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2 years ago a company came through here, wanting to sign folks up for a program.
They would write-down your annual electric usage, and design a solar panel system to meet exactly one year's worth of electricity for your home. Under the contract, you agree to pay them exactly what the utility company charges for that amount of electricity, and they would put the panels on your roof.
Each home would be too small a producer so the utility company is not required to install the transformers required to push power back onto the grid, so any excess power would be wasted.
At night, or during the winter, or any times when your roof panels do not make enough power to support your home, you would still be using utility company power.
So the amount you spend now, would then go to this company every month, on a 20-year contract.
And you would continue to pay the utility company for power when your roof panels do not make enough.
And many of the designed panels were larger than the houses they would try to fit them onto.
This front company was going around trying to sign folks up, to get them committed. So they could build a factory to make these panels. They were not exactly sure what style of panels they would be using, since the industry changes so often. But they had the funding to try and get customers lined-up; before they built the factory.
With regard to selling power, I believe Giantsfan is in NJ... so am I, where they are required to buy it back.
I have heard about this company that will put solar panels up on your roof but thought that the plan was a bit different. Here, it is really best to grid tie I think.
Still, it all seems a little "Not quite right" with the big up front costs and looooooooong ROI. If the panel cost were a lot cheaper...
The equipment needed to send power back onto the grid is expensive.
It must reshape the power and move it's 'phasing', to match the phases of the utility company.
At $10,000 minimum, most utility companies are not willing to plop one down for every small home owner. Unless you expect to be producing 100Kwatts, so the utility company can re-cover the expense in 10 years, it is a massive loss for them.
You can charge batteries. But lead-acid is not an efficient method. 30% of the power is lost going into a battery, and more will be lost coming out again.
During the part of the day, when you do produce more power than you need. You can charge batteries for use at night. But roughly half of that power is going to be wasted. If you are producing 100 watts for an hour going into a battery, you are only going to get 50 watts for an hour coming out usable.
i think that grid tie inverters are cheaper and more efficient than battery. however here, at least, its the homeowners responsibility to pay for it. i think the grid tie inverter is more in the sub $3000 range, for a typical residence.
My Uncle has a small windmill...I think it is 5.5 KW on a 40 foot pole. Anyway it is tied into the grid. He has a reverse meter on his house so when the wind is blowing hard, it shows how much excess power he is producing and what is going onto the grid. At the same time, if the wind is not blowing, the meter calculates how much power he is buying. All in all he produces about 40-50% of his power.
Now he is not exactly selling power back to the grid. He gets a CREDIT, which is kind of different. For every KW he puts onto the grid, it is subtracted from the KW's he has to buy. But here is the kicker. Even if his windmill kicked out all his needs, and kicked some power on the grid, he would just continue to build credits and not get a check. That is just how it works.
Now this meter costs him 200 dollars as provided by Central Maine Power. In reality he is getting one heck of a deal because while most power plants are selling KW's at WHOLESALE prices (10 cents a KW) he is getting a credit at RETAIL prices (16 cents a KW).
As for his windmill, it too is odd. It has no batteries that have to be bought ever few years. Instead it is grid based and NEEDS the grid to work. If the power goes out when the wind is blowing...he is out of luck. No power on the pole...no power at home either. Originally it shut down at 32º but since that limited how often it produced power in Maine, he had it changed so now it stops at 11º which is as low as he can take it. Its not perfect but for the bare bones price of 17,000 bucks that is what you get!
Something else you need to consider is your appliances. Would you be running all off of solar or use propane appliances?
My DH and I built an Off Grid home last summer. He designed our solar and wind system. As soon as the weather breaks he will modify our system. We don't get as much energy from our wind generators as we thought so we will sell those and buy more panels. We are a work in progress. Our house is about 1100 sq. ft. and our appliances are all propane.
The "original" solar set up and cost is in Chapter 10. If you check back we should have our new modified system by May/June with pictures and a breakdown of costs. We did not do this for the savings because we could be dead by then, lol. We went Off Grid to be more self sufficient.
If you want to do this for savings your best bet is conservation. That will save you more.
Good luck to you. System costs will vary greatly depending on your usage.
It is also much cheaper if you can design your own system but you better know what you are doing or know how to adapt.
The first windmill built to produce electrical power was made almost entirely of wood and produced 10 KW's. So it can be done, but that was on a big scale. I think with modern materials like plywood and truss designs, it could be replicated again. Fortunately we as homeowners/homesteaders have one thing that is free while for business it is very expensive...time. So what if it takes 2 years to build a windmill it is better then buying a 17K windmill and taking 20 years to pay for it.
Just a thought for the day!
They still are made of wood, with very good outputs. And you can either buy or make them according to plans. This web-site is very interesting and takes hours to go through the whole thing.
Welcome to OTHERPOWER.COM (http://www.otherpower.com/otherpowerfront.shtml - broken link)
Remember that wind must be placed properly. They rec. the generator be 30' higher than anything else within a 200' radius. 40' trees = 70' tower. If anyone is having trouble with their existing generator it could be nothing more than not being high enough. And if thats the case, it's cheaper to raise a taller tower than investing in lots more solar. There are also "wind maps" online that show the avg. windspeed for a given area. Start the research and you'll come across several.
Good luck with your plans for energy independence. It can be done with lifestyle change and will take a little money, but not as much as you think.
Bob Dunn
Energy Auditor
Dunn's Energy
Last edited by BIGBOB; 04-04-2009 at 08:22 PM..
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