are you using solar power?

[earthshepherd]

If you use solar power in your residence,
1. How did you get started with it?
2. What did you buy first?
3. What do you use solar power for, and what don't you plug into solar applications?

I want to get started with residential solar energy, maybe with just a few applications at a time until I get the hang of it. Websites seem to all be wanting to sell me thousands of dollars worth at once, or else solar energy designed for boats or RVs. I like the idea of living off-grid but I want to go there in stages. So... I thought I'd pick you-all's brains before I decide what to buy. ;)

[razz]

Not sure quite what you are asking. Solar power has many aspects. One can position a home and heat in winter by opening the windows to let in solar power.
Are you referring to specific units that absorb and store solar energy that one would buy?

[larknm]

We have solar modules on our small house in town, Santa Fe and on our smaller house in the mountains. The first is not nearly as useful, as it doesn't have batteries for storage, so we only get the benefit when the sun is shining. The mountain solar modules store in batters and have never cost a cent since we put them in. We get about 300 sunny days a year both places.

We didn't know what we were doing, and were not in a position (job, age) to do these ourselves. On our house in SF, we have 12 modules plus a big one for water heater. In the country, 3 modules plus a smaller one on the well house for our well pump.
The one in the country was put in by Adi Pieper, who has a book about how to do it--he's into empowering others.

Our friend, however, put up her own solar panel, one big one for a small mountain house (when I use small and smaller I mean 250-400 sf) by calling the local expensive solar module place and asking them how-to stuff step by step. They didn't believe she could do it herself (she was 60 years old), but she did, as has the man who lives above us on our off-grid mountain house. None of us in the mountains use any heat but woodstove, so the number of sizes of our modules don't accomodate for that.

All these houses are designed to get passive solar gain, and all are straw-bale. However, my friend who lives at ElderGrace, an old people's co-housing place (you can see it on the web and maybe find out how they designed theirs) and did a truly fabulous job of designing the passive solar. I am warm in her house when visiting her, with no heat on--this is in the dead of the coldest winter on record here (-40 some nights with the wind chill). Some days she has to pull down shades on the south side to keep it from heating up too much. They also have radiant heat in the floor there, but seldom need to use it--maybe at night. On man there is also putting solar modules on his roof--the roofs are designed so they can do that.

[Dharma Bum]

We don't have proper exposures to instal PV. So we have passive solar- the trees that block the sun are deciduous- and we buy green energy from our utility and some part of that is solar.

[Merski]

We have a true passive solar home that we had built with retirement in mind. Can't afford photovoltaics though the roof is designed to hold panels.

[loosechickens]

First let's define "solar".......because to many people, it means many different things. There is "passive" solar heating of spaces, by south facing windows, for example, there is solar hot water heating, and there are solar photovoltaic panels, which produce electricity. It sounds like you are talking about photovoltaic panels.

At this very moment, we are sitting in the desert about 15 miles west of Yuma AZ, miles and miles from the nearest electrical outlet, in our motorhome. Yet I am accessing the internet with a mobile satellite system, watching satellite TV, heating up lunch in my microwave, pumping water, using computer and sewing machines, reading until all hours last night with LED lights, etc., all courtesy of the solar photovoltaic panels on the roof and four golf cart batteries that store the power produced by them for use at night and when the sun is not shining.

We supply all our needs for electricity except for air conditioning (we mostly use the "ignition key" for that, moving according to the season to minimize need for either heat or a/c), and the side by side refrigerator/freezer, which we operate on propane.

Our system could be replicated today, batteries, inverter large enough to operate power tools, microwave, etc., and 600 watts of photovoltaic panels, for about $4,000-4,500.

RVs are far better suited for conversion to solar photovoltaics, for a number of reasons, but there are many ways that a fixed based home can be slowly, at least partially converted to solar.

With a "grid-tied" system, your panels are connected directly to your electric company's system, and when the sun is shining you use your solar power and feed any extra back into the electrical grid, and when it isn't, you use the electrical grid's power.

With a "stand alone" battery system, your solar installation is disconnected completely from any shore power installation. Usually used for remote locations, or if independence from the power grid is desired.

We have old RVing friends that are now living in a fixed based home, who have fixed up a battery system to partially power their electrical use. They put a few panels on the roof, used golf cart batteries and an inverter, just as if they were setting up an RV solar system, in their home, and wired several circuits of their home into that system.

The outlets in their living room, dining room, guest bedroom, bathroom, etc., (I think) are all on the solar system, so the outlets, lights in those rooms, their TV, stereo system, etc., all operate on the solar.

They did this, not so much to "save money" as to provide their home with a zone where, in case of power outages, they could maintain normal life, just as they were accustomed to being able to do in their RV, whether power was available or not from the grid. They had liked the independence that their RV system gave them and wanted it for their new home as well, but without spending many thousands of dollars.

Under ordinary conditions, all the power use in those rooms comes from the solar system, reducing their overall electrical bill each month. With help from Federal and AZ state rebates and tax breaks that reduced the cost of the system, they figure that the system paid for itself in just a couple of years. Yet, it will still be providing both the free electricity used in those rooms and comfort in times of electrical grid disruption for decades and decades. In case of power outages, they can still read, use lighting, watch TV, operate their laptop, sew, and if desired, can hook the microwave from the kitchen up in the dining room to heat or cook food. Even though they are living in a large city, the investment of a few thousand dollars has made it so that they feel more self sufficient, have the ability to be comfortable in times when the electricity supply is interrupted, etc.

They would like, eventually, to move the whole house onto solar, but this has been a way to achieve much of what they wanted to do without spending a lot of money.

Hope this helps......there really ARE solutions between "nothing" and "full house systems that allow you to do everything you are accustomed to doing with electricity, but with solar"......that achieve much of what you'd like to do, give opportunities for more independence in times of disruption, etc., but don't cost the amounts bandied about by many when they talk "solar power".

[maryD]

The house we bought at the end of last year already had photo-voltaic cells on the roof. My first electricity bill shows we are generating almost 60% of our power needs. When it is generating more than we are using, the electricity supplier buys it back from us.

The main disadvantage with our system is that if the mains power is cut, we don't have power at all. It must be about 20 years since we last had a blackout, and it was only for an hour or so.

Here in Australia, we get a fairly good rebate on installing solar panels. It would cost me about $2,000 to instal more panels to generate 100%

[earthshepherd]

These are helpful responses! I was indeed asking about the entire spectrum of solar applications in residences, not just solar panels, so I appreciate the broad spectrum of responses. For me the big problem is the transition from an all-electric house that I didn't desgn or build, for the most part, into a home that uses the sun as power, heat and light.
We built onto our house about 10 years ago and added skylights to that section, and we have a good south-facing roof (but no windows or doors on that side). But that's the extent of it. I would like to do what Loosechickens described, and try powering a portion of our home with solar panels. We would definitely need batteries in the system since we don't have the advantage of desert-style sunshine here! I don't know if there's any way to increase passive solar energy in an existing structure. That part stumps me. I suppose trees and window shades might be all we could add.

maryd, why doesn't your solar energy system work independently of the electric company? I would think a big reason to have photo-voltaic panels would be to have an alternative source of power when the electric goes out.

Thanks LC for your very comprehensive descriptions. We have talked about solar water pumps and heaters, and that may well be where we start. We have a well and it is really frustrating, when the power goes out, to know that the only reason we can't access our water supply is because the electric pump isn't working. So that may be our first project.

[loosechickens]

Ellen, Google on "solar water pumping" and you'll get lots of info....a lot depends on how deep the water is, how far from the house, etc., but in general, it's usually best to pump the water into a tank, and then use from the tank, since that allows you to do all your pumping during sunshine hours, but have use of the water 24 hours per day.......also a good "first use" of solar electricity, since ability to pump water during power outages increased self-sufficiency.....

[maryD]

Chickens

We live in a large city and it is customary to have home generated power hooked into the mains power system in our cities. When we generate more than we are using it is sold back to the electricity company.

When we lived up in the bush we generated our own power but were completely independant of mains electricity. It would have cost us $50,000+ to get the mains electricity put on.

There have been news stories this week about the cost of electricity per household rising to more than $4,000 a year, so an investment of another $2,000 worth of additional panels would seem sensible. We would then be generating more electricity than we use.

[loosechickens]

We have several friends with grid-tied systems, maryD, and my sweetie has assisted in installing several, including one quite large one for an environmental education facility. They are certainly good systems, although in some states, they are better than others, as some states mandate a good price for the electricity you feed back into the system, and others sell you electricity at a high retail rate, yet purchase your home generated electricity for a tiny fraction of that, but all in all, especially for people who just want their system to operate in the background without having to pay attention to it, and not to have to live within the "allowance" of power produced just by the solar system, they are great.

And you avoid all the battery problems. The one downside is that you lose the "self-sufficiency" in case of power outages, but.....

When we are parked on our lot at Glen Eden, we hook up to shore power for our refrigerator/freezer and to use the a/c the few afternoons of the summer that we really want it, but isolate the other circuits and power them completely with our solar panels, and our electric bills are a small fraction of those around us. We figure that our solar photovoltaic system finished paying for itself some years ago, and at this point, is producing truly "free" power. In the past 13 years, we did have to replace our four golf cart batteries once, but other than that, the system has been maintenance free.....we still have our original inverter, and all our panels are still producing higher than they are rated, so we're probably good for quite awhile into the future.

Germany has a lot of grid-tied systems, and in parts of Germany that we traveled through, it seemed as though virtually every south facing roof was covered with photovoltaic panels. There are SO many countries that are SO far ahead of us in renewables.......but more and more in this country, we are waking up to the possibilities and benefits.

[chanterelle]

I had looked into solar for this house, but access to sun, space for panels etc ruled it out.
What did help was the electric energy use audit that I did when I was trying to figure out what size system was appropriate for my needs.
Many solar sites have them to help you figure your needs for the panels. You list all electric powered entities in the home, what they draw and how long they are on each day, do a little quickie math tand figure what size system will deliver your needs.
I heat and cook with gas, so that isn't a huge draw in this house, but I was able to drop my usage by about 25% by investing in new appliaces which were the heavy hitters, thermal drapes and good ceiling fans, electric turnoff strips , moving my reading chair and sewing machines closer to windows, planning more big jobs to take advantage of natural, rather that manufactured light etc By just observing where the big draws presented them selves and evaluating my real needs I saved alot of watts.
Since you are looking to different zones for your solar needs this will help you to decide what is necessary and appropriate for youand you family.

[jp1]

To answer the question as to why you can't continue to use the solar power if the grid power goes down it's because if the grid is down and workers are working on the lines they don't want to risk being shocked or electrocuted by power being fed into the system by solar panels.

[Simplicity]

We just finished building our little house in the country. It is facing south and has huge windows on the south side. We burn wood in the wood stove at night, but if it is a sunny day we just rely on the sun. I am amazed at how hot it gets in here! even when it is bitterly cold outside, if the sun is shining it is sometimes too hot in the house. This means that our electricity bill is about a third of what it was in the old house in the winter and we are burning about half of the wood that we would have without the passive solar heat. I would have liked to have gone totally off-grid with PV panels and solar hot water, but the up-front cost was just too much - especially with shelling out the money to build the house too.

We will probably rig up some sort of solar power solution for the barn when we build it.

[redfox]

Just to be a bit flip... we all use solar power. If we didn't we'd be on an ice globe... something I find useful to say to those who don't "believe" in solar energy.

[dmc]

Ive considered putting up some panels, what with the tax credits and all, but it just doesn't pay off. I may go with some for solar water heating as that does have a reasonable return on investment. Hopefully the price will come down and make the panels worth the money, instead of the price of energy being forced upward to make the panels more equitable.

Its pretty tough to beat our local power plant. I pay something like .06 a kw. I own stock in the company and they have always paid 4% to 6% in dividends. But I will keep watching for alternatives if they become viable.

[princess]

Solar power for producing electricity (http://www.solarpoweraustralia.com.au/) for homeowners is hardly a new topic. Recently the subject of DIY solar power has begun to draw more attention as more focus is being placed on green energy. In order to build a solar panel system for your home, the panels will have to be encased in a shallow wooden box. Plywood or pegboard will both make a suitable enclosure.

[loosechickens]

" In order to build a solar panel system for your home, the panels will have to be encased in a shallow wooden box. Plywood or pegboard will both make a suitable enclosure." (Princess)

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Princess, what are you talking about exactly? If you are talking about solar photovoltaic panels, for electricity, nothing could be further from the truth. Our six solar panels on the roof of our motorhome are attached to the roof with aluminum braces, which can be adjusted at times of the year when the sun in low in the winter, to be tilted to a better angle, but there is no need for any kind of box at all.

My sweetie sold and installed solar photovoltaic panel systems for RVs, has taught for Solar Energy International, and worked on large solar installations for commercial buildings, and friends' grid tied systems. And, trust me......no plywood boxes.

Where did you get this information? Could you be talking about homebuilt solar hot water heating systems which have coils of black plastic pipe enclosed in "shallow plywood boxes"? Because solar photovoltaic panels are just fine on their own, and need nothing resembling a box.

Please clarify......thanks.