"Smart" Meters made them sick

When and if it gets high enough so that solar and wind become viable, THEN the free market will start to adopt them. Ever hear of fracking and what it's done to natural gas prices?

We foolish yanks are on our way to becoming the world's largest oil producer by 2020. We'd be there in half that time if it weren't for Obama and egg head libs, like you harry.

Reply to
trader4
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Yeah, I'm bitching because replacing meters that are working with smart ones has nothing to do with national defense. If anything, it does the opposite. An Iranian hacker can't screw with my conventional meter. With a smart meter, that window is now open.

Energy

Yawn.... So was Solyndra and all the many other green companies where Obama and you libs told us you knew what works, what doesn't. How did that turn out?

You know what's dragging us down? It's not conventional electric meters. It's borrowing money we don't have, for spending on things that are not critical and creating ever bigger govt that is sapping the economy. Why the hell does it take Obama and you libs to decide if it makes sense to go to a smart meter? The proponents here are citing the cost savings, etc to the utilities. If it makes sense, let them do it, when and if they feel like it. Not as some half-assed plan to create jobs, stimulate the economy. Four plus years of that plan and where are we? Economic growth in the second half was just 1.5%. In the fourth quarter, it was -.1%. Four plus years of OBama and the libs and we're not even creating enough jobs to keep up with the growth in the population. Compare that to the Reagan recovery where we were creating 400,000 jobs a month and GDP was growing 5%. And you clueless libs don't even understand why and want even more of the same. THAT is what is threatening the country, not electric meters.

Reply to
trader4

It is clear the German government put a lot of money into solar but they end up paying about 5 times as much for the electricity as I do from a nat gas plant. About half of that price shows up on the tax bill, not the electricity bill..

Reply to
gfretwell

I agree that the MBTF is out beyond a few years but we don't know how well they hold up to lightning. That may not be important everywhere but we have an ass kicking thunder storm just about every day here in the summer. (Florida). Then there is that 150 MPH hurricane thing. I wonder how well a collector holds up to a coconut hitting it at

100mph or so? I know my pool collector didn't hold up too good and it is just a low tech plastic deal.
Reply to
gfretwell

That is the only way these things make sense, perhaps the most regressive program since the Social Security tax.

Poor people pay more for power and a bigger tax bite so rich people can buy solar collectors.

Reply to
gfretwell

That pretty much sums it up. Here in the Peoples Republic of NJ, that's how it works. They put a tax on everyones electric bill. That money goes to send nice, big fat checks to the NJ folks that put up solar collectors. Those checks, plus the federal tax credits are what makes it have an acceptable pay back to install. And you get those big fat checks, not for any excess power you produce, but just based on the total power you produce, whether you use it for you hot tub or send it to the grid. Most people use all they produce.

Reply to
trader4

even better, here in AZ, they just increased the eco monthly fee because the utility isn't making enough profit, because everyone is generating too much power, economizing, installing cfl, and shifting power usage to off hours.

Reply to
chaniarts

Lefties with a sense of humor. Will wonders ever cease?

Reply to
Frank

Sounds right. Encourage everyone to conserve, and then raise the price when they do. Only in the USA.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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even better, here in AZ, they just increased the eco monthly fee because the utility isn't making enough profit, because everyone is generating too much power, economizing, installing cfl, and shifting power usage to off hours.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Could have been righties, I think.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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Lefties with a sense of humor. Will wonders ever cease?

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

If sized about right, you use the power grid as your 'storage battery'. In this fellows case, the house is empty most of the day. The power time of day usage is higher, then he and family is home at night. Daytime power cost is about 15 cents per hour, and night time power is about 5 cents per hour. So he is selling most of the power at a higher rate and buying it back at a lower rate.

Think I said he show a bill where his usage was a negative $ 51 for the month. He will not get payed for this, but will be able to apply it to a month with a positive usage if he has one.

This fellow is not that rich, but smart enough to work the system. I think he calculated his payback was 5 or 6 years, but the power comapny has has one rate hike and is asking for another 10% so the payback is going to be slightly less, especially if they average 5% or more every year.

One other thing that helps is to have enough land to put up the big collectors. He had 2 that were 16 feet each way and I think he installed another one mainly for his electric car.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

harry wrote in news:3c5379c8-51f5-4c8b-a3cf- snipped-for-privacy@g8g2000vbf.googlegroups.com:

Better put "cost effective" in quotation marks. They are severely /un-effective/ if you count the subsidies they get.

Reply to
Tegger

Sounds like what hapened about 20 years ago in NC. They were begging people to turn off their ACs and such for a while to keep from overloading the system. That fall, same story . Did not use enough power so needed a rate hike.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

If it's a sound business decision, then why did Obama have to pour borrowed money into smart meters? Don't utilities know more about what their costs are, how to reduce them, what eqpt to buy, than Obama and the libs?

Reply to
trader4

not uncommon. my bill for electricity for the entire last year was -$40. in az. with 2 air conditioners on my house, and running a kiln for days at a time.

i calculated my payback before i purchased the system at 4.5 years. i'm on track to beat that by a few months if there are no rate increases. if there are some, then it will be even earlier.

Reply to
chaniarts

"Ralph Mowery" wrote in news:aYOdndVEOPWeQIbMnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

My neighbour is a real user, about 16 big panels. The panels are in series, and the convertor converts high-voltage DC to 240 V ac. I am an electronic engineer, and I know some high-voltage equipment to fail on occasion. Even if a salesman tries to convince me thats not the case. Besides, the whole installation came from China, in a multi-customer contract to a chinese firm, including installation and convertor. It is not a simple convertor, a lot of smart control buildin. Now where to find such an animal in about 5 years????? A failng panel is easier, you can take it out of the loop, and keep on using the rest. That just decreases efficiency.

Reply to
Sjouke Burry

You did put your finger on why this may actually take off some day. When China gets the system price down to a buck a watt, they start to make sense. Unfortunately we just trade the old dependence on foreign oil we had for a dependence on foreign solar collectors right at the time when we have a fossil energy surplus here. Coincidence? Maybe but I smell rich people manipulating a market.

Reply to
gfretwell

We had a place in the mountains (E Tenn./W NC) that was 100% off grid. ROI pay out was ~5/6 years. Still working when we sold ~ 20 years. We made a good profit on the sale. over and above the value of the land/improvements. During a few ice storms we were the only 'bright' spot on the mountain for miles around.

We had a LPG gen set for standby power that was run ONLY for maintance.

Theory don't mean sh|t if it don't work in the real world.

Reply to
NotMe

Well you must have pretty poor "grid tie inverters" (the correct term) in the USA. Or is this more republican propaganda?

Some have run for decades in Europe. There are no moving parts and if they are in a cool dust free environment they run for a long long time. What maintenance do you imagine you to something with no moving parts that is self cleaning when it rains?

I know many people with PV arrays. I don't know one that has failed. They are deemed to loose 1% max. of output/year.

Prices of the equipment has been in near free fall of late in Europe so any failures will be much cheaper to replace than I paid initially. I imagine this is so in the USA too.

Reply to
harry
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Yes you are about right. In the UK we are paid for all the power we generate. The rate is tax free and inflation linked. The return is about 18% on outlay for me. The deal you get now is less good but better than leaving money in the bank at near zero interest rates.

Reply to
harry

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