O.T. Solar power.

[harry]

My grid linked solar power plant is up and running as of yesterday.

It has little display panel on the inverter where you can see the cash being ratcheted in. Caching,caching,caching. (cash register noise:-)

As well as supplying my own power through the day, I am supplying several of my nieghbours. My home is now a net energy exporter. (And cash importer)

Maybe we will break away and form our own state, free of our lying b@@@@d politicians.

We would have to sit in the dark at night of course.

They were a bunch of wankers who came to fit it. Clueless. I had to give them a hard time. But I am good at this.

I can lie out in the garden now and close my eyes and imagine pound notes floating down from the sky and being sucked into my roof top array and transferred to my bank balance, Whatsiss? I see a little cloud drifting over, casting a shadow on my array/bankbalance. GO AWAY, GO AWAY!!!

[Mark]

how about some numbers,

how many kW does your system produce peak? how many kWh do you use a day? how much did it cost you to install? what subsidies did you get? how long will it take you to break even?

Mark

[Frank]

Article in local paper about installing system in a church. They said half the cost of $738,000 was subsidized by a state grant and it would pay for itself in 10 years.

There was a similar article about a home owner doing it a few years ago. Can't remember subsidy but they said it would take 30 years to recoup.

[Jim Yanik]

Frank wrote in news:iosdor$und$1@dont- email.me:

meanwhile,the solar cells last only 20 years....,and there's no accounting for worn out or bad batteries(that last much LESS than 20 years),or failures in the DC-AC inverter.

Plus an added fire hazard. Oh,and maintenance on the batteries and cleaning of solar panels.

[chaniarts]

grid tie installations don't have batteries.

solar cells are warranteed for 25 years, inverters for 10, typically

[krw]

The grid is their battery.

Hopefully.

[Jim Yanik]

" [e-mail]" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

WHAT sort of "warranty"? Do they guarantee a minimum power output for a given solar input for up to

25 years? Or does the power output decline with age,from Day One?(As I believe.) I suspect they're figuring the usual owner will not notice the decline.(until they get the bill for replacement panels...and are still paying for the originals!)

WRT inverters,what good does a warranty do when your inverter fails when you need the power? How long before a replacement is sent? does the warranty cover the loss of revenue because you're wasting the power generated by your panel array and can't sell it to the utility,and have to buy power from the utility or go without? what if the inverter starts a fire when it blows out? does the warranty cover that loss? does your homeowner insurance cover that sort of loss?

[krw]

Will the company still be in business next year. Are hail storms warranted against?

Since they can't power the house without the grid, the grid will be there in the interim. If its not, you're SOL even if the PV system is perfect.

Hey, I'd sell that insurance. What a great idea!

Homeowners insurance should cover that, but they might want to know about it (and charge more if there are significant losses).

[trader4]

rote:

Hide quoted text -

As I've said before, you need to take a basic course in economics. It is the GOAL of every indivdual participant in free economies to make the most profit possible. However, as soon as you have more than one supplier, the price starts to come down as they then compete with each other. Those initial high profits don't last for long, because they attract MORE participants hoping to make money too. An equilibrium is thus reached where the profits are adequate to sustain the business and provide a decent return to investors. If prices drop below that point, participants start to leave that business and that in turn tends to push prices back up a bit. If prices rise above that equilibrium point, it attracts new participants that put downward pressure on prices, pushing them back toward equilibrium.

Can you name us one monopoly in the USA or western Europe that is not directly controlled by a govt, ie utility or similar? I can't think of a single one here in the USA.

[Han]

" [e-mail]" wrote in news:0fa4bf4b- [e-mail]:

As a confirmed cynic, I regard the above more as wishfull thinking than a reflection of the true state of affairs. If this were true than there would never be booms, crashes and bubbles.

Agreed, there perhaps isn't a monopoly, but there are plenty of oligopolies. Utilities, while heavily (and properly) regulated, oil and gas companies, telecom, etc. While we can discuss advantages and shortcomings to the endconsumer, they're there.

[trader4]

The above has nothing to do with booms, crashes, and bubbles. It's in effect every day and you see it in everything from a loaf of bread you buy, to where you get your car serviced, to buying a TV or a new cell phone. There are many suppliers of all those goods and services and you choose freely accordingly.

Booms and busts occur when free markets are driven one way or the other by buyers and sellers in response to perceived market conditions. As an example, in the recent housing bubble, everyone got the idea that housing was a great investment, that it could only go up. The government helped, by subsidizing real estate with huge tax breaks, requiring lenders to make loans in low income areas regardless of credit worthiness and keeping interest rates very low.

In response to that, demand for housing increased, causing prices to rise in response. Exactly how markets behave following the most basic rules of economics.

[trader4]

quoted text -

Even in the case of Microsoft, it's not a monopoly. There are other operating systems, most notably Apple with the MAC OS and Linux. You can run those on a computer as well. There are also open alternatives to the common Microsoft office apps. I expect being a free thinking anarchist, you're probably using one or more of those alternatives.

[Han]

" [e-mail]" wrote in news:de2db6ae- [e-mail]:

Exactly, on the surface. Dig a little deeper and greed, stupidity and abdication of responsibility played much bigger roles than "markets". But I dont think we'll ever agree amongst all of us who bears the most responsibility. Suffice it to say that the housing bubble wasn't uniform over the US, and certainly not over all developed countries. Therefore, either the markets were differentially manipulated, or some countries had "better" regulation than others.

[Kurt Ullman]

Or some states. I think (at least within the US) some areas had better personal regulation. The majority of people did not get suckered in because of their internal regulation more than government regulation.

[gfretwell]

The real problem with solar or wind being a significant part of the grid is that you still need virtually 100% of the generating capacity available to kick in at a moment's notice unless you are willing to tolerate brownouts and blackouts when a cloud comes over or the wind stops.

In fact if you watch wind turbines for any length of time you will see them feathering the turbines to handle load variations while the fossil plants continue to run.

You are also going to have your whole grid running at the mercy of the maintenance habits of thousands of homeowners. I wonder what the reliability rate will be in the out years. You can hate the evil utility all you like but they do have better maintenance regimens than the average homeowner and they are better equipped to recover from a natural disaster.

[gfretwell]

The unsolved problem with automotive alternators is a horrible efficiency ratio. With a petrol engine providing massive amounts of power for a relatively small alternator draw, they do not care much about how efficient it is. The automotive A/C units have the same issue.

[gfretwell]

here.http://buylikebuffett.com/finance/3-companies-that-have-virtual-monop...>

If you use the DoJ definition of monopoly in US v IBM Microsoft is certainly a monopoly

[George]

What is this "free market" thing you keep mentioning? If we had "free markets" all of the pirate banks and Wall St folks who were involved in mortgages and CDOs and other clever stuff would have been responsible for their greed and gambling debts and their carcasses would have been picked over by others. Instead we rushed to their aid with bailouts spun with a "too big to fail" marketing campaign.

You mean our current socialism for big business and capitalism for everyone else system?

[George]

What is a typical automotive alternator? 80 Amps. Getting 960 watts from a rotating device the size of a small grapefruit is pretty efficient.

[krw]

Good God, you're clueless. Not only is the load varying but so is the generation; much of it synchronized, in unpredictable areas, rather than at random (which is actually *more* predictable).