Solar Panels

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rob Lay
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Rob Lay

Rob Lay

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I have used solar panels a couple times. When hiking in Alaska we were 50 miles from any power and gas generators not allowed. I had a portable solar panel I used to charge up batteries to keep my phone, GPS, and sat phone charged. At farm in Oklahoma we put solar panels on the hay barn. Unfortunelty Oklahoma not good about paying for the power, but will credit your account back to zero every month. Power company not easy to work with, they hate customers with solar!

We're waiting to see how home battery technology evolves, we would like to do that eventually.

IMG_4764.webp
 
Lead works great, lots of low cost reliable tech to chose from and by the time in 5-6 yrs they need replacing, lithium will have
dropped 60%.
Best is golfcart batteries should be $80 each plus core and give about 1kwh each. Get them from a car parts store and they bargain way down as batteries are marked you 100%+.
I generally use 2-3kwh/kw of solar and a DC generator to recharge the battery directly, efficiently.
East Penn/Deka, Johnson Controls are the quality low cost ones and they make many of the name brands.
I'm doing Volt modules which are under $100/kwh but no BMS yet but will have one soon for those I sell. My own I do volt limit charging and a out of balance warning system that detects anything wrong from a cell to a bad connection.
Lithium really isn't cost effective over $200/kwh so for now used EV modules are the only cost effective choice.
 
I'd never use Lead Acid batteries. They are toxic and have short life so life cycle they cost more.
Much better choices are Lithium or Nickle-Iron. When you normally replace lead acid the Nickle keeps going for 20 years. That's about 3 to 4 sets of Lead acid.
You can even go Off GRID but to really get even use the power company like they want to use you. They can give you super low rates Off Peak and if you also have an Electric car. Then just use them Off Peak or as back up if you ever run low on a charge. Play their game and win.

Check they on https://ironedison.com/
 
jim said:
I'd never use Lead Acid batteries. They are toxic and have short life so life cycle they cost more.
Much better choices are Lithium or Nickle-Iron. When you normally replace lead acid the Nickle keeps going for 20 years. That's about 3 to 4 sets of Lead acid.
You can even go Off GRID but to really get even use the power company like they want to use you. They can give you super low rates Off Peak and if you also have an Electric car. Then just use them Off Peak or as back up if you ever run low on a charge. Play their game and win.

Check they on https://ironedison.com/
Click to expand...


Apparently you've never used NiFe as they lose 10%/day, only 60% efficient to charge thus require a 30% larger solar system to make up the losses.
They cost more than lithium which also is still too costly but lithium is 99% efficient and no detectable drain losses.
They cost 700%-1k% more than lead batteries. If they are so bad why do you have one in your car?
I've been driving lead EVs for 26 yrs that also run my home, V2H, when needed and doing offgrid systems for 40+ yrs and there has never been a more cost effective new battery than lead. Hype doesn't count, $/kwh does.
Only with the availability of used EV modules does lithium become cost effective for a limited group of people that can handle them. But we EV people know how. ;^)
 
New Solar Tariff. With the new Solar Tariff on non USA made panels it should be a big boost for USA made panels like the new Tesla factory in Buffalo NY. SolarWorld, Sunivea, Gigawatt and SunSpark. I think SunPower also has factories in the USA. They are the best in the World too. QUOTE= Most of SunPower's solar panels are manufactured at factories in the Philippinesand Malaysia, but it has a small domestic solar manufacturing facility in Milpitas, which recently celebrated production of the 500,000th solar panel. One megawatt is enough to power about 750 to 1,000 homes.
 
The batteries while nice are over $600/kwh which is too pricey. I sell used Volt lithium for just $150/kwh and they will likely last 20 yrs.
Solar will drop with this tax losing more jobs than coal even has and only raising costs on everyone.
The companies were badly run by Chinese and German owners no one else wanted but Trump latched onto it so he could hurt solar and help his
FF polluting friends.
I'm just starting a Plug and Play solar company and this just raised my cost and sales price 20%. I'll never buy a Sunivea panel as they are one of those that caused this mess.
The way to tax is set up to sunset in 4 yrs by the time a new plant got built, running half the tax would be gone and 2 more yrs, completely.
So it gives little incentive for them to move here.
Plus the US is no longer the big market for solar so the world doesn't need this market, it's unfair costs.
 
jim said:
New Solar Tariff. With the new Solar Tariff on non USA made panels it should be a big boost for USA made panels like the new Tesla factory in Buffalo NY. SolarWorld, Sunivea, Gigawatt and SunSpark. I think SunPower also has factories in the USA. They are the best in the World too. QUOTE= Most of SunPower's solar panels are manufactured at factories in the Philippinesand Malaysia, but it has a small domestic solar manufacturing facility in Milpitas, which recently celebrated production of the 500,000th solar panel. One megawatt is enough to power about 750 to 1,000 homes.
Click to expand...

We just moved into our first home and already have a meeting for Solar City to come in March to take a look at our roof and assess our energy use to see if solar makes sense for us. With 2 EVs and an all electric home (no gas) I think it will.

I was initially very upset about the tarriff, and depending on how it affected prices, I was considering putting off installing solar for another year or two. But looks like it's not nearly as bad as I expected it to be. If the assessment I read holds true, it won't make a difference in our decision to install this year or not.

https://news.energysage.com/2018-us-solar-tariff-impact-prices/

"On January 22nd, 2018, the Trump Administration levied a 30% tariff on solar imports to the United States. The tariff covers both imported solar cells, a key input to manufacturing solar panels, and solar modules, otherwise known as solar panels. According to a fact sheet released by the U.S. Trade Representative, this tariff will last for four years and will fall by 5% annually, dropping to a 15% tariff in 2021.
...
Market experts estimate that the impact of the tariff in year 1 will be between $0.10 to $0.12 per watt. For a typical American homeowner, that represents only a 3% to 4% increase in the cost of a solar panel installation. (This corresponds to a recent analysis conducted by Greentech Media.)

By year 4, the tariff’s impact falls to only $0.04 to $0.05 per watt, which results in less than a 2% increase in installation costs. It is worth mentioning here that leading solar manufacturing countries like China, Taiwan and South Korea can simply reduce their export prices faster, and render obsolete any impact of the solar tariff."

 
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