your questions about solar energy generators for sale
Your Questions About Solar Energy Generators For Sale
Lisa asks…
Which is the best DIY solar panel/wind turbine program? Real people only, please.?
I’ve been looking at all of the options for installing solar electricity systems online, and I’ve noticed that even the so-called review sites all seem to be part of a sales pitch….haven’t found a single, independent review of any of these products. Has anyone out there actually used any of these (Earth4Energy, HomemadeEnergy, etc.), and if so, how good are they?
admin answers:
If you have noticed that Earth4Energy is a scam (which it is), then you may be amused by my analysis of it at http://www.nlcpr.com/Deceptions6.html
If you want to build a wind turbine yourself (like a good engineer would), then get the following book:
Homebrew Wind Power
A HANDS-ON GUIDE TO HARNESSING THE WIND
Dan Bartmann & Dan Fink
Foreword by Mick Sagrillo
ISBN: 978-0-9819201-0-8
Published by Buckville Publications LLC
You can get this from www.otherpower.com This is a startlingly complete book and it has all the background theory you need too. They explain why, for example, you cant use a car alternator or something from a generator, and then proceed to build alternators from scratch. The references are compete — if you explore them and have the time to read, you will be right up there with the pioneers.
As for DIY solar, you can get the parts (panels, inverters, batteries, charge controllers) individually from many sources and make a system. It will not be cheap. You can’t make your own silicon cells, and probably aren’t up to designing the electronics, can’t make your own batteries etc.
My recommendation is this: Get the wind book. Look through the web sites of some of the better looking solar dealers, and if they seem to be “no bull” then e-mail them and tell them what you want. E.g. An entry level system, 80W panel, battery, inverter and charge controller so that you can make enough power for say, a small laptop. The good ones will be able to tell you what works together.
If you are thinking of a whole home solution, then you have a lot of reading to do. You need to switch to natural gas or propane (no electric heat, electric stove, electric hot water) and absolutely mininize the electrical load.
It would be nice to market a good DIY manual, but with a truthful title like “Generate power at home for more than you are paying now” or “With thirty thousand dollars in equipment, you too can avoid those monthly power bills” sales would be pathetic.
Have fun.
As for “real people” comment, when I see questions like this, I wonder if I am wasting my time because many of the questions are not real either. They are simply created by scammers so that they can add their scam replies and rate it best answer. I find this particilary galling when someone says, “this is for my science fair, and I am 14 years old” and all the answers are Earth4Energy scammers. Other times, I find my comments pasted on fake energy sites with links to pharmaceuticals. It is a mad world out there.
Ken asks…
What are some good green technology carers or job?
I WANA GO GREEN
admin answers:
The Wind Industry
——————————-
Designing Wind Turbines
Wind Analyst (studies wind patterns) They earn approximately $54 to $75 thousand a year!
Wind Turbine Machinist (usually specialise in metal and plastic parts, but also other areas of wind turbine’s structure)
Wind Farm Electrical Services Designer Operator (Makes sure the electrical components of a wind farm operate properly)
Wind Development Director (Massive responsibility for the correct overall functioning of the Wind Farm and oversees well everyone else!)
Wind Power Field Salesperson (You could start as a Representative and work your way up to Sales Manager, maybe even a Executive Position!)
Wind Turbine Drivetrain Engineer (Perform Engineering and Mechanical tasks relating to wind turbines) They make an average of $52 to $62 thousand a year.
Wind Farm Construction Manager (Make $60 to $80 thousand a year!)
Wind Farm Electrical Systems Designer ($30 to $50 thousand a year)
Wind Turbine Generator Builder (Make $15 – $20 an hour)
Wind Power Turbine Installer
Wind Energy Technician (Make $15 – $22 an hour)
Solar Power Industry
———————————-
PV Solar Panel Installer
Solar Sales Person (make $43 to $73 thousand a year)
Photovoltaic – PV Solar Designer
Solar Thermal Installer
Solar Operations Engineer
Solar Lab Technician
Solar & PV Installer-Roofer
Solar Fabrication Technician
Photovoltaic PV fabrication Testing Technician
Solar Radiant Heating Installer
Solar Hot Water Installer
Organic Farming Industry
————————————-
Horticulture/Horticulturalist
Organic Food Production Worker
Arborist
Permaculture/Permaculturalist
Organic Farmer
Nursery Manager
Landscaping
Organic Poultry Farming
Natural Building Industry
————————————–
Star Bale Construction
Sustainable Home Design
Indoor/Outoor Lanscape Architect
Green Interior Designer
The list goes on and on and on!
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Your Questions About Solar Energy Generators For Sale
Chris asks…
how much solor energy would be needed to run a air conditioner?
admin answers:
Far more than you can afford.
A 3 ton central air conditioner draws about 7,500 watts. The sun doesn’t shine all the time, indeed you typically get less than 8 hours of usable sunshine for photovoltaics so you have to generate three times the power that you need in order to run the air conditioner around the clock so that’s 22,500 watts. Inverters are inefficient and are more inefficient the bigger they get to the point where motor generators are used with large sale DC to AC conversion, however most solar systems use an inverter so you’ll likely to have 60% efficiency therefore it’s 37,500 watts that’s needed. Air conditioners are ideally sized to meet the cooling demands as closely as possible as a short duty cycle results in high humidity so let’s say it has an 80% duty cycle, that brings the requirements to 30,000 watts. A solar cell costs $1.20 a watt to manufacture in China and $2 a watt to manufacture in the US but by the time a system is installed, it would likely be $5 per watt so your solar panels would cost $150,000. Oh, and you won’t have enough roof space facing the Sun.
If you do want solar powered air conditioning, your best bet would be evacuated tube solar thermal panels running an absorption air conditioner. But this won’t be cheap either and it will probably still require natural gas as a backup source of heat and it would mean completely replacing your air-conditioner.
Sandy asks…
Advice for building a solar generator?
We are moving to a remote location without any electricity, and would like to produce our own. We have read that it is pretty easy to set up solar power, and there are ready-made solar generators for sale. If we build our own, how many solar panels would we need to comfortably power a small cabin, and what other materials will we need to set it up? About how much will this all cost?
admin answers:
A solar electric system consist of in simplest terms a panel, charge controller, battery, and a load “lights, radio, etc”. This system can be expanded on.
The first item you need to consider is the loads, what do you want them to be. How much energy do they consume per hour and how many hours a day are they used. The next is the voltage of the items 12volt dc, 24 volts dc, 120 volts ac. In general 120 volt ac itmes are easier to obtain but in general less effeciant but also have longer life spans then the 12 and 24 volt dc versions.
Example we use 1 light bulb that consumes 20 watts at 12 volt for 4 hours a day. This buld would need 20*4=80 watts of energy per day. Next lets say you had 5 of these light bulbs and they were all used the same amount every day, you would need 80*5=400 watts to run these lights. Next lets say you want 2 days of reserve enegy incase it rains or something 400 *2=800 watts.
These 2 figures help give us the panel and battery size. Lets look at the panels first. We determind we needed 400 watts per day. Look around on the interent and you will find a chart with hours a day of sun light for your area. Lets say your area get 2.5 hours of direct sun per day in the worst time of year you would need 400/2.5=160 watts of panels.
The next figure is the 800 watts of battery. You never want to discharge your battery more than 40% this will reduce your battery life. So lets do the math again. (800/40)*100=2000
Now lets assume your battery back is 12 volts 2000/12=167 amp hour back.
So your system would consist now of 160 watts of solar panels 167 amp 12 volt battery bank a charge controller mounting system for the panels, box for the batteries, and an small fuse or breaker panel to protect all the equipment.
This would be a very simple system but if you wanted to add tv’s radios computer etc. You need to do the load calcs on them add them all together and do the math. Don’t just go out and buy a system someone off the internet sales you it may not be right for what you need.
Something else you will need to see the sun most of the day no shading of the panels. Good luck solar is great.
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Your Questions About Solar Energy Generators For Sale
Joseph asks…
I need information resources for a hybrid solar/wind system?
I am building a small cabin (500sf) where grid power is not available. I need information not a salesman’s pitch. Anybody have any experience?? Thanks!
admin answers:
Your hybrid system would have to depend on the location where you are building your cabin. If sun is abundant all year around, solar powered system is advisable. Solar cells are not so expensive now as before. If the wind in the area is normal, there are inexpensive designs for a wind powered system. Both system has to store the power in battery banks.
Both system may easily be used in tandem storing energy to a single battery bank provided that your storage (battery banks) has enough capacity. Too much capacity would also mean higher cost. So the battery bank should just be enough to last until the next charging time (or cycle) normally every day.
Check your planned power requirement and match it with the system you might need.
For emergency cases, you must have a small engine driven generator set for lights and whatever emergency equipment you might have, just in case your batteries run out of power.
For suppliers of these system(s), you should check first for any local distributors and manufacturers closest to your cabin. It would make a difference at maintenance ( or other after sales services).
Jenny asks…
I wanna use golf cart batteries but which one?
I found this system on the internet
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/system/solaredge-8-trina-solar-panel-gridtie-system.html
and i know its already grid tied but still i wanna add in some batteries for emergency situations and people keep suggesting golf cart batteries. What voltage of golf cart batteries should i purchase? they keep saying that the voltage used by the solar panels, the batteries and the inverters must be the same but i dunno how to determine the voltage used by the solar panels in the link above.
admin answers:
Hey Stefan, actually, you can build up a, “hybrid,” solar/battery/grid tie system like you’ve described here with parts off the shelf, but I don’t think you’ll find that package already made up at Whole Sale Solar. You could give them a call and tell them what you want to do, they should be able to give you a quote on what parts are necessary and what the price would be.
First of all, all golf cart batteries are 6 volt, but the best one is made by Trojan. They are made in California, the model no. Is Trojan T-105. Each one holds 220 amp hours at 6 volts, has 3 cells, and weighs 80 pounds. We only have 4 of them in our hybrid system, really just enough to keep the basic loads in our home running overnight during power outages until the solar array comes back up in the morning. There are other golf cart battery makers, like Interstate for example, but you’ll get the best longevity from a Trojan. Our home has been powered by the wind and sun for 11 years now, we’ve been through lots of batteries in our day, trust me, the Trojan will hold up best. Look in the phone book for a place that sells and services golf carts, they go through batteries by the truckload, that’s where we found ours. There is a great book at the library on battery charging, I’ll list it below.
Our system uses a 1.4 kw solar array made up of Kyocera 120 panels, and has a Southwest Windpower H-40 900 watt wind turbine. The array and turbine all charge our 24 volt battery bank (using 4 golf cart batteries wired in series) through separate charge controllers. The solar array uses a Xantrex digital C-60 controller, and the wind turbine has its own, like most genny’s do. The heart to the system is the Xantrex SW-4024 sine wave inverter. It can stand alone, using battery power to feed AC power to your home, like ours did for years, or tie with the grid and parallel feed, like we have it doing now. The inverter has multiple connections, output, grid connection, generator, battery, and so on. It is programmable to sell/buy from the grid, and automatically switch to stand alone to keep your house running if the grid goes down, as long as your batteries have power. Since you’ll be charging them from the solar panels, this will work fine.
There are probably other inverters today that can do this same thing, but you have to have one labeled, “Utility Interactive.” A utility tie, or, “Grid Tie,” inverter only works with the grid, and a stand alone or, “independent inverter,” only works with the batteries and your loads, but an interactive inverter can do both simultaneously. I’ll warn you that they are not cheap, last time I checked that inverter was a little over $2,000 USD. This is why most of the grid tie systems do not use them, by listing a less expensive grid tie inverter, and then leaving the batteries off the parts list, they can reduce the total system cost by over 30%. It’s up to you what you are willing to pay for.
What I would do first is spend some time educating yourself on all of this. There is a great magazine that gets into the nuts and bolts of this stuff, and has lots of advertisements from vendors like Wholesale where you can shop for prices and kits. Also consider taking the time to get to one of the energy fairs listed in the back of the mag, we did 12 years ago, and this is where it got us today. The magazine liked some of our system so much they ran an article on our place several years ago. If you subscribe, you can check out articles and write ups on lots of peoples homes that work like ours. In the end, you might decide not to get involved at all, and that’s fine, but at least you will be well informed. Good luck Stefan, and take care, Rudydoo
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Your Questions About Solar Energy Generators For Sale
Sandra asks…
What home energy saving scams have you found?
open4energy has published a list of home energy scams to help energy conscientious home owners avoid being taken advantage of. They range from down loadable plans to build a magnetic generator, a solar panel or a windmill, to energy saving plug in gadgets, to full blown sales promotions for kvar power factor correction units which have negligible savings capabilities for even the biggest homes.
Each one we find is another community we can protect!
admin answers:
The most common website I encounter is DIY solar panels. The claim is that “for under 200 dollars you too can build your own solar panel and save thousands” I do not dispute the validity of that claim. I do take issue with what they don’t say. There are some building code violations to say the least. I have posted a blog on this very issue, and will continue to do so on a weekly basis. It is my goal to bring clarity to the cyber solar world. Check out my post “To build or not to build that is the question” at http://www.solarmandan.com.
P.S. Maybe we could post links to each other”s sites.
Ruth asks…
How much does it cost to put solar panels on a house? ?
I want to be more green and if I get the panels will I still have a regular electric bill?
admin answers:
Yes, and no.
My cottage is primarily solar powered. However, we’re only there on weekends, and we’re only powering a small fridge (the biggest power draw, by far), televisions, stereos, lights, a water pump, and that kind of thing. For the more powerful items (vacuum cleaner, air conditioner, power tools, washer and dryer) we use a gasoline generator. Our water heater and stove are propane.
We have an array of seven solar panels, and two battery banks.
Obviously, we don’t have utility bills for our cottage.
We will soon replace the solar panels with more efficient ones. Currently, there are 85W panels on sale for $500 CAD. We will buy as many of those as we can afford. We recently had to replace one battery bank.
At home, we currently have a geothermal heating/cooling system. That cuts our energy use for heating and cooling quite a bit. That’s reflected on our utility bill. (Because we’re not in the city, we have our own well, plus a septic tank. So, our only utility bill is for electric.)
My husband and I have discussed it many times and, based on our experience with our cottage, we don’t think we’ll try to do a “whole home” solar system.
Typical estimates for panels, batteries, inverters, etc., to run a typical city home are in the $17,000 range. But with our cottage experience, we know that the real monkey wrench with solar power is STORING that power. And we’ve had more battery problems than we anticipated. Once the batteries are no longer holding charge well, they have to be replaced…and they’re expensive….and heavy…and have to be disposed of as hazardous waste. Our cheapest batteries are probably $200 each. We also use more expensive / bigger 6V batteries. We may even, one day, switch to the huge, very expensive 2Vs.
In any event, I find that the best way (for us) to incorporate solar power into our urban home will likely be panels which will provide power when the sun is shining, but still be on the grid for night time, bad weather, and times of excess power use. That will eliminate the expense and problems of batteries and power storage (and limiting power use, so as not to run down the batteries).
In some places, the excess power you create with solar panels can be put back into the grid, and the local power utility company will pay you for it.
So, for me, based on my experience, that’s what I think I’d do, when it comes time to outfit our home with solar panels. Using only solar power for the bulk of our living at the cottage is great, but we do have to be mindful of how much we’re using. Once the stored power drops below a certain point, the inverters won’t work, and you have to either go without power, or turn on the gas generator. I wouldn’t want that hassle at home.
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