Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Revelation! Our solar installations send the electricity we generate back to the grid. We can then buy that electricity to power our houses, right? So basically we are paying, out of pocket (by buying and installing a solar set up on our roofs) to supplement the electricity supply of the power

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

The term in the generator industry for utility power is “infinite buss”. -D > On Jul 14, 2022, at 4:55 PM, Curt Raymond via Mercedes > wrote: > > "3. If you want to charge your EV with solar, your EV has to be in the same > place as the solar during daylight hours, or you need extra

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Oh and I forgot, the 2023 Bolt is cheaper than the 2022: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chevy-slashes-prices-of-2023-bolt-making-it-the-cheapest-ev-in-america-210129059.html -Curt On Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 07:01:32 PM EDT, mitch--- via Mercedes wrote: On 2022-07-14 18:47, Curt Raymond

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

"3. If you want to charge your EV with solar, your EV has to be in the same place as the solar during daylight hours, or you need extra batteries." Use the grid as a battery, run the meter backwards during the day while the sun is shining, draw from the grid in the evening while charging the

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

On 2022-07-14 18:47, Curt Raymond via Mercedes wrote: Grant, I feel like your arguments are not in good faith. 1. A Tesla model 3 starts at $45k, the Chevy bolt at less than $30k. Your car price is high by 50%. 2. Your PV price is 50% higher than Dimitri's overinflated price. 3. Batteries are

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Grant, I feel like your arguments are not in good faith. 1. A Tesla model 3 starts at $45k, the Chevy bolt at less than $30k. Your car price is high by 50%. 2. Your PV price is 50% higher than Dimitri's overinflated price. 3. Batteries are not required and nobody with any sense wants them. So

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

A home-solar-charged EV might work very well for me, as I don't go out at all most days. A reasonably-sized panel, over a period of days, could be expected to supply a decent amount of energy. So long as the EV had the range I might need on any given day, it would all work. If it was a little

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

I have to question the simple math on that equation. 1. EV purchase... $60,000 plus 2. Solar installation to home to charge EV... another $45,000 +- [estimate]. 3. Battery storage system to contain solar energy captured another $40,000. Puts you into an investment of $105,000 [factored over

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

TMI was THE watershed event in my industry. Back in the day all of the design was there, but the operators of that era weren’t diligent enough or clever enough to use it all correctly. There was little to no regulation. Distilled down, there were not many “thou shalts” in those days and the

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

If you watch the Netflix documentary on 3 Mile Island, one of the really scary bits is when they talk about how they weren’t doing any monitoring around the plant, so when there was a release of radioactive material into the atmosphere they had no idea of how much or where it went. To this day

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

I worked at a McDonalds many years ago, and they had a system which took the waste heat from the ice makers and drink chillers and used it to preheat water for the water heater. This also took load off of the building A/C. On Thu, Jul 14, 2022, at 12:37 PM, mitch--- via Mercedes wrote: > On

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Chernobyl definitely, they did not inform the operating engineers about the design defects in the reactor, because Soviet design was flawless. 3 Mile Island I want to say was initiated by a problem with maintenance of a valve or something that wasn't handled properly or didn't have the proper

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

It was, with the best episode being the third one, I thought. The guy who was the whistleblower was awesome. Talk about someone who stuck to their guns. -D On Jul 14, 2022, at 9:38 AM, Kaleb Striplin via Mercedes mailto:mercedes@okiebenz.com>> wrote: Yes, that was a good series. Sent from

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Those were as 'accidental' as what would happen if you set out a bucket full of loaded pistols at a playground. But a lot more difficult to prevent, as big money and politics, as well as ignorance and fear, were involved. -- Jim ___ http://www.okiebenz.com

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Yes, that was a good series. Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 14, 2022, at 11:33 AM, dan penoff.com via Mercedes > wrote: > > Probably better that they didn’t, considering that they couldn’t do it > without the contractors cutting corners. Look at France, they’ve got a > boatload of the

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

On 2022-07-14 12:30, Jim Cathey via Mercedes wrote: You really want gravy out of your power generation system, find a way to use the waste heat. Water cooled PV panels, preheating domestic hot water... ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

In all cases accidents that could have been/should have been avoided. -Curt On Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 12:30:04 PM EDT, Randy Bennell via Mercedes wrote: 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima . . . On 14/07/2022 11:25 AM, Kaleb Striplin via Mercedes wrote: > Wow, too bad they never

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Probably better that they didn’t, considering that they couldn’t do it without the contractors cutting corners. Look at France, they’ve got a boatload of the things operating for many decades without issues. Watch episode three of this NetFlix documentary on Three Mile Island:

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

> 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima . . . All bad designs, sited/built/run by idiots. NONE of those 'accidents' had any legitimate excuse for happening. -- Jim ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Those were all related to corruption I believe. I’m sure Az bob can fill us in on how safe it is now days. Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 14, 2022, at 11:30 AM, Randy Bennell via Mercedes > wrote: > > 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima . . . > > >> On 14/07/2022 11:25 AM, Kaleb Striplin

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

You really want gravy out of your power generation system, find a way to use the waste heat. -- Jim ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima . . . On 14/07/2022 11:25 AM, Kaleb Striplin via Mercedes wrote: Wow, too bad they never built more of those. Might have helped with our energy problems. Sent from my iPhone On Jul 14, 2022, at 11:24 AM, Jim Cathey wrote:  Is that a lot? That's 50%

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

On 14/07/2022 11:23 AM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes wrote: Is that a lot? That's 50% more than the Grand Coulee Dam puts out. I would call that a lot. I bet it's noticeably smaller, too! -- Jim And hotter too. ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Wow, too bad they never built more of those. Might have helped with our energy problems. Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 14, 2022, at 11:24 AM, Jim Cathey wrote: > >  >> >> Is that a lot? > > That's 50% more than the Grand Coulee Dam puts out. I would call that a lot. > I bet it's

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

> Is that a lot? That's 50% more than the Grand Coulee Dam puts out. I would call that a lot. I bet it's noticeably smaller, too! -- Jim ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Is that a lot? Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 14, 2022, at 11:20 AM, Bob Rentfro via Mercedes > wrote: > > My old nuke plant generates about 33.7 million megawatt hours annually. > > AZBob > > Sent from my iPad > >> On Jul 14, 2022, at 9:05 AM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes >> wrote: >> >> 

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

My old nuke plant generates about 33.7 million megawatt hours annually. AZBob Sent from my iPad > On Jul 14, 2022, at 9:05 AM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes > wrote: > >  >> >> $0.05kwh is really, really low. We pay $0.10kwh which is apparently just >> below average:

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

> $0.05kwh is really, really low. We pay $0.10kwh which is apparently just > below average: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ > Fun Facts: The Grand Coulee Dam on Washington's Columbia River is the largest power plant by generation capacity in the

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

$0.05kwh is really, really low. We pay $0.10kwh which is apparently just below average: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ That isn't the total cost of electricity. Where I live anyway, our cost of transmission etc is based on usage so total cost would be higher. Solar is usually based on

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Looks similar, with the power supply rates in place but transmission costs not included. That’s fair. -D > On Jul 14, 2022, at 8:40 AM, mitch--- via Mercedes > wrote: > > On 2022-07-14 11:27, dan penoff.com via Mercedes wrote: >> That’s a concern if it was for the Florida house. As I

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

On 2022-07-14 11:35, Jim Cathey via Mercedes wrote: At $1/W, and $0.055/kWH, it'd take me 1000/0.055 sunny hours to pay off. Roughly 10 years, assuming 5 hours of sun per day, averaged year-round. But maybe my napkin is leaky. I think the map had me at close to 4w/day/rated watt, annual

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

On 2022-07-14 11:27, dan penoff.com via Mercedes wrote: That’s a concern if it was for the Florida house. As I mentioned earlier, we came very close to having net metering legislated away, which would have completely eliminated any payback to speak of. Fortunately, AZ is pretty level headed

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

At $1/W, and $0.055/kWH, it'd take me 1000/0.055 sunny hours to pay off. Roughly 10 years, assuming 5 hours of sun per day, averaged year-round. But maybe my napkin is leaky. -- Jim ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

That’s a concern if it was for the Florida house. As I mentioned earlier, we came very close to having net metering legislated away, which would have completely eliminated any payback to speak of. Fortunately, AZ is pretty level headed about solar from a legislative standpoint. -D > On Jul

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

You also have to consider if the price of electricity is going to stay stable. It seems unlikely to me that the price of all other types of energy would continue to rise but electricity would not. Maine saw electricity prices nearly double last year. Of course their power was priced

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Yeah unless maybe it's more expensive to get the panels mounted in a hurricane-safe way. You don't want big sheets of glass flying around in 90mph winds. On Wed, Jul 13, 2022, at 1:02 PM, Kaleb Striplin via Mercedes wrote: > You would think solar would be a huge deal in FL. > > Sent from my

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

I am suspicious of the payback equation as well, but that's also very dependent on government actions targeted at changing behaviors, e.g. such as extra tarrifs on "traditional" power or more new credits for solar. Not sure I'd want to predict the future on that. If you had an EV and could

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

The specified inverter on Dmitri's quote is worth about $2700 online, and is meant to be used with individual panel optimizers (about $75-100 per panel) so that shading one panel does not affect the rest of the array. So there is considerable cost in the electronics, and it's a premium

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Remember that we're talking mid-coast Maine it's a hot housing market for the up and coming of the state. I expect this solar outfit is mostly used to taking money off of people who don't know how to reset their circuit breakers... -Curt On Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 10:18:07 AM EDT, dan

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

On 2022-07-14 10:04, Dimitri Seretakis via Mercedes wrote: Perhaps but still completely unaffordable and I’m not an impoverished chump. Look at the attached quotes. These quotes do not include any batteries. $33k for an 11kW system seems steep. Also probably bigger than necessary. Anyway,

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Batteries are for chumps, stop talking about batteries. I started to run the math on payback but then got to thinking, how much power do you actually use? The small system they spec'd, even with your trees, is expected to produce around 532KWh a month. That's +75% what Angie and I use in all

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

That’s one of the reasons to use or form a co-op. With a co-op you have the power of multiple purchasers and you actively solicit the best service provider to get the best deal from the most capable contractor. Without shopping this stuff you’re bound to get reamed. It would be interesting to

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Add batteries and the quote jumps to 40-50K and there is no payback in sight. In addition to not being impoverished, I’m also not an idiot. The greenie weenies can shove all their fake green elitist crap where the sun don’t shine. Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 14, 2022, at 10:11 AM, Dimitri

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Sent it again with higher resolution. Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 14, 2022, at 10:10 AM, Dimitri Seretakis wrote: > >  > > > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Jul 14, 2022, at 10:09 AM, Curt Raymond wrote: >> >> Almost illegibly blurry. >> >> Looks like about $2/w. Either they're taking

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Almost illegibly blurry. Looks like about $2/w. Either they're taking a helluva markup on the panels or their labor charge is huge. The people across the street from me have a similarly sized system, 3 guys installed it over 2 days in a snowstorm... You could easily do all the panel

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

The price of panels has come down a bunch in the last 10 years. 20 years ago you were looking at $2/w, now you're under $1/w, in some cases way under. -Curt On Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 09:09:54 AM EDT, Dimitri Seretakis via Mercedes wrote: And if you don’t use what you send back to the

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

And if you don’t use what you send back to the grid within one year, Central Maine Power just keeps it, further increasing payback time. It’s a sham on all fronts apparently. One can argue that the indefinite payback time is unimportant because you are doing the right thing for the environment

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

yes we had solar assessment 20 years ago & payback time was beyond our natural lives also heard on fire scanner that solar panels prevented firefighters to vent a fire through the roof. On Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 4:20 PM Dimitri Seretakis via Mercedes < mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > I had a solar

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

THE cheapest, most reliable, and most efficient way to provide emergency heat is via stored fuel. Gas, oil, wood. Everything else can't even be seen in the rear-view mirror, it's so far inferior in all respects. For emergency heating in colder climes, WHILE providing electricity for

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

Sounds like you got either a dumb company or a fly-by night. The battery backup to run a heat pump through the night is going to be enormous and you're only going to use it occasionally. The best use of solar is to backfeed into the grid, basically run your electric meter backwards while the

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

They told me that I needed battery backup to run heat pumps for the purpose of heating my garage. What I was essentially trying to do was heat my garage with heat pumps for very cheap. That didn’t seem to be a workable option with or without batteries due to the trees. The greenie weenies

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

That’s one of my concerns, as my lot is heavily treed and I’m not about to take any of them down. That being said, my 3 car garage, which has a large roof exposure, is not as nearly surrounded by trees, so it might be the better spot for panels as far as maximizing exposure to the sun. Do

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

I had a solar contractor come over and take a look at my place in Maine. The cheapest system with battery back up which would have met my needs would have cost 40K. He also told me that even though the panels would be facing south, I would never recoup my investment due to a few trees which

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

It all depends on what you're trying to do. I quite like the 8Bit Guy's solution: https://youtu.be/RhTDneoDUdc He got snockered in the Texas cold snap last year, heat went out and froze his pipes, big damaged when the water came back on. We've recently been having daily power blips at around

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

If I was worried about resilience, as we are in Florida, I would go with a standby generator rather than a battery bank. Probably more expensive, but far less maintenance and a much longer useful life. -D > On Jul 13, 2022, at 10:13 AM, Buggered Benzmail via Mercedes > wrote: > > A buddy

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

A buddy just put solar on their house. I don’t know who they had do it but he was happy with the process. They were waiting on a Tesla battery for some storm resilience last we talked about it --FT Sent from iFōn > On Jul 13, 2022, at 12:55 PM, dan penoff.com via Mercedes > wrote: > > I’ve

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

One of the worst states for solar. Mainly because the legislature is in bed with the electric utilities. It’s been so bad there that they’ve even tried to pass an amendment to the state constitution that all but cripples any attempt at point of use (consumer) solar. They just tried to pass a

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

I'd want some sort of off-grid functionality, even if it's just a 15A 110v outlet that lets you plug an extension cord into the inverter to run the frige when the grid goes down. ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives

Re: [MBZ] OT - Solar Power @ Home

You would think solar would be a huge deal in FL. Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 13, 2022, at 11:55 AM, dan penoff.com via Mercedes > wrote: > > I’ve got a person coming over on Friday from our solar co-op to do a site > survey and put together a proposal for doing solar at the Flagstaff