Kenny_
Solar Wizard
Except that they are! Taxing you for Using it like they do Water in Colorado. Such utter BS!
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Solar has been hijacked/co opted. A wakeup?
- Thread starter robstrom
- Start date
littleharbor2
Solar Wizard
They're not getting a red cent from me. Off grid in Mexico. Personally, I think everybody should be off grid. Screw those tax hungry a holes.
Not possible in New England. Enjoy your electrical freedom.They're not getting a red cent from me. Off grid in Mexico. Personally, I think everybody should be off grid. Screw those tax hungry a holes.
Daddy Tanuki
Emperor Of Solar
Have you considered getting the absolute Minimum plan from the power company and not using it? Have it come into a box that’s no circuits just a transfer switch and then power the house on your own system with no sell back? You could run the grid as a backup only paying only the minimum
Planning an off grid home in Maine. I have several friends nearby that have been off grid for years, comfortably. It's definitely possible.
12VoltInstalls
life passes by too quickly to not live in freedom
Regional differences too. Always amazes me. Electric heating here is only marginally more expensive than propane per btu
So basically removing the intrinsic market forces that create consumer demand for a product range. Basically the opposite of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations with all the (eventual) negative consequences.
Any government manipulation of the free market has historically harmed the very goods they were trying to influence positively- read that “in the end the consumer gets screwed.
“not for profit” doesn’t equate to economic efficiency. In fact that’s usually going to create budget bloat and “creative” distributions via bonuses and leadership salaries, and ‘programs’ that are supposed to benefit consumers but merely create revenue outflow due to the non-productive non-incentivized staff working that departments.
That’s a weird perspective to me. How does ‘hoarding’ money affect anyone? There is an ample money supply and it’s devaluing in trend. Money is available, it’s not being withheld from anyone.
I’ve been offgrid in New England for ~5 years. There’s powerco poles physically on my current property but I’m not connected to them. They just exist there.
As battery prices fall, the market will look different over the next twenty years or so.
How? My 6.8 KW system produced 74 KWH in January, 1/10 of my monthly usage. I would need a 68 KW system and a boat load of batteries.
Do everything you can to reduce your power usage. All leds, energy efficient appliances. Change out central ac/heat for ductless mini splits each with it’s own outside unit so you only run the ones you need. Improve insulation of buildings if possible. In winter time keep south side windows uncovered during day/all other windows covered. Etc,
Etc….
littleharbor2
Solar Wizard
My point being It's available, in unlimited quantities, for the taking.
With all due respect, you need to look at your system and change some things if your production is that low. My little 1.26 KW system, at a terrible winter tilt angle of 26.5 degrees, with shading after about 1:00 - 2:00 PM, In Waldo County, Maine, produced 41.4 KwH in January. And for at least a couple of decent, partly sunny days I was too busy to get the snow off the panels and just let it melt. I’ve also calculated the production at the new place using PV Watts and with an ~12 KW array and less than $10K in batteries I”ll need to run the generator less than 6 hours/month. No offense intended, but if your system is facing close to south, without terrible shading, you have problems somewhere in it.
I definitely have shading issues (trees). With 2 systems, one has morning shading and the other has afternoon shading. The one with morning shade is the better performer because PV panels run from ridge to eaves and the snow slides off quite readily. The installer for the second roof followed the setback rules according to the IRC. The snow slides off the panels and piles up on the roof. I'm too old to be removing snow off a roof.
Production has drastically improved for February. 296 KWH to date vs 74 KWH for January.
Very happy production has improved for you! I should also add that for the new place we're planning, we're going with ground mounts that can be tilted to ~60 degrees, largely to shed snow. Off grid solar in New England really is possible, but a wide open space (lots of sun) and avoiding snow and ice when possible are really important.
SunDave
Solar Addict
Roof system? I have a 2kW that produced 120 some and that was a really cloudy month. Genuinely curious as to if something could be fixed, or if that was just a really rough month. That would be like 10 hours of sun.
Either way, sorry to hear that.
Edit: I missed the replies. Glad to see it is working better now!
My little 2kW array is at 192kW so far in Feb. So while it is not a large setup, it is mighty in efficiency.
Yes, roof system.
Unfortunately when it comes to utilities (a guaranteed monopoly) you sort of have to. The only thing worse than a government run/managed organization is a monopoly with absolutely no competition.
Agreed. At every single solar conference I've been to in the last 20 years, there has been a seminar on how the current utility model is outdated and doesn't really work any more. No one has come up with a great solution yet. Some less-perfect ones:
-Government takes over electrical distribution alone (similar to how they build and maintain roads.) Anyone can sell to the grid; anyone can buy from the grid. It all goes through an ISO-like exchange, and companies that do nothing but concatenate customers and buy power for them then start billing customers and paying generators.
-Government takes over everything. Obvious problems there.
-Private industry takes over everything, but every electrical distribution system has at least three sets of rights-of-way for three companies, and those rights-of-way are auctioned off, similar to how spectrum is auctioned now. Then customers have a choice between one of three services, and that level of competition keeps prices reasonable. Needless to say, setting up three separate sets of distribution networks would cost trillions.
Our financial system is based on debt. All new money is created by creating new debt. And the more of that money that is "hoarded" (kept off the market) the more debt has to be created, which drives up inflation. It's a problem whenever people consider money to be an unlimited resource - and that's either the government or private entities.
To be honest, I haven't read all this thread but thought I would add my slightly unusual reason.
I'm doing it for fun really. It's a challenge and I feel like since I am getting older and had some health issues, I need to keep challenging myself. I can't say saving some money down the road isn't part of my calculation. I'm going to have to retire one day. If by then, I am running off of the solar I've built and don't have a bill for it. So much the better.
And if I stick it to the man at the same time. Another plus.
And if I'm helping the planet at the same time. Another plus.
And if I'm increasing my home's value at the same time. Another plus.
And I'm doing it now because I can. When I first started playing with solar, I owned a farm and had routine, lengthy power outages, so there was a need. But since, I've moved to the city, but still like the idea of being energy independent. And everything is like 1/4 the price it was 20ish years ago when I started. So why not?
I'm doing it for fun really. It's a challenge and I feel like since I am getting older and had some health issues, I need to keep challenging myself. I can't say saving some money down the road isn't part of my calculation. I'm going to have to retire one day. If by then, I am running off of the solar I've built and don't have a bill for it. So much the better.
And if I stick it to the man at the same time. Another plus.
And if I'm helping the planet at the same time. Another plus.
And if I'm increasing my home's value at the same time. Another plus.
And I'm doing it now because I can. When I first started playing with solar, I owned a farm and had routine, lengthy power outages, so there was a need. But since, I've moved to the city, but still like the idea of being energy independent. And everything is like 1/4 the price it was 20ish years ago when I started. So why not?
SunDave
Solar Addict
I like alternative ideas, But it could be argued this is putting the cart before the horse. Saying that government printing is due to someone trying to retire, or build wealth for future generations. It's circular once the printing starts. You need more to retire, so you try to save more, then gov. prints more. Rinse and repeat.
Inflation hurts the lowest end most, since people without a lot of wealth are often asset poor. I would say the problem is the printing of endless dollars, and the symptom is that people try to save more to have a chance at a decent life.
Well that, AND that money is debt since the "fed" reserve. Which is a whole other sad story.
12VoltInstalls
life passes by too quickly to not live in freedom
There’s more to it than that. I believe that you missed the point that the mere existence of cash is debt- it’s a “note.”
it was always a debt. If someone hands you gold or 10lbs of potatoes in fair exchange for a good or service it has intrinsic value in and of itself.
Printing dollars is inflationary. True
Fact is there is more ‘money’ on balance sheets than exists from printing it.
Unless your Net metering agreement does not allow you to have batteries, how will an agreement with your electrical company to sell your excess power prevent you form having power when the grid goes down?
Kenny_
Solar Wizard
Exactly.
That's one of the many problems, yes. But people like the result (economy that is growing faster due to availability of money/debt.)
Also we are now in a situation where we could not possibly pay off all our debt as a country, and thus we rely on inflation to make it easier to pay off over time.
Initially money was literally gold or silver; coins that contained X ounces of gold were used to trade. This had a lot of side effects, like a gold discovery would drive down the value of your money, and it was very difficult to get loans (since you needed to physically get your hands on the gold to use it.) And of course it was easy to steal. The term for this is "commodity money" where you are trading one thing of value for another. At that point it was not connected to debt.
Carrying around all that gold was annoying, so the "notes" you mention were introduced. Each note represented a certain amount of gold that could be redeemed on a one-to-one basis. That note literally represented a certain weight of gold.
Governments quickly realized that they could get the economy extra money by just printing more notes, and as long as there was no "run on the bank" (i.e. everyone trying to redeem their notes at once) everything would still work fine. They overdid it of course, and in 1971 the US announced that notes (dollars) were no longer redeemable for gold or silver.
At that point our money became fiat money; money that had value only because the government said it did. And at that point all new money creation came not from mining gold but from creation of new debt.
Agreed, although the term "printing money" tends to conjure the idea that the government just prints money to pay its debts. It doesn't do that (fortunately) since that would collapse the financial system. It does create new debt (through sale of treasury bonds and the like) and that's where much of the government's money comes from. The remainder, of course, comes from taxes.
Ampster
Renewable Energy Hobbyist
It does require an investment so in that sense it does cost money to invest in equipment which will save me money in the long term. I am on a fixed income and that investment does give me a hedge against inflation. It is also a rewarding hobby.
12VoltInstalls
life passes by too quickly to not live in freedom
The first sentence is figuratively true.
Yet in essence that is exactly what the government does - in structural terms- with a corresponding inflationary rubber band cause-and-effect. That is how ‘they’ steal from the taxpayers- the effect.
Economics 101 (1983) at NHTI first taught me that. It brought Reagan’s and Ross Perot’s and Adam Smith’s perspectives into the light for me. 1980-2001 were good years for Americans on average, but since then “we” have become increasingly vulnerable primarily due to unwise economic and diplomacy policies.
In regards to solar being “hijacked,” I can fully understand why someone might entertain that thought based on my own ‘watching’ of the way things developed and progressed in the 1970-2001 American political responses to everything going on in America and the world that in many ways enabled the circumstances that brought us to here- where “going solar” is often thought of as the embodiment of the cliche, “virtue signaling,’ these days and is often marketed with nods to that historical tradition. And now the bulk of solar is primarily integrated by end-user consumers using the very same kinds of monetary tools and supply-chain economics which were mostly loathed by those advocating solar-anything in the 1970’s.
So I see how the thread title spawned. Nevertheless, either creating public policy purely based on altruistic foundations or purely economic reasons lies waste to wise, deliberate discourse leaving ‘us’ with a market response devoid of moral balance. And then the public starts acting sectarianly - which is divisive- so we wind up with threads like this trying to sort out what on the surface makes no sense in some way or another depending on the ‘camp’ one is predisposed to being a part of.
RV8R
Solar Addict
My Countryman
,,, Thank You for this Thread 
‘If You Are Not a Liberal When You Are Young, You Have No Heart, and If You Are Not a Conservative When Old, You Have No Brain
Probably not Churchill ,,, FWIW;
This has been a very thought provoking thread ,,, “Rabbit Hole of Entertainment”.
For me it shows some very similar mindsets & some vastly different ones ,,, along with possibly Geo / Demo Graphics ,,, Very interesting to see the thread expand into ,,, Like Wow
Regardless to my current beliefs of our World ,,, My reasons to Solar;
Off Grid Cabin basically & Economics
My Primary Residence in Victoria BC ,,, Solar Does Not Pencil ,,, I have looked at it, but at this point in time it is a “currently” economic foolish endeavor. Maybe someday.
A Book Recommendation for you @robstrom
Sapiens
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