My Solar PV journey is officially ending

[rhino]

I find it that as @50ShadesOfDirt showed most people seem to neglect all the hidden costs/risks of relying on grid power. It's no different than any other "insurance". You might only realize how important that insurance is when you need it the most.

There could also be other tangential damage from grid power such as bulldozing/clearcutting under power lines, wild fires started from trees hitting power lines, etc.. Both of those have happened to lines connected to me.

 

[dcg9381]

I have a ground source heat pump and it does not care what the outside temp is as the water is a constant 72° f with a COP of 4 the newer units have a higher cop.

I think this is geothermal, right? It's not the heat pump type that I'm discussing that is present in most of Texas. I've never seen geothermal heating in Texas. Seems to be a up north thing.

 

[Zwy]

or at least going on a very long Hiatus.

So I built a passive solar house- the roof is 35° slope facing 4° west. no penetrations, no shading. I built it to be perfect for solar panels.

https://imgur.com/a/hFKDZKx

BUT, net metering ended two months ago before I could get in and I have spent the last two months trying to make solar with batteries make sense, and I have finally come to the conclusion that, right now, I cant.

energy averages $.11/kwh, down from $.14/kwh last year.

In the winter my house will use very little energy for HVAC, which is the main load for houses here my part of Texas. with no hvac system, on sunny days the house sits about 75 degrees due to all the radiant heat coming in through the south facing windows.

If I get 10 years out of an inverter and 6000 cycles out of the battery, I basically break even.

you guys are a fun but crazy bunch who persist through headaches of solar, and from reading on here, they are many. I don't have the patience to deal with all that comes with Solar PV and batteries

I have decided to do three things.
1. Wait for energy prices to go up and for battery
and inverter prices to come down
2. use a clothes line to dry clothes and save money there
3. Use a cheap diy Solar THERMAL hot water system to heat my water.

however, I still have a decision to make about backup for my well pump. we hardly ever lose power and I have 25 gallons of reserve in the pressure tank but if we have a freeze we could lose power for over a day. I'm going between an inverter/ battery , or a generator, and frankly the generator is winning right now :D

Here is how I decided to go with batteries instead of a generator. https://diysolarforum.com/threads/ground-mount-installation-questions.60001/post-744519

Once you get a system up and running, you will wonder why the heck you didn't do it sooner.

 

[labeeman]

I think this is geothermal, right? It's not the heat pump type that I'm discussing that is present in most of Texas. I've never seen geothermal heating in Texas. Seems to be a up north thing.

Yep, I am about 30 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico.LOL It is used here for cooling as it is the most efficient cooling there is as it uses 75° water for the condenser instead of 100° air.

 

[TorC]

On thermal hot water mentioned earlier in the thread: if you can set up a thermosiphon system, with or without a refrigerant heat exchange system as needed, those systems will often run just about zero maintenance for decades - as I know from my dad who got reports in the last couple years of systems he installed in the 70s working just as well as when new. The materials are mostly basic, easily recycled materials, not highly refined arrangements of rare materials. A far better option environmentally IMHO. I wouldn't even try to claim the PV system I've got is green like that.

 

[ADDvanced]

You can’t believe everything you hear.

Yes I can. It's not hooked up to the rest of the grid. Which is stupid.

 

[1201]

On thermal hot water mentioned earlier in the thread: if you can set up a thermosiphon system, with or without a refrigerant heat exchange system as needed, those systems will often run just about zero maintenance for decades - as I know from my dad who got reports in the last couple years of systems he installed in the 70s working just as well as when new. The materials are mostly basic, easily recycled materials, not highly refined arrangements of rare materials. A far better option environmentally IMHO. I wouldn't even try to claim the PV system I've got is green like that.

What do you think about a setup like this?

https://imgur.com/a/8Csrvb7

 

[JJJJ]

For us it was never about cost effectiveness or break even points. It was for piece of mind if the power goes out.

Most importantly my wife likes the idea and fully supports my project ? which is a big win for our situation.

Fully respect your decision however. Shows a great deal of thought and consideration.

 

[TorC]

@1201 Pumped systems like that work, but there's always a bit more that can go wrong with them. I'd still install one if it was what I had to do for the hot water. The differential controller is essential, because even a DC pump on direct PV will respond differently to conditions than the water panel. I've tried the latter, and it never behaves right, even though you'd like to think it would be perfect.

 

[1201]

@1201 Pumped systems like that work, but there's always a bit more that can go wrong with them. I'd still install one if it was what I had to do for the hot water. The differential controller is essential, because even a DC pump on direct PV will respond differently to conditions than the water panel. I've tried the latter, and it never behaves right, even though you'd like to think it would be perfect.

I've been watching some videos on thermosiphon systems and they actually work very well. No pump needed which saves upfront cost and maintenance , and no controller needed. Could save quite a bit of money.

I'm going to look into those a lot more. Thanks

 

[HarryN]

For us personally, a power outage is not unusual and now kind of expected every year during fire season.

So we can loose a lot of frozen / refrigerated food in just a few days. It actually isn't so much the value of the food itself, but the time spent dealing with it and my wife takes the brunt of this in trying to shop for it all again.

If the power is out for us, it is out for many, so the food distribution system can be unstable for a while.

The fuel that we can purchase locally is not stable enough to store in any significant quantity to run a generator very long.

So my focus is to power the refrigerators via solar / battery 95% of the time, and use the grid to back them up.

This is quite a bit less costly than trying to compete with grid pricing.

 

[S610]

Interesting. Is there a reason you went with passive heated instead of passive cooled for that area? Wondering since I think of Texas as hot.

I am planning a passive cooled off-grid home in Georgia which means lots of air flow, deep covered porch, operational transoms and a whole house fan so I won't need A/C at all under normal circumstances. Won't do jack to provide passive heat but that is less of a concern in this climate. A wood stove would do in a pinch if the power was out completely (and the house can stay livable without power in the summer too).

 

[1201]

Interesting. Is there a reason you went with passive heated instead of passive cooled for that area? Wondering since I think of Texas as hot.

I am planning a passive cooled off-grid home in Georgia which means lots of air flow, deep covered porch, operational transoms and a whole house fan so I won't need A/C at all under normal circumstances. Won't do jack to provide passive heat but that is less of a concern in this climate. A wood stove would do in a pinch if the power was out completely (and the house can stay livable without power in the summer too).

Great question. I have a "passively cooled" house currently and it was a mistake. My current house has a bright white roof and bright white exterior walls and no south facing windows. It doesn't get nearly as hot as other houses in summer, but also doesn't get nearly as hot as other houses in winter. In other words it's stays COLD in winter.

North Texas is actually as hot as it is cold. We have approx 2500 cooling degree days and approx 2500 heating degree days.

The mistake I made was I currently have electric resistance heat which is not as efficient as cooling with an ac so my winter electric bills are higher than my summer bills.

With the new house I think I have a little bit of both. The white roof will keep the house a little cooler in the summer and the windows keep it nice and warm in winter. I put on 90% solar screens in mid April and take them off at the end of October so I get the best of both worlds(in theory)

I don't know how hot your summers get but if it's over 90 a fan isn't going to cut it. Too much humidity at night and too hot during the day.

Unless of course you are doing high thermal mass where you build the exterior walls out of thick concrete

 

[JRH]

For us it was never about cost effectiveness or break even points. It was for piece of mind if the power goes out.

Most importantly my wife likes the idea and fully supports my project ? which is a big win for our situation.

Fully respect your decision however. Shows a great deal of thought and consideration.

You are correct.. I won’t live long enough to receive a ROI on what my solar , water and heat investment has cost…but I will have what I want and need while I’m alive without hoping somthing bad doesn’t happen to limit access to those things…It’s called self dependence …
there’s a few other things I have covered too, but we will just skip that..

 

[RV10flyer]

Understandable. Solar, depending on grid availability and cost, can be uneconomical to put in. It has no real pay back where I live with low fixed electrical rates. In my case I dabble in it for reasons that are not to save money. I could spend my money on wine, women and song but at my age I gave up drinking, women are hard to acquire and expensive to maintain and I never could carry a tune. So I am left to find other things to occupy my time.

Always been fascinated with making things work. It is a great deal of satisfaction to power the lights, cook my dinner, watch my TV from power generated from my own setup solar power supply. Even if it cost more than simply buying it from the Co-Op.

100%

 

[JRH]

100%

Yer damn right…Jerimiah Johnson could have stayed in the flatlands where life was easy , but he chose to take to the Rockies as a test of himself….why take the easy route.. live life , while you can..

 

[S610]

Great question. I have a "passively cooled" house currently and it was a mistake. My current house has a bright white roof and bright white exterior walls and no south facing windows. It doesn't get nearly as hot as other houses in summer, but also doesn't get nearly as hot as other houses in winter. In other words it's stays COLD in winter.

North Texas is actually as hot as it is cold. We have approx 2500 cooling degree days and approx 2500 heating degree days.

The mistake I made was I currently have electric resistance heat which is not as efficient as cooling with an ac so my winter electric bills are higher than my summer bills.

With the new house I think I have a little bit of both. The white roof will keep the house a little cooler in the summer and the windows keep it nice and warm in winter. I put on 90% solar screens in mid April and take them off at the end of October so I get the best of both worlds(in theory)

I don't know how hot your summers get but if it's over 90 a fan isn't going to cut it. Too much humidity at night and too hot during the day.

Unless of course you are doing high thermal mass where you build the exterior walls out of thick concrete

Solar screens are a good idea! I am in Middle Georgia now and it hits 90-95 most of the summer; I haven't used A/C in 5 years (except twice last summer when it hit 104, it did run for a couple of hours).

People think they can't live without A/C but once they acclimate to it they are fine *if* the hosue was designed for it with lots of tall windows and plenty of ventilation between rooms like the Victorian era houses were. Now the cold is a whole other story! If it dips below 73 the sweaters and blankets come out.

Sorry to hear you have given up on the idea of solar. I hope it works out well for you. For me it is more about self sufficiency and concern that the grid will go down in the next few years but from what I hear Texas has its own grid and will probably do better in that scenario.

 

[1201]

Solar screens are a good idea! I am in Middle Georgia now and it hits 90-95 most of the summer; I haven't used A/C in 5 years (except twice last summer when it hit 104, it did run for a couple of hours).

People think they can't live without A/C but once they acclimate to it they are fine *if* the hosue was designed for it with lots of tall windows and plenty of ventilation between rooms like the Victorian era houses were. Now the cold is a whole other story! If it dips below 73 the sweaters and blankets come out.

Sorry to hear you have given up on the idea of solar. I hope it works out well for you. For me it is more about self sufficiency and concern that the grid will go down in the next few years but from what I hear Texas has its own grid and will probably do better in that scenario.

90 degrees and no AC. oh no. cant do that. even with good ventilation 95 degree air is still very uncomfortable

 

[S610]

You are correct.. I won’t live long enough to receive a ROI on what my solar , water and heat investment has cost…but I will have what I want and need while I’m alive without hoping somthing bad doesn’t happen to limit access to those things…It’s called self dependence …
there’s a few other things I have covered too, but we will just skip that..

Exactly. Not having to worry that the grid will go down or inflation goes up so much we have to choose between groceries or heat. Things have escalated crazy fast in the last 5 years and there is no reason to think it will slow down. For those that are concerned about those things the peace of mind has a very high ROI all on its own.