Have spare land, want to feed the grid- please help me get started

[PowerDubs]

Hi- I'm Josh.

I just bought my first house and it is situated in the country on roughly 2.5 acres that backs to a cornfield.  Instead of just letting the space sit there wasted, I had the idea of making a 'solar farm'.

I know zero about solar power, but I am fairly handy (I fix appliances for a living) so I was hoping to learn enough about this and put together my own setup...starting small with a few panels and expanding it by adding panels as funds allow.

I'll be upfront about this as a few of the websites I have come across dealing with solar systems have a somewhat political stance.  I am not doing this in regards to any enviromental concerns.  Moreso my goals are-

#1  a hobby/project now that I am older and don't need to be spending money needlessly on cars/motrocycles, etc.

#2 eventually get the system large enough to see a decrease in my electric bill..and maybe even theoretically in a perfect world be able to sell back to the electric company.

So now that I've explained why I am here, can anyone help me by explaining what I need to do, parts to buy, places to buy, etc?  I'd prefer to do it componet based so I have a choice in the parts as opposed to an off-the-shelf box kit which may limit me in some way.

I live in NJ.  I will be putting the panels on some sort of stands sitting on the ground.

Thanks- Josh

[wdyasq]

First, you need to tell us how much money you want to waste....oops .... make that invest.

In the real world, one cannot make money selling back to the electrical grid. One would be better off investing the money and using that to pay their electrical bill.

There are a few reasons one sets up 'solar panels'; no electricity is available from 'the grid' or the expense of getting 'the grid' to a site is high; as a hobby to partially lower one's electrical use; as a backup system when the grid goes down. If one cares to explore those scenarios, they can proceed. Understand you will be spending a portion of funds far in excess of their return.

There are so many options books are written on the subject. Do a bit of research and figure out which direction you care to go and I'll bet someone here will help.

Ron

[PowerDubs]

Thanks for the reply.

Lets say I'm not looking at it as a return on investment nor care about %'s.  What would be nice is if in future years of my older age I could have a zero bill + possibly a little return each month.  With enough panels and time I think it would be possible.

As for initial waste...er investment lets figure out what I need to get started and let the chips fall as they may.  As mentioned I would like to add on panels and expand as funds allow.  To start off I don't care if it is a single panel..

So, besides the actual panels + framework to mount/support them what else would any of you recommend for a grid-tied, non-battery setup??

Thanks- Josh

[jonas302]

Sounds like you have the right idea to get started knowing you won't get rich feeding the grid(:   Don't forget to check for rebates and grants from your local power company and local, state gov

[dnix71]

If you want to sell back electricity, and don't want to waste time or money, then you need to contact the local electric company/cooperative and see what programs they have.

If you want to connect to the grid, your system and components must be approved by them and/or the local government. Some states make it easy and some don't. In Florida, where I live, you can get up to $20k back from the state for a home PV system, but you have to do it through a licensed contractor. The electric company has a lot more to lose than you do if something goes wrong.

You aren't going to get your money back in less than 20 years on a grid-tie in Florida either. And even a big solar pv with backup batteries and inverter won't run a whole house ac. A coworker did her home 5.5kw and she still has to run a Honda gas generator to run the ac when the power is out. Otherwise she can go 3 days with no sun or grid. That system cost $55k before the $20k rebate.

If you get steady wind, a wind turbine would be a nice addition to solar. Especially since the wind blows at night

[wdyasq]

Practical method - start at the end and work back. First you will want to know how much power you will need. Remember, conservation is about 5X the value of generation. Get a 'Kill-a-Watt', 'Watts Up' or similar and find your needs. Cut consumption wherever you can. This will be the start - or finish - point

Now let's figure out what you will need to attack the problem. I'm making up this example but here goes, I'm guessing I will need 200kWh of energy a month (We scrimped and conserved and our electricity bill is CHEAP! oops, make that low.). That is about 6.6kWh/day. We find we get about 5 hours of sun per day so we need 6.6/5 kW of panel. We will use 1.3kW of panel ....

Now we need storage ... I'll guess again and guess we need about 10kW of storage. If we use 1/2 of our battery capacity so the batteries will last more than a month ... and we use a 48V system we need 10000/48 or about 200AH (slightly more) of drain-down so we need a 400AH X 48V battery bank. This works out to 12  T105 batteries or so.

Eventually we will want a 48V system ... but we could start with a some panels and a 12V inverter ... then add panels and a tracking system ... then go to an MPPT charger ... gradually working to our goal and keeping expenses to a managable point.

You will need to decide if you want to deal with 'grid-tie sell-back'. In a good month you will be making (at $0.10kWh) $20 worth of power. It takes an ~$2000 inverter and, where I live a separate meter, at $18 a month, to sell back the power. As one would be using over 1/2 the power, at a minimum each month, best bet is I would only loose $8-15 a month going grid-tie.

BUT.... it is your project and you get to research and figure a lot of this out yourself...

Oh, in my guess system I spent $5000 on panels, built a $1000 tracker myself, bought $900 worth of batteries, bought a $600 MPPT controller and spent at least $1000 on a good inverter ..($8,500+)... all to save $20 a month.... I guess I am not too good at math if I think I am saving money.

Ron

[DamonHD]

Just to back this up: I think for me the ratio of generation cost to conservation cost per kWh has been about 10:1.

http://www.earth.org.uk/towards-a-LZC-office.html

I intend to treble the above system this year if I can, BTW.

Rgds

Damon

[blueyonder]

  hi ron. that was a good reply. it made me laugh out loud.

[Bruce S]

Hello Josh;

   I may be steeping on some toes, but here goes, as I think I understand where you're wanting to go with this.

If I read your intro with and understand your mind set , of first playing, then learning then let the furture takes it's own course. AND you're doing this with eyes wide open.

A very good and while not the best system to get your feet wet is a Harbor Freight system.

It is small (45 watts at best) has 3 panels, comes with 2 5 watt 12Vdc CFL bulbs and a PDU (Power Distribution Unit) but they for some reason have labled it a controller.

You'll need to get a few batteries as well. Purist will say not to; but old useable car battereis are in fact perfect for a "test" system. Just make sure they are usable and won't boil dry.

Attach the panels to a stable area. The anchor they ahve is okay if you weight it down with sand bags and make sure they are "locked" in place.

READ the manual that comes with it!!! it does explain that it will drian the batts if left on at night :-(

This will help TONS it getting a very good start to both the limits of a solar system and what items can and cannot be used with it.

Once you have a fairly good undersatnding , then you could also purchase a small inverter that'll take the 12Vdc up to 110Vac. Plus you'll gain a better undertsanding the higher current needs of "stuff"

Along with ALL this you'll be able to take vampire circuits OFF your home system by letting the panles do the charging of those items. Where you'll see a drop in your electric bill.

This money saved , you could then add to build a bigger system )

Above ALL else have fun!!

Bruce S

[Bruce S]

Josh:

   I also wanted to add:

I did not give out any info about tieing into the grid.

It can be done and has been done and is being done more and more.

I believe knowledge is first and foremost.

You repair alpliances for a living so you already know first hand how much these puppies can suck in energy.

Once you've gained the knowledge from this beginner system, you may then decide to go further into a grid-tie system OR to keep it ALL for yourself :_))

Any further questions don't hesitate to ask, I'll HELP all I can.

Cheers

Bruce S

[BigBreaker]

If you have land to spare than your best bet for solar is growing / harvesting bio-mass (solar) then gasify and pipe into a gen.  That doesn't get you the same watts/meter^2 as silcon modules but it is far more practical and cheap plus the unburned biomass is your energy storage for a "rainy day".

Check out short rotation willow coppicing for ideas.

[Stonebrain]

"I am not doing this in regards to any enviromental concerns."

So, what's wrong with spending your money on cars/motorcycles?

cheers,

stonebrain

[GeorgeB71]

I'd look at concentrated solar power before photovoltaics.  You can potentially get much more power from them than from a PV array for less money.  In a nutshell, build a parabolic solar through collector, run a tube through its focus to heat oil, which in turn runs through a heat exchanger to heat water & make steam, which runs a turbine or steam engine, which turns an alternator.  In reality, it's a tad more difficult than it sounds though.  Look up "Kramer Junction SEGS plants" in Calfornia.  I've been thinking of doing exactly this on sunny desert land in northern Cal.  The problem is that the power company won't pay you much; only about a nickel per kilowatt-hour at best.  You'd need a pretty big farm to make any real money.

You can also buy used windmills from the wind farms in Cal.  150kw machines are available for $17k, which is actially pretty resonable.  That particular machine makes about $1000 per month at it's site.  They're removing them to make way for larger machines.  I thought about buying land in Wyoming, where it's cheap & windy, setting them up, & running them.  Even though Wyoming would pay far less for the power than Cal., you could still get about $400 per month per machine.  Of course you'd need a tractor trailer & a crane to transport & set them up, so the initial investment would still be substantial; say maybe $300k to set up 10 machines or so.  Hope that helped.

- George