Solar power in California means waiting for the sun to come up and heat the ground.
In other words, it's a total scam being perpetrated on the people by the socialists in government.
We installed solar panels and they made it clear that we would not be generating our own energy. The only thing we actually own is the debt that pays for the panels themselves. We actually bought not enough to meet our own needs so that we wouldn’t be selling our surplus electricity at the wholesale rate which is what happens if you make too much. What does happen is that we can run our air conditioning during the hottest part of the day when the rates are highest. I suspect that if the power went off our panels would be idled for that time but we are not connected to PG&E.
Had the salesman over the house a few years ago, thinking in terms of prepping and having my own source of electricity.
They told me that it wouldn't work if the power went out - Huh?
How much you want to bet that this so-called solar power collected at home doesn't really get transmitted or used anywhere at all? Complete and total scam coming and going.
I know there are solar panels that supply direct power. I see them on the shows where people live in the wilderness and use them as their only source of power. Are these illegal in California? Are California consumers not told the panels they buy and install don’t supply direct power?
Those panels and inverter would have gotten disconnected from the grid and hot wired so that I had at least minimal power while the sun was shining.
Mine run the house all night till sunup. Some grid-tied systems can be switched for power to the house during sunshine.
Surely they were offered a deal akin to municipal water vs private wells in many jurisdictions: if you want on-grid service, you either forego independent sourcing or route that into the grid and get equivalent credits back. Municipal sources don’t want the competition: if enough homes can go off-grid sufficiently, customer base collapses; corollary is if enough homes accept the deal, they’re beholden to the grid working.
I expect many CA residents will do exactly what environmentalists [claim they] want: go 100% renewables (a la “at least if my power system fails, it’s my own d@mn fault”).
A curious thing about supply-and-demand: when elasticity hits a brick wall, demand instantly becomes acute. Negotiating over high power costs is one thing; having no power is very different, as suddenly homeowners decide $50,000 for a 100% off-grid system is cheap.
Tangent...
Russian scene:
Customer: “How much are pork chops?”
Butcher: “5 rubles.”
C: “Other butcher, he sells pork chops for 2 rubles!”
B: “So buy from him.”
C: “He has none!”
B: “When I have none, I will sell for 2 rubles too.”
A friend of mine installed a solar system that cost over $10K and, indeed, he couldn’t use its power during a power loss. If it was up to me, I’d find a way to over ride that crap.
Most people I know who have solar, have purchased, leased, or are renting solar equipment but have no clue of the terms or how the system works. Many took the word of some used car salesman type who told them they would save money. Solar is nonviable energy but people are too dumb to figure it out.
The solar technology commonly being sold in California apparently isn’t ready for prime time.
I would think just switching off the main breaker should run the lights and refrigerator in the daytime.
You should be able to just plug an inverter/battery system into a standard socket and charge it up during the day to run the lights at night.
Household devices might be given plug-in priority boxes, so the electric water heater doesn’t run when the refrigerator is drawing power.
Priorities might be in the order: plug-in lamps, stove top, oven, refrigerator, air conditioning/heating, battery backup and water heater.
A solar panel system could be configured to power the home during a power failure. The issue is can the panels power the whole home during an outage. The answer is no. You might be able to charge your cell phones but that is about it.
Last week i bought an electric Hyster forklift for $50 at an auction. It has an 850ah hattery pack, its 18 2volt cells.
17 were good, but one isn’t so i cannot get the amperage out of them to run the 36volt motor. All in series. It weighs 2500 pounds. Forklift is in excellent shape.
I can remove the cell and replace it, or cut out the bad one and take the rest to turn into an at home battery bank.
So i can make a 48volt bank or double my amp hours as a 12 volt bank. I bought a 3000 watt pure sine wave inverter. Going to hook this up in the next week or so.
Other options are buying several 6volt golf cart batteries instead and not to use the forklift but sell it at a big profit. Any way anout it i want a battery bank of no less than 3 days backup. Not interest so much into solar or wind power just yet, I’m in Alaska. Maybe later.
I remember the TV adds thirty years ago in which they were hawking wind generators for housetops, and they ended the ad with “And you can sell your excess electricity back to the Power Company!”
NV:
“Free solar panels”: Are they really free?
Decoding the sales pitch: The term ‘free solar panels’ is sometimes used to advertise solar lease or solar power purchase agreements (PPAs). Under both types of arrangements, a company will put solar panels on your roof for no money up-front but will charge you for the electricity that they produce.
https://news.energysage.com/free-solar-panels-really-free/
I called on an ad. I can’t remember the figure, but the “fee” was about 3 times what I usually pay for monthly electricity.
Whatta joke.