We already know that. The insurance company is responsible.
Also, in many cases 'true accident' or 'Act of God'* is an actual category. IE 'Nobody did anything definably negligent, so the accident isn't really anybody's fault'.
A tiny piece of road debris was hit at just the wrong spot, causing a tire to blow, which the self-driving car wasn't able to adjust for fast enough, causing an accident. A sudden wind gust(in a wind storm, most likely), pushed the car too far over, etc...
When self-driving cars are developed enough to be usable by the average person, for something like 99% of trips, while being demonstrated to be substantially safer than the average driver for said trips, I'll support liability reform to get them on the road. What form that reform would take, I don't really know yet, other than a wild stab at 'limited liability per individual'. IE the insurance/auto company won't have to pay out more than $5M per individual, adjusted for inflation and increasing value of human life. Unless a 'coverup' is found, deliberate negligence, or whatever.
*A statement that I don't like because I don't believe he exists.
There are an incredible number of obstacles that a person can instantly recognize that even today, a computer can't. If a child and a dog run out into the street at the same time from opposite sides, do you trust the car to make the right decision as to which it will run over?
Odds are that if the car's in a residential location where that's likely, it's going slow enough that it can either stop in time to avoid hitting both, or it's so close that neither the human nor the computer would have the choice of which to hit.
In testing, the computer driven cars are generally able to stop so much faster than a human that, in a case where a human has to 'make' a horrible choice of what to hit, the computer driven car has already stopped short.
Sorry about that, I simply googled for 'Dallas Fort Worth Electric Company' and Oncor was on top.
Fixing my assessment: initial reading: 1. Your cooperative* is meaner than mine. Mine will allow you to 'carry a balance'. If you go on vacation or something for a month and end up going negative, you 'donate' the power to the coop. If you go the two meter route with mine, like I said, they'll pay you a higher rate for sold power(at this time), but there's an additional $5 meter reading charge for this. So only good for 'big' installs.
Ah, section 7, for a 'distributed generator' Net metering is already being challenged by the power companies... it is not a technical issue, it is a revenue and political issue.
Yeah, power companies tend to have some of the longest viewpoints. They're already looking ahead.
It is also reasonable... Imagine if 20% of their customers install solar, they still expect the grid to be there at night and during bad weather, yet don't want to pay anything. What if 20% of the customers install enough solar to produce 100% of the annual power use. What then, no bill at all? So they want the grid to stay up and to be able to draw power when they want it, but to pay nothing at all?
Remember, I'm the one who stated the 20% figure as when things start 'flipping'. Anyways, if we start approaching that things would indeed have to change. And 20% of installs would have to translate to '20% of customers install 100% net power generation'. In many areas they only really shoot for 50-80%, especially in California where you're charged progressively more the more kWh you consume. So if you're like you and use more than average, you can be faced with a bill like this: First 800 kWh: $.10 Next 400:.15 Next 400:.20 Last 166:.30
Replacing that last 800 kWh isn't worth it, but replacing the 566 is a heck of a lot more important than the first 1200. So you install 'enough' solar panels to generate around 6-800 kWh a month, getting you out of the top marginal rate category.;)
As a bonus, some of them get installs with a couple batteries that can also act as standby power - if the grid cuts out standard inverters turn off, these cut the connection to the grid like a generator transfer switch would(for line safety and such for the electric company), and intelligently manage power availability and demand. So if you set it up that way, if it's cloudy out and the batteries aren't strong enough, you might find your TV cutting off to keep your fridge running. But at least your fridge is running... (Remember my grandparents and their average of 3 days of power outage a year).
As for your 20%-100%, do you mean 20% of customers 'eliminate' their power bill completely, or that 20% of customers generate enough power that the electric company would be net neutral for 100% of it's customers, meaning they wouldn't need to generate or buy power if it wasn't for the pesky day-night thing?
Because, like I said, the former is something I've been addressing, the latter would break all sorts of rules.
*And I like the idea of cooperatives for utilities, I get the best customer service from them. This has held true for phone, power, and water.
However... if you're basing the decision on installing $50,000 worth of solar panels based on the power they will produce for 20 years, don't you think it would be smart to consider what happens to the math if/when net metering goes away?
You're still better off if the payback period is 13-14 years, rather than 20. Also, dig into the contracts and stuff, if you lock into net metering today they have to let you keep it.
Plus, well, remember inflation. At that point they might be paying you 12 and charging you 25. You're still saving money.
Finally, well, there's a reason why I sometimes posit using retired EV batteries... Because if solar power goes much above 20%, that's when you have to start worrying about daytime power actually being cheaper than night time. The way we're going right now, though, other than small isolated power grids like Hawaii, we aren't hitting 20% anytime soon.
I'll finish by repeating what I said in my very first post: The main problem with solar power is the cost.
Where I live we have net metering, so I would have a second meter on the house showing the power fed back to the grid. The power company has to install it and they have to do some other work which I don't claim to understand, but there is a cost for that. I don't think it is huge however.
You don't actually need a second meter for net metering(though your power company requiring it is entirely possible), though it's 'nice' to know how much energy your array is generating(and to tell you if something is wrong), but most inverters have that. Your standard electric meter is perfectly happy to run backwards, and that's all that's necessary for 'net' metering.
Looking it up, you're serviced by Oncor, right? It's probably because of their Incentives, specifically $539 per kW, and $0.3462/kWh. That's not net metering. That's selling your energy for 3 times the regular going rate. Just remember that solar generally displaces more expensive peak power.
That's what I was talking about with it being worth it to install a 2nd meter with a larger install. The 2nd meter allows you to sell power at the higher rate, rather than 'merely' net metering.
Net metering won't go away until you're getting up past Hawaii install levels, where a substation's power flow might actually go negative during the day. Daytime power demand is sufficiently higher that they're still more than breaking even on solar panels saving them 'expensive' power.
Still, if you start busting 20% of all electricity in a region being from solar generation, that's when putting batteries in starts making some sense.
Installing the inverter, a second panel, a second meter, getting it grid tied so the power runs both ways, I think is far more challenging...
The inverter is easy - mount to wall, wire up. Putting the panels on the roof is what I'd rate as the trickier and more dangerous operation. A second meter is only required for certain incentive schemes. For example, it wouldn't make sense for me unless I installed a substantial system, but installing a second meter would allow me to 'sell' solar at the daytime price, which is higher than the standard residential rate.
The 'tricky' part, at least to me, is the final connection. You can have everything be dead when you make the final connection by having the power company yank the meter. Before that, if you live somewhere with building codes, you have somebody inspect it before you have them put the meter back in.
All you really need is one of those simplified code books that tell you the required wire sizes and such. For a US inverter, you'll generally have 2 hots, a neutral, and a ground. Depending on where you hook it up, the neutral and ground might go to the same spot.
Well, to do an honest assessment, you've still left a number of things out. 1. Is this an open crawlspace or an enclosed one? My current house has a 'crawlspace' with a dirt floor that isn't considered a basement because it's simply not high enough. Meanwhile, down in Florida most are relatively 'open', only protected by a veneer. 2. Where do you live? What's the high temperature? Low temperature? How much ventilation?
Generally I don't worry about condensation for running equipment - it'll be slightly hotter than ambient, so stuff will tend to condense elsewhere. It doesn't take much heat to prevent it.
Do you need to worry about heat or cold more? Crawl spaces will tend towards cooler than outside, out in the open, but they'll also be warmer in the winter, even if they're relatively open. So you get "some" climate control.
Don't forget that you will want it OFF the ground, pretty much in any situation. Corrosion resistant materials are good - go with stainless steel, aluminum case, etc... Put it on wooden blocks, a plastic rack, something. Just make sure that if there's anywhere for water to collect, that you either eliminate that or put non-rusting materials there. If you don't have to worry about heat too much, I might even make a outside case of outdoor quality plywood, preferably painted. Not so it looks nice, but because the paint provides an additional barrier. Make sure it fits *tight* - bugs and other things that like heat & shelter will try to get in. This is where sizing comes in - if the box is big enough, it'll still be able to radiate sufficient heat to keep the PC inside at acceptable temperatures. Also, the more material involved, the more steady the temperature will be. Remember, if it's always a little warmer inside, you don't have to worry about condensation as much. If you're still worried about heat - consider a temperature controlled fan with a tight grill on it. You might(probably should) have to clean it occasionally.
That's really the important thing - check on it monthly or so, make sure it's not turning into an animal nest, corrosion is within acceptable limits, there's not evidence of overheating or freezing, any fan ports aren't clogged with dust, etc...
Yeah it seems the only reason you'd want to go to the dealership would be to look at the car and maybe get a test drive.
Well, the traditional reason is that you can drive off the lot the same day with a car. Something that Tesla has yet to have the stock to do. So even if you were a 'dealership' you'd have to be calling to tell customers that their new vehicle has arrived. Removing one of the 'benefits' of being a dealer.
That Tesla, thus far, has had only 1 vehicle model at a time to worry about, it simplifies the 'test drive' thing enormously.
As for crowdsourcing their 'test drives', it works somewhat, word of mouth is a BIG Tesla seller. Still, the ability for other interested people who don't happen to know a Tesla owner, such as in a new market, to try one out works.
Because, based on what I understand so far, they seem to be ancient, anti-competitive laws established by states in response to a perceived crisis that ended decades ago and which are now being used by the formerly-underdog players to abuse their now-dominant positions.
That's basically my understanding of the issue. Wikipedia is a good start.
This NADA PDF has the North American Dealership Association view on it. Unsurprisingly, it supports independent dealers, though their little sheet doesn't impress me.
Reading their 'differences', I'm reminded of firearms as being the next most closely regulated product. There dealerships are also the 'norm', but if Winchester(for example) wanted to open a store somewhere, they would be fully able to do so under their license. Irregardless, none of their points shows a need for independent dealerships, just that there needs to be rules to follow for selling cars.
Well, with the lower power generation up here(though usable power generation would be darn near 24/7 during the summer), balanced by my electricity costs being double yours, yeah, at those prices it doesn't make sense.
I'd have to do a self-install to save most of the costs. Which I'm much more willing to do on my simple-roofed single story house.
I'm no professional electrician, but I had to learn a bit while deployed, because the real electricians were busy elsewhere and we had to get our computer equipment up.
What problem is all this trying to solve? That is, at the end of the day, where I'm getting a bit lost...
Save money, naturally. In a world of rising energy costs, locking in prices 'now' can save you considerable money down the road.
The trick is that you come up with an idea to save money by investing in infrastructure. Then you figure out, initially 'back of the envelope', the cost of said infrastructure. If you get a 'direct payback' of less then a decade, it's time to add in 'cost of capital' and a risk assessment.
At least for monthly charges, keeping inflation in mind is good as well - present money is generally worth more than future money, so if you can lock in your power usage at $200/month for the next ~20 years or so, you could still be paying $200/month for your electricity*, while everybody else is paying $300 for that same electricity from the power company.
*When I figured it out for you, it was a 13 year payoff, let's say that you refurbished your solar system so you have a payment again.
My main question becomes, why should I bother? I already have power... it is dependable and works all the time and it is, all things considered, cheap...
If you've paid attention, I've been basically suggesting fixing up your house's insulation situation before installing solar panels.
~22k kWh/year? You said earlier that your house has a 2200 sqft footprint.
So if we figure that we have about 1200 sqft to play with(remember roof tilt!), and each panel is 5.5x3.25, or 18 square feet(I'm rounding up). We're looking at 66.7 panels worth of space, but I'll round down to 60.
60 240W panels = 14.4 kw. Plugging the data in to PVWatts for Texas and leaving everything else as default., I get 21k kWh of electricity a year.
56 300W panels = 16.8 kw, raises the electricity generated to 25k kWh. Might not cover you, but then again, might come close with the roof insulation effect(IE the solar panels keep your roof cooler, reducing HVAC use).
So while it sounds like you'd still be buying electricity from the power company with a roof 'completely' filled with PV panels, it'd come pretty close. It's almost certain that if you undertook some additional energy saving measures such as replacing your windows or insulating your walls* that your power needs would drop to the point that, yes, you could reach net zero without having to fill your south-facing roof completely with solar panels.
Why would I give up the grid connection?
Never said you should. I was saying 'depending on the situation', IE I was trying to list out various concerns for meeting electric power needs with a solar + battery system, under which a grid connection is indeed no longer assured, seeing as how it can be a $20-40/month charge even if you're not pulling or putting power on it. I wasn't actually trying to single your situation out right then.
No amount of savings from batteries and solar panels makes any kind of sense.
Actually, it'd make perfect sense if somebody gave you the system for 'free', like I said in the very beginning, the problem with solar isn't space, it's cost.
Anyways, with the 300 watt panels, it looks like $23k before incentives(which normally cuts the price in half) for a 15.6kW system. It'd displace 23k kWh/year, or $2,480 worth of electricity**
Or about a 13 year payback @5%
*One of my homes had extra insulation added by punching a small hole near the top of the wall, then spraying in insulation through the hole. The opening was then capped off. **Variation is probably on how we're rounding things.
That's why I specified the water heater, of course. They don't give a hoot about losing power one way or another,
And there's a reason why I mentioned saving power for the fridge/stove. If you're going 'extreme', yes, you could get a fridge that allows for power interruption, but most of that would be going with a 'sunfrost' type model which can go for like a day, if unopened, without turning on it's compressor anyways.
It sounds like your house's 'only' high power system that I would hook into a relay system would be the AC system. IE if you turn on every light in the house, every electric appliance, while in a reduced power availability situation, it'd kill the HVAC until you shut some things off.
It would also require more rare earth elements than exist in the earth's crust. Perhaps that is an exaggeration but not by much, mining enough lithium, cadmium, or whatever, is not trivial.
It's very evenly distributed, on average, so it's a bit of a pain to refine, but it's also 100% recyclable.
None of these can compete with even first generation nuclear power, and we have fourth generation nuclear power coming on line soon.
Now expanding nuclear power I also agree with. I just find the solar stuff interesting as well. You put a few solar panels on most roofs and you can satisfy daytime demand increases, mostly at point of use, so you don't need to build the grid up as much. Then you have nuclear power to provide the baseload night power.
There's another version. In Brazil nobody has a water heater. What they do have is a small heater attached directly to the shower-head that heats the water as it comes out of the tap.
That's possible because you have a much smaller necessary delta - I need to heat my water 30 degrees before it even hits room temperature, much less 'hot'.
Also, said system is even more 'on demand' than the traditional water tank. If you don't have the electricity to spare for the heating when you want to take a shower, you're going to be taking a colder than normal shower.
Part of 'lots of solar power' would probably be putting more solar water heating solutions in, and those generally require a larger tank to store the energy and provide 'evenness'. Especially if you're using it to heat the house...
Down in San Diego, solar covered parking is fairly common.
While I'm up in Alaska, which is kind of an outlier for how well solar would work, my other main experience is down in Florida where much of my family lives, and I haven't really seen ANY there. Probably due to the electric companies being excessively hostile about it.
I would really want to know where the 15000 TWh figure comes from, considering that it's 3x the US annual electricity consumption.
Reading the article, it's basically what you'd get if you slathered solar panels basically 'everywhere' that's already developed. They even include 'brownfields' and such, industrial areas that are currently unused. Probably would involve covering parking lots with solar panels as well. If there's concrete there, you'd be putting a solar panel over it.
Our homes are not smart and not likely to become smart any time soon...
The level of 'smart' I posited isn't actually very smart at all. It would consist of having your high-power, but not 'time of use' appliances like your water heater be on a relay. If the inverter starts approaching capacity, it shuts that relay off, cutting power to the water heater, leaving capacity to run the fridge/stove/etc...
I'm not sure why you're ignoring my 'but' in there where I mention that expense is the overriding concern.
And really, 'may or may not have enough' is really a question of expense. Do you or do you not have enough batteries? If you're running out of power at night, the obvious answer is 'no', and you 'need' to increase expense by installing more, and maybe another solar panel or two to charge them.
What if the weather is bad for a few days? No power?
Well, that depends on the 'expense' side, whether you still have a grid connection, access to cheap natural gas, etc...
If you absolutely MUST have power at all times, exceeding that of even the power grid in many areas*, you have choices. Depending on things, if you're off the grid I'd start with a small NG generator that's programmed to come on when the battery reaches a critical level. Off hand, I'd say 10%.
Alternatively, if retired Tesla batteries are really cheap, one of those should power the *average* home user for about 3 days, even at 50% capacity.
We often run our AC at night, it gets quite warm and without it it would be nearly impossible to sleep. Are you suggesting we would have a big enough battery to run the AC for several days of no solar power?
Well, you've already admitted that your house has poor thermal management. Fix that and you might not need the AC at night. Alternatives include a higher efficiency split-duct cooler specifically in the bedrooms, and even a system involving a thermal heat sink(big tank of cold water that's used to provide cooling at night rather than electricity).
As something of an aside, my walls are about as well insulated as your roof.
*My grandparents are out of power, on average, for about 3 days a year while the power company fixes power lines.
Making a battery larger doesn't always increase the amperage of the output. It can, depending on the design, but that gets very expensive.
The average battery system for homes amounts to a very large UPS, and the main method to add more capacity is to add more batteries, which, if you're sizing everything correctly, translates to 'larger home battery' does indeed equate to more amperage capacity. Matter of fact, you're generally going to run into inverter limitations before lead-acid or LiIon batteries run out of amperage capacity. Keep in mind that you're looking at multiple lead-acid batteries, and 800 amps out of each isn't uncommon. 10 6V batteries, 800A each, = 48kV, or the equivalent of a 200A@240V service. If you're popping that, you are an outlier when it comes to home power usage.
As for expense, yeah, that's kind of been my point from the beginning.
The point is to penalize people who do wrong, in a way that's actually likely to change their behavior for the better.
A $200 fine to somebody making $1M/year has the 'stopped by police' as being a bigger negative than the actual monetary amount of the fine.
If the rich person isn't driving, then what are you looking to fine him for? He hired a driver and/or an automatic driving system(that's still being developed), so he's not violating the rules of the road.
Now, if it turns out that he's demanding his drivers do illegal things(like drive too fast), then there's various laws that carry the possibility of prison time as a result of that. So again, the risk is there.
Slashdot Mirror
We already know that. The insurance company is responsible.
Also, in many cases 'true accident' or 'Act of God'* is an actual category. IE 'Nobody did anything definably negligent, so the accident isn't really anybody's fault'.
A tiny piece of road debris was hit at just the wrong spot, causing a tire to blow, which the self-driving car wasn't able to adjust for fast enough, causing an accident. A sudden wind gust(in a wind storm, most likely), pushed the car too far over, etc...
When self-driving cars are developed enough to be usable by the average person, for something like 99% of trips, while being demonstrated to be substantially safer than the average driver for said trips, I'll support liability reform to get them on the road. What form that reform would take, I don't really know yet, other than a wild stab at 'limited liability per individual'. IE the insurance/auto company won't have to pay out more than $5M per individual, adjusted for inflation and increasing value of human life. Unless a 'coverup' is found, deliberate negligence, or whatever.
*A statement that I don't like because I don't believe he exists.
There are an incredible number of obstacles that a person can instantly recognize that even today, a computer can't. If a child and a dog run out into the street at the same time from opposite sides, do you trust the car to make the right decision as to which it will run over?
Odds are that if the car's in a residential location where that's likely, it's going slow enough that it can either stop in time to avoid hitting both, or it's so close that neither the human nor the computer would have the choice of which to hit.
In testing, the computer driven cars are generally able to stop so much faster than a human that, in a case where a human has to 'make' a horrible choice of what to hit, the computer driven car has already stopped short.
Sorry about that, I simply googled for 'Dallas Fort Worth Electric Company' and Oncor was on top.
Fixing my assessment: initial reading:
1. Your cooperative* is meaner than mine. Mine will allow you to 'carry a balance'. If you go on vacation or something for a month and end up going negative, you 'donate' the power to the coop. If you go the two meter route with mine, like I said, they'll pay you a higher rate for sold power(at this time), but there's an additional $5 meter reading charge for this. So only good for 'big' installs.
Ah, section 7, for a 'distributed generator' Net metering is already being challenged by the power companies... it is not a technical issue, it is a revenue and political issue.
Yeah, power companies tend to have some of the longest viewpoints. They're already looking ahead.
It is also reasonable... Imagine if 20% of their customers install solar, they still expect the grid to be there at night and during bad weather, yet don't want to pay anything. What if 20% of the customers install enough solar to produce 100% of the annual power use. What then, no bill at all? So they want the grid to stay up and to be able to draw power when they want it, but to pay nothing at all?
Remember, I'm the one who stated the 20% figure as when things start 'flipping'. Anyways, if we start approaching that things would indeed have to change. And 20% of installs would have to translate to '20% of customers install 100% net power generation'. In many areas they only really shoot for 50-80%, especially in California where you're charged progressively more the more kWh you consume. So if you're like you and use more than average, you can be faced with a bill like this: .15 .20 .30
First 800 kWh: $.10
Next 400:
Next 400:
Last 166:
Replacing that last 800 kWh isn't worth it, but replacing the 566 is a heck of a lot more important than the first 1200. So you install 'enough' solar panels to generate around 6-800 kWh a month, getting you out of the top marginal rate category. ;)
As a bonus, some of them get installs with a couple batteries that can also act as standby power - if the grid cuts out standard inverters turn off, these cut the connection to the grid like a generator transfer switch would(for line safety and such for the electric company), and intelligently manage power availability and demand. So if you set it up that way, if it's cloudy out and the batteries aren't strong enough, you might find your TV cutting off to keep your fridge running. But at least your fridge is running... (Remember my grandparents and their average of 3 days of power outage a year).
As for your 20%-100%, do you mean 20% of customers 'eliminate' their power bill completely, or that 20% of customers generate enough power that the electric company would be net neutral for 100% of it's customers, meaning they wouldn't need to generate or buy power if it wasn't for the pesky day-night thing?
Because, like I said, the former is something I've been addressing, the latter would break all sorts of rules.
*And I like the idea of cooperatives for utilities, I get the best customer service from them. This has held true for phone, power, and water.
However... if you're basing the decision on installing $50,000 worth of solar panels based on the power they will produce for 20 years, don't you think it would be smart to consider what happens to the math if/when net metering goes away?
You're still better off if the payback period is 13-14 years, rather than 20. Also, dig into the contracts and stuff, if you lock into net metering today they have to let you keep it.
Plus, well, remember inflation. At that point they might be paying you 12 and charging you 25. You're still saving money.
Finally, well, there's a reason why I sometimes posit using retired EV batteries... Because if solar power goes much above 20%, that's when you have to start worrying about daytime power actually being cheaper than night time. The way we're going right now, though, other than small isolated power grids like Hawaii, we aren't hitting 20% anytime soon.
I'll finish by repeating what I said in my very first post: The main problem with solar power is the cost.
Where I live we have net metering, so I would have a second meter on the house showing the power fed back to the grid. The power company has to install it and they have to do some other work which I don't claim to understand, but there is a cost for that. I don't think it is huge however.
You don't actually need a second meter for net metering(though your power company requiring it is entirely possible), though it's 'nice' to know how much energy your array is generating(and to tell you if something is wrong), but most inverters have that. Your standard electric meter is perfectly happy to run backwards, and that's all that's necessary for 'net' metering.
Looking it up, you're serviced by Oncor, right? It's probably because of their Incentives, specifically $539 per kW, and $0.3462/kWh. That's not net metering. That's selling your energy for 3 times the regular going rate. Just remember that solar generally displaces more expensive peak power.
That's what I was talking about with it being worth it to install a 2nd meter with a larger install. The 2nd meter allows you to sell power at the higher rate, rather than 'merely' net metering.
Net metering won't go away until you're getting up past Hawaii install levels, where a substation's power flow might actually go negative during the day. Daytime power demand is sufficiently higher that they're still more than breaking even on solar panels saving them 'expensive' power.
Still, if you start busting 20% of all electricity in a region being from solar generation, that's when putting batteries in starts making some sense.
Installing the inverter, a second panel, a second meter, getting it grid tied so the power runs both ways, I think is far more challenging...
The inverter is easy - mount to wall, wire up. Putting the panels on the roof is what I'd rate as the trickier and more dangerous operation.
A second meter is only required for certain incentive schemes. For example, it wouldn't make sense for me unless I installed a substantial system, but installing a second meter would allow me to 'sell' solar at the daytime price, which is higher than the standard residential rate.
The 'tricky' part, at least to me, is the final connection. You can have everything be dead when you make the final connection by having the power company yank the meter. Before that, if you live somewhere with building codes, you have somebody inspect it before you have them put the meter back in.
All you really need is one of those simplified code books that tell you the required wire sizes and such. For a US inverter, you'll generally have 2 hots, a neutral, and a ground. Depending on where you hook it up, the neutral and ground might go to the same spot.
What I don't work with is gas.
Well, to do an honest assessment, you've still left a number of things out.
1. Is this an open crawlspace or an enclosed one? My current house has a 'crawlspace' with a dirt floor that isn't considered a basement because it's simply not high enough. Meanwhile, down in Florida most are relatively 'open', only protected by a veneer.
2. Where do you live? What's the high temperature? Low temperature? How much ventilation?
Generally I don't worry about condensation for running equipment - it'll be slightly hotter than ambient, so stuff will tend to condense elsewhere. It doesn't take much heat to prevent it.
Do you need to worry about heat or cold more? Crawl spaces will tend towards cooler than outside, out in the open, but they'll also be warmer in the winter, even if they're relatively open. So you get "some" climate control.
Don't forget that you will want it OFF the ground, pretty much in any situation. Corrosion resistant materials are good - go with stainless steel, aluminum case, etc... Put it on wooden blocks, a plastic rack, something. Just make sure that if there's anywhere for water to collect, that you either eliminate that or put non-rusting materials there. If you don't have to worry about heat too much, I might even make a outside case of outdoor quality plywood, preferably painted. Not so it looks nice, but because the paint provides an additional barrier. Make sure it fits *tight* - bugs and other things that like heat & shelter will try to get in. This is where sizing comes in - if the box is big enough, it'll still be able to radiate sufficient heat to keep the PC inside at acceptable temperatures. Also, the more material involved, the more steady the temperature will be. Remember, if it's always a little warmer inside, you don't have to worry about condensation as much. If you're still worried about heat - consider a temperature controlled fan with a tight grill on it. You might(probably should) have to clean it occasionally.
That's really the important thing - check on it monthly or so, make sure it's not turning into an animal nest, corrosion is within acceptable limits, there's not evidence of overheating or freezing, any fan ports aren't clogged with dust, etc...
Yeah it seems the only reason you'd want to go to the dealership would be to look at the car and maybe get a test drive.
Well, the traditional reason is that you can drive off the lot the same day with a car. Something that Tesla has yet to have the stock to do. So even if you were a 'dealership' you'd have to be calling to tell customers that their new vehicle has arrived. Removing one of the 'benefits' of being a dealer.
That Tesla, thus far, has had only 1 vehicle model at a time to worry about, it simplifies the 'test drive' thing enormously.
As for crowdsourcing their 'test drives', it works somewhat, word of mouth is a BIG Tesla seller. Still, the ability for other interested people who don't happen to know a Tesla owner, such as in a new market, to try one out works.
Because, based on what I understand so far, they seem to be ancient, anti-competitive laws established by states in response to a perceived crisis that ended decades ago and which are now being used by the formerly-underdog players to abuse their now-dominant positions.
That's basically my understanding of the issue. Wikipedia is a good start.
This NADA PDF has the North American Dealership Association view on it. Unsurprisingly, it supports independent dealers, though their little sheet doesn't impress me.
Reading their 'differences', I'm reminded of firearms as being the next most closely regulated product. There dealerships are also the 'norm', but if Winchester(for example) wanted to open a store somewhere, they would be fully able to do so under their license. Irregardless, none of their points shows a need for independent dealerships, just that there needs to be rules to follow for selling cars.
Has the Traditional Automobile Franchise System Run Out of Gas? - has more.
Well, with the lower power generation up here(though usable power generation would be darn near 24/7 during the summer), balanced by my electricity costs being double yours, yeah, at those prices it doesn't make sense.
I'd have to do a self-install to save most of the costs. Which I'm much more willing to do on my simple-roofed single story house.
I'm no professional electrician, but I had to learn a bit while deployed, because the real electricians were busy elsewhere and we had to get our computer equipment up.
$50k for 14kW? Either you haven't checked in a while or the installers in your area are rip-off artists.
What problem is all this trying to solve? That is, at the end of the day, where I'm getting a bit lost...
Save money, naturally. In a world of rising energy costs, locking in prices 'now' can save you considerable money down the road.
The trick is that you come up with an idea to save money by investing in infrastructure. Then you figure out, initially 'back of the envelope', the cost of said infrastructure. If you get a 'direct payback' of less then a decade, it's time to add in 'cost of capital' and a risk assessment.
At least for monthly charges, keeping inflation in mind is good as well - present money is generally worth more than future money, so if you can lock in your power usage at $200/month for the next ~20 years or so, you could still be paying $200/month for your electricity*, while everybody else is paying $300 for that same electricity from the power company.
*When I figured it out for you, it was a 13 year payoff, let's say that you refurbished your solar system so you have a payment again.
My main question becomes, why should I bother? I already have power... it is dependable and works all the time and it is, all things considered, cheap...
If you've paid attention, I've been basically suggesting fixing up your house's insulation situation before installing solar panels.
~22k kWh/year? You said earlier that your house has a 2200 sqft footprint.
So if we figure that we have about 1200 sqft to play with(remember roof tilt!), and each panel is 5.5x3.25, or 18 square feet(I'm rounding up). We're looking at 66.7 panels worth of space, but I'll round down to 60.
60 240W panels = 14.4 kw. Plugging the data in to PVWatts for Texas and leaving everything else as default., I get 21k kWh of electricity a year.
56 300W panels = 16.8 kw, raises the electricity generated to 25k kWh. Might not cover you, but then again, might come close with the roof insulation effect(IE the solar panels keep your roof cooler, reducing HVAC use).
So while it sounds like you'd still be buying electricity from the power company with a roof 'completely' filled with PV panels, it'd come pretty close. It's almost certain that if you undertook some additional energy saving measures such as replacing your windows or insulating your walls* that your power needs would drop to the point that, yes, you could reach net zero without having to fill your south-facing roof completely with solar panels.
Why would I give up the grid connection?
Never said you should. I was saying 'depending on the situation', IE I was trying to list out various concerns for meeting electric power needs with a solar + battery system, under which a grid connection is indeed no longer assured, seeing as how it can be a $20-40/month charge even if you're not pulling or putting power on it. I wasn't actually trying to single your situation out right then.
No amount of savings from batteries and solar panels makes any kind of sense.
Actually, it'd make perfect sense if somebody gave you the system for 'free', like I said in the very beginning, the problem with solar isn't space, it's cost.
Anyways, with the 300 watt panels, it looks like $23k before incentives(which normally cuts the price in half) for a 15.6kW system. It'd displace 23k kWh/year, or $2,480 worth of electricity**
Or about a 13 year payback @5%
*One of my homes had extra insulation added by punching a small hole near the top of the wall, then spraying in insulation through the hole. The opening was then capped off.
**Variation is probably on how we're rounding things.
That's why I specified the water heater, of course. They don't give a hoot about losing power one way or another,
And there's a reason why I mentioned saving power for the fridge/stove. If you're going 'extreme', yes, you could get a fridge that allows for power interruption, but most of that would be going with a 'sunfrost' type model which can go for like a day, if unopened, without turning on it's compressor anyways.
It sounds like your house's 'only' high power system that I would hook into a relay system would be the AC system. IE if you turn on every light in the house, every electric appliance, while in a reduced power availability situation, it'd kill the HVAC until you shut some things off.
As ChrisMaple said, NG used for home heating can exceed 95% efficiency. Same with water. Guess where the majority of natural gas use goes towards?
If the burners on your stove weren't 'very' efficient you'd have issues with breathing.
Still, I rounded down to 90% for a reason.
It would also require more rare earth elements than exist in the earth's crust. Perhaps that is an exaggeration but not by much, mining enough lithium, cadmium, or whatever, is not trivial.
Lithium is the 33rd most common substance in the Earth's crust.
It's very evenly distributed, on average, so it's a bit of a pain to refine, but it's also 100% recyclable.
None of these can compete with even first generation nuclear power, and we have fourth generation nuclear power coming on line soon.
Now expanding nuclear power I also agree with. I just find the solar stuff interesting as well. You put a few solar panels on most roofs and you can satisfy daytime demand increases, mostly at point of use, so you don't need to build the grid up as much. Then you have nuclear power to provide the baseload night power.
I lived in Germany for a couple years, I never had to get on the Autobahn for groceries...
Driving fast to work/grocery store implies going fast on city streets, which is what I object to.
There's another version. In Brazil nobody has a water heater. What they do have is a small heater attached directly to the shower-head that heats the water as it comes out of the tap.
That's possible because you have a much smaller necessary delta - I need to heat my water 30 degrees before it even hits room temperature, much less 'hot'.
Also, said system is even more 'on demand' than the traditional water tank. If you don't have the electricity to spare for the heating when you want to take a shower, you're going to be taking a colder than normal shower.
Part of 'lots of solar power' would probably be putting more solar water heating solutions in, and those generally require a larger tank to store the energy and provide 'evenness'. Especially if you're using it to heat the house...
Down in San Diego, solar covered parking is fairly common.
While I'm up in Alaska, which is kind of an outlier for how well solar would work, my other main experience is down in Florida where much of my family lives, and I haven't really seen ANY there. Probably due to the electric companies being excessively hostile about it.
I would really want to know where the 15000 TWh figure comes from, considering that it's 3x the US annual electricity consumption.
Reading the article, it's basically what you'd get if you slathered solar panels basically 'everywhere' that's already developed. They even include 'brownfields' and such, industrial areas that are currently unused. Probably would involve covering parking lots with solar panels as well. If there's concrete there, you'd be putting a solar panel over it.
Our homes are not smart and not likely to become smart any time soon...
The level of 'smart' I posited isn't actually very smart at all. It would consist of having your high-power, but not 'time of use' appliances like your water heater be on a relay. If the inverter starts approaching capacity, it shuts that relay off, cutting power to the water heater, leaving capacity to run the fridge/stove/etc...
I'm not sure why people keep saying this...
I'm not sure why you're ignoring my 'but' in there where I mention that expense is the overriding concern.
And really, 'may or may not have enough' is really a question of expense. Do you or do you not have enough batteries? If you're running out of power at night, the obvious answer is 'no', and you 'need' to increase expense by installing more, and maybe another solar panel or two to charge them.
What if the weather is bad for a few days? No power?
Well, that depends on the 'expense' side, whether you still have a grid connection, access to cheap natural gas, etc...
If you absolutely MUST have power at all times, exceeding that of even the power grid in many areas*, you have choices. Depending on things, if you're off the grid I'd start with a small NG generator that's programmed to come on when the battery reaches a critical level. Off hand, I'd say 10%.
Alternatively, if retired Tesla batteries are really cheap, one of those should power the *average* home user for about 3 days, even at 50% capacity.
We often run our AC at night, it gets quite warm and without it it would be nearly impossible to sleep. Are you suggesting we would have a big enough battery to run the AC for several days of no solar power?
Well, you've already admitted that your house has poor thermal management. Fix that and you might not need the AC at night. Alternatives include a higher efficiency split-duct cooler specifically in the bedrooms, and even a system involving a thermal heat sink(big tank of cold water that's used to provide cooling at night rather than electricity).
As something of an aside, my walls are about as well insulated as your roof.
*My grandparents are out of power, on average, for about 3 days a year while the power company fixes power lines.
people like their homes the way they are,
Floor plans and features are one thing. We're talking about designing the home to be energy efficient about providing a conditioned living space.
Making a battery larger doesn't always increase the amperage of the output. It can, depending on the design, but that gets very expensive.
The average battery system for homes amounts to a very large UPS, and the main method to add more capacity is to add more batteries, which, if you're sizing everything correctly, translates to 'larger home battery' does indeed equate to more amperage capacity. Matter of fact, you're generally going to run into inverter limitations before lead-acid or LiIon batteries run out of amperage capacity. Keep in mind that you're looking at multiple lead-acid batteries, and 800 amps out of each isn't uncommon. 10 6V batteries, 800A each, = 48kV, or the equivalent of a 200A@240V service. If you're popping that, you are an outlier when it comes to home power usage.
As for expense, yeah, that's kind of been my point from the beginning.
The point is to penalize people who do wrong, in a way that's actually likely to change their behavior for the better.
A $200 fine to somebody making $1M/year has the 'stopped by police' as being a bigger negative than the actual monetary amount of the fine.
If the rich person isn't driving, then what are you looking to fine him for? He hired a driver and/or an automatic driving system(that's still being developed), so he's not violating the rules of the road.
Now, if it turns out that he's demanding his drivers do illegal things(like drive too fast), then there's various laws that carry the possibility of prison time as a result of that. So again, the risk is there.