New NEC code makes it impossible for DIY systems to be compliant

Hedges said:

Yes, amortized cost of hardware for PV, even for off grid system, looks cheaper than current utility rates. (California $0.20 to $0.50)
I think $0.05/kWh is lowest price we are seeing for battery alone, and that only if it does last claimed number of cycles. But that still brings total to $0.075 or $0.10/kWh. Assuming you are a fair weather guy, and you expect to never see a week of heavy overcast.

I can just imagine how bad the repair and maintenance will get to be, with people all over having various different systems.

If your system goes down, you are without power. Now what if you and all the neighbors were interconnected for redundancy. If everyone has grid-tie PV and battery, if one goes down the neighborhood carries the load. If that is an island grid, probably need a data link and protocol to cooperatively form the grid. If there is a central grid, just frequency-watts or volts-watts might be sufficient.

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Why reinvent a grid when a perfectly good one already exists.

SignatureSolarJames said:

I think that PV will actually be able to lower the baseline cost of energy if the business models around deploying it are structured right
the raw tech for a 16kw system with 30kwh of batteries is about $24k with ground mount or roof mount and RSD, at the average 1500kwh/kw/year facing south it will make 24000kwh of power per year in self-consume mode using the battery bank Net metering or not, and that equals 480,000kwh per 20 years average life (less for inverters more for panels) $0.05/kwh is the average cost per kwh, if you add 6% finance for mortgage then you raise the cost by 72% to 8.6 cents financed: by comparison, energy averages 15 cents today and rising nationwide.

My hope is that improvements only sweeten this deal and allow for trade companies to get into this space on an honest-markup basis

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Firskty yiu choose to ignore the opportunity costs of tying up money for 20 years in order to achieve cents per KWh advantage. Secondly your ignoring many people will have wage increases over that 20 years in essence offsetting the annual grid price increases. You are also assuming low rates of finance, it could easily be twice or more. Not to mention many people don’t have space for 16kwp panel , or optimum orientation or may live in cloudy temperate zones. Youre engaging in min/maxing, not to mention the average time in the same house is 7 years. !

I’m a fan of paying for things over time that you consume over time ,

TRW said:

In my area of Wisconsin, we have some state rules that stifle local electrical production, so we buy some of our power from out of state, and idle a few coal plants. I have been a TOU consumer for years, and I fully understand peak load, so I think that this system works well to hold down the load at critical times when generation is not available at a low price. Please tell me why this is not ideal.

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Because my electrical consumers can’t discover when its expensive and when it’s cheap automatically. Until that protocol exists and all my appliances are connected to the internet , ToU is a scam as it knows consumers can’t reSpond and get hit with higher bills as a result. Imagine if croissants quadrupled in price before 8am , but were one third at 2am , sure people will wake up to buy them . No , it’s a play to screw people , that’s what ToU is.

The first choice I made in avoiding poverty was to graduate from high school.
In the U.S., 70% of children graduate from high school on time. That means 30% not.
Of a couple selected minorities, 50% do, 50% do not.
With K-12 education free, even compulsory, to be a high school flunk/drop out is a choice. You don't get 50% failure rate without trying.
And of course income is lowest among those without so much as a high school diploma.

I understand some people experience abject poverty. But for a great many, poverty is a choice they made and continue to make.

I also understand the system helps people to be poor. If you "give a man a fish", he will be poor. To be "working poor" is honorable. To work is to have dignity. It is the other kind of poor I am referring to. There is political power to be had enshrining poverty.

I know someone who is poor. My step son. (Almost) everything he has experienced in life was his choice.

Goboatingnow said:

I’m a fan of paying for things over time that you consume over time ,

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Aha!
You prove one of my points.

You would not believe how much less I have spent on a car, by buying it up front (used), then maintaining it until I've driven it into the ground. Compared to paying over time.

Do you trade in for a new car ever 3 to 5 years? That can make about $2,000,000 difference in your retirement savings.

Goboatingnow said:

Why reinvent a grid when a perfectly good one already exists.

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where is that one? Would like to study it.

Goboatingnow said:

Most of the motorways and bridges around me are precisely owned by the companies that built them and they have long term lease arrangements as they put up all the money.

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are those roads any good? Well maintained ?

You have interesting view here - you don't like small power producers which put up all the money for producing power - but you are fine with construction companies owning the roads.

Goboatingnow said:

average time in the same house is 7 years. !

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Years are very much irrelevant - homes with Solar sell for much more then the solar system added had cost (most parts of the world)
You can put on a Solar system today and sell the house tomorrow and you made a profit.

Goboatingnow said:

Because my electrical consumers can’t discover when its expensive and when it’s cheap automatically. Until that protocol exists and all my appliances are connected to the internet ,

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Let's put together a ISO proposal for a pricing standard, - you don't need to put it on the internet - you got a perfectly good grid with powerline network capabilities PLC already there. A pricing signal doesn't need much bandwidth. A few bits every second.
Your smartmeter already talks back to home over the powerlines.

A pricing signal could be like J1772 PWM 1khz signal which tells EVs how fast to charge. - Faster signal - higher price - slower signal, lower price. You could build some really stupid cheap electronics to react to a signal like that.

Hedges said:

Aha!
You prove one of my points.

You would not believe how much less I have spent on a car, by buying it up front (used), then maintaining it until I've driven it into the ground. Compared to paying over time.

Do you trade in for a new car ever 3 to 5 years? That can make about $2,000,000 difference in your retirement savings.

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One of our big social media boards has a thread called “ bangernomics” , it’s majority supporters wouldn’t agree with you

I drive a 13 year old €1200 white 1.3l two door fiat diesel van , I fix it myself , it’s cost €250 I’m the last 3 years

eXodus said:

where is that one? Would like to study it.

are those roads any good? Well maintained ?

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The privately funded roads funded by tolls are excellent we have about 600 of them , the only ones not so funded are to relatively underpopulated areas . In the future things will get even more pricey as gps based road pricing is being considered instead of fuel taxes as EVs get more popular.

eXodus said:

You have interesting view here - you don't like small power producers which put up all the money for producing power - but you are fine with construction companies owning the roads.

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PPP ( private public partnerships ) are a way the state funds projects “ off the books “ largely because the EU is very right wing as an institution and limits state debt funding ratios. I’m not wild about it but I benefit from 100km of such roads fron near my door in a rural area to the capital.

I do not believe “ amateur” micro-generators should be paid to effectively destabilise the grid. If the grid operator wants to buy your power that’s fine. But it’s being forced politically to do so to effectively subsidise domestic PV , that’s a corruption of the free market.

eXodus said:

Years are very much irrelevant - homes with Solar sell for much more then the solar system added had cost (most parts of the world)
You can put on a Solar system today and sell the house tomorrow and you made a profit.

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My home is up 300% in 5 years. I doubt I’d get more with PV. Location determines price not PV.

eXodus said:

Let's put together a ISO proposal for a pricing standard, - you don't need to put it on the internet - you got a perfectly good grid with powerline network capabilities PLC already there. A pricing signal doesn't need much bandwidth. A few bits every second.
Your smartmeter already talks back to home over the powerlines.

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I agree but nobody is doing this. The smart meters in Europe use GSM , they do not do power line communications. You can get an internet connected “ gadget “ that’s displays TOU etc. but his long before my washing machine interprets thus. It’s years away.

eXodus said:

A pricing signal could be like J1772 PWM 1khz signal which tells EVs how fast to charge. - Faster signal - higher price - slower signal, lower price. You could build some really stupid cheap electronics to react to a signal like that.

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Yes that’s not power line based , for my washing machine what’s needed is a internet protocol over wifi.

I for one don't want my washing machine telling the world that my boxers are in

SparkyJJO said:

I for one don't want my washing machine telling the world that my boxers are in

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Think of the spoofing opportunities.

But seriously for ToU to “ work “ for consumers you need smart appliances and a common agreed protocol.

Years away because the industry does t want the consumers to “ get smart “ and game the system.

My point is I don't want Big Brother knowing everything I do and plug in. It isn't their business whether I'm washing clothes or loading my fridge. I already refuse to get a "smart" thermostat because it isn't their business whether I have my heat on or not. Especially now, I plopped solar on my roof early this year, so I reduced reliance on the grid to run my AC already.

Basically, all these companies and governments need to leave me and everyone else alone.

SparkyJJO said:

My point is I don't want Big Brother knowing everything I do and plug in. It isn't their business whether I'm washing clothes or loading my fridge. I already refuse to get a "smart" thermostat because it isn't their business whether I have my heat on or not. Especially now, I plopped solar on my roof early this year, so I reduced reliance on the grid to run my AC already.

Basically, all these companies and governments need to leave me and everyone else alone.

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Again that’s your preference and nobody is suggesting you have to participate.

A ToU protocol is essentially one way anyway. Your washing machine has no idea whether you put the cat in it or your boxers. So let’s not decend into tin foil hat levels of paranoia.

The future is undoubtedly that the grid will have to manage high power loads like EVs etc. simply because the infrastructure won’t catch up with demand.

The point however is ToU tariffing is the Ryanair model of electricity selling. Essentially consumers can’t respond quickly enough to leverage advantage and the suppliers know this. That’s why we are seeing widespread smart meter rollouts.

We have to have a internet protocol so that EVs , washing machine etc etc can know what the ToU is and optimise their usage automatically.

Most ordinary people actively want government in their lives. They certainly conplain enough when it cuts back on something.

Most people don’t care who knows what’s in their fridge. These days young peoples whole life is recorded on social media.

I’m sorry but you are in a tiny minority.

Yeah maybe I am. Too many people have given up their personal autonomy for the sake of "convenience." Tyrants love it when people willingly give up their freedom for a little bit of convenience. That "convenience" can be used against them when in the wrong hands on the other end, and after seeing the utter nonsense coming out of our world governments over the last couple of years in particular I wouldn't trust a single one of them.

/off topic

Long live DIY. Screw those who try to regulate everything to death trying to prevent it.

SparkyJJO said:

Yeah maybe I am. Too many people have given up their personal autonomy for the sake of "convenience." Tyrants love it when people willingly give up their freedom for a little bit of convenience. That "convenience" can be used against them when in the wrong hands on the other end, and after seeing the utter nonsense coming out of our world governments over the last couple of years in particular I wouldn't trust a single one of them.

/off topic

Long live DIY. Screw those who try to regulate everything to death trying to prevent it.

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Hey power to the man , bro.

But I’m afraid few think like this. Most people want responsible government. Most people want more gov intervention ( if I listen to radio public phone-ins , as all you hear , “ the gov needs to fix ….”)

We will move to the era of fully monitored existence. Sure a few of us will dodge it but most will willingly accept it.

By the time the Borg arrives we all have accepted assimilation voluntarily. !!!

As an inveterate diyer, I fully agree , the trouble is the incompetent diyer brings regulation down on top of us all.

Goboatingnow said:

Most people want responsible government.

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I do too. But responsible does not equal meddling.

Goboatingnow said:

Most people want more gov intervention ( if I listen to radio public phone-ins , as all you hear , “ the gov needs to fix ….”)

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This is not being "responsible" per se - they don't need to know every little thing, nor is it really their job to "fix" every little thing. Maybe in Europe you're used to and want more government nosiness. Not here.

Goboatingnow said:

We will move to the era of fully monitored existence. Sure a few of us will dodge it but most will willingly accept it.

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If you willingly accept big brother watching your every move, that's pretty bad. Do you really want a totalitarian regime watching your every move so they can whack you for "wrongthink" or whatever else they come up with to punish you for?

I shall not willingly give them the opportunity to subject me or my family to such abuse.

Goboatingnow said:

By the time the Borg arrives we all have accepted assimilation voluntarily. !!!

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No.

Goboatingnow said:

As an inveterate diyer, I fully agree , the trouble is the incompetent diyer brings regulation down on top of us all.

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Sometimes some incompetence should be ignored. OK, it blew up, and it took him with it. Well....... Don't punish the rest of us who are careful because Joey over there insisted he knew what he was doing and licked the wires!

Goboatingnow said:

Yes that’s not power line based , for my washing machine what’s needed is a internet protocol over wifi.

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J1772 was just a current working protocol, which does exactly what we are looking for, adjust loads - which could be adapted to be sent over PLC.

Wifi is way to volatile - to many changes in standard over the years - appliances last to long for that. No we need something much simpler, and since all grids already run PLC - why not use something which works? And will still work in 50 years?

We are talking about pricing which changes maybe once a second 1HZ - it's not much data, maybe a bits per second. No high speed internet required.

Goboatingnow said:

We have to have a internet protocol so that EVs , washing machine etc etc can know what the ToU is and optimise their usage automatically.

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I disagree partially - the demand loads just need to react to a pricing signal. They don't need the ability to talk with the grid.

If you raise the price signal - EVs stop charging. If you lower the price enough - the EV starts discharging into the grid.
Active pricing stabilizes the grid.

Only large powerplants need to able to communicate TO the grid. Because they need to tell the pricing exchange that they go offline for maintenance at time X- that would wrack havoc on grid stability. Small producers/consumers are to insignificant alone that it would need

Goboatingnow said:

A ToU protocol is essentially one way anyway.

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Yep, it's like broadcast - Now the price is 8 cents, Now the price is 10 cents, Now the price is 12 cents. Like Radio.

AI can to the remainder and react to patterns over the day. You fridge and waterheater could learn to anticipate low pricing in the day. Very simple machine learning algorithm.

eXodus said:

AI can to the remainder and react to patterns over the day. You fridge and waterheater could learn to anticipate low pricing in the day. Very simple machine learning algorithm.

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Once they figure that one out, they can play the stockmarket for you too.

Depending on how wide a pricing variance you have and how often it swings, you could get into some really weird situations where you start the cycle at .10 a kwh and end up at .80 kwh to finish your cooking.

The only way something like this could work is if pricing can't change too quickly, it would have to have price controls of some sort set against the provider, by law.

cs1234 said:

Once they figure that one out, they can play the stockmarket for you too.

Depending on how wide a pricing variance you have and how often it swings, you could get into some really weird situations where you start the cycle at .10 a kwh and end up at .80 kwh to finish your cooking.

The only way something like this could work is if pricing can't change too quickly, it would have to have price controls of some sort set against the provider, by law.

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Those swings are rather predictable. California warned people days ahead of the heat wave and high power prices.

All those power sources are very slow to respond. We are talking hours, so price changes wouldn't be super fast. The only quick reaction products are batteries.

Like with every other market, you either need enough players, or you need to regulate.

If you only got a few big corps they will benchmark against it other and keep prices high. If you got independent small suppliers they can undercut and sell more.

Interesting reading about "big Brother concerns" yet I bet everyone has a cell phone that can track you close enough to know what side of the street you walk on, how long you look at a merchants display (Home Depot is one that tracks you instore) Sends your health information to a 3rd party if you use any type of a health monitoring device, (bet you didn't read the disclosure when you downloaded the app) Etc.

I have lost any expectation of privacy. I do use a PO box and remove or tear up any labels before putting a box or letter in trash.