511–520 of 590 posts
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Decreasing perhaps, but it's being offset by natural gas, which is yet another hydrocarbon and comes with its own slew of hazards and problems.
Methane is less harmful than coal by far.
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> the full cost of the system you install will be added to your local property tax valuation Why is that? And are you absolutely certain it's true? I also live in Michigan, and I've never heard of this. I've replaced major appliances before without it impacting my property tax assessment -- including appliances that have cost more than the Tesla Battery pack and been inspected+verified by the city (such as a new 96%…
A property would be assessed at a lower value if it didn't have any HVAC appliances installed in it. Since most properties start with such appliances, replacing them or upgrading them to similar, or even more efficient models, is likely considered a nominal effect on property value, i.e. an act of sustaining the properties existing value. A real battery backup system, assuming one didn't already exist on the property…
Can someone please share what a single family home can do with 10kWh? If I pay for this do I have to plug this thing into my own electrical grid to keep charging it?
According to http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3 the average U.S. home uses 10,908 kWh/year, so this would be enough to keep the home running at full load for about 8.4 hours. Not bad. If you took steps to reduce consumption (avoiding using heavy demand appliances like electric ovens, etc.) it would last a lot longer. With a little care, you could probably run for a couple of days on one of these, particu…
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But, I'm also not going to put the battery pack(s) "inside" my house (e.g. utility/laundry room). Why not? The whole point to making it wall-mounted is that it won't take up any substantial amount of space. A utility/laundry room seems like exactly the logical place that you would want to put it.
Fire hazard
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As I've learned more about heat pumps I've been wondering why we all use air-source cooling for central A/C. We are cooling our condensers with hot summer time air when the temperature is much lower just four feet under the yard. The energy requirements would drop way down by cooling the condenser with a water ground loop. Ground loops are seen as expensive for installation, but I don't understand why. It's just plas…
I very briefly looked into this. It seems to be the same reason that simple and obvious things like solar water heating systems are so expensive in the US, but not elsewhere: Lack of awareness & low demand but few installers who target the eco/luxury niche product at a high price. These systems usually get installed only in high-end homes.
Rheem, the big water heater manufacturer, sells solar water heating systems. That's progress; previous solar-only sellers were kind of flaky. (See "hot2o.com", which disappeared.) Solar water heating systems have a reputation for leaking. Buying something that is supposed to last 10-20 years from a small company is a problem.
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> power during cheaper off-peak times Pretty sure my rate is the same all the time. I wonder what percentage of electricity customers have variable rate pricing.
NYC has it now, but I think as generation/fuel prices rise (in the long-term) and utilities get slightly more sophisticated, we're going to see more on-demand pricing as utilities seek to apply the same price changes they pay generators for peak-demand supply to consumers. In a situation where many people were doing load shifting, I think this could even benefit those who aren't doing load shifting themselves (by red…
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A property would be assessed at a lower value if it didn't have any HVAC appliances installed in it. Since most properties start with such appliances, replacing them or upgrading them to similar, or even more efficient models, is likely considered a nominal effect on property value, i.e. an act of sustaining the properties existing value. A real battery backup system, assuming one didn't already exist on the property…
This is also standard with other parts of a house. For example if you upgrade your kitchen to high-end finishings (granite countertops, etc.) that it didn't have before, that increases the value of the house. Not necessarily by the amount of the purchase/installation price, though.
I believe the only time that an upgrade could possibly increase the taxable value of your house is if the township/county knows about it (I.e., you got a permit to install it).
I also live in Michigan, but haven't researched renewable energy sources vs taxable value. I'm surprised to hear the gp say they had an increase.
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Electric bills in Hawaii can top $1000/month.
IIRC, that's because of the silly way (given Hawaii's abundant solar and geothermal resources) in which most electricity is generated in Hawaii: burning imported fossil fuels. If the local renewables were fully exploited, I can't think of a reason for costs to be so high.
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> But lithium is still not cheap. Lithium is extremely cheap. The cost of the Lithium has practically no impact on the cost of the batteries. Most of the cost of batteries is work. This venture makes sense because as lithium batteries are used, they lose capacity, and thus their specific energy gets worse. At this point, they are no longer very useful for cars, yet still can be used for other things. As Tesla recover…
Recycling this way batteries that are not good for cars but fine for less demanding applications would be really smart. Is there any indication that they actually do this?