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Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

Re: Self-sufficiency, what to/can/can't you grow and store?

Solar can be used to reduce your bills but before you do this you should make your house easier to heat in winter & cool in summer. Your house is like a water bucket with a big hole in the bottom you have to pump water in very fast to keep the bucket full. Make the leak 98% smaller then bucket is easy to keep full of water.

1979 I built 20 solar panels on my south facing roof. I built the root at a 45 degree angle to make solar more efficient. These are hot water panels, not electric they will heat water to 280 degrees in summer and 170 degrees on a cold sunny 15 degree winter day. On a very dark over cast 15 degree day they heat up to 100 degrees. They heat the house and also heat water for, kitchen, bathroom, laundry. In summer solar hot water panels will run a 5 hp steam engine for 4 months. Steam engine ran a generator and charged several 12v car batteries.

I put extra insulation in walls & attic plus had double glass windows to reduce heat loss. I could heat the house to 100 degrees with no storage. After adding hot water storage tanks I kept house 70 in winter during the day and 65 at night. My winter electric bill was reduced 92%. I had a washing machine but no dryer I used a yard clothes line plus I had a spare room in the house with clothes lines. I had a timer in my electric hot water heater before solar it stayed off from 7pm to 3:30 pm every day. I could use city water to wash clothes, cook, shower, for 3 hours a day. We were both gone to work from 6:20am to 4pm 5 days a week.

I had a 40 ft x 80 ft garden behind the house and we canned lots of food for the pantry.

Wife & I were young and full of energy we could do lots of work fast in those day. Now 50 years later we work all day and only get about 1 hour of work done. You need to be where you want to be in life by age 50 while you still have energy. We saved lots of money on heat & electric but we still had, house payment, car payment, taxes, insurance, and still had to buy things like clothes & food we could not grow. Moved away from there in 1991.

The cost of buying car batteries for the 5 hp steam engine generator never did quit justify its existence for the amount of money we saved on electricity. But we saved a bunch of money on heat bills. I grew up with no AC in hot weather so I was use to it but wife grew up the same way but got use to AC where she lived the past few year so we used AC about 3 months every summer but we only used it at night when sleeping. While at work every day our AC was off.

When I moved to Arizona 8 yrs ago I tried to justify solar but math never worked out. I had 6 solar companies come talk to me they talked fast and give lots of number that never added up on my calculator. ONE company called Solar City was the only company that told the truth. Solar company wants to put their solar panels on your roof they claim it makes money while giving you free electricity. To make a long store short it is best for YOU to buy your own solar panels don't mess around with the companies. It does not rain much in AZ but house roof always leak no matter how many times you call the solar company you can never get your roof leaks fixed once they have their money you will never hear from them again.

I tried to justify having solar on the house we live in now.
AC unit = 8400 watts average use, ON for 15 minutes, Off for 20 minutes, ON 42% of the time.
Electric Heat = 8000 watts, ON 20 minutes, off 10 minutes coldest days of the winter.
Hot water heater = 4800 w, ON for 12 minutes, off for 30 minutes, ON 28% of the time.
Electric clothes fryer = 4800 w, ON in winter & rainy days about 1 hr per day.
Electric stove = 3600 w, ON only at dinner time about 30 min per day.
Microwave = 1400 w, ON about 5 minutes total all day.
coffee maker = 1200 w, ON 15 minutes every morning.

Math shows demand in 8400 + 8000 + 4800 + 4800 = about 26,000. watts if these 3 big watt user items are all on at the same time.

Average power use 9000 watts, need enough batteries and DC to AC inverter to produce 10KW for peak demands.

I have looked at several solar panels they are getting better and more efficient and prices were doing down for a while. Just because they claim a panel is 100w does not mean it really is. Output depends on the angle of the sun when sun is exactly 90 to the panels on a clear day with no clouds and no dust on your panels it might do 100 watts for 1 hours as sun angle changes watts go up in morning and down after lunch. You get low watts early morning and late evening. Power could drop to 40% that gives daily average of 70 watts. Sun at my house is 34 degrees on Dec 21 and 89 degrees June 21, average is 61.5 degrees. If you put solar panels on your roof at 45 degree angle your solar panels will produce 100 watt when sun is at 45 degree angle 1 day at 12 noon in later fall and 1 day in early spring. Watts the solar panels produce are a roller coaster ride up and down morning, noon, & evening also up and down summer, fall, winter, spring. If solar panels could track the sun every day of every month you could have 100 watts like the rating says. But with fixed panels you get a daily average and a monthly average that changes with every month of the year. 100 watt solar panels at best could be about 50 to 70 watts.

Assume 60 watts is what I am getting from each $75 solar panel. 10KW / 60 watts = 167 solar panels are needed to get 10KW during the worse conditions. 167 solar panels x $75 per panel = $12,525. Dilemma is, do you want to pull the plug from power company completely or not? How long will it take for this to pay for itself?

My electric bill shows Feb to be the largest electric bill 2130KW per month = 71,000. KW per day. Need enough batteries to charge up 71 KW per day = 71 batteries all rated 1000 amp each but maximum load but electric heat is on 66% of the time so battery bank can be 33% smaller = 47 batteries at $100 per battery = $4700 every 5 years.

Solar panels cost $12,525.
Batteries cost $4700 every 5 years
10KW inverter cost $5000
Our average electric bill for 1 year about $2430.

I have to spend $22,225 to save $2430. and batteries still need to be replaced every 5 years.

If I have this system for 30 year I have to buy batteries 6 times = $28,200. assuming batteries priced never go up.

The whole system cost $45,725. for 30 years. Assume price of electricity increases 8% every year for 30 years the system will pay for itself in 11 years.

My might be dead in 11 years I don't thing it is worth if for me to have solar.

I will never have solar on the roof ever again my first solar system caused roof leaks solar panels came down every 3 years for roof repair. Finally the roof had to be replaced because of water damage. If I ever do solar again panels will be mounted in the yard on 10 ft poles so I can mow grass under them.

I have studied this over and over several times. Since sun is only available 8 hrs in winter & 13 hrs in summer and wind power is 24 hrs per day I think wind power is better in TN we have a lot of gusty wind. At my age I don't plan to have solar or wind. I have a small 400 watt wind generator I was planing to put up just to test the wind to see how much power it actually produces in 1 year before building something big but lost my motivation.

These advertisements are driving me nuts.

Check angle of sun in winter on this picture. Sun produces 442 btu when sun is at 90 degrees. Sun is 220 btu when sun is 30 degrees. Light intensity changes at the same rate on solar electric panels.

I have several solar electric panels that I put in the yard from time to time for testing light condition in different weather, heavy over cast, lots of clouds, few clouds, no clouds. When sun it at 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30 degrees on the solar panels. 90 degrees produces the most power, 80 & 70 not much different than 90. Power starts dropping at 60 and gets less as sun goes down. Math shows it will take 11 years for this system to pay for itself. I might be dead in 11 year I don't think solar is worth it for me to have. With the invention of the new LED 8w lights I can run all 28 house light bulbs with solar panels I already have with 1 car battery all I need to do is rewire the house circuit box put all the lights on solar and leave all the rest connected to the power company but that is such a tiny amount of $2 saving each month it is still not worth it. It will be best to use solar panels I already have for something else like camping where there is no electricity. I am thinking about using solar this summer to make my own sodium chlorate weed killer from kitchen table salt to spray the fence row and poison ivy.



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