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You are the one that claimed an average system was 24KBTUs. but of course the other poster is also incorrect. HVAC units are rated in BTUs. Generally central units rating are expressed as tons of cooling, but a ton of cooling is 12,000 BTU/hr.
In sizing a unit one must also meet the power demand of the ac unit, which your example will not. If you are net metering that doesn't matter, but if you are trying to meet the needs of the house independent of your electric utility power and energy requirements must both be met.
Besides the power demands of ac, which could easily be 10 hrs a day, how are these homeowners then going to charge up their electric cars;solar panels at night?? What about the appliances, tv etc, at night or in winter?
False. Solar panels are hard to hide. In fact, that's their number one problem. Nobody wants ugly boxes raised on their roofs.
Our panels lie flat against the roof. We can't even see them from the street, and none of the neighbors have a clear view of them either. It would have been silly of us not to install them. We have the perfect house for solar. And even if I could see the panels, it would not bother me. Lots of my neighbors have roof-installed arrays, and in almost every case, the panels lie flat. They're not the least bit ugly or obtrusive.
One cannot argue about tastes, so I've never argued the aesthetics of private solar installations. Industrial size projects covering acre upon acre use up habitat. That's another problem.
25.5 x 30 = 765kW/month...average US household uses 900kW'hr/m You're doing a good job of conserving if you're getting by on just your PV generation.
If your AC is twice as efficient as the average sited above, it still uses 18kW/d. That only leaves you 7 or 8 kW for other things each day.... a fridge uses ~1/2 kW/d and 4 hrs of TV maybe another 1/2kW. Lights take next to nothing, so I guess, unless your hobby is welding large girders together, your contention is quite plausible....OTOH-- we use ~11 or 12kW/d in summer--rarely have lites on, fridge, small freezer, TV and a small fan or two in use several hrs/d.... ????
One cannot argue about tastes, so I've never argued the aesthetics of private solar installations. Industrial size projects covering acre upon acre use up habitat. That's another problem.
25.5 x 30 = 765kW/month...average US household uses 900kW'hr/m You're doing a good job of conserving if you're getting by on just your PV generation.
If your AC is twice as efficient as the average sited above, it still uses 18kW/d. That only leaves you 7 or 8 kW for other things each day.... a fridge uses ~1/2 kW/d and 4 hrs of TV maybe another 1/2kW. Lights take next to nothing, so I guess, unless your hobby is welding large girders together, your contention is quite plausible....OTOH-- we use ~11 or 12kW/d in summer--rarely have lites on, fridge, small freezer, TV and a small fan or two in use several hrs/d.... ????
We do actively conserve, and our household usage falls well below that of homes of a similar size in the area, although I'd have to look up our billing history to give you exact figures. When we first contacted solar companies for estimates, many of the sales people simply did not believe that we were being truthful about our electric usage.
One thing that helps significantly is that we don't use a/c round the clock, just during the day. (Colorado is dry and cools off dramatically at night, so we usually just open our windows when we head to bed.) Additionally, we do not have an electric clothes dryer, television, or chest freezer, which most of our neighborhood peers do have. All of our lighting is compact fluorescent, but because it's Colorado and our home has well-placed windows, we rarely use much in the way of artificial lighting in the summer.
So why would we even bother with solar if our usage was so low already? Because we wanted to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels even further. It's really as simple as that.
So why would we even bother with solar if our usage was so low already? Because we wanted to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels even further. It's really as simple as that.
I just noticed your "location"-- I like it. As Thoreau said, "Simplify. Simplify. Simplify."
Your conservation practices are commendable, but your reasons are wrong: The theory of co2/GHGs & AGW is useless. Every prediction made by the politically motivated Warmists over the past 30 yrs has been wrong. Einstein's Theory if Gravity is exquisite, but it doesn't predict the trajectory of a falling feather very well. Feathers fall in the real world, not the laboratory. The contribution of co2 to Earth's weather/climate is too small to measure and overwhelmed by other pertinent factors.
Use of fossil fuels has improved the human condition way beyond any downside. Sure oil wells are ugly and miners get lung problems, but the benefits far outweigh the sacrifices. Unless you're a homesteader living off the land, whittling your implements from your own trees, your house & life are full of goods dependent on petroleum- as a fuel to manufacture & transport and as a material component (plastics). Any savings from using solar is minuscule compared to our over all dependence on petroleum.
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I like it. As Thoreau said, "Simplify. Simplify. Simplify."
