efficiency of such a system
good charger to plug into the grid, let say 90% good inverter to convert your dc batteries to ac, lets say 90% battery charging efficiency, lets put that one at 85%
so ...
.90 *.90 * .85 = .6885 or approx 69% overall efficiency
this does not account for other losses such as cable and line losses which might be another hit of 2-3 percent,, so you might very well be in the 65% range.
now then to calculate what this does to your power cost from the grid,
100/65%=1.538 or round off to about 1.5 times the base cost, in other words you have added 50% to the cost of your power from the power company
and you are putting wear and tear on your system components, things like batteries should be ammortized out, and given a cost per day, or kwatt/hr, or some measure as well, this will add significantly to your true cost of you system.
bob g
In essance it is a bad idea. :)
back to the drawing board....lol
I'll figure somethgin out before closing date on the hosue....oct 10th Thanx Darren [ Parent ]
You may look into adding Photovoltaic solar panels to your mortgage, most loan companies will allow this..and some at decent rates too.
Just an idea.[ Parent ]
but the hydro is there...so that is my #1 project.
going to shoot for payign off the home in less then 7 years..and then upgraded the rest as $$ allows it. Thanx Darren [ Parent ]
IMHO the more reasonable approach, if you don't have enough to run the whole show, is to convert the circuits for your most critical loads to a RE-powered, grid-backed system. Refrigerator, emergency lights, fan power for fuel-based heating equipment, etc. Then you're OK in an outage of either the grid or your RE equipment - and you can afford to pay the premium for running just these loads through your "UPS" when you have an RE shortfall.
Hydro has the advantage that it's much more reliable, level, and predicatble than wind and solar. So it's easier to plan with and doesn't require a lot of energy storage.[ Parent ]
I would not borrow a single penny until this bank freak-out session ends. Who knows who will hold a note on you a year from now or what is valuable now will be then. They may not play nice.
I am more than a little concerned.Roger AS 8 Years off-grid & counting[ Parent ]
No one knows what the lending landscape is likely to be for the next year or so, so though a small commercial or retail loan is unlikely to be called in if the lender has a bad time, getting a loan at all could be hard or expensive so we should all hold/hoard a little more easy-to-get-at savings in cash and in a number of institutions for a while.
On the other hand, if you have money on hand above that that you can invest in a small system of your own, now is not a bad time IMHO, and you might be helping keep the wolf from the door of someone in the renewables industry. B^>
I'm putting money to one side towards a major extension of my PV system as soon as I've restored my savings.
Rgds
Damon[ Parent ]
