Posted on 10/17/2020 8:11:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
Laughable. When a rooftop solar supplier installs a battery, the battery costs money and reduces their net metering revenue. When they don't, the battery is free and their net metering revenue is not reduced
Who pays for that "free" battery? The rest of us. Instead of buying relaible power for 4 cents we are forced to buy unreliable rooftop solar for 12 cents and supply reliable power to the solar leeches.
Not saving anything. The rest of us are forced to buy it (net metering) when we could be buying reliable power for 3-4 times less money.
Green energy is always going to have massive taxpayer subsidies. Since the mid 70’s, they have been promising that they were close to making renewable energy profitable. It’s a scam that needs to be ended, once and for all.
We’ve 660w of Solar on the boat and 300aH of battery. We can run everything we want off of that, except the water heater, and, we’re working on a work around for that. For bad weather we do have a 2200w Honda Generator to charge things up.
Last Spring, we were moored in Vero Beach, Fl for 4 months during the first of the Covid debacle. We ran the generator maybe 4 times during that time.
Participants of these kind of schemes should be required to provide power 24 hours per day.
They can pay a serious utility company, like a coal fired plant, to provide energy when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.
The key for the individual would be to run your home off some pretty serious battery packs. These packs would get some charge during the day from the solar. But they would need to be topped off in the middle of the night by the grid or some other system.
Of course the batteries are expensive. The initial investment on solar is expensive. And it does not get you off the power grid unless you turn to something like a propane generator.
All in all, there is a cost for power. The BEST way to save money on power is to upgrade and measure closely where your power is going to, when, and how much it costs to generate it when you need it.
Sadly, you can substitute almost any “market” in America for “green energy” and it is the same thing.
The few get wealthy and the rest of us pay for it. America was built on capitalism and the idea of economic freedom, but as many predicted long ago it has devolved into a crony capitalist monopolistic exercise where idiot politicians and corruptocrats pick the winners and losers.
Solar does pretty good for remote locations when necessary
My well is quite a ways from the closest electricity and it would be rather expensive to run power to it up a mountain through rock. So here is a BASIC system for about $5000
8 225 amphour 6 volt batteries from Costco $100 each
8 24 volt Solar Panels $100-250 each used on craigslist $100
1 Magnum 240 volt/ 24 volt Grid Tie Inverter $2500
1 Solar MPPT Charge Controller $150-$250
some boxes,wiring,connecters,.... $500
put it all together and it will run my well 2 hours a day, wired to a 240volt Pool Timer set to run from 12-1 only daily. The well runs for 35-40 minutes every 2-3 days to keep 10,000 gallon tank full. You can easily run all the lights you want all night, they don’t even register on the meter.
Grid Tie is also hooked up to standby generator and fully charges batteries in about 2 hours just in case, but this setup will easily provide enough juice to keep a full size fridge, TV and lights on forever!! Microwave, Coffee Machine,.. Suck a LOT OF POWER, more than the well, You can run wash/dryer everyday in afternoon, and just about anything else before 1. I lived with this setup for a year and it was adequate, not great but doable if you know how to conserve and how it works
You are absolutely correct, we can see it in almost any market.
I’m a Solar energy consultant and the article is so far off. I don’t think the writer understands much except he is complaining that Solar is hurting the electric companies. The excess power store on power lines is counted towards the amount the electric companies buy at any given month. So all that extra electricity coming back in the grid at no extra cost to the power companies are sold to other homes who do not have solar. So the electric companies still make money from using all the free electricity coming in. The improvements in Solar technology has also made Solar every inexpensive.
Some states do that but not Florida, the theory being, they charge you to use their power, they should pay you the same to buy your power....
> leaks
They are normally mounted by putting a bunch of holes into your roof. Right through the shingles. Someone feel free to correct me.
If the hurricane didn’t destroy your Solar Panels?
That is a big IF.
“The rest of us are forced to buy it (net metering) when we could be buying reliable power for 3-4 times less money.”
How do you figure that? PG&E here in CA pays you 3 cents per kwh of excess energy. I believe if you used natural gas it would come to 6 cents per kwh.
> consultant
So you have a vested interest, duly disclosed, thank you. And I think you speak the truth. 10kw now is $10,000 if you buy it on the open market, and a grid-only controller is not a huge amount.
But there still exist many weak points in the home PV sell. Onsite storage and no connection to the electric company would be best, but still not feasible cost wise is it?
What is happening and will keep happening is the part of the electric bill that has nothing to do with usage will just keep going up. At least in some areas the government does not force you to be a customer of the electric utility. Unlike sewers. Around here, you are stuck with about $60 a month sewer bill and you can’t disconnect. I think these forced and increasing minimum charges for public utilities are going to be yet another factor forcing people out of even the suburbs.
The electric company buyback idea only works as long as not very many people use it.
It’s possible, but if you ground mount them and cut all the trees down around them, you should be okay.....
One thing I could never justify with just a small generator that a lot of people in Florida own is how long it might sit idle between uses....
It might a good number of years between hurricanes depending on where you live....My feeling is go with Solar, yes, it’s way more expensive, but you would be using it daily between hurricanes....
I own a Condo that is really remote, a number of years ago, we had 2 hurricanes go thru about 6 weeks apart, both times the Condo lost power for 2 weeks...
Like I said, it’s a lifestyle decision and costs a lot of money but if you are into preparing for a SHTF or natural disaster it makes a lot of sense...
Our local paper is run by a guy that loves the green energy stuff. He advocated it for years. When he got to the point where he wanted to install it on his own house, he wrote articles on it. By the end, he didn’t install it.
He looked into the leasing and all the rules it involved. It would have ended up costing about 5X his actual electric bill, restricted how he could sell his house, and how repairs could be done to his house. He went into details of all the hidden costs. At the end, he was very disappointed over the entire ordeal. You could almost feel the mental pain he had over finding out how bad it was. He never got to see if the panels actually produced as the claims stated.
I suspect that if people bought the panels and other equipment outright things might have been different. Most of the solar in my area are on some type of a lease program.
Some people at work did lease solar panels and found they are generating much less electricity than they were told the panels would produce. I suspect that is likely due to the salesman setting unrealistic expectations rather than the technology or the installation of the panels not being optimal.
Lot’s of folks install solar panels and marine batteries on their RV’s
They can use the stored power at night
RV’s are set up to NOT USE a lot of power
RV’s are not homes with home style appliances!
Simplicity one of the finer things in life.
Why is it not easy to store electricity? What about some deep cycle batteries and some controls to restore and release it later? Doesn’t seem that hard.
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