[KaiserJeep]

Exploding? By that, do you mean Powerwall batteries in a flood zone?

[GHung]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('baha', '.')........

In addition, my life as a solar thermal repair technician has lead me to HATE solar thermal It breaks a lot, people don't understand it, normal plumbers won't touch it. It will not add to the value of my house so I'm not going to spend any more money on it. After I replace the roof I will put one 4x10 panel on the roof to heat domestic water. I'll sell the rest of the stuff, or keep it for spares. You should see my barn

Live and Learn...

Ghung - I may put one of those electric floor heaters in the bathroom.

[KaiserJeep]

baha, how many thousands of dollars have you spent on solar panels, wiring, and Powerwall batteries?

I'm not saying you made a bad investment, but you are a solar professional and your DIY was way cheaper than typical, because of your own labor.

On the whole, electricity from large central power plants is WAY CHEAPER than distributed solar or wind energy, especially in densely occupied cities. Nor does the typical homeowner have the expertise to install such equipment safely.

Solar has a long history here in California. At one point almost a decade ago, my solar roof incremented the market value of my home as much as 10%. Now solar is much more common. One thing that has recently become evident is that lots of people who had DIY solar did not meet the PG&E standards for remote solar power plant operations, and created hazards for linemen who may be working nearby, since grid-attached solar does NOT have T-bar switches here. Such homes are worth LESS with such non-compliant solar installations, because they must either have the equipment removed, or the unpermitted installs corrected to the safety standards.

I'm guessing that Duke power does not control your solar power, the way that is required here. I sense that you resent them in many of your posts. It is not an unreasonable standard to give the company which maintains the power distribution infrastructure control over power plants which could backfeed the grid and kill their employees.

[KaiserJeep]

Without disputing your main points, look at what is happening in the market itself.

Firstly is flight from the rural areas to the cities and suburbs. In spite of the population increase, rural residency is still declining. Urban and suburban dwellers do not typically have the area needed to support solar or wind generation. My own modest 2.8kVA rooftop system is about all you can have here.

Secondly, the utilities themselves are the fastest growing segment of the green energy revolution. Medium and large solar and wind farms are what allow California to have many days with 80+% renewable grid power.

Lastly, the Doomstead does appear to be less and less likely to be needed.

[GHung]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'K')J said; "Lastly, the Doomstead does appear to be less and less likely to be needed.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('baha', 'I') know the MSM is talking about the power outages. There are trees down everywhere. My grid connection went down last Thursday at 4pm...right as the storm was leaving. The winds on the backside were worse. The grid is still down. Duke power says it may be fixed Monday. I have about 50 pounds of meat still nicely frozen and my satellite Internet is up.

When Peakoil.com went down I was starting to think this might be TEOTWAWKI. But it was just practice

My prior experiments have paid off. I disabled half my PV system when it became clear that this is a long term outage. No need for over-production now. The battery is still charged by lunch and I have been going down to 65% State of Charge at night.

It's funny. The MSM can't stop talking about power outages...before the storm it was the potential for outages, then they started counting them. People who have wells are without water. You cannot live without water. What good is your fancy house without water? Clearly everyone knows that electricity is a priority for your wellbeing.

But what do they do about it? Bitch and Moan!! When will you hook me back up? How will you pay for my new infrastructure? You ruined all my food!

There are many 100's of thousands of people out there right now who wish they had their own Personal Power Plant.

Nuff said...

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('baha', 'I') will still maintain that if you took all the infrastructure away (like in a storm) and then priced out different options to replace it. Solar and batteries is very competitive with miles and miles of copper and aluminum wires, poles, transformers, and lineman.

You keep living on the successes of the past...I have already moved into the future.

[KaiserJeep]

baha, I noticed that you chose to answer questions I had not asked, while ignoring what I did ask about. Never mind, it is none of my business what your system cost. I was not prying into your affairs in any case, I only wanted to explain realisticly to the other forum members what the true costs of distributed solar and wind energy are.

Here in California we have the CARB (California Air Resources Board) and CSI (California Solar Initiative), which distort the financials greatly but have us on the path - even ahead of schedule - to reach our 100% renewable grid energy goal a couple of decades from now. (We had multiple days in 2017 where we exceeded 80% renewables, and five days where we reached 100%, using a combination of purchased power and what we generated in-state.) The key factor is the state mandates "Net Metering", forcing the power utilities to purchase energy at the same retail rate they sell it to consumers. That is in fact very unfair, because when I use my excess power production to zero out the electricity portion of my power bill, I'm not paying my fair share of grid maintenance. In fact everybody who does not produce their own energy is subsidizing those who do (solar/wind/hydro), based on the CARB and CSI legislation, even if they are in the lower income brackets and I am not. CARB is also requiring that increased numbers of vehicles be "zero emissions" as the years pass. (Of course, a Tesla or other battery electric car is anything but zero emissions when it is charged on a grid powered by FF energy generation.)

The last part of the puzzle is the cost of the system, and mine cost me $0. That was made possible by other California legislation permitting what are called PPA's (Power Purchase Agreements). That is a financial arrangement where somebody else buys solar panels and puts them on my roof, and I buy the power at the fixed electrical rate from 2010 when my system went online. I saved $320 the first year and $570 in 2017 from my electrical bills, and as rates increase, I will save more, my costs are fixed for the 18 year PPA. Meanwhile the system (originally sized to provide 90% of my electrical power) now produces more energy than I consume, since I retired my 1hp swimming pool pump and laid out some of my own cash reducing my power consumption, primarily through LED lighting. But really, what this is all about for me is guilt-free A/C, on sunny days I am producing 2X what my modest 14,000BTU portable A/C consumes.

Such (fundamentally unfair) legislation is why California leads the nation in renewable energy, even though it is the most populous state. But now I would discuss national averages, even though regulations and grid power costs are different state to state. The national average cost of power produced by rooftop distributed solar is about 2.1X that of grid energy. Add enough battery storage for 4 sunless days, and the costs escalate to somewhere in the range of 3.5X to 4X the cost of grid energy. Which is why even years later, those with solar roofs today are pretty much enthusiasts like you or me.

My last point being that medium and large renewable energy projects are more practical than distributed renewables. These medium to large projects, every thing from solar roofs on mall parking lots and high school parking lots, to the wind farms, to the large molten salt mirror array in the Mohave desert, are being financed and maintained and operated by the California power utilities. The power produced in these larger scale projects is much cheaper than from rooftop solar, and require no knowledge or effort from the consumer, it's a win/win propostion that also pays for the power grid distribution and maintenance, as every grid-attached electrical consumer should.

The downside to medium-to-large renewable sources is that they still cost more than FF power generation. Which is why we are using that regulatory club in California to get consumers off of FF energy. But note, nobody at all, in California or Texas or the Carolinas, is promoting "Doomstead Style" off-grid power generation. Nor is that practical - consumers are already killing themselves wiring their own homes, and operating an independant rooftop power plant, even with professional installlation and an intrnet connection to the vender, is simply not a good idea.

Harebrained schemes abound in renewable energy. A few years back a startup bellied up down the street a mile or so away here in Silly Valley. They were promoting fuel cells and hydrogen distribution, without properly managing the risks. Their demonstration home exploded.

[GHung]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'K')ub said; "I was under the impression that grid tied Solar PV systems go down during a grid failure for safety reasons: The utility doesn't want your Solar PV array to electrocute a lineman working on the grid to bring it back online. How did you still have power during the blackout?

[KaiserJeep]

Again, you are a renewables enthusiast and not a typical electrical consumer. I have discussed electricity with my wife who is an intelligent woman with a college degree. She basicly believes that electrons are tiny things like peas racing through hollow wires. Nor does she understand why the less than 1 watt LED nightlights I have sprinkled around the house are better than leaving room lighting at minimum setting on the dimmer. Nor does she want to understand, because that is what males are for.

I know you are settled in in your custom home, but that is an atypical situation. Most people are resisting solar, even here in California, because of the way it looks. Add to that some impact to residential resale values, and the solar industry would belly up. Here in sunny California, I have to have one more form at the home closing, to transfer the PPA to the new home owner.

[kublikhan]

I am not anti-solar Ghung. I just recognize the fact that from an economical point of view, it makes more sense to go utility solar vs rooftop solar. It's much cheaper. Of course there are exceptions such as:
1. Those who don't have a grid connection in the first place.
2. Those who are happy to suck the government tit of subsides.

Independence? That's a nice fairytale. Unfortunately grid connection or no, offgridweenies are still dependent on civilization just like the gridweenies are.

And as I said earlier, the financial argument for cutting the cord and going completely off grid doesn't make sense.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;As far as being completely off grid, it's kind of a foreign thought to me because you've always had to rely on the utilities," Fleischmann said. "We could do that, but at what cost?"

Even the leader in the residential electricity storage industry — and supplier of Fleischmann's $26,000 battery system — doesn't see consumers defecting from their utilities.

"True off-grid is ridiculous," said Blake Richetta, senior vice president of Sonnen Inc., who oversees the German battery maker's U.S. arm that is based in North Hollywood. Not only is it costly to turn your home into a virtual power plant, Richetta said, but it makes the consumer's home an island that would be unable to tap the central power system if the off-grid operation fails.

[GHung]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', 'I') am not anti-solar Ghung. I just recognize the fact that from an economical point of view, it makes more sense to go utility solar vs rooftop solar. It's much cheaper. Of course there are exceptions such as:
1. Those who don't have a grid connection in the first place.
2. Those who are happy to suck the government tit of subsides.

Independence? That's a nice fairytale. Unfortunately grid connection or no, offgridweenies are still dependent on civilization just like the gridweenies are.

And as I said earlier, the financial argument for cutting the cord and going completely off grid doesn't make sense.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;As far as being completely off grid, it's kind of a foreign thought to me because you've always had to rely on the utilities," Fleischmann said. "We could do that, but at what cost?"

Even the leader in the residential electricity storage industry — and supplier of Fleischmann's $26,000 battery system — doesn't see consumers defecting from their utilities.

"True off-grid is ridiculous," said Blake Richetta, senior vice president of Sonnen Inc., who oversees the German battery maker's U.S. arm that is based in North Hollywood. Not only is it costly to turn your home into a virtual power plant, Richetta said, but it makes the consumer's home an island that would be unable to tap the central power system if the off-grid operation fails.

[KaiserJeep]

I noticed you shied away from the financial side into an argument based on owner satisfaction with a personal power plant. But Kub and myself (remember I DO own solar PV and believe in FF exhaustion) are also correct, you pay a considerable amount of cash to be off the grid, and depend on skills that few electrical consumers actually have.

Although the Nanny State we have here in California troubles me, and I'm moving away from it, I have to admit that California has made more progress on renewable energy than anywhere else, even with all these people here.

TANSTAAFL.

Lastly, I wonder what you will do after TSHF, when starving children appear at your doomstead:

...what derailed my own intent to make my next home - also my retirement home - into a Doomstead was the fact that I have never behaved selfishly in my entire life. I have always given money and services to those less fortunate than myself, and I don't see that changing when times get tough. I wouldn't have a Winter's worth of food that first year, after feeding everybody I knew and even strangers in need of food.

NOR, come to think of it, does making your own electricity make you self-sufficient. Most people buy food, use health services, have vehicles that use fuel, and consume internet for entertainment. All of those things depend on the power grid being functional.