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Solar Power Eliminates Utility Bills in U.S. Home
skyhawker writes "Yahoo! News is running an article about a New Jersey home that uses solar power to provide 100% of its energy needs, including fuel for the owner's hydrogen fuel cell-powered automobile. From the article: 'Strizki runs the 3,000-square-foot house with electricity generated by a 1,000-square-foot roof full of photovoltaic cells on a nearby building, an electrolyzer that uses the solar power to generate hydrogen from water, and a number of hydrogen tanks that store the gas until it is needed by the fuel cell. In the summer, the solar panels generate 60 percent more electricity than the super-insulated house needs. The excess is stored in the form of hydrogen which is used in the winter -- when the solar panels can't meet all the domestic demand -- to make electricity in the fuel cell.'"
How MY neighbors would feel if I loaded up their roof with solar cells...
He eliminated his electric bill, but couldn't eliminate the fact that he is in New Jersey.
Don't sever your connection. If you have any surplus energy, the supplier will pay you for it.
nothing
Solar power is nice since it does not pollute when in use and generating power. However, mass production of solar cells is very taxing for the environment. So I can't help but wondering which is worse: 1000 sq. ft. (which is, accounting for chip packaging and other overhead, still a HUGE silicon area) or heating the old fashioned way (e.g. with gas, which is less polluting than say coal, and using decent insulation) and using a car that is not a fuel-hungry SUV...
People are whining about how it costs a half-million dollars. It is so expensive because of low volume. We need early adopters like this guy to start the ball rolling. Once more people buy into this form of energy production, the cheaper it will become.
Why bother.
For those who don't want to bother with the expense of buying and installing your own PV system, there's Renu. With a $500 deposit, they'll design and install an grid-tied PV system for you and charge you only for what it produces at the current rate, which you can lock in for 5 or 25 years. And if you've got a 25 year contract they'll move the system when you move.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Of course it will be expensive for the early adopters. But as solar panels mature, and more energy independence options become available, it will be much more economically feasible. The first people to do this don't do it for the monetary savings (or if they do, they're wrong), they do it to make a statement that it can be done.
Read the whole article, please people. . . .
FTA: "While the cost may deter all but wealthy environmentalists from converting their homes, Strizki and his associates stress the project is designed to be replicated and that the price tag on the prototype is a lot higher than imitators would pay. Now that first-time costs of research and design have been met, the price would be about $100,000, Strizki said."
But then again it is more sensational for you to use the R&D cost of $500,000 right?
Self proclaimed wannabe geek. You know how it is. Most of us who read this stuff probably fit in that category.
Yeah, at $0.5M US, it's a steep price to pay just to be free of utility bills, or just to be "green". But please don't forget that it still has value.
;-)
This early adopter is proving that you *can* be self-sufficient using solar energy. That's a big deal. And, if a people -- and more importantly, organizations -- start seeing solar energy as having potential, more people will fund research into improving the technology and making it cheaper. At least, that's the hope.
Early adopters help drive the price of technology down, so don't be so quick to judge this guy's choice -- he's helping to make solar power more available to the masses, in his own small way.
Besides, in being the first, he'll probably make back his $500K in promotional considerations and/or the lecture circuit.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Sure it's not cost effective. Prototypes and one-offs rarely are.
As a proof-of-concept, though, it's highly successful. This guy is demonstrating, not just hand-waving, that one can be entirely energy self-sufficient through solar power, even with the crappy efficiency of current mass produced photovoltaic panels.
Find a way to increase the efficiency and/or drop the price of the panels (and H2 storage system, fuel cells, etc) and it starts to look really attractive. More so if you want to build somewhere way off-grid. And without some of the attendant problems of a windmill.
The next time somebody argues that you can't live off-grid just on solar power, you can point to this guy. Then the argument comes down to cost-effectiveness, which depends on a lot of other factors.
-- Alastair
I think the reason is the one you suggest lower down in your post - The cost.
I should really improve my insulation, but don't. Why? Because there's no payback in natural gas savings.
I could install solar heat, but I don't. Why? No payback.
I could buy a hybrid car. I don't. Why? No payback
...so I do the things I can afford: Recycle, fix dripping taps, take the bus when I can. I realize there are often higher-purpose reasons than cost savings, but many people simply can't *afford* to be green.
Hi all,
My wife and I have been building a green, eco-friendly home in the heart of oil-city Canada - Calgary, Alberta. We have been blogging about our experiences at ramsayhome.com. We have had quite the experience so far...we had to fire our first contractor, dismantle some of the work, continue with a new contractor, etc. Everything is back on-track though and we will be posting some new pictures this weekend.
Move to a neighborhood without a draconian HOA.
And use a secure version of Windows, an honest attorney, or a Hooters franchise that doesn't debase women.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Yes, I'm a green and I act like an entrepeneur, not a terroist. From the article:
"You need to make the financing within reach of real people," Wentworth said.
That part is done as you'll see at my home page: http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar
You can get solar for no more than you're paying now for electricity, no installation fee, no permit hassles, and no rate increases for up to 25 years.
I love what Mr. Strizki has done but I wish he'd heard of this opportunity first.
I agree. At this time, if I put $100,000 (the quoted production cost for the system) into the bank, it would generate roughly 4,700 (risk free). It would still be generating it as the solar system broke down in 25 years.
I was very excited to read that prices are dropping 7% per year however. That would imply the production cost would be roughly $50,000 in 6 years. $50,000 in six years is very unlikely to generate enough interest income to cover gasoline and electricity (my electric runs about $1800 a year and gas about $1200 a year).
I've been tracking this for the last six years and every year, solar looks promising but doesnt' make sense yet without government grants. But it is getting there and it won't be long before it starts to put pressure on the price of oil.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
A big tank of pure hydrogen gas in your basement, eh? That's great! I don't see what could possibly go wrong with that.
In fact, you should celebrate a job well done. Have a cigar!
/run
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Most solar panels are covered under warranty for 80% of their maximum rated power output for 25 years, and the panels themselves are generally expected to last around 40 years, though efficency does decline over time.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
New solar cells developed with nano-technology at the University of Toronto (http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin6/050110-832.asp ) convert light from the blue-yellow end of the spectrun down to the near-infrared (current cells work only in the bluie-yellow end of the visible spectrum). This could increase the conversion efficiency by a factor of 5. Additionally, this technology lends itself to be able to literally print the cells on a plastic substrate, significantly lowering manufacturing costs.
Currently, a typical home solar setup produces about 4.5 KW (max) and costs about US $25,000 to install. Payback takes about 20 years. If this new technology could change both numbers by a conservative factor of say, 3, you'd be looking at 13.5 KW (max) systems going for about US $8,500, and payback times of 5 years or so. Then, you'd have something.
Look Out Above!
It's crucial to realize that it's not important what the average homeowner pays per year for energy. What's important is how many homeowners pay more than $4000 per year for energy.
many people would balk at the $100,000/25 year price tag of this solar home. that's 4000 per year for yout energy needs. Right now people pay about 1000 to 1500 per year on gasoline for their cars and another 1000+ to heat their homes. THe article says that people pay $1500 fo their energy needs but I suspect that might be per person not per home, since the figure is too low.
Since it's certain that energy costs are going to rise faster than inflation it seems like locking in $4000 per year cost would be terrific. So the real issue is capitalizing this up front, and working to make it even more affordable.
Moreover, if everyone did this then my tax bill could remove some of the kilobucks I spend on military, homeland security, oil industry subsidy, and heath and environment costs for pollution.
this guy is using solar to generate hydrogen so he can store the energy for winter time and run his car. That storage and conversion to transportation fuels is perhaps more significant than the efficiency.
It seems very likely to me that nanotechnology break thoughs are the kind of thing likely to at least double or quadruple the efficiency of going from solar to hydrogen, and probably have a similar effect on the conversion of hydrogen back to locomotion or electricity. So I could see the cost of this dropping in a couple decades. Does that mean we should wait for that? Id' say no. just like the pharma industry, the huge profits have also bought lots of medical research.
If the world power consumption stays on its current growth rate, and if anything it's poised to accelerate, then by 2040 we will need to double the worlds energy production. To put this in perspective, if you were doing this via nuclear power alone it would mean building a gigawatt plant every day for the next 30 years. There is not enough water to do it with biofuels unless there is a breakthrough. One can do it with Shale oil, but the carbon load will create a crisis. So while shale oil may clamp the price of oil, carbon sequestration will up the cost. It's very easy to imagine that world wide competition for energy will either lead to enormous prices, environmental crisis or war, unless steps are taken to create a variable marketbasket of more environmental and cost effective renewable energy sources. Oil will always be part of the mix but it can't be the only source.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
If the solar system breaks down in 25 years, I don't think I'll be worrying about money in the bank...
Xaotik Designs
What is the Energy Payback for PV?
Energy Payback of Roof Mounted Photovoltaic Cells
>>the reason so few people are green
>I should really improve my insulation, but don't. Why? Because there's no payback in natural gas savings.
>...so I do the things I can afford: Recycle, fix dripping taps, take the bus when I can. I realize there are often higher-purpose reasons than cost savings, but many people simply can't *afford* to be green.
I spent less than $700 and one full day of labor for me and my wife on a weekend on insulation on my house Fall of '05. The savings on the utility bill paid for the cost of the insulation (including the price of renting the blower to blow it in and buying a decent ladder) in less than a year.
I also replaced all the windows in my home with triple pane Low-E argon filled windows earlier this year. Yeah that ran me just shy of $5000 installed. I financed it through the same company I bought the windows from 1 year same as cash. I expect the energy savings to pay for the windows in roughly 7 years. The new windows also look a lot better and came with a lifetime warranty against breakage that is transferable if I sell my house. The added value to my home will almost pay for the windows by itself if I sell the house.
I agree that solar panels, hybrid cars, even projects like the windows I did can have a high up front cost. A lot of people cannot afford that cost up front, but simple projects like insulation, sealing around doors better, etc. are cheap and really will start having benefits that add up pretty quickly.
I'd plan rather to install a flywheel. It can be buried, eliminating issues with flywheels ripping loose from their mountings and rolling over the landscape, demolishing all in their path.
Flywheels are a bad idea for vehicles due to mass and inertia issues; even hydrogen gas is better in terms of safety since it wants to go up so very badly and get out of the picture. But in a stationary application where you can bury them and let the earth handle safety, they are a very good plan. On top of that they can be made with a steel frame, assembled on-site, and then filled with concrete, then balanced by attaching weights or removing concrete so they are easy to ship (and the concrete could be padded out with local rock, decreasing shipping weight.)
But most importantly, depending on what you make them out of (concrete not being the best example I admit) flywheels can be clean and green. They last pretty much forever, with the caveat that your bearings must occasionally be replaced, and they are relatively small devices so the environmental impact is minimized. Making and recycling batteries, these are both nasty processes involving lots of toxic chemicals.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The interior is heated with a single wood-stove. It also uses deep-well windows fixed to aim at the Sun during the Winter months, using glass treated with a one-way filter for IR light. Even in the depths of Winter, you find yourself stripping down to tank-tops and tee shirts at almost no fuel expenditure. This is the most impressive use of insulation I've ever heard of. I don't know any of the R-values or other engineering quantities of the various materials.
Insulation. It isn't sexy, but when applied properly, it's the single cheapest and most effective way to keep a home warm in the winter.
By contrast, I was renting a 100 year-old house with terrible insulation; even with a new roof and lots of high-tech fiberglass pink, we were paying stupid heating bills which were basically a quarter of our monthly rent. Sounds like your situation.
As an experiment, I lined one of the exterior walls, (on the inside), with tin foil which I covered over with cloth, leaving about an inch of space between the cloth and the foil. The idea is that the foil reflects the IR back into the room. (Like an empty chip bag; when you hold your hand inside and do not touch the plastic/foil then your hand quickly starts to heat up.) This in combination with the facts that heat rises, and that the room was on the top floor, the results were that it was the coziest room in the whole building; always at least 5 to 10 degrees warmer than anywhere else in the house under normal heating conditions.
When I finally get around to building my own place, I'll be investing heavily the smart use of lots of insulation. Buying lots of heating fuel or electricity to heat should be totally unnecessary given the technology we currently possess.
-FL
Solar water heating is very inexpensive and environmentally friendly (because no solar cells are actually needed, just something to soak up the sun's heat and a heat exchanger). You generally want to get a closed system heat exchanger, with a separate fluid loop, and not actually loop the water heater's water through the solar unit.
Battery backup is *NOT* inexpensive, nor is it environmentally friendly. Only lead-acid batteries have the kind of capacity required and they need maintainance and space and have relatively short lifespans (5-10 years typically). They require a separate charging system and a transfer switch. In short... if you have a good connection to the utility, putting together a battery system is not worth the cost.
The cheapest most environmentally sensitive solar electric system are standard solar panels and a direct grid-tie inverter. Not the shingles or any of the other experimental junk... they just don't have the life span or the efficiency. Zero maintainance, very long life. This is what I have on my roof.
In terms of (almost) zeroing out your electricity bill with net-meetering... well, it is fairly inexpensive if you have a newer home with energey efficient appliances. My system is somewhat bigger then a standard home needs, 2.5KW, and I can't zero out my electricity bill because I have a machine room. Note however that no solar system can even come close to the electricity requirements of a home Air Conditioner. If you need air conditioning you will never be able to zero-out your electricity bill with a standard 'home' solar electric system.
Solar Cell Manufacturing has gotten a lot better over the years. The environmental cost for manufacturing a panel is something like 6 months now vs the 30 year+ lifespan of the panel. Direct grid-tie inverters take up very little space and require no maintainance whatsoever. Generally you want to use a high voltage inverter, where the solar panels are linked in series instead of in parallel. Such inverters are a lot less bulky then LV systems (and the wiring is a lot less bulky too because it is high-voltage and low-current instead of low-voltage and high-current). My recommendation is a Sunny Boy direct-tie inverter. Never use an inverter which requires a fan.
Some states, in particularly California, have extremely good rebate programs. The Federal tax credit is crap.
Neighbors of mine have tried the shingles, and have tried flexible solar mats on their roofs, with terrible results.
http://apollo.backplane.com/Solar/
I could buy a hybrid car. I don't. Why? No payback
People play the no payback card all the time but few stop to do the math.
I bought a used Prius (1 year old) for $18,000. My Wife bought a minivan at at the same time for the same price. The math for the no payback was for new vehicles for those who drove fewer than 20K miles/year and gas was $1.50/gallon.
I had the forsite to know the resale value whould hold up on the Prius (have fun, look up the resale of a 02 Caravan and a 02 Prius). I am not singing the depreciation blues. I can get most of my money back out today if I wanted. With gas at near $3.00 a gallon and I'm reaching 100K miles, I am seeing my payback now. Some cars need a transmission replacement for nearly $4K after 100K miles. The $5K battery replacement everyone was afraid of is now a $3600 dollar item, It is cheaper than a transmission replacement. It is possible to replace a failed 7.2V cell instead of all 36 in the entire pack.
As a bonus, my Prius doubles as a replacement source of electric power while traveling or during outages. I have installed a 1KW inverter. While not driving the power not used for the heater/AC, lights, defroster, power steering, air brake compressor, etc, is easly diverted without overloading the electrical system. It is the most fuel effecient electrical generator I have ever used. The car side of things is 20KW. When parked the engine shuts off instead of running constantly. It starts up and runs a few minutes then shuts back down to repeat in about 20 minutes. This is perfect for running the freezer in an outage. I don't have the engine running all the time when it isn't needed.
Add a few CF lights, the laptop, and the TV to the mix and a tank of gas lasts for days unlike a portable generator. I have run 3 days this way and used less than a quarter tank of gas. (13 gal tank)
The truth shall set you free!
Funny, I've had two sets of batteries operating concurrently for 16 years and they are as good as the day I acquired them. That's 24 x 2 volt, 660 amp-hour flooded lead-acid cells.
I maintain them carefully, which is probably why I've never had to replace them, whereas others who think that batteries will look after themselves, seem to be replacing theirs every few years, at great expense.
I'm tired of hearing from all these people WITH NO EXPERIENCE WITH PV SYSTEMS telling the world how inadequate such systems are when I've been off-grid for years with no problems ever.
Then there are the guys who buy a PV panel or two, rustle up a few old car batteries, and think they can live utility bill-free forever...then whine like little girls when they don't get the performance they expected and there system craps out in a short time.
It's like any geek project: you have to plan and maintain.
Calculate the size of your PV array, then add another 50% capacity to cover unforseen loads (which always appear). Those who tell you that the juice dries up at the first sight of a cloud are talking out their asses, as usual. You will still get plenty of amps from a decent array on even the cloudiest of days. The only time your PV panel power quits is at night. If in doubt, add a wind generator to your system.
Obtain the heaviest cable you can. I've seen big systems wired together with ridiculously thin stuff, just to save a few bucks. Result? Burning smells, dim lights, and dashed hopes. And do a nice tidy job with all cable runs and connections. Duct tape and blutak just doesn't cut it. Work like a pro or don't waste your time.
Get a decent regulator and inverter. Over-estimate you loads, so that the unit can cope with peaks you otherwise wouldn't have anticipated. And get the type you can download live data from, as the difference it makes in your ability to manage your system is immense. It's hard manage a thing when you have no clue what it's doing. Extra money, yes, but either spend the cash or stick to paying your utility, the Piss-Or-Get-Off-The-Pot plan.
Acquire the correct battery type. Most people seem to want sealed lead-acid or gel types, which is fine, but they are blackboxware, and almost impossible to maintain, since you don't really know what's happening inside them. I've seen many of those type die brand-new. Why? There's no way of knowing. These types may be "cleaner" to have around the home (no electrolyte top-ups), but in the long term they actually cost a lot more, since you have to replace them fairly often, and a random selection of cells are guaranteed to fail prematurely at awkward moments.
I prefer flooded lead-acid cells. No, you can't use cheap car or truck batteries and have a usable system. It'll be fucked within months, or even weeks. And "Marine deep-cycle" batteries are not much better. You have to use the right type, and as far as I'm concerned that's the (usually) 2 volt flooded lead-acid standby/telecommunication variety. Heavy as hell, very expensive to buy new, but will last most people's lifetime, literally, if properly maintained, which means you have to forget all that shit your friend's cousin's brother told you, and learn something. It's not difficult or time-consuming, but the results are very expensive and inconvenient for the retards to lazy or stupid to take the time to do so.
A working off-grid system is perfectly feasible, a fact which many of us with working off-grid systems can and will attest to. Yes, it takes work, time, and money, and probably cost you less to stay on-grid, but if you don't care about that, or have no choice, then it's easily doable, so ignore the fuckwads claiming it isn't, because chances-are good THEY HAVE NO EXPERIENCE AT ALL WITH THE STUFF THEY'RE BLATHERING ON ABOUT.