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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."

31 of 526 comments (clear)

  1. You can do the same thing... by Centurix · · Score: 5, Funny

    With a Ferarri when you stick it in reverse.

    --
    Task Mangler
    1. Re:You can do the same thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      I saw that movie!

    2. Re:You can do the same thing... by ForestGrump · · Score: 2, Funny

      Staying home pretending to be sick instead of going to school. I see it has really paid off and now you read /. instead of doing something productive with life. Tho, not like I'm doing any better.

      Grump

      --
      Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
    3. Re:You can do the same thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      One method that John doesn't cover is tapping into your neighbors connection to the grid. There is this really old couple that lives next to me. They appear to be completely oblivious to the fact that they get $500+ utility bills every month, yet they live in an 750 square foot house with no central heat and air. I've found that my energy bills have been cut dramatically, even though I have remodeled my garage so that there is a server room with AC running 24/7 for my 20 servers.

      Thanks god for social security.

    4. Re:You can do the same thing... by bibendum59 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm sorry, but that sounds downright unethical. Obviously the "right" thing to do is to send any surplus power you get from your neighbors back to the power company via your own meter. Let's see... how big of a check would you like to receive from the power company this month?

    5. Re:You can do the same thing... by finiteSet · · Score: 4, Funny
      There is this really old couple that lives next to me. They appear to be completely oblivious to the fact that they get $500+ utility bills every month
      Yes, but think of all the money they have saved over the years by diverting their sewage into your water line.
      --
      If we start buying CDs then the terrorists have already won.
    6. Re:You can do the same thing... by Aphex+Junkie · · Score: 0, Funny

      Joke: >>whoosh>>->-->>->--
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      You:  0
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    7. Re:You can do the same thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      >--- Funny ---<
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      >--- Stupid  ---<
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      That Joke.
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      You:  0
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  2. yeah, but by macadamia_harold · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

  3. Re:Non conventional by scoot80 · · Score: 3, Funny

    You live in Holland?

  4. Greenhouses too by cerberusss · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

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    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  5. You can do this without solar panels. by Peter+Cooper · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  6. Re:Non conventional by TheCybernator · · Score: 3, Funny

    No. India. And why i would prefer wind mill over solar panels is because there is higher probability to find the wind mill still on my roof after vacation than solar panels :)

  7. Re:realities? by Mongoose · · Score: 4, Funny
    ...and that is only on the sunny days.


    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...
  8. Re:Where the icy cold beer is on the house by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Never trust a man who's last name is Shakeshaft.

  9. Re:What is the story? by packeteer · · Score: 1, Funny

    I didn't know untill i read this...

    --
    unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
  10. Re:OT, sick day scams... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Repeat after me:

    It's not real. I am a geek.

    ;)

  11. Re:realities? by eric76 · · Score: 2, Funny
    Solar water-heaters on the other hand are beneficial. Especially if you live in an area with plenty of sun *and* have a large family that likes to frequently shower in the summer, it can be a huge win. There are substantial savings from installing them at the same time one installs roofing, so your best bet is probably going to be to install them at the same time your roofing needs replacement anyway, rather than separately.

    Years ago, my grandfather had a steel drum painted black on the roof of the well house. They would fill it up with water in the morning and it would be nice and warm by the end of the day when they got home from the field. So that was what they used to bathe/shower. Of course, that was before they had hot water heaters so the alternative was to heat water on a stove.

    One neighbor reportedly had problems with this approach. It was his wife's job to fill the drum with water. When she was pissed off about something, apparently a common occurrence, she'd wait until an hour before they were due in from the field to fill it with water.

  12. Re:realities? by nacturation · · Score: 5, Funny

    Before you do something, ask yourself "what would happen if a million people did this"? Well, if a million people jumped off a cliff then it would only be a small drop before I landed a mountain of soft pillowy bodies.
    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  13. Re:Price issues by dangitman · · Score: 5, Funny

    Otherwise, if everyone started generating their own power part of the time, the power company would go bankrupt.

    So, what's the downside, then?

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    ... and then they built the supercollider.
  14. You can do the same thing with the natural gas co, by roaddemon · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can make about $15 after a big mexican dinner.

  15. Re:realities? by LordKronos · · Score: 2, Funny

    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've never lived there, but I learned about this "drizzle of doom" phenomenon a few months ago when I stumbled across the following article on a San Diego news website:

    0.02 inches of rain pummels the area

  16. Re:realities? by LordKronos · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just like when 1500 sheep jump off a cliff.

  17. Re:OT, sick day scams... by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Funny
    I don't need to have seen the exact car to know that it has at least 5 digits in its odo. ALL CARS DO.

    I think Bill Gates has one with three digits, and it's in kilometers, not miles. The car was custom built, and they explained there wasn't room for more digits. Gates, of course, said (and who doesn't see this coming) "No problem. 640k should be enough for anybody."

  18. Digits by Mark_MF-WN · · Score: 3, Funny

    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*

    1. Re:Digits by warpSpeed · · Score: 2, Funny
      How much is that in rods and hogsheads?

      0.002 lightyear = 3.76223988 × 1012 rods

  19. Storm Watch! by JacksBrokenCode · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!

  20. Re:Hydro is good for this. by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 2, Funny

    That sounds great! How much do streams cost? Does the price include installation?

  21. Re:Prepay your electric bill, or buy the electric by That's+Unpossible! · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.
  22. Re:It really does work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "That might be because taxation actually removes our money from our own use, whereas duplicating digital data does nothing of the sort?"

    Well open-source is a "common good" and since it's digital there's no problem with Tivo using it for their purposes.

    "You're right though, it's not stealing. "Taking money/possessions from a victim under threat of violence" Sounds more like armed robbery."

    Except for the difference that in armed robbery you can't leave the situation. You can leave whatever country that ask for taxes (pretty much ALL countries), and move to an island without a government.

  23. Re:What is the story? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Fuck's sake man... how old are you???