Renewable energy thread

[turbobrick240]

Same problem here. The ROI was 15-18 years. There's all this talk of DIY solar, but I'm not sure if DIY means hanging up the panels yourself. After two car accidents last year, I don't really think I'm up to doing anything like that anytime soon, let alone on a roof (my balance is terrible and I'm scared of heights due to my height).

Your mother has a little piece of acreage to work with, right? Do a ground mount system. Have some friends/family help with the heavy lifting. The panels aren't super heavy anyhow. Going with ground mount typically gives more siting options and the ability to set up for ideal orientation. You can do that easily with new construction too. Plus ground mounted panels are quite a bit easier to clean and repair if needed.

Here's a link to a DIY solar forum. The format should look familiar.

DIY Solar Power Forum

Love building DIY solar electric projects? Come hang out :D

diysolarforum.com

 

[Abacus]

Abacus
did you look at plug in Hybrids? That would offset some of the fuel cost and give her the ranges she needs.

No, she has zero interest in a plug in hybrid since it's all the issues of electric and ICE cars rolled into one. My wife wanted to EV partially to avoid the ICE maintenance and costs in the long term.

 

[Abacus]

Net metering is great. I'm hard-pressed to justify adding storage to my home, especially since I have an existing generator for power failures. Your electric rate is about 60% of what it is here in MA, but I think you'll still enjoy the relief of not worrying about power bills. I certainly do.

Interesting and a little surprising that you plan to come back here to retire, given your dislikes about life in New England. I think sometimes about relocating, but I recognize that this is home: I've pretty much spent my whole life within a 10 mile radius of where I live now. And I really do love it here.

Our plan (you have to have a plan to be able to work the plan) is to sell the house in Arizona in 10 years and do the snowbird thing between our Maine camp on Moosehead Lake (Lily Bay Township) and a small piece of property we'll buy in the Florida Keys (no real love for mainland Florida, however). We want to travel for a year or two first in a camper, then settle down after that. We'll always keep the Maine camp for that reason but want to set up Florida as a home base due to the tax benefits during retirement.

Arizona is an adopted home but it honestly feels like a (working) vacation. Maine still feels like home to me.

 

[pkhoury]

Your mother has a little piece of acreage to work with, right? Do a ground mount system. Have some friends/family help with the heavy lifting. The panels aren't super heavy anyhow. Going with ground mount typically gives more siting options and the ability to set up for ideal orientation. You can do that easily with new construction too. Plus ground mounted panels are quite a bit easier to clean and repair if needed.

Here's a link to a DIY solar forum. The format should look familiar.

DIY Solar Power Forum

Love building DIY solar electric projects? Come hang out :D

diysolarforum.com

A decent amount. About half the size of your farm. Question - how much trenching would be involved with a ground mount system, but how high would it be off the ground still? Remember, I do have goats, cows and sheep, though the first two would be the ones that'd want to scratch their backs or climb on top of the slippery panels.

 

[kjclow]

I'm not referring to any specific location but oil as a global commodity. Yes, there is going to be a learning curve and economies of scale for each location. The Saudis can probably produce 5M bbl/day cheaper per bbl than 1M bbl/day and the Canadians can probably mine tar sands at a rate of 1M bbl/day cheaper per bbl than 100k bbl/day but mining tar sands will never be cheaper than Saudi oil... probably never be cheaper than 10x the cost of Saudi oil. As the production limit of each cheaper source of oil is reached more costly types of extraction needs to be tapped. Hence the reality that each marginal increase in GLOBAL production of oil is going to be on average more expensive and that's only getting worse as the easy, cheap stuff gets consumed. There was a time when you just 'poked a hole' in the ground and oil squirted out.

See, a little more digging and the explanation makes more sense.

 

[kjclow]

Its kinda interesting hearing the different opinions about nuclear... Two of my coworkers were living near three mile island when the accident happened there, plus we've seen several other major incidents through the years, from Chernoble to Fukushima. I sometimes have to wonder what the future of nuclear power is. And whether it will get us into more trouble.
When we look at the environmental affect of any type of energy we use, there are always repercussions, whether we notice them or not. We basically have to choose which repercussions we can live with, while still living our lives, and know that we cannot control everything and do not know everything, even though some people seem to think they do
My inclination is to go with something versatile and proven (diesel) and drive vehicles that use as little of it as possible. I also built my own house with many recycled materials. Many of my reasons are not so much to "save the environment" though I am not one of those redneck coal rolling tobacco chewing guys who think they are doing a favor to the world by polluting as much as they can. I take care of my area as much as I can.

In the Charlotte area, we're living with the repercussions of Duke energy's dumping of coal ash in open pits. We now get to help them pay for clean up and disposal.

 

[kjclow]

A decent amount. About half the size of your farm. Question - how much trenching would be involved with a ground mount system, but how high would it be off the ground still? Remember, I do have goats, cows and sheep, though the first two would be the ones that'd want to scratch their backs or climb on top of the slippery panels.

Benjamin Moore paint covered their parking lot at their technical center in NJ with solar panels. I think that would still be considered a ground mount even though the panels are about 10' off the ground. Gives the employees and visitors covered parking year round too.

 

[Mozambiquer]

Benjamin Moore paint covered their parking lot at their technical center in NJ with solar panels. I think that would still be considered a ground mount even though the panels are about 10' off the ground. Gives the employees and visitors covered parking year round too.

I've seen that before, I really like that idea, you're using space you have, while giving the customers shade.

 

[jmodge]

Benjamin Moore paint covered their parking lot at their technical center in NJ with solar panels. I think that would still be considered a ground mount even though the panels are about 10' off the ground. Gives the employees and visitors covered parking year round too.

When I was in Galveston there’s a park on the beach that had a bunch of posts set in the ground. The only thing I could think of was they must have some huge volleyball tournaments there. But now I wonder if they were setting up solar panels there

 

[pkhoury]

Benjamin Moore paint covered their parking lot at their technical center in NJ with solar panels. I think that would still be considered a ground mount even though the panels are about 10' off the ground. Gives the employees and visitors covered parking year round too.

We had considered this actually, but the ROI was the big deal brealer. I'm not closed to the possibility of solar by any means, but the cost (for new panels, anyways) is the big deterrent for me right now.

 

[turbobrick240]

A decent amount. About half the size of your farm. Question - how much trenching would be involved with a ground mount system, but how high would it be off the ground still? Remember, I do have goats, cows and sheep, though the first two would be the ones that'd want to scratch their backs or climb on top of the slippery panels.

The amount of trenching would really depend mostly on how far from the service entrance you wanted to locate the array. Worth checking the code in your area, but I only buried my conduit about two feet deep. Might be worth putting a strand of electric fence around an array if cattle are apt to want to rub against it. The goats shouldn't be a problem, but it probably would make sense to have wiring drops in metal conduit if you think they might try chewing on pvc conduit. A typical mounting system is up too high for goats to climb on, and you could customize to your needs. I'm thinking of adding a pergola setup to my small ground mount system rather than more standard ground mounting. I'd either compromise a bit on the ideal panel inclination or use a bit more mounting hardware to get the ~40-45* slope that's best for fixed panels at my latitude. Not as big an issue in Texas where shedding snow is far less of a concern. I could use the space under the pergola to park my tractor, store firewood, or put a picnic table and bbq.

 

[gmenounos]

My wife wants an EV but she drives for work and doesn’t know if it’ll handle the 220+ miles she drives in a day. She also needs a vehicle with ground clearance which reduces her choices considerably. Couple both of those with the +$60K starting price and she’s keeping her Kia Sorento for the time being.

IONIQ 5?
303 mile range, very fast charging, starts at $44k (but is eligible for the federal $7500 tax credit). Not sure about ground clearance but it's a small SUV so probably more than a regular car.

 

[03TDICommuter]

As for solar, we just had 6,700W in solar panels installed on our new house in Arizona to the cost of $33K,

That's insane! ($5/W installed). Why so expensive?

 

[Abacus]

That’s the cost. We did our research over months, vetted companies based on several factors, and made our decision after weighing all the data. Those who say it’s cheap haven’t bought it lately because most companies were in the ballpark. Installing it yourself is an option if you don't want a warrantee or guarantee, and it must be signed off by 2 inspectors (county & power company) here before it can be turned on, which takes months. Ours is installed but it’s not due for the final inspection until August because that’s the earliest they can do it.

Oh sure, the ones promising a quick & cheap install will take you to the cleaners and do shady things which is what we found out when we did our research. Lots of people here regret having it installed for that reason.

 

[nwdiver]

That's insane! ($5/W installed). Why so expensive?

It is insane, sad this is still a thing. Materials cost is ~$1/w. On a 10kW system that's ~$40k to labor and overhead. A 4 man crew can easily install 10kW in 1or 2 days. So maybe ~10 man-hours per kW. Have to wonder where the money goes.

A lot of systems here were installed by 'Empire solar group' they were a ~$5/w installer and now they're gone leaving a lot of people with incomplete installs or systems that aren't warrantied and stopped working. Paying $5/w is only a guarantee that you're getting taken not that you have a high quality install.

Tesla doesn't operate everywhere but they're ~$2.70/w.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

I got a quote from Solar City (at the time) when I installed my system. The design was a hack job using panels they had available, which didn't optimize my available roof space. The didn't have panels with inverters built in. And they were as expensive as the supplier I ended up using. I wasn't impressed.

 

[03TDICommuter]

I got a quote from Solar City (at the time) when I installed my system. The design was a hack job using panels they had available, which didn't optimize my available roof space. The didn't have panels with inverters built in. And they were as expensive as the supplier I ended up using. I wasn't impressed.

Not sure it's any better with Tesla as their name now, but Tesla is ~ $2.30/W installed, ~ $1.60/W after rebates/incentives. They use Solar Edge string optimizers/single inverter.

Quotes from Energy Sage companies a year ago for my area using either solar edge like above, or microinveters were in the $2.40 - $2.90 /watt range.

 

[03TDICommuter]

Just did this quote for Tesla install. $1.75/W after rebates/credits.

Here's is a 7.2KW system

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

I wonder how long you'd have to wait for an install.

 

[turbobrick240]

I wonder how long you'd have to wait for an install.

Probably not super long for a standard panel installation, I imagine. The solar roof system with the PV "shingles/slates" on the other hand would likely be a much longer wait.

 

[03TDICommuter]

I wonder how long you'd have to wait for an install.

From what I've read, they're pretty quick (less than 2 months all in). The BIG wait is getting Edison to approve the turn on. That can take 6 mos.