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Running Your Electric Meter Backwards
kog777 writes to note a story in International Business Times about "net metering," or generating your own power without disconnecting from the grid. Forty states have laws allowing individuals to do this, and many of them offer subsidies and tax breaks for people who do. From the article: "When the sun shines bright on their home in New York's Hudson Valley, John and Anna Bagnall live out a homeowner's fantasy. Their electricity meter runs backward. Solar panels on their barn roof can often provide enough for all their electricity needs. Sometimes — and this is the best part — their solar setup actually pushes power back into the system."
With a Ferarri when you stick it in reverse.
Task Mangler
Err, this has been mentioned countless times. I really fail to see how this story adds anything. Yes, you can put power back into the grid and get paid. This is not new, and this is hardly a little known fact.
I live in Southern California, and one side of my roof faces south, so I should be a prime candidate for this. However, I have some concerns about actually doing it. For one thing, when we bought the house, 10 years ago, the sellers were just in the process of replacing the roof, and while they were at it, they removed the solar water heater for the pool. If you figure we have 15 years left on this roof, I have to wonder whether an expensive photovoltaic system will end up going the same way as the solar water heater. Another question in my mind is the uncertainties related to the craziness California has been seeing in electric rates, as well as uncertainties about when is the right time to buy photovoltaics, given that the technology is advancing rapidly. And then there are all the other things that might be easier and more practical than installing solar panels. I replaced a bunch of incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents last month. I've never been able to get power management to work properly on my Ubuntu box. One of the big electricity hogs in our house is the pool pump, and there's not much you can do about that; if you don't pump long enough on the pool every day, it turns green.
Find free books.
Forty states have laws allowing individuals to do this, and many of them offer subsidies and tax breaks for people who do.
Tell that to the boy scout who tried to build a reactor in his backyard.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
It takes more than legislation and solar panels to put energy back into the grid. You also need the right gear. It is expensive at the moment, but it wouldn't be if everyone was buying it.
When talking abt non-conventional sources of energy, solar power technology is yet become economic. I would rather install a wind mill on my roof instead a solar plates.
while back here in third world countries we use other non-conventional ways to save on energy bills like
Bribe the Electricity Engineer or
Tap electricity directly from pole without any meter
Eclipse PDE and Me
This is more widespread than you realize. Aussies have been doing it for a couple of years now. Just the thing for a desert country where it seldom rains:
- cold-beer-is-on-the-house/2004/12/06/1102182229401 .html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Where-the-icy
Back in 2003 I decided the time was right to go green. At the time I was paying about $2900 a year for 15,500 KwH, and I figured I could make the money back in a reasonable number of years. After many discussions with local solar installers I picked one and in December 2003 I had 48 panels, each 60 inches by 30 inches, installed on my roof and three inverters on the side of the house to convert the DC output to standard household AC.
The panels generate approximately 7.5kW AC (8.8kW DC). The total cost was $65,000 but with a grant from the State of California and State tax credits, the total cost was reduced to just over $31,000. Since then I have been paying only the minimum price for electricity service (around $5 a month) to cover the cost of the meter rental. As electricity rates have increased a bit (and no doubt will continue to increase) I calculate that I will recover my costs approximately 8 years after installation, and I will then start to save money. The life of the panels should be around 30 to 40 years
It's worth remembering that you need to make certain your roof is good for the years the panels will be operating, so for some it will also mean installing a new roof first. That wasn't an issue for me as I have an ornamental metal tile roof that should last much longer than the panels.
Essentially, I use the power utility as my batteries - during sunny days I generate much more electricity than I use and the excess goes into the grid, and then I use power from the grid on rainy winter days and during nighttime. I get credited for electricity sent to the grid, and yes, the meter really does run backwards.
One neat trick is that I don't have to generate the equivalent of all the energy I use to break even. I'm on a utility company plan where the electricity I use during peak summer times (noon to 6pm) is very expensive - around three times normal rates - but off-peak usage is about 70% of normal rates. But I get credited at the rate in place at the time of day the electricity is generated. Because my installation generates the majority of the electricity during the peak times, I get credited for those KwH at the high rate and when I need to use electricity at night I pay the reduced rate. As an example of how effective this is, last year I generated 12,400 KwH and I also used 3,600 KwH from the utility company. But at the end of the year I had a credit balance of $380.
There's one gotcha there - if you have a debit balance at the end of the year, you have to pay it. But if you have a credit balance, that gets lost. Ideally you want to generate just enough electricity so that your adjusted balance is zero, but that's pretty hard to judge. In any case, you want ample extra capacity just after installation as the panels reduce their efficiency by about 0.5% to 1.0% per year.
In the Netherlands, farmers who plant crops in greenhouses always have petroleum gases driven generators to warm the greenhouse in the winter. In summer, these generators feed back into the grid.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
So don't go out and waste your money for a small tax break because you made your own power. For as far as i can tell you will just pay more money in the long run espically when those cells die.
Augh. This doesn't make sense. No, not the whole solar setup, but the phrases above. If the meter is running backward, then the system is feeding excess power to the grid. If the meter is running backward while the system isn't feeding power to the grid, it's broken or manipulated.
Anyway. This stuff has been around for years in other parts of the world (complete with, omigosh, government subsidies for the generated power - you're getting 3x the price for power you sell than for what you take out of the grid). It's news in the US ? Yawn. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Back in the 'good old days' you could hack the meter and switch the wires around so that the meter would run backwards, even though you'd still be getting electricity. A one-time friend of the family did this in a shop he owned. He figured he'd switch it, operate for a week on, week off, so the bill would be low, but not too low. Unfortunately he forgot about this arrangement and the meter showed him to be $1000+ in 'credit' with the electricity board saying they were going to be visiting in a week or so. Panic ensued, and he bought a bunch of electric kettles and rigged them up 24/7 to suck juice from the grid to get back into the red.
The people behind the current Solar Living Institute (www.solarliving.org) have been doing stuff like this for probably over 30 years, back when it was called "Real Goods", which sold solar electric panels and prided itself on "taking people off the grid".
They sell a book Solar Living Source Book (now in its 12th edition) which tells you how to take your home off the grid using solar panels, plus they offer courses http://www.solarliving.org/workshops/. They also run the Solar Living Center, which is a self-sustainable solar energy building/store/headquarters in Hopland, California.
The odometer only had 3 digits. Why didn't they just run it forward till it turned over?
Surely I wasn't the only one who was bothered by this.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The consumer is offered two choices from the utility:
A. peak rate at $0.40/kWh and off-peak at $0.20kWh
or
B. fixed rate at $0.35/kWh
Now two neighbours sign up for the two different rates, and start their own little energy trading:
Off peak, Neighbour A buys at $0.20 from utility and sells to neigbour B for $0.35. B resells to utility.
During peak hours, Neighbour A buys from B at $0.35m and sells to utility for $0.40.
With a 400A service, they can 800,000kWh a year and make a profit of $80k!
Have fun
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
What is to prevent people from storing electricity (in batteries) during off peak hours and then selling it back during peak hours and generating a profit?
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
This is far from an impracticable technology. In the days of wooden ships, the Dutch used to buy English ships that had become waterlogged (yes, they do...) fit them with windmill pumps and continue to use them, just letting the wind keep the bilge dry.
To be really clever, if you manage to set up a windmill pumping system, run it in parallel to the electric pump with a simple rotation sensor (two microswitches and a simple cam on the shaft, linked to a timer circuit) so that when the wind stops, the electric pump starts.
Pining for the fjords
I'm surprised the US hasn't been doing this before, I think we've been able to do this for years in the UK and it's a pretty obvious development really.
;-)
I'm not sure how well Solar Power works here though
My dad had a friend a while back that did this, I think maybe in Oregon or Washington, but I don't recall. He had a large property with a decent sized stream running through it, and set up a water wheel. It generated A LOT more power than he used, so he was constantly pumping power back into the grid, which his electric company paid him for, at something like one fifth of what he would pay for the electricity if he was drawing it. The startup cost wasn't that high, as he was an electrician and set it most of it up himself, and was way more cost effective than solar panels at the time (I don't know if that is still true, this was 10 or 15 years ago). He wasn't just saving money, but actually turning a profit of a couple thousand dollars a year.
I think some time later the regulations might have changed and the power company would no longer pay him, but at least he still had electricity that was essentially free.
Sounds great, except that both neighbors are plugged into the same grid. Run the wires == no movement. Nothing happens. Nada. You need to have a difference in electrical potential. Sounds great, but it just wouldn't work...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
A 400 Amp service would be getting into the "small to medium business" catagory.
At which point your meter would be read monthly and you only have one choice of rate (peak/off peak).
I would give your suggestion only 28 days before the power company moves in and changes your plan.
ZombieEngineer
Every time an article like this comes up, people are nice enough to point out problems with solar (gunk to create, $$ to invest, wears out). Still, I have to say the idea continues to be exciting
The appeal comes with the similarities to computer evolution and balance (mainframe/personal) and the internet (grid computing). People can keep telling me it isn't worth it or will never happen (or will be super-inneficient), but I'm always going to hold out for that internet-like energy grid. All your Googles and p2ps working together...figure out a way to sell ads over power and maybe you'll get free power from Google itself. Hmmm...maybe I should patent ads over power lines before it is too late.
All you have to do is swap over the input and output cables on the meter and it'll run backwards. Eventually, the electricity company will give you money to use their service!
duh.
http://www.frenchgeek.com/
The energy utility would see though this scam immediately for several reasons:
- The neighbors claim to be pushing 96KW of power onto the network, while in reality they're just shunting it from A's tap then back through B's tap, resulting in a net draw due to resistive and transformer losses. 96 missing KW won't go unnoticed.
- Nothing you can legally put on residential property will generate 96KW of electric for any length of time. This will generate suspicion.
- Funny, A's meter runs back while B's runs forward and vice-versa. Bill, take a truck and check this out...
- I'm fairly certain that the utility and/or city have to send out an inspector before you can connect a grid intertie. Said inspector will note the lack of any generating equipment.
ps: Be thankful that residential pole transformers are current-limited when you try and connect the wires.
>>
All you have done is pre-paid your electricity for the next 5-10 years
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60 months worth of your electric bill, call it an average of $100 a month, is $6,000. If you "pre-pay" that by rolling it into your home loan ("Build me a house and make sure it has a pool and solar power!"), it will end up costing you more (rough guesstimate is $7,300). If instead of buying photovoltaic cells you buy shares in your local electric company, you'll get about $120 to $240 a year in dividends (power companies often have a 2-4% yield), and your while your photovoltaic cells depreciate every year and require maintenance, your shares will probably appreciate and you'll never have to patch them up. (You'll have to pay the electric company for those 10 months of the year that dividends don't... then again, you get the security of knowing you'll never have to pay them extra just because its cloudy.) When you move in 15 years, rather than uninstalling or replacing them at your expense, you can just sell them and take your profits.
>>
In the end, I think the choice is whether you want to help make the world greener, or you just plain don't give a rats
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I don't give a rat's hindquarters for Green theology but don't mind conservation. Thats why I buy shares in companies which own nuclear power plants. Its cleaner than solar and has economies of scale. Yes, I said cleaner than scale: the energy cost from constructing solar panels keeps them net-energy-negative for about a decade (!) and when they die out after just over a decade (!) you have to dispose of them, and per megawatt hour generated you'll have to dispose of a heck of a lot more solar panels than radioactive waste. I don't invest in solar companies because at the moment they still haven't licked the whole "Making our products net energy producers" problem and until they do my only hope to profit from that investment would be hoping solar's massive government subsidies continue and expand. While I think that is certainly possible, I feel that if the current or a future administration wants to dump a couple billion into the solar industry, my nukes will get a similar largesse.
Sidenote: If you have an aversion to nuclear power, I understand and accept that. I don't eat meat on Fridays in Lent and we can both agree that our separate faiths are mutually harmless. One piece of advice though. Spend your money on a decent job of insulating your house -- you'll require less kwh from the grid, and on a per-dollar basis you'll save more kwh spending on insulation (and installation) than you will on buying solar power.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Yes, and the package on you floor does not automatically ship itself either. this is done easily.
Oregon does not have to run their entire state grid on 112V to sell electricity to California at 110V. (I know it is not 110V, but just to illustrate)
... Is it worth lobbying for a industrial AC/DC rectifier in each house at the meter.
I shudder to think what percentage of the total cost of each electric/electronic device is made up of the 12 vdc power supply.
Said Supply usually lasts less than three years, replacements are generally quite expensive.
Disposal of the original is bad for the environment.
And is is obviously less efficient to condition power for each device than to condition it in one centralized place.
It seems that the debate over AC vs DC should be renewed, but I don't need to see an elephant being electrocuted as a part of it.
I'm thinking that just running an extension cord over to my neighbors and wiring it up to my meter will help, w/o all that nasty solar garbage on my roof, and w/o all the expense...
Or go to home depot, get a nice 6000 watt generator, plug it in and let it run the meter backwards...
Getting the meter to run backwards isn't that complicated... The fact that people find this news is amazing...
So you're not allowed to park a car on a residential property ?
A car engine, if connected to a generator, could do it.
In some countries which are actually interested in the Kyoto Protocol there are strong subsidies for solar power generation. The electicity companies are required by law to buy off from you the electricity you generate (from solar power) at over 500% of the current selling price at which you can buy from them.
In fact, due to this, it is never a good idea to power your home from your own generated electricity. It is always more efficient (economically) to buy your electricity at rate 1x, and sell the one you generate at rate 5x.
Connecting these devices can create all kind of havoc in a high voltage electrical grid. It wouldn't surprise me if one of these solar panels or windmills will cause an enormous blackout in the near future.
Off peak, Neighbour A buys at $0.20 from utility and sells to neigbour B for $0.35. B resells to utility.
You're going to need some equipment to do this, just running wires between both meters won't do. This would require significant investment, and things that wouldn't necessarily go unnoticed (an electrician installing 400 amp lines between 2 neighbours might ask some questions). And there will be losses.
During peak hours, Neighbour A buys from B at $0.35m and sells to utility for $0.40.
With 10% losses, you're basically breaking even here.
With a 400A service, they can 800,000kWh a year and make a profit of $80k!
If they had 200A service before, and moved to 400A (200A extra for this), they'd be getting closer to 400,000kWh (half of whatever you counted), and if you add some losses and such, and you'd only be doing profit off-peak hours (not 24/7), so less than half the profit you mentioned too -- minus the price of getting 400A service installed on both houses and all the equipment required.
And it's likely illegal to sell them back their own electricity indirectly (TOS?), and I wouldn't want to get caught doing it.
And that only works if they pay you for the electricity "generated" -- often they'll deduct from your bill, but won't pay for any extra, in which case one would have a 0$ bill, and the other would have a insanely high bill (more than both of you used to pay combined).
Not a good idea.
Slightly off topic but something i've been wandering about, if you're time-shifting your generated electricity by only a few hours - using solar at night is a good example - are there better or just more interesting ways to store the *energy* than good old lead-acid and the like?
One idea i had was to spin up a largish gyroscope, (though you might need to give it a kick start...attach a bicycle!) whilst "charging" then change a gearbox to drive an alternator when "discharging". The efficiency of this could probably be quite good over a few hours, provided you keep it's bearings well greased.
Another was clockwork: wind a spring when charging and again, run the power through a gearbox to an alternator when discharging, you could even use a clutch to directly wind the spring via wind or water power (though i suspect the former wouldnt have the torque) that way you wouldnt lose energy converting it to/from electricity in the first instance. AFAIK though it's hard to regulate clockwork to provide a continuous reliable RPM, which is why clocks tick instead of running smoothly.
Or good old gravity power: Charge by pumping water uphill, Discharge by releasing it downhill, this probably wouldnt be that great on a less than reservior scale, you'd have to reinforce your attic and make it into a huge tank, and do the same for the basement. on the other hand the same water might be able to be used as a heat store/heat sink for temperature regulation.
Havent researched any of this but i suspect that using huge tanks of hazadours chemicals to electolytically store electricity isnt exactly environmentally sound when you think about production and disposal.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
This method is actually used, and yes, it only makes sense if you're in the mountains and can pump water between two lakes/reservoirs.
Something similar, just with air pressure, is also in use. However, they are not using air tanks, but old mineshafts instead, since afaik the efficiency of an air pump goes down as the pressure difference increases, so you need a huge volume to store energy in a small pressure difference.
A double-pole, double-throw timer switch.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Make the extra investment and buy several smaller pumps that are more efficient for pumping water form the pool thru filters out to the jets. A pump for each jet would suffice. Switch to (if you're not using one already) a diatomaceous earth filter for your pool to reduce the pressure needed to pass thru something like a sand filter. You can drop that pool pump monthly cost quite easily. :)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Then maybe for once we'd have a TRULY public-owned power system. Wishful thinking.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
No. Do the math. From the post it looks like you are advocating a 12 volt system for the house.
The OP was talking about a separate 12V system for the house for all the low-power devices that usually come with their own "wall wart" power supply or run on low voltages. Cellphone chargers, WLAN routers, DVD players, all that stuff. Anything that consume triple or quadruple digit wattages would still be powered by the usual mains voltage.
When I plug your numbers into mine, this is what I see:
You seem to be paying 18 cents a Kw/h Thats very high, nearly twice the average. You also are using a bit more than twice the average amount of electricity. So your basic situation is not typical.
Your numbers for watts are misleading-- yes, that many square feet of panel wil generate about that much electricity-- durinbg peak sunlight. But once you divide by the appropriate factors for sun angle, cloudy times, and inverter losses, you're down to about 1,600 watts average, which is slightly less than your consumption. You don't seem to have ANY extra electricity to sell.
And even if you did, utilities will only pay you for their wholesale avoided cost, about 30-35% percent of what they sell it for. So even if you somehow cut back 50% on your usage (very unrealistic), you'd have maybe 800 watts average to pump back, about $458/yrs of income, over 30 years, that's about $13,000. So you've lost $52,000 overall, and had to make do with half the electricity. Not exactly the kind of deal people will be clamoring for.
If you put the $65,000 in the bank at 4% interest, after 30 years you'll have $237,000. Or looked at another way, the interest on the 65K would just about pay your utility bill. Or another way, if you had to borrow the $65K, paying it back over 30 years would add another $230K of interest and principal charges.
So you see the economics are terribly dreadful!
Your neighbours would get a little pissed off at the noise from your Volkswagen revving at 5500 revs per minute at wide open throttle...
Nearly everything in the parent is incorrect and/or poorly thought out. I don't recommend the grandparent's scheme, but the parent should not pretend he knows more about electricity than he does - it's dangerous. OK, here goes:
- The neighbors claim to be pushing 96KW of power onto the network, while in reality they're just shunting it from A's tap then back through B's tap, resulting in a net draw due to resistive and transformer losses. 96 missing KW won't go unnoticed.
B claims to be generating 96kW when A claims to be drawing it. A is paying for the 96kW (just at a lower rate). The utility company's numbers add up just fine.
- Nothing you can legally put on residential property will generate 96KW of electric for any length of time. This will generate suspicion.
A 96kW generator would only be an issue with noise if there are people sleeping in nearby buildings. The electric company wouldn't be interested in that. 96kW isn't much for them really.
- Funny, A's meter runs back while B's runs forward and vice-versa. Bill, take a truck and check this out...
Bill cant see the movement of the meters. He only reads them periodically, where the totals for peak and off-peak are used to calculate billing. He sees positive off-peak and negative peak and bills accordingly.
- I'm fairly certain that the utility and/or city have to send out an inspector before you can connect a grid intertie. Said inspector will note the lack of any generating equipment.
Meh, so rent some. This comment in particular gives away that you're really just dissing the idea, which is fine (as I say I don't agree with it either) but its not OK for you to act smarter than you are.
ps: Be thankful that residential pole transformers are current-limited when you try and connect the wires.
OK that's actually dangerous advice. Pole transformers range about 10-100KVA and deliver current in the hundreds of amps, which is over 1000 times the "probable kill" current of 75mA. The limiting is in the form of rudimentary overload circuit breakers or fuses. It isn't cost-effective to use the advanced stuff they have in big substations and power stations and there's too much leakage in overhead cables for RCDs to be practical. Therefore you get very little protection. I suggest you leave it to the pros.
Maybe.
If you're really planning to do this, you would of course take the engine out of the car and stick it into sound-insulated enclosure. Or at least sound-proof your garage.
Also, if we're talking about the US, your "neighbors" may well be half a mile down the road.
Approximately 1.6KW of energy hits the earth every hour at every square meter, on average, IIRC. (Could be wrong, ain't messed with solar in a while.) current cells boast around 15% efficiency, so let's say.. 240 watts per hour. Just for myself and my SO, it'd be about four lightweight computers (most likely laptops with the option of an upgradable video card,) a TV, couple of consoles, lighting. Maybe the spare vaccuming or steam-cleaning or microwave.
/rant
I'd calculate per day, on average.. that alone is maybe 1,500 watts an hour (on a conservative side, assuming it's only laptops and lower-power microwaves and CF or maybe LED bulbs, with said occasional vacuuming and steam cleaning. Laundry can be done elsewhere, cooking and water heating can be done by natural gas.) Of course we include downtime, so we only count maybe 13-16 of those hours or so... 24 kilowatts a day. So maybe ten square meters of panels would be in order at current efficiency, in a very very sunny part of the earth. I'd guess up here, in Tennessee, we'd need about fifty square meters worth per home. Shit, our backyards in a good suburb in Memphis aren't even that big, unles we include the roof.
Well, from that point, it's a matter of what you want. You can make the investment back, though, and it's not that hard. I powered a warehouse-sized building with sufficient solar cells and a battery bank, with 12v lighting, heating (home-built, BTW,) television (older laptop that would take a 12v DC current, we just rigged a limiter directly from battery to power plug, add TV tuner,) and other insundry things that take 12v internally. Our cooking was wood-powered (and fucking delicious for meats and corn wrapped in foil thrown right onto the coals,) and we used solar heating for water. we had 21,000 square feet of land to work with, 7,000 of that was warehouse.
Solar's done amazing things for those that are clever or knowledgable enough to take advantage of it. But that's our problem. We need to fix our education, first.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The problem is that you would be getting paid retail value for the power you are selling to the company. Looking from their point of view, you should actually have two meters, one to meter the power you buy from them at retail price, and another to meter the power you sell to them, at whatever price they buy power. Otherwise, if everyone started generating their own power part of the time, the power company would go bankrupt.
We have things like RoHS standards, now, to stop that silly toxic metal (lead, cadmium, etc) pollution, and PCB boards. :) Now LCDs and the mercury in their cold-cathode tubes might be a different story.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I've looked at the cost of photovoltaics, and the ROI, and my conclusion was that I'd rather go with a wind turbine. The same thing applies - in areas that allow it, your excess power runs your meter backwards and the power company pays you for it. A pretty good selection of small scale wind turbines can be seen here. Of course, if you have 5 acres like I do, you can dream about these little darlings that start at 1.5MW power generation and move up from there. No serious zoning issues if you are out in a rural area, and your ROI is as low as 3-4 years - assuming no unusually high maintenance costs and that the power company will pay you a decent rate per kWh not some pittance.
I believe the CA laws require power companies to pay you the same amount they charge you for power. Plus since he is on a peak/off peak plan power is really that much more expensive during the day (living in CA doesn't help Kw/h costs any either) so during peak solar output he is getting more $ per Kw/h generated than he pays to use the power at night. While he does use a lot of power and has a large space to panels his numbers seem to work out.
take off your meter and put it on backwards and it will count down. Be sure to put it back before they come to read it.
I dont want my neighbors dirty, low quality electricity running my computer.
You said it yourself buddy...
"One of the big electricity hogs in our house is the pool pump, and there's not much you can do about that; if you don't pump long enough on the pool every day, it turns green."
Answer. Don't have a pool. That will reduce your electricity usage. A lot more than sorting out power management on your Ubuntu box. But if you want to keep a pool and run a pool pump, you're going to use a lot of energy. Your choice on your life style. It sounds like you're holding back on pv panels because they are too expensive, well, save money by not having a pool...
I can make about $15 after a big mexican dinner.
If so, that's a hidden subsidy, silently paid for by all the other customers. In any rational economic analysis you factor that out.
Realistically they should be paying him MUCH LESS than the wholesale cost of power-- sun power is unpredictable at best, so the utility has to start up more of the very expensive peak power plants (usually gas turbine plants) to compensate for the dips in solar power. That makes solar power worth MUCH LESS than the average wholesale price of reliable power, in any rational analysis.
And notice that his numbers just don't add up-- his consumption is slightly more than can ever be generated by fresh new panels of that size. So there is no energy to get paid back for at unrealistic prices. Zero. Nada.
And in a more typical photovoltaic setup, where you're off the grid, you need batteries. I was extremely generous and did not deduct the losses in storing the power in batteries, or the cost of replacement batteries (they're typically only good for about 300 to 500 charge/discharge cycles).
Most electric meters depend on the fact that just about every load in a common household is an inductive load. They use the phase difference between voltage and current to run.
So, in theory, if you have a net capacitive load your meter will run in reverse.
Good luck getting a large enough capacitor bank, though.
Any rational utility will only pay for at most, the avoided cost of the power, maybe 30% of the retial price. Anything else is madness.
Ah! The odometer only went up to 999.9 and they never thought of running it forward! Losers.
Have you ever lived in Southern Califorina? If there is ever a could in the sky people run off the street to take shelter in the nearest building. Don't ask what happens in a freak rain shower! Drizzle of doom...
I have, and it's hilarious. They react to driving in rain the way Southerners do to driving in snow. Half panic, and half drive like the streets are completely dry. Idiots.
That said, driving in a decent rain shower can be much more dangerous in Southern California than in other areas. First, they can go many months without any rain, so a ton of oil and dirt can build up on the roads, making it treacherous when it first starts to rain. Second, the storm sewer systems are often woefully underengineered, and aren't up to the challenge of handling all the water running down hilly streets. This causes standing water in intersections during even moderate showers. It's surprising when you move there how little rain can result in standing water. So even for a non-SC driver, a rainshower that would be perfectly innocuous back east can cause big problems in LA.
They don't let you generate power like that. If your meter runs backwards they come change it so it stops doing that. If these people aren't full of shit, it's only a matter of time before NatGrid comes and fixes them real good.
set up the pump on an ethanol generator or something with combined power solar panels....
it might make life easier, and also cheaper
Staying at home and working is not so bad. I didn't get this from slashdot but it is an excellent resource that I use for targeting my marketing: http://www.dsireusa.org/
Click on a state, look under Rules, Regulations & Policies for net metering rules.
You can also look on my website http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar so see utility rates.
Click on the map then click on a state. If you see the utility listed you can do net metering there.
Meters work on circuit lag. You can also spin the meter backwards by increasing the circuit lead. I discovered this by accident while running some kilns with phase fired scr's on the power supply. As I turned it down to just under 50% of the phase(inrcreasing the circuit lead), the meter would come to a complete stop. A bit more and it would begin to spin backwards. Of course, you could hear the power lines humming for over 100 yards in any direction from my house. It was unfortunate that the process I was running didnt work in that power range, or I would have left it there.
> Any rational utility will only pay for at most, the avoided
> cost of the power, maybe 30% of the retial price. Anything
> else is madness.
Or required by law, as it is in this guy's state. It's actually
fairly common for power companies to be legeally required to buy
back power at the same rate they sell it for. The main reason
this won't work is because you have to notify the power company
that you're going to be generating and selling back power, and
let them inspect your generation equipment. So our theoretical
inventive energy traders get busted because the power company
knows they don't have the generation facilities to create the
power they're claiming to produce.
Chris Mattern
they want their article back.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Nuclear power is great. It's not a financial gain yet to install solar panels. Insulation and CF Bulbs are a better first step. We agree on the broad strokes of your post-- but I do want to make a few small corrections. Most solar panels these days are break-even on the energy required for production in less than five years, some types in as little as two. Most are also warranted to produce 80% of their original output for 25 years, and have life expectancies closer to 40 years.
Solar panels are definitely net energy producers, by a rather large margin. What they are not is profitable for a homeowner. Yet.
Home flywheels. I used to have some much better links bookmarked, but here's what a quick google search turned up:
http://home.earthlink.net/~fradella/homepage.htm
In a related note, it was this article in Discover magazine back in the day that influenced my decision to go into engineering. It's a shame we've never seen anything come of it.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
Modern panels are net-positive on their manufacturing energy in less than five years (as little as two, depending on type)-- and are often warranted for 25 years, with life expectancies even higher.
The numbers do add up for this individual: he's using more power than he generates, but he's receiving more credit for his generated power than he's paying for his over-usage. That's a rational analysis.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
There are a few states that don't yet require net metering where the power companies there aren't doing it voluntarily-- but in most of the US, you can make power and get paid for it when you're producing more than you are using.
Solar panels require very little maintenance other than a quick hose down if it hasn't rained in a while. They're solid-state, so there's nothing to wear out, and most of them have a 25 year warranty.
Also, the government offers rebates that bring the price of solar power down for individuals. Then there's projects like Renu by CitizenRe that install and maintain the solar panels for you and you pay them what you would normally pay the power company per kWh. And that rate is locked in for 1, 5, or 25 years.
As I said before, solar panels have a lifetime of over 25 years. So if it takes them ten years to produce the same amount of power it took to produce them, then they'll produce 150% more power than it took to make them. All without any intervention from the user. Also, the silicon, aluminum frames, and copper wiring can be recycled into new solar panels. Of course, this is only beginning to be a problem because the PV systems installed in the early 1980s are only just now coming to the end of their lives.
I'd like to see where you got your figures supporting your assertion that solar panels are not as effective as nuclear power plants
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Solar panels are typically guaranteed for 25 years, not a decade. They have no moving parts, and generally require no maintenance apart from cleaning the pigeon shit off the glass covering once in a while.
There's no reason a properly constructed solar panel won't last 50 years. The most likely problem with a panel is the connector going bad (corroded), and that's just a screw down terminal block that takes all of two minutes to replace.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Where did you get your numbers from? Have you priced the components and come to the conclusion that you can get everything you need for $7,300? How many kWh is that? From the article, one couple spent $40,000 on a 15KW system, and one spent $15,000 on a 3kWh system that's for a guest house. I'm pretty sure I consume more than 3 myself with kids toys, complete entertainment center that's on most evenings, half a dozen computers, various switches and routers that I play with on occasion (huge power hogs, so I don't leave them powered up), etc. However, lets just assume I can get by on a 3 kWw system. Lets say for the sake of argument that my bill is $100/month - that might be close to the average over a 12 month span. So it's going to be 12.5 years before I even break even, much less make money on the deal. I suppose if I was buying a house out in the country and planned to live there for the rest of my life it might be a consideration. But I doubt I'll ever stay in a house more than 12.5 years until I'm retired.
I'm with you on this one - it absolutely does not make fiscal sense to invest in solar power. Maybe things will change within 10 years, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
In greece, after the new (2006) law, you can put solar panels to your house and get paid from the electric company (the only one) for selling them electric power. You get paid 50 cents for every KWh you contribute to the network, since the selling price from the electric company is 7 cents per KWh. This is possible cause to the new law that want to promote the use of clean energy.
Yeah, but the odometer displayed European miles, which are actually 0.002 lightyears each. Good luck getting even the second digit to turn over. *snort*
We've gone over this. In a free market his power is worth much less than the retail price, much less than the average wholesale price as it's so undependable-- one cloud and it's all gone.
I suspect one big reason they pay the same is to do otherwise would require a separate power meter, installation, and periodic reckoning. The cost of that ($300-$600) is hard to pay back in less than a considerable number of years.
And I don't consider it a rational analysis to ue retail power prices-- if everybody got paid retail price for unreliable power, the cost of power would have to go up by a factor of 3 (that's about the retail/wholesale difference), times another factor of 3 due to the higher cost of gas-fired peaking plants to make up for cloudy times.
Woking, in England just outside London. I used to pass through there on the train to/from work when I lived further out. I always thought it was a fairly boring, unremarkable, dormitary town, but.
They're more or less "off grid" these days as they produce enough power within the town (via household solar and thermal) that they can survive even if the grid goes down. Solar is pretty good, but thermal (where a house is heated via water reticulated from pipes running from outside to inside and back) works even in "cold" places like England.
The Wikipedia entry, underplays it but they have a very strong recyclables/renewables policy and they did it on their own without much in the way of central government assistance.
Who would've known?
My previous house had a solar water heater. Even assuming it came "free" with the house, it was a waste of money. The preventive maintenance costs averaged $100 a year (over seven years). I doubt our gas water heater used that much gas and even if it did, the gas company has a minimum charge here in Austin. I don't know if it increased our insurance premium, but the insurance company wanted to know about it. The tank took up valuable space in the garage. I will never have one again.
Certainly, the electricity company in TFA doesn't use that system, neither do any of the suppliers in the UK (my jurisdiction).
If a typical Nuclear power plant costs a billion dollars, what would happen if instead the money was spend on solar panels for individual homes, in the form of tax breaks and rebates for homeowners that put them up? Remember, economies of scale and distribution of the grid and all those other benefits too. Seems like a no-brainer to me...
Reality has a liberal bias
You're right of course -- there is no free lunch. And using MY air that I as a dumping ground for the byproducts of getting power your way is no different. Seriously man, fuck you. You really don't have even the slightest concept of how your actions affect others, of how fundamentally interconnected we all are. My kids are more likely to suffer from asthma because of the shit that's dumped into the air by neighbours that are such incredible cowards that they need a scaled-down troop transport vehicle for their daily commute. They're more likely to have serious respiratory problems because you're too much of an idiot to pay for the real cost of your power -- and the real cost of your power includes the medical bills for every child that gets a chronic lung disorder, people who any of the serious problems that arise from never seeing the sun because of smog, the lost revenue from every economically productive lake that is acidified to the point where life can not grow there, the lost revenue from every working forest that is scoured for a strip-mine, etc.
You'll ultimately have to start paying hefty, hefty taxes to pollute the commons, whether directly or indirectly. And you've just got to learn to deal with that. It's not stealing from you, it's making you pay the real costs.
But if you disagree, how about you let me dump my trash on your lawn where you can clean it up? Or how about I just run the vent from generator into one of the windows of your house? Because that's what coal and gas power are doing; they just do it on a distributed scale that affects everyone. Most of those people get absolutely no say in the matter. If I switch to nuclear and drive an electric car, will the state start keeping smog off of my property and out of the air that I breathe? Until they do, YOU FUCKING OWE ME. My lung tissue isn't free -- if anything, you're getting it at a bargain-rate price.
I'm a fan of nuclear power too, but this is just wrong. Typical PV systems will operate for over 30 years, and produce more than 10 times their production energy cost in usable energy during that lifetime.
You might try reading the DOE's site or Wikipedia article.
Is that you, Mr. Burns?
Boy there is going to be lots of tears when you run out of people who are willing to work while you sit on your fat arse!!!
Thanks for the URL :)
Ohhhh ! Can it send an internet, too ?
The way we manage the roofing issue is to offer one free deinstall-reinstall during the contract (25 years). This is shared with the one free move provision but this might work out pretty well in some cases. For example, my parents are feeling that they might need to put on a new roof to sell their house. In this case, the move and the new roof come together in time. You'll want to read the contract but http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar might be for you.
First, Solar PV cells seem to be net energy positive in relatively short order. This summary estimates 2-4 years with new technology coming online to make the energy payback about a year. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/37322.pdf
This was one of the first hits to come up in searching google for "pv net energy".
Second, I find it laughable that you complain about large governmental solar subsidies without mentioning subsidies for storage of nuclear waste. Just look at the Yucca Mountain project http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/yucca/loux05.htm (And in this age of eternal terror, the government and nuclear industry are curiously silent about the additional cost of aedeqately protecting such waste sites for thousands of years...)
Net metering overcomes the day to day and durinal issues by keeping kWh credits alive for a year. Then you are building up credits in the spring and fall and using them in the winter (short days) and summer (AC is a hog). But even in summer you're helping out because you are reducing peak demand by covering much of your AC yourself. This'll mean fewer grid stress blackouts.
There is really no reason to worry about price anymore. You can rent solar for what you are paying now with no installation cost and a locked in rate of up to 25 years at http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar.
On financial payback, I agree with you - I've been waiting for the financial payback of a PV system to fall under 3-5 years and have been running the numbers unsuccessfully once a year or so.
Do you think he is just making up his usage numbers?
According to this random link that showed up: One possible situation is that he sells electricity to the electric company at @ $0.21 per kWh peak and buys it back at $0.11 off-peak. Now most people aren't in their homes during peak hours - mostly business ACs and such. And when is the sun out strongest? Peak hours perhaps. Note also that in southern california there will be better efficiency than the average location in the states.
Another example of this is here in North Carolina. We pay $0.08/kWh cents during peak months and $0.07/kWh during off-peak months but get a payment of $0.22/kWh when putting solar back into the electrical grid.
This is info I posted a couple days ago on a different thread, but even more apt for the conversation:
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding over the concept of 'netmetering' and getting money from the utility. Now keep in mind I don't work for an electric company, but I have asked quite a few questions on this subject.
Under netmetering you will never get a check back from the utility. It's impossible to reduce your electric bill to $0. Why? Most utilities will not let it happen. Under netmetering, the utility has to accept the extra energy you put back into the grid. They are required to reduce your bill to by the equal amount you put back. Notice I say reduce the bill. Under net metering, if you produce more energy than used, the utility gets to keep the excess energy for free and sell it back to consumers for a profit. They will only credit you to the point where your bill reaches zero. The net metering rules do not require them to compensate you for any more than that. As for bringing your bill to zero - it may show your electrical use as 0, but they still charge their connection fees, etc.
Now I say most utilities because I have come across one that is willing to purchase excess electricity at wholesale rates. They are the exception because it its a very unique small town where all the utilities are city owned. It is the city of Ellensburg, Washington. The city is amazing to work with. In October they finished construction of a publically owned solar array. For $1,200 per kilowatt, the city has residents to buy into their array, and help expand it. That is CHEAP! So far it's in the 50KW range, but has many acres to expand. The city will cover all insurance and maintenance for 25 years, and will deduct the amount from your bill. They do all the work and you get all the benefits. If only the utilities worked as easy.
I was told by an energy efficiency agent from Seattle City Light, that the utility sees private solar & customers who generate their own power as competition, and won't help with any suggestions or ideas on PV arrays. I'm leading a project with my company to put up a 10kw array. The cost is $93,000. Factor in the 30% Federal tax rebate, and 5 year accelerated depreciation for businesses, that cost is closer to $60K. When all is said and done, the array will pay for itself in 7 years. Mind you that is in Seattle. The payoff is much quicker in Arizona or California.
Even better, you can outsource all the back and forth with the utility, construction permiting and other hassles, avoid the upfront costs, and lock in your rate for 25 years by renting solar. Look at the estimated savings using the calcualtor at http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar.
To see why I'd advise against continuing to invest in nuclear power see http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-renewables -displace-nukes-first.html.
But if you think that analysis is flawed, you can still work out a way to invest even more by switching to solar personally. Look at the calcualator at http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdolar for a low balled savings estimate (2.2% estimate of annual electric rate increase I thing) and 9% return on the invested savings.
Solar panels are now good for about 30 years, and if you rent from us, we handle the disposal and leave your roof in good shape. Note that since they are still solar grade silicon, they only need to be recycled. They are worth about $25/kilo as raw material.
Its cleaner than solar and has economies of scale. Yes, I said cleaner than scale:...
"It's" as it's a contraction of "It is".
"then" not "than" as you are indicating you said one followed by the other, not comparing something to "scale" as a noun.
You got the net energy producer part wrong (as others pointed out) and you aren't able to or willing to write correctly. That's (a contraction of "that is") 2 strikes against your credibility, so I'm going to ignore everything else you said.
As it happens, I just had an assessment done for a PV system. I live in an almost ideal house for it (could fit ~9kW of panels on the roof with perfect inclination and maximum exposure), but in what must be one of the least economical areas for it. Our electricity is among the cheapest in the world, we have no local incentives to aid in the initial investment, buy back is 1:1 with the grid-rate, and we average only 1.3 - 6 hours/day through the year. In this situation the substantial initial investment is not even remotely close to being paid off by the end of the 25 year panel life, ignoring any maintenance issues and the opportunity cost of the initial capital... even if the grid rate were to more than quadruple tomorrow. Even subtracting off the cost of buying a backup power solution for times of blackout doesn't help substantially.
Sadly, we're a long way from this making sense in my region.
Welcome to KCAL 9. We're sorry we had to cut away from this evening's high speed pursuit but we have received word that Ventura is experiencing scattered sprinkles. Johnny Mountain is down in the trenches, reporting from the eye of the storm. We'll hear from him after this break, if he's still alive!
[wimper]Make it stop... please... For the love of God, please make it stop.[/wimper]
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Why go to all that trouble.
Hook up an extension cord from each other's house. One sells, the other buys - since the selling price is higher than the retail price for electricity, you both make scads of money. Wanna save even more ? don't bother with actual solar cells in the panels, just use fakes.
Using fake solar panels:
1) Likely better for the environment
2) The sooner this 'net' metering craziness stops, the better for the planet.
--knobsturner
Being able to store your power onsite first-before it gets to the net metering phase, is a huge benefit and one of the primary good reasons to have onsite power production. We've seen just a ton of news stories over the past few years of whole regions going down from storms, etc. Heck, there are still a lot of folks in the midwest struggling with that now. Think of it as a whole house (or however many circuits you have activated, you can pick and choose) UPS system then it makes more sense. And that's the good part of home solar, you can do both. From my experience, on a good sunny day by around 1:30 PM or so your battery bank should be pretty full if you have sized your system properly, then it's gravy after that, all afternoon. You are still sitting on enough juice to run everything for at least a full day, and your meter can be running backwards then if that is the set up you have.
I can't remember the last time I had $1000 in my bank account, let alone $31,000.
This is why alternative energy won't be mainstream for a long, long, long, long time.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
As with all things, there are many different opinions, and the facts that are often in between. The reality is that a Solar Powered home that is either 100% efficient, or one that puts electricity back on the grid is a BAD idea... Just as with manufacturing, production of electricity, and its distribution is much more efficient when done in a large scale. Putting solar panels on every house, to produce 100% of the power, will never be as good for the environment or cost efficient. Howerver putting solar panels on houses to produce SOME of the power locally is both environmentally sound, and cost efficient. Let me explain why. Most customers are charged a flat tiered rate for thier power. This means that they get charged a small amount at a low rate, then a another amount at a higher rate, and so on. This means that the more that they use, the more it cost them. Reducing thier useage a LITTLE can produce a LARGE return, because they are reducing the most expensive power first. This provides them with diminishing returns as they become more efficient. The second most common fee schedule is based on peak/off peak usage. In this model consumers are charged more during peak hours, and less during off peak hours. In this instance, solar is (generally) a good idea, as it again reduces thier most expensive power charges. Now, the question is about selling power back to the electric company. The situation is different there. The electric company only has to pay the bulk rate power cost for anything you generate. This is much less than what they charge you (even if during peak hours, w/ a peak/off peak rate). This means that you get even LESS for your energy than if you were just offsetting your own cost. The optimal goal for solar (and other green energy sources) generated at the home is to offset the high of your energy. This reduces the load for the power generating plants, and in fact allows them to scale back some of the most inefficient (and pollution generating) models. The problem is that the demand for energy requires that we use non green methods to produce power. If the demand is reduced to allow the options of what power to use, then the choice of green vs non-green is valid. If more people were informed of the realities of solar, and not promised things that were not true, then it would be more prevasive... and we would all benefit.
You should look at the tariff book before saying that 18c/kwh is high. Here's the price where I live:
Baseline: 11.34c
101%-130%: 12.98c
131%-200%: 22.94c
201%-300%: 32.14c
over 300%: 36.96c
Baseline usage is 11.9 kwh per day in summer, 12.6 kwh in winter.
For me, before I installed the panels I was regularly running into the "over 300%" category, and that was one of the reasons that solar made sense for my particular situation.
Also, I didn't spend $65k on the installation, I spent $31k. If you take out a loan for this amount, you can pay it back entirely out of the electricity savings.
Don't take my word for it - the State of California has a very comprehensive on-line worksheet that will calculate how much energy an installation will generate based on your location. It will also give you the numbers about how to finance it, including accounting for lost opportunity cost by tying up your money in the panels. I reviewed the numbers after a year and I actually generated about 2% more electricity than the calculator said I could expect.
I didn't install panels to sell electricity. I installed them because I liked the idea of generating my own electricity, and it because it made good financial sense for me.
You see the economics as dreadful. I (who actually did the math very, very carefully) see the economies are a very good deal. The deal is only sweetened by the reduction in greenhouse gases that my installation triggers.
Frankly, you remind me of a person arguing that it's a bad idea to vote. You are only one person, you can't possibly make a difference, and think of all the lost money with people driving to polling stations and waiting to cast their votes. All true. And all very wrong.
Nuclear corresponds as mutually harmless? I take it you don't live in my state, Washington. If you did, you'd have a much better understanding of how 'clean' and 'harmless' nuclear power is at the most polluted site in the world - Hanford, WA.
From wikipedia:
"More than 40 billion gallons (151 billion litres) of contaminated water were dumped directly onto the soil and there have been radioactive leaks from storage ponds and tanks. They have to dig up ten million tons of contaminated soil and dispose of some 54 million gallons (204 million litres) of radioactive waste from 177 underground tanks of which about a third were reported as leaking in 2001. Cleanup to a nationally accepted level will likely take until 2030 and cost $50 billion at least."
If we can't clean up our current waste, how are we going to deal with tons more? And if you haven't heard, the long-awaited and much heralded vitrification plant at Hanford is decades behind schedule, over budget by billions of dollars, and now has halted construction because they didn't take into account a fault runs right under it. How many solar panels could that billion tax dollars buy? By the best estimates, the clean up will still take 30 years, and before then, the waste has a very good chance of contaminating the Columbia River for hundreds of miles. It is a massive problem that the nation ignores. Even pebble bed reactors have waste. It doesn't seem like a sound solution (or faith) to me.
>Government has no right to steal
If taxes are stealing, what would you call using government services without paying for them?
Granted, though, if you've never received or delivered products shipped by road, have never attended a publicly funded school, have never benefited from police protection, have never hired anyone from a publicly funded school, have never used the fruits of government-funded research, run your own defense against foreign invaders and never breathe any air covered by the Clean Air Act, then you have a case that you're a self-made man who doesn't owe the government any money.
A sounder point would be to argue that this particular forced transaction (and forced transactions are almost by definition inefficient) is unjustified. If solar systems were toys, yes. But he's in California and his solar system is displacing coal. The Office of Technology Assessment calculated around 1980 that coal burning was causing 40,000 premature deaths per year. Plants are cleaner now but there are more of them. A transaction that chips away at one 9/11 equivalent every single month is a justified transaction according to most people's values.
Coleman makes a whole-house hydrogen-powered fuel cell. Think of it: if 1/3 of the homes had such fall-back strategies, there'd be a lot less power outtages and a lower demand on the main grid. Personally, I'd LOVE to do something like this. But keep in mind: as good as solar cells are, they can never be more than 50% effecient, on the ground. :(
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your investing suggestions, but we should clear something up: investing in companies that own nuclear power plants does NOT somehow support the advancement or development of nuclear power. The shares you purchase give you the chance to vote in shareholder meetings (where I suppose you could make an impact in changing the direction of the company if you own enough shares) and some companies distribute wealth amongst shareholders in the form of dividends (as you mention). However the company does not own, nor have access to, the money you are investing in exchange for public shares (unless it is as part of an IPO). Somebody else in the world owns the shares you are purchasing, and he or she (or they) receive your money. The fluctuations of stock prices DO NOT IMPACT the finances of the company at all - period. If the company is run well and it makes money, the price of your share may go up and you may be able to sell it for a profit. But nobly purchasing shares of a "green" company for the betterment of mankind is misguided - it isn't as if the company can take your money and perform some research and development in nuclear energy (for instance) - the company doesn't OWN the money, just as it doesn't own the shares you purchase. The only way for you to help with research and development is to donate money to the company directly, or purchase goods and/or services from the company (thereby increasing its revenue).
Purchasing shares in a company is only a good idea if:
a. You are intersted in having a voting role in the company's future
b. You believe that you can sell the shares later at a higher price.
c. You want to receive money from the company in the form of dividends
Duh, No electric company to act as your storage battery at night.
Make sure you get the power company to install a new meter for you. We ran our solar setup on our old meter for a month, while waiting for the new meter to be installed. The internal electronics of the meter counted all the electricity we generated as electricity we used, nearly doubling that mounth's bill. Now that everything has been properly configured we generate about 70-80% of our daily electricity use and the bill is down to a couple hundred a year.
Daniel
Using a rental model I think we can get to very large market share for solar. I think this sort of puts things in another light with respect to nuclear power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-renewables -displace-nukes-first.html
----
Rent the Sun?!? http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar
The power company down the road does this - sort of. During off-peak they pump water from lake Ontario to their (elevated) lagoon. During peak hours they open the dam and generate extra hydro-electric power to meet increased demand. -And repeat- (All the good ideas are already used).
0x7279727972797279
you are already paying subsidies, or do you think that huge military cost in the middle east has nothing to do with oil? How about all the nuclear power subsidies over the past 6 decades(it's no cheaper at all then most conventional burn fossil fuel plants are, that's reality)? How about the subsidies that you get ripped off for when public coal and natural gas is sold for pennies on the dollar of what it is really worth to fuel conventional plants, then they get to turn around and charge you full retail? You pay higher direct income taxes from that little perk (recently addressed in a House bill) And how about equity? How about it? Do you rent your house forever, is that really smart? Do you rent your furniture, TV, car, couch, bed, etc, all the stuff you have, or do you buy it, because long term that is a better deal? With home solar you build equity,even if it is slow,whereas you never get to "pay off" your rented grid infrastructure, no matter how much you pay them guys. And how about your month to month kilowatt hour rates? Really, answer this question directly now, see if you can understand it. Do you have a locked in carved in stone contract with your local utility, so that you can honestly project your future grid supplied electricity cost many years and decades down the road? Did you miss the fact that just in the past 5 or so years some areas have doubled their rates? Can you point out any areas where conventional electricity has gone down in price?
Solar is great, earlier adopters reap the benefits (there are many, the most immediate is very *clean* power to your devices, much better than most grid supplied, and being able to weather storms when the grid is down)and help contribute to economies of scale cost drops and efficiency improvements, these folks are part of the solution. I'm glad I was an early adopter of computers, my little contributions have helped get affordable home computing out there. I don't regret one penny I spent on earlier now junk computers, because it helped the whole industry out. Exactly the same with solar. It can happen in even less of a time frame, too, if people would just do it.
You are part of the energy hog and pollution problem, *or* you do what you can and work towards a solution, there is no neutral middle ground there. Sit and bitch and ignore or do something, two choices. In decades to come do you want to be answering your grandchildren why stuff got so bad because few people did anything to help out, they were going to wait until backyard mr. fusion was developed or something?? That's nuts. Or do you want to be sitting in your rocking chair playing withe a kid on your knee and tell them stories about the good old days where instead of the gaming rig and large TV and a couple of other useless energy sucking toys you went ahead and did your duty to try and help make things better, say by getting some solar and maybe a hybrid car and so on? Is this really that hard to grok? How the hell is anything going to get better without a little support and enthusiasm from this "the people" fella? That's all of us, combined.
I know which path I have chosen, you can call it hippy or not but I just call it being personally and socially smart and responsible and it does make economic sense, short, medium and longer term. The more enthusaism and support, the faster this stuff will become even more efficient and more economical.
You are free to stay stuck at last century's social and economic awareness level of ostrich head in the sand energy and pollution outright luddism and be led around by the nose by the large power cartel monopolies while they reap huge profits by gouging people, your choice.
It's a fairly simple matter to do this. The neighbors install two large AC induction motor couple the shafts together via a belt drive with a slight (around 2%) difference in diameter. Both motors are connected to the grid. One motor will consume power from the grid, the other will generate power.
This could be done electronically as well, but but it would probably be cheaper to pick up a couple of surplus motors.
As a former Arizona resident (moved in December 06); this phenomenon seems strange on the surface but does have at least some basis in reality. I'm not saying there aren't people that overreact, but you have to understand how things are set up.
In Arizona, the streets do not have storm drainage. It'd be practically useless, as soon as the sun comes out again the water is dried up in 10 minutes. Therefore on the 2-3 days a year it does rain (or the once a century it snows), its actually quite dangerous to drive as the water is sitting in the roads. In addition, most cars (I know mine wasn't) do not have aqua-tread type tires. Most people are using regular tires or at best off road tires. Neither of which are anything close to tires with a double tread with a cavity down the center to push water aside. You can also just completely forget the idea that the city even OWNS a snow plow for the road.
So the question is, do you want your kids on a bus driving through a half inch of unplowed, melting snow, with regular tires and a driver that hasn't seen snow in 25 years? The "think of the children" fallacy doesn't apply when you're talking about closing schools due to a legitimate chance of a massive accident that can be avoided by simply taking 1 day off so the sun can fix the problem.
~Rebecca
http://world.honda.com/news/2006/c061201HondaSolte c/
FTA:
The next-generation solar cell to be produced and sold by Honda Soltec was developed by Honda Engineering Co., Ltd., the production engineering subsidiary of Honda. By using thin film made from a compound of copper, indium, gallium and selenium (CIGS), Honda's next-generation solar cell achieves a major reduction in the amount of energy consumed during the manufacturing process by approximately 50% compared to what is required to produce conventional crystal silicon solar cells. This makes the new solar cell more environmentally-friendly by reducing the amount of CO2 generated even from the production stage.
There is a company using net metering laws as a business model to offer homeowners free solar panel systems. Basically you rent the solar panels from them for the price of the electricity they generate, based on your current utility rates and locked for however long you sign up for (1, 5, or 25 years). I really hope this succeeds as it is the first really workable business model for mass solar adoption that I have seen. Check it out here:
http://www.jointhesolution.com/makepower
If a typical Nuclear power plant costs a billion dollars, what would happen if instead the money was spend on solar panels for individual homes, in the form of tax breaks and rebates for homeowners that put them up?
PV panels have an energy return on energy investment somewhere between 1:1 and 2:1. That is, for each watt you invest manufacturing and installing the panels you can get back somewhere between 1 and 2 watts.
Since PV panel manufacturers use traditional power sources (fossil fuel for mining the raw materials, grid electricity for manufacturing) you can think of a PV panel, until it reaches energy break-even, as a really compact battery. You put in the energy of a ton of coal all at once, then for the first two decades you get that energy back out, very slowly. After the panel as paid back it's energy debt and begins to return more power on top of what was used to manufacture it, then you are finally using 'green' power.
If you spent a billion dollars on solar panels you'd be taking a huge volume of grid electricity (produced from whatever the local grid runs on, hydroelectric would be good) and, effectively, packing it into a form (PV panels) that can easily be moved around and installed where power is needed. If the power used to produce the panels was coal-based, you'd burn a huge volume of coal now in trade for burning the same amount over the next 20 years.
The energy return on energy invested for nuclear isn't that great either, mostly because it takes a lot of energy to mine and process fuel, reprocess fuel, dispose of waste and construct and decommission the power plants. It is better than photovoltaic though, at least for now.
Oil has a very high EROEI, anywhere from 100:1 (the really easy to get to oil they found 100 years ago) to around 40:1 (the harder to extract oil we have today). Because fossil fuels are so widely used and so cheap, it's easy to forget how much they subsidize many other forms of power. Wind power for example. Mining, transporting and manufacturing the metals for the windmill all currently require lots of fossil fuels. These cheap energy sources make the embodied energy of the windmill cheap enough that the power produced by the mill is economical. But wind power is about sustainability and green-ness. What happens if you take the fossil fuels out of the equation and try to close the loop, manufacturing wind mills using only renewable power sources? The price of the windmill goes way up, because you have to pay more for the energy required to produce it.
Cheap energy underpins a huge part of the world economy. As we use up the easily-accessable fuels (the first oil wells were only a couple thousand feet deep, now we're drilling many thousands of feet, often under thousands of feet of water), the harder-to extract fuels cost more in energy to produce. For example, while tar-sands can be processed to make useful fuels, it takes much more power to do so than it does to pump light sweet crude out of Arabian desert. As the energy yeild on investment from these operations declines toward 1:1 it gets harder to make money. By using more effective technology you can maintain the overall energy output, but this comes at the expense of faster depletion of non-renewable fossil fuels. Somewhere down the line the fossil fuels will be so hard to find and so expensive to process that they will effectively be 'gone' (this could be generations away, or if you are a 'doomer', it could be next year).
The answer is to use the cheap power we have now to increase efficiency and reduce our demand, doing more things with less energy. This allows us to develop our renewable sources using cheap energy we have now, greatly extending the time we have fossil fuels available. Eventually they'll stop being profitable (e.g. 'run out') but with good planning we can make that something that happens far in the future.
One big issue is: how long will they take to pay themselves off?
No, that's the wrong question. For some reason this "payback time" nonsense always appears in discussions of solar electric power, and most of the "analyses" make some really naive assumptions about the value of money over time. Payback times are a really assinine way of comparing investments.
The proper way to evaluate an investment is to compare the annual return to that of other potential investments. With a properly-sized system in California (with current rebates), you can get about a 15% annual return on investment at today's energy prices. If energy prices rise (and almost everyone agrees that they will), your return gets even better.
The best investment comes from sizing the system just large enough to offset the most expensive energy tiers on your bill. If you size the system large enough to offset all of your annual energy consumption, you can still get a 7-9% annual return on investment.
7% isn't earth-shattering, but it's not bad for an extremely low-risk investment. It's way better than local banks' CD rates, and it's low enough that you can roll the cost of the system into a refi, and be cashflow positive immediately. The system's life will likely exceed 40 years, and it will add more than 100% of its own cost to the value of your house, should you ever need to sell it.
I've been waiting for the financial payback of a PV system to fall under 3-5 years and have been running the numbers unsuccessfully once a year or so.
Have you thought about what your statement means? Whether or not you realize it, you are expecting a 20-to-30 percent annual return on your investment. Do you demand that kind performance from your other investments? At 5%, solar energy begins to make sense for the motivated. At 8% (a realistic current return in California) it's a no brainer -- you can roll it into your mortgage and be cashflow-positive immediately.
You're more likely to win the lottery three days in a row than find an ultra-low risk investment that pays a 20% annual return.
If instead of buying photovoltaic cells you buy shares in your local electric company, you'll get about $120 to $240 a year in dividends (power companies often have a 2-4% yield)
Strange logic. Unsubsidized net-metered solar will generate a 3-5% annual return in most of the US today. In California, with rebates, 8-15% is typical at today's energy prices, and the return will get better as energy prices rise. Why would you trade 8% for a puny 2-4% dividend?
Real numbers: Our system (in California) cost about $12000 and saves us about $1000/year. The system will still be running 40 years from now, and requires no maintenance.
Your meter doesn't run backwards. All the power you use still comes from the power company. Then your generator puts power back onto the grid, and is measured. The power company will charge you for all the power you use based on their retail rates. The power you put back is then bought by the power company at the current wholesale rate. You can generate twice the power you actually used, and still owe money to the power company when the wholesale price is very low.
You can get around this by unhooking yourself from the grid completely, but then you don't get to sell your power back to the company.
Also the regulation equipment to set you power in phase with teh grid is kind of expensive, and most people don't think about that when figuring the cost of their generator set up.
Thats why I buy shares in companies which own nuclear power plants. Its cleaner than solar and has economies of scale. Yes, I said cleaner than scale...
No you didn't.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Have you taken into account the amount of energy it takes to make one nuclear plant operational and keep it operational? Add to that the cost of disposing nuclear waste and certainly nuclear energy will get beaten by solar power. It's like eating veg diet.When you consume something lowest in the food chain, you are most efficient per cal.
Nuclear power is far cleaner than coal power, but it can't beat solar power when it comes to being clean. When it comes to being economical, yes. It is economical today and perhaps for today it is most viable solution.
I will bet on future of solar power for one simple reason. The curve of solar power availability follows the curve of human activity. Like the human activity is high in plains in lower lattitudes, and so is solar power availability. The human activity is high in daytime, and so is solar power availability. A huge chunk of your electrical grid machinery goes into managing the fluctuations.All that could be simplified if you use solar energy. Throw in advantage of local generation. Throw in the possibility that tomorrow's equipments and devices would be far more efficient and solar power would be more productive. Then solar power seems like near perfect choice.
Well, on second thought, I think nuclear power is the only exception to my food chain argument in first paragraph. Because nuclear energy is not stored sun. But it holds good for all other sources of energy though.
But at the moment, best place to begin is to save energy.
I said "for any length of time." A car's engine can put out 100KW of energy, yes. But if the engine were 33% efficient, and the generator 90%, one would have to feed it ten gallons of gasoline per hour (100kWh/8.76(kWh/l)/3.78(L/G)/.29). If you can sell the electric for more than $.25/kWh (probably $.35 this summer), you win. Here in the north-west US, it's about $.13.
Have you thought about what your statement means? Whether or not you realize it, you are expecting a 20-to-30 percent annual return on your investment. Do you demand that kind performance from your other investments?
Err... yes, yes, and yes. What kind of performance do you get from your investments? Actually I'm being a little of a smartass there - but in the last two years I've been playing direct stocks in a portion of my retirement accounts, my returns have been in the 28% range. Really what's driving my 3-5 year rule of thumb is that outside of 5 years, the probability that I move becomes much higher. So, the question becomes will the real estate market return my investment in the PV system. I've read some studies that lead me to believe it's a qualified yes, but it's still something of risk so the shorter the payback time is, the better margin I have on the resale risk.
At 5%, solar energy begins to make sense for the motivated. At 8% (a realistic current return in California) it's a no brainer -- you can roll it into your mortgage and be cashflow-positive immediately.
Hmm, at 5% rate of return I'm paying an opportunity cost on the investment in addition to locking up the money for a long period of time. At 8% which I agree is reasonable estimate (especially at the rate electricity costs have been rising in CA) - IIRC the payback comes in 10-12 years?
At any rate, I am eagerly watching PV costs drop, waiting for a time that the ROI and risks feel right to me. I think I'm willing to take a little more risk in this than the average homeowner; however, I am careful because it is a significant capital layout.
In some states the utilities bill you per kWh what they pay and bill separately for overhead. With this structure, it's actually better for the utility company because then they get your power at the end of the grid without any transmission losses.
What drives competitiveness these days in not physics but price. Electricity is very expensive in the North East, so solar is very competitive there. http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID= /20070117/NEWS/701170342/1002/BUSINESS
s -selling-solar.html
What has only just started is giving the same deal to homeowners that Walmart, Staples, GM, FedEx and others get.
Slashdot users are starting to make a difference in this http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
I'd like to do this set up to reduce the amount of energy I take from the grid, but I rent and I move around frequently. Are there any apartment complexes that use this?
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
I don't know if this is mentioned in THIS article, but businesses don't fall under the netmeetering rules. Just look at all those big FLAT roofs waiting for a PV system.
You're evil. I respect that.
That makes solar power worth MUCH LESS than the average wholesale price of reliable power, in any rational analysis.
Solar generates all its power in the peak hours. That makes it more valuable than wholesale. They aren't selling power at midnight when usage is very low. They are selling power at peak noon. Solar makes a better case than standby natural gas plants.
Learn to love Alaska
"It's like eating veg diet.When you consume something lowest in the food chain, you are most efficient per cal."
;)
This is a very bad analogy. Solar power comes from a nuclear energy source (the sun). Our fission reactors are the same type of energy. Now you could get in to the whole fission/fusion argument, but it still all boils down to changes in mass producing energy.
For solar, you have fusion happening, which in turn produces heat, which causes the emission of EM radiation, which then travels for 8 minutes and is converted in to electricity via a photovoltaic cell.
For nuclear, you split atoms, use that to heat water, spin turbines with the water to create electricity via magnetism. Really the same number of steps from the "source" of the power.
Now i know the sun doesn't cost us anything, but technically speaking, solar is not closer to some mystical energy source.
Then again, one could argue that the elements we split are just byproducts of fusion in a star... so you may be able to add in, fusion before the fission process
Actually I'm being a little of a smartass there - but in the last two years I've been playing direct stocks in a portion of my retirement accounts, my returns have been in the 28% range.
Same here, actually, but it's not such a useful comparison, unless you're confident that you can keep that 28% up indefinitely. Stock market investments are phenomenally risky compared to a PV system, which will almost certainly return you 8%.
Really what's driving my 3-5 year rule of thumb is that outside of 5 years, the probability that I move becomes much higher.
If you're thinking of relocating, that's definitely a valid point. However, it appears that the PV system will likely add more than 100% of its cost to the value of your house, so personally I'd weight that towards installing the PV.
At 8% which I agree is reasonable estimate (especially at the rate electricity costs have been rising in CA) - IIRC the payback comes in 10-12 years?
I'm don't think payback times are a useful way to evaluate investments. I prefer to compare the ROI to that of whatever else I could have done with the same capital.
By the way, you may know this already, but you can get a PV return of 15% or more by sizing the system just large enough to offset the higher rate tiers from the utility company, rather than trying to offset your entire net consumption. It looks like the California rebates are going away faster than the system prices are declining, so now is definitely a good time to get in.
The MEG - "Motionless Electromagnetic Generator" from Tom Bearden
There is a yahoo group and looks promising..
I want one of these?
I don't invest in solar companies because at the moment they still haven't licked the whole "Making our products net energy producers" problem and until they do my only hope to profit from that investment would be hoping solar's massive government subsidies continue and expand.
Here in California, the solar industry isn't subsidized by the government, but is instead supported by our electric utility, PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric).
They've looked at the economic analysis of building power plants, and it actually works out cheaper for them to subsidize up to 50% of the installation of solar panels than it would be to build a power plant that provided this extra power (multiplying the solar installations by several thousand of course).
It's a win-win situation in that people become independent from the grid, and at the same time generate power for those that are still on-grid. Plus the subsidies bring the cost of solar down enough that the payback period is entirely within reasonable limits, given today's electrical rates in our state.
Another little-known factoid is that Californians consume less power per-capita than any other state besides Rhode Island, so it's safe to say that conservation will only get you so far... sooner or later you're going to need more power, and distributed power generation is where it's at.
So when Buckminster Fuller said he was a man twenty years ahead of his time, he was actually being modest.
Energy Australia (http://www.energyaustralia.com.au) already has a solar generation buyback scheme up and running:
t tachmentsByTitle/Rooftop+Solar+Generators/$FILE/Ro oftop_Solar_Generators.pdf
http://www.energyaustralia.com.au/energy/ea.nsf/A
The problem with the scheme is the cost of setting it up. It would take quite a long time to see the benefits.
As I already mentioned at the end of my first post, I accept that for fission and fusion vs solar energy, the veg diet analogy is not a good analogy.
Based on the website http://www.dsireusa.org/library/includes/incentive 2.cfm?Incentive_Code=TX03F&state=TX&CurrentPageID= 1&RE=1&EE=1
it appears your property taxes are 100% waived.
However is that just your city propery tax or does it include ALL property taxes such as school, MUD, TIRS, etc?
My property tax bill is $6k-$7k a year. Energy costs for cooling my house can run $500/mo in the hotter months. With a projected
net benefit of $9k a year this would pay for itself in less than 10 years even assuming
no other tax breaks, selling excess power or getting a grant to offset purchase costs.
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure I'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes. In the meantime, you'll continue to have lights on and sufficient power to write "Viva la revolution!" on that wonderful piece of modern technology you are using, which was doubtless developed and constructed by a worker's cooperative and not a gigantic multinational that I probably own a tiny part of.
(Sidenote: I really, really wish I had enough invested to do "nothing at all". *sigh*)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
In addition, it also has the only northeastern grid that did not conk-out during the last blackout.
And to add insult to injury, of all the north-american power utilities, it enjoys the absolute very best credit rating, mostly thanks to it's extremely well-maintained physical plant and overdesigned distribution network.
My parent's tax dollars went to it's nationalization 40 years ago, and since then, I have enjoyed continuous dividends by the way of reduced electric rates.
It's very difficult to make yourself completely energy independent.
It's not difficult to make a home you build energy independent. Using passive solar designs an architect can design a home that requires little energy to heat and cool. More negawatts of power can be "generated" by using energy efficient appliances and lighting. Fact is is that more and more people are building off the grid. And lenders, morgage companies, are helping. Because an energy efficient home that produces the energy it uses has one bill less to pay, the electric bill, lenders offer larger loans whch can be used to pay for the equipment used or for other things.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If people were really concerned about the bird-kill issue, then perhaps there should be a moratorium on high-rise construction or a movement to raze the sky-scrapers that make up the major metropolitan skylines most of us have grown to love. These areas have a much greater impact on migratory birds and produce a greater kill than any known wind farm.
Also most bird-kill stats are probably biased higher as the wind farms that were monitored in early studies were using older and smaller high velocity turbines. Newer large diameter turbines turn much slower and use internal gearing to drive the generators to the required speed. I would think the bird-kill impact from newer designs would be significantly smaller.
If there's anything that might be bad about wind turbines, it's probably the obnoxious aircraft warning lights. (At least with the ones I've seen in Illinois.) Not sure if it's just a local thing or FAA mandated, but switching to simple solid red marker beacons instead of obnoxious and distracting strobes would be good fix.
When State Representative Chris Kolb (D, Ann Arbor) first introduced the idea of net metering back in 2001, no limit was placed on the amount that a residential generator could sell back to the utility. This opened up the possibility that, in theory, residential generation could completely replace all the utility's generation using the utility's own lines. Yet the utilities would still carry the burden of maintaining the lines.
By engineering this little back-room deal, that now becomes a possibility only if every residence generates as much energy in a year as it uses. That, of course, will never happen -- the utilities are now assured of always having customers.
Once again, we have been screwed by the corporations. Do other ./ers know if this particular deal -- or similar utility trickery -- has happened in their state?
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
It's like eating veg diet.When you consume something lowest in the food chain, you are most efficient per cal.
However, if you consider two 'organisms', one consisting of humans + kangaroos + grass and the other consisting of human + soya beans, the kangaroo option is more efficient in terms of land quality requirements, water use and food transportation costs.
Connect a 1V 300A transformer as an autotransformer to increase the voltage on the outgoing side. You could make one of these using a 300VA toroidal transformer with a few turns of battery cable through the hole.
This was pretty important news, back in 1976.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -