Are you using solar to power your home?

[ChrisL]

Most people cannot or will not put up over $40,000 up front to buy solar panels. You also have to think about landlords who rent out their apartments or homes. They are not going to put up $40,000 either.

 

[Muhammed]

I hear a lot of liberals praising solar power, saying it is reliable and affordable and they are wondering why EVERYONE isn't flocking to use it. I am just wondering how many of them are actually using it?

Do you use solar power to power your home? Yes or no.

Partially.

For example, the swimming pool. I put this cover on it when it is not in use. Essentially it is just glorified bubble wrap, but it works.

 

[Moonglow]

It has it's application like when living off the grid...

As far as I'm concerned, it's application is that it's free energy. That's good enough for me.

Well it's free after you pay for it..

 

[Moonglow]

We’re building a house. We looked at it, but the trade off was about the same as the utility. So we didn’t.

But it is becoming cost competitive.

Especially when you can put in exercise bikes that will generate enough electricity for a light bulb..But it helps you stay in shape..

 

[usmbguest5318]

It has it's application like when living off the grid...

As far as I'm concerned, it's application is that it's free energy. That's good enough for me.

Well it's free after you pay for it..

Actually, it's free once the system pays for itself. Providing a means by which one can obtain a rough idea of how long that takes is the very point of the graphic I included in the post to which you responded, post 14.

That was done expressly for you "show me" people. LOL

 

[Mr Natural]

Too many trees and too much shade for solar.

 

[ozro]

I use solar power, I use wind power. I am off grid so when there is no wind or sun I charge my batteries with a gasoline powered generator. All my neighbors that have power have generators, gas, diesel or propane. Most have solar, about half have wind.

If one is tied to the grid it becomes much more problematic to use alternatives.

Alternatives are not cheap to buy, and require regular maintenance. Most folks I know that live off grid use lead acid batteries for storage. Reliable, available and reasonably priced. They are not "green".

Someday someone will produce a cheap reliable and better battery.

 

[Eaglewings]

I hear a lot of liberals praising solar power, saying it is reliable and affordable and they are wondering why EVERYONE isn't flocking to use it. I am just wondering how many of them are actually using it?

Do you use solar power to power your home? Yes or no.

I get direct sunlight in California.. so yes it ended up paying for itself.

 

[skookerasbil]

I live in Suffolk County on Long Island.........one of the wealthiest counties in the nation. Almost no solar paneled roofs installed here............DESPITE a NYS government $8,000 tax credit. Talk about laughable........you drive through neighborhoods here and go by 25 homes and you see one solar roof............the next 25 homes, maybe none.........the next 25 homes maybe 2. Know what they call that? Friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinge!! As in........nobody is caring.

But the k00ks can go right on taking bows on solar energy.............

 

[whitehall]

A better way to phrase it is "do you rely on solar power". I have a couple of solar lights on the ground and a solar powered fence charger so I could answer honestly that I am using solar power but It wouldn't be honest in the long run. The elites who rely on solar power probably never worry about the banks of toxic chemical filled batteries that have to be replaced. They probably have some illegal immigrant who picks them up and dumps them in an illegal landfill so their hands and their conscience never gets dirty.

 

[Manonthestreet]

I might have more faith in solar if the small solar powered things I've bought actually worked at all or for an extended period of time. 2 solar battery chargers, worthless. Two solar flashlights...one lasted, one did not. Friend spent 8 grand for high end panels..worthless.

 

[ChrisL]

A better way to phrase it is "do you rely on solar power". I have a couple of solar lights on the ground and a solar powered fence charger so I could answer honestly that I am using solar power but It wouldn't be honest in the long run. The elites who rely on solar power probably never worry about the banks of toxic chemical filled batteries that have to be replaced. They probably have some illegal immigrant who picks them up and dumps them in an illegal landfill so their hands and their conscience never gets dirty.

Perhaps. I thought the way I worded it was okay though. They should be using it to power their homes as an alternative energy source if they answer "yes." If they are using it in ADDITION to other energy sources then they are using it as a supplemental power source and are not really using it to power their homes.

 

[ChrisL]

So, it would not be worth it for the average person in the northeast (where we do NOT have sunshine all the time and can go a whole week with no sunshine) to invest $40,000 in solar panels when they are going to have to keep using regular electricity and pay for that as well.

All of these things are things that you need to consider when trying to push people towards using an alternative energy source.

 

[Billy_Bob]

So, it would not be worth it for the average person in the northeast (where we do NOT have sunshine all the time and can go a whole week with no sunshine) to invest $40,000 in solar panels when they are going to have to keep using regular electricity and pay for that as well.

All of these things are things that you need to consider when trying to push people towards using an alternative energy source.

I live out west on the great divide (6500 feet above sea level). I use a hybrid system that consists of three 1000 watt wind turbines and 30,000 watts of PV. I have 30,000 amp hours of battery storage and I still have to use the grid.

The system is high maintenance and if let go will fail inside one year. Its not only the initial start up cost but the continuing cost of keeping the system in good operating condition. I also have a physics degree so I can do everything to keep this system operational. I also live in a 5-6 wind zone so my wind generators function about 16 hours a day.

Not to many people can do what I do and inside a city it cant happen..

 

[ChrisL]

So, it would not be worth it for the average person in the northeast (where we do NOT have sunshine all the time and can go a whole week with no sunshine) to invest $40,000 in solar panels when they are going to have to keep using regular electricity and pay for that as well.

All of these things are things that you need to consider when trying to push people towards using an alternative energy source.

I live out west on the great divide (6500 feet above sea level). I use a hybrid system that consists of three 1000 watt wind turbines and 30,000 watts of PV. I have 30,000 amp hours of battery storage and I still have to use the grid.

The system is high maintenance and if let go will fail inside one year. Its not only the initial start up cost but the continuing cost of keeping the system in good operating condition. I also have a physics degree so I can do everything to keep this system operational. I also live in a 5-6 wind zone so my wind generators function about 16 hours a day.

Not to many people can do what I do and inside a city it cant happen..

Very interesting. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

in honor of your return, after being gone for more than a year and a half, ChrisL, I am necromancing this old thread of yours.

A few months after the last posting in this thread, I took a temp gig with an electrical contractor, that involved helping to build a solar power system on the roof of a Home Depot. I got to move on from that to several similar projects, and eventually got hired on directly by the company, and am now finally a real electrician, whose moved on to grander projects than the solar ones that got me in. (But alas, am currently out of action, due to having broken my leg four months ago.)

So, anyway, in the time since this thread was last active, I've had a good bit of hands-on learning about commercial-scale solar power systems. There's definitely a lot of expense involved in building such a system.

The efficiency of solar cells currently ranges from around 20% up to a top range of around 40%, although this continues to improve. The rest of the sunlight that strikes the panel is wasted as heat. More efficient photovoltaic cells have been discovered (up to 43% efficient - see How efficient is solar energy? - but these are still in relatively new and are expensive to manufacture).

These figures seem high to me. All the panels I worked with were the same size, with an area of about 1.94 square meters. The Earth received about a thousand watts of solar energy per square meter. The panels I used on my first project, in May of 2017, had a rated capacity of 300 watts. That comes out to 154 watts/m², or about 15.4% efficiency. The last solar project I worked on, briefly, between much grander construction projects, in about April or May of 2019, the panels were up to about 370 watts, which would be 190 watts/m², or about 19% efficiency.

If 20% to 43% efficient solar panels existed when you started this thread, they must have been experimental prototypes, not yet in production or common use even as late as my last solar project.

Perhaps. I thought the way I worded it was okay though. They should be using it to power their homes as an alternative energy source if they answer "yes." If they are using it in ADDITION to other energy sources then they are using it as a supplemental power source and are not really using it to power their homes.

Most solar power systems do not provide enough power to meet the needs of the building that gets power from them. Keep i mind, that there is considered to be, on average, a thousand watts per square meter of the Earth's surface, but that's only during the “solar window”, which is defined as being from three hours before solar noon to three hours after—six hours per day total. And obviously, that varies a great deal, according to latitude, season, and weather. If you're depending entirely on solar power, then you need to collect, not just enough during the solar window to meet your immediate needs, but enough excess to be stored in batteries, to be used during the rest of the day, when you're not getting much sunlight, or none at all; and you need to have enough excess to carry you through days of bad weather.

Generally, that means you need a solar power system that covers a lot more land than what the building itself takes up.

The system that Billy_Bob describes probably consists of about a hundred standard 300-watt 1.94m² panels, covering an area of about 2000 square feet. In saying that he has “30,000 watts of PV”, I don't know if he means to say that that's how much power he actually gets from his system, at its peak, or whether that's just what the panels are rated for. Chances are, the most power he ever gets is considerably less that the nominal rating of the panels. The rated capacity reflects an ideal condition, rarely, if ever, encountered in actual use.

 

[ChrisL]

in honor of your return, after being gone for more than a year and a half, ChrisL, I am necromancing this old thread of yours.

A few months after the last posting in this thread, I took a temp gig with an electrical contractor, that involved helping to build a solar power system on the roof of a Home Depot. I got to move on from that to several similar projects, and eventually got hired on directly by the company, and am now finally a real electrician, whose moved on to grander projects than the solar ones that got me in. (But alas, am currently out of action, due to having broken my leg four months ago.)

So, anyway, in the time since this thread was last active, I've had a good bit of hands-on learning about commercial-scale solar power systems. There's definitely a lot of expense involved in building such a system.

The efficiency of solar cells currently ranges from around 20% up to a top range of around 40%, although this continues to improve. The rest of the sunlight that strikes the panel is wasted as heat. More efficient photovoltaic cells have been discovered (up to 43% efficient - see How efficient is solar energy? - but these are still in relatively new and are expensive to manufacture).

These figures seem high to me. All the panels I worked with were the same size, with an area of about 1.94 square meters. The Earth received about a thousand watts of solar energy per square meter. The panels I used on my first project, in May of 2017, had a rated capacity of 300 watts. That comes out to 154 watts/m², or about 15.4% efficiency. The last solar project I worked on, briefly, between much grander construction projects, in about April or May of 2019, the panels were up to about 370 watts, which would be 190 watts/m², or about 19% efficiency.

If 20% to 43% efficient solar panels existed when you started this thread, they must have been experimental prototypes, not yet in production or common use even as late as my last solar project.

Perhaps. I thought the way I worded it was okay though. They should be using it to power their homes as an alternative energy source if they answer "yes." If they are using it in ADDITION to other energy sources then they are using it as a supplemental power source and are not really using it to power their homes.

Most solar power systems do not provide enough power to meet the needs of the building that gets power from them. Keep i mind, that there is considered to be, on average, a thousand watts per square meter of the Earth's surface, but that's only during the “solar window”, which is defined as being from three hours before solar noon to three hours after—six hours per day total. And obviously, that varies a great deal, according to latitude, season, and weather. If you're depending entirely on solar power, then you need to collect, not just enough during the solar window to meet your immediate needs, but enough excess to be stored in batteries, to be used during the rest of the day, when you're not getting much sunlight, or none at all; and you need to have enough excess to carry you through days of bad weather.

Generally, that means you need a solar power system that covers a lot more land than what the building itself takes up.

The system that Billy_Bob describes probably consists of about a hundred standard 300-watt 1.94m² panels, covering an area of about 2000 square feet. In saying that he has “30,000 watts of PV”, I don't know if he means to say that that's how much power he actually gets from his system, at its peak, or whether that's just what the panels are rated for. Chances are, the most power he ever gets is considerably less that the nominal rating of the panels. The rated capacity reflects an ideal condition, rarely, if ever, encountered in actual use.

Interesting. So you have to have a little "solar panel field" in your backyard.

 

[Likkmee]

My buddy around the lake uses it exclusively at his hotel.Nary a problem. Pool pumps, brewery fridgeration and all. I opted for southwest wind power here. I'm grid tied with the mills(2) and my shop is hard wired grid only for the machinery.
Solar works fine even in the rainforest if your close enough to the equator. solar was $$$$$$ when I moved here so I went wind.

 

[ChrisL]

My buddy around the lake uses it exclusively at his hotel.Nary a problem. Pool pumps, brewery fridgeration and all. I opted for southwest wind power here. I'm grid tied with the mills(2) and my shop is hard wired grid only for the machinery.
Solar works fine even in the rainforest if your close enough to the equator. solar was $$$$$$ when I moved here so I went wind.

Too bad that it is MUCH too expensive for the average person, especially depending on where you live and how much sunlight you get.

 

[ChrisL]

What about the batteries? Let's talk about that. I hear they are really bad for the environment, so how are they disposing of them?