Posted on 04/24/2018 9:41:55 AM PDT by rktman
Duh!
Never take economic advice from a liberal.
The article is right but not because of residential solar and wind generators, it is because of commercial generators in the large energy companies. These companies have been blackmailed by the Federal Government in several countries to produce a percentage of their total production with “renewable” power such as wind and solar.
Solar and much more so wind energy is much more expensive than fossil fuel produced energy. No, you can’t efficiently store it and if you use batteries the batteries are expensive and have a relatively short life before they need to be replaced.
When looking at a wind farm or PV farm that produce a few Mega Watts compare it to a steam plant that produces thousands of Mega Watts, or Gigawatts if you prefer. The wind and solar comprise many acres of land with thousands of solar cells and perhaps a couple hundred wind generators. The coal or other fossil fuel plant may have a couple generators and require a lot less people to maintain.
Residential users can perhaps use batteries although it is still not cheap and won’t pay for itself until a decade has gone by.
I have such a system, I didn’t do it for the cost savings, I did it for reliability. In Kentucky we have tornadoes and ice storms. Both tear down power lines, but I don’t even notice. Someone has to tell me the power is out because my system automatically switches to battery on loss of grid, my lights and computers don’t even flicker. During the day my solar power is pumped into the battery and my inverters take out what I need and push the rest to the grid where they hold it for me until for some reason I cannot provide my own. I have a lot of battery. The battery is a 48V system but like your car battery is 12V it actually rides a little higher than the 48V nominal. I usually have a non charging resting voltage of about 49.8 - 50V. When my voltage is higher than 52V I ship it off to the grid. My battery is ALWAYS topped off. I have a 16KW generator that runs on natural gas. That was a total waste of money but I got it so that in case of a long winter storm I could re-charge the batteries. It would have to be a really long storm. But worse than that in a SHTF situation where will I get NG?
I average 40KW usage per day, most of that is the air conditioning and heat pump along with the electric dryer. If we go for a month and a half without sun, I’ll start getting worried but I don’t think that will happen.
If anyone wants to know the specs:
11.7KW PV on roof
16KW inverter capacity
3, 48V 1100AH batteries (20 hour rate) (72, 2V cells)
my 1100AH batteries will go a lot longer than 1100 amp hours at a slower rate. At 40KW per day that works out to 1.6AH per hour which on charts dramatically extends the battery life. In the spring and fall without A/C or Heat Pump the life is extended even more. In the middle of hot summer or very cold winter I could easily go to 60KW per day but since I make over 60KW per day on the roof it isn’t a real problem. (11.7KW PV times 5 hours full sun = 58.5KW) While there are only 5 hours here of full sun I start making more than I use around 9 or 10 in the morning and stop around 6 at evening on average, so I actually make more than the 58.5 or 5 hours worth. Unfortunately there are days when I make very little, rainy days still make a little but not as much as I use. Overcast days still produce much more than you would think but it still is less than 11.7KW more like 8 or 9KW
The whole process has been a great learning experience but really irks me when I see someone like the article above that makes so many simple mistakes.
Nobody ever mentioned it to me as an issue that might need replacement. The system is approaching 4 years old and no issues so far.
Figures environuts and leftist never get anything correct.
Based on what I read on the Internet(it must be true) your invertor will need to be replaced in 10-15 years. I am sure there is a FReeper that would know more than I.
I do not believe this is practical on an industrial scale. Are they really going to build a battery bank big enough to power a city overnight?
Well, yeah. The sun is always shining somewhere!
How long will your invertor last? What will it cost to replace?
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This is one of the first questions I asked before buying anything. The inverter is a solid state electronic device, it is mostly a set of silicon switching devices, they have no MTBF, that means they could last more than your lifetime. They are however repairable, and zero MTBF is only if properly sized. That is why I have two 8KW units that share load over 5KW.
It would be wise to run them in a cool place like a basement as they have a tendency to run hot under full load. Mine have greatly over sized ball bearing fans but I listen to them often to make sure they aren’t failing. The SCR’s can be easily replace and are not expensive compared to the total Inverter.
Going solar makes you consider all your loads. The first thing I did was get rid of all lighting that wasn’t LED. That was a pretty drastic change to our usage.
While I had a natural gas boiler we only use it when temperatures get pretty cold, generally below freezing, we purchased an efficient heatpump to use most of the time, it doubles as the AC plant too.
This is fairly new for us and are considering getting a heat pump hot water heater, it’s looking good at this point for doing that.
To me, it has nothing to do with global warming, climate change, or whatever it's called this week, and everything to do with stewardship, and ROE. If having some solar panels is going to make me money in the long run, then why not do it?
The problem with this piece is that electricity prices have NOT been going up. In the cheap-gas era following the election of Ronald Reagan, the average residential KWh was 7.2 cents, or about 12.5 cents after adjusting for inflation.
Today, after getting as cheap as 9.2 cents in 2002, it’s still only 10.4 cents
The true price differential was masked by taxpayer subsidies.
The average temperature here is 54 degrees. That’s why Mammoth Cave is a good place to visit in this state on a cold day; the temperature in the cave never changes.
Now you got it.
If you live over the miles and miles and miles of the interconnecting cave passages, a probe or a shaft into that passage is ideal for the heatpump to access warm 54 air in the winter and cool 54 air in the summer
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