I'll ask the question again. Solar energy vs. natural gas.

YES!

And, LABELS! LABELS on all diagrams! DONT just say that this is how the inverter is connected to whatever, label WHICH ONE is the inverter! They all look like rectangular boxes to me!

Another suggestion to those of you with lots of questions about solar or wind systems--attend on of the many energy fairs around the country. We always go to the one in June in central Wisconsin, http://www.the-mrea.org/energy_fair.php Admission is $25 or so for all 3 days. There are more energy fairs listed at Home Power:http://homepower.com/events/fairs.cfm
At the one in Wisconsin, there are workshops (included in the price of admission) ranging from basic electricity to siting a windgenerator to pumping water with the wind to eating from your garden to more technical ones about details of solar electricity, inverters, batteries, etc. You could get an extensive education, starting with the basics and getting much more complex, in the 3 days of the fair.
There are usually people there from almost every state and dozens of other countries.

Jim

Patarini---even if a pro installs it, it will cost a lot to have them come out and do the regular monthly maintanence/inspection of the system. Are you willing to do that? And to learn enough to know what you are doing?

And remember, some of us in different climates don't have the wide-open clear skies so our systems will have to store more and therefore cost more. I look forward to the day when it is a truly viable alternative to the average citizen, not just the do-it-yourselfers.

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Make Equality A Reality
HRC.com

[QUOTE=BCR]Patarini---even if a pro installs it, it will cost a lot to have them come out and do the regular monthly maintanence/inspection of the system. QUOTE]

Monthly maintenance? Our wind generator is supposed to get greased twice a year, and the PVs wouldn't need anything if they were on a tracking mount that followed the sun, rather than the adjustable mount that I built, that I adjust 8 times a year or so. I admit that I check the batteries monthly and add water many months, but other batteries that don't require this are available.
I don't think that a new system would require monthly servicing.

Jim

Sorry Jim, everything I have read says the batteries need checked monthly. I didn't know that there were others that could escape this care.

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There was an article in a magazine a couple of years ago that I thought priced a unit around $15,000. The problem is they don't have a mass production facility. I don't think the flywheel energy storage devices as priced won't show up in a home setup anytime soon. I'm hoping someone is working on an advanced composite material that will withstand a much higher speed, store more energy and generate enough demand to enable mass production which would drive prices down to homeowner levels.

Go for it as solar is a renuable(sorta) energy,as is wind theres a market for it I am working on a plan to produce 75% of a family's food budget using solar,and save money. So jusy ignore the ones who say No.

When we got our stuff the only place I could find in Okla. is Ensun in OKC, we have 2 -100W panels, a Morning Star Brand controller and started with 8 used batteries for $15 each, {*I ran them too low twice because some of our stuff is wired strait off the batteries and we are down to 5 now} even so we get by fine. It was hard to get easy to understand info and Bergy Wind in Norman tryed to talk us out of doing our own power system (well we didn't buy from them)

I think there is a market for more homemade power in Okla. if you can get started with a low over head and add inventory as needed to grow, it sounds good to my ears.

I have 3 wind genny's that are not up and running yet too, thats not exactly a one person job. And it would be great to have a store to go to and look at stuff and understand how it works before I buy it, just about everyone that hears about our equipment is interested to learn something about it, but everyone expects the cost to be too high, with just what we are useing now, $500 each for the PV panels, maybe $200 for all the wire and cables, $150 for the controller, $300 for the inverter, less than $100 for the batteries. Thats about $1,750 and it is all paid for, no monthy bill. We can add on to get more power when ever we want, and it will be paid for. Our gas generator was about $600, but it was purchased on its own to run power tools before we bought the solar stuff. And it was going to cost us $5000 just to have the trees cut down for the power coop to put in lines, that is JUST to cut the trees down, no labor on installing the lines and not the monthy bill either.

The people we have talked with seem to like the idea of a smaller system they can add to over time. Much like we are doing.

__________________
Thumper/in Okla.
Growing a Homestead from the dirt up.

save the grass, eat a cow
C.L.F.
{chlorophill liberation front}

Can some of you post some images and a rough drawing or sketch, to show us what you have done. The cost is interesting.

Thanks,

Alex

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Thou art That

several people have been suprised that our batteries are the sealed type and have no maintainace needs, the charge controller desulfates when the power {sunlight} is strong enough to do it. All we do is check them over for heat or swelling, either of which mean they have failed, and just remove them the rest are doing fine. The cheap price in a big plus for the used batteries and mixing used batteries is not so big of a deal, the ones that fail are removed, but never mix old and new batteries the old one can kill the new ones by drawing the power down. a bad battery is like an electrical vampire.

__________________
Thumper/in Okla.
Growing a Homestead from the dirt up.

save the grass, eat a cow
C.L.F.
{chlorophill liberation front}

I don't now how to post pictures I had done some before things where updated, I was never good at it, if someone would give me their email in pm I can email pictures now and they could post them for me, I have learned to do that correctly (most of the time )

__________________
Thumper/in Okla.
Growing a Homestead from the dirt up.

save the grass, eat a cow
C.L.F.
{chlorophill liberation front}

Maybe this site will give some explaination on how solar works.

www.solarexpert.com/Photovoltaics.html

Very simple if you have any electrical experience.

Jim - thanks for the HomePower link. :worship: I had tried to read info from that site in the past, but I was having trouble with my Acrobat Reader, and couldn't get any of the files to load. So the other day, I said, "I am GOING to figure out what is wrong if it kills me (or the computer)!!!" And it took a full uninstall of Reader and 2 tries of the download (which took the better part of the day on my dial-up connection), but I finally got it working. It IS a great article - I get it now! I still wouldn't want to install any of this on my own, but at least I know what different elements are required and why.

R.H. - the solarexpert site seems good too, now that I read that article at HomePower.

Now, to figure out the economic part of the puzzle...

Diana

I missed your earlier discussion or I would have said so then. I think solar is definitely up and coming. I think that while there will always be a few off-gridders, the trend is toward a huge increase in the number of grid-tied systems. This eliminates the storage and battery issues and makes the system much more affordable and less scary for the typical home owner. There are so many tax breaks and grants available now that more and more "regular" people are looking into it.

I think the big issue for you is location. If you live near a larger city, you should be able to develop a good customer base, particularly if it's a more progressive city.