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Building my own solar power system

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Re: Building my own solar power system

#251

Post by horacemorace »

nullpoint420 wrote: post #164
Aurornis wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

Doesn’t that sort of rate make the payoff for a solar system install just a few years?

Re: Building my own solar power system

#252

Post by vhanda »

arwineap wrote: post #245
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…

Naive question, why run inverters? Wouldn't it be more efficient to run direct DC appliances? We have a building on our farm without power and it'd be ideal to be able to charge batteries and run lights at night It seems to me that we would have to upsize batteries in order to make up for the loss in converting to AC

Not who you're asking.

I really don't see why we're still using A/C inside our houses / apartments. I understand that the transmission loss is lower when sending A/C, so it makes sense, but then nearly every device in my house has their own AC to DC converter. Just have one AC-DC converter per building.

I'd like the future to just be USB-C sockets in my house. We have USB-C PD 3.1 which supports up to 48v, I imagine that would be good for all devices.

There are probably safety reasons why this future might be difficult.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#254

Post by sowbug »

breakds wrote: post #187

Wow, what a fantastic write-up—thanks for sharing this! I’m a San Jose homeowner (and PG&E sufferer) with a homelab that pulls over 1 kW, and I’ve been down the DIY solar rabbit hole for the past two weeks. Based on my research, I’m planning a roughly 9 kW Signature Solar setup: 20× 455 W Canadian Solar panels (~$173 ea) 1× GridBoss MID V2 (~$2 400) 1× FlexBoss 21 (~$2 400) 4× Eco-Worthy 48 V 100 Ah LiFePO₄ batteries…

Greenlancer will draw up code-compliant plans that you can submit to your local building permit agency, and they'll revise if anything needs it. It cost less than $400 last year. You've done enough research that they'll be able to easily take your project and turn it into something legal.

I recently did an Enphase system of a similar size to yours. It was fully DIY except for wiring the combiner and a roofing company to plug all the holes I drilled. Working with PG&E was truly an epic year-plus battle culminating in a CPUC complaint, but in the end it was really just a bunch of emails.

I don't have any installer recommendations, but it should be easy enough to find a local electrician, and I've found that they tend to know others in adjacent fields.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#255

Post by gosub100 »

gramie wrote: post #193
Aurornis wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In Quebec, I'm paying $0.069/kWh or USD $0.05/kWh (hydroelectric, so already green), so it's hard to make a case for solar.

> hydroelectric, so already green

Not so fast. Zero emissions, yeah. But they have damaged the habitat for some bird species.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#256

Post by supportengineer »

nullpoint420 wrote: post #164
Aurornis wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

I'm in the Bay Area - Off peak is 0.44 and peak is 0.48

Separately for "clean power", Off peak is 0.13 and peak is 0.17

So that's a combined 0.57 and 0.65

Re: Building my own solar power system

#257

Post by p_j_w »

gopalv wrote: post #176
thebiss wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your recovery plan in the event of a hurricane? I'm not fond of high electric rates, but in addition to generation those rates amortize and distribute the cost of storm recovery. A home or business with grid-tied solar pays interconnect fees for the option to get paid back a little for excess generation, and the option to decide to switch back to 100% grid power if a storm damages the on-site panels.

> those rates amortize and distribute the cost of storm recovery Not exactly when it is a farm out there away from a town. My experience is from a different era (90s) and a different kind of farm, but I spent a bunch of summers in one, which had power outages whenever the monsoons picked up. The trouble was that there was a single line feeding the farm from about 6km away, so if that went down a single farmowner comp…

>The trouble was that there was a single line feeding the farm from about 6km away, so if that went down a single farmowner complained - the rate payers who were in a denser urban area always got priority, because there were 600+ people who shared a transformer.

The urban rate payers also subsidize the rural ones, so it makes sense that they'd be front of the line.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#259

Post by w10-1 »

nullpoint420 wrote: post #164
Aurornis wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

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

My California rates are .50/63 off/on peak

"Jealous" is not the term I'd use...

Re: Building my own solar power system

#260

Post by bityard »

vhanda wrote: post #252
arwineap wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naive question, why run inverters? Wouldn't it be more efficient to run direct DC appliances? We have a building on our farm without power and it'd be ideal to be able to charge batteries and run lights at night It seems to me that we would have to upsize batteries in order to make up for the loss in converting to AC

Not who you're asking. I really don't see why we're still using A/C inside our houses / apartments. I understand that the transmission loss is lower when sending A/C, so it makes sense, but then nearly every device in my house has their own AC to DC converter. Just have one AC-DC converter per building. I'd like the future to just be USB-C sockets in my house. We have USB-C PD 3.1 which supports up to 48v, I imagine…

That would have been a good argument to make a decade or two ago but these days switch-mode power supplies are very efficient, and GaN ones even more so.

I have a small mess of 12-ish volt computer/network equipment in the corner of my office and looked into running it all off of one $40 high-amp power supply to eliminate all the wall warts and bricks. By the time I figured out power distribution and termination, buck/boost converters for the things that aren't 12V, it all seemed like a lot of work compared to just spending a couple hours tidying up the cabling and hiding the wall warts.

You can live in the future now and install power outlets with USB-PD built right in, although a quick glance suggests they top out at 65W. Fine for phones and tablets, might not keep a gaming laptop charged while in use.

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