PV solar calculators

I used several on line PV solar estimators to figure out how much electricity I would generate with a 7.8 Kw system. As of right now, eight months of results, the system has produced about 9% more than the calculators predicted. I don't know if the calculators are intentionally set to estimate on the low side or if my system is just better than average. I have 60 Kyocera 130 GT modules and 2 Xantrex 3.0 inverters. The inverters are too small for the system, and honestly I would preferred Sunny Boy inverters, but Gary at GoSolar, my supplier, carries Xantrex. I didn't think the MPPT function in the inverters would make much difference but some of the above average output can be explained by the MPPT. The panels are 300 feet from the meter so there may be some loss at the meter, the cable to the meter is 3 wire 4 gauge tray cable, since copper prices are high the cable was $1200, but as I have said we didn't want the panels on the roof because of shading, roof angle and being able to get to the panels to take the snow off.

Best free electrcity sites

I live on Long Island. Most of the year high humidity and pollution make hazy days. 7.8 Kw is a large PV system but not huge. But most of the US can get the same or better results from a much smaller system. Here's a map from the www.nrel.gov site that shows the average annual solar energy for the 48 states.

As you can see most of the US gets a lot more solar energy than does Long Island, greens and yellow. About two thirds of the US does better than NY. For these areas a 5.0 Kw system would yield more electrcity than a 7.8 in NY. So a 3.0 Kw system would probably be enough to supply the average 3 bedroom, moderately energy efficient home.

Cheap geothermal

I hate hot weather! I my lifetime, 60 years, I've seen the summers get consistently hotter. One of the changes I've noticed is that it stays warmer at night in the summer than it use to. This is a result of global warming. The Earth, maybe earth, does not seem to be able to release the heat of the day as fast as it did 30 or 40 years ago. It turns out that this is a consequence of the greenhouse effect. Air conditioners are only a mediocre solution to staying cool here on Long Island at night. They use a ton of electricity but worse they are noisy. I like the quiet sounds of the night when I sleep not the roar of an air conditioner. In order to fix this, I'm building a cheap geothermal cooling system. I'm going to dig a hole 5 feet deep in my basement, put a coil of 20 feet of copper tubing in the hole, connect some rubber hose to the tubing with hose clamps, run the tubing up to a car heater core in the bedroom and put a small computer case fan in front of the heater core. I'm also going to put some of that foam pipe insulation over the hose. To move the water in the system I'll use a small water pump in the basement. The ground temp at 10' below the ground surface should be about 60 degrees F, so slow moving water should cool enough to cool the heater core.

So how much does it cost?

A 2000 watt PV grid tie solar array can cost as little as $10,000 before rebates and tax incentives. What can 2000 watts do? Unless you're very energy efficient, you will probably still have to purchase some electricity from your local utility. In most of the US you can probably expect yearly output of about 2500 Kwh, cutting your electricty usage by a quarter or a third. I haven't replaced all the lgiht bulbs in our house with compact flourescents because I still like incandescent light for some uses. Here on Long Isalnd if can get very damp and incandescent bulbs which use about 90% of the electricity they consume to produce heat which can move air and create some heat while providing light. But there are plenty of places in homes where flourescent light is fine. I can even read by the light now. Most older kitchens have a flourescent in the kitchen; put them in hallways, the garage and basement. The new compact flourescent spotlights are great for outdoor use. The bulbs last a lot longer than incandescent bulbs.

The Price of gas, food and everything else

Over the past few weeks the price of gas has risen steadily. Last summer I told my co-workers to watch the price of gas fall before the beginning of November (the elections). I was right on the money. NPR did a story that the price of gas can't be controlled by the governement. If Bush said, "we are going to invade Iran," what would happen to the price of oil? Oh mighty ethanol, save us from our addiction to oil! Well, not quite, aside the fact that ethanol is inefficient to make, can only be moved in stainless tankers (truck or rail), it is presently made with stuff we eat. I wondered when all the ethanol plants came on line how we would eventually deal with the increase in food prices. All meat is corn. We don't use sugar to sweeten food because sugar is expensive and soon so will corn syrup. Any fuel you make from stuff we eat will have the same effect. Farm corporations love this solution to the energy dilemma.

How do we get out of this? We have free energy. Solar, wind and geothermal can heat and cool our buildings, power our vehicles, power our computers, light our homes and save us trillions of dollars. Notice how corporate controlled media says, "no, it can't." If every house in the US had some solar panels on it, used energy efficient appliances, we drove plug in hybrid vehicles, used solar and wind generated electricity to convert water to hydrogen, we would go a long way to getting off our addiction to oil.

Don't get wrong I love corporate America, I just hate spending money for stuff that can be had for free, in this case energy. I don't mind defending America, but why say you're defending America when in reality you're trying to get more oil, and at what cost? Do you get what I'm driving at? This isn't an Al Gore is right thing, it's a way to do things more efficiently.

When I can't sleep at night, I listen to America's Truckin' Network. Almost every trucker is a true red state neo con. They hate Gore, they LOVE the Iraq war (Bush is keepin' America safe), but they hate paying more for fuel. Now, honestly, if I had my way no truck would carry anything furhter than the nearest rail head, but if the 50% of the population of the US drove plug in hybrids, we used geothermal to heat and cool our homes, and we used NO oil to generate electricity, these guys would be paying a buck a gallon for fuel.

Four years, still waiting

I'm not a Conservative. I am a registered Republican. Theodore Roosevelt has been a hero of mine since I was a child. "Speak softly and carry a big stick." I had no problem with the invasion of Afghanistan. Invading Iraq was about oil! If we really wanted to get the terrorists, we should have invaded: Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Pakistan. Having said that, I don't believe we should withdraw, although I feel the entire fiasco will cost us a TRILLION DOLLARS before we are done. I believe that the entire misadventure has been mismanaged, think Katrina on a grand scale. I don't think all is lost in Iraq, but we really need a new direction and some new ideas. The Iraq Study Group has offered really great ideas. I guess Bush just can't admit he made a mistake. If we continue to go along the path we are currently on, we will eventually flee Iraq in defeat just like we did in Viet Nam. Interestingly, the new perspective on Viet Nam is that we were not defeated, we did not provide adequate support for our troops. Well, kids, I was there, yeah I know I'm an old guy, and I'll tell you, we defoliated most of the south with napalm, carpet bombing, agent orange and Rome plows, and we still couldn't get rid of the ARVN or the Cong. It was a civil war just like our civil war, but not like Iraq, the north wanted to unite with the south. Short of nuking Hanoi, we did everything including losing 55,000 Americans. So Gen. Keane tell me how we were not defeated.

Iraq, I'm willing to wait a little longer to see results. We owe it to the Iraqi people for destroying their country, turning a dictatorship into anarchy and causing the death of hundreds of thousand for innocent civilians in the process. I challenge the Bush administration to implement the ideas of the ISG. How can he go wrong, his present plan is a disaster, if he uses the suggestions of the ISG and they fail, at least he can blame them, because right now he's looking a little ... well, you know.

The wind turbine controversy

I have friend who put up a 60' tower with a 4 Kw wind turbine on it. He owns a small farm and decided this would be a good way to get free electricity. I was concerned about all the dead birds that would pile up under the tower. Two years and no dead birds! I live on the south shore of Long Island where the local utility wants to put up wind turbines off shore. You might actually be able to see the turbines on a clear winter day, but honestly, the mist is so heavy on most days that they would hardly be noticeable. Do we really want to keep paying for expensive oil to generate electricity or would you like to save a few bucks? Long Island had a dismal experiment with nuclear power. It's an island, with 10 bridges and tunnels to get off of it, all it one end of the island. You figure it out, if there were a nuclear accident, it would takes days to get off Long Island. Who cares if burning oil is causing global warming, why are we spending all this money on oil when you can get free energy. Free, that's the problem, no gigantic corporations are making money, so no huge contributions to buy candidates for office. I used Kyocera PV modules, that's what my supplier had, do you think Kyocera is funding political campaigns in the US?

But I digress, for years here on Long Island small wind mills pumped water for agriculture and residential farm use. The towers were about 60 feet tall and somewhat charming. Why not allow land owners with enough land to erect wind towers to generate electricity? Wind is so much better than solar that it's silly to compare them. My friends wind turbine is always spinning, day and night, all year long, and NO DEAD BIRDS!

Do you really want to support Arab countries?

Go Solar

(631) 727-2224
272 Main Road Riverhead (Aquebogue), NY 11901

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OK, so I think the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea, from before Congress authorized the war. I had no problem with the invasion of Afghanistan, afterall, that's where the terrorists were training. The Taliban were nuts. I even put up a photo from the NY Times over my desk at work that showed the contrails of the B-52's circling over Afghanistan. Saddam was a third rate dictator who wasn't very 'Muslim' and probably didn't want terrorists in his country. We had a 'no fly zone' over Iraq, and he wasn't the first dictator is commit mass murder. The UN was willing to look for the dreaded WMD. We probably would not have invaded Iraq at all if it had not been for the oil. Kuwait is about the size of Connecticut with about the same population (3+ million). A lot of bigger countries get invaded, and the US does nothing, so why bother defending Kuwait? OIL! The oil companies have a lot of influence on our government, Bush, Bush, Cheney for example. So effectively we go to war for oil, because we are 'addicted to oil.' PV solar and wind don't produce the corporate profits that oil does. The US secret energy policy is 'make oil campanies richer.' Halliburton got no bid contracts for rebuilding Iraq and providing support service for our forces in Iraq. Yes, they do provide these services to oil companies, but for years the military cooked its own food. But because the US government is controlled by oil money, you and I have to pay more for everything.

Global warming or Saving money

I have lowered my electric bill to about $6.00 a month (line connection charge) and reduced my CO2 output by a fairly large amount. I happen to drive a Corolla, I don't like paying for gas or buying it too often either. When I needed a new car, my Tercel lasted 11 years and I knew it wouldn't pass its emissions test with 210,000 miles on it, I did a simple spreadsheet on a Corolla versus a Prius, at the time I used gas at $2.50 a gallon. Recently I ran the same sheet with $3.00 a gallon for 200K miles.

The Corolla is a ULEV that gets 36 city and 40 highway (it's manual transmission and I live on Long Island so there's A LOT of stop and go). Also, I'm waiting for Toyota to make a plug in version of the Prius, since I get my electricity for free, so why not use it in a car?

Do you see my point, even if you thought that global temps were plummeting into another ice age, why would you want to spend more money than you had to for energy? I know you need your SUV for the snow and off roading. OK, be honest, how many snow days and how many times have you gone off road? Was the $20,000 premium for an SUV worth it, while you're getting 12 miles a gallon?

Global Warming - Real or Imagined

First, let me say that I believe that human activity is causing global warming. That said, others feel that naturally occurring events are causing an increase in global temperatures, and honestly I would like to hear from both sides. The point of view of this blog however is that regardless of which side you believe, certain things we can do can be beneficial to the environment and to the economy. As you can tell from the title of this blog, I installed a 7.8 Kw photovoltaic grid tie system last summer. The system generates enough electricity in a year to supply two moderately energy efficient three bedroom homes. I'm sure that there are people who really do want to pay higher electric utility bills, I'm just not one of them. My local utility will purchase any electricity over what we use, but that was not the reason for installing the system. In my case the first reason was that I have always wanted to generate my own electricity. When my interest in doing began, there were only two ways to do this that offered low ongoing cost: wind and hydro. Wind normally requires a fair amount of land (so the tower doesn't crash into your neighbors house). Hydro means you have a stream or river on your property and dam it up (something of a rural no-no). My focus switched to solar when it became a viable alternative. The system is ground mounted in order to get a true south orientation and optimum tilt (35 degrees, 6 less than latitude, to increase output in the summer when the grid needs it). The total cost of the system was $46,000 before rebates and tax credits, $9,000 after $31,000 rebate and $6,000 federal and state tax credits. The output since October 2006 has been about 3,000 Kwh of which 2,000 Kwh went to the grid. December has the lowest producing month.