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cost of producing power
By john j, Section Reviews Posted on Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 12:37:32 PM MST
maybe we dont wonna know?

Having projects of biogas, vawt, solarcells and solar panels, I started to figure out the cost of watts produced.
I reckon the biogas can produce like 200watt, the solar cell 1 watt, the vawt 10 watt and the solarpanel 50watt.
These figures would be average production over a year.
Cost of biogas plant is 100£, solarcell (10w peak) is 100£, vawt is 300£, solar panel is 20£.
Prices are what I payed for raw materials. My time is not included.
So can anyone tell if this is a way of comparing.
Hows about life expectancy of different stuff?
And electricity would be considered higher quality energy than gas or hot water.
On the other hand electricity needs a (costly) way of storage.
Any thoughts on this?

cost of producing power | 14 comments (14 topical)

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by pepa on Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 07:35:26 AM MST

forget the cost, the fun it takes to put it all togather is priceless. pepa

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by ghurd on Wed Jan 28, 2009 at 01:21:21 PM MST

Fun. You bet!

I am snowed in, again.
I can buy a puzzle for $5, play a $80 video game on a $300 machine with $100 more worth of hardware to play the game, watch a movie on my $100/month 1600 channel cable TV for only $4...

Or I can make electric from items that somebody did not want by adding $5 worth of epoxy and parts.

I don't like puzzles. Or snow shovels.
G-
Ghurd.info
[ Parent ]

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by fcfcfc on Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 07:58:59 AM MST

Hi:

From a "total" energy systems design point of view, I would put price aside for the moment. What you want to design is a multi energy "package" that when all elements are running, the output energy curve matches the load curve as closely as possible. Then you decide on a over energy production number to help absorb losses when any given system is down. The true goal wants to be energy resiliency. Cost of production is really an arbitrary thing and not the most important. When you have no power and your watching your fridge/freezer warn and melt out to the tune of 2 or 3 hundred dollars worth of food, somehow cost of production does not seem quite so important (Just one example of many). The key is being up 99.9999% of the time.
Once you design that, then take a look at any one of the systems and see what adjustments have to be done based on what you can afford, NOT based on what the best ROI is...

.....Bill

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by vawtman on Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 08:59:02 AM MST

Pepa hit the nail on the head :)

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by fcfcfc on Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 10:19:32 AM MST

Hi:

Maybe we can think up and produce an RE MasterCard commercial...

.....Bill

[ Parent ]

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by vawtman on Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 10:29:59 AM MST

Hey Billy
If we do lets make it kinda like the(whats in your wallet ones)Capital One i believe.

[ Parent ]

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by fcfcfc on Sun Jan 25, 2009 at 07:42:57 AM MST

Hi:

I was more thinking of the MC priceless "thing"...
Here it goes:

Scene 1: Take 1: roll it...

A beautiful golden sunset with a nice 10 MPH breeze. (Close up moving slowly back) (camera flips 180 deg) Man sitting back relaxed in a wicker chair with his feet up sipping on a 12 OZ lager beer, looking at the sunset. (Close up, camera moving slowly back) A beautiful woman starts to show sitting next to him drinking a margarita. (Camera still moving back) Starting to show up high, behind the log cabin with many lights on, is a 3 blade 20' spinning nicely, not to fast, not too slow. (camera still slowly moving back) Other houses now starting to show in the surrounding neighborhood all dark.

Tag lines.

' wind turbine $4500.00
OZ lager bear $1.50

Wicker chair $75.

Sex with the lights on, priceless....

[ Parent ]

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by dnix71 on Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 10:31:34 AM MST

For me it's not about cost. I know upfront that the grid is cheaper and much more powerful.

I want backup for things I don't want to lose if there is a hurricane. Generators won't do it here. If there is a storm you won't be able to get fuel.

With solar and batteries I have a computer, lights, fan and a small fridge, no matter what.

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by Basil on Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 02:46:22 PM MST

Mine is hobby and back up. I'm doing it to learn and it's fun. Pepa, fcfcfc, and dnix71. All of you have done said about everthing. One thing more. At least we will have the knowlege to make power. Example: How many people can make a car run off wood chips. Or make hot water with out fire and a pot. Cost slows me down but thats all I look at. Can not beat the feeling of knowing how to do it. Shoot: I just said what all of you just said.
Bad luck or none at all.

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by Shadow on Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 09:19:24 PM MST

Here's my take on our situation. We were looking at having the power brought in to our acreage,it was going to cost $14,000 to bring it to the edge of our property. (A distance of 1 kilometer). Then I figured we would be paying an electrical bill of $200.00 per month, so thats $2400.00 a year. So in ten years thats $24,000.00 plus the intial $14,000.00. Thats $38,000 dollars we would pay for power over ten years!
So... We built our own wind turbines, got free batteries from the Tel.company, bought an Outback inverter, a Listeroid engine and 5000watt gen(Which I run on Veg oil or Bio diesel) and we now have lived off grid for 2 years coming up in march. I have about $6000.00 into our system. And this summer we plan to add Solar .
We had a high efficient wood fireplace put in when we built the house, you can duct heat to different rooms, so it heats the entire upstairs 1500 square feet. We use a grain burning stove in the basement, but grain prices went nuts so were buying wood pellets. Our total heating bill for all of last year was $153.00! that was for wood pellets. This year its looking to be right on target for about the same. And this is in cold old Canada. Its minus 28 celius outside here today and plus 26 in our house!
But to me the real beauty of this type of set up is, if down the road we decide to move and the next person dosent want to mess with RE, we can pack it all up and take it along!

But the $38,000.00 we would have gave the power company... that would be long gone.

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by dnix71 on Sun Jan 25, 2009 at 07:56:02 PM MST

If you are in Canada, the grid may become unreliable in about 2-3 years. We are at a solar minimum now, but the max is coming soon.

Aurora's look pretty, but Canada's long feeders act like antennas. You are probably better off being off grid, or at least off-grid capable.

[ Parent ]

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by Madscientist267 on Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 07:00:56 AM MST

Niice -

Thats one of those situations where it payed for itself before you ever bought it.

It's stories like these that keep the dreams truly viable for those of us that dare to conceive.

What's it cost to keep the Listeroid running tho?

Steve

[ Parent ]

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by SparWeb on Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 12:12:55 AM MST

My wind turbine hobby was a bit of a money pit. I spent 3000 dollars (Canadian) on my tower, about 300 dollars on the generator, and the wood and epoxy for the blades, another couple hundred (but I bought enough for 3 windmills). The inverter, charge controller, cables, and even including tools and meters, add another 2000 at least.

Then we built a barn on our acreage, and considered running a buried power line from the pole, around the house, and putting a 50 amp service box in. That would cost about 10,000 dollars (so close to Calgary that getting any contractor to do anything is a miracle). Windmill to the rescue! I just saved 4000 dollars. He hehe.

PS
just in the last 10 minutes writing this, the wind has come on strong (sounded like a plane landing on the house) and the mill is now tucked solidly in the furl position. I already went outside once between paragraphs 1 and 2 to see if it was okay. Good grief the wind's getting stronger. Have to go back out to check on things again! To bad my data logger is in pieces!
Steven Fahey

Re: cost of producing power (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by sPuDd on Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 04:11:00 AM MST

I wonder what an RE p0rn0 would be like?

"Oh yeah, you like the wind at 12m/s don't you! Oh yeah, I love your battery rack baby!"

sPuDd..

cost of producing power | 14 comments (14 topical)

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