Bruce's Journal

[B&B Happy goats]

Happy Anniversary Bruce

 

[Bruce]

Thanks Barb

Got an email from the solar company, they want to put the panels in Thursday next week. That is good! Not sure that they will be doing electrical work at the same time or not but they seem to do things with crews that have a single function so the electricians could be doing some stuff while someone else is putting up the racks and panels.

 

[thistlebloom]

So that will double your solar capturing capacity?
We seem to have an overwhelming majority of dark days in the winter season. Is there some sort of calculation of sun hours/year that makes it more cost effective in some locations?

Oh! And happy anniversary to you and your wife!

 

[Bruce]

Thanks!

Not double but the new panels/electronics are apparently more efficient than the 5 year old ones. The original array is 24 panels, 6.6 kW. The new one is 12 panels and 4.3 kW.

 

[Baymule]

Happy Anniversary!

Are you off grid?

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

As others have said, Happy 30th Anniversary!

Thanks for the pictures. I hope the installation goes smoothly and quickly.

Regarding the GT with the snow blower, how about some pictures?

 

[Bruce]

Are you off grid?

Nope. Right on the road though based on the wiring in the original part of the house I suspect they didn't have electricity until the 40's. One would definitely need a generator AND a big bank of batteries to be off grid in Oct - Feb. We generated about half of what we used last month .... EXCLUDING the electricity to charge the Leaf. I'm not so sure that off-grid and electric cars is currently a viable combination. There are losses going into and out of the batteries. The Leaf has a 62 kWh battery, would likely need twice that to reliably run the house and charge the car.

The "sad" thing about grid connected solar is if the grid goes down, the inverter shuts off (presumably so someone working on the line won't get fried) so even if it is a bright sunny day you have no power ..... unless you have batteries.

Given the current IRS tax credit rules the batteries can not be charged from the grid (not that they would likely come around to check) but the design is to run the house off the solar and batteries, extra going to the grid. Not putting the heavy hitters on the batteries though. Like the electric wall oven, bathroom floor heat, EV charger, pool pump. Will definitely have the well pump, lights etc "off grid" except for when we don't make enough power to fill the batteries. Our battery storage will be 27 kWh though one shouldn't drag them all the way down to 0 nor charge them to 100% with any frequency, doing so shortens the life of the batteries. But, IN THEORY, during the sunnier times of the year we should be able to run the house off the batteries.

Regarding the GT with the snow blower, how about some pictures?

No snow yet! Well, it is flurrying lightly now but it is just above freezing so no accumulation of the expected 0.3" :lol

 

[Baymule]

Thanks for the explanation on your solar.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Mr. @Bruce,

I saw on the weather report that New England is about to get hit with a bad Nor'easter, with snow in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and maybe even Massachusetts where Miss @rachels.haven is. I hope you don't get hit too badly.

 

[farmerjan]

Looks like they are already getting hit. Heard there is alot of power outages.