James, On Mon, 11 Sep 2006 09:33:14 -0700, James Newtons Massmind wrote: > > They are still dependant on the city for water (although a = > > well could remove that) and on waste cooking oil for = > > automobile fuel. I believe they heat with "natural" gas, but = > > they are working on adding a wood stove so that should end = > > soon. BTW, I now heat with wood and solar only. > = > > = > > PV is great: > > http://techref.massmind.org/techref/other/solar/case1.htm > = > = > Very important point I forgot to mention: pathtofreedom.com and I (and mo= st > PV users) are dependant on the grid for "storage" of the power we generate > from the solar panels. Batteries are NOT cost effective and the sun has t= his > bad habit of going behind the planet... I can see why you say that, but the big problem I can see with grid-tie ins= tallations like yours is that you are just as vulnerable to power cuts as = anyone else. As I understand it, if the grid supply goes off your inverter= will shut down, even if it's bright sunshine and it *could* keep your hous= e = running. I can understand why they do that - if they didn't, your roof wou= ld be trying to run the whole of the grid, and that might be a bit beyond i= ts = capabilities! And just think of the headlines: "Lake Mead flooded when SoC= al homeowner's roof spins turbines backwards"! :-) At least with batteries you have a fallback for when it all goes dark and q= uiet in the neighbourhood. = Incidentally, on this side of the pond we are catching up with you a bit on= the financial viability of house-level solar: you can now get a contract w= ith = a supplier where they pay the same for electricity that you generate and fe= ed to the grid as they charge you for usage. I know that seems obvious = to you because it's what you have, you only have one meter and they can onl= y charge you for the difference, but until recently we had to have two = meters and the payback was at the "generation rate" - the price the electri= city companies pay the generating companies - about 1/20th of the rate = you buy it at! It's still not net metering, you still have to have two met= ers (or accept their estimate of how much you've generated - yeah, right!) = and you have to read the meter every quarter, and they send a cheque for th= e amount they owe you, but I imagine one day they'll smooth it out a bit = more than that. We can now also get a grant of UK=A33.00 per Watt of panel installed, but t= o qualify you have to have it installed by an approved company, who seem = to charge the grant amount or more for doing so, so it may actually work ou= t cheaper to DIY and forget the grant. Not much progress to report on my shed-roof project - the Inverter/Charger = that I bought seems to have had a DOA fault in the charging circuit - the = inverter seems to be working, but there's not much point if I can't charge = the batteries! I'm trying to resolve it with the supplier (in Taiwan) but = communication is terribly slow due to the time-difference. Ah well... Cheers, Howard Winter St.Albans, England -- = http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist