[Kaiminani]

Originally Posted by swagger

Have you ever looked at the environmental impact that producing those solar panels has?

Traditional solar power is nowhere near as "green" as people think.

Don't confuse the use of chemicals during the manufacturing process with pollution by those chemicals. American standards for the manufacturing process of photovoltaics are very high.

[olecapt]

I am familiar with that process. I would think the only potential impact environmentally would be energy usage. This is fancy glass but it is still glass.

I wonder how a plant would pencil out run from PV energy sources? They are extremely long lived so depending on the cost of money they would have to pay off in time.

[tom_c]

Solar project is in and test working. Just waiting on Nevada Energy and Henderson city inspections.

[teach1234]

How much does the state and city charge for inspections? Where can you find building codes for wiring solar into your system?

I am all for solar power; it is a little more fiddly than conventional electricity, but maybe it's a lot easier with so many sunny days in Nevada. Some people criticize the setup cost; like all projects, there are ways to cut costs dramatically. One is buying electric forklifts at auction, for the batteries. Government projects, especially universities, are sources for cheap solar panels. And lost in the shuffle are the costs for the electrical grid we do have--70 years of building and maintaining dams and transmission lines. If our government were to invest 1/10 of this amount in solar, I think future generations would thank us.

Thanks for sharing your solar project--I am real interested to see how it functions. What part of your house are you powering up with solar?

[olecapt]

I am sure that the talented amateur will try to do it on the cheap...but that is not a winner. There will simply not be the required parts if solar takes off...they simply don't exist. Thus it is the cost of new arrays that is critical.

I am skeptical about the battery thing in an urban setting. You are not off the grid so there is little reason to use any substantial amount of stored power. That is an off the grid piece.

In an urban setting you use the array and augment with grid power. It is often possible to sell your peak output at the height of the day to the utility for more than you will pay for power after dark. So you may well be able to more than break even by oversizing your array somewhat.

[tom_c]

Originally Posted by olecapt

I am sure that the talented amateur will try to do it on the cheap...but that is not a winner. There will simply not be the required parts if solar takes off...they simply don't exist. Thus it is the cost of new arrays that is critical.

I am skeptical about the battery thing in an urban setting. You are not off the grid so there is little reason to use any substantial amount of stored power. That is an off the grid piece.

In an urban setting you use the array and augment with grid power. It is often possible to sell your peak output at the height of the day to the utility for more than you will pay for power after dark. So you may well be able to more than break even by oversizing your array somewhat.

Ours is somewhat over sized and we have cut back on passive power drains like unplugging items we rarely use (like the TV). We did not opt for batteries on our initial install. We will evaluate our results to see if we will get them. Being completely off grid when living in an urban area seems a bit less than pragmatic. I'll do a follow up post inspection.

[tortoise]

Article . . Nevada developer Whittemore, solar-thermal firm reach agreement on power deal