On Wed, 3 Dec 2014 22:14:32 +0000 (UTC) Curt Raymond via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
> The price of solar power has come down by a factor of 3 in the last 10 > years to about $1.50/watt if you buy panels from Amazon. If it > continues at that rate in another 10 years we'll all be saying things > like "You'd be an idiot NOT to have solar power installed on your > house." But that still begs the question, "Where is the electricity going to come from at night?" > its not like grid electricity has been getting cheaper. It certainly has not been getting cheaper. > Solar hot water is technically an "alternative energy" source and is > very competitive. Payback usually considered about 3 years even in the > frozen north. Solar hot water represents a different storage problem than electricity. It can be interrupted by clouds and night without the heat going instantly away. With large enough local storage, solar hot water and even direct solar heat can function with inputs during the day and have heat available 24 hours/day > I'm going to investigate it for our house as soon as we get a new roof > and heating/hot water system. I ran the math the other day and with > $2.89/gal heating fuel its cheaper to heat with oil than electricity. > Last winter at $0.11/kwh and $3.50/gal heating fuel it was cheaper to > use an electric space heater. Both are still cheaper than $250/cord > firewood but not cheaper than the 1/2 cord I got for free last summer. > When we were at camp in November some of the sports left phones on the > charger overnight and combined with the inverter ran down the battery > in Dad's Jeep to the point it wouldn't start in the morning. In the > spring I'm going to order a 100w solar panel with charge controller > which will run about $190 on Amazon, pair it with a big marine battery > like I used to use to preheat my 240D and we'll have enough power for > our needs. The system is expandable up to 4 panels should we want more > capacity down the road. -Curt That sounds like a good plan. Craig _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
