Conserve?
?
Well... I am currently displaced from the Northwest where nearly 100% of the electricity is one form of another of a "renewable resource". Still not sure why Washington need the WPPSS project (usually called the "WHOOPS" project).
I was stunned to discover that the reason gas prices go up in the summer and fall in the winter is because most of the rest of the USA use fossil fuels to generate their electricity. And AC is actually more expensive to run than heating. And, I just got to Nebraska/Wyoming for the first time and saw endless lines of black coal trains... Wonder what that will blow into our sky. And, what will we do once the mines are empty? Well, I guess that will be our grandchildren's problem. Maybe by that time we'll be colonizing Mars.
The other thing I found interesting is that while there are some efficiencies with "bulk generation", the majority of the electricity generated and put on "the grid" never quite makes it to our houses.
There are many ways to incorporate a Renewable Energy Design. In 1979, my parents decided to build a passive solar house. It wasn't as efficient as they hoped, but the greenhouse was quite good for growing cactuses. We also incorporated an early model of a water based heat pump, and added double the standard insulation as well as trying to build in some other conservation methods without actually giving up a thing. Of course, now, laws have changed and what we put in 25 years ago is now standard today.
I actually drive a mid-60's car (imported)... and get between 30 and 40 MPG... And, I just now purchased a "new" late 60's SUV which I am also hoping will also get around 40 MPG. Someday I will have an electric vehicle running off of solar energy.
Nearly 40 years later, I am still amazed that the AMERICANS haven't gotten it right and now the "BIG THREE" are screaming because nobody can afford to fill the tanks in their new SUVs.... And... yes, it does hurt when a year ago I could fill my tank for $5, and now I've had to pay up to $10 for a tankful.
Ok... so I digress a bit.
I have managed to fall into a need to run on "backup power", and decided to explore solar.
I went out and purchased about 300 watts worth of solar panels (288 watts), for a bit under $1000, thinking that in a day I could generate about... Ummm... 288 watts * 10 hrs = approx 2 KWH of power per day (of course being somewhat conservative with my calculations).
Well, after I got them up on my roof, I discovered that I had somewhat overestimated my power generation capabilities. I have some trees that are shading my array at times. I have a sub-optimal angle, and probably have some line loss too. And, of course, there can be CLOUDS. And... the ratings of the panels are a bit odd, as they are rated at 12V, but they don't seem to be concerned about the power they can push into a 12V battery.
Anyway, all told, rather than getting 2000 watt hrs / day... on a good day I get about 200 watt hrs. On a bad day, I can be down to less than 50 watt hrs.
Now, consider running your 100 watt bulb for a half an hour... Makes you think twice about conservation. Especially when I can run my 3 watt CFL bulb all day using about the same amount of power.
One starts counting the costs of little things....
Keeping my inverter plugged in so that I can have 110V whenever I want it... well, that costs about 3 watts for a small inverter, and a bit more for a larger inverter. So... for 24 hrs... we've got 72 watts hrs. That is about half my entire generation capabilities on a good day, and exceeds the generation capabilities on a cloudy day.
SO... just keeping that little inverter plugged in 24x7 costs me about $1000 initial investment. Of course, for that $1000, I can keep it plugged in for the rest of my life.
My high efficiency Bosch tankless hot water heater sounded like a good idea when I was grid connected... but it is one of the things in my house that requires 110V to run, and I cringe every time that it turns on the exhaust fan for 10 minutes longer than I have the hot water on.
Wind?
Well, I don't get enough wind in my back yard to amount to a hill of beans. And... I don't want to stay in my current house long enough to invest into tying a windmill onto my roof solidly enough that I could be assured that it won't go crashing into my neighbor's windows during the next thunderstorm, or head cartwheeling off down the street.
Surface Area... not sure that I could add 10x the panels to my current South Facing part of the roof. Actually, I've been considering putting a couple of panels facing South-West on my West facing roof.
Generator...
Well, yes, I will probably end up cheating a bit this winter. But, I have a strong aversion to sucking down fossil fuels to bypass my panels. However, I do have a 350 watt generator. It should be plenty large enough to run 3 - 100 watt bulbs. But, it is made to run on 12V/110V, and only puts out about 50 watts for 12V. Hopefully this weekend I'll modify it to run straight 12V.
What size do many people get to run a household? 3KW generators? It might be good if two people want to run hair dryers at the same time, but one certainly doesn't need to run a hair dryer all day.
Anyway... in my next house, I will probably invest in $10,000 or more in solar panels, and a few thousand in hot water panels, and maybe even some "HEAT" panels.
But, for now I find myself trying to learn to get by with the amount of power each day that it takes to power a typical space heater (or hair dryer) for about 10 minutes.
Let's see... if I can run the space heater for 10 minutes for $1000 investment. To run it for 24 hrs... ummm that would only be about $120,000 to run it 24 hrs a day.
The hard thing is... if I calculate my average electricity bill... about $20 to $30 or so. It is even several years to pay off my marginal solar system, and could take the rest of my life to save the money to put in a reasonably good system (assuming that we don't run out of fossil fuels in 20 years and also have the inevitable a "Chernobyl" in the USA).