Power Smart Pricing

those plans are great!  break out the timers, both ac and dc so that like you said, large ac loads happen at night and anything you can eek out of your solar happens during the day.  those types of plans only act as a multiplier to shorten pv payback.

james Alt-E staff

The new meter went in today.  It looks like "Gorilla Solar" is out of the question now.....

John

hi tom,

i know you do some great posts, and i know where you are coming from. 

I am still a renter, and for folks with economic motivation as well as altruistic, the time of use metering systems are a step in the right direction.  the solar grid tie takes pressure off the grid while the cheaper rates make a further incentive for homes to even out the daily demand load for utilities. these programs make policy changes attractive to consumers, utilities, and policy makers.  these changes spur energy awareness that helps everyone and often leads to RE.

i would love to be off grid, i know i can do it, but it is a lifestyle change that not everyone is ready for.  all the small steps along the way for "normal" (or oblivious to RE) folks needed to be applauded to push the middle into better energy behaviour as well as move policy that way. btw, i dont mean to imply john d is oblivious although he may be normal, haha. (thanks for reporting on your meter)

cheers,

james Alt-E staff

As long as you know John D. that my words are not an attack on you as some might be persuaded to believe.
But the whole electric power infrastructure (including RE,) well now, thats a different story alltogether.
As an example. One of the arguments that I have heard for using RE from the RE community is how "we are paying for our energy (IE; coal, oil, nuclear) out of more than one pocket."
If the cost of RE is so high that it means a civilian might have to rely on the government by way of tax incentives or just flat out welfare (in its many guises) in order to utilize RE at home, or that industrial and commercial corporations can get government funding for large RE projects, and even the RE industry getting government funding for R&D, then being a tax payer in the USA and a utilizer of RE technology, am I not paying for RE out of more than one pocket as well?

James C., I realize that this bulletin board is for the promotion of RE. That we would all like to keep an "upbeat" fervor regarding RE. But I refuse to believe the RE industry is an Innocent little lamb in this whole energy mix picture. By being persuaded to utilize clean RE in an attempt to save the planet (and for some, make a profit) might not the people of Earth be getting something of a subliminal message of sorts to keep consuming more and more energy (resources?) E=mc2 means, simply put, energy and mass, mass and energy are one in the same at the speed of light squared.

Prices speak louder than words.

Argueably, people from the not so distant past did not live as long. It could be said that they paid a high price by not having the energy technology we take for granted in our present time. But it would appear that it is the Earth that is paying the price now. If one takes a look at the time line of when energy use become utilize by the mass's and the population explosion starting only 100 years ago we can see the correlation. All of this energy we take for granted today is little more than a raft on the open sea and that raft is becoming grossly overloaded.

I fear that we humans have forgotten the value of sacrifice. We look back at people from the past and learn sacrifice to be the death of ones best livestock or a virgin to appease some God or another when it could be that all we have to do in our time on Earth is to turn off a switch or push a stop button.

Its been written that the overall cost of providing electricity via PV to an offgrid home is comparable to the cost of living on grid over a lifetime. Of course even in this there are variables such as how remote the home is or how much it would cost to extend the utilities to the home from the grid. What about large loads such as; pumping water, heating that water, cooking, refrigeration, heating the home, cooling the home. It can get tricky to say the least.
 Luckily we do not have to invent the means to have these things without all of the energy we use today. All we have to do is look back at how our predecessors lived. Of course the biggest obstacle there is in the fact that worldwide there are 6.7 billion people now, needing those samethings and those old ways just will not work on that scale. Or will they?

General George Washington lead the Continental Army to war, so that America could have its independence from Great Brittan (King Georges tyranny). Did Gen. George Washington have all of this energy we take for granted today at his disposal? I think not, and yet here we are today dependent on other nations for energy. Dependent on energy.

 When I read the words energy independence I relate this to being independent from energy. Not independent from one nation or another that is providing us with their energy resources.

I do not consider myself a "George Washington" of energy independence. If there is such as person I would gladly stand at his side though.

I will say it here and now. If the people of this American nation want to be independent of the other nations of this world for their supplied energy. Then the people of this American nation will need to be independent of supplied energy both foreign and domestic. If there is an enemy in this, its our own selfish desires for energy.

Where there is a will there is a way.