Solar panel related question -- help please

fossil fuels, are all antiquated failures.

concentrator boiler to power steam drive turbines

HVDC onto the grid.

existing infrastructure remain in place.

wasted on tax credits.

locations, satellites, and small scale

Here in Florida, many of the billboards have several solar panels installed. I talked to an installer and ask about batteries, because I never see any from the ground. He said yes they are there. I wonder about payback and whether these are subsidized with hard working tax payer money. Mikek

If you pay attention you'll see that a lot of those billboards are installed where there is no electric service available at 120/240. Some have no medium voltage distribution lines nearby, as well. So it can cost a lot more than the price of the solar equipment than to have power lines built. Just like mountain top transmitter sites with megawatt diesel or propane powered generators. that get refueled once or twice a year and only in warm weather.

Hey Fred, where the heck is normal air pressure 1.5 atm?

It's not air pressure- it is atmospheres- to account for the actual spectrum of the light reaching the surface after absorption effects of the atmosphere.

I'm sure Google is absolutely devastated by your disapproval of their practices. After all, what has Google ever done compared to your intellectual prowess.

fossil fuels, are all antiquated failures.

concentrator boiler to power steam drive turbines

HVDC onto the grid.

existing infrastructure remain in place.

wasted on tax credits.

locations, satellites, and small scale

The sun works much better down in Florida than it does up here in the pacific northwest....

You know, even oil companies get subsidies from the government from our hard working tax payer money.

boB

Really? When they replace their tax deductions with subsidies?

NiCd batteries have a seriously short life compared to the rest of the devices in solar. Lead acid may be less advanced technologically, but they have a long lifetime if you don't deep cycle them. I worked for the railroad once and they had lead acid batteries in service for over twenty years! Of course they were running at very low duty cycles as backup for signals, etc.

Not only is $0.01 not a realistic price, even $0.10 is pretty low if you consider all the costs. Including transmission and distribution, I pay some $0.15/kWh in the eastern US and that doesn't include the misc other fees on my bill. With that it is closer to $0.20/kWh. So if I were to go off the grid, this full amount is my reference point for comparison.

Also, here in Maryland the state mandates the utility buys back customer generated power, but that is only at the generated cost which is currently < $0.10/kWh. I guess the utility then gets to bill transmission cost to other customers for my juice they are selling to them. This would be pure profit.

Rick

What does HUP mean?

Does the lead in these batteries get recycled 100% or nearly so? Is there any environmental impact from LA batteries?

Rick

fossil fuels, are all antiquated failures.

concentrator boiler to power steam drive turbines

HVDC onto the grid.

of existing infrastructure remain in place.

wasted on tax credits.

locations, satellites, and small scale

No, they don't as it turns out.Where applicable, they get depletion allowances as do all mining concerns, and they get machine depreciation. There's nothing special about any of it.

I don't see it that way. I live in a small city with a couple of four lane roads with plenty of business's and billboards. The power they need is here. All I'm aware of are retrofits, not new installations.

BTW, where do live that they have no electric service available?

Mikek

There's no electrical service in your front yard.

Take the school zone radar speed detector. Probably costs $200 for that solar panel and batteries to run it. Now, call up the city and ask how much to dig up the street to tap into that power pole across the street. Then call the utility and ask the initial and recurring costs to get 2 watts of power to your detector. Then call up accounting and ask what it costs to add another account to the payment schedule. Solar is a no-brainer for low-power projects when you have no viable/cost-effective SYSTEM alternatives.

That's an interesting point. The distribution costs didn't change much when you left the grid. So, the rest of us have to pay more. It's easy to say that one person leaving the grid is good. It's easy to say that everybody leaving the grid is good. All that space in the transition is a bitch.

I former cow-orker is off-grid in the back sticks of Vermont (90% of the state). He has a PV/battery system with a generator for backup. A friend of my uncle's had a generator/battery system because he was

I HAVE ELECTRICITY. However, a lot of billboards are along highways with no low voltage available to power them without spending thousands ot tens of thousands to install a transformer, poles & wiring for a tiny load. i see them along the Interstate in places there are not even high tension towers nearby. I see them in similar places along Florida state & county roads. Some of those retrofits may have been done after the hurricanes took down existing lines and they didn't want to pay to replace them.

the idea of a light dipole antenna and rectifier is not a new idea

Mark

It's easy to say things, but much harder to work them out in feasible detail, and harder again to do it for real. That patent is completely cracked.

I think I'm still the world record holder for optical rectenna conversion efficiency--QE of about 7% at 1.6 microns--so I think I can say with assurance that patent has no plausible detection mechanism whatsoever. 75% quantum efficiency? With 1967 lithography and no detailed mechanism? Don't think so.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

The subsidies are in the form of large tax deductions.

Same thing.

boB