Alternative Energy

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Since the Y2k awareness, I've entered into the Alternative Energy Realm.

Are there any others that are new to solar panels, battery backup, inverters, autostart generators?

It would be great to link up to a forum somewhere with like-minded people to learn more about this topic. I've only scratched the surface and would enjoy learning from some people educated on this subject. cork

-- cork (corcorab@hotmail.com), January 08, 2000

Answers

Go check out plugpower.com for residential fuel cells. I've been harassing them for a while to make me a demo household.... it may actually happen.

Cost: roughly 7000.00, then ~25% savings on monthly power bill.

Their model is called the Microgen, and GE is handling the marketing/sales stuff.

Now if I could only retro-fit my truck with a natural-gas burning motor........

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), January 08, 2000.


Good thing to consider...especially after omething I read where the world's oil is now having to be pumped from the wells and there are more wells going dry or pumping lower grade oil. Not many years ago the wells would spray from the pressure....just a thought, but alternat energy might be a real consideration. Just consider it like this...oil is a fossil fuel-it is a finite supply. And at several hundred million gallons a year, how long can it last? Maybe not in my lifetime...but soon, before the next 100 years, I can bet there will be tremedous fuel shortages......

-- Satanta (EventHoriz@n.com), January 08, 2000.

I've been reading up on alternate energy for several years. So far, I have a windmill (1927 Aermotor), I heat with a wood stove, I have a solar cooker, a solar dryer (AKA clothesline), & misc solar gadgets. Someday I hope to be off the grid but it is really not cost effective yet. I hope that changes soon! Here are some URLs for places with great alt energy info: http://www.realgoods.com , http://www.dulley.com/ http://www.jademountain.com/index.html http://solarcooking.org/ It would be great to have a forum just for alt energy. A good place to go if you have questions is Dulley.com. Also, the catlogues from Dulley & Realgoods have tons of great information & explanations. I hope the URLs help!! Carolyn

-- Carolyn (artchicks@yahoo.com), January 08, 2000.

lisa

I have been following the Microgen development for some time. It does look like the real thing. I wish they would have left the design more flexible. For example if they had left the unit output pre-inverter then a constant load of 2KW could be provided to a battery bank. This would even out the load on the fuel cells and permit the operation of the unit at 40%+ efficiency. At 40%+ efficiency electricity could be generated for less than 6.5 cents per KWH. With hot water recovery the capital installation costs are competitive for retrofitting existing electrical customers.

It would be nice to see more discussion of alternative energy technology to help increase the signal/noise ratio. Thanks cork for the idea.

PS. I have found the Trace inverters to the be the best on the market (YMMV).

-- PA Engineer (PA Engineer@longtimelurker.com), January 08, 2000.


what you want is the alt.homeenergy news groups. quite a few of those. Just got the solar panel frame in place and now installation tomorrow. Planing on building a methane digester for livestock output. A'la Tom Good. Plan to make my own fuel.

bon chance.

pliney in rainy country.

-- pliney the younger (pliney@puget.sound), January 08, 2000.



Ran out of time (31 Dec) suspense date. But what I had time to do is:

I installed an 18Kw generator with a 250 gallon fuel tank to a 4024 trace inverter. All my essential loads are on automatic. The generator has an autostart feature.

The inverter is connected to a powerpanel and a 1350 amp battery bank. The batteries run the entire house for about 12 to 14 hours.

The generator automatically starts when the inverter tells it the batteries are low, then it runs the loads and charges the batteries.

I didn't have time to install solar panels. If anyone knows of a good package deal, I would like to finish this project and get the solar panels.

thanks for the help cork

-- cork (corcorab@hotmail.com), January 08, 2000.


The leading newsgroup on solar energy topics is alt.energy.homepower (Yes there are others...I started several but this has the most traffic).

There's lots of solar info online too....Links to almost everything from our website at http://www.homepower.com.

BTW...Home Power is the leading magazine on Solar, been published for 12 years now and you can download the electronic version of our print editions at the website. Tons of other useful info there too.

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), January 08, 2000.


Alternate electrical energy is still too expensive from an initial investment plus upkeep cost! Environmental concerns are that the hardware has to be manufactured and some day to be disposed of. So if you have some day millions of independent power sytems, you also have to tackle that issue. No argument that emergency backup power may be useful, or that it serves a purpose where power would not be otherwise available. Crank the numbers through first, and you will see how far away we are from making a kilowatt hour at 6 to 10 cents ourselves!

-- W (me@home.now), January 08, 2000.

But, W, doesn't taking as much coal-fired capacity offline make up for the production costs (ecologically speaking) of alternative E?

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), January 08, 2000.

I know that there are lots of other people on this fourm who either have or are into alternative energy. We have a big system with PV and wind. Maybe this topic should be moved to the prep fourm (I assume it still exists). Alternative energy is only expensive until you want (read need) an assured source of juice. We considered putting one in pre-y2k because we got bummed out on our 8 kw generator for back-up.

California has a buy down program and we went with it last year. The parts for our system cost $45K and we got $11.5k rebated. I installed it for free.

Todd

-- Todd Detzel (detzel@jps.net), January 08, 2000.



Cork

I found the Helios to be the best buy so far on the market. I assume your system is 24V with a 50% maximum drawdown. Am I correct in figureing on 16.2KW Load? Which area of the country do you live in? I may be able to give you the design projections you need for solar. Only one thing, that is alot of power. If interested I could give you some utilization ideas to cut your load down.

PS. Not fair to brag about inverters;)

-- PA Engineer (PA Engineer@longtimelurker.com), January 09, 2000.


Instead of 7000 for a 25% reduction in your bill, how about 10,000 for a 100% reduction? WHo knows, you can probably do it cheaper. Solar panels are getting better and cheaper, down below $6 a watt in some cases. I have to stack 2 trace inverters for 220 volt loads, if you don't have to do that you will get for less.

Sold on SOlar

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 09, 2000.


Forrest

I think the $7000 is the initial fuel cell unit price (this is suppose to drop to $3000 in 2003) actually might make for an improved backup generating unit. With heat recovery and easy conversion to hydrogen this will open up many more options for solar. Your opinion? In my neck of the woods we are "Langley Challenged". The worst place in the lower 48 for solar. The fuel cell application here helps to make solar competitive for us.

-- PA Engineer (PA Engineer@longtimelurker.com), January 09, 2000.


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