solar voltaic power in Maine? (power lines, appliances, how much)

[Tim Kamys]

I would like to thank everyone who responded to my request for information on the best heating system for a new house I am planning on building this summer.

Now, I am considering installation of solar voltaic panels on my south facing roof, and would like any advice, recommendations, opinions on this topic. I have read about flexible solar voltaic panels that can be attached to rolled metal roofs, and of course solar electric roofing shingles. However, I have not yet researched the costs involved for any of these systems.

If anyone is has had experience, or is familiar with solar electric roof applications I would greatly appreciate your feedback.
Thanks, Tim

[Acadianlion]

Originally Posted by Tim Kamys

I would like to thank everyone who responded to my request for information on the best heating system for a new house I am planning on building this summer.

Now, I am considering installation of solar voltaic panels on my south facing roof, and would like any advice, recommendations, opinions on this topic. I have read about flexible solar voltaic panels that can be attached to rolled metal roofs, and of course solar electric roofing shingles. However, I have not yet researched the costs involved for any of these systems.

If anyone is has had experience, or is familiar with solar electric roof applications I would greatly appreciate your feedback.
Thanks, Tim

I suggest that you start here: Maine Solar House. The house was built a while ago, but there is a wealth of information about actual use of solar voltaics in use in a working house in Maine.

[shadowfax1997]

WHile this is a great thought, i don't believe it is currently economicly viable.

The web site "maine solar house" says a typical installation is $20K. At my current usage rate (around $80 per month) and a 50% savings, I would save less than $600 per year. A $20K investment would take roughly 30 years to break even. Tax incentives and grants are available, but i don't know for how much. Course, if you currently use lots of electicity, it might work better for you.

Interesting read the solar house website. I will need to spend more time reading it and researching.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

The theory is to set your panels at your latitude. Half way up Maine just happens to be 45 degrees north and it goes almost right through forest beekeeper's hot tub. That way your solar panels will see sun as much as 23 degrees below 45 degrees on December 21 and 23 degrees above it on June 21. Of course you could adjust your panels directly at the sun on a weekly basis, but that would be a bother.

At 23 degrees away from perpendicular to the panel or the worst case scenario you would have an efficiency of 92% (the cosine of 23 degrees). Allowing for our weather, the loss of 8% due to panel orientation on the worst day is not much of a compromise.

(We engineers can't help ourselves.)

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

The theory is to set your panels at your latitude. Half way up Maine just happens to be 45 degrees north and it goes almost right through forest beekeeper's hot tub. That way your solar panels will see sun as much as 23 degrees below 45 degrees on December 21 and 23 degrees above it on June 21. Of course you could adjust your panels directly at the sun on a weekly basis, but that would be a bother.

At 23 degrees away from perpendicular to the panel or the worst case scenario you would have an efficiency of 92% (the cosine of 23 degrees). Allowing for our weather, the loss of 8% due to panel orientation on the worst day is not much of a compromise.

(We engineers can't help ourselves.)

I have one small high efficiency PV panel on my on my barn which puts out about 17 volts at around 20 watts in direct sun and about 14 volts in the winter. I use it to charge batteries and it works pretty well. It came on an industrial weather station I bought off a guy. I think if you dedicated a small array to run a water heater or something like that, it would prove useful. Some folks go all out charging banks of batteries, using inverters and voltage regulators to run the whole house. Some even go as far as converting everything in the house to run on 12 Volts DC. I might consider something like that if I was way out in the woods and power was not available at all. Personally it seems like a lot of work to maintain the whole thing. I'll be very interested when they get a panel a foot square to put out about 250 watts at 60 amps!

[Acadianlion]

The concept of PV array for electicity generation is a noble thought, but the practical niceties of the technology are beyond most people building a new home, or thinking of retrofitting an old one. The concept of a "pay back" on the "investment" into a PV system simply doesn't work in most cases, unless there is true dedication to the concept of eliminating fossil fuel usage and there exists a perfect solar site on the property to convert an existing home to solar power. An off grid system makes absolutely NO sense financially, unless the cost of running power lines from the grid source to the dwelling makes the cost of the larger array and the batteries and their maintenance/replacement make sense.

In our existiing home here, if we were to merely install a pv array, the cost would take around 35 years to break even if the installtion were financed at 7%. That makes no sense even in the "fuzzy feelgood" department.

There is no "pay back" on the installation of a PV system. The only way that there can be a "pay back" is for the two major items of electrical consumption cost to be controllable. One is the cost of electricity, which will continually rise on an unpredictable rate, and for the use of electricity to be tightly controlled, which is extremely difficult for most people to do, since electrical appliances tend to consume more electricity as they age.

Merely slapping a PV array onto "same old, same old" living theory simply won't work unless money is of such little consequence that it can be applied without any accountability at all.

But in our new home, the equation will be entirely different. First of all, the new home will be of a totally unconventional design, and the site itself offers excellent PV exposure.

Secondly, our desire is not to be "off grid", but to achieve a net zero consumption rate initially. We also will not be looking at the PV cost as an investment that is separate from the house itself, and our age, if we never receive a "pay back" on the PV system, it doesn't matter so long as the overall cost of operation of the dwelling isn't elevated by rising electrical rates.

We believe that reduction in overall fossil fuel consumption needs to be a major goal of every person in this country. As we begin this next planning stage for our new home, it is this concept that is guiding us through the process: reduction in total carbon and fossil fuel use as a matter of living.