Solar power for home

[roundhouse]

I thought Ga power had bribed the PSC so that ga power could refuse to buy back solar power if the homeowner panels were financed ?
Used to ga power would refuse to buy back The solar power unless the panels were owned outright by the homeowner and not financed


Solar is basically just prepaying your electric bill for the next 30 years , with interest using borrowed money

For a generator you don’t have to have one largest enough to run everything

My brother who lives in a hurricane zone and works for the local
Government and was expected to be on duty during a storm ,

had his house wired so the electric water heater and fridge and microwave was on the genny and they bought a portable AC unit to use in the master bedroom ,

He also had the master bedroom walk in closet poured in concrete walls and ceiling so it doubles as a safe room and storm shelter .


For my house we have a wood heater
And a small Honda portable 1250 genny
I can use the gen with an extension cord to run the fridge , freezer and wifi ,
The fan on my heater
And a couple of LED lamps


To use the coffeemaker or
Microwave you had to unplug everything else .


The small Honda genny is the best one by far
And can be daisy chained together using a special cord from Honda
So you can use just one
Or hook them together and use both

I’m not opposed to solar
And would love to have some panels and batteries to run the basics

It’s just like an electric car
The money just doesn’t work.

 

[moosensquirrel]

I know nobody here does any clean living, but I thought for sure some would have clean energy, if not just to get off the grid.

Letter to local newspaper

Solar Power: The Renewable Burden on American Taxpayers

I found the front-page article in the recent PS Mullet Wrap regarding two new “solar farms” in Wayne County very interesting. Except for the unwarranted and unnecessary attack on the current president, the article was informative and well written. The strategy of the PC-Alinski-style journalism practices in the USA today is to take an undesirable and otherwise dubious concept, glorify it, salt it down with a few loose and un-assimilated miscellaneous factoids, alter the reader’s perception by sprinkling them a sentence or two apart, and then weave them into an article that makes it all look glamorous and appealing. PC driven Alinski-style journalists will never let reality, or facts get in the way of a good political deception or spin.

Solar-photovoltaic power is not a “green” technology. Being “green” is a deceptive PC-socialist-political invention that is designed to make people feel good about living lavishly riding the backs of productive taxpayers without having to put forth any effort to understand, much less solve the underlying problems associated with “green” energy. While solar-photovoltaic power is relatively clean at the point of production, the manufacture and installation of the necessary solar-photovoltaic components needed to produce it is not.

There are virtually no USA manufacturers of solar-photovoltaic cells today due to environmental regulations. Over 75% of the solar poly-silicone, cadmium telluride and silicon tetrachloride cells produced today are made in China where there are no environmental controls whatsoever. It is only a matter of time, (think Fukushima) until the pollution from foreign manufacturing and toxic waste dumping reaches us here, notwithstanding the pollution from disposal of existing solar-photovoltaic products are probably here now, possibly somewhere on Broadhurst Road dump.

Factories around the world that produce solar-photovoltaic components are spewing fossil fuel pollutants into the environment simply because using solar power to produce their own solar energy-producing products is cost prohibitive. There is a host of environmentally hazardous chemical-cocktails involved in the manufacture of photovoltaic cells such as tri-methyl gallium, tri-methyl aluminum, tri-methyl indium, and other tri-ethyl derivatives including hydrogen-selenide, di-methyl-hydrazine, silane, and worst of all, arsine. As an example, a typical solar-photovoltaic-component manufacturing facility with a 10 MW/year production of flat-panel solar-photovoltaic-modules will put about 25 tons of arsine a year into the environment. Arsine is a chemical with toxicity equal to methyl-isocyanide, the chemical released in the Bhopal/Union Carbide incident. Include the pollution from the mining, processing, and transportation of raw-materials used by the solar-photovoltaic industry, and a different picture of “green” energy unvails.

While solar energy from the sun is free, harnessing it into usable AC-electrical energy is not. Anyone wanting to understand the realities of solar power generation can read about it here:

https://www.netl.doe.gov/File Library/Research/Energy Analysis/Life Cycle
Calculated from the life-cycle cost comparisons on page 15 in the above report (note the doe.gov) comparing electrical power produced by various generating means, solar-photovoltaic AC-power, at the point of production is several times higher than the cost of the same power produced by coal burning plants. A typical Satilla Electric bill using only utility based solar-photovoltaic energy could be 2 to 3 times higher than one based on the current combination of energy sources.

Regardless, I believe that solar power in general has great potential.
However, government promotion of solar and wind power in the USA today, is simply another socialist one-way wealth-redistribution scheme and a regressive tax on the poor.
Could we end up having our own versions of Solyndra? From the article, it is hard to tell. However, rest assured that somewhere hidden in the taxpayer-funding for all government-subsidized solar projects is usually an embedded “gift” for someone, somewhere.

 

[moosensquirrel]

I took some renewable energy college courses years ago. It's all about sizing your system appropriately to your needs. Either of the things you mentioned can be accomplished.

But the first step they taught us was to maximize your efficiency with your insulation(total R value for the house - window and door seals, different framing methods to cut down on thermal bridges, crawlspace and attic efficiency... etc) and to buy DC appliances. Solar creates direct DC current electricity so there's no loss in conversion if you're already using that.

There are many different methods to save electricity, solar is only one of them, and not entirely worth it if you don't set yourself up beforehand. But done correctly it is very effective.

Without tax payer support of up to 50%, it will not make any practical economic sense at all.

 

[Red Squirrel 556]

Without tax payer support of up to 50%, it will not make any practical economic sense at all.

TF is a Mullet Wrap?

 

[StuP]

In my judgement the best solar power system is to utilize a net meter - no batteries necessary. The net meter draws from the grid only when the demand exceeds the solar power capacity and when demand is less it supplies the grid with the excess. Unfortunately GA only has 5000 net meters with a long waiting list. Lobbyists have convinced the GA PSC that the strain net meters put on the grid exceeds the amount net meter users are paying for power.
I understand the Inflation Reduction Act allows a homeowner to write off 1/3rd of the cost of installing solar in 2023 and 2024 over the next 4 years on their taxes. That is a strong incentive.

Net metering is a largely function of how the supply is wired, all modern meters support the configuration, and there's no shortage. Generated energy can be compensated in a variety of ways, financially.

 

[The Old Jaybird]

If you are going roof mounted solar panels they MAY affect your homeowners insurance coverage....

CHECK WITH YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY.

 

[flyfisherman]

Net metering is a largely function of how the supply is wired, all modern meters support the configuration, and there's no shortage. Generated energy can be compensated in a variety of ways, financially.

According this article and several others GA Power has capped net meters at 5000.

Georgia net-metering program reaches cap, jeopardizing rooftop solar growth

Solar advocates are asking the PSC to expand the program to keep pace with other Southern states advancing rooftop PV.

www.solarpowerworldonline.com

 

[moosensquirrel]

TF is a Mullet Wrap?

a "mullet Wrap" is a newspaper that is good only for wrapping mullet for disposal. Mullet guts, etc., can stink up a house quickly.

 

[moosensquirrel]

It should be obvious that anything promoted by the government is going to be bad for taxpayers and ultimately benefit, in this case, Georgia Power. and others in the industry.

 

[MegaFan]

This Ga. Power estimate tool might help. I put in values assuming a $300 per month average power bill for one of my old Georgia homes. With an initial cost of about $30,000 for a 9.1kW system, it would lower the bill to about $130 per month. That means that, after about 15 years, it would break even. The current tax incentive would definitely help but 15 years might also be about the "end of life" for today's solar systems, meaning that you might break even but then have to jump back in and do it all over...

WattPlan

georgiapower.wattplan.com