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Yes take a look at: http://www.solarnetwork.net/v4...

Watt-seconds?! awesome. Also in terms of a DIY open-source solution take a look at this project: http://www.solarnetwork.net/developmentGuides.php built using Java on Linux and defines interfaces already implemented for the Cent-a-meter and a bunch of major solar charge controllers and grid-connect inverters. And listens to the weather, the grid electricity price...very extendible, enterprise level code based on OSGi.

an open source solar generation and home consumption logging project: http://www.solarnetwork.net/architecture.php this device might be helpful!

no need to burn a lot of coal to save some octane. what about this: http://www.solarnetwork.net/

good point. a DIY open-source solar project possibly suited to small offices: http://www.solarnetwork.net/

You might like this. It is the beginnings of an economic model for distributed solar power.

clearly Al Gore is wrong, if he's talking about Moore's Law - but he doesn't actually mention moore's law, right? he has no real idea of the pace of semiconductor innovation probably, it just sounds good to the general public as a comparison. BUT...we don't need THAT much of an improvement in PV for it to make a serious dent in terms of an energy source for homes. We don't need a doubling in power every 18 months - one doubling would be fine, two would be magical. the cheaper PV gets, the more people you see with it, the more people talk about it with their friends, the more people consider the investment. it is, without any doubt, already catching on. here is an open source project studying a type of distributed generation: http://www.solarnetwork.net/ and conservation is really what's needed.

in terms of measuring live solar data, there's an open source project at: http://www.solarnetwork.net/ that is collecting and charting live data from Outback, MorningStar and Xantrex devices. let me know if anyone has an interest in participating, or leave a note on the site. thanks!

http://www.solarnetwork.net/ in the "keep what you generate, share what you save model"

And when you do get your DIY kit up and running, check out this open-source project:

http://www.solarnetwork.net/dataPreview.php

thanks!

I'm trying to build this kind of a device as well - check out: http://www.solarnetwork.net/architecture.php I think you could measure a battery level of your battery array, and switch off the inverter. the redundant UPS switch would choose which AC input to power the loads from - the inverter first, the wall second. if the inverter comes back on line (batteries full) it would choose the inverter again as the power source - and under 24ms switch. the question is how do you switch a large DC current safely?

an open source project to produce solar power: http://www.solarnetwork.net/

I agree! check out http://www.solarnetwork.net/

http://www.solarnetwork.net/ is an app that hopes for this - but bigger and cheaper storage would help with the intermittent nature of these 2 power sources. does anyone think that affordable battery capacity could increases the way hard drive capacity did over the last 10 years? 1997 I think I was installing 8GB drives in a machine maybe? maybe even 4GB drives for laptops? Today it's easily 10 times that size on average.

Not sure what physical grid he's talking about. But there is a model of distributed micro generation where you leave the actual power at the location of generation, but ship the savings over the internet. it would mean that you would "undersize" the micro powerplants (so there's little excess to supply to the power grid, but at least they're cheaper powerplants to install) and always shave a fraction off a household's grid demand, in an asymmetric, intermittent fashion. that is: at one location, some days it's windy, some days it's not. but it is going to be windy...somewhere. but since you as the consumer didn't buy the hardware, it doesn't matter - you'd just pay an average bill. the company supplying the micro-power equipment on people's houses would need to play the averages and spread the units out geographically, hopefully cherrypicking the best locations as they grew the network. but the more people who joined up, the safer the bet would be. kind of like a global, realtime renewable-energy mutual fund for wind or solar. so for a household it's: keep what you generate, share what you save. what's most important is that on-grid consumers (many people) could start generating *part* of their energy bill using sustainable methods, without having to fork out a ton of cash for a full solar or wind solution (which is only helpful on some days anyway). (Although great kudos to those early adopters who can and do install a state-of-the-art system!) anyway the open source experiment based on solar and wind is happening next year, and a preview is here: http://www.solarnetwork.net/

Do you know if there any company that makes "small" ultra-flywheels that can hold the equivalent of 500-2000 Amp hours? as in, some portion of your daily home electricity usage? (well, in the U.S. anyway) these ultracapacitors do sound really cool - if they could be made cheaply. working on a solar idea: http://www.solarnetwork.net/ and hoping the future hurries up a little.