Has anyone had any dealings with "Power 4 Patriots" ?

[Deerbnb]

My wife has stumbled upon some info compiled by a guy in the Nashville area about DIY solar and wind generating systems to supplement the power to your home. While at first glance has piqued my interest, would like to hear if anyone else has checked into this ? Any thoughts or firsthand accounts ?

[LI0NSFAN]

A neighbor covered his roof with panels and is not happy at all. While talking to him he said that he paid near $30,000 to have them put up and he has NEVER even covered half of his electric bill. He said at his current savings it will take 30 years to break even, that is provided he does not need repairs or service on them. I looked into doing it and to off set my powerbill it would take almost a $50,000 to power my home and if I had to take out a loan for the system it would cost over 200 a month to pay off the system. No way I looked at it I could never find a savings. I went the cutting the bill by getting the most energy efficient things I could. I cut our monthly bill by 60%. It only cost me $2500 to cut 60% on which I will break even on that investment this year.

[Guest bkelm18]

It does take quite some time to break even. I think the environmental benefits would be the biggest bonus at first, which doesn't really help your wallet.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Yeah if they ever get break-even below 10 years it would be great. Its been in the ballpark of 20 to 30 years a long time. The stuff keeps getting incrementally cheaper, and power keeps getting incrementally more expensive. Maybe eventually the intersection of those trends will break-even below 10 years.

Some systems don't have switchover or batteries to power yer house. They only back-feed the power into the lines and reduce your electric bill. Or theoretically if you had a big enough array the power company would have to pay you money.

I'd rather have a complete standalone system. Even if you are paying more per watt, if something goes wrong with the power company and you start getting long outages or rolling brownouts-- Having power at all (from the solar) would be lots nicer than not having stable power (from the power company).

Have thought if I ever get around to installing some solar, would maybe try to do it in increments of 20 amp capacity. For instance, on each increment install enough panels, batteries, and about a 3KVA inverter, dedicated to power one breaker circuit in the breaker box. Thataway, ferinstance if that first breaker runs the living room and a couple of bedrooms-- Regardless what happens, you got power in those three rooms.

Maybe thats a silly way to look at it.

[Guest USMC 2013]

Right now solar energy for electricity just costs too much. Where you can get some bang for your buck is using solar for heating, especially your hot water. You can find numerous DIY ideas/plans online for heating your hot water, but even if you go with a full commercial unit installed by a contractor you're looking at only a 5 year pay back!

That's a good payback rate anyway you slice it. If you're building a new house with slab foundation you can get even better benefits. A family member of mine had pipes run throughout the foundation that are hooked up to the solar hot water heater. In the winter, even when there is snow on the ground, they generate enough hot water for home use and to warm the house up a bit by the pipes in the foundation. Granted they still need a heater, but I believe their heating bill was cut by almost 1/2. Now that is awesome.

Hopefully we do get solar electricity with a 10year, or less, payoff. Then I will be in the game because most panels are rated to last 20-30 years.

Joe

[Makiaveli]

Another thing to consider is 5 years from now when electric rates have gone up 5 times is your payoff time will be shortened whether you buy now or then. And if you plan on staying in the house for the long haul, might as well start with Lester's plan. Sort of dollar cost averaging for solar power

[Mark A]

USMC and I are on the same page here. If you can use a lot of hot water solar is beneficial. I watched a small tech company try to downsize an adsorption chiller for residential use. They tried for about 5 years before folding. Someone will figure it out soon. Virtually free heating and cooling year 'round. No compressor.. The loudest component is the circ pump.

Mark

[Guest Beachman]

The best way I have found to save on hot water is this one simple thing. When my wife gets up, earlier than I, she flips the breaker to turn on the hot water heater. It only takes about 15 to 20 minutes for the water to heat to required temperature. As soon as I take a shower I go and flip the breaker off. The water heater is normally on about one hour a day. We have experimented and found that it saves us right at 25 dollars a month.
She does laundry in cold water and the dishwasher has a heating element. Also our water heater is located inside the house in the heated area and still saves us $25 a month by doing this.

[thundersnow]

The biggest problem in solar electricity generation is the HORRIBLE lack of efficiency in converters to tie your system to the grid. Anything the takes the typical 12v output of the battery bank all the way up to 120 or 240 is about 60% efficient at best. The rest is wasted in heat. Like others have said, look into solar hot water first and then consider ways to get your power consumption down (to less than 100 amps?) BEFORE INVESTING in solar electric.

[smopoim86]

The biggest problem in solar electricity generation is the HORRIBLE lack of efficiency in converters to tie your system to the grid. Anything the takes the typical 12v output of the battery bank all the way up to 120 or 240 is about 60% efficient at best. The rest is wasted in heat. Like others have said, look into solar hot water first and then consider ways to get your power consumption down (to less than 100 amps?) BEFORE INVESTING in solar electric.

Generally you set up the panels in a ~400v string. The inverters are incredibly efficient. I've seen some as high as 97%. The inefficiency is in energy storage. If you are serious about energy storage you wouldn't want to use a 12v system, you would want at least 100v battery string. 

 

There are so many variable to whether or not you could see any benefit of a solar install. Absolute best case would be about a 9 year break even (getting paid a 12 cent per KWH premium on power produced with no maintenance cost). The bigger problems are that in order to participate in the green power program you have to go through a bunch of hoops and you are required to carry insurance on the installation. Real world payout will average 15-20 years on a good installation and you will never break even on a poor one. 

 

I've looked into it, examined the facts, and decided that it isn't worth the hassle. 

[runco]

To me something has to have a paypack in less 2-3 years for me to consider it.  I am not a go green person, and I refuse to recycle.  Until I can measure money savings in my hand I will not participate any green effort.  (I will recycle brass and lead though, I can count the savings)!

[Dolomite_supafly]

I have a solar plan in place if the power goes out long term. But all I am wanting is lighting, that is it. I have no grand illusions about being able to run the appliances off what I have. But what I do have will keep the boogy man away at night, longterm. I can run my 12V LED lighting system for probably a week or two without recharging the batteries. But I can recharge my batteries in a day with the panels I have. So as long as I have at least one day of sunlight a week I will always have light at night.

 

The LED panels I bought are cheap and have a long run time. I ran a test using a single panel and a standard 9v and it ran a long time before I unplugged it. I honestly could not tell whether it had dimmed or not. They have 48 individual LEDs and are bright enough that you can easily read a newspaper from 6-8 feet away in total darkness. I plan on running four in each room which will be as bright as the rooms are now.

 

I plan on isolating my house from the grid. I will remove all the 110v bulbs and install the 12v LED panels in their place. I will flip all the breakers off then plug my battery bank into an outlet, any outlet. Then I will flip the breakers to connect the areas I want light to the battery and engergize that circuit. Then I can use my lightswitches like normal. I also have an inverter that I can use to temporarily run smaller appliances. I have also made sure to buy nothing but rechargeable batteries for things like flashlights. I also have smaller handheld battery chargers that will charge 2 AA batteries in a day.

 

A few friends gave me the panels and a deep cycle battery to go along with the batteries I already had. If I were to buy everything I bet it wouldn't cost $300. And that is a small price to pay to have light when no one else does.

 

When the power goes out long term, as in months, I am not worried about convience like A/C or television. I am going to start looking at long term survival.

 

Dolomite

[East_TN_Patriot]

Runco:  I am not a go green person, and I refuse to recycle. 

 

 

 

I'm just curious.  Why would you refuse to recycle?

Edited December 25, 2012 by East_TN_Patriot

[Dolomite_supafly]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="East_TN_Patriot" data-cid="868359" data-time="1356446876"><p>
I'm just curious. Why would you refuse to recycle?</p></blockquote>

It isn't that big of a deal anymore. Most major areas already bust open the trash bags and recycle the contents.

[runco]

I'm just curious. Why would you refuse to recycle?

That is a good question. Several reasons, first because I do have a free choice, because someone wants me too, because someone will make money off my free effort, and I am just not a yuppie? I do not buy into save the planet, preserve it for my grandkids, less carbon footprint, save the resources, do my part, etc. In addition, this is not one of the legacy teachings I want to pass on to my children.

Get this, I purposely throw my weekly collection of yellow milk jugs, newspapers, cardboard, etc. into the main trash dumpster just to be spiteful, even though I drive right past the recycle containers on the way out of the local trash/transfer station. I really get that crazy look from the yuppies when I do, redneck, jerk, idiot, dumba$$, etc. I just laugh in a sinister manner, while they appear to be patting theirselves on the back for making their contribution to civilization. I really get under their skin when I keep my diesel truck idling while I throw the trash in, bellowing the black evil exhaust, that really gets the yuppies going! Then I drive past them, I give it a little extra throttle just to spray them with my carbon. I really do this!!!

What is your reason to recycle? Maybe I have not consider all reasons and I might be inspired to start recycling in 2013. Edited December 25, 2012 by Runco

[RED333]

IF I WOULD BE PAIED TO I WOULD, but others are making BIG money off my work, it just dont work for me.

That is for all green stuff, solar, recycling and like.

[Moped]

I have no problem with recycling. The City of Knoxville made it easy for us this year.  They gave us a large recycle bin.  We put our recyclables in it, just the same as putting it in the trash.  We just have an extra trash can in the house.  Every two weeks they come by and pick it up at the street.  Cut back my use of regular trash cans by half, with no extra effort on my part.  In one of my past lives I designed Landfills for an Engineering firm.  I know it's a big deal to find a place for and create a new landfill when the old one fills up and it ends up costing us taxpayers more too.  Better to do my part and recycle, and extend the life of my city's landfill than to have my taxes good up more often, because the city needs a new landfill.

Edited December 25, 2012 by Moped

[Guest Lester Weevils]

If it was technically feasible for me to personally recycle milk jugs and other HDPE, and get good sheet goods or rectangular blocks out of them, I would do so, not to save the planet, but because it is pretty kewl raw material and nearly free would be lots better than "pay thru the nose" prices. Have web-searched amateur efforts to reconstitute the stuff, and low-tech backyard efforts don't turn out a very good product, at least of the web-published examples I've seen. I suspect it would require a fairly fancy purpose-built melting and molding machine to do it right. Maybe such could be built in the basement, but it would be a longer haul designing from scratch than building from plans somebody already figured out.

 

For first example, there are various fairly expensive, near-infinite-lifespan shop floor tiles made of HDPE and/or related thermoplastics, which are kinda expensive to buy. It would be neat to gradually make enough shop tiles out of milk jugs to floor the basement "for free". That might be a good application because forming plastic into 12"X12" quarter-inch sheets in theory ought not be rocket science, but in practice it might turn out thataway. :)

 

The motivation for home solar/wind at the current tech level would be, as Dolomite's example, having A LITTLE BIT of power when nobody else has any at all. It doesn't matter how cheap per KW the line power happens to be, if the line power is down from disaster, or excessive demand eventually puts the USA into the third-world condition of routine rolling blackouts. That would be like, the price of gasoline is only ten cents per gallon but all the filling stations are empty! What good is that? :)

 

I've followed the break-even point of solar a long time, as others who posted here. There might be a trick to it-- The trick being that Obama and Steven Chu and the EPA want to shut down all the cheap coal plants, raise the price per KW so high that you will voluntarily switch over to solar, not because solar got cheaper, but because the line rate got so spensive you can break-even on solar in just a couple of years! :) I'm wary of paranoid thinking, but that might not be too paranoid, because they have essentially stated as much, many times. Just not in those exact words.

Edited December 25, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Guest polishprepper]

I don't know the characteristics of milk jug plastic or what it takes to melt them down but at the shop I used to work at we made a pretty rough mold of metal and used a large propane forced air heater and a shop vac to form a 1/2 sheet of UHMW.....pulled it with just the shop vac after heating it up from a flat sheet into a bowl shape.....bowl was about 6-8 inches deep......hillbilly ingenuity

[Guest polishprepper]

As far as water heaters go on demand water heaters localized are a great option they come on when you turn the hot water on and go off when you're done

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I don't know the characteristics of milk jug plastic or what it takes to melt them down but at the shop I used to work at we made a pretty rough mold of metal and used a large propane forced air heater and a shop vac to form a 1/2 sheet of UHMW.....pulled it with just the shop vac after heating it up from a flat sheet into a bowl shape.....bowl was about 6-8 inches deep......hillbilly ingenuity

 

Thanks polishprepper, didn't know a shop vac will pull good enough vacuum for that kind of thing. Have a Ridgid brand shop vac bought a few years ago strong enough to suck up a cat, so maybe it could do the trick, dunno.

 

Yeah the thermoplastics are pretty keen, not that I know much about it. Would like to play with UHMW some time. Sometimes I make little parts cut out of white plastic cutting board, which is HDPE the same as milk jug HDPE. UHMW is supposed to have several better characteristics than HDPE, but HDPE is pretty good for lots of uses.

 

PVC is also fun to fool around with. There is probably some local source of sheet goods pvc, but I'll take a section of something like a few inches up to a foot of 6" PVC water pipe, slice it end to end in the bandsaw or whatever, then hit it with a heat gun for a few minutes til it becomes pliable, then you can flatten it out and let it cool sandwiched between a couple pieces of plywood with some weight on top, and have pvc sheet goods to make little parts out of. And you can cut flat pieces to shape then heat em with the heat gun and bend em into brackets and such.

 

From reading about backyard experiments melting down milk jugs to more usable chunks of plastic, apparently there is a fairly narrow range of working temperature. Too cool and it won't melt properly and too hot and it will smoke and char. And even melted it is fairly viscous. So ideally it would be heated in a well-temp-controlled container (with minimal exposure to air to keep down possible charring) then forced into a mold under pretty high pressure. There's probably a hillbilly way to do it.

[vontar]

Every time I start looking at solar, I am ok with the price of the panels.  I find the real expense seems to be the batteries and the fact they would be an item you would have to plan to replace down the road.

 

Plus I don't know how to determine how many batteries I would need.

 

I like the above idea of building a system in steps, one 20a circuit at a time.

 

I have been wanting some outside electric outlets and My outside building would be great to put a few panels on.  Maybe I should start with that.

 

I just don't know how much I can run off of a battery and inverter.

 

Lets see 

Solar panels

Charge controller to keep from over charging batteries as I understand

Battery or Batteries(bank)

required wiring

Inverter to convert 12v DC to 120 AC.

 

(example of one of the items I don't understand, 35AH 12v deep cycle batter)  I understand the deep cycle part.

No idea how much I could run off a battery like that.

 

I just need to learn more. 

Edited January 13, 2013 by vontar

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Vontar, you can find charts online, of approximate AH requirements for typical loads. The gist of it for battery capacity is to tally up the amp-hour of all your loads, multiply by the hours you will run each load, and add em all up. An additional consideration is depth of discharge versus lifetime of the batteries. Even excellent quality deep-cycle batteries will last longer if you discharge them relatively shallow and recharge as soon as possible. If you repeatedly discharge even a fine deep-cycle battery down into the dirt, you will kill it well within a year.

 

The least expensive per amp-hour are flooded non-sealed batteries, but you have to either have an outdoor doghouse for the batteries (optionally with heating because they suck in cold temps). And NOT optionally with foolproof hydrogen venting. Some people build non-sealed battery banks in a basement, but in that case is has to be a fail-safe hydrogen venting system unless you feel lucky.

 

More expensive are the sealed batteries, and gelcells and glass matt (agm) batts seem both for sale about the same prices. I've always bought agm batts in my little experiments, but maybe gelcells are better, dunno. You still have to keep em from freezing and warmer than freezing for them to work good, and store them in a box that might at least halfway contain leaks if they leak in spite of being "leakproof". But for me, I am a worrier and if I made a big flooded battery bank I'd be worrying about it all the time even if it was made right.

 

Something I studied awhile ago but forget the exact details-- When adding watts consumption of loads, for sine wave electricity a watt is the same as a volt-amp, but apparently for "modified sine wave" digital inverters (which are much less expensive and will run MOST loads just fine), in the world of that squared-off approximation of a sine wave, a volt-amp ain't quite as strong as a watt, so you need more volt-amps from a modified sine wave inverter than you need of watts from the power line or a sine-wave inverter. That is why I mentioned the idea of matching a 3000 volt-amp inverter to a 20 amp breaker, when a 20 amp 120 v breaker circuit is usually only good for "in the ballpark" of 2000 watts. Well, 2400 watts if you want a hot breaker I guess. :)

 

I haven't built anything real big, and never owned a solar panel as of yet, except on solar calculators or whatever. The biggest thing I built as an "expensive hobby" to learn about it some years ago. I had been reading about inverter and batts and such so long that I just couldn't stand myself anymore til I built something to play with. My spec was a battery backup that would charge within a day, and run a small desktop computer "most of a day" without putting the hurt on the batteries. Can't vouch that my solution wasn't overkill, too conservative. Can't recall and couldn't lay my hands on the planning from back then.

 

My box was four 100 AH Guardian 12 volt AGM batteries in parallel, charged by a 40 amp statpower three-stage smart charger, driving a small 600 VA statpower modified sine wave inverter. You could get a lot more power short-term than 600 VA out of 400 AH of batteries, but I didn't want to "tempt myself" because the idea was to make something that would get close to running for most of a day without prematurely ageing the batteries. And inverters were more expensive back then, and it was more of a toy than necessity.

[vontar]

you beat me too it.

 

I was coming back that I just found a Battery drain calculator online.

 

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/sports-imports/BatterydrainCalc.html'

 

Based on what you said, I wasn't thinking about the battery aging due to draining to low, but I was considering sometime of alarm or warning when voltage dropped low as a warning to power down items.

 

 

I think for me, a good starting goal to cut my power bill would be to find a window AC unit and put a big enough system to run it during the summer.  AC the bulk of my power use.  If I had 1 unit say assisting the cooling of my home it would help I think.  Plus then that system could be used for other purposes as needed.

 

*********

 

Then when I look at the batteries needed, the upfront cost just can't seem to justify. 

 

I believe I would be better spending money to resolve other issues first as well.  My electric bill is low compared to what I see others paying.  I really don't have room to complain. 

Edited January 13, 2013 by vontar

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hi Vontar. I think virtually all modern inverters will automatically shut down before they out-right kill a good battery dead as a doorknob, but if one repeatedly ran the inverter to shut-down, the battery wouldn't like you very much. Something that would require vigilance is if you had something like 12 volt emergency lighting directly connected to the battery. If you forgot and left something like that on, you might kill hundreds of dollars of batteries the first time out.

 

Agreed, it gets discouraging when crunching the numbers unless you have money to burn.

 

Unless your house is tight as a drum and incredibly well insulated, the cheapest thing to do is a light colored roof and more and better insulation and squirt caulk in anything that even possibly could be an air leak. And use LED or CFL lighting, investigate geothermal HVAC, yadda yadda. All those investments will save money, but are possibly less useful if the power goes down a long time or we get to a third world situation of rolling blackouts.