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Anyone currently using solar?

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Re: Anyone currently using solar

I'll wait until they perfect the technology of printing it onto surfaces - the solar collectors, that is. That's probably more towards Nanotechnology though, might be a wee bit off. Then we'll get it on our roof tiles I honestly believe in 10-15 years, every new home will be at least generating some power for itself; it just doesn't make sense to continue building more, & more power plants for a society that's only going to become more using

That bubble is going to burst : Gonna' run out of everything soon enough! Gosh, listen to me - sounding all doom, & gloomy; certainly not my usual self today
 
Re: Anyone currently using solar

Fundamentally, this is a scale issue. It's generally cheaper per unit of production to make 1 million of anything than to make just 1.

There are a lot of things that can be produced at home. But due to the reduced labour and materials efficiency of doing so, most just buy them instead. There aren't enough hours in the day for us to all make all the things we buy now - and yet we manage to make them all through the efficiencies gained with mass production.

Electricity is not really any different. If we're going to switch to solar on a major scale then it will almost certainly be via large scale centralised generation.
 
Re: Anyone currently using solar


Yes, but - I guess it's a similar situation to rain-water tanks? It's fine to have one big ole' dam of water, oh wait, it isn't :

I think homes themselves need to become more centralized - rain water collection, energy production, & well, anything else we can fit
 
Re: Anyone currently using solar

its not just an issue of scale mate electricity isn't like water you dont simply turn on a tap and your appliances run. To work effectively your renewable source must generate an AC waveform at 50 hertz.

This is possible with wind but you loose alot of power through a governor system to mechanically keep the rotation at a constant RPM but solar is DC and to convert DC to AC is costly and inefficient. I think that solar cells are useless unless your running DC appliances such as lights etc but seriously how many DC appliances are there apart from clocks. Besides to generate enough power to boil a kettle you'll have to have one massive solar panel or a massive battery to store the stuff.

Mass generating solar plants been built dont use solar cells they use solar heat to drive alternators to create AC power.

Saw an interesting site where this guy made a solar furnance which drove a alternator through steam generation the same as these big coal fired base load stations. With 10 foot square of mirror he was able to get a peak 240 watts for a short while.

So to boil a 2400 watt kettle you would need 100 foot square mirror !
 
Re: Anyone currently using solar

The reason I'm not keen on homes generating their own power, water etc is largely about resource use and the environment.

Bottom line is there is no chance of small, decentralised power stations (no matter what the energy source) achieving the same economies of resource use as large scale plant.

If you want solar then it's far less polluting to do solar thermal on a 100 MW (100,000 kW) scale than to build 100,000 separate 1 kW photovoltaic systems with all the materials that will use.

Even if it's fossil fuel generation, a 400 MW combined cycle gas turbine plant will easily beat the efficiency of any gas-fired plant you could reasonably run in a suburban backyard. Less materials to build it and less gas to run it per unit of output.

Water is similar. Add up all the materials to build millions of tanks (one per house), all the diesel to transport them (not many fit on even a big truck) and all the land they take up. Do the maths and in many cases a large scale dam requires fewer materials to build. It certainly uses lower value materials - clay, concrete, rock etc verus plastic (from petroleum), steel, zinc etc. And it generally takes less fossil fuels and less land per litre of water stored.

That's not to say we shouldn't use rainwater. It does make a lot of sense in some locations as a source of supply. But large dams beat tanks any day as a means of storage if the measure is materials used, cost, capacity or land taken up.

Much the same with power with the possible exceptions of wind and small hydro. In the case of wind the use of a building is a materials reduction compared to putting up towers. In the case of hydro it's "use it or lose it" in most cases so there's no option to use the same small resource more efficiently. But even then, 3 MW wind turbines are more resource efficient than 144 kW turbines and big hydro schemes tend to be more resource efficient than small ones.
 
Re: Anyone currently using solar

KIWIKARLOS said:
to convert DC to AC is costly and inefficient.
Click to expand...
Done properly it need not be inefficient. And added cost certainly, but not necessarily inefficient.

Right now Basslink, with is a DC link, is transmitting 426 MW (southbound) with a 20 MW loss. And that includes rectifier and cable losses as well as the inverters.

But then you're probably not going to build a 600 MW inverter in the backyard. At least I hope not...
 
If you do want to go solar, one contractor that can install a complete system is Nu Energy. They are not an electricity utility but do a lot of electricity-related work including solar as well as cabling etc for the utilities.

The above is not a recommendation as I haven't had anything to do with them. I'm just aware that they do a lot of this sort of work with RAPS etc. They were previously known as Power Plus.
 
Basslink is not efficient the upfront capital costs involved in building a 430 MW inverter that creates a pure sine wave is rediculous. Only reaon its viable is because it saves Tas building more generators which are expensive there as hydro is tapped out and dam levels are falling, they have stuff all coal aswell.

Good technology though and I believe your right in saying that economies of scale are the most important thing for renewables. Personally instead of putting tanks at everyones place or building desal i would rather storm water harvesting and water recycling both of which have the additional benefits of improving the environment whilst providing water
 
the big difference between water and elec in the local / large scale debate is the cost of the distribution system.

With dams, there is also the evaporation loss to account for, when compared to home rain water tanks.

AND... and this is a big one... you need water to LIVE!

From the limited thinking on this topic, given the choice of being self sufficient in electricity or water, i think water wins hands down.


Smurf, I know this may not be possible in Tassie... but instead of storing water in dams, why didn't we store water in our huge, naturally occuring, underground reseviors? I guess there is the pumping costs back to the surface... but interested to know more about this other option...
 
osmosis said:
The government is now going to means test the $8k solar rebate which changes the financial equation (time to recover costs) quite substantially for some.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/13/2243710.htm
Click to expand...

IMO it is a really dumb move by the new Fed Government to limit access to the solar power rebate to those households earning taxable income under $100,000. Really, really DUMB.

Within a few hours of the announcement, a solar cell installer in the NE Victoria area was on local TV saying he had already received a number of cancellations from higher income earners and that his business would likely fold if cancellations from over $100,000 earners continued.

It seems simple logic to me that right now, most households under the $100,000 are NOT going to be thinking about whacking solar voltaic arrays on their rooftops this year or anytime soon for that matter. The soaring cost of ULP/Diesel/foodstuffs etc is likely to be more of a concern...

Also, there would be a MUCH higher proportion of renters in the under $100,000 income bracket - and I doubt THEY will be chucking up solar arrays on their landlord's properties! I would presume those in the $100,000 - $200,000 income bracket would be more likely to shell out for this sort of thing.

But, then again, I'm no expert....


AJ
 
AussieJeff, have to agree with you on this.

Most of the time it's the big end of town that gets these sorts of trends moving, as they have the money to spend, The rebate is one part of it, more the carrot so to speak, which is needed for any new trend especially in the higher end technology.

the more it is installed the cheaper it will become. and then it will just flow to the rest of the town.
 
Well Garrett, you have certainly put your mark on things. That move should well and truly kill off domestic solar power. So yeah, I can really see thousands of people earning less than $100k lining up to buy these things. Why not just scrap the whole rebate thing for PVs. After all, with current technology, PVs for general domestic use is just not viable. OK for boats, mobile homes, remote sites but not domestic.

You really are a total dumb ass. What you are going to do is stifle and kill any innovation in more feasible areas such as domestic wind power, solar air conditioning, and heat engine technology. Your politics are as about as bad as your music.
 
Chinese will be years ahead of us soon, allowing cheap solar panels and they'll be working on improving the technology. There is hope for the future, but it will take a while to come to fruitition.

Can't trust our government to lead the world at anything, no matter which side of the floor they're on may I add..


http://blogs.ittefaq.com/tech/archives/2005/10/china_sets_targ.html

The Chinese government, which has issued a Renewable Energy Law and signed the Kyoto Protocol limiting carbon dioxide emissions, has promised that renewable energy will make up 10% of the country's total installed capacity of power generation by 2020.

The solar energy sector has generated two major industries, that is, the solar energy heat utilization industry and the solar energy photovoltaic industry. The solar energy heat utilization industry mainly produces solar water heaters. China's annual production of solar water heaters has reached 10 million sets, saving the equivalent of 10 million tons of coal annually. Chinese sales of solar water heaters are 10 times more than that of Europe, and China now ranks first in the world in terms of solar water heater production and ownership.

The more important part of China's solar movement comes from the photovoltaic industry, which has been one of the fastest-growing industries in the country since the 1980s. The development of China's photovoltaic market in 2004 has surpassed any leaps in the history of industry, growing at an annual rate of 60.4%, and reaching 12 gigawatts (GW) of total production capacity.

China is promoting application of solar energy on a large scale, mainly in western areas that cannot be connected to national power grids, such as Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. The solar energy industry has entered a phase of rapid growth and profitability since 2003.
 
Re: Anyone currently using solar

tyson great post.
sad but true.
They say it was 10 years to break-even (photovoltaic cells), even before the loss of the $8K subsidy.
You're sure to be close with your 20 years without that subsidy.

We need the big boys to do it (and do it efficiently). I heard that an area 50km x 50km covered by solar cells would run Australia. .

Solar hot water? - heck it's possible to use simple black pvc piping with both the capacity to retain heat, and store it - pretty cheap by comparison.

(PS value for money, and serious contribution to "the problem", imo, you need to think big - like nuclear etc)
 
moXJO said:
Is anyone currently using solar panels on their home? Not talking so much about the hot water systems more the electricity supply side.Has it made a big difference compared to the cost of the systems?
Click to expand...

HI I AM A NEWBIE, I HAVE RECENTLY HAD A 7.2 KW SYSTEM . 30 X 235 WATT SUNWAYS PANELS, 2 X AURORA PVI 3.6 INDOOR INVERTERS, SUPPLIED BY 1800 TAS SOLAR, THE GUYS DONE A TOP JOB INSTALLING EVERYTHING. BUT THEY WIRED THE INVERTERS UP THE WRONG WAY, ONLY GETTING 4KW PER HOUR., LEGAL ACTION IS BEING TAKEN BECAUSE THEY ARE EXTREMELY SLOW TO RECTIFY THE PROBLEM 6 MONTHS LATER. THE STRONGEST ADVICE I CAN GIVE ANYONE IS TO CONNECT YOUR INVERTER- S TO YOUR COMPUTER SO YOU CAN TELL WHAT YOUR SYSTEM IS DOING OTHERWISE YOU MAY BE LIKE ME. IF I DIDN'T HOOK MINE UP TO THE COMPUTER I WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN THAT THE SYSTEM WAS FAULTY, COULD SAVE YOU THOUSANDS, IF YOUR SYSTEM IS NOT PRODUCING WHAT ITS SUPPOSED TO, YOU SHOULD KNOW AFTER THE FIRST SUNNY DAY. IF ITS NOT CONTACT YOUR SUPPLIER AND ASK WHY NOT, DON'T LET THEM BULL**** YOU
 
Some more information might be required here as there are a number of reasons output could be reduced.
 
drsmith said:
Some more information might be required here as there are a number of reasons output could be reduced.
Click to expand...

Agree;
While 4KW output from a 7KW installation seems a little low, the roof/ panel orientation, time of day, cloud cover, temperature all play a part.
Just as a roughie from Perth, WA: Our system is pointing NE, and on a sunny morning will achieve about 75-80% of rated capacity. With a little haze in the sky, or in the afternoon, it quickly drops below 50%.
After collecting several years' worth of data, we're averaging about 5KWh per day per KW capacity.
Closer to 6 in summer, 4 or less in winter.
 
1. Judging but the name of the installer, I'm guessing that this system is installed somewhere in Tasmania?

2. How is the power output being measured? A direct reading of peak power taken from the inverter? Some other means?

3. Which way do the panels face and what is the roof tilt?

4. Is there any shade on the panels? TV antennas? Toilet vent pipes? Wood/oil/gas heater flues? Satellite dishes? Trees? Streetlights or power poles nearby? Anything else that is putting shade on them?

I'm happy to comment regarding what is, and isn't, acceptable performance.
 
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