Feast or Famine, The off grid solar dilemma.

[Hedges]

I haven't looked for a year but there was is still no heat pump available in the US capable of producing enough hot water for space heating. Plenty of DHW options however.

This one says 40 kW, which would be sufficient whether that's power in or heat out. Variable speed scroll pump.

Introducing Heat2O® Commercial Hot Water Heating for the Future

www.metahvac.com

Mitsubishi Launches CO2 Heat Pump Water Heater in the U.S.

The air-source CO2 heat-pump water-heater from Mitsubishi for commercial and industrial applications is said to deliver a COP up to 4.11.

r744.com

 

[OzSolar]

This one says 40 kW, which would be sufficient whether that's power in or heat out. Variable speed scroll pump.

Introducing Heat2O® Commercial Hot Water Heating for the Future

www.metahvac.com

Mitsubishi Launches CO2 Heat Pump Water Heater in the U.S.

The air-source CO2 heat-pump water-heater from Mitsubishi for commercial and industrial applications is said to deliver a COP up to 4.11.

r744.com

Nice find!

From that link.
Cold-climate performance and scalability
Heat2O can operate at high capacity even in cold climates such as climate zones 5 and 6. The system delivers 100% heating capacity of 40 kW at ambient temperatures as low as 36° F. When down to -13° F outside, the system can still supply 176° F hot water but at 50% of the heating capacity.

I'd still be fine at -13f when it's only able to deliver 20kW (68,000 BTU's). My 2 ton ground source keeps up during the less than 20 hours we see those temps and that's only every other year.

Arctic Heat Pumps was all I could and they didn't have any distribution in the US when I looked a year (or two?) ago. Now I see they have a distributor just a few hours from me.

Side note: What happens at -20f though? The elephant in the room with heat pumps and the typical american home is that unless you have dual fuel or straight resistance capable of meeting that demand you could be in trouble in just a few hours. Most heat pumps are installed with heat strip back up so the more heat pumps that get installed the more likely we are to crash the grid again. Texas etc Feb 2021.

 

[LydMekk]

As per this threads title I had a sobering thought looking at my stats this afternoon...

In the summer my production normally goes through the roof and I can't ever use all of my potential production.
Even with minisplits running cooling all the time. F.ex today I've used 36kwh (34 celcius).

In the winter my consumption rises a lot with the use of electrical heating (also the same minisplits but to heat with, where they are not so efficient) and other floor heaters etc. Depending on how cold it is outside I can see 90-95kwh per day in consumption.
If it's a clear day I can have nice production also in winter but if it is clouded and or rain it might only produce 7.5kwh...

Feast or famine indeed.

I am using my grid connection as a "generator" to just add some juice on those winter days. In the summer with sunny weather (of which we have a lot here in Andalucia) I never use any gridpower at all.

Ofc: moar batteries and panels...yeah...there is limit how much it is viable to keep installing more when you are chasing the very upper part of the curve in regards to the economics of it vs. just use the grid on those days instead.
Esp. in regards to panels - if it is too cloudy and/or rainy it is almost useless.

Last year my 2 worst months were November and December.

 

[mvonw]

I’m a little over 1 year into my solar journey. I am 100% off grid and writing this via the miracle of satellite internet and solar. I can’t believe that I once had a generator, propane, and and bank of LA batteries. Now I have a 20kwp array and a 30kwh battery bank and have eliminated propane except for winter heat, but I can often supplement that heavily in the winter with electric heat. My generator has not been run in many, many months except to test it. Even though I’m grossly over-paneled for my needs, my mountain weather can often mean that I have only a couple of solar hours. Today had a small break in the clouds and my batteries completely charged by 9am. By small break in the clouds, i mean heavy overcast, but not raining. My batteries charged by 10 am. Last winter, I had days when it was snowing heavily and I was still putting 1000 W into the battery. That is why I oversized. Where I live, everything is sixzed for the winter

 

[Hedges]

It does seem that carbon sequestration as a method to store solar power from summer, to be used in the winter, is the way to go.

 

[Crowz]

I don't know if its climate change or what but it seems Alabama is moving to permanent famine solar wise. The odds on getting a 100% sunny day seems to be about as good as winning the lottery.

Summer used to be almost cloudless a few years back. Overcast or heavy clouds is getting to be the norm. I guess I'm going to have to triple my panels to make up for it at this rate.

 

[OffGridForGood]

Overcast or heavy clouds is getting to be the norm. I guess I'm going to have to triple my panels to make up for it at this rate.

LOL
Well I am not sure the cause, but after 21 days without a drop of rain, now it seems we are getting nothing but rain for 8-9 days in a row.
Feast or Famine appears to be the right title.

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

i am lucky the cabin uses so little that i have no issues yet.. (prays to the flying spaghetti monster) (or putang if that works for you). but so far I am way over paneled. hope to continue that tradition in the future.

currently a fridge, freezer and the sewage pump runs 24-7 year round. the A/C split pack runs from april to october 24-7 to keep it dry and cool all off of solar.

 

[Crowz]

OMG the sun was out today for at least 99.9% of the time.



Yet the clouds return wednesday

 

[timselectric]

Finally got some sun two days ago.
Then, back to rain.

 

[Skinny76]

I don't know if its climate change or what but it seems Alabama is moving to permanent famine solar wise. The odds on getting a 100% sunny day seems to be about as good as winning the lottery.

Summer used to be almost cloudless a few years back. Overcast or heavy clouds is getting to be the norm. I guess I'm going to have to triple my panels to make up for it at this rate.

Alabama here too. The PV is all over the place, but it was a better day than most. At least you can make out the bell curve.

 

[EastTexCowboy]

I would trade for the temps or the rain either. Or both. It's been at least three weeks now with maybe a tenth of an inch.



But the PV has been good at least

 

[wattmatters]

Been a mostly sunny June here:



If it weren't for wintertime tree shading I'd see much higher production.

 

[oldbigfoot]

This reminds me that I'm going to have to figure out some solar for a well because I want to drill one next year. We have public water but it's a community water system so I'd like to have a well just in case. I'll be posting on here for advice when I get closer to doing it, but I'm thinking maybe just put a compressor on it and blow up the water, then I don't have anything down that hole but a pipe for air. I just don't know how low the water table can be and still be able to get a head of water to the surface. Oh well, another thread someday.

On

 

[Zwy]

I would trade for the temps or the rain either. Or both. It's been at least three weeks now with maybe a tenth of an inch.

Finally rained here over the weekend, some places as much 4.5 inches. We received over 2 inches. Had doctor appointment yesterday 60 miles from home, the corn there was stressed considerably while as you drove eastward towards home it looked better. We are better off than many.

 

[mvonw]

Finally rained here over the weekend, some places as much 4.5 inches. We received over 2 inches. Had doctor appointment yesterday 60 miles from home, the corn there was stressed considerably while as you drove eastward towards home it looked better. We are better off than many.

We are getting all the rain in the Northeast. I've had rain every day for over a month now. I don't recall ever seeing such rain. My meadow looks like a tropical rainforest. My forecast has looked like this for over 4 weeks straight:

 

[EastTexCowboy]

We are getting all the rain in the Northeast. I've had rain every day for over a month now. I don't recall ever seeing such rain. My meadow looks like a tropical rainforest. My forecast has looked like this for over 4 weeks straight:

View attachment 154592

Too much rain is about as bad as not enough rain. Extremes of either just suck.

 

[EastTexCowboy]

I thought I had seen some serious rain. Back in 1994 we got almost 30 inches. A gasoline pipeline burst on the San Jacinto river on the east side of Houston and the river caught on fire. We lived about 45 minutes east of Houston and got something like 24 inches.

Fire and rain: Remembering the October flood of 1994

In a city famous for bad floods, this was one of the worst. October 1994 brought a rain event responsible for 17 deaths.

abc13.com

Fall of 1999 a freak storm came in and we got 19 inches in six hours. My wife had just moved here from Wisconsin. She was a little freaked out and asked me if it rained like this often. I said, "Nah, not that often. Maybe once or twice a year." ?

Then came Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Sixty (60) inches of rain. That's a six and a zero, not a typo. I thought I had seen rain. I was wrong. It's hard to imagine something like that unless you live through it.



This is I-10 between Houston and Beaumont, close to where I lived at the time. We were about 4 miles south of I-10. Amazingly our house didn't flood but obviously many did.

Shocking before and after pics show how Hurricane Harvey turned a motorway into a sea with rolling waves after worst rainfall in US history

HURRICANE Harvey has turned a motorway in Texas into a rolling sea as the category four storm continued to lash the Lone Star state. Shocking images show how the I-10, between Houston and Beaumont,…

www.thesun.co.uk

So now, even when it's extreme drought, I'm careful about wishing for rain. Feast or famine indeed.

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

gotta admit during rainy season and typhoon season we get a lot of rain but my lord 60" ? thats like Okinawa or Philipines level rain...

 

[Mattb4]

Sometimes you just get lucky. The grid went down today with temperatures already close to 90F, 73 dewpoint and a heat index of 99F. Why is that lucky you ask? Because it is just the beginning of a full sunny day, my batteries are at about 80% and the PV is enough to provide A/C to maintain my house comfortable while whatever caused the power to go down is worked on by some poor Linemen forced out in to the blistering heat to repair things.

When the grid goes down on a beautiful weather day it is almost always off for several hours. With it being Sunday they will have to call in people to solve the loss. This takes time and meanwhile the folks without electricity will have to endure the heat. Not sure what caused the loss but extreme heat and equipment failure go hand and hand.

ETA: Had a neighbor call me from the nearby town with the news power was out in town due to a substation failure. He said it came back on during his call and asked about out here. It is still off. He has to come back home to get a generator running so that he can keep his kennels cool.

Update: the Co-Op txt me with the power restored. Have to give them credit as it was only down for 1-1/2 hours. Hopefully the rest of the day it stays up for those folks that really need it during this extreme heat period.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

I thought I had seen some serious rain. Back in 1994 we got almost 30 inches. A gasoline pipeline burst on the San Jacinto river on the east side of Houston and the river caught on fire. We lived about 45 minutes east of Houston and got something like 24 inches.

Fire and rain: Remembering the October flood of 1994

In a city famous for bad floods, this was one of the worst. October 1994 brought a rain event responsible for 17 deaths.

abc13.com

Fall of 1999 a freak storm came in and we got 19 inches in six hours. My wife had just moved here from Wisconsin. She was a little freaked out and asked me if it rained like this often. I said, "Nah, not that often. Maybe once or twice a year." ?

Then came Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Sixty (60) inches of rain. That's a six and a zero, not a typo. I thought I had seen rain. I was wrong. It's hard to imagine something like that unless you live through it.

View attachment 154598

This is I-10 between Houston and Beaumont, close to where I lived at the time. We were about 4 miles south of I-10. Amazingly our house didn't flood but obviously many did.
View attachment 154599

Shocking before and after pics show how Hurricane Harvey turned a motorway into a sea with rolling waves after worst rainfall in US history

HURRICANE Harvey has turned a motorway in Texas into a rolling sea as the category four storm continued to lash the Lone Star state. Shocking images show how the I-10, between Houston and Beaumont,…

www.thesun.co.uk

So now, even when it's extreme drought, I'm careful about wishing for rain. Feast or famine indeed.

I have talked to Texans about this before.

When asking them about rainwater harvesting they laughed.

They said” When we get rain its in buckets all at once”

 

[Rocksnsalt]

flood and fire at same time, that’s crazy ?

 

[HighTechLab]

When your in a famine of solar production but those who use the power are still feasting…that’s where diesel comes in
Full write up coming soon.

 

[Mattb4]

12 chargeverters!? Pretty massive charging need going on. Might just tell (ask) the wife and kids to use less.

 

[timselectric]

That's nuts, right there.
I don't care who you are. lol