. We have hurricanes in Florida. We do have to do without power from time to time for multiple days. At least I will have my hot shower, cold drinks and the computer as long as the cell system or cable systems work.
Those are the main things you need to know. I love my solar. It is expensive but, when the power goes out in the neighborhood I don’t even know it. I studied solar for several years before I bit. Knowing what I know now I would have still gone solar but would have put much more on both roofs. I don’t normally have much more than a connection fee in Florida except when I run the electric pool heater. When I’m there I run the pool heater. The pool pump uses about as much as the HVAC and runs several hours every day, but we have a lot of sun in SW Florida.
As I frequently drive back and forth between Florida and Kentucky I have noticed that Kentucky, Georgia and Florida are installing huge solar plants within sight of I-75.
I have nothing against solar. Solar might be a decent way to offset some fuel costs during the day but that is all it should ever be considered for on the grid in my opinion. Solar cell pricing has come way down in the last decade but inverters and other equipment not so much.
Both of my installations are connected to the grid. In Kentucky we have “Net Metering”, a system that allows me to use the grid as a battery. I give them my excess during the day and they give it back to me at night. The Utility companies don’t like it. In Florida they got rid of net metering and now buy back your excess at wholesale rates just like they would from any electricity supplier. Since I didn’t get solar for the savings I don’t care about buyback or net metering, I like net metering but I’m not dependent on it. Buying at $.13 and selling at $.02 is not worth the effort, every year I get a little credit or check from FPL but it isn’t something I count on. I do like not having much of a utility bill. Florida charges a little over $20 a month to be connected to them so that is my lowest bill, Kentucky is several dollars less.
I don’t look forward to ever having to re-roof in either house, it will be a nightmare. I do really like knowing that the food in my fridge and multiple freezers will not spoil for lack of electricity.