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Building my own solar power system

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Re: Building my own solar power system

#211

Post by JKCalhoun »

alex-moon wrote: post #10

Having done some work around net zero policy I am increasingly convinced that this is the way forward, and indeed that this will be the way things are done normally maybe 10-20 years from now. The concept is called "distributed generation" and in UK each distribution network keeps an "embedded capacity register" which is basically all the distributed energy resources that are connected to the grid at distribution lev…

Love to see housing developments, rather than just adding an overbearing HOA, would instead consider neighborhood power grids (and perhaps a collective ISP while we're wishing for things).

Re: Building my own solar power system

#212

Post by bradfa »

markvdb wrote: post #81
apexalpha wrote: post #44

> I found three companies and gave them my PG&E usage for the past year (about 16,000 kwh) and got three quotes ranging from ~45 — 55k. Wow these rates are crazy. A 10kW setup costs you maybe €10.000 all-in here in the Netherlands. What's going on with these rates? Do they already include the ridiculous tarrifs? A new battery setup for a 20kWh LFP battery + 10 kW inverter + installation is €7000 now. And dropping, fa…

I see 7k€ for 12kWp, retail, for a diy ground install set for our summer house. That's before 4k€ in subsidies. No net metering, and feedin compensation is capped at 0.02€/kWh. But at 3k€ net, who cares? Even with the low electricity rates here, this makes sense. Even for a summer house!

In my town in NY state USA, they require a stamped engineering drawing for a ground mount system and it has to be rated for wind and snow load. Most of the ground mounts which come with stamped drawings have run about $1/W total cost which will meet my local needs for a set of panels in the 5kW to 20kW size range. This cost includes concrete, all support structure, and the racking that the panels attach to. This cost does not include panels, wiring, nor inverter.

If you're able to get a 12kW rated full system, including racking, panels, and inverter for the equivalent of $1/W that's an amazing deal! I wish prices here were like that.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#213

Post by jorblumesea »

Aurornis wrote: post #150
K0balt wrote: post #144

I’ve been running a solar microgrid on my coffee farm for the last 7years. We started with a few golf cart batteries and 4 panels, these days we’re powering 4 houses, 7 cabins, water extraction, treatment, and RO processing, campus-wide fiber network and switches, path lighting, security systems, and a small server rack. We’re running 6 inverters on our primary system in a three phase configuration, 35kw of panels an…

> It’s strange to me that people in rural areas pay for electricity. It makes no economic sense, at least here in the Caribbean. This comment was very confusing until I read the second sentence. Electricity prices in the Caribbean are very high, and I can only imagine that rural areas are even worse. Where I’m at in the United States a typical electric rate is around $0.10/kWh. Paying that nominal amount and avoiding…

$0.10 kwh is low for most of the US. Can I guess.... Western state or PNW?

Re: Building my own solar power system

#214

Post by [deleted] »

Loughla wrote: post #166
nullpoint420 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m jealous. Where I live in California the off peak rate is $0.32/kWh and peak rates are $0.58/kWh.

Rural area power co-op member here - flat rate 24/7 for residential is .13/kWh. Businesses/farms can get down to .10/kWh if they qualify. They proposed to update it to .15 so they could trim trees around the lines a little better, but it got denied by the co-op members as unnecessary.

[deleted]

Re: Building my own solar power system

#215

Post by teamonkey »

kragen wrote: post #138
teamonkey wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws of physics: maximum power that can be generated is proportional to the swept area of the blades. So it scales exponentially as blade length increases.

The swept area of the blades scales quadratically with the blade length, not exponentially. Exponential scaling is f ( x ) = knˣ , not f ( x ) = kxⁿ . The difference between quadratic scaling and exponential scaling is earth-shatteringly enormous; this is not some minor detail. With quadratic scaling, if f(1) = 1 and f(2) = 4, then f(10) = 100. With exponential scaling, if f(1) = 1 and f(2) = 4, then f(10) = 262144,…

Unfortunately I can no longer edit the post, but of course you’re right. Max generated power is proportional to (blade length)^2, therefore quadratic, not exponential.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#216

Post by epistasis »

eldaisfish wrote: post #172
epistasis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out that the biggest cost of California energy is not generation, it's distribution and transmission. Highly distributed energy lessens the peak demands on the T&D system, which means that the T&D system can be smaller, which greatly reduces the fixed cost of T&D. Utility scale solar requires greatly expanding transmission lines, to the extent that lack of transmission is the biggest barrier to adding solar…

you're making a big assumption here - that the demand peak coincides with the distributed generation peak. This is generally not true.

In California, the subject of my comment, it is true.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#217

Post by el_benhameen »

K0balt wrote: post #157
jedahan wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love a write up or links to resources for water extraction and treatment if you’d oblige.

I don’t have much in the way of links, but I can give you an overview. We have a fair bit of vertical scale in the terrain here. We extract our water from a shallow well in a natural crevasse between ridges. It is made of concrete blocks stacked in a circle, filled with gravel and pinned with heavy rebar. The above ground part is finished in a regular fashion, with the blocks filled with concrete and a concrete cap.…

This is cool as hell. Sounds like you keep pretty busy, but if you ever had the inclination to write more about it or post some pictures somewhere, I for one would love to see.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#218

Post by thegrim33 »

It's kind of telling/ironic that the author gripes (whether rightfully or wrongly) about PG&E wanting more return on investment due to their risk of doing business in California, but when the author decides to build their own power system to not deal with PG&E, literally almost every paragraph related to their planning/setup contains a mention of some different California/city regulation that the author had to meet or else it's illegal for them to build their own power system. To the point where they had to pay a professional to help them meet all the regulations.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#219

Post by SoftTalker »

GratiaTerra wrote: post #210

I installed a similar EG4 inverter and battery system and had a similar experience. The big problem I ran into was that EG4 inverters are NOT compatible with my state's power grid (Hawaii) but because I had so much power, it turned out I never needed to connect to the power grid but I am loosing out on selling power. (Check with your local power company before buying!). Another problem I had was that a week after ins…

How many days can the truck power the house, and what's the longest stretch of overcast days you get (in Hawaii, I am gussing you get at least some sun almost every day).

Re: Building my own solar power system

#220

Post by thedanbob »

darkwater wrote: post #197
Aurornis wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It grew organically so there was never a huge cost Really, Ahh, the accounting style of hobby projects. I’m very familiar with this because I do it, too. Nothing ever feels expensive if you just never add it all up and value your time at $0 because it’s fun.

> and value your time at $0 because it’s fun. I don't know if you were being ironic or not but... that's an absolute truth. Our free time doesn't have a fixed rate. It doesn't have a rate at all . What you do during free time can be basically seen as either: * a chore you don't like to do * something you like to do. Any task can swing between those states depending on your mood. If installing your own solar plant or…

Agreed. I get asked to repair electronics for people quite often and I charge drastically differently for labor depending on whether I will enjoy the job or not.
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