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Building my own solar power system

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Re: Building my own solar power system

#271

Post by bityard »

ty6853 wrote: post #147
pjc50 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy stuff. Ten years ago I paid £5.5k GBP for a 3.7kW system. Since then I would expect the labour component to have gone up but the panels to have come down. I guess the skilled labour shortage in the US is having a very real effect on prices. Under the subsidy rules for feed-in-tariffs at the time, that had to be done with an MCS approved installer. All work in England would require an approved "Part P" signoff a…

There's not a shortage of skilled labor so much in US as there is a shortage of people able to go through the racketeering process of getting a contractor license, which also requires being a half-slave to someone with a license for a number of years. It's straight up mercantilist style shake-down to benefit prior entrants. It is easier in US to become an electrical engineer than it is to become a guy who adds a new…

I always found solar farm engineering intensely interesting and looked seriously into becoming an electrician as a second career as something to "retire into" once I got sick of working in tech. And like you say, it turns out it's not something you can just make a lateral move into, no matter how quickly you can learn and how hard you're willing to study. "Becoming an electrician" is a young person's game.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#272

Post by jorblumesea »

brewtide wrote: post #229
entropicdrifter wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over here in PA I pay $0.095, so nine and a half cents, per KWh for electric supply, but then I pay that same amount for transmission, so it's functionally 19 cents per KWh, but maybe the person you're replying to isn't counting transmission fees?

Similar here in Maine under CMP. Something like 12.5 cents/Kwh, but with the delivery aspect factored in it's basically 28 cents/Kwh. I always assume when people on here are talking their 'rates', that they are usually NOT factoring in the delivery fee unless stated. But maybe some places are just really THAT cheap.

why would you not include the transmission? residential customers just pay one bill and that's including the lines, maintenance.

In western states such as Oregon, Washington, it is actually 0.12KWH including transmission.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#273

Post by butshouldyou »

looofooo0 wrote: post #194
kragen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, having more power isn't a problem for solar; unlike coal or nuclear, solar can curtail production instantly and without suffering wear and tear. The problem is that in the UK in the winter there is an order of magnitude less power from PV than in the summer.

magnitude less power from PV than in the summer magnitude more power from PV than in the winter That is a tautology.

However, the implied meaning is significant. This site is full of engineers who, if they're good, invest a lot of time into understanding the implied meaning of what's said.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#274

Post by [deleted] »

thegrim33 wrote: post #218

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 o…

[deleted]

Re: Building my own solar power system

#275

Post by butshouldyou »

calgoo wrote: post #47
looofooo0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well problem in the UK is that in summer there is like a magnitude more power from PV then in winter.

I personally feel there should be more allowance for small personal wind generators in sub-urban areas. That would offset a bit at least in winter for places like the UK. Not sure what the actual laws are, but I can assume councils wont be too happy about someone putting one up on their home.

Every reply is talking about how wind doesn't make sense, how its uneconomical, or how its a nuisance. I can offer an opposing take:

My father has been using wind power in a semi-suburban area in the Uk for close to 20 years now. They have a large wind turbine now but had a much smaller one for a long time. Outside of cookie-cutter estates, there's sufficient tree and building cover that its barely visible to the neighbors. It provides most of their home power.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#276

Post by aplummer »

gosub100 wrote: post #255
gramie wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Feral cats kill 2 billion birds a year, FYI the green energy kills birds thing is a right wing talking point designed to distract and delay. All human activity kills some nominal number of birds

Re: Building my own solar power system

#277

Post by breakds »

sowbug wrote: post #254
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…

Thanks so much for sharing your story – hearing about your DIY Enphase install (and epic PG&E battle!) really gives me confidence. And the information you shared is extremely helpful for first-time DIYers like me.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#279

Post by ellisv »

I've interested in solar and batteries but unfortunately the return would be too long for us if we hired a contractor and I'm not confident in my own skills to pull it off correctly.

Mostly I want an easy whole home battery just for some arbitrage. Our rate plan has a 4 hour peak period of $0.27/kwh vs $0.14/kwh off peak. Of course the peak time is when we actually want to use a lot of energy running our AC and other appliances.

Unfortunately I haven't found any DIY stand alone battery systems that offer the simple scheduling I need since most seem to be only backup systems.

Re: Building my own solar power system

#280

Post by epistasis »

eldaisfish wrote: post #227
epistasis wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because residential solar is eating up the daytime peak, thus the duck curve. Residential solar is already saving the state tons of money on T&D costs. (And becuase the Wikipedia for duck curve shows a day in October rather than a summer day where the peak is much higher, yes the annual peak does coincide with when solar is outputting a ton of power.)

CalISO's charts disagree with you. Gross peak demand is in the late evening, well after the solar peak. Solar noon in western California is around 13:00. https://www.caiso.com/documents/gross-and-net-load-peaks-fac...

You misunderstand the charts, these do not take into account residential solar. The reason the peak is getting pushed into the evening is because residential solar doesn't even show up on the chart.

Look at the difference between gross and net: this is utility scale shaving off the peak. This is what is happening with residential solar too, which is not shown.

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