Hmm, I think we've seen that "stick it to the man, I know best and it's MY wiring and don't try to blind me with Amps and Volts" viewpoint elsewhere! B^>
Rgds
Damon
Do some of throes posters give you the idea they would strangle them selves tying there own boots ?
They scare me an I am fearless [ Parent ]
They can't win the Darwin Award by killing other people though pig-headed stupidity! %-<
Damon[ Parent ]
I have reasonable electronics skills, but I can tell you I'm impressed by what a grid-tie inverter achieves and the safety mechanisms in place.
Usually the guys I meet that want to hook up a gorrilla grid feed and don't care about saftey haven't even powered anything in there home to understand consersation and how hard the power is to come by [ Parent ]
The idea that you can have a small-hobbyist-grid-tied-installation seems to me to be a flawed concept. Maybe, a hobbyist solar ultra-low pressure hot water system or a hobbyist micro solar project like the ones posted here and the one I'm going to show in a posting soon ;-) Obviously there are two things at odds here, the idea of connecting into the grid and the amount of electricity required to make it meaningful. A non-trivial exercise if ever I saw one.. In leet speak--ROTFLMAO
I have been interested in the concept of micro-generation for a little while now and have only just gotten some gear and some time (1 1/2 days to wire up a Ghurd controller!) to make one. I've been looking at all of the different types of batteries to power it. And added to that been following some of the articles on homepower magazine through my interest in NiFe batteries. I found the articles of micro generation of special interest and really inspiring. The main lot seem to have been written in the 80's and early 90's (like the guy with the wheel barrowed solar powered system, car battery, light and stereo). Then fast forward a decade or so, in the recent issues there are a lot of huge McMansion style houses with installs like the guy who has an upteen gigawatt grid tied installation with 2000Ah battery backup on the off_chance the grid goes down, it is essentially a mega huge UPS. I don't get how that can be a reasonable reaction to an energy crisis or a desire to be self supporting energy-wise. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic, pioneering, magazine; but like a prominent person here says, "a joule saved is a joule made".
I suppose my point is that energy is a valuable resource, whether if someone is making it by the bucket-load or the cup-load. I understand that users may desire to be producing electricity with grid tied solar (usually) installations. And by doing this they personally off-setting a carbon footprint produced by one's energy generator, usually that produced by coal or other climate changing resource. I am trying to work out my reason for this rant. I suppose my question is this. Using energy efficient methods how much electricity does a person need to live well (enough to productive and happy)?
My home (and office at home) are down from 33kWh/day to ~5.5kWh/day consumption, and we're generating a large chunk of that from solar PV, so our net consumption year-round will be about 4kWh.
The Indian government has a target to get 1kWh/day of electricity to all rural/village homes, so even my reduced consumption is beyond many aspirations in one of the biggest nations on earth.
(And let's not talk about my mains natural gas use... %-> )
Fire away!Rural McG
My old-ass eyes can't focus on that many lines in a single paragraph.[ Parent ]
The more significant issue these days is that to wire it up you must now use a 'Part P' electrician which is likely to cost a fair old chunk.
Note that I'm not against forcing wiring to be done right, for example our local MP's daughter was killed by dodgy wiring in her kitchen, but getting a tradesman to actually turn up at all is a major effort.
