Solar Power

[Alpo]

Does anyone have solar, and have the panels just mounted on a board in the backyard?

 

Everybody that gets solar power seems to have the panels mounted on the roof.

 

I figure after coming 93 million miles, going another 10 feet down to the ground is not going to lose so much energy. And building a framework to hold solar panels seems like it would be much easier, and much safer, then crawling around on slippery shingles.

 

I understand that it would take up a lot of yard, but if you don't have children playing in your backyard why would that matter?

 

 

[Sedalia Dave]

Around here there are a few houses in rural areas that have solar panels not mounted on the roof. In town, because of obstructions, the roof of a house is often the one place that gets the most sun.  

 

The down side that the installers fail to mention is that when roof work needs to be done getting someone to remove and reinstall those panels is expensive.

[Yul Lose]

I installed a 39 panel system on my RV garage 15 years ago and then 3 years ago I added 6 high efficiency panels because we installed a new, larger AC system that used more power. My property sits in a hollow with lots of oak and sycamore trees and  ground mounting wouldn’t work well. Even now we have to have a few trees trimmed every 3 years or so to keep the panels charging in the winter months. We’re on an annual “true up” system that bills us for the year every October. We’ve never had to pay a power bill since we installed solar panels and my monthly usage notice email came the other day and we have a $497.00 credit for the current “true up” period. Our monthly bill was running anywhere from $900.00 to $1,700.00 a month before we installed the solar system. A friend of mine builds home solar systems and has access to tons of surplus panels that have been decommissioned for assorted reasons and the 6 high efficiency panels cost me $1,400.00 installed. Should I ever have to replace the 39 older panels they’ll cost a fraction of what we paid for them new 15 years ago. If I replace them with the high efficiency panels mentioned above the footprint for the system will be about 1/2 what it is now.

Edited August 9 by Yul Lose

[Badlands Bob #61228]

It's hard to sell solar panels around here because the power rates are so low.  We are currently paying about .08 per kwh.  I've researched it several times and it's just not cost effective.  My power bill is rarely over $150.00 in the middle of Summer.

[Yul Lose]

6 minutes ago, Badlands Bob #61228 said:

It's hard to sell solar panels around here because the power rates are so low.  We are currently paying about .08 per kwh.  I've researched it several times and it's just not cost effective.  My power bill is rarely over $150.00 in the middle of Summer.

Our charge from the power company is 45.7 cents a kilowatt hour. It makes sense here but if I lived where you do I wouldn’t bother with solar.

[Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L]

I did not want a roof mounted system due to the possible difficulty when a new roof was required. I had the room so they were ground mounted.

 

 

 

Edited August 9 by Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L

[Alpo]

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

 

I just checked my current bill. 14.3 cents kilowatt hour.

[Alpo]

Another thing I've wondered about people that have solar.

 

Do you have storage batteries and a converter? Or does your excess usage just go back upstream to the power company?

 

9 years ago we had a category 5 hurricane. We were without power for approximately a month. I was without for 3 weeks but some friends of mine seven miles away were without for 6 weeks.

 

And after the hurricane and the power came back and the roofs were all repaired, the solar panel salesman landed. And there's all kinds of houses in my neighborhood that have solar panels on the roof now.

 

Their selling point seems to be about how you wouldn't be out of electricity during the blackout, but then they go on about how excess electricity lowers your power bill.

 

And if your excess energy goes upstream, that wouldn't work real good during a blackout. All day long you got electricity, and your air conditioner works and your freezer works and your refrigerator works. And then the sun goes down and you ain't got no power.

 

Unless you have the storage batteries and the converter.

 

Then you can run your house and you can charge your batteries and if your batteries are full you can send your excess upstream. And at night time you still have electricity.

 

So - y'all got batteries and a converter?

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

Here in SGF, Mo. we pay about 13 cents per KWH.

No one has panels here.

Our utility bill is less than half of what we paid in Commiefornia.

[Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L]

I have the inverter and batteries. I purchased my system and it is set up so that if the grid goes offline, I will keep going on solar / batteries. I have a few neighbors that have leased systems without batteries and the inverter hooked up only to feed the grid that have no solar power if the grid goes down.

 

I was not as concerned about energy costs as I was grid reliability. I wanted to have power when the grid is offline.

 

 

[Rye Miles #13621]

6 hours ago, Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L said:

I have the inverter and batteries. I purchased my system and it is set up so that if the grid goes offline, I will keep going on solar / batteries. I have a few neighbors that have leased systems without batteries and the inverter hooked up only to feed the grid that have no solar power if the grid goes down.

 

I was not as concerned about energy costs as I was grid reliability. I wanted to have power when the grid is offline.

 

 

I went with a Generac generator for piece of mind. We’ve had a bunch of power outages this year. 

[Alpo]

6 hours ago, Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L said:

I have a few neighbors that have leased systems without batteries and the inverter hooked up only to feed the grid that have no solar power if the grid goes down.

This is something else that puzzles me.

 

If you have a generator - let's say you got a generac to take care of your whole house if the power goes out.

 

You are supposed to have a lockout system, so that the electricity you're generac is making will not go back upstream. That way, when the lineman is up on the pole trying to fix the power, electricity coming from your house will not come running along the wire and electrocute his butt.

 

This makes sense.

 

So you have the lockout whenever you are generating electricity. And when they have the power turned back on, you disconnect your generator, and then you can unlock it so the electricity comes back to your house. Wonderful.

 

But if you have solar, you are never not generating electricity.

 

According to my latest electric bill I used 632 kilowatt hours last month. That's basically 21 a day. And I have solar panels that produce 25 kilowatt hours a day. So I'm sending 4 KW hours a day back upstream. And there's a guy across the street working on the pole. Why ain't I electrocuting him?

 

It just seems that if my generac would zap him, my solar panels would zap him.

[Eyesa Horg]

10 hours ago, Badlands Bob #61228 said:

It's hard to sell solar panels around here because the power rates are so low.  We are currently paying about .08 per kwh.  I've researched it several times and it's just not cost effective.  My power bill is rarely over $150.00 in the middle of Summer.

Mine is rarely over a hundred unless we run the A/C a lot or my air compressor.

[Yul Lose]

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

This is something else that puzzles me.

 

If you have a generator - let's say you got a generac to take care of your whole house if the power goes out.

 

You are supposed to have a lockout system, so that the electricity you're generac is making will not go back upstream. That way, when the lineman is up on the pole trying to fix the power, electricity coming from your house will not come running along the wire and electrocute his butt.

 

This makes sense.

 

So you have the lockout whenever you are generating electricity. And when they have the power turned back on, you disconnect your generator, and then you can unlock it so the electricity comes back to your house. Wonderful.

 

But if you have solar, you are never not generating electricity.

 

According to my latest electric bill I used 632 kilowatt hours last month. That's basically 21 a day. And I have solar panels that produce 25 kilowatt hours a day. So I'm sending 4 KW hours a day back upstream. And there's a guy across the street working on the pole. Why ain't I electrocuting him?

 

It just seems that if my generac would zap him, my solar panels would zap him.

In Kalifornia your solar system has to shutdown when the power goes out and cannot feed into the grid. The Sunny Boy inverter disconnects the solar from the grid when the power goes down, it’s the law. My system is built that way and I don’t have batteries. My step daughter and SIL put in a system with 2 Tesla power walls and when the power goes down the system disconnects itself from the grid and they have battery back up from the power walls and they still charge from the solar panels. I have a Firman 10kw back up generator that runs on propane for when the grid power goes down. It’s not on an automatic switch. I have a procedure to go through to disconnect the service panel and start the generator and not feed into the grid when the generator is running. When I installed my system the back up batteries were very expensive and adding 2 power walls would have come close to doubling the cost of the system. 

[Sedalia Dave]

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

This is something else that puzzles me.

 

If you have a generator - let's say you got a generac to take care of your whole house if the power goes out.

 

You are supposed to have a lockout system, so that the electricity you're generac is making will not go back upstream. That way, when the lineman is up on the pole trying to fix the power, electricity coming from your house will not come running along the wire and electrocute his butt.

 

This makes sense.

 

So you have the lockout whenever you are generating electricity. And when they have the power turned back on, you disconnect your generator, and then you can unlock it so the electricity comes back to your house. Wonderful.

 

But if you have solar, you are never not generating electricity.

 

According to my latest electric bill I used 632 kilowatt hours last month. That's basically 21 a day. And I have solar panels that produce 25 kilowatt hours a day. So I'm sending 4 KW hours a day back upstream. And there's a guy across the street working on the pole. Why ain't I electrocuting him?

 

It just seems that if my generac would zap him, my solar panels would zap him.

 

 

NEC code requires that the the inverter contain circuitry that prevents the panels from back feeding the system during a power outage.

 

With panels alone, if the grid goes down your solar system also shuts down.

 

If you have battery storage the inverter will isolate you from the grid during an outage and allow you to have power as long as your batteries last.. 

 

[Rye Miles #13621]

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

This is something else that puzzles me.

 

If you have a generator - let's say you got a generac to take care of your whole house if the power goes out.

 

You are supposed to have a lockout system, so that the electricity you're generac is making will not go back upstream. That way, when the lineman is up on the pole trying to fix the power, electricity coming from your house will not come running along the wire and electrocute his butt.

 

This makes sense.

 

So you have the lockout whenever you are generating electricity. And when they have the power turned back on, you disconnect your generator, and then you can unlock it so the electricity comes back to your house. Wonderful.

 

But if you have solar, you are never not generating electricity.

 

According to my latest electric bill I used 632 kilowatt hours last month. That's basically 21 a day. And I have solar panels that produce 25 kilowatt hours a day. So I'm sending 4 KW hours a day back upstream. And there's a guy across the street working on the pole. Why ain't I electrocuting him?

 

It just seems that if my generac would zap him, my solar panels would zap him.

My Generac was installed with a lockout so as not the harm any lineman. It’s state code, probably federal code also. When the power goes off it switches automatically to natural gas. 

[Jeff, #21334]

I was a lineman and I worked on a few hurricanes one of the things I remember about hurricane sandy was everybody had generators but the flood ruin their generators

So mount your generator up off the grounds of you get a flood with your storm it won't ruin your generator.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

11 hours ago, Alpo said:

Another thing I've wondered about people that have solar.

 

Do you have storage batteries and a converter? Or does your excess usage just go back upstream to the power company?

 

9 years ago we had a category 5 hurricane. We were without power for approximately a month. I was without for 3 weeks but some friends of mine seven miles away were without for 6 weeks.

 

And after the hurricane and the power came back and the roofs were all repaired, the solar panel salesman landed. And there's all kinds of houses in my neighborhood that have solar panels on the roof now.

 

Their selling point seems to be about how you wouldn't be out of electricity during the blackout, but then they go on about how excess electricity lowers your power bill.

 

And if your excess energy goes upstream, that wouldn't work real good during a blackout. All day long you got electricity, and your air conditioner works and your freezer works and your refrigerator works. And then the sun goes down and you ain't got no power.

 

Unless you have the storage batteries and the converter.

 

Then you can run your house and you can charge your batteries and if your batteries are full you can send your excess upstream. And at night time you still have electricity.

 

So - y'all got batteries and a converter?

I have 30 panels on my roof facing east (didn't want to see them from the street) going on eleven years now.  This time of year my monthly bill is usually under $20.00 for three months or so...... because the power company has to pay me for anything I don't use and goes back into their system, I get credits another three or four months a year (several have been over $45.00.)

 

I figure that I am getting free electricity most of the time.

 

I just ordered two free standing AC units, each about the size of refrigerator for my 1300 square foot work shop, one for each bay.

 

With the 250 watt space heaters I should be able to work out there in comfort.  My electrician friend has sold me on the idea of connecting the whole kit and kaboodle up to a pair of thermostats so they balance out automatically.

 

I'm fairly certain my bill will go up, but not be prohibitive even then....and the AC units should pay for themselves in about 20 months.

 

And I don't have any panels in my yard destroying the view of my half acre weed patch.

 

Might be looking for an automatic emergency generator before too long.

Edited August 9 by Forty Rod SASS 3935

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

By the way, thanks for the hint Jeff.  We are a bone-dry area of a drought-ridden state, but now and then during the "monsoon season" we get a catfish drowner, so I'll take your advice...just in case.  

Edited August 9 by Forty Rod SASS 3935

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

I have a 18Kw whole house Generac, with an Automatic Transfer Switch and fueled by Natural Gas.

I opted for that after observing a neighbour's solar panel set up get severely damaged by a coupe of high wind incidents and a Derecho.

 

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Natural gas....another great suggestion.  Thanks.

[Rye Miles #13621]

24 minutes ago, Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 said:

I have a 18Kw whole house Generac, with an Automatic Transfer Switch and fueled by Natural Gas.

I opted for that after observing a neighbour's solar panel set up get severely damaged by a coupe of high wind incidents and a Derecho.

 

 

I have a 14kw with an ATS also fueled by Natural Gas.