Thread: solar power for home?

Originally Posted by Ralph1Malph

Nice setup.


Why does everything now days have to do with being green

I grew up in a rural community where everyone was "green" some 20 - 30 years ago
Remember when farms had windmills? Ours pumped the water, but many ran small battery banks to power radio comms stations, electric fences etc.
We also had a thunder box, zero water use. Tank water, short showers. We composted most of our waste, no recycle bins then, owned and killed our own chooks - no packaging and significantly, our solar hot water, like many in the district, was lots of meters of black poly pipe on the shed and house roof which was stored in a 'normal' hot water system tank courtesy of some towny who had broken it!

Don't get me wrong, I love solar but does anyone know the $ cost and environmental footprint to make and run a square foot of panel? I can guess.

Not meaning to hijack the thread but I believe from scientists that I work with, that solar would be even better if coupled with wind generation. Is that possible? with a system like that?

BTW, for the record, I am a nuclear energy supporter, but thats for another thread in the soap box section

Ralph

Its ok Ralph1Malph It realy interested me i never realised how easy it was to do i kept hearing that it doesnt work but its powering everything but the toaster ,its good to share technoledgy,he's got a wind generator on order to backup the batteries on overcast rainy days.


Greg

Originally Posted by 51jay

Caravan and car will probably get too expensive to run,
How about a nice live aboard cruising yacht?? that's the way we hope to go

Have you seen the cost of insurance on a yacht,
especially for international travel...

You get nothing cheap anymore...

Originally Posted by matbor

Have you seen the cost of insurance on a yacht,
especially for international travel...

You get nothing cheap anymore...

Very few international cruisers are insured - the cost is prohibitive. Yacht upkeep is very expensive, not helped by the fact that everybody thinks if you have a yacht you have an endless supply of money.

John

Originally Posted by googe

No inspection or approvals its not running through the grid if thats what you meen john?Its was $25,000 to get the power to his place.What sort of system have you got?


Greg

All fixed wiring operating over forty volts must legally be installed according to Australian standards and signed off by a licenced electrician.

Fourteen years ago it was going to cost $30,000 to get power, and the cost of solar power was about the same. I have two identical systems each with eight 80w panels on a tracker (Which has stopped working, the manufacturer no longer exists and cannot get parts) each with a 24v battery bank of 720AH cells, feeding a 2kva sine wave inverter. Either system can run the house at a pinch but normally the load is split between the two, with the major load on one bing the fridge and the freezer on the other.

I have recently added a wind generator, and expect to add another one soon. These complement the solar power as it is often windy when there is no sun.

The biggest running expense is battery replacement, around $12,000 with a life on average of about 12 years. I have had two panels fail, one apparently due to a manufacturing fault, the other due to lightning.

A second large expense is the fuel for the back up generator - more than about three days without sun and you need to charge the batteries.

John

I love the thought of solar. I would be looking at connecting to the grid though. With rough calculations on the sytstem required for our needs (100%) it would take 20yrs to payback at current electricity costs. I am planning to talk to some one in the near future and hope that I have calculated things wrong. Wind generation to me looks on the surface a lot less expensive, but in my area probably not that effective. Again I need to do some more research into that.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Very few international cruisers are insured - the cost is prohibitive. Yacht upkeep is very expensive, not helped by the fact that everybody thinks if you have a yacht you have an endless supply of money.

John

Yeah true, but when it's a brand new 3/4 million $ boat they did it, the insurance I think is more for the pirate attacks etc.



John, If you had the chance again, would you go solar ??

Originally Posted by matbor

Yeah true, but when it's a brand new 3/4 million $ boat they did it, the insurance I think is more for the pirate attacks etc.

I don't think it is so much pirate attacks, although these are common in a few places, but rather that the cost of recovery/repair in out of the way places is so unpredictable. Most loss/damage in cruising yachts is due to being wrecked after the anchor dragged, so a worthwhile insurance policy is to go double weight on the bower anchor and 50% up on the anchor chain.

Originally Posted by matbor

John, If you had the chance again, would you go solar ??

Probably - gives you a nice warm glow when all your neighbours are running round like chooks with their heads off because the power has been out for over twelve hours and the freezer (full) is starting to defrost!

The downside is that you have to be very careful about power usage - for example, my recent decision that I cannot afford to get a TV set bigger than 51cm.

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

The downside is that you have to be very careful about power usage - for example, my recent decision that I cannot afford to get a TV set bigger than 51cm.

John

Pretty interesting John. I just went and did a little tally of our entertainment system. Our TV, 250w. Our amp 270w (that was a surprise). Our PVR 30w (this seems optimistic to me), plus our dvd recorder that it all works though. I reckon we'd be nudging 600w when everything was going. Add to that our 4 halogen lights and we'd be nudging 1kw. Heaven forbid we use the AC as well...