Yeah sure, Get Solar - Now No Capacity To Connect To The Power Grid

a reply to: starfoxxx
So, why can’t Stacie buy an inverter and a bank of marine batteries?

I have an inverter and a solar panel driven Goal Zero, works fine?

originally posted by: starfoxxx

originally posted by: marg6043
But I do not understand, isn't the reason to go solar, to get off the grid? my brother got solar, but still have to pay the city for electricity to stay connected.

Many homesteaders, uses batteries with the solar panels in order to no depend on the electrical grid, soo I find this interesting.

One big scam marg I thought so too

but they have it rigged you can't even use the damn things
without the electric company.

I looked into it with a lot of questions written down. Basically it boiled down to it being a scam. The company who provides the installation and equipment makes you sign over the government incentive check unless you buy it flat out cash.

Also the fact that it will not run the house in case of a power grid failure. So what’s the point of having it in the first place?

The solar panels also outdated after 5-10 years lol

The loan itself counters the saving you have over the power bill. Again Scam.

The only thing that it’s benefiting is the solar panel companies.

I live in East Tennessee, each of our electric coop’s are connected to the TVA grid. We don’t seem to have any problems connecting to the system. My company is currently engaged in a project that will produce 27 Kw’s for one client.

a reply to: Narvasis

A step up transformer maybe?

a reply to: boredhere74

Household power (220/240 VAC) is dual-phase. 440 VAC is three-phase. A transformer alone will not change the power from 2-phase to 3-phase.

The power company has 440 VAC three-phase available inside the transformer on the street. They simply use a single phase of that 440 VAC to drive a transformer that converts to 220/240 VAC two-phase. Other homes may be on other lines of the 440 VAC three-phase to balance the power usage. It's much easier and cheaper just to have the power company run a 440 VAC three-phase line to your home. Most companies require you set up a business account for that and they will require a licensed commercial electrician to sign off on the inside wiring. I have heard that the commercial agreement also includes an indemnity clause in case someone tries to do stoopid; touch 440 VAC the wrong way and you'll never see the flash from the short. It'll fry a person's nervous system immediately.

TheRedneck

With leadership like this I expect they use electric toothbrushes instead of toilet paper.
It might explain the crap coming from their mouths most of the time.

a reply to: BlueJacket

So, why can’t Stacie buy an inverter and a bank of marine batteries?

There already is a inverter. There has to be. Solar will not power AC without one, grid or no grid.

In order to kook up a grid-tie inverter, one must attach directly to the power entrance to the house. That cannot be done without permission of the power company; power must be disconnected from the house completely during the tie in. No power company is going to allow someone to hook to their wiring without permission. If they did, a single customer could crash the entire local grid at will and cost the power company millions of dollars in repairs and lost service.

The article states there is "no room" for connections. That is a bit misleading. The only way there could be "no room" would be that there is actually "no capacity." As I explained, every grid-tie system causes a tiny amount of distortion in the grid power, so if too many connections are made to private supplies, it can cause serious power issues throughout the grid. That's likely what is happening.

Stacie can add batteries and use her system as a stand-alone system, but I highly doubt she will have power in the morning when she wakes up. Batteries have a very limited capacity; to make a private solar system truly stand-alone would require hundreds of batteries and cost tens of thousands of dollars... and still would have a limit should the sun not shine brightly for a few days.

I have an inverter and a solar panel driven Goal Zero, works fine?

Is your power grid distortion overloaded? Yours is apparently not; hers apparently is.

TheRedneck

I live in a motor home and have solar panels on the roof and at the moment have a relay that during the day my 12 volt refrigerator and lights run on solar and at night they run on my 120 volt ac to 12 volt dc converter.
Next step is to get 500 amp hour lifepo4 battery bank to store my daytime solar for nighttime use and add an inverter for my 120 volt power. And connect it to the generator side of my motor home generator system.
That way, it can not back feed the grid.

Then I can turn off the main breaker on the inside power panel that takes in grid power. And the meter will stop turning. Except for a 20 amp LED bulb to keep the power company happy.
Right now I use about $90 power a month and I look to cut that to $10> dollars a month. That will drive the RV park nuts when I am only using a few dollars of power a month..
my problem is I can not get a tax break on the solar because I don't pay any taxes, being on social security and VA service connected disability. Nether are taxable.

a reply to: infolurker

You would need a pure sine wave inverter to get mains compatible AC out of the panels, and a relay to switch when batteries are becoming depleted.

You could even use the battery banks in electric vehicles as additional storage, if you gave it some thought.

Some power utilities have allowed solar and wind electro-voltaic generated power to trickle back into the mains, and reduce the bill, provided it is phase locked to the mains and their meters can deal with it.

Easy.

depending on the location this has always been the problem with going big into solar.

Power companies have a pretty good lobby, no way they want to get cut out of the process.

originally posted by: chr0naut
if you gave it some thought.

Easy.

Some thought ok
and $100000000000000000000 gajillion bux!!

Sooooo, what that quote says to me is the entire current power generation for the USA could completely be transformed into solar and there would still be some redundancy....

Why don’t they just do that?

a reply to: infolurker

There’s also flywheel and gravity well storage.....

a reply to: crayzeed

a reply to: LizzidPepo

I have solar panels and am hooked to the grid. I pay about $13 a month service fee and I get credit for excess usage, i.e. me feeding the grid. At the end of the year they give me a few pennies for whats left. If I wanted to save the connect fee, I could get a battery setup that would allow that, but the monthly payments on that system would be more. It would be nice tho' for when the electricity goes out.

Get an electric car they said ...

It's so much more efficient....

*Cough bull*

a reply to: ADVISOR

Then get that big electricity sucking plug at home, you know for convenience.


My brother still pay 200 dollars a month for electricity in Puerto Rico with panels.

i looked into solar in new jersey to get off the grid. i was told by my solar company that it is illegal in nj to be off the grid. crazy. a reply to: marg6043

a reply to: WeDemBoyz

Research research research my friend.

Unless you plan on living at that location for 20+ years, solar might not be the best bet.

People who've installed panels find themselves screwed if they sell their house because the lease follows them. Sure, the companies will tell you it can transfer to the new owner but "can" is the operational word here.
Talk to friends, neighbors, groups who've gone that direction to make sure it's right.

Ignore anything the installers/sales reps tell you.

I have at least 3 guys a week come cold-calling on my front porch, trying to sell me

originally posted by: TXRabbit
a reply to: WeDemBoyz

Research research research my friend.

People who've installed panels find themselves screwed if they sell their house because the lease follows them. me

And this!

I totally forgot that it’s usually a personal loan and not part of the primary mortgaged loan of the house.

Non savvy mortgage holders don’t read the fine print.

a reply to: TXRabbit

I plan on living in, or at least owning, this home for the rest of my life (im 49). For as much as I pay for electricity, solar will pay for itself in 10 years or so; and that assumes our rates won't continue to rise, which we know they will. I've researched enough to know that I should have made the transition years ago. Good advice on not listening to salesmen. I've done research, I know what I want, I've talked to my neighbors who already have solar and gotten their bits of advice; I'm well prepared. I'd do it tomorrow, but I missed the window to apply for local subsidies for this year, which will be an additional 5K on top of the federal subsidies.