Help!!!!

That's not too difficult but why would you want to use soalr cells for that ? Have you looked into the details of how little power they produce ( get the insolation data for wherever you live and multiply by 15% ) and how shockingly expensive they are.

If you want to be energy conscious, reduce your usage by means of thorough house insulation (which is pretty inexpensive) and if you like the idea of solar use solar thermal to preheat your hot water supply, don't waste money on hugely expensive stuff whose return is minute.

Wind turbines are also very ineffective at low heights (below about 80 feet) and especially so in built up / urban areas or near trees since these all act as very effective wind breaks.

Graham

First you need to find out if wind and or solar are good for where you live. If you are in the USA. anywhere in the south west is really good for solar. OK, TX, NM, CO, UT, AZ, NV, CA. The border where CA, NV and AZ meet is about the best place. Many other places aren't bad either just know what to expect. For wind it isn't quite that easy. There are spots all over the country that are great. Many places that people think would be good for wind power aren't. For example in Oklahoma City, where I live, many think there is lots of wind. There is a lot more wind than I would like, but from what I have read, not enough to make wind power worth the investment. However just a few counties north and west of Oklahoma city is a great spot. Which is where the power company put it's wind mills. So consult a map like this one....

You will notice a blue island that covers the north west part of Oklahoma, part of the TX pan handle, and some of KS. If you live in an area that is that shade of blue or darker, wind power is worth looking into.

Pick the right solution for where you live.

As for solar, I would wait about 18 months or so. A new company, nanosolar, is producing solar panels much cheaper than any one else. Their product is in such high demand, it will be that long before they are caught up with the demand. Currently you are hard pressed to find solar panels that cost less than $5/watt. Nanosolar says they will be selling them for $1/watt.

All that said I'm not sure how well your solar powered garage/electric car charger will work. If you are like most people, you are away from home during a lot of the day. Solar panels aren't going to give you much charge at night. Unless you do most of your driving at night, or you have 2 sets of batteries for this electric vehicle that can easily be swapped, I'm not sure the solar charger for the car will work very well. Another option is to hook the solar power up to an inverter that can be tied into the grid power (about another $1/watt) so you can sell the electricity to the power company during the day and then buy it back at night to charge the car.

Another thing you need to find out is how many watt hours does it take to charge this car? You can't design a solar/wind system to recharge it till you know how much power it needs.

snipped-for-privacy@mac.com wrote:

Once Nanosolar has panels available to the general public (18 months or so), solar will be worth the investment. Right now, I agree, they aren't worth it except in certain exceptional situations.

I don't know why this isn't pushed more. In a large part of the country, you could easily heat get more than 90% of your heat from solar thermal panels. Not just for hot water, you can heat your whole house with it. And the cost is much less than solar electric. Last I checked, if you used solar heat with radiant floor heating, you would see a return on the investment in 2 or 3 years and have nearly free heat from then on.

In a few years I hope to build a house that is solar powered. I plan to have close to 10,000 watts of solar electric and enough solar heat to heat the house. Most of the roof will be solar electric, because it takes a lot more electric panels than thermal ones to get the job done. The reason I want close to 10,000 watts is I want to sell enough back to the power company during the day that I will have a net return and have a negative power bill most of the time. I could probably do that with 6,000 watts.

Very true, but if you happen to live in one of the areas of high wind and live on or near the top of a hill/mountain. You cold place a wind mill their that was only 20 to 40 feet over the top and get good power. I suspect there are very few people that live in a place like that. For most people, it is probably better to leave the wind power to the power companies. If I lived in a high wind area I would have a 100 foot tower for the wind mill just so I could also use it for antennas. But since I'm not a big fan of wind (pun intended), that is very unlikely.

I'm curious to know how much taxpayer input is required to buy this energy back from your excess production.

What happens if you invest in this infrastructure, and the subsidy is reduced or removed?

PV is very expensive electricity, this being the reason that utilities don't use it, and I understand even PV factories don't use it :)

jack

Why would there be any taxpayer input? If you are some how making more energy than you use, and send it to the power company to then sell to someone who will use it, it is a win win. You make money from the power company and the power company gets a little extra power with no capital investment or maintenance costs.

In CA there is a subsidy for purchasing the solar panels where the power company will pay about half the cost of the panel which is a cost they pass on to the other customers. But that has to do with the cost of the purchase of the panels not the money involved in selling back in excess power.

Again the only subsidy I have ever heard of, and that makes sense, is in the purchase of the solar panels. The only way I see where the power company would not buy your excess power back is if they had so much generation capability, they didn't need any extra. That is unlikely to be the case. Even if they do one day stop buying power, just being able to generate your own power can be very handy.

I guess you missed the part of my post where I talked about a new solar company, Nanosolar, that is making solar panels MUCH cheaper than anyone else. The problem is they are still building factories so they can meet demand. For now your average person can't buy them. They are selling panels at just under $1/watt. At that price, it is worth the investment. A power company in Germany is using their panels to build a

That said you are right, the PV panels you and I can buy today are far too expensive to make it worth the investment except in exceptional situations, such as if you have a house so far out in the middle of no where that it will cost several thousand to get the power company run a line to your house. Also if you live in CA, the subsidy to buy the equipment helps. Even then, it still costs more than double what Nanosolar is charging for their panels.

So in 18 months or so when Nanosolar has enough production that they will start selling to everyone, Solar power will be very economical with or without subsidies.

I don't know where you live, but here in Australia you can simply buy 100% wind or solar energy from existing capacity on the grid. Much cheaper and easier than installing your own system.

Dave.