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Anyone using Solar to offset their electricity?

McGuiver

McGuiver

I originally had solar installed to offset my high electric bill. This is before I had any grow lights.

Now I am really glad I did.



Here my grid-tied system is producing 2.2KW of power at about 10am. 90% of it is back fed to my power utility.

Anyone else have solar power?

It was the best investment I ever made besides a house.
 
Come on tell us how much your lights are drawing.
I bet the irony starts in summer when your installation starts to produce like crazy and you're better off putting your plants outside anyway.
I guess it's perfect for the seedlings though.
 
2.2KW is a nice system!
 
One of my projects for this year is to build a solar panel out of a box of slightly chipped cells I bought on Fleabay a while back. This will be a Ghetto affair, hand soldered and utilizing a dumpster-rescued dual pane windows and sliding doors as panel frames.  I'm planning to use Enphase or similar microinverters and do a quality 'guerrilla' installation.  This will cut the outrageous installation costs significantly.  Living in a mobile is kinda nice, there are very few regulations restricting projects such as this.
 
Minor rant: It somewhat irritates me that much of the Gov't subsidy and incentive money winds up in the pocket of the professional solar installers. I appreciate that no one wants Homer's Solar Station to burn down the neighborhood, but if we really want to put massive solar on as many roofs as possible the installation process needs to be streamlined and simplified.  DIY kits that Joe Sixpack can largely install on his own would be great.  After Joe is done, hire an installer / electrician to do a ~1 hour inspection, sign off, and flip the switch.
 
Geonerd said:
 
Minor rant: It somewhat irritates me that much of the Gov't subsidy and incentive money winds up in the pocket of the professional solar installers.
Click to expand...
 
Haha I think MOST of the subsidy and incentive money goes right to the manufacturers. It wasnt too long ago that one of them went bankrupt right after Obama gave that specific company hundreds of millions. I remember it being in the news but my details may be off.
Oh I guess it wasnt too hard to find.
 
In 2009, the Obama administration fast-tracked Solyndra’s loan application, later awarding it $535 million in guarantees from the stimulus funds.
 
Aug 31, 2011 1:40pm
 
A California solar panel manufacturer which President Obama had made the poster child of his effort to expand the green economy and grow jobs has filed for bankruptcy, the company announced today.
 
Solyndra said “global economic and solar industry market conditions” forced it to abruptly shutter its Fremont, Calif., factory and immediately layoff more than 1,100 employees.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/08/solar-energy-company-touted-by-obama-goes-bankrupt/

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Where's my stimulus funds? Half of what Solyndra got in a one time lump sum would do nicely.
 
Solyndra - the perfect example of marketing monkeys and sleazy business types hyping a gimmicky product... and dumb-shit politicians believing them.
 
For the same amount of semiconductor material, simply unrolling those dumb, geometrically inefficient cylinders and making a flat panel would have delivered greater overall efficiency AND reduced cost of manufacture.  It's no surprise the company imploded.
But hey, it wasn't a complete loss!  I'm sure the Chief * Officers got their slice of the pie! 
 
Oh it is worse than that. To prop up the subsidized producers they put tariffs on cheap chinese panels. Instead of promoting more people using solar the policies made it more expensive. The very people who promote solar make it more expensive. It has nothing to do with the environment. Not sure if it is getting re-elected, control, money or stupidity.
 
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