diy solar

diy solar

Solar has been hijacked/co opted. A wakeup?

I started fiddling with solar because of money, with absolutely no idea what I was doing. I mean none. Got straight to the deep end with 44kWp vertical "no shadows" setup with 2x hybrid inverters plus 2x AC coupled GT inverters and ~110kWh LFP/FLA batts + 2x UPSs. I DIYed and ordered everything from China to keep ROI as low as possible (~5years). I hope I have learned something, but probably not.

Now I have 14kWp more panels and 50kVA diesel genny waiting to be installed. I don't think this is about ROI anymore.
Admitting powerlessness over solar is the first step for you to break the cycle and recover from TS (Timselectric Syndrome™).
 
I predict it will be much worse than you think:
Our Ice SUV was x6 the cost per mile of the Kona EV. With the ICE we would limit trips to the city to a few per week (75km round trip) but with the super low cost of the EV, we don't think twice about making two trips or more in a single day. I can tell you the mileage on the EV is nearly double (per year) of our last ICE SUV because the operating costs are so much lower. A round trip in my 3/4 ton Ram is nearly $20, while making the run in the Kona (even paying utility-rates to charge it) is $1.40 Guess which one I take, if I can.

The net effect I will tell you, will be: people will drive more, Perhaps a lot more.
Imagine if that 14,263 miles average use goes to 30,000 per year.
It would be best if the infrastructure needed gets underway sooner than later.
Jevons Paradox or The Efficiency Dilemma.

But that’s where friendly big brother steps in a remotely limits your driving, etc. 15 minute cities and all.
 
The impact of increasing fuel economy was not less driving !
People tend to manage their use to fit a budget. The low cost of EV miles compared with ICE miles is already changing behaviour on my homestead.
That said, charging at home vs charging at commercial charging stations along the highway is quite a bit more expensive.
 
I dont believe the writing on the wall could be any more clear.

It is my understanding that grid power will be vastly more expensive when >50% of people use EVs and that will most likely take a decade to fix brown out issues and find price parity with the "new world" of electric everything.

Oh and there is that murmur of "extremists" targeting the power grid.

Then there is that pesky carrington event that happened in 1859. Most agree that it will happen again and our magnetosphere is much weaker than in 1859.

When the government starts to mumble about things, it usually is a nice slow rollout to catastrophic end. :)
Nail on the head dude.
On every point.
But how would solar panels and the electronics stand up to a carrington event?
wouldn’t that fry the panels?
carrington
 
But how would solar panels and the electronics stand up to a carrington event?
wouldn’t that fry the panels?
I dont think anyone can possibly know. I have read so many conflicting opinions that I dont even know what end is up.

In my uneducated opinion, I think that anything that is essentially a wide area antennae (eg. power lines ) would be affected.
That is specifically what happened in 1859.

Perhaps everything plugged into the grid would be affected.
Perhaps solar panels would be fine with the exception of every single diode in them being destroyed.
Perhaps the only change we would have to make is to disconnect our PV after sun set to prevent back feeding the panels after diode desruction. After diode bypass surgery of course

Boom!
:)
 

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That’s an inaccurate generalization.
I was born in 1965. I did a ‘science fair’ project in 1978 (that got laughed at, btw- teachers explained how impractical it was :rolleyes: ) that focused on solar and I even created a small homemade solar hot water heater and made several storyboards depicting the efficacy of solar power, one describing passive heating.
I was born in 1966, and we had solar hot water heaters on our mobile home in the '70s. I remember my dad talking about 'solar babies', which I think was the way solar tax rebates worked back then. They got to claim extra dependents on their tax form for some number of years.

FWIW, I think it was probably mostly a scam back then and doubt it saved more than it cost, but it was a start.

As for the overall topic, who cares where it started or what the motivation is, but it's currently one of the best hopes for making a sustainable energy source and ecology for our children and their. It really saddens me to see what's transpired over just my lifetime, and what we're leaving for later generations.
 
My motivation is simple.
Money
Nah, your full of poopey :ROFLMAO:. Nobody builds/buys what you have for the money. I'm trying to catch up but you've spent serious coin not to mention the "Free" labor setting up all your stuff. Your motivation is the same as most of us zealots here. Bragging rights. Having a little fun. Proving you can do it. Being independent! Then when it saves you a few bucks every month we SAY it's for the money.

Now if we can just get the pesky little woman to let me buy a few more batteries without having a siezure . . .

If it's just about the money, the best ROI is to put together a simple grid tie setup, no batteries, micro-inverters, to cover peak.

When all is said and done the forum is going to chip in and put up a bronze statue of Tim in a field of solar panels. . .
 
who cares where it started or what the motivation is, but it's currently one of the best hopes for making a sustainable energy source and ecology for our children and their. It really saddens me to see what's transpired over just my lifetime, and what we're leaving for later generations
Everything is a trade off. Oil ain’t as evil as some would have us believe, and electric cars aren’t the end-all either. We’re not building enough nuke plants in the USA and hydro isn’t really being developed. Electric cars more often than not are charged up using petroleum-fired or even coal-fired electricity.

Not everything is as it seems, nothing is
 
I dont think anyone can possibly know. I have read so many conflicting opinions that I dont even know what end is up.

In my uneducated opinion, I think that anything that is essentially a wide area antennae (eg. power lines ) would be affected.
That is specifically what happened in 1859.

Perhaps everything plugged into the grid would be affected.
Perhaps solar panels would be fine with the exception of every single diode in them being destroyed.
Perhaps the only change we would have to make is to disconnect our PV after sun set to prevent back feeding the panels after diode desruction. After diode bypass surgery of course

Boom!
:)
Yes kind of my thinking too.
a CME is more of a long wave compared to an EMP.
I think the EMP actually changes the properties of semiconductors
With the scale of todays electronics so small it mig be a bigger problem.

perhaps if you have advanced notice shorting out each panel to itself.
 
Yes kind of my thinking too.
a CME is more of a long wave compared to an EMP.
I think the EMP actually changes the properties of semiconductors
With the scale of todays electronics so small it mig be a bigger problem.

perhaps if you have advanced notice shorting out each panel to itself.
Regarding EMPs. If you have advanced notice, whatever mitigation efforts you try, DO NOT think everything is fine after the event. Most likely there will be 2-4 strikes even days apart to make damn sure everything is FUBAR. Best to lie low for a long while after.
 
Everything is a trade off. Oil ain’t as evil as some would have us believe, and electric cars aren’t the end-all either. We’re not building enough nuke plants in the USA and hydro isn’t really being developed. Electric cars more often than not are charged up using petroleum-fired or even coal-fired electricity.

Not everything is as it seems, nothing is

Everything is a tradeoff. I just learned today that cement production actually accounts for more CO2 emissions than transportation/oil, so someone has come up with a way to produce cement that could actually be carbon negative if using carbon-neutral heating methods (the byproducts actually absorb carbon).

That said, all of the alternative energy sources that you mention produce electricity. We can harness energy is many ways, but the one nearly universal form of energy that we can transport, store, and convert to use is electricity. Anything that uses electricity as it's power source can be powered from any of those sources that you mention, and any of the countless that we haven't figured out yet.
 
According to google, the average US household uses around 10-12 MWh / year, and the average EV uses less than 1 MWh / year. Even if every household added an EV, that would increase electricity usage less than 10%. Not only that, but EV chargers have very good support for charging off-peak, and the grid is necessarily sized to peak usage, not average or off-peak usage, so that should have little effect.

Add to that the V2G chargers that are coming online that can actually be used just like home batteries to peak shave, and the obvious additional incentive that they add to install solar panels, and it's very easy (IMO) to come to the exact opposite conclusion that large-scale use of electric vehicle could drastically improve reliability of the grid and decrease costs.
"Figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure". No I'm not calling you a liar, it's just you fell right in a trap. You can't take the numbers and correlate them the way you've outlined. I'm not sure where your numbers are coming from, but there appear to be a whole lot of baked in assumptions, and I call the 1MWh/yr number completely bogus, though 10-12 is probably close.

First, the EV problem is not about total electrical consumption, it's about DEMAND, but lets ignore that for a moment. I have two EV's, and at the moment, I'm 100% running off solar, and I track all this crap. I use 10-12MWh in June,July,Aug without the EV. I suppose a "household" that is a cabin, or small town in rural Kentucky supporting a few small appliances and lighting, not so much usage, probably closer to 4-5MHW/year.

So I bought an EV, I loved it! so, then another. I put around 40-50KWH a week in each, call it 400KWH/mo x 12 = 4.8MWH/year for 2. I have SMALL EV's. they average 4 mi/kwh. Buy a Rivian, drive it modestly as I do, that number doubles, so I have no idea where your getting 1MWh/yr, but I call BS, no way it's that low, unless you don't actually drive it. 12000 mi / 4mi/kwh = 3000KWH = 3MWH. 4mi/kwh is REALLY good, I drive with and egg on the pedal, and coast/regen whenever possible, mostly urban driving. There is a 10% loss getting the power into the vehicle so probably closer to 3.5MWH for an "average" EV that gets 4.0. A Rivian or a Ford Lightning gets 2.3ish, that's going to double into the 7MWH/year range for a single vehicle. Generously I'll call it 10MHW for an average household with 2 cars that go 12000 miles / year. You just increased electricity usage closer to 100%, than 10.

But that is not where the problem lies. The real problem is DEMAND. If "every" household in Phoenix bought replaced their 2-3 cars with an EV and plugged it in pulling 32-40A (7600-9600kw) at 1400 (2PM) on a 115 degree day the grid would shut down completely. Phoenix actually has a very robust infrastructure, we use a crap-ton of electricity between 1400-1700 every day, but you would basically over TRIPLE demand, and nobody built out for that. Ok then, lets charge them all at night, nice, now we've only DOUBLED demand. (Still Ka-pow).

But wait, ... I'm in an urban area, that already has astronomical demand during peaks. Let's go out to the farmhouse in rural KY, or maybe a small town in Carolina with modest electrical demands. Houses are currently heated with NG or Propane, maybe a wood stove. Gas HWH's , Minimal electric use, lighting, a fridge, maybe a window unit, in a town of 5000 "households", the average "household" might peak at 30A for a few minutes a day, average usage is probably less than 1/2A (1200W). Now let's throw 5000+ EV's at their grid, all wanting to gobble 32-40A each overnight. Ka-Pow. Those homes don't really even have a "peak" most of the usages is typical drain, very mild demand curves. Typical demand on that grid would increase by an order of magnitude.

Don't drink the Kool-Aid. I *adore* EV's but if we try to put everyone in one in 10 years the grid is going to crumble, and contrary to what you are thinking it would have a profound effect, and have exorbitant costs to replace the infrastructure to handle it. Anyone who tells you different is blowing smoke up your butt.

I will also note, SRP here already has a "chiller" loop around downtown. During "Off-Peak" in the summer they crank on a few zillion AC units on roofs across downtown and start chilling water in a network of underground insulated piping used by all the buildings including Chase Field for cooling during the day. It's also used to cool the "Digital Realty" data center. Off-peak will no longer be off-peak if everyone wants to charge their cars overnight. You will gobble up excess at a rate exceeding available resource.
 
Everything is a trade off. Oil ain’t as evil as some would have us believe, and electric cars aren’t the end-all either. We’re not building enough nuke plants in the USA and hydro isn’t really being developed. Electric cars more often than not are charged up using petroleum-fired or even coal-fired electricity.

Truth.

Especially with heavy utilization of renewables, we're going to need conventional plants to supplement in periods of low production. Nothing beats nukes. When you look at carbon per gigawatt-hour Nukes and PV are surprisingly close.
 
We were talking about Richard and Karen Perez not everyone.

yes,

they lived 20 miles off road (very bad road) in southern Oregon and he drove a VW bus to work everyday, charging the 12v battery in the process. When got home at night, he would remove the battery and use it for lighting in their house. Then he came upon a SOLAR panel and bought it. The rest is history
 
yes,

they lived 20 miles off road (very bad road) in southern Oregon and he drove a VW bus to work everyday, charging the 12v battery in the process. When got home at night, he would remove the battery and use it for lighting in their house. Then he came upon a SOLAR panel and bought it. The rest is history
Yea I remember reading his and Karen’s stories.

They lived in Ashland Oregon I think.

Solar definitely worked with his and Karen’s lifestyle.

I believe Wavy Gravy came out there sometimes or was at his workshops.
Maybe it was to see Bob-O & Kathline Shultz?
Can’t remember anymore.
 
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