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Old 02-13-2015, 06:44 PM
 
181 posts, read 583,137 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisinhawaii View Post
Hi everyone (again),

Do any of you on the south side (or anywhere on BI) do solar or wind power for your home? If so, which do you think is better?

Or is it just way cheaper to go with a lot where we can do a SSPP hookup?

We're considering a move to Kau (from Oahu) and aren't sure what we can afford. I'd love to go off-grid and green, but I'm not sure our budget would allow enough panels/turbines to power an entire home. We've got 4 of us -- 5, if my mom-in-law can be convinced to join us -- and would use up quite a bit of electricity with the fridge/freezer, ac, lights, water heater, etc.

Any thoughts or experiences?
Very few places on the Big Island are windy enough to make wind generated electric power.

The wind map link below will show you what I mean.

The area around Hawi in the north and the area around South Point in the south are the only two worthwhile areas. Maybe around Waikoloa (Waiko(blowa) one could set up a wind powered electric generator.

http://www.heco.com/vcmcontent/Stati...m_19July04.pdf
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Old 02-13-2015, 08:12 PM
 
Location: Na'alehu Hawaii/Buena Vista Colorado
5,529 posts, read 12,582,019 times
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Ka'u (Ocean View, Discovery Harbour, Mark Twain, Naalehu, Pahala and various other scattered areas) not only has affordable housing but plenty of wind and sun for generating your own electricity. Just drive around any of those areas and you'll see lots of both solar panels and wind turbines.
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Old 02-13-2015, 08:15 PM
 
Location: Kahala
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I hear the Big Island summits are getting a bit of wind lately.
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Old 02-14-2015, 03:02 AM
 
Location: Na'alehu Hawaii/Buena Vista Colorado
5,529 posts, read 12,582,019 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whtviper1 View Post
I hear the Big Island summits are getting a bit of wind lately.
Yeah, and I'm sure glad I don't live up there!
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Old 02-14-2015, 01:00 PM
 
Location: Moku Nui, Hawaii
11,048 posts, read 23,877,314 times
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We were supposed to have some heavy winds, but I haven't seen them yet here on the Hamakua coast. Although it's only Saturday morning, maybe they will show up later today.

One reason we didn't go with wind power was too many moving parts in the system so there's more wear and tear on the components. Also, they make noise, although they do it when there's wind noise out there anyway with trees rustling and such, so it wouldn't be as bad as if they were twirling on quiet nights.

Our first system paid for itself in 4.6 years. That was a stand alone battery bank type system. We moved to town and got another grid tie system with microinverters on the panels (110 volts from the roof). It's been up for almost two years and is about half paid for, although we got state as well as federal tax credits on that one. I think the state credits have become much less or gone now. There was a big push to get the system up while the credits were still available. There will be a new system on the new house (well, it's an old house we are restoring) and that one will probably go back to the more traditional one big inverter type system. It will also be grid tied so we don't have to deal with batteries. If HECO/HELCO gets crazy with their grid tied rates, then we can always add a battery bank later.

Oh, and the new grid-tie inverters now have a 1,500 watt circuit which can stay live during a power outage. Losing power with everyone else during a power outage was one of my dislikes about the grid tie system, it seems that problem has been addressed in the past several years.

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope your chocolate doesn't blow away where ever you are.
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Old 02-15-2015, 09:20 AM
 
Location: Florida Suncoast
1,823 posts, read 2,258,374 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tpirsig View Post
It's a hard call, off-grid or not. I'm off grid, and have the Achilles Heel of batteries to deal with. They're very expensive, require regular maintenance, and last only 10-12 years at best.

On the other hand, I'm a few poles from where HELCO ends, and in 1999 the estimate for HELCO hookup was about $12k, for two poles and SSPP -- all that, just for the privilege of paying their crazy-high rates.

It wasn't a hard call to make, but I still wish I didn't have the batteries to deal with.
I have heard of water being used to temporarily indirectly store PV generated electrical power. If you had an elevation change on your property that was high enough, or maybe a large elevated water tank, then you could pump the water up during the daytime hours with the excess PV electrical power and let it flow past an electrical turbine at night. It's an interesting concept to indirectly use water to store electrical power. You never have to worry about the water freezing and turning into ice in your area. However, maybe the numbers wouldn't work out since it's unlikely people would have a large enough elevation change on their property to use ground mounted tanks, getting the approval to build a large elevated water tank might be difficult or impossible, plus the cost of building the tank and the inefficiencies of pumping water up the elevation might make the batteries the most cost effective method.

Another alternative is using an electrical generator powered by gasoline, diesel, or some type of propane gas. I assume using batteries is probably cheaper than using an electrical generator. Plus you'd need at least two generators because you'd need a backup generator to use if you had a generator failure.
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Old 02-15-2015, 12:50 PM
 
Location: Moku Nui, Hawaii
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I think we could get a 25' drop just via topography at the new house. Add in a tower and we could up it to 35' to 50' maybe. Isn't it roughly 1/2 PSI per foot of elevation for water? So, that might give us about 25 PSI of water at the bottom, although there's line loss and such. Hmm. Hadn't considered a turbine. Might be an interesting thing to play around with. Have to go find out how much PSI and how many gallons per hour to keep it running, as well as how much to pump that water uphill. Since it's all gravity fed anyway, there could probably be a water feature (i.e. water fall or fountain) along the way. Hmm, maybe a swimming pool or pond. That would solve the water storage problem.

Ka'u & HOVE, though, I don't think they have the same slope that we have on this side.

Electric generated by gasoline/ diesel/ propane gets expensive pretty quickly. It's much cheaper to just pay HECO the $20 a month to be connected to the grid than it is to run a generator or have a battery bank. Less bother, too.
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Old 02-15-2015, 06:35 PM
 
Location: West coast
268 posts, read 378,618 times
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I seem to remember when I first joined this forum reading a post about someone living near a small stream (maybe north Hilo?) who had some type of, for lack of a better description, personal hydro electric power generating apparatus. Anyone else remember that? I'll see if I can find the post.

Edit: well, finding the thread was much easier than I thought. There is mention of a few people who do it but no real details, so who knows...

http://www.city-data.com/forum/big-i...generator.html
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Old 02-15-2015, 10:21 PM
 
181 posts, read 583,137 times
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I'm having a mini hydro system installed on my property in Pepeekeo, north of Hilo. There is a stream that runs along the property line.

There are numerous streams north of Hilo, but no streams in the Kau/ HOVE area.
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Old 02-15-2015, 10:51 PM
 
Location: West coast
268 posts, read 378,618 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cagary View Post
I'm having a mini hydro system installed on my property in Pepeekeo, north of Hilo. There is a stream that runs along the property line.

There are numerous streams north of Hilo, but no streams in the Kau/ HOVE area.
Sounds cool. Got any details? Is it a home made rig or a commercial unit?
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