Howdy Folks, Geeks in the Country looking for Solar Powah!

[SkOrPn]

Well, lets see. My name is Rod, I am 46 and I am here to get a grasp (or pointed in the right direction is more appropriate to say) of what it would take to build our own solar power setup to try and get us off the grid entirely, or to try and break even with the power company. We are sorta doomsday preppers lol who believe the economy is never going to get better, only worse. Our Father is retiring here next year and we are wanting to invest in his/our future. We have 5 acres of land at roughly 7300 ft elevation in central New Mexico. Our electrical footprint is off the charts and appears that we use about 59 kWh a day or so average according to the last monthly bill of $260. Using our last bill, and some of the online calculators seem to suggest that we would need about a 10,000 watt system, which is difficult for our minds to wrap around (sounds like what a business would need). Its hard to believe that our family of five really uses that much power, but I guess facts are facts... Especially considering that we heat our home via wood and a efficient wood stove.

I hope to learn a lot in the coming months with what is needed and how much of an investment it will be. Oh, and by the way I am not an electrician but I am both a certified Electronics Tech and Computer Tech with 20+ years experience with soldering and electrical cable manufacturing for various companies. In other words we have ZERO concerns with building our own panels or wiring the system ourselves. I already understand the basics of how the system works, however, have not yet done the research into the hardware manufacturers, positioning and construction side of things. My little brother is the main one expecting me to do all the needed research and footwork of course. If the economy was to take a dump, we would want hardware that we could trust for years to come as our Mother has commented that without power she would end her life . Tools and construction skills are plentiful with this Family, my little brother Mike builds homes for a living (actually he's a Trim Carpenter) and Daryl builds and works on small engines, mainly he is a Generator mechanic, so I believe the skill sets needed here is already present and accounted for. Can us three brothers and our Father reasonably do this ourselves?

Anyway, howdy everyone hope the intro wasn't to down to business lol. Oh and Happy Holidays to all...

Rod

[peakbagger]

A subscription to Home Power Magazine would be a good investment and they usually have a deal on a CD of their archived issues. Basically they probably have covered every iteration of solar and alternative energy out there over the years.

The build it solar website is a good reference, just remember even though a project sounds simple it may not necessarily a good fit.

Dont buy any equipment except for one piece initially and that is a kill o watt meter which is a plug in device used to measure how much use every appliance uses. For the stuff that is hard wired into the wall and most likely the biggest electrical hogs you will need to estimate the loads based on nameplate data. Keep in mind the concept of negawatts, the money spent on efficiency to reduce your load is the best investment. If you look into the concepts of pasivhaus or net zero energy homes. you will see that you can build a home that gets most if not all of your energy from the environment. Sure it may cost a bit more up front but over the long run its a far better investment then any solar equipment.

The number one mistake of new solar folks is to buy gear and then design a system around it. You really need to come up with a load and then figure out how to reduce load, then design a system to supply it.

Unfortunately if you are voluntarily going off grid, plan on an actual cost of power being 4 to 5 times that of the grid price and depending on you time frame, you ultimately are going to depend on society being able to supply you batteries as they have a finite life. You really cant buy spares and store them for the long term. Some folks may advocate nickel iron batteries as forever, but realize most of the folks doing the boosting are one who make money selling them.

[Mike90250]

I agree with all of what peakbagger said.

Additionally, home-built PV panels, are NOT the way to go. Factory built, sealed, and 20+ year warranty is the way to go. Bare cells for sale, are almost always 2nds, mostly in ways that you can't test, and when they fail, the bad cells overheat and cause the magic smoke to leave the box. Packaging cells into a water vapor tight container, that can survive 100F - + daily swings and high voltage DC leakage, is sketchy.

[russ]

Solar thermal, both water and air heating, are far more practical DIY projects than solar PV. More efficient to start with.

[SkOrPn]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. We are going to go with a local guy who seemed really nice and can offer the 20+ warranty as well. We initially contacted some big National company on the internet and they must have given our number to this local guy who lives right down the road from us because he has a Solar shop down the street from the main Fire Dept. We like knowing its a neighbor a LOT and has done most of the solar in the area. It will cost a ton but we want something near bullet proof and designed proper and my brother found out we qualify to get it via signature. Wish I knew more about them but I dont because I am not the one who spoke to them. They plan on coming out first week of January to do an assessment for us to see what we really need and he commented that he does not believe we need or use that much power. We have decided to go all out with a 20k investment so I hope with that large of a system if the power grid ever goes down or the dollar/economy collapses this should handle most of the chores. We are mainly worried about the pump on the well and all the chest freezers and fridges etc. Mom does not want to go without satellite TV either jeez (which is in 3 rooms).

On the battery front. Isn't there Pure Lead type batteries with a design structure that can last 12-15 years or more on well controlled charges? Pure lead batteries should be able to store indefinitely when dry and not age at all, then when the time comes to replace a battery we could just add our own distilled water to one of the new batteries that were drained 12 years earlier, no?

Thanks everyone

[Mike90250]

Lead Acid batteries begin to degrade when acid is added to them. Pure lead is too soft, and does not work. Lead crystal seems to be a marketing term for AGM batteries that cost even more, because of the fancy name.

Forklift batteries have a long lifetime...

[Sunking]

Pure lead is too soft, and does not work.

Mike there is some truth to that but not entirely accurate. Pure Lead batteries has extremely long life spans because pure lead does not corrode, flake and scale like lead calcium and lead antimony. Th eTelecom sector has been using pure lead batteries for 60 years, and most of the better AGM batteries use pure lead to get maximum life out of them.

Many if not most of the AGM's uses thin pure lead in a jelly roll configuration. Pure lead batteries have much lower internal resistances and when rolled out thin and close proximity to adjacent plates can achieve extremely high discharge and charge rate.

Back to your comment your comment; you do not see a lot of pure lead flat plate designs because they are not good for mobile or other installations that involve movement or vibrations. Another reason you do not see a lot of them in consumer markets is they are more expensive, but pure lead batteries dominate the industrial sector. A great example is Fork Lift batteries in a tubular jelly roll design. Many of the fork lift batteries come with 10 to 20 year warranties, and be be discharged all the way down to 80% DOD and achieve 5000 cycles or more.

There is even a great Flat Plate design I have used a lot in large telephone offices, called the Western Electric Round Cell now manufactured by C&D. There are thousands of those still out there after 40 years of service and still test out to 80% and better rated capacity.

[SkOrPn]

Mike there is some truth to that but not entirely accurate. Pure Lead batteries has extremely long life spans because pure lead does not corrode, flake and scale like lead calcium and lead antimony. Th eTelecom sector has been using pure lead batteries for 60 years, and most of the better AGM batteries use pure lead to get maximum life out of them.

Many if not most of the AGM's uses thin pure lead in a jelly roll configuration. Pure lead batteries have much lower internal resistances and when rolled out thin and close proximity to adjacent plates can achieve extremely high discharge and charge rate.

Back to your comment your comment; you do not see a lot of pure lead flat plate designs because they are not good for mobile or other installations that involve movement or vibrations. Another reason you do not see a lot of them in consumer markets is they are more expensive, but pure lead batteries dominate the industrial sector. A great example is Fork Lift batteries in a tubular jelly roll design. Many of the fork lift batteries come with 10 to 20 year warranties, and be be discharged all the way down to 80% DOD and achieve 5000 cycles or more.

There is even a great Flat Plate design I have used a lot in large telephone offices, called the Western Electric Round Cell now manufactured by C&D. There are thousands of those still out there after 40 years of service and still test out to 80% and better rated capacity.

Yes, I was in belief that vented flooded lead-acid batteries made with pure lead were easily available although expensive. I did not know that there are/were batteries that could last 20 years though. My previous thinking was, if existed, to take a pure lead liquid acid battery that has removable vented caps, flush out the fluids, somehow dry it internally and then wrap with cellophane and store in a dark cool place indefinitely until it would be needed. Once, needed say 10-15 years down the road, remove the cellophane or heavy plastic, flush out again and add my own fresh electrolyte fluid (also properly stored) and hope the battery is still in ideal or near ideal condition. I was simply figuring that since pure lead does not corrode, and the plastics do not dry out or rot when removed from UV and Oxygen that this might work. For example, If you coat plastic with silicone and then remove it from oxygen (cellophane wrapping), it "should" help it last MUCH longer, if not for thousands of years. Then I could possibly store replacement batteries for an extended time, 20+ years intended in this scenario. In the Rubber Tire world, if you remove the tire from the ground, and remove all UV and Oxygen source from contacting the rubber it no longer ages (or is drastically reduced). Is this not the case with the materials used in making batteries? I know it would cost a lot, but we wanted to invest now rather than later when it may or may not be available. This family wants to have our own energy production needs taken care of now for a minimum of 25-30 years and we figure the technology to do so is already available. Yes, going the DIY route with heating and cooling would also be good options and more than likely looked into. On the water storage front, we have already two new electric backup pumps and one hand crank pump. Then we created a small 2.5' high earth damn located on the run off section of our land, and using a trencher (the kind for burying cables) we cut five rows 3' deep into the earth (to increase lands surface area and water depth, this helps wick water into the earth faster by my calculations) 5 feet apart and approx 100' long roughly 20 ft from the well. When it rains our land now captures tens of thousands of extra gallons in a small 50' wide lake near the well (the wells concrete lid and raised surface area is still above the max possible water line, so it should not get any surface contamination from heavy rain I hope), then the rain water absorbs and sinks into the long cuts much faster. Our well now stays full, and our 1500 gallon storage tank never drops below 80% even during heavy usage. Our tank is colored black sitting directly on the earth and at -20 it still does not freeze inside (except for a few inches on the edges and top of course). I wasn't sure if my idea would work, but so far all of last year and 2012 our tank and well has kept full or near full. 1500 gal should last 250 days minimum at a full gallon per day per person, but we plan to ration down further to say 1/2 gal per person per day if something was to happen to our ability to pump more water out.

I have even looked into building a water run off capture system on the house strictly for garden use, but have not yet started the project. Also, I figure our beloved pets wont mind drinking non filtered roof run off water, lol. Currently my father believes we have enough wood around here to last several hundred life times, but I myself doubt that. So I doubt I could get approval to start a solar heating project for the air unless it was very inexpensive. However, heating the water via solar could be something I could get the votes for, lol... Currently the water heating and cooking is supplied via a propane tank, and interestingly now that I think abut it its located on the South facing wall of the house, hmmmmm We already have the means to cut out the propane cooking using our outside wood burning grills ovens and stoves, but heating water must be done via propane. Since 1983, heating air has been strictly a wood burning event here so the stove is of course efficient itself. Plus, the 20K plus we spent on the new house siding several years ago has increased the heat retaining efficiency (we went from almost 4 cords a year down to 2.5'ish or less). The siding was NOT something we did for future prepping, it was done because we had the 100 year hail storm from hell and it damaged three sides of the house and the roof (and everything else). Now everything on the outside is brand new and working great including a new much thicker roof. Cooling in the summer has been via water evaporation, however we use a more energy conserving version that connects to a side window under a large permanent wood Awning/Deck. It seems to be more efficient when compared to the roof mount version it replaced, however we did not do any before/after measurements with our kill-a-watt meter and yes I should have so I have no clue how much that has helped (we still pay around $200 in electricity during the summer months). I remember we used to keep the roof swamp cooler on much of the June/July/August days, but the new cooler cant be on for more than an hour or two max without it getting way to cold in the house, and this is on a 100 degree day. So it seems like a keeper to me...

By the way, $200 a month for 25 years comes out to be $60,000 at todays rates. We all know these rates will only continue to rise (PNM has doubled the rates in just the last 5 years alone). If we invest that now, how can it not possibly save us in the long term, especially if the rates continue to rise, which needless to say is a given? Is a PV system going to cost us over $60,000 over the next 25 years to maintain and care for? Seems unlikely to me but we do not know, which is why I am here in the first place. Research is everything!

Anyway, I hope this solar PV idea of ours isn't doomed from the start as everyone else around here (the ones who control the finances anyway) seems to think this is the thing to do before Dad retires. My brother Daryl seems to think it will save the families lives (huh?). And my Mother wants to use the monthly energy savings to go towards more useful items like Doomsday survival gear and long-term food storage haha. Remember, she is not paying for the PV, and my brother Daryl would be, so she see's this as win-win for her and Dad, lol, and payback for him living here for 38 years rent free. My brother see's it as saving the lives of the family members he loves. And I see it as a fun project to be involved with before I bug out, haha...

Anyway, thanks for the information. Once I find out who this company is that is coming over next week I will ask around to see if they are competent or a scam. Thanks again...

SkOrPn

[Sunking]

Well I got bad news for you. If you go Off-Grid Stand Alone Battery electricity will cost you 10 to 20 times more for the rest of your life. So be careful what you ask for or else you might get it.

[SkOrPn]

Well I got bad news for you. If you go Off-Grid Stand Alone Battery electricity will cost you 10 to 20 times more for the rest of your life. So be careful what you ask for or else you might get it.

Haha, ok it seems so. guess all those panel systems out their were sad sad people indeed, lol... $600,000 dollars to keep up with solar WOW. Forget this idea...