Solar, electric cars, batteries, and making money without trying.

[pauldun170]

Originally Posted by Trip

she scares me

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1073822AAoGIJX

[Trip]

From your wiki article, you may need to read more and talk to more people about this as well.

Net metering enables small systems to result in zero annual net cost to the consumer provided that the consumer is able to shift demand loads to a lower price time, such as by chilling water at a low cost time for later use in air conditioning, or by charging a battery electric vehicle during off-peak times, while the electricity generated at peak demand time can be sent to the grid rather than used locally (see Vehicle-to-grid). No credit is given for annual surplus production.

The last sentence is key.

[Flexin]

Originally Posted by Trip

that would be correct, they pay you off a net meter. Any usage you had would be subtracted from what you put on the system. You would have to build a system that had the ability to offset your own usage. It could pay off if you invested a lot of money initially, had the ability to maintain it, and lived in a good area for it.

I tried to get info on systems before not to sell power (but I did think about it at times) but to power a house. I would love to have a house on an island but I don't want to give up on any of my 'electronic toys". So the system would need make some good power and or store it. If it was more like a high end cottage then it would have time to charge up a system for the next visit but it would still need to make/have enough power to last during my stay. I don't think what I want (including the house) would be cheap because of what I want and where it would be.

I think that would have to be a lotto win house or save a shit load for retirement to build.

James

[Trip]

Originally Posted by pauldun170

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1073822AAoGIJX

not all of them, the old spice guy is awesome and this, well this...........


*FAP* *FAP* *FAP* *FAP*

[Trip]

More from that article:

Net purchase and sale is a different method of providing power to the electricity grid that does not offer the price symmetry of net metering, making this system a lot less profitable for home users of small renewable electricity systems.

Under this arrangement, two uni-directional meters are installed—one records electricity drawn from the grid, and the other records excess electricity generated and fed back into the grid. The user pays retail rate for the electricity they use, and the power provider purchases their excess generation at its avoided cost (wholesale rate). There may be a significant difference between the retail rate the user pays and the power provider's avoided cost

Looks like they may rig it against you. I would be interested in hearing the results from someone who has built a large system in their home. I've only heard of people going off the grid or just saving money, not actually making any.

[101lifts2]

Someone is getting seriously owned in this thread.

Fuck those chicks are nice.

[goof2]

Out of curiosity I ran some numbers on this.

There are a number of assumptions for this. I may have forgotten a few so most of them are listed below.
1) You can sell the power back whenever you want.
2) When they buy it back the power company pays you what they are charging at that time.
3) Peak cost for electricity is double off-peak cost.
4) Your normal usage before charging the batteries is 70% peak/30% off-peak.
5) You are using car batteries with a full charge of 100 Amp hours.
6) Those car batteries are 80% efficient (put in 1 unit and .8 of a unit comes out).
7) Your monthly electricity requirement before the batteries is 1000 kilowatt hours (about average)
8)There are no extra taxes or fees in your electricity bill, only the electricity itself.
9) You pay nothing for the batteries, nothing for the wiring, and nothing to maintain the system.

All that being said you would need around 700 batteries in your system just to be able to make enough money to pay for your normal electric bill. Good luck.

[Avatard]

THAT'S what I needed to hear.

Thanks goof. I figured it would take a shitload of batts.

[Avatard]

Originally Posted by Trip

More from that article:



Looks like they may rig it against you. I would be interested in hearing the results from someone who has built a large system in their home. I've only heard of people going off the grid or just saving money, not actually making any.

That's what it sounds like.

I guess someone figured out that it may actually be possible to game the system, and made sure it's never gonna pass the break-even point.

It appears that the very best you can ever hope for is to break even on any costs of buying electricity.

[caveman]

Originally Posted by goof2

Out of curiosity I ran some numbers on this.

There are a number of assumptions for this. I may have forgotten a few so most of them are listed below.
1) You can sell the power back whenever you want.
2) When they buy it back the power company pays you what they are charging at that time.
3) Peak cost for electricity is double off-peak cost.
4) Your normal usage before charging the batteries is 70% peak/30% off-peak.
5) You are using car batteries with a full charge of 100 Amp hours.
6) Those car batteries are 80% efficient (put in 1 unit and .8 of a unit comes out).
7) Your monthly electricity requirement before the batteries is 1000 kilowatt hours (about average)
8)There are no extra taxes or fees in your electricity bill, only the electricity itself.
9) You pay nothing for the batteries, nothing for the wiring, and nothing to maintain the system.

All that being said you would need around 700 batteries in your system just to be able to make enough money to pay for your normal electric bill. Good luck.

Just curious where did you get your numbers from? and where did you get the info for #2? I am only asking because there is no FACKING way a big corporation is gonna pay some retard that has 700 batteries wired to the grid making it more unstable than it already is when they can tell that whack job to take a flying leap off a short pier and disconnect them for possibly causing a grid instability that threatens the rest of said grid.

I work for a power company and I have looked into this stuff and there is no way in hell they would knowingly allow you let alone pay you for your power.