Tiny Houses

Milo Maltbie wrote

That's upside down.  Electric prices are mostly predictable, and have actually been falling the last few years. The political reality is that they can't raise rates too much without doing something to make sure people can pay their bills. In NY, they can't shut your service down in the winter even if you don't pay your bill, and if you live long enough to spend through all your savings, they'll discount your rates, and the state will help you pay the rest. If you need power for medical equipment, the power company will take care of that if there is an extended blackout.  

OTOH, if you go off the grid you are on your own with a solar system that includes panels, inverters, controllers, and batteries.  A failure of any one of those components could happen at any time and could cost you thousands.  And it could happen more than once over 35 years.  

Which plan has more risk?

If you use solar with a grid connection, you are using the grid for all your reliability, not just emergencies.  Without the grid, solar is not worth much at all.  For now, you can get a bill reduction without any investment, or buy your own and net meter down to zero.  Net metering is going away, but it will be replaced with something that will work better.  

Off the grid is the hippy version of survivalism.  If people can't cooperate enough to run an electric system, there is no hope for civilization.

MM

I like how you quote me and failed to read the rest of what I wrote about risk.  Way to be selective in your argument.

You have no friggin' idea what electric will do.  Yeah a lot of people depend on it, but do you have the answers?  I think not.  What we are doing now can't last.  I'm sorry to burst your bubble but it just can't.  You may be old and may only live for another 10 years, but I may live another 55?  Based on that rate at which people are living longer, it's not a pipe dream.  And if I have kids they surely need to solve these problems.  And if they aren't my kids, then they are Jeff's or Harvey's.  Who cares?  Fact is you are using silly logic that your power costs will be predictable in the future.  Have you seen the Earth's population?  Do you know what is happening with nations much bigger than ourselves industrializing?  If you want to pretend those things don't exist and that everything is cool, then go ahead... but some people see these things and steer them.  That's how things change.  

I hope the grid systems change.  I hope it gets worked out.  But maybe it won't.  Maybe it will change.  Until then do you mind if I bury something in your back yard?

Milo Maltbie wrote

Net metering is going away, but it will be replaced with something that will work better.

I am curious about this. Can you describe? Thx

If net metering does go away or gets slashed it will spur home battery sales.

MikeK wrote

I like how you quote me and failed to read the rest of what I wrote about risk.  Way to be selective in your argument.

--

What makes you think I didn't read your whole post?  
You are right that I don't know what electric prices will be, but I don't know what any other prices will be either. I'm not going to start raising chickens because future food prices are uncertain, or give up my car because future thruway tolls may go up.  Prices change but everyone is more or less in the same boat, and the economy adjusts. That goes double for electricity prices, because they are politically controlled and there are lots of things they can do to mitigate short term price changes.
When you say you can do better (and with less risk) than whatever the grid evolves into, you are really expecting a large scale technical breakdown.  That's survivalism.  If you really believe that, you should stockpile ammunition and barbed wire to protect your solar panels too.

MM

 

MikeK wrote

P, I have no idea of your background, but I've seen a consistent response here, and I see it often in certain mindsets.  Rarely have your responses been a solution or suggestion on how one might tackle a particular problem, but rather why it won't work.

I'm not claiming what I know to be correct, because honestly I don't know.  I'm merely thinking of ways that might be used to do something a certain way.

What I get from you is "I know better than all of you and I can prove it."  It's a common trap to fall into and you'll always be behind someone who is willing to try to think of scenarios where things might make sense.  What did the general public think of the automobile when it was first introduced?  It was too expensive and impractical given the roads of those days.  Look at it now.  It's as much a curse as anything we are rapidly consuming these days, but still, the trend went forward because of innovation, not because the horse was cheaper.

My my current gig when I am not playing retired is to provide clients with advice on technical and financial feasibility of ideas - mostly as a due diligence function. You may think I am being "negative" but what I am trying to do is cut through all the wishful thinking and present the facts. I have never said it can't be done. Jeff came in with the idea he was going to get boat loads of power from the solar array, well know he knows that it isn't nearly what he expected. it may be enough for his needs but it is not what he expected. That is a hell of a lot better than going out and spending a pile of money and expecting to run a bunch of appliances in that cabin. I may be wrong, but he was expecting to be able to get a fair amount of power from that generator but was not thinking about the maintenance and useful life - we he now has that information. If, with this enlightenment he chooses to build the off grid cabin he has a better understanding of what to expect. If you choose to think that knowledge, when it goes against wishful thinking is negativity than stick your fingers back in your ears and sing LALALALA when anyone tries to give you useful information.

Jeff does not like my analogy of RV on a foundation, but lets look at that. 600sq ft living space, now days with fold outs RVs are approaching that size. He admits that he won't have all the conveniences of home, use a composting toilet, willing to store all his food in a dorm sized refrigerator which runs off of 12V and run all his energy intensive stuff off of propane - sounds like an RV to me. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that but it's not living in the burbs.

Harvey wrote

Milo Maltbie wrote

Net metering is going away, but it will be replaced with something that will work better.

I am curious about this. Can you describe? Thx

When there is too much net metered solar, too many uncontrolled generators will destabilize the system, and there will not be enough revenue to support the power company.  Eventually there will be hours with too much supply and not enough load to use it.  California may be there in a couple of years.
The next solution will be to bring solar out from behind the meter, and sell directly at the right hourly price, with a smart inverter.  If you used hourly prices (instead of monthly averages) you would point your panels west (not south) to generate more energy in the afternoon when prices are higher. A smart inverter would also let you sell reactive power instead of kWh to stabilize the voltage.  With those two changes, and a bunch of batteries at different points on the system (maybe from a bunch of Nissan Leafs or Teslas parked at charging stations), and the whole system could use a lot more solar, and it would create more value with less subsidies.  That's the future the solar industry sees for itself, and it doesn't really include a lot more net metering.  But it does require a well organized grid.  No one I talk to in the electric business, either the conventional utility guys or the solar guys, think that off the grid is part of the future.

MM    

PeeTex wrote

Jeff came in with the idea he was going to get boat loads of power from the solar array, well know he knows that it isn't nearly what he expected. it may be enough for his needs but it is not what he expected.

... expecting to run a bunch of appliances in that cabin

Boat loads?  Bunches of appliances? I have no idea where you got that from.  Here's the original post:

Adk Jeff wrote

I'm pretty much just thinking out loud, but my ideas for an off-grid weekend cabin (not primary residence) are:
 - 600 square foot, permanent foundation, crawl space but no basement.
 - Solar panels + battery storage (i.e. Tesla PowerWall).
 - High efficiency electric refrigerator and lights.
 - No dishwasher, washing machine or dryer (all energy hogs and not needed for a weekend cabin).
 - Propane for heat, hot water, cooking.  Hot water would be a tankless on-demand unit.
 - Water supply = well and pump (I know, power hog).
 - No electric grid connection.
 - Small "whole house" standby generator, propane powered.

The results for the solar are exactly what I expected, as confirmed by NREL. Totally feasible. What we don't know is the feasibility of the generator.  That's going to be a function of how many hours it runs over the course of a winter, and that question remains unanswered.  At 100 - 200 hours annually, I'd say it's a pretty good solution.  500, not so much.

PeeTex wrote

What I am trying to do is cut through all the wishful thinking and present the facts

What you've accomplished is to demonstrate that you can distort the orignal premise in order to prove it wrong. Consultants do that a lot, along with presenting facts that are already known or are irrelevant to the question posed, in order to prove their worth.

Milo Maltbie wrote

When there is too much net metered solar, too many uncontrolled generators will destabilize the system, and there will not be enough revenue to support the power company.  Eventually there will be hours with too much supply and not enough load to use it.  California may be there in a couple of years.
The next solution will be to bring solar out from behind the meter, and sell directly at the right hourly price, with a smart inverter.  If you used hourly prices (instead of monthly averages) you would point your panels west (not south) to generate more energy in the afternoon when prices are higher. A smart inverter would also let you sell reactive power instead of kWh to stabilize the voltage.  With those two changes, and a bunch of batteries at different points on the system (maybe from a bunch of Nissan Leafs or Teslas parked at charging stations), and the whole system could use a lot more solar, and it would create more value with less subsidies.  That's the future the solar industry sees for itself, and it doesn't really include a lot more net metering.  But it does require a well organized grid.  No one I talk to in the electric business, either the conventional utility guys or the solar guys, think that off the grid is part of the future.

MM

Wowsers!  So for all those people who don't have electric hookups, off-the-grid isn't part of the future?  Maybe we should mow down some trees, build some roads and hook up some more power lines so we can stabalize the grid?

Who here ever said off-the-grid was something other than for ski cabins or whacko 'hippies' who want independence from the power companies?

Sure it would be nice to cover all of Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada with solar cells and plumb it to the rest of the nation, but that's not going to happen.  Sure it's more efficient there but even that area cannot support our needs and no way will anyone go for it.  Also absorbing that much solar energy in one area would likely have an effect on the weather and climate.  It would be a giant heat sink like the oceans.

Having a solar cell or two on your roof might very well be in the future, be damned of who you talked to.  Even though it's not as efficient in terms of the solar cell, especially here in the NE, it still gives you more total effective area.  And that's what solar collectors need, to capture more photons.  You also cut some transmission losses being localized.

Now that is a far cry from off-the-grid.  It would simply put less demand on the grid and supplement, there is no reason why it can't be adjusted to handle that.  In fact if we are ever to take the slightest move away from FF and nuclear, we are going to have to make some big changes all around.

The power companies don't want this because they make easy money off of burning coal, natural gas, and using uranium to heat water and turn turbines.

So in essences you guys have managed to take this from small houses and cabins using minimal resources with zero regard to the political or long term financials applications and managed to make it about your political agenda.  Great job.

Adk Jeff wrote

PeeTex wrote

Using the NREL solar calculator you can expect to get about 1/2 the output the manufacture states (using Harvey location as a reference). This is enough energy to run 2 100 w light bulbs 24-7 but you will need to rely on the batteries over night so just to get a feel, maybe 2 75w bulbs. That means the generator is going to run a lot. Maybe most of the time.

Wait, that's per panel, right?  The system has six panels rated 285 watts each.  So 6 x 285 = 1710, and if I get half the output that's still 855 watts, or enough to run nearly 60 75-watt equivalent LED lights.  That refrigerator that Mike posted a link to uses 168 watt-hours per day, so I think there'd be plenty of power.

PeeTex wrote

The generators guaranteed life is only 2000 hours, or 83 days. It is not meant for a primary power source.  Dig a trench, you will be glad you did.

Agree, the gen is meant as backup, not primary.  But 2000 hours isn't necessarily it's lifespan, just the warranty period.  If you buy a tv set and it comes with a 12-month warranty, that doesn't mean it craps out after a year.  Even if it has to run 20 hours a week for 3 months in the winter, it's gonna take 8 years just to get to that 2000 hours. I suspect with regular maint, you'd get 20 years out of the unit.

Oh, I guess I didn't read this right, you knew all along that you were not going to get 1.7Kw out of those panels and the generator won't last 20 years  if you run it more than 130 hours/year and do PM every 200 hours. Man I miss read what you said here. I sure waisted your time pointing you to the NREL site. How could I have been so stupid. I won't make that mistake again.

Adk Jeff wrote

What you've accomplished is to demonstrate that you can distort the orignal premise in order to prove it wrong. Consultants do that a lot, along with presenting facts that are already known or are irrelevant to the question posed, in order to prove their worth.

Hehehehe. Lmao ! You Sir, are exactly right !

But quit raining on his Pre Text, Jeff. It's all he has.

PeeTex wrote

Oh, I guess I didn't read this right, you knew all along that you were not going to get 1.7Kw out of those panels and the generator won't last 20 years  if you run it more than 130 hours/year and do PM every 200 hours. Man I miss read what you said here. I sure waisted your time pointing you to the NREL site. How could I have been so stupid. I won't make that mistake again.

I'm the one who sized the proposed solar system.  There are solar calculators all over the interwebz, including on the website that I linked for the system I proposed.  Did you think I pulled 1.7kw out of a hat?  You tried to use NREL to conclude that solar wasn't feasible, when in fact it confirmed the 1.7kw system's feasibility, so yes I guess you didn't have a good grasp of the facts.  As to generators, yes I'm already familiar with whole-house standby generators including their fuel consumption and maintenance.  They've become quite common, I've got a bunch of neighbors with them, you can walk into Lowes and look at several models.  What I didn't know was that Generac had a model specifically designed to work with solar/alternative energy. But I found that, nobody here pointed me to it.
And you mis-spelled wasted.

Adk Jeff wrote

PeeTex wrote

Oh, I guess I didn't read this right, you knew all along that you were not going to get 1.7Kw out of those panels and the generator won't last 20 years  if you run it more than 130 hours/year and do PM every 200 hours. Man I miss read what you said here. I sure waisted your time pointing you to the NREL site. How could I have been so stupid. I won't make that mistake again.

I'm the one who sized the proposed solar system.  There are solar calculators all over the interwebz, including on the website that I linked for the system I proposed.  Did you think I pulled 1.7kw out of a hat?  You tried to use NREL to conclude that solar wasn't feasible, when in fact it confirmed the 1.7kw system's feasibility, so yes I guess you didn't have a good grasp of the facts.  As to generators, yes I'm already familiar with whole-house standby generators including their fuel consumption and maintenance.  They've become quite common, I've got a bunch of neighbors with them, you can walk into Lowes and look at several models.  What I didn't know was that Generac had a model specifically designed to work with solar/alternative energy. But I found that, nobody here pointed me to it.
And you mis-spelled wasted.

For about the 5th fucking time - I never said it wasn't feasible. I said that you would have to work at it.

Attn PeeTex

What do you know about this - http://solarpowertribune.com/100-clear-solar-cells-could-make-every-window-electronic-screen-a-power-source/

MikeK wrote

First thing we need to know, for Jeff's particular situation, is how much it will cost to get electric to his camp

.            It was $7.00 a foot ,over 350' off the road, with upgraded( necessary) wire,triax,phone for me.

ScottyJack wrote

Attn PeeTex

What do you know about this - http://solarpowertribune.com/100-clear-solar-cells-could-make-every-window-electronic-screen-a-power-source/

I have not seen this before. Would need to look a lot closer before accepting the claims.

Pretty sweet Tiny House

Just got the propane bill for the last 12 months: $111.25

Lowest bill since we've had propane. Not sure if that was the crappy season or fracking or both.