Brilliant info Linda, thank you.

Your welcome!

One thing I did not mention was that, as some may know, is that the government will PAY 30% of the cost of a solar system by way of an IRS tax saving. I think tho, but am not sure, this program ends in 2016. So, if you want to pay about 1/3 less, buy solar quickly.

The State of California WAS also giving a rebate too, but no more. I think it was 10% of the cost of a system. That is long gone tho. :(

If you're in a state other than California you may want to make an inquiry to see if your state offers a rebate. :)

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River Song (aka Linda Latte on planet Earth)
"Happy I-Phone girl on the GO GO GO"

Just a thought since I just came across this thread.

But harvesting solar energy as well as wind energy are two ways of doing such things without going nuclear.

Another way is of course water power, including water coming from waterfalls.

I have never heard about the waves in the ocean being a possible source of energy which could be harvested.

Will try looking for more information about this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power

In fact the Wikipedia has a quite large article about wave energy.

Just a thought since I just came across this thread.

But harvesting solar energy as well as wind energy are two ways of doing such things without going nuclear.

Another way is of course water power, including water coming from waterfalls.

I have never heard about the waves in the ocean being a possible source of energy which could be harvested.

Will try looking for more information about this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power

In fact the Wikipedia has a quite large article about wave energy.

Water power as in micro hydro. It is a small home sized power generation idea if you live near enough to the propper water source.

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http://www.boem.gov/Renewable-Energy-Program/Renewable-Energy-Guide/Ocean-Wave-Energy.aspx

A U.S. government web page for this subject.

Remember that while creation of energy is one thing, use of the same thing is another.

To both us as well as other intelligent civilizations that could exist, harnessing of energy should be a very important factor, in the same way as making a guess about the existence of Dyson spheres for a similar purpose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

http://www.boem.gov/Renewable-Energy-Program/Renewable-Energy-Guide/Ocean-Wave-Energy.aspx

A U.S. government web page for this subject.

Remember that while creation of energy is one thing, use of the same thing is another.

To both us as well as other intelligent civilizations that could exist, harnessing of energy should be a very important factor, in the same way as making a guess about the existence of Dyson spheres for a similar purpose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

Just make sure the star is stable.

"Mr. Data, could this be a Dyson sphere?" That episode had all kinds of plot holes.

Data gives the interior surface area of the sphere, which I assume the writers calculated correctly so the science geeks in the audience wouldn't complain. What I'm wondering is, how many planets' worth of the outer shell material did it take to build the thing?

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

The miniscule amounts of generation capacity provided to the grid by those making more than they use cannot REALLY compete with the main provider.

And they know that. This is just them making stink where there is none.

If they would get their heads anally unimplanted, they would encourage this, rather than discourage it. Many of them are under governmental pressure to reduce CO2 emissions or face healthy fines in the not too distant future.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I've really been thinking about this. When the weather is decent, our yard and roof is sunbathed nicely. Just not sure about investment costs v return

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I've really been thinking about this. When the weather is decent, our yard and roof is sunbathed nicely. Just not sure about investment costs v return

What companies are in your area?

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I've really been thinking about this. When the weather is decent, our yard and roof is sunbathed nicely. Just not sure about investment costs v return

What companies are in your area?

Oklahoma Gas & Electric

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I've really been thinking about this. When the weather is decent, our yard and roof is sunbathed nicely. Just not sure about investment costs v return

What companies are in your area?

Oklahoma Gas & Electric

OGE, add an R and you'd have an OGrE. ;)

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

The cost/return balance is very much a local thing It depends on your exact location, your exact energy consumption and the policies of both your local authority and your energy supplier. Given the right location it can be a big saving, meanwhile exactly the same equipment in the wrong location and it is a waste of time installing.

With solar the actual running costs for a domestic sized installation is low, mainly consisting of cleaning the panels a couple of times a year and giving them a once over every few years. These costs ignore the charges levied by the energy "supplier" and the costs of batteries etc if you go for a local storage system. (Battery banks need to be maintained with annual inspections, top-ups, scheduled interventions & cell replacement). I also ignore breakdown and repair, which are very variable....
As the size of the installation increases the amount of time these operations take increases (obvious really), and so the maintenance cost goes up.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I've really been thinking about this. When the weather is decent, our yard and roof is sunbathed nicely. Just not sure about investment costs v return

Out here is sunny California, there is solar for every budget. Eric and I bought our panels outright because we are "old and established", but our darling young new neighbors are doing a "rent-to-own" type plan with a different solar company. Our neighbors appear to be in their late 20's or early 30's. They both have steady jobs, but they just sunk all of their spare cash into the down-payment for their home, they have a two year old and the mom is expecting their second child this winter. They just didn't have the cash right now to go solar, but they found a company that will do it for them. The company puts the panels up for them and technically owns the panels and the energy they generate for a while. Not sure what the details of their contract are... Anyway, down the road the neighbors eventually gain possession of the panels.

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I've really been thinking about this. When the weather is decent, our yard and roof is sunbathed nicely. Just not sure about investment costs v return

Out here is sunny California, there is solar for every budget. Eric and I bought our panels outright because we are "old and established", but our darling young new neighbors are doing a "rent-to-own" type plan with a different solar company. Our neighbors appear to be in their late 20's or early 30's. They both have steady jobs, but they just sunk all of their spare cash into the down-payment for their home, they have a two year old and the mom is expecting their second child this winter. They just didn't have the cash right now to go solar, but they found a company that will do it for them. The company puts the panels up for them and technically owns the panels and the energy they generate for a while. Not sure what the details of their contract are... Anyway, down the road the neighbors eventually gain possession of the panels.

There are several companies that do that, but that is the Solar City model. They place and own the pannels. They sell you the electricity at a rate lower than the power company for 20 years. Here is the contract.

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My best bet is in the short term(whatever that could be), is to get 3 new dual pane vinyl custom replacement windows, for about $1,030.00 total(the amount is out of date most likely(like since about 2008), but it's all that I have), one guy I know of asked Me why I didn't I get the aluminum framed type? I said they'd be as good as the aluminum framed single pane windows that I have left to retrofit, they would not save any money over the long term, just in the short term. My plans will take a while to see the fruits ripen, but I've got lots of time. That will deflect some solar energy.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Home Energy Storage Enters a New Era
MIT Technology Review

Advanced lithium-ion chemistries offer cooler operation, longer life spans. Driven by the explosion of residential solar power, the market for home energy storage—which attracted little interest until earlier this year, when Tesla announced its Powerwall battery—is suddenly looking crowded. Read the full story

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Vic, have you looked into PACE, HERO or Californiafirst programs?

For those of you in San Joaquin County, we just joined PACE.

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Pluto will always be a planet to me.

Seti Ambassador
Not to late to order an Anni Shirt

Vic, have you looked into PACE, HERO or Californiafirst programs?

For those of you in San Joaquin County, we just joined PACE.

The 1st and 3rd said they had nothing for My address, the 2nd rejected My address entirely Uli.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

sniff
Keep looking Vic.

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Pluto will always be a planet to me.

Seti Ambassador
Not to late to order an Anni Shirt

Wednesday. October 7th. 2015 @10.59 AM. [GMT-0800]. Day of year = 280

Hi,

Just adding a few bits of info to an earlier post of mine on solar. I think a few here appreciated the 9/2 info below and may like a bit more?

I had thought that the 30% tax break given by the IRS was to expire at the end of THIS year, but just read that it's at the end of 2016. This is great if you're still thinking of solar.

It has been HOT & DRY in California in Aug/Sept and our A/C runs day & night. Even so, our electric bill has dropped to 1/3 of what it was last year! Wow, gotta luv it, huh? :) The last few days it has been cooler and the A/C has only come on a few times instead of several times an hour. So, the last few days we have "broken even." Our 14 panels with micro-inverters have generated ALL we need for everything other than full time A/C. We've not had to draw power from the grid.

I've seen a few mention "What good is solar if, during a power failure by the electric company, your solar doesn't keep the lights on?" Those that have asked that seem to be under a misconception about solar? Here is the simple answer: The solar panels generate DC. To feed the grid or to use that DC it must be converted to AC. This requires an AC powered INVERTER. The inverter requires a small amount of AC power that it must draw FROM the grid. If the grid fails, the inverter can't work and your panel's DC does nothing. To SOLVE this problem, you CAN, at additional expense, $2500 or so, I think, buy a "battery backup." The batteries power a small inverter to generate AC for YOUR system inverter, OK? But, this introduces add'l problems besides the cost. How long will batteries last? How much space to they take up? Must you check the electrolyte levels often. I don't think all the aforementioned makes it worthwhile. So what if we have an occasional power outage?

Another problem I've seen is that some small city building departments are not properly inspecting solar installations; all they seem to want is the $$ for a permit. One woman I know got solar and the vendor installed panels that overhung the edge of her roof by 3 feet! Yoiks! The panels must be installed ON the roof, not partly OFF of it. Also space must be given to reach each panel for periodic cleaning. You must be able to reach each panel to clean it.

Lastly, and then I will shut up, is the subject of periodic cleaning? We didn't THINK of THAT, but the panels WILL get dirty over time and lose efficiency. I found, in a net search, WIDELY divergent opinions on cleaning panels. The opinions run all the way from "clean them thoroughly every 2 to 3 weeks" on a YouTube video to a comment from an installer saying "don't bother cleaning them as it is a waste of time." Geez? The majority view is that cleaning IS necessary but no one agrees on how often? Well, I guess it depends on where you are? Dust storms can be a big problem, or trees near your panels allowing bird dropping can hurt them. there are so many possibilities. Each area will have a different situation. We are keeping a daily log of power generated in kWh AND the peak power we get each day. we will keep it for a year for reference. One source I've found says to expect a degradation in efficiency of about 0.05%/day. This translates to roughly a 10% loss in 6 months. We hope this is a good number and will seek to verify it.

Hope this is useful info?

Linda

Sunday. September 6th. 2015 @4.43 PM. [GMT-0800]. Day of year = 249

Hi,
Just a few words for any thinking of going solar. We did it over the past few months and learned a lot!

First off, if you live in an area with a HOA, they will likely charge you a $500 "security deposit." We paid it in May when we applied for permission to have a large solar company do the install. The install was finished July 14th, and approved by our city building dept, but we did not get "permission to operate" (they call it PTO), from SDG&E, our local south of Los Angeles power company until the 2nd week in August. Our HOA refund is still "pending." We've been told they may "cut a check" after their board meeting in late September. The HOA has very strict rules on the number of panels given the "shape" of our roof. For one, there had to be a minimum of 3 ft clearance from the edge of a roof and clearance around rooftop exhaust vents. We wound up with 14 3 ft X 5 ft panels. We wanted 20, but, in view of what we found out the past week, we're GLAD we were limited to 14.

We learned a week ago that a person who had solar commercially installed went for the "max" his roof would hold, and the solar company did not warn him to "be careful." The person thought, as some of you reading this may think, that "the more the merrier." He put in about 25 panels so as to generate more than the power he actually needed, even with A/C running 24/7. The power company in the Los Angeles area would NOT allow him to connect to the grid. They said that with so many panels, generating more power than he used, he was now putting himself in the position of a "power provider" and in competition with the utility company. His only recourse was to remove maybe 1/2 his panels, OR spend another $2500 or so for a "battery backup." This backup would allow him to completely remove himself from the grid. He is LUCKY he is not in an HOA area.

If you buy a solar system from a commercial source, be CAREFUL. There are TWO different kinds now being sold. One is a "parallel" connection of panels, each with it own 280 watt inverter. You WANT this kind. The other, an older cheaper type is a "series connected" like "Christmas tree lights" type. You DON'T want this. :) You can monitor all your panels daily with the parallel type, but not with the series type, and like a Christmas tree, if one panel goes bad, your whole system shuts off.

So far we are VERY happy with our 14 panels. Our first monthly bill with solar was 62% LESS than the same time last year! Wow. Our solar company installed a monitor system that uses our home wi-fi and sends performance data 24/7 to themselves. In addition we can track the power generated in 15 minute increments during the day on-line. we get a reading of peak power generated in kW and total energy in kWh. Nice.

I purposely did not mention business names here as I don't think I should advertise using this forum. I don't think it would be right.

Solar is GREAT, but if you live in an HOA area, find out everything up front from your installer. Also, as noted above, if you live in the boonies be careful about becoming a "power provider" in competition with your power company.

We are now "tied in" with our power provider in what is called their "net metering" system. we're only required to pay our electric company once/year for the power they had to provide us that our solar can't. We are "grandfathered" in for 20 years. Those just starting a solar install now may not be as lucky.

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River Song (aka Linda Latte on planet Earth)
"Happy I-Phone girl on the GO GO GO"

We (First Solar) have soiling stations on every array. A soiling station is one pannel that has a weather station and other insturmentation attached to it. We have also conducted soil degredation test and cleaning tests in several diffrent climates.
Your 10% in 6 months is on the mark for typical dry climates. It's higer in tropical climates but lower in wet ones. However, we have found that even 1/4 inch of rain will clean the pannels without any further action.

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