by KaiserJeep » Thu 24 Mar 2016, 16:16:38
Most of you, it would appear, are not competent to manage just your own wallets, let alone a homestead.
I left this thread alone and just read it for amusement from time to time.
Note that Centralized Energy is not a Sacred Cow, it is a triumph of modern technology. For more than a century we have been building and using our power grid and large centralized power plants to go with it.
Over the last half of that period, we have delivered power at an average burdened cost below $0.100 per Kwh. In just the last two decades, that has risen to about $0.113 per Kwh, because of the inclusion of renewable energy sources other than hydro, and the de-emphasis of nuclear energy - which is the cheapest form of power other than natural gas and coal at this point in time.
Note that I used the term "burdened cost". The price includes the construction and operation and maintenance of the power grid and all the various power plants, all the way to the feed wires attached to your circuit breaker panel - the panel and the wires in the walls, you own. "Burdened cost" also includes a reasonable profit for the power company.
Now I realize that not everybody is an EE like me - but I could not let this thread continue without an injection of reality - which is needed by everybody except Tanada.
In late July I will have had a Solar PV roof for 6 years. During that time, those premium mono-crystalline silicon panels have produced power at a burdened cost of about $0.437 per Kwh. When the next owner of my house must decide between the $0 purchase of the panels or the lease renewal, the 18 years of solar roof would have produced power somewhere in the average cost of $0.230 per Kwh, competitive with urban grid power here in Silicon Valley.
Of course, I am not actually paying $0.437 per Kwh. Thanks to the California Solar Initiative and the Federal EPA and the terms of my panel lease - called a "Power Purchase Agreement" - I am paying today - and the next owner will continue to pay - only $0.227 per Kwh, the average retail power price when I signed the agreement in 2010.
In other words - while enjoying a six figure income and owning a residence in Silicon Valley, I shamelessly took advantage of the foolishness of the average California taxpayer, and Federal taxpayers everywhere - to lock in my power costs, and to boost the resale value of my home by approximately 10%, for $0. This cost relief (aka "other people's money") was in the form of State and Federal tax rebates and a grant from PG&E, my power company.
I have done several studies of distributed power generation costs when I modelled home ownership in rural Wisconsin over the last few months. There may be several things that most of you have not considered as part of your analysis. For example, the impact to the fire coverage portion of your homeowner's insurance is about a 270% bump - if they know you have a homegrown power plant not designed and installed by professionals using all UL or CSA components, and maintained and operated by an amatuer such as yourself. If you presently have such a power plant and have never paid the premium they want for such coverage, then they have more than enough to deny coverage after your house is totalled by fire.
I could go on and on - my roof panels only get washed once per year here, which is not enough for me, as I can see an appreciable increase in power generation after the cleaning. But that's not enough incentive for me to get out on my roof - six times in six years - to clean them myself. But when my solar inverter "phoned home" and reported that it was overheating, I did get my shop vacuum out to clean the air filter - because as an EE I knew how to unplug the fan and where to stick the air nozzle to clean it without getting zapped.
Got a clue yet? If you are planning a wind turbine on a tower, are you going to lubricate it yourself, climbing the tower or lowering it to the ground with a winch? Because both tasks are way more dangerous than cleaning a solar roof. Will you be attaching a dial indicator to assess the wear on the alternator bearings? Are you planning a weekly inspection of your battery room, including the watering of batteries and the checking of the hydrogen gas venting?
Believe me, generating your own power is something way down on your priority list at a doomstead. You would be better off considering advanced strategies for composting waste vegetation or advanced manure management strategies than spending time thinking about your own power plant. Your first concern is feeding yourself for 365 days, plus a canned food reserve for a couple of bad growing seasons, for example.
Now please THINK about what I said before you fire back. I appreciate thoughtful commentary, I have no patience for fools.
KaiserJeep 2.0, Neural Subnode 0010 0000 0001 0110 - 1001 0011 0011, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 0000 0000 0001
Resistance is Futile, YOU will be Assimilated.
Warning: Messages timestamped before April 1, 2016, 06:00 PST were posted by the unmodified human KaiserJeep 1.0