New to AE, need some advise

1 Posts
Sep 25, 2004 09:06 am
New to AE, need some advise

Hi Everyone:

Thanks to Hurricane Ivan, my home is now without electricity (I was lucky: most people lost their roofs, if not their entire homes).

From the looks of things, I may not get electricity back for months, so I'm looking into alternatives.

I'm looking for a 5kW+ solution, 220V/50Hz - gotta run the washing machine every now and then .

A petroleum-driven generator is one possibility.  But the running costs seem way to high - works out to approx US$560/month if I run it 8~10hrs/day.

Diesel is another possibility, with slightly lower running costs (~US$500/month).  But the initial cost is more expensive than the petroleum-driven solution.

My average bill - before Ivan took the electricity away - was about US$170/month

So, I'm looking elsewhere.  One thing we have a lot of here in the tropics is sunlight. Can solar power with battery backup fill my needs for a 5KW standby system, and if so, any useful links I can use to spec out a solution?


 
Sep 29, 2004 03:52 am
Re: New to AE, need some advise

Cost, thats the whole thing in a nut shell.
Typically speaking, an off grid renewable energy (RE) system utilizing; photovoltaics (PV), deep cycle batteries, and an inverter are only cost effective in situations where the cost of running a line from the power company is cost prohibative. Other than that the cost is about the same. The differance is in paying for it a little each month for the rest of your life or paying for it all at once. There is also battery replacement to consider.
So, if your bill was 170 bucks a month, that would be 2,040 clams a year.
Now, if you where to pay this bill for forty years thats 81,600 scamolies.
Wow! if I could of had that kind of dough all at once when I built my system knowing what I know now.
With a stack a jack that tall I would start with;
2 - 5548's
Around 2,000 amp hours of Rolls or HUP Solar One's or the equivilent @ 48 vdc and its eventual replacement.
Then figure up whats left over and spend that on the PV array and its infrastructure; mounts, wire, conduit, disconects, MX 60 charge controllers, and so forth and so on. Who knows maybe even a wind genny.
Or one alternative might be to learn to live without electricity and stick that wad in a sock.
But then again, you cant take it with you. There is a reason wy hearse's dont have lugauge racks and bumper hitches.
 

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